Your Black Star had great potential, the right prospectus of bombastic music and Robert Smithesque vocals to become the Next Big Thing from Louisville.
And it still does, even if Your Black Star has burned out and been replaced by something new. In November, Your Black Star set aside seven years of trading on that name and replaced it with the simpler, more descriptive Workers.
Singer-guitarist Jeremy Johnson said it was a change first considered in 2006, when the band released its first album, “Sound from the Ground,” to good reviews, a tour with local faves Elliott and a trip to Japan.
“We were, like, ‘We could change our name, but I don't want to have to explain that to the Japanese,'” Johnson said, half-joking. (I think.) “It was either laziness, the fear or losing fans or getting lost in the shuffle.”
The issue was that Your Black Star — Johnson, drummer Drew Osborn and bassist Brandon Duggins — hated the name Your Black Star, which managed that rare trick of being both thoroughly meaningless and esoteric.
“Sound from the Ground” was loud and melancholy, capturing the band member's angst from the period that followed the death of a former member. The band had matured from its days playing all-age venues in Louisville circa 2001, and its members were ready for a new name then. Mainly, they were tired of journalists asking about the name.
They just never could bring themselves to execute the change until now.
“It didn't come from anywhere — I was 20 years old, we were throwing names around, we liked the idea of ‘star,' and someone suggested Your Black Star,” Johnson said. “What you think sounds cool at 20 doesn't necessarily sound cool at 27, if you're doing the right thing and your tastes are changing.
Meanwhile, the new name is a perfect fit, in Johnson's humble opinion.
“‘Workers' applies to us, because we tour an awful lot and we work pretty hard,” he said.
The less heady name describes a new period of angst for Workers. Since “Sound from the Ground,” the members have put in the effort required of a band to break into the next tier of the music industry — that place where the musicians don't have to have day jobs to pay the bills. Labels, booking agents managers — the band has piqued their interest since 2006.
“I think we were just very frustrated with people saying, ‘I'll be at the show,' and then they'll be, like, ‘Hey that was really great, I love your band,' and then nothing happened,” Johnson said. “We got into this bitter, pissed-off place and that's why we did ‘Beasts,' which was really raw and hateful. But it kind of fit with the darkness of ‘Sound from the Ground.'”
Johnson says he, Osborn and Duggins tend to wear their hearts on their sleeves, and so Workers is clearly in a better place. With the new name has come a new attitude. The new self-titled “Workers” album is distorted, loud pop — neither melancholy nor bitter.
Besides, Johnson is pretty sure that the pressure of impressing label types likely sabotaged the band — they'd play great at a carefree show in Virginia, but choke at a show teeming with label reps in New York City.
“After that, we got a lot off our chests and just realized we were doing this because it's fun,” he said. “It really became more about having fun and less about industry stuff, and just kind of remembering why you play music in the first place.”
The new album, which will be have its release show on Friday at Skull Alley, took eight months to finish. The band had toured often over the past five years, and Johnson said they wanted to concentrate on writing and then recording in Austin, Texas, with Erik Wofford, who's worked with vaunted acts like Explosions in the Sky and Voxtrot and who also produced “Beasts.”
The new name does not affect the work ethic — Workers will hit the road in March.
Do band names matter? It's hard to say, but the self-released album will give the trio something worthy to build on. And, by working hard but not obsessing, it might be their best shot yet into full-time musiciandom.
“I know I'm definitely in a better place in my life,” Johnson said. “I know we're just happier with who we are as a band and what we're doing.”
