A Gator and a Dumpster Americana cowpunks Loose

Cattle (finally!) debut at Jazz Fest

BY CREE MCCREE

I’ve been a Loose Cattle devotee since 2017, when they debuted with the instant-classic holiday album, Seasonal Affective Disorder. The album encapsulates the push-pull dynamic of the molten core of my favorite Americana cowpunks in New Orleans: Michael Cerveris, who adores Christmas, and Kimberley Kaye, who is shadowed by the holiday’s darkside.

Over the years, I’ve interviewed them several times, which is always a treat. Like an old (happily) married couple, Cerveris and Kaye frequently finish, and expand on, each other’s thoughts. Which isn’t that surprising. After they met across a microphone in 2008, a relationship that “began as professional turned romantic, then musical, then friendly after they split,” according to their official origin story. They also bonded over their mutual affinity for country and punk, which crosses rowdy Johnnyand-June-Cash romps with the punky L.A. ’tude of X’s John Doe and Exene Cervenka in Loose Cattle’s own close-to-thebones harmonies.

During our latest encounter in early March, they played me tracks off their new album, out later this summer. Already in the can: the album’s first single, a cover of Lucinda Williams’ “Crescent City,” which they recorded in Nashville with Lucinda in the studio and Louis Michot guesting on fiddle.

At long last, after playing French Quarter Fest last year, Loose Cattle will make their Jazz Fest debut on Locals Thursday, May 4, with the crack team behind them: bassist Rene Coman and drummer Doug

Garrison of the Iguanas and free-ranging fiddler Rurik Nunan.

During our conversation, we discussed their commitment to make “Americana music for the people America keeps forgetting,” like people of color and the LGBTQ community. We also took a deep dive into the process of actually getting into Jazz Fest, which can act as a how-to primer for New Orleans musicians still awaiting that fateful call.

Well, it took an entire decade, but you finally made it into Jazz Fest. You’re on the Lagniappe stage, right?

Kimberly: Yes, I love that stage, the sound is really bright. The feel of the space is very community, there’s always a breeze.

Michael: It’s also the only place you can go either before or after going to the food demonstrations. A friend of ours works at them and always gives us the little samples.

Sounds like “Sidewalk Chicken”! I loved that crazy animated ’toon Caesar Meadows drew for that song, from Heavy Lifting that has a rooster pimp daddy.

Kimberly: Exactly. [laughs] We should coordinate with that and do a Sidewalk Chicken demo.

Are you going to play many songs from the new album at the Fair Grounds?

That’s the plan. And some really good songs from our back catalog.

Every track on Heavy Lifting , your last album, is killer.

Kimberly: The new album is even better. Renee’s been calling it a quantum leap for the band. And I think he’s actually right.

Listening to “Crescent City,” the first single from the album, I had to double check to make sure it really was a cover and, and I wasn’t actually listening to Lucinda.

Michael: She does kind of channel Lu in her own way on it, which I think is really cool. We were trying to recreate this little magical moment in Nashville, where we were in the studio with Lucinda and Louis Michot.

How did that come about?

Kimberly: We came up to do this unofficial Louisiana showcase at the Americana Fest in Nashville that Lilli Lewis and some other people put together because there were no New Orleans or Louisiana artists at Americana Fest. So, we said, hey, you didn’t book us, but we’re playing anyway. And we stayed with Lu because she lives in Nashville. That’s the first single off our new record, which comes out later this summer, but the rest is almost all originals. And at Jazz Fest, we also have the added bonus of Lilli Lewis sitting in on piano.

One of the tracks you just played me is “Mike Stacy”— which, unlike most of your originals, doesn’t have a really clever title. What’s the story behind that?

Kimberly: Last year at Jazz Fest, while I was watching Meschiya Lake, where there were lots of good-looking women who’d come to see Meschiya, this guy handed me his business card. Then he pointed over his shoulder and said, she’s my date for this weekend and next weekend I wanna hire you to hang out with us for the rest of the weekend. And then I want to take y’all to Paris together. He was trying to hire me as a sex worker! And I declined to be purchased. I was so angry about the experience.

It’s hard for me to even picture that happening at Jazz Fest.

Kimberly: I know. He had the Jazz Fest shirt on, he had the straw hat, he had the drink in his hand. He looked like a normal fester. But he was not normal. He was like Uncle Fester from The Adams Family! So, I wrote to Michael about it, and he turned it into this whole story and the band wrote this song. It’s called “Mike Stacy.” We named it after the guy so he can live on in infamy. Alex McMurray plays guitar in that song and Debbie Davis is on it too.

Let’s talk about the process of actually getting into Jazz Fest. How does that work?

Kimberly: There’s a couple of different hurdles that anybody has to clear. One is just name recognition, that Jazz Fest is confident that people will come to your set. Do other local musicians know them and respect them?

Michael: The literal process is you go online and fill out paperwork with details about the band. And send them examples of your music and links to videos. And then you just wait to hear.

So how did you find out you got in?

Michael: You get a phone call first. And I got the phone call because I was the one who had made the submission. I saved it on my voicemail, the call from Jazz Fest. [laughs] And then it’s a phone tag for another week or so because they’re calling how many hundred bands. So, it was a while before I actually got through to the woman who said yes, we want you guys to play.

You’ve both been very active in trying to recruit a more diverse lineup to Americana.

Kimberly: If you take the all-male lineups off the festivals, there’s almost no female or non-binary players.

Joy Clark has done a really good job of putting herself out there, I think.

Kimberly: She has. It definitely helps that Brandi Carlile loves her and she’s been bringing her around. But Joy’s been grinding it out for years. It’s not like suddenly there’s an Americana scene that’s very much led by women and LGBTQ people.

Any songs people should keep their ears open for during your Jazz Fest set?

Kimberly: “Further On.” It’s probably the only song at Jazz Fest that’s gonna mention a gator and a dumpster! O