Jean Genies

The White Stripes comparisons have been coming thick and fast for Austin act White Denim, whose brand of stripped-back, wailing blues has definite stylistic similarities to the work of Jack and Meg. Intriguingly, the band’s new album, Workout Holiday, was recorded in a trailer in the woods.

“Well, it’s pretty normal to us because it’s our studio,” explains White Denim singer, James Petralli.

“It’s at our drummer Josh’s house. We’ve been working on that for two or three years since we started the band. We’ve been investing in it and making it more like a normal studio, but yeah, it’s in an old Airstream trailer, which is cool. And it’s out in the middle of nowhere, so we can get as loud as we want.”
As well as a thriving music scene (“Something like one out of every three people in the city is a musician,” notes Petralli), Austin is also a noted film centre, with cult director Richard Linklater (Dazed And Confused, School Of Rock, A Scanner Darkly) having his studio locally, and Quentin Tarantino occasionally programming his own festival in the city.
“Richard Linklater is great,” enthuses James. “I haven’t met him, but one of his animators worked on a project with us. We shot this little tour documentary, and he cut it into a music video. But yeah, Linklater himself is fantastic. Robert Rodriguez lives in Austin as well, and Tarantino shot his last film here. I don’t know if he still does the film festival here, but I know that he’s always seen around town.”
When I interviewed Thurston Moore just before last Christmas, the Sonic Youth guitarist mentioned that his current listening included White Denim’s fellow Texas act Black Leather Jesus, the Houston noise-rock extremists whose skull-shattering compositions and S&M imagery make Atari Teenage Riot look like Charlie Landsborough. Has James heard any of their material?
“I haven’t, but if Thurston Moore likes them, checking them out will be the first thing I do when I get off the phone,” he laughs. “Sonic Youth are a big group for us. I’m a huge Jim O’Rourke fan, so I didn’t really start getting into the band until he started working with them.”
Reading David Browne’s excellent book on Sonic Youth, Goodbye 20th Century, one gets the impression that O’Rourke is a rather eccentric character.
“I heard that he was retired from music,” relates James. “Bill Callahan lives in Austin, and one of the first times I got to talk to him, I totally dorked out for a while – ‘cos I’m a big fan of his as well – and then it lead into this Jim O’Rourke discussion. He worked with Jim on a couple of records, and found it pretty uncomfortable. But I really like Jim O’Rourke and Bill Callahan, so I was pretty amazed to be standing by a grill with him.”
What did James make of the famously enigmatic Callahan?
“He’s really great, man. He’s a lot like you’d expect from listening to his music; really introspective and pretty neutral. But really insightful. If you can get him to talk to you a little bit, he’s a really personable guy.”

Workout Holiday gets a live airing on the New Band Stage at Oxegen on July 11.