Donkey Style[Well, the prophets are in their unmarked graves and the idols are all torn down, The temples are burnin’, and it’s a beautiful sound, There’s no one left to show me a thing I can’t find out for myself, Mama can’t even stop this train I thought she could when I was twelve, I don’t know how it started, so many lost and broken hearted in the end, So break me if you want to, but I’m not gonna bend.]These opening lines from the song [I’m Not Gonna Bend] are at least somewhat indicative of the candor, skepticism, resilience, and flippant sacrilege that run through Wayne Sutton’s Heart of the Donkey. Although this is his first solo offering, Wayne has been making his living as a songwriter and musician for well over a decade, and the ten original tracks that comprise the record show that he has not ignored the lessons of his experience. Throughout Heart of the Donkey, which he wrote and co-produced, he employs a variety of musical styles and a unique blend of tonal textures to enhance and soften his lyrical messages. The words themselves stand in stark contrast to the subtlety of the music. Wayne writes songs about what lies at the heart of human experience; hopelessness, desperation, love, and death, and he does it with an emotional integrity that is both startling and refreshing. It is this ability to convey his honest perceptions of his own emotions through his songs that make Heart of the Donkey a powerful, eloquent expression of an original artistic vision. Of course, Wayne’s artistic vision is no idealistic pie in the sky pipe dream on easy street. His songs portray a world of encroaching darkness, a life of disillusionment and loneliness where the certainty of death is always lurking just behind the selfish ignorance of human greed. But it is also here, in the midst of this darkness, that the light of love shines brightest, and it is in love that he finds his hope and salvation. It is apparent from his songs that Wayne doesn’t just embrace love, he clings to it like drowning man to a raft, with the absolute certainty that it is the only thing that keeps him from sinking into this sea of misery. Because he is able to express, without the self-censure of shame or the self-serving of arrogance, what is deepest in his own heart, he can also remind his audience of what is deepest in our hearts. Whatever our superficial differences, our similarities are far more numerous, and beneath us all beats the same heart of the great donkey. Heart of the Donkey is scheduled for release in March of 2003. Wayne co-produced the record with his friend and fellow musician Charles Reiser. He is releasing it on Zainewayne Records, an independent record label which he formed in 2001 along with his friend and longtime musical collaborator Patrice Pike. It was recorded in Austin, TX at Charles Reiser’s Southwind Studios, and it features Wayne on guitar, bass, keyboards, and vocals along with Rob Hooper on drums, John Bush on Percussion, Darryl Phillips and Danny Beltran on Bass, Charles Reiser on Mandolin, Bruce Salmon on keyboards, and Patrice Pike and Dayna Kurtz singing background vocals. Although the songs on his record will certainly reveal far more about the man who wrote and recorded them than a factual recounting of the milestones of his life, the following biographical sketch might still hold some interest for anyone with an unquenchable thirst for more knowledge about Wayne.
Wayne Sutton was born on Sunday morning, April 27, 1969, in the town of Waco, TX. Rumors that hundreds of donkeys escaped from their respective farms and surrounded the hospital on the morning of his birth can neither be confirmed nor denied. In any event, he passed the first few years of his life there in Waco, to mixed reviews. At the age of six, he moved with his family to Plano, TX, where he spent the remainder of his childhood. Growing up in such close proximity to Dallas not only gave him a chance to witness first hand the speed at which strip malls can be built, it also left him with the lifelong affliction known as being a Cowboy fan. When he was 11, Wayne received his first guitar as a present from his parents. From then on, the guitar became his solace, and he turned to it throughout his adolescence for relief from the daily torment of recurring fantasies about the Cowboy Cheerleaders which haunt him to this day. Within a couple of years, Wayne began writing songs, and he soon made up his mind to become a rock star. At 15, he visited Austin with his parents. After checking out a few of the local musicians playing on the street outside the downtown bars, he decided he was ready to perform. He retrieved his guitar from the hotel, scouted out a corner, and started playing. Before long the inebriated pedestrians started dropping money in his guitar case as they stumbled by, and apparently the empirical knowledge that he could transform music into currency had a profound and irreversible effect on him. According to his father, Kenn Sutton, “Ever since Wayne found out he could make money playing his guitar, he hasn’t been worth shooting.†The following year, Wayne formed his first band, Gallery 13, and they started playing at clubs around the Deep Ellum area of Dallas. Having already determined the field in which he would carve out his future, he wasted as little time as possible fulfilling what he considered the ridiculously strict and confining obligations placed on him by what he viewed as a hypocritical society. After graduating from Plano high school with a near perfect C- average, he packed up his guitar and his band and moved to Austin to pursue a career in music. The band initially landed some gigs opening up for local favorites like Ian Moore and Chris Thomas, and they were eventually given a weekly headlining spot at the Black Cat Lounge downtown on 6th street. But after a couple of difficult years with limited success, the band broke up and Wayne made his way back to Dallas. While there, he ran into an old friend from the Dallas music scene, Patrice Pike. Wayne’s guitar and Patrice’s voice were natural compliments to each other, and when they formed the band Little Sister in 1991 they also formed a musical partnership that endures to this day. They started playing at clubs around Dallas and other Texas cities, and they also played regularly in Austin, back at the Black Cat Lounge, where before long the energy of their live performances had earned them a sizable following. In 1992, Wayne and Patrice moved to Austin, which became the band’s home. Along with an expert rhythm section consisting of drummer Sean Phillips and bassist Darryl Phillips (identical twins), they began touring extensively throughout Texas and the neighboring areas, building a large regional fan base. The following year, Little Sister released the self-produced record, Freedom Child. Although today Wayne is so embarrassed by this record that he once tried to hide its very existence from his biographer, it was not bad enough to prevent the band from signing a record deal with SBK, a subsidiary of EMI, shortly after its release. The SBK deal led to the 1994 release of the optimistically titled live record Free Love and Nickel Beer, as well as an invitation to play on the Hoard tour in 1995. Opening up for and appearing on stage with bands like Blues Traveler and Widespread Panic gave Wayne and Little Sister an opportunity to refine their sound in front of the large festival audiences. It also gave them a broader national exposure. Unfortunately, disagreements with their record company on how to best capitalize on this exposure (or creative differences or some such crap) eventually compelled them to part ways with SBK. Undaunted, they continued touring and began working on the self titled, independently produced Little Sister, which included the local hit “Nobody’s Homeâ€. The relative success of this record, along with their increasing ability to fill dance halls and honkytonks around the country, led them to another pen touching, this time with Arista records. Because of legal complications, they changed the band’s name to Sister Seven. It was also around this time that Wayne met and fell in love with Lauren, the beautiful former cheerleader who would eventually become his first wife as well as the inspiration for many of his songs. They seem to be in agreement that they were married in either 1996 or 1997, but neither of them could recall the exact year. Still, despite the gaping lapses in her memory and the inconsistency of her bowling scores, the graceful dignity with which she otherwise conducts herself will doubtless serve as a shining example to all former cheerleaders throughout the world. Sister Seven released two records for Arista. 1998s This the Trip contained the top 47 single “Know What I Meanâ€, which received a great deal of radio play across the country. Eventually, the band filmed a video for the single in which Wayne at one point appears for almost two consecutive seconds. Although having a hit in the (soft rock/VH1/boy band?) market occasionally landed Sister Seven at gigs where they were the only band that actually played instruments, it also gained them the opening spot on the U.S. tour of former Credence Clearwater Revival front man John Foggerty, as well as a successful stint on the Lilith Fair tour. In the summer of 1999, when the band was recording their next record, Lauren gave birth to their first child, a daughter, Sage. At the time of this writing, Sage had not yet decided whether she would try out for cheerleader. In 2000, the band released their second Arista record, Resting on a Tiny Mattress. Two of Wayne’s songs were featured on the record; “This Oneâ€, a Henry Miller inspired anthem of barely detectable optimism, and “The Only Thing That’s Realâ€, a love song written for Lauren. The latter was an instant favorite among people waiting for and/or providing roadside assistance, and it soon became a top ten AAA single. Unfortunately, an untimely shift in the management and promotional strategies of the record company left the band without the internal backing necessary to push into the major markets, and the resulting lack of sales led to the band being dropped from the label. This was the final straw. After more than a decade of touring, performing, and recording together, Sister Seven decided to break up. They played together for the final time in April of 2001. However, Wayne and Patrice have continued their musical partnership. They formed an independent record label, called Zainwayne Records, and they’ve already co-produced and released two records of Patrice’s songs under the name Patrice Pike and the Black Box Rebellion. In addition to touring, recording, and producing with Patrice, Wayne has been busy working on Heart of the Donkey. Of course, he’s also been busy at home, and last September his beautiful wife Lauren the former cheerleader gave birth to their second child, a son, Boy. Since then Wayne has been spending what little free time he has putting the finishing touches on the record and rehearsing the songs with his band, Wayne’s Donkey. The band, which includes Wayne, guitarist Charles Reiser, bassist John Thomasson, and drummer Dave "Shniz"Robinson, may or may not be touring to promote the record, so maybe keep an eye out for them at small to medium sized venues in your town, depending on where you live. Then, if you have an opportunity, do yourself a favor and check them out, because the heart of the donkey is beating strong, and the donkey is chomping at the bit. Oh yeah, and for the love of God, pick up a copy of Heart of the Donkey. You won’t regret that, and even if you do, what the hell do I care. So long, suckers.
