St. Cloud

St. Cloud is the name of the musical partnership of Brian Beken (Milkdrive, South Austin Jug Band) and Shane Walker (The Gougers). Coming off alternately as indie/alt country and modern experimental rock (sometimes within the same song), St. Cloud has parlayed big sonic ambitions and acute attention to lyrics into a sound that speaks to hillbilly hipsters and the NPR crowd alike. “This project is the culmination of an idea that started with a record called JUAREZ by Terry Allen,” says Shane Walker, the band’s lead singer, speaking about the concept record originally released by the Lubbock artist/songwriter in 1975. “The idea was to put a band together as a side project to perform the songs from JUAREZ live, while we hired our friends to interpret the action on stage. Like a play. We got together a few times to practice and ended up writing a few songs together. It snowballed from there and St. Cloud was born.” Snowball, indeed. Branching off from their acoustic and folkie roots (Beken is a fiddle/flatpicking champion, while Walker is a Kerrville Folk Festival winner with a Top-10 Americana record in 2008), St. Cloud wraps its ruminative lyrics in a blanket of volatile guitar tones and driving rhythmic compositions that channel bands like My Morning Jacket and Wilco. “Being creative is all about starting over,” says Walker. “We came up from the acoustic country/bluegrass/Americana world. And while we could never escape those roots – we would never want to – somewhere along the line we wanted to get beyond some of the restrictions that you find in the traditional styles.” The result is a sophisticated new indie release, TILTING AT WINDMILLS, produced by Beken and set to release in March 2013. What began as a nod to a true Texas artist has culminated in a band intent on charting new ground for itself and making interesting and unique rock ‘n roll along the way. stcloudcentral.com