Westside Daredevils introduce 'Brave New Nothing' to the masses

By Steve Wildsmith
of The Daily Times Staff

You’ve seen these guys.

Out and about, at this show or that one, you’ll find one or two or maybe all five of them. They’re the ones at a table toward the back, smoking cigarettes (if the venue allows it) and drinking beer and watching everything with bemused eyes.

Given the nature of the show, they might stand out as older than the median age of other concert-goers, in their 30s and laid-back. They might wander up front to check out the sound or the gear being played, or they might just hit the bar for another cold one.

They dress in that casual way that says more about comfort than style — a favorite derby hat here, a ski cap there, a few days worth of stubble or a dress shirt or torn jeans … none of it’s done with any other purpose besides dressing for work or fun.
Making statements … fitting in … trying to look “cool” … that’s not what the Westside Daredevils are about. That’s not why they go see rock ’n’ roll, and it’s not why they play it. They do it because it’s fun and because it pleases them, and younger musicians might do well to take note of their success and longevity.

Because the Westside Daredevils are proof that rock isn’t just a young man’s game, and insanely catchy indie pop doesn’t have to be made by dudes who wear eyeliner or skinny ties or Beatles-style mop-cuts.

“We’re not blazing new trails or anything — we’re definitely older, and there are other bands coming out who are younger and playing all these different styles,” guitarist/singer Brett Cassidy told The Daily Times this week. “I don’t go out very often, but when I do go to a bar and there are younger musicians who are familiar with my band, it creates a sense of community.

“I guess we are one of the older bands around here, but it’s still a small music community, and it’s still pretty much a mutual admiration society. I guess the biggest difference is that the younger guys dress better than we do and have fewer wrinkles.”

Saturday night, the WSDD celebrate the release of their new album, “Brave New Nothing,” with a show at World Grotto in downtown Knoxville. It’s only their third album over the last eight years — and it’s also their best. In a surprisingly concentrated local indie-pop community, the Daredevils stand out — both for the quality of the records they make and for an identifiable sound that’s threaded through all three. There’s a distinct quality to the band’s three records — “All Things Small Produce a Spark,” released in 2002; “Twilight Children,” released in 2005; and the new one — that can only be created by these five guys. They’re not hesitant to try new things and stretch their legs, but all it takes is a few chords of the band’s jangly hooks and shimmering, chiming guitars to identify it as a Westside Daredevils song.

“We don’t reinvent ourselves on every album, but we do tend to try and reinvent ourselves every time we write a new song,” guitarist Jeff Caudill said. “That’s mostly because we have pitifully short attention spans, so if we’ve already written a song that does something, we don’t usually feel the need to travel that road again. But it’s always going to be us — with rock ’n’ roll these days, there aren’t many things you can do; your likes and dislikes get filtered through your personality, and if you’ve got enough of that, it hopefully shows through.

“If you know us, our songs and our lyrics make sense. They’re scattershot, but we like to do witty wordplay and we try not to take things too seriously. There’s a bittersweet sort of element to it — I don’t know if we’re the happiest go-lucky guys, but we try to put a fun spin on maybe darker times, and I think that’s what the music sounds like.

“A lot of the subject matter is on the darker side, but it’s juxtaposed against sprinkly, jangly, happy, shiny guitars and tambourines and stuff,” Caudill added. “It’s sweet and sunny on the outside with a really dark, miserable core.”

The Daredevils formed out of the ashes of other, lesser-known area bands in the 1990s, but the group’s roots go back to the members’ days at Farragut High School. Those long-term friendships, according to guitarist Gray Comer, is what gives the band members the unity to make good music together and raise the bar for each other’s writing and playing.

“Mike (Daugherty), our drummer, and I have been playing together since we were 19 years old, and I’ve known Brett since high school,” Comer said. “Jeff and Brandon (Smith, the bassist) I’ve only gotten to know more recently, but we’ve all been in the band together for several years now. We’re comfortable with each other to the point that we can call each other on our (stuff) and not be afraid of the constructive criticism. We push each other to be better, and that maximizes our potential.

“I’m a believer in a band playing to its strengths. We certainly have our limitations, just like every other band, although we’re striving to eliminate those. I feel like we play better and sing better than we did when we first started, and we know what we’re good at — solid songwriting and focusing on vocal melody and hooks.”

For “Brave New Nothing,” the Daredevils enlisted the aid of long-time friend Don Coffey Jr., the studio wizard with Independent Recorders and drummer for Superdrag. Rather than doing it themselves, as they had on their previous two albums, the band members gave the reins to Coffey, who pushed them in new directions and elevated the quality of the overall product.

“The songs come first, and they end up being a reflection of what’s going on in our lives,” Cassidy said. “When it came time for arranging it, we wanted to get away from the things we had done well in the past. We wanted to give each song a complete treatment and look at the direction we wanted to go stylistically — whether we needed three guitar parts on every song or three singers going at it all the time.

“More than anything, we wanted to get into a studio, and Don was invaluable in the process. He did things that we just wouldn’t know to do or think to do; he was a real guiding hand throughout the process.”

It would be easy to rattle off each track of “Brave New Nothing,” coining pithy and witty analogies to describe each song, but that’s ... well, it’s something rock writers do when they’re rushed for time or they just aren’t into a particular band. The Daredevils, on the other hand, deserve more than that. When a group of guys sounds like they’re playing their asses off on a song like “Alter Ego” or bouncing up and down like Michael Stipe in the video for “Shiny Happy People,” you can’t help but feel genuine affection for these dudes. The enthusiasm on “Brave New Nothing” bubbles out of the speakers, and you can almost imagine them listening to it beside you, giddy with self-accomplishment, telling you to wait for this part or get ready for that part because it’s just ... cool. It just sounds good.

More than anything, “Brave New Nothing” sounds confident — it’s the sound of a band unconcerned about finding its niche and more intrigued by the idea of doing a bunch of different things as best they can. Because in the end — and the record speaks for itself — it’s still gonna sound like the Westside Daredevils.

“I think we did feel more confident in our ability as songwriters and singers,” Comer said. “Confidence — that’s an appropriate way to describe it, and I think it’s really reflected on this record.”

And fun — it’s got to be fun. There’s no shoe-gazing here, no pretension or self-importance. These guys have paid their dues and continue to pay them — they don’t have a sense of entitlement, and aside from proclivity for snarky comments about music — and mostly themselves — in general, they don’t have a bad word to say about anybody.

After all, they don’t need to. They’ve been the eager young Turks, anxious to tear up a stage. They’ve been the hell-raising cool kids, ready to save rock ‘n’ roll. They’ve been there and done it.

Now, they just want to do what they enjoy.

“For years, we’ve been trying to do as many different things as we could — just throw everything against the wall and see what sticks,” Caudill said. “But in the end, it’s still just rock ‘n’ roll. We try to have that sort of toss-it-off attitude, because rock ‘n’ roll should be fun. Just because the subject matter might be a little on the depressing side, doesn’t mean the song has to be.”