Every year our New Year’s resolutions are the same. Work more, smoke less. Exercise more, drink less. The list goes on, but abstention usually succumbs to temptation, excuses are found, and resolutions are postponed to next year, only for the lascivious cycle to continue on.
So continue to indulge instead! Denying yourself the simple pleasures of life is torturous and boring. If anything, decide to try new things. That’s what the lead singer Erin Breeding of the sibling duo The Breedings did. She gave up her lucrative eight-year career as an accountant in Boston to play country rock and drink bourbon with her baby brother in Nashville, Tennessee.
It requires courage to give up a model life in modern-day American suburbia for a career in music in a redneck city. But for Erin, it was about answering the call of an inner desire that would otherwise never have come her way.
“I wasn’t happy in Boston,” she told the Kentucky Monthly. “You must chase your dreams, because they don’t chase you.”
It seems she might be on to something as well. The Breedings may have only been playing music professionally for two years, but they’re already set to kick-start their first ever international promotional tour − for what is their second album, Fayette − in Copenhagen.
“I guess you’d describe us as organic country, Americana folk,” brother Willie explained to Kentucky Monthly. “But then we do like to get into soul. Something like Linda Ronstadt and blue-eyed soul.”
In simpler terms, the band’s 2011 debut album, entitled Laughing at Luck, can largely be described as a coarse form of country pop-rock. Erin’s distinctive voice, which Willie thinks “is the kind of voice other women connect with”, does have a Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane feel to it.
Certain tracks, like ‘Impatient Love’ and ‘3am’, have a very country melody, although the garage band-like bass and psychedelic guitar wails make the band’s music very different from southern state pop.
There is, however, no doubting The Breedings’ deep connection to the South. Their Facebook account is littered with Instagram pictures of old school sit-down jam sessions, entitled with alcohol-heavy soundbites.
The band were even mentioned by The New York Times in conjunction with a gig at a late-night, cigar-smoking, Rowan’s Creek Bourbon-drinking, bonfire-burning and fat rib-eating event − a true display of redneck decadence.
Indolence may be unproductive, but it is very relaxing. Smoking might be bad for you, but it looks badass. Drinking may ruin your liver, but it will do wonders for your confidence.
It may be a new year, but that does not change the fact that things sensibly spurned frequently feel all the more gratifying when indulged.
So why not celebrate the fact that 2012 did not bring on the Mayan apocalypse and make 2013 a celebration of living by giving into temptation. Quit your job, chase your dream and enjoy life. And what better way to take those first sinful steps than bringing in the new year of decadence with a bit of southern comfort at Café Retro?
The Breedings
Café Retro, Knabrostræde 26, Cph K; Friday 21:00; www.café-retro.dk
