Paul Vernet is a seasoned rocker as well as a new-century indie musician. He is not a classic rock troubadour in the traditional sense of the word – rather, he’s a hybrid.
Vernet carefully excavates dinosaur bones of yesteryear’s rock icons, smashes them up into smaller pieces and mixes and grinds them all together with his own ingredients that span the spectrum of modern sub-genres – popularized under the umbrella that is indie rock.
“There might be something in the water up here,” he said looking out at the purple-tinged mountains near Woodstock, New York. Vernet has lived in the hills there for many years and recently recorded and dropped his new album Personal Mythology.
Living in such a beautiful and culturally historic (even though the Woodstock Festival of 1969 was actually held in the nearby town of Bethel) location has undoubtedly influenced his music in wondrous ways.
“Before all these digitized nerds took over an already crooked music biz, there was a hippie dream, you know, where songs meant something, and music could change the world. Call me crazy, but I still believe that.”
Vernet’s latest single, “Pregnant Widow,” is a sizzling slice of proto funk/punk, sort of like an all-star jam with Black Sabbath, Fela Kuti and the Talking Heads, he says. It’s definitely a standout.
“The song is about a wise old county doctor who makes house calls after hours,” he says. “The rest of the record plays itself all over the musical map – groove rock with a Brill Building backbone.”
“It’s about obsession, sex, and death. It’s a cautionary tale about a doctor and the wife of a terminal patient he’s treating.”
In this case, he says, the ‘good doctor’ crossed the line between “fear and hope, and now the townspeople are starting to gossip. It’s about doing things you know you shouldn’t, but compulsion takes over. The need to be desired is a very, very strong motivator.”
These lines from the song say much: “Don’t get your knickers in a twist/Don’t get your testes in a fix/Messing around, pants come down/Pop your dress right off.”
All of this put together may conjure up images of a Decemberists’ type of folklore lyric and song. But it’s uniquely Vernet’s.
The track accumulated nearly 9,000 streams on Spotify in a matter of a couple of weeks after being picked up by a couple of playlisters.
Vernet’s musical influences are varied and include Atomic Rooster to Charlie Rich; Steely Dan to Ween; The Monkees to Guns N Roses.
Last month we featured another great track from the album, “Skipping Stones”.