Joe Patrick

JOE PATRICK: “Whiskey Drown” “It’s just a mental breakdown made for two In this whiskey bottle I’ve been crawling through, It’s just a mental breakdown made for two, Me and you.” – “Whiskey Drown,” Joe Patrick. Singer-songwriter Joe Patrick’s Midwestern roots shine through in his debut studio solo EP, “Whiskey Drown.” From the honky-tonk bar song “Whiskey Drown” to the Sun Records rockabilly tone of “Memphis Blues” to an urgent powerful ballad “Crying Me to Sleep,” Patrick impressively covers a lot of ground in a short amount of time. “One of my biggest influences would be the band Wilco,” he says of the Illinois group led by Jeff Tweedy, whose singing style Patrick seems to come closest to. “I also grew up listening to artists like Bruce Springsteen, but there is such a strong influence on the way I write music from British acts like The Stone Roses to Oasis." The 32-year-old Patrick, who was born in Flint, Mich., spent the mid-‘90s playing in an Oklahoma City-based band dubbed Sugar Bum Fairy. He recorded an album with that group, then decided in 1999 to pursue a solo career. He found that the solo life worked well for him and recorded a live acoustic album in OKC. After spending some time playing between Detroit and Los Angeles and points west, he moved back to the Midwest to Little Rock, in 2004. It was there he hooked up with Barry Poynter, musician and producer, and the owner of Poynter Recordings (Juliana Theory, Bobgoblin, Underclaire, Living Sacrifice, et. al.) and decided to put three new songs down in the studio. The music on the EP was boiled down to the simplest terms without a lot of extra or over-production. With Patrick on vocals and rhythm guitar, Poynter, who starred in the band Two Minutes Hate before turning his attention to his studio, plays lead guitar and drums on “Whiskey Drown” and “Crying Me to Sleep.” Jimmy Powell brings a foot-stomping beat on the drums to “Memphis Blues.” Though Patrick has spent his solo career playing acoustic-driven tunes, these new songs don’t fall in the acoustic rock category popularized by Dave Matthews and others. “I spent the better part of three years traveling to play acoustic shows, but the main point is, this record is electric guitar-driven,” he said. “It’s alternative rock, alternative country, Gram Parsons meets Oasis. I’m a big fan of both." One listen and you’ll quickly find yourself a Joe Patrick fan. Jim Harris Arkansas Times