From rock star to country newcomer: an interview with Brett Detar
Brett Detar was living the dream. He and his bandmates had achieved a successful career on the road and in the studio. They had a major label record deal with Epic, an album on the Billboard charts, and a spot on the Warped Tour. It seemed that they were a band on the rise, potentially the next big thing. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a message was posted to the band’s website in February 2006 that read simply, “The Juliana Theory is dead.”
Although Detar says that he and his former bandmates remain friends (and even reunited for a string of shows last year), when asked he states clearly, “There definitely isn’t going to be any more Theory stuff.” On “This City Dies Tonight,” one of the most affecting tracks on his debut solo album Bird in the Tangle, Detar sings “My story is written and it ain’t written well.” Speaking to him over the phone, one gets the feeling that, with this record, he’s beginning a second chapter of that story, if not a second draft.
Detar was born in western Pennsylvania and formed his first band while in high school.
“I was like a lot of kids in small towns,” he says, “I really didn’t fit in with the world and I was trying to find my place. At some point I remember listening to an Iron Maiden record and hearing these guitars and thinking ‘I need to play guitar. I have to play music.'”
After playing in several bands in high school and attending college for half a semester, Detar dropped out to join the metal band Zao, with whom he recorded one album- 1998’s Where Blood and Fire Bring Rest– before leaving the group.
“[After Zao] I started a side-project joke band with my friends,” he says, “Our goal was to do a three-song demo tape and the band was called The Juliana Theory. We ended up touring for, like, 10 years full-time and released a number of records.”
Yet somewhere along the Juliana Theory’s road to success, Detar lost his passion for rock and roll.
“It was about eight or nine years ago,” he says, “and- I feel like this is a cliched answer, but it’s true- a friend of mine put on Johnny Cash’s Live at San Quentin. I’d never heard it before and, for whatever reason, something about the starkness of his voice paired with such small instrumentation and the complete overwhelming power he had. I literally felt my world stop.”
“I remember my buddy and I, when we were really young,” he continues, “would listen to Springsteen and John Denver, things like that. But I was never really exposed to people like George Jones or Townes Van Zandt. I guess Cash was sort of my gateway drug and then I got into Loretta Lynn. From there it snowballed into Gram Parsons, Townes, Ernest Tubb, Steve Earle, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon, Guy Clark, The Louvin Brothers, Dolly and Porter, Tammy and George, all of that stuff… It seems like such an insignificant thing, you know? ‘I’m gonna put a CD in the CD player.’ But I can literally say that that happening changed my life… I just went on a rampage of old country music and for about a five or six year period, I didn’t listen to any rock at all.”
This obviously wasn’t conductive to fronting an up-and-coming rock band and Detar readily admits that his shifting musical tastes may have played a part in the breakup of the Juliana Theory.
“I do think that had a little to do with it,” he says, “It got to the point where I didn’t have any passion for writing rock songs. We did our last record and I wasn’t excited about doing something with distorted guitars and progressive drums- not that I don’t appreciate that. I remember our last European tour. We were in a double-decker bus and I was cranking Waylon Jennings’ Greatest Hits and some of the guys coming down and being like, ‘Brett’s playing his music again.'”
In 2006, just months after releasing the album Deadbeat Sweetheartbeat, the Juliana Theory called it a day. Detar moved from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles, gave up on a career in music, and opened a vintage clothing store. He contributed to a friend’s album here and there, but for the most part he stayed off the radar as he quietly built up a cache of great tunes.
“I kind of got disillusioned with the music industry,” he says, “Not with music. I’ve always adored music, but I got burned out on a lot of things involving the business. I pretty much quit and gave up altogether. I told myself that I wasn’t a writer, that I wasn’t a musician…But throughout this whole time even though I didn’t really believe in myself, I was writing a lot of songs that ended up being on the record.”
The first of these songs, the aforementioned “This City Dies Tonight” is, in its recorded version, a pedal steel-heavy ballad featuring lovely harmony vocals courtesy of Shae Acopian Detar. But its origin is a bit more stark.
“I wrote that song the day my band decided to break up. We hadn’t announced it yet and we hadn’t told anybody, but we all knew it was over. I went to a show that night in Pittsburgh to see my friend’s band play and I was wrapped up in a lot of emotions. This band I’d put 10 years of my life into was done and I wrote the song that night, sitting there at the merch table.”
Like “This City Dies Tonight,” many of the songs on the record were written within a pool of deep emotion. For example, the opening track “Empty House on a Famous Hill,” was penned as Detar prepared to leave L.A.
“When I lived in Los Angeles originally three years ago- and I just moved back two weeks ago- it was a little bit of a trying time for me. I wasn’t doing what was always in my heart. I wasn’t making music. So I guess I lost myself for a bit. The day that I was moving away from L.A. I was sitting in my house- it was a hillside house that was completely empty- and I just sat and wrote the song. It kinda makes it seem like I hate L.A., even though I really love it for the most part. I kinda focused on what it had felt like for me in those couple of years and it was a bit of a confession about the less-then-positive experience I’d had.”
In a way, Detar’s story is one of personal triumph, of wrestling with and conquering personal demons. In a music industry where the word comeback is as overused as Auto-Tune, Detar has made a true comeback and started a new chapter of his career simply by rediscovering who he is.
“Without a doubt,” he says, “This record came out of the most painful time of my life. It wasn’t that there were any horrible tragedies or anything like that. It’s just that when you’re fighting to find yourself or you’ve lost who you are– it’s a weird thing to be on tour for 10 years with the same group of guys, to be on that roller-coaster constantly and then all of a sudden have that stop. I got out of high school and went on tour and into the studio. When that stopped suddenly, I lost a lot of my belief in myself and lost a lot of my confidence. I didn’t feel like me. So a lot of the record is based on that struggle to find myself again.”
Detar initially reached out to Peter Young, the longtime drummer for Loretta Lynn, and asked him about the possibility of recording an EP. After hearing Detar’s songs, Young assembled an excellent group of studio musicians and recorded the EP in his studio. However, Detar was so impressed with the final result that he decided to expand it to a full album.
Detar says that, although he wasn’t really concerned with what the old Juliana Theory fans would think when he was recording Bird in the Tangle, he has nevertheless been overwhelmed by the reception thus far.
“Truthfully, I’m surprised by how many old fans liked it,” he says, “I’ve had people e-mail me and say, ‘I’ve never listened to music with a banjo in it in my life and I didn’t want to, but I gave it a try because it’s you and now I’m going back and discovering some of the old stuff.’ So if I can help some people get into some cool music, then that’s awesome.”
Although it is available in a beautiful vinyl packaging, Detar has also decided to release the record as a free download.
“My record is free to download at brettdetar.com,” he explains, “You don’t have to do anything but give me your e-mail address and I’ll send you the record. I don’t want any money, I just want you to hear my album. If you don’t like it, it’s cool, but give it a chance. It’s free, so what have you got to lose?”
As for how he will follow up Bird in the Tangle, Detar says he already has a variety of projects in the works.
“I’ve just scored a movie that’s going to come out on Paramount,” he says, “and I think I’m going to do a little more composing. I also have a project in the works with a friend that’s completely different from anything I’ve done in the past. But honestly, I can’t see myself not continuing to make records like Bird in the Tangle. In fact I already have another album pretty much written. I can see myself being 65 and still making this type of record.”
Photographs by Shae Acopian Detar