September September by Winter Boys

Hurry up and wait. It’s just one of the ways September September, the new album from Oklahoma supergroup Winter Boys, is a study in contrasts. Formed by Tyson Meade, frontman of erstwhile alternative rock legends Chainsaw Kittens, and Jesse Tabish, composer and frontman of expansive indie band Other Lives, Winter Boys released a 7” single for Record Store Day in 2012 and then disappeared into their respective projects for a time.

The first September of September September was in 2021, when Tabish and Meade reunited for a casual pair of songwriting sessions that Meade described as happening at “breakneck speed.”

“What's so crazy and wonderful and beautiful about Jesse is that he brings his whole other element that I have not experienced before, where his music theory knowledge is so good that I can just start singing these notes that aren't rock ‘n’ roll, and he knows exactly where I'm going,” Meade said.

Tabish’s Other Lives saw him performing at Coachella and opening for Radiohead, and he’s also an established composer whose work includes solo albums and scoring for a Broadway production. His innate ability to hear a complete picture before it is painted was the world-building yin seemed destined to bolster Meade’s freewheeling yang.

“He told me I have all these personalities, and he just wants to really flesh them out,” Meade said. “He said, ‘You can be like this punk rock person and then go right into this sad, Broadway sort of thing.’ It worked out perfectly and not just because he completely understands me, but he lets me be me.”

Lead single “Around the Moon,” released July 21, is a prime turn of Meade’s crooner personality, hitting the highs and lows of his range supported by a percussive, slightly haunted piano accompaniment. On much of the rest of the album, the driving instrumentation provided by Tabish and drummer Aaron Frisby also platforms Meade’s genre-hopping lead. Few vocalists can convey joy in one breath and sorrow in the next as deftly as Meade can, and thus, much of September September has an aura of recklessness, the listening experience akin to a chase.

The primary recording on each song was done as a live band in a single room, forgoing what Meade calls his usual studio M.O.: “the security of technology.” They didn’t even wear headphones. The entire process of tracking to having a mixed album (thanks to producer and fellow Chainsaw Kitten Trent Bell and his Bell Labs Recording) took about three days.

Meade, for his part, then returned Tabish’s “No, after you!” mentality by implicitly deferring to Tabish on extra instrumentation and overdubs, a grace he called “unfamiliar territory” as a collaborator. Tabish’s talent as an arranger is evident. He let the rock songs be rock songs here, as in the wild and fun “Eyes in His Head,” while creating haunting atmospheres and moments of pause there, like the startling “Ah Ah.”

The second September of September September, this year, presents the long-awaited fruit of Winter Boys’ labor. Oklahoma-turned-Colorado independent label Clerestory AV will release the full album September 22 digitally and with a limited-edition vinyl pressing.

“Jesse’s such a professional in the way that he approaches everything but also does it with no ego, and it’s hard to find someone at his level, probably at my level too, who can write without showing off,” Meade said of Tabish. “There was this innocence to the dichotomy, this wide-eyed fun.”

September September has two faces, borne of longtime songwriting veterans known for their specific, disparate styles who have clashed together solely for the sake of making art. In the process, or lack of it, they’ve produced something totally unexpected.

— Becky Carman

Winter Boys are Tyson Meade (Chainsaw Kittens), Jesse Tabish (Other Lives), and Aaron Frisby