Looking back on the past four years, the members of Barefoot will be the first to admit that their ascent from Texas coffee shop gigs to major-label offices and world-class recordings studios reads like a fairytale. Their good fortune isn't lost on them. In 2003, when the burgeoning Texas band was just getting off the ground, members of the group—on a whim—packed up two cars and headed west for a week in Los Angeles in hopes of scoring a few shows, and expanding its fanbase. After passing out a few demos and being approached by label A&R scouts on their very first morning in Hollywood, the band found itself showcasing before execs and noted producers within just two days. Within weeks, they were being offered deals. Not bad for a group of guys who were merely looking for a few gigs.
But that initial L.A. experience was no fluke. Featuring four singers, Barefoot boasts the rarest of chemistries, bringing together five friends and—more significantly—five songwriters. The band’s well-honed songs feature that ultra-rare four-part harmony, recalling such rock titans as Crosby, Stills and Nash and The Eagles, but shot through with the influence of everything from the blues-rock of Stevie Ray Vaughan to the chart-topping Brit-pop of Snow Patrol.
If ever there was a vehemently democratic band, it’s Barefoot. The band’s songs are literally written line by line by the full band (both musically and lyrically), which makes love songs like “Alive” or the get-back-on-the-horse sentiment of “Breathe Again” applicable to myriad situations—a relationship with a friend or a girlfriend, a study of faith, etc. “We literally get together and write as five guys,” says guitarist/vocalist Clay Jones.
“I’m amazed we get through songs,” laughs bassist Matt Fellenbaum. “When we first start writing a song, it’s like, ‘Oh, I want to get my idea in the song,’ but after a while you just start to realize, ‘Ya know what, it’s all good. I’m not getting my toes stepped on or my ego bruised. This song is going to be a great song because I’m writing it with these four other guys.”
Merging two bands (one a strummy, acoustic outfit, the other a rock act informed by everything from Pink Floyd to Hendrix) and two groups of friends (from the Dallas suburbs of Sherman and Richardson, respectively), Barefoot formed roughly four years ago after guitarists/vocalists Chris Pearson and Jones met through a mutual friend. After that initial encounter, a jam session eventually ensued, finding the two rattling off Coldplay covers late one night.
It wasn’t long before Jones introduced Pearson to longtime friends and bandmates Jason Dering (drums, vocals) and bassist Matt Fellenbaum, and Pearson brought his friend, sometime collaborator and Baylor University classmate Chris Munselle (guitars/vocals) into the fold. Previously, Pearson and some friends had gigged under the name Barefoot, playing originals and Jackopierce and Guster covers around Dallas.
The new line-up inherited the name, and after lucking into some studio time began recording. In the summer of 2003, after self-pressing a three-song, self-titled EP, the band played more than 80 gigs in and around Texas, selling more than 2,000 copies of the EP. As the group’s fanbase grew steadily, the band members were mostly living at home and working day jobs. In an effort to expand that fanbase, and just to play more often, Pearson, Jones and Munselle headed to L.A. in hopes of scoring some acoustic shows. The rhythm section of Fellenbaum and Dering, meanwhile, stayed home to flip burgers. Having made a significant splash in Hollywood, the group returned home, and focused on writing. As interest in the band grew, the band hired Joe Simpson, father of Jessica and Ashlee, as their manager to help them take this thing to the next level.
Under the tutelage of Simpson and Geffen president Jordan Schur, the band had spent the better part of the two years writing, writing some more, and writing a little more. In total, Barefoot penned some 50 songs for their debut disc. The best of those songs were honed during sessions in London and Sweden, where the band cut the disk with producers Anders Bagge and Per Astrom.
“Every time we finished a writing session, we just found a new twist,” says Pearson. “They were like stepping stones.” Adds Fellenbaum, “Our writing was getting better and better each time. And the sound was progressing.”
“Whether we knew it or not, we were developing our sound,” says Dering. “And we didn’t realize it until we finally started working with these awesome producers.” Pearson notes, “It’s been like music college for a year, and we’ve become better writers as a group, and as individuals.”
One of the many tracks to come from the London sessions, “American Girl” was penned out of a time when the band was literally sitting in Primrose Park writing songs, and thinking about American girls, t-shirts and records. Ironically, it’s perhaps the best example of Brit pop on the record. “Breathe Again” and “Flood,” meanwhile, came from the band’s time in Sweden. The later reminds listeners not to get caught up in the flood of often negative sentiments that others can try and drown you in. “Rain,” meanwhile is a universal love song about longing and pressing on and working through loneliness. “Our life has been in a state of constant change,” says Pearson. “Everything we’re doing is something new for us, and all these things are constantly having an influence on us. So I feel like we’re growing continually the more that we do, the more places we go, the more people we meet, the more people we write with. We’re just soaking it all in.” While only in their early 20s, the members of Barefoot are keenly aware of what will make their music and their songs not only hits, but everlasting. Says Jones, “Our songs are about love, and those are the greatest songs out there. The songs about love are the ones that last forever, that go from generation to generation.”
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