The Outlaw Spirit of Jenny Don’t And The Spurs
Jenny Don’t performing with Jenny Don’t and The Spurs at The Neurolux, photo by April Massey
Jenny Don’t And The Spurs tirelessly work for every ounce of admiration they receive. The scrappy foursome, formed from the pieces of several well-respected Portland punk acts, has been making and touring albums almost non-stop since 2012. The DIY philosophy at the heart of The Spurs can be seen in everything they do, from lead singer Jenny’s self-made performance dresses and operating the merch booth to the tour van keys hanging from bassist Kelly’s belt loop.
That same tenacity can be heard in the band’s music. Drawing heavily from the outlaw country sound of the ‘50s and ‘60s, The Spurs seamlessly combine old-fashioned guitar twang with the rowdy energy of punk rock. On the last leg of their spring tour, the group stopped at The Neurolux in downtown Boise, Idaho. I had a chance to sit down with Jenny and Kelly before the show to talk about the band’s sound, the recording of their most recent album, and their grueling touring schedule. Jenny Don’t And The Spurs’ latest album, Fire On The Ridge, is available through their website.
AM: You started in the Portland punk scene with bands like Don’t and Pierced Arrows; what inspired you to start merging that sound with traditional country influences?
Jenny: When I was learning how to play guitar and make music, my writing style was The Spurs; so, I always had this backlog of songs. The drummer from Don’t and I would play them sometimes. I worked at a divey, old man sports bar that would host a golf tournament every year, and I would play pre-Spurs, Spurs songs. Kelly was playing drums with Fred and Toody Cole from Dead Moon and Pierced Arrows. They started doing stripped-down versions of their songs, caught wind of what Kelly and I were doing, and booked us to open for them.
Kelly: She was playing in Don’t, and I was playing in Pierced Arrows. Pierced Arrows was really busy with touring, being on the road several months out of the year, which kept us apart quite a bit. We started to make music together, separate from the bands we were already in, which allowed us to be together more. We did not have any aspirations beyond our back porch. It was just fun. We were not taking it very seriously, so we thought, why not play a style of music we had not done before. Just playing acoustically in our kitchen did not sound great, so we decided to add some percussion and asked the drummer from Don’t, Sam Henry, to play with us. It just started to grow from there. We kept adding people; we had a revolving door of guitar players for a while. It took about five years for us to really cement our lineup.
Christopher March performing with Jenny Don’t and The Spurs at The Neurolux, photo by April Massey
Jenny: The writing style of The Spurs is just how I write music, so it is a lot more natural; plus, it is more versatile. We can play more punk rock versions of our songs; we can make them faster or slower, so it is appealing to a wider variety of people. We were doing The Spurs and Don’t simultaneously, but this band started picking up more steam.
Kelly: Our other bands broke up, but this band somehow stayed together. It was never intended to be our serious band, we took the music seriously, but we never thought this would be the band we would spend all of our time touring and putting out records with. It has been a long time since either one of us has played in another band. This is a more accessible style of music than some of our other bands were and that helps. The sound transcends some of the stylistic boundaries that our other bands did not. We can play to more punk rock audiences or play to 70-year-olds at a honky tonk bar.
AM: Your sound draws a lot from the country music of the ‘50s and ‘60s; was that intentional, or did it just start to come out that way?
Jenny: I think it just comes out that way because that is the era of music I enjoy the most in the country scene. It is more rockin’; they were kind of the punks of their generation.
Kelly: It was not accidental; it did not just end up that way. We are not fans of contemporary country music.
Jenny: I do not enjoy ‘70s country, and I feel like many of the bands coming up now are drawing a lot from that era. The music tends to be a lot more jammy, mid-tempo, play the song for eight minutes, Gram Parsons kind of vibe.
Kelly: There is nothing wrong with that; it just is not our thing. Rock and country were pretty much synonymous in the ‘50s. Elvis Presley toured the southern country circuit for years before the rock n’ roll crowd picked him up, same with Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. Then in the ‘60s, there was a split. We take inspiration from before that split happened.
AM: So, what artists from those eras inspire you the most?
Kelly: Johnny Bond is a big influence.
Jenny: Johnny Western.
Kelly: All the Johnny’s.
Jenny: Charlie Feathers, Sanford Clark.
Kelly: A lot of the rock-a-billy guys.
Jenny: The Collins Kids, Wanda Jackson, of course, she has a good variety of more rockin’ type stuff and crooner ballads as well.
Jenny Don’t and Kelly Halliburton performing with Jenny Don’t and The Spurs at The Neurolux, photo by April Massey
Kelly: Patsy Cline, early Johnny Paycheck, early George Jones, and a lot of Northwest stuff as well. There is a vast amount of material that was released in the Northwest that has been forgotten about, like Bonnie Guitar, we have done two separate covers of her songs, “Johnny Vagabond” and “Mister Fire Eyes.”
Jenny: Johnny Western was a big influence on the title track of our album, Fire On The Ridge. He has this cool, rippin’ guitar that he uses almost like a call and response; you just do not hear that anywhere else.
Kelly: You cannot forget Buzz Martin, the singing logger–great Northwest artist.
Jenny: All of his songs are about logging in the Northwest. One of them talks about moss growing on his back from all the rain; that is pretty cool.
Kelly: The Happy Hobo, he wrote truck driving songs.
Jenny: The truck driving ones are fun because they are good stories. There are so many more; we could go on and on.
AM: In the past ten years or so, there has been a rise in popularity of the “cow-punk” genre; why do you think that is?
Kelly: That kind of country-punk synthesis started happening in the early ‘80s with Tex & The Horse Heads and X with John Doe.
Jenny: One of my biggest influences is The Gun Club with Jeffrey Lee Pierce and his pedal steel guitar playing.
Kelly: There was that whole southern California cow-punk thing, but there were also bands like Rank And File from Austin.
Jenny: Even Motörhead did that kind of hepcat western stuff, too.
Kelly: I’m not sure where that all came from. I did not like that stuff when I was listening to punk rock back in the ‘80s. I grew up in rural Oregon; the rednecks and the punks were like cats and dogs, natural enemies of one another. I did like some country music growing up, but that whole crossover did not come to my attention until the ‘90s.
Dean Miles performing with Jenny Don’t and The Spurs at The Neurolux, photo by April Massey
Jenny: I think when the music gets so beyond what it started as it will naturally come back around to its roots.
Kelly: That early country scene appeals to punk rockers because it is a raw, more visceral, rough, and tumble type of music. It evokes a lot of the same imagery and emotions as punk rock—distance from mainstream society, anger, and despair.
Jenny: Those early country artists were pushing boundaries like a lot of punk rock artists were.
AM: Do you think there is an inherent kinship between country and punk rock?
Kelly: Contemporary country not at all but early country, yes, I think so. Early country was filled with wild west imagery and was sung by trouble makers and old brawlers, which appeals to a lot of punk rock sensibilities.
Jenny: A lot of shows we have played, especially in Europe, the punk crowd would come out and be like, “what the heck are you doing playing country,” but then they are opened up to this whole new sound, this whole new world where the two coincide.
AM: The recording of your latest album, Fire On The Ridge, was postponed due to issues with your vocal cords. Then all your demos were erased and had to be rerecorded. Did going through that change the original direction of the album?
Kelly: I do not think it changed the direction, but it definitely helped. Bigger bands will often go in and demo an album before they officially record it so they can go back and hear what works and what does not. With our budget, we could never afford to do anything like that.
Jenny: We are usually in a big hurry as well to save money as much as we can.
Kelly: The good thing about that first pass disappearing was it was almost like being able to demo the album. We got to listen to it for a while. We had recorded it, but then Jenny’s vocal cords blew out, so we could not finish it for about six months.
Jenny: Before that, we had the version we recorded on a CD, and it seemed almost dull sounding, but I think that was a reflection of what was happening with my voice. Before we decided that I needed the surgery before finishing the vocals, it had gotten to the point where I could not even whistle. So when we re-recorded it, the album had a lot more life; it was a lot more energetic.
Kelly Halliburton performing with Jenny Don’t and The Spurs at The Neurolux, photo by April Massey
Kelly: It was all for the better in the end, but that album was a painful birth. Jenny had her vocal cord issues, the water heater in the studio exploded and flooded everything, they had a kitchen fire, then the pandemic happened. When all of that had finally blown over, we got back into the studio, pressed play, and nothing happened, everything was gone, and we had to rerecord.
AM: You have always maintained a fairly heavy touring schedule; obviously, the pandemic stopped that. How did you handle having to put on the breaks for a while?
Jenny: Luckily, we did not have anyone severely affected by the virus, so we could enjoy it a little. Kelly and I live together; we have been a couple for almost 13 years. We always have a lot of home projects we are trying to get done.
Kelly: I’m always building something; it is like the Winchester house; there is always construction happening.
Jenny: It was nice to have a break. We work as well; when we are not touring, I am a production manager for a venue in Portland. But, it was nice being home while everyone else was, so there was no fear of missing out. We could just turn off and focus on being together at our house.
Kelly: It was a little frustrating because we did have some pretty cool tours booked. We were supposed to do a Mediterranean tour; we also had a western U.S. tour booked. Both of those would have been nice.
Jenny Don’t performing with Jenny Don’t and The Spurs at The Neurolux, photo by April Massey
Jenny: I did use the time to become a licensed real estate agent in Oregon and Washington.
Kelly: I work alone doing outdoor construction; I ended up having my busiest year. We were lucky; a lot of people got sick, lost family members and loved ones, or got messed up financially.
AM: Now that you are back touring again, what music keeps you company on the road?
Kelly: I do not listen to very much music recorded after 1980. I listen to a lot of old stuff.
Jenny: I have been listening to a lot of Lorne Greene. I just really want my voice to sound like I am a 65-year-old man. We are getting ready to start a new album, so I have been trying to get some ideas and inspiration. Actually, we are going to record two albums, one will be an album of trail songs, so I have been listening to a lot of trail artists like Lorne Greene. He has one of those low, movie star, celebrity voices.
Kelly: He played the dad on Bonanza and Commander Adama on the original Battlestar Galactica series.
Jenny: He has this great song about burning to death out in the desert, trying to hide in the shadow of a cactus. He has another one where he is singing from the perspective of a gun—just really cool imagery. People just do not write songs like that anymore.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
