Just shy of half a year since he left Chattanooga to make his mark on the music scene in Austin, Texas, Peewee Moore is back for a visit.
Moore, the former frontman of The Awful Dreadful Snakes and ex-Tennessee Rounder, left for Austin in January to bring his outlaw country and rockabilly stylings to the home of his heroes, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings.
So far, things have been working out well. Moore said he’s now touring in 16 markets throughout Texas after a rough start breaking into the saturated Austin scene.
“When you’re the new guy, it’s a pick-and-choose-type deal, so you’ve got to play what you can find and climb the ladder as fast as you can,” he said. “You just jump in there and do the best you can.
“It’s been a pretty rewarding move.”
Tuesday, Moore will return to the Scenic City to take the stage at JJ’s Bohemia as part of the 2010 American Outlaw Tour, his first set of dates outside Texas since moving there. He’ll round out his high-energy outlaw power trio with Dave Litrell, an Austin-based drummer, and Callum Houston, an upright bassist from the United Kingdom.
Since landing in Texas’ weirdest city, Moore said he’s been writing prolifically, penning more songs in six months than he had in the five years prior. Some of the material he’ll play at JJ’s has been debuted on tour and will be new to Chattanooga audiences, he said.
When he relocated, Moore said, he was concerned about being just another outlaw country artist in the area that gave birth to the genre.
Instead, it’s been surprising how narrow the field of twangy, hard-driving country artists is, he said.
“I thought it would be a tons of guys playing the same thing and that it’d be tough to break in to where these guys are,” he said. “I thought that would be more like Willie and Waylon, but it’s really not.
“It’s really modern-sounding stuff, and we definitely don’t do that.”
Online: Read a Q&A with PeeWee Moore.
IF YOU GO
* What: Singer/songwriter Peewee Moore.
* When: 10 p.m. Tuesday.
* Where: JJ’s Bohemia, 231 M.L. King Blvd.
* Admission: $5.
* Phone: 266-1400.
* Venue website: www.myspace.com/jjsbohemia.
WHAT’S NEXT
After his current tour, singer/songwriter Peewee Moore plans to begin work on his next album. He said he is in negotiations to have the as-yet-untitled project engineered by Jeff Coppage, who produced Moore’s last album as well as the albums of Moore’s last band, The Tennessee Rounders.
“At this point, we’re pretty much just knocking them down. We’re in full-tilt mode.”
– Peewee Moore, on how his tour is going
LINKS FOR WEB:
www.peeweemoore.com