One of the Columbia music scene’s most iconic hard rock acts, Isabelle’s Gift, will be celebrating two things this week with its show Friday night at New Brookland Tavern. 2022 marks 30 years since the band’s first live shows, and singer Chris Sutton will turn 50 this week. For those reasons, and more, the band felt it was appropriate to mark the occasion and it has chosen an interesting way to do it– with a set that promises a full performance of the 2006 album American Idle.
“We hadn’t played much for the past few years, even going into covid,” Admits Sutton, in a recent conversation with him and bassist Jason Carrion in the space where it all began–the former Rockafella’s, now Jake’s Bar & Grill, at 2112 Devine Street. “Everyone was separating, splintered apart, with kids and jobs and other things going on. Also, who wants to see a bunch of dudes our age get up there and play rock and roll?”
Carrion agreed and noted that the logistics alone were daunting–but when they did convene with the idea to do another show, things clicked naturally.
“I was very uncertain about where things were going to go–we couldn’t jam, it was a long time to not work on music together,” He says. The turning point came when he and Sutton recruited former Gift member (and current Soda City Riot, Gruzer, and Firenest member Travis Nicholson) and former Throttlerod leader Matt Whitehead.
“We’ve all been friends for decades,” Carrion notes. “We toured with Throttlerod, Travis was in the band before, Scott (Frey, the drummer for Isabelle’s Gift’s last several years) came from the punk scene with Bedlam Hour. There’s a lot of history there. Chris and I have been playing together longer than most people’s marriages.”
The addition of Nicholson and Whitehead changed the dynamic in the room and expanded what was possible.
“It’s a room full of gunslingers,” Sutton says. “It was pretty nerve wracking the first time we all practiced together, actually, because it felt like everybody was on their game except me.”
Nicholson is a natural fit, having been in the band before. He and Sutton have remained close over the years, too.
“He helped write some of the stuff that was on American Idle,” Chris recalls. “Our families are close; our kids have played together for years. With Matt, it has been a bucket list kind of thing for me to play with him ever since our bands toured together.”
Whitehead has been a revelation of sorts during the process of rehearsing the songs for this show, Sutton admits.
“Going back and revisiting these songs, I was still writing on guitar for some of them and I feel like I was poorly trying to do what Matt was doing really well right off the bat with Throttlerod. So now, it’s almost like he’s going back in time and fixing everything that I did.”
It’s important to both Sutton and Carrion to note that although they are playing an entire album of older material, the songs and the band may not sound like fans remember from the recording–and that’s fine with them.
“It’s a texture that he adds to a lot of the songs,” Carrion says. “He’ll put melodies in places they didn’t exist before.”
“I told both Matt and Travis that I wanted to make sure the verses were the same, and we kept the hooks, but I wanted them to bring their own feel to everything else,” Sutton says. “There’s no question there will be a difference in the sound, it almost feels like I’m fronting Clutch at times. Plus, I have a bunch of backup vocalists in the band now, which is exciting.”
Rehearsals have revealed one major problem, Sutton says, and it has to do with how equally excited the entire band seems to be with the proceedings.
“I’m concerned about keeping our tempos slower,” He admits. “We’re playing these songs in practice like we’re trying to kill somebody with them.”
Isabelle’s Gift has always been the angry red-faced stepchild of the local scene, railing against mediocrity, hypocrites, traditional society, and more in their music and motifs. American Idle, released through the Jimmy Franks label of the Bloodhound Gang, was a high-water mark for the group, combining the sludgy Soundgarden vibe of their bottom end grooves with a punk fury reminiscent of Charlotte legends Antiseen. Topically, many of the subjects broached are still relevant a decade and a half later, and Sutton says getting reacquainted with how his younger self felt back then was not just surreal, it was affirming of his own life journey.
“I remember the things I said, and the way I sang, as something I was embarrassed about,” Sutton says. “I realized that not only was I proud of some of the songwriting that was on it, the music is great, and it told a much more intricate story than I remembered–it made me a little more proud of who I was, and I’d forgotten a lot of that.”
It was the album’s unexpected current relevance that inspired the idea to just perform the whole thing, he says.
“It was scary how topical it was, and with the exception of maybe one song title and a couple of lyrics it even fits into current events,” Sutton says. “Usually guys our age are going to run into problems about things we said in our past being politically incorrect now, or not in step with some of the things we are defending these days, but it all checked so many weird boxes.
“Within minutes of me telling the other guys the idea at rehearsal, we were blasting through the album, and I got left in the dust because I didn’t remember as much of the songs as the rest of the band.”
Ultimately, it all started coming back to him, and in the process of working through the songs again, Sutton says it was a cathartic experience for him.
“I don’t like to come right out and say some of the things I’m saying in these songs, but it’s unbelievably fitting in today’s political climate,” He admits. “I’ve always dealt with a lot of trauma, I’m lucky to be alive, and I didn’t plan on living this long. Back then I was pretty suicidal and I’m not now. Those are feelings I’ll be working through my entire life. I’m a completely different person than I was back then, but the trauma might even be felt stronger.”
At this point the biggest question might be how the band’s new chapter might be read by fans old and, possibly, new. Sutton and Carrion both admit they are unsure, but optimistic.
“I don’t how it fits into today’s environment, how people who used to like us may take where we are coming from,” He says.
“The last time we played a live show was in February, three years ago,” Carrion says. “We played that Ramones tribute show earlier this year, and getting to know those people, and the excitement behind that and other local shows lately, I love seeing the support now.”
As for American Idle, growing up, and looking back, Sutton has the last, encouraging words for himself–words that might apply to anyone taking stock of their list of accomplishments later in life.
“It’s so fucking honest, all the way through. I felt like walking up to myself like I was one of my kids and saying, ‘Good for you, you did better than I thought you did…you were honest, and it feels real as shit.’”
Isabelle’s Gift plays this Friday, July 22nd, at New Brookland Tavern. Shun and the Transonics open the show. Visit www.newbrooklandtavern.com for tickets and more information.