The making of Sweet Undertow’s “Jessie Lee” was a nine-year slog.
“Turns out trying to make things simple is hard,” say Eddy Undertow, the band’s well-traveled, somewhat mysterious namesake. “I just couldn’t figure it out.”
The initial inspiration struck while he was listening ’50s-era Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and Johnny Cash—all foundational to Sweet Undertow’s blues-soaked, retro-forward sound.
“There’s this mix of lightness and weight in them that’s deeply mysterious to me,” says Undertow. “One-four-five tunes with straightforward instrumentation that somehow contain galaxies.”
Though the upcoming Days Without Names (Mother West) is just his second LP, Undertow has already led quite the life. Early on, the Chicago native subsisted on a steady diet of regional punk, classic country and blues. He first found work as a wildland firefighter before traveling around Europe and Asia with his guitar. He played in Crimean bars and at an orphanage in what’s now war-torn Ukraine. He fronted a band in Ho Chi Minh City, played (and partied) his way through the slums of Mumbai and knocked out a single song at a Carpathian Mountains disco for a pair of expensive shoes that turned out to be fakes.
Sweet Undertow took shape during a lengthy stay in San Francisco, where he recorded his 2022 debut, Skeletone Machine, at producer John Vanderslice’s Tiny Telephone Studios. For Days Without Names, Undertow worked with core members Jim Semitekol (guitar), John Eckstrom (bass) and Dave Tavel (drums), plus an assortment of other names. Guests include pianist Jake Pinto (Magic City Hippies), singer Haley Spence Brown, fiddler/violinist Eleanor Whitmore (Mastersons) and drummer Butch Norton (Eels).
“Haley, John and Dave Tavel all lost their damn minds on ‘Jessie Lee’—and and then Jake came in and just about bent the piano in half,” says Undertow, who now lives in the Sierra Nevadas. “It’s great fun to listen to the band go, but it’s even more fun to play. You can just fly around the fretboard and jump and shout. It’s like a kid on the swings … getting it just to the right height and speed where, when you jump off, it just shoots you like a stone from a slingshot.”
We’re proud to premiere Sweet Undertow’s “Jessie Lee.” Look for Days Without Names July 17.
—Hobart Rowland
