Saturday, April 25, 2015
By John Benson
A smiling elephant caught leaping for joy in a field of grass. It’s not a scene you see every day, but that’s exactly what BoDeans’ singer-guitarist Kurt Neumann is feeling like these days.
The aforementioned joyful pachyderm photo is the cover of the group’s latest CD, “I Can’t Stop.” If you’re looking for a deeper meaning in the title, simply put, it is Neumann’s rally cry behind the band he’s led since the mid-’80s.
“Yeah, I think that’s the best you can do — just smile, and all we can do is smile back,” said Neumann, calling from Austin, Texas.
Another reason the frontman is smiling these days is the fact it’s taken a quarter of a century, but the roots-rock outfit has finally found a solid audience in Northeast Ohio. Neumann pointed to a packed BoDeans show last fall that he said was the group’s best-attended gig in the area.
This was in stark contrast to the ’80s and ’90s when the group didn’t quite fit in with the hard-rock zeitgeist.
“It’s true. When we released our first record, bands like Bon Jovi and Def Leppard really dominated the airwaves, and we just weren’t them,” Neumann said. “We were playing ‘Fadeaway,’ and I think lots of people liked the song, but it certainly wasn’t what these other bands were doing.
“Now, people over the years have discovered us, and because of that classic songwriting, we do fit into that format a bit even if it doesn’t have quite the hard edge.”
In fact, the BoDeans fit that format now more so than ever, with “I Can’t Stop” finding the group reconnecting with its rock past after the Americana-minded 2012 effort “American Made.”
After previously tinkering around with a folk motif — classical acoustic guitars, mandolins, violins, fiddle and accordion — Neumann decided to get back to the bread-and-butter BoDeans sound of electric guitars and “simple” songwriting.
“At first that was pretty much the mindset, and several songs kind of developed along the way,” Neumann said. “They all incorporated a certain kind of feel and style that had a little bit more blues or rhythm and blues feel. That was unexpected, and that just kind of happened on its own.”
Those new songs, which will be played at the BoDeans’ April 29 show at the Kent Stage, include the bluesy “Slave,” the moody “I Can’t Stop” and the Allman Brothers Band-like “Roll with the Punches.”
It’s been quite a journey for this blue-collar act that started three decades ago in the Wisconsin heartland. And the fact that the band is still going strong, well, makes Neumann smile in a way that is similar to an elephant jumping for joy.
“I think that’s the way you should live your life, and that’s what we’re trying to do and try to keep in mind,” Neumann said. “You can’t take it all too serious. You should be having fun with it. It’s really about finding your humanness and comfort level in your life and realizing what you can and can’t do, and being good with that.”