Former Heartless Bastard Jesse Ebaugh Finds His Own Texas Touch
The Tender Things face hard truths on new LP
By Doug Freeman, Fri., Feb. 24, 2023
In a small rehearsal room at Space ATX off Menchaca Road, Jesse Ebaugh plugs in and turns his back to his five bandmates, and launches into that "That Texas Touch," title track to the Tender Things' third LP.
It's the first time the band has been together in months, but the A-list cast behind Ebaugh feels out the rhythm and quickly locks into the song's groove – part Little Feat Southern boogie, part honky-tonk funk. Z Lynch, fresh off of tour with Nikki Lane, runs a deep bassline to Matt Strmiska's tight percussion. Ricky Ray Jackson, currently serving time in Steve Earle's Dukes, works the pedal steel with precision against "Sweet" Gary Newcomb's searching lead guitar. Blake Whitmire, Berklee-trained fiddler and leader of his own White Horse regulars, strikes the bow and jumps in on harmony.
"There's no stumbling around in the practice room," laughs Ebaugh later, sitting outside the Butterfly Bar on Manor. "Everybody's so busy, nobody has time to blow in the rehearsal room. It needs to be efficient to keep everybody in a good mood, because at the end of the day, if everybody's happy, they're making good music."
Ebaugh leans back in the chair and locks his hands on his sharply crossed knees, looking like an Austinized mix of Michael Stipe and William Faulkner. At 49 years old, he's thoughtful and earnest, and it's no surprise that as a frontman he allows such consideration to the band, given that he spent the majority of his career playing bass with Heartless Bastards.
The Pennsylvania native landed in Austin in 2008, moving from Cincinnati after Erika Wennerstrom reconstituted the Bastards here. Ebaugh had been a part of the band since their first demos, and as Wennerstrom regrouped with breakout fourth LP Arrow, he took the opportunity for a change as well.
The ensuing decade saw Heartless Bastards rise to international acclaim, with the band regularly on the road over 200 days a year.
"After making Restless Ones, Erika needed a break for a little while. I needed a break," admits Ebaugh. "After that tour cycle sort of gently came to a halt, I was just exhausted. I got home, and I stopped drinking because I'd just been going so hard for so long. I didn't know how to feel anymore."
For the first time Ebaugh found himself without a band, and his phone wasn't ringing. Although he'd been in one of Austin's most popular groups for years, the heavy tour schedule hadn't allowed him to build up much community in the local music scene.
"I may have been having a little bit of a midlife crisis," he offers. "I was looking at the body of work that I'd spent the lion's share of my life working on, and I had a great skill set as a musician, as a bass player, but I hadn't made anything of my own. There was nothing I could look back to and be like, 'There's the thing that Jesse did.' There were no artifacts that I had been there. There were no footprints.
"So, I was bored and I was sober, and most importantly, the voice in your head when you're drunk that tells you you are not good enough got real quiet because I hadn't been drinking. And nobody's calling me, so [I thought], 'I'll just start making up some of my own music.'"
He collected Jackson and Newcomb to jam, uniting three of the best pedal steel players in town. (Ebaugh famously joined Beck onstage at last year's South by Southwest, playing steel as lone accompaniment to the superstar's solo set.) As he began writing songs, Ebaugh leaned on his roots in bluegrass and country-rock bands in Cincinnati, with a touch of Texas honky-tonk influence.
The ambitions of the band were modest, even if the personnel were exceptional. Securing a Saturday night at the White Horse became the goal. Ebaugh dubbed the outfit the Tender Things, because it seemed the opposite of Heartless Bastards. Most importantly, he began writing his own songs for the first time.
"It was like an act of desperation," Ebaugh ponders. "I'd been so drunk and given all of my time away to other things, and I was just terrified that the second half of my life was gonna be a blackout as well. I felt like a coward, because I had opinions that I would not voice, maybe for fear of maybe being judged. In my own life, and all the people around me, I've always had the hardest time telling people what I feel. It was something I've been avoiding since I was a teenager.
"So it was like songwriting as an act of self-identification," he continues. "I don't have any confidence as a songwriter. I have no idea if what I'm doing is quote-unquote right or not. But when those guys started playing those songs off the first recording and started saying that they enjoyed playing those songs, I felt so validated and so grateful that these people that I respected so very deeply would join my team."
A 2017 self-titled album introduced the Tender Things as Ebaugh's new country-inflected project, but 2020's How You Make a Fool unlocked a new level for the band. Recorded at Niles City Sound with former White Denim drummer Josh Block and Texas Piano Man Robert Ellis, the album let loose with a Southern-fried Allman Brothers swagger swung through Texas dance halls.
"I was doing what was expected of an indie band, and I had a little bit of a head of steam and people were paying attention. Then the pandemic happened and I lost a lot of money, and I lost heart," allows Ebaugh. "After a year and a half of not being able to really do any of that, it just, well, it just wasn't even on my radar anymore. I just wanted to play. I want to write really good songs and I don't have to drive halfway around the world to show it off. I've got nothing to prove."
In letting go of the typical industry ambitions and road map, Ebaugh has charted a different path with new album That Texas Touch, out Friday. Recorded with Band of Heathens' Gordy Quist, the album found a home with the emerging powerhouse nonprofit imprint Spaceflight Records, whose roster Ebaugh appreciates for its community and eclecticism.
Such camaraderie may have provided what he needed most post-Heartless Bastards, who blaze onward with Ebaugh only occasionally involved in their studio recordings.
At the Wizard Rodeo day festival this past December, which Ebaugh helped organize at the Long Time sandlot field in East Austin, the Tender Things exuded a rollicking joyousness as they tested the new songs onstage. The band unleashed blistering grooves, slices of indie rock and Texafied funk, and swaying country ballads licked by Ebaugh's poetic narrative pull.
"That's one of the most difficult things about the band in general – I don't want to put too much pressure on it to become a thing, because I don't want to chase the muse away," offers Ebaugh. "I don't want to demand that everybody commit their time to it in the way that would be necessary for the project to grow on the trajectory that the music industry knows. The reason that it works is because it is loose."
The Tender Things celebrate their third album this Saturday, Feb. 25, at Sam’s Town Point with Ramsay Midwood, Loteria, and Spliff Kazoo.
