WJH & the Merrie Murdre

Out of Missoula, Montana, Warren Jackson Hearne wandered into Denton, Texas in 2000, bringing with him a past steeped in underground music and a family engaged in gospel and country. His blending of folklore and traditional ballads created the Merrie Murdre of Gloomadeers, who have been driven by Warren's Sampoerna-clouded music, a music which evokes haunting spirits of dead lovers and pale-faced, avalanche-murdered friends of the past. The Gloomadeers took the stage for the first time in 2003. They appeared as a troupe of gimp-masked, top-hatted, and bare-chested musicians lacing Warren's embalmed ballads with violin, accordian, mandolin, and a chain-weilding percussionist. While the line-up has changed over the years, the instruments have remained the same.
The music maintains a historical presence that resurrects atmospheres of starkly-lit taverns which span from the edges of cossack battlefields to Edwardian metropolitans. The Gloomadeers have been described as death-folk americana, stemming from their broken circus sounds led by Warren's whiskey-drenched baritone.
~eddie cain 2006