Thomas Trimble (vocals, guitar)
David Feeny (pedal steel, guitar, backing vocals, keyboards)
Garth Girard (upright bass, electric bass, backing vocals)
Alex Trajano (drums)

Since its inception in the late nineties, American Mars has been a musical anomaly in their hometown of Detroit. In a town often passed over by touring Americana acts and dominated by garage and punk, the band has persevered for nearly a decade with its unique brand of atmospheric roots-influenced rock. The band’s latest record, Western Sides (2008), was released on Gangplank Records (Blanche, Friendly Foes, LaSalle).

American Mars’ 2003 release, No City Fun, combined indie-rock elements with Eno/Lanois-influenced soundscapes. Reviewers compared the band’s music to such diverse artists as Joe Henry, the Dream Syndicate, Tom Petty, and Blue Nile while their emotional and cathartic live shows earned them support slots for The National, Clem Snide, Elbow, Magnolia Electric Company, and 16 Horsepower.

On Western Sides, American Mars embraces a more direct approach to both songwriting and its sense of theme and place. The record covers ample ground on its 11 songs, from the lonesome grace of “Long Walk Home,” to the cutting defiance of “Democracity,” but under the direction of the band’s pedal steel player and producer David Feeny (Blanche, Loretta Lynn, The White Stripes), the band’s ranging impulses are brought together to create something more than the sum of its songs.

“On No City Fun,” says Feeny, “we built the record inside-out, starting with just the skeleton of voice, guitar, and pedal steel and then shuttling in friends and found sounds to flesh it all out. Western Sides was approached as a band. The sessions were done in small doses of two or three songs cut live, which gave us the ability to work out all the emotions of the songs on the spot. The devils are in the details.”

Lyrically, Western Sides finds singer/songwriter Thomas Trimble exploring the themes of fidelity, fear, and desire through the eyes of characters wrestling with the baffling extremes of everyday life. “I’ve always been interested in lyrics that find mystery in the everyday like ‘Norwegian Wood,’ or ‘You Still Believe in Me,’ from Pet Sounds,” says Trimble. “Most pop songs I hear today just sound so unbelievable but I realize that at the end of day we all want songs to take us somewhere outside ourselves so that’s what I was going for with a lot of the lyrics on this record.”

If Western Sides is the sound of a band exploring new ground, part of the explanation may be found in the personal journey its members had to make getting there. Recording for the record began in the fall of 2003 on the heels of the band’s shows in support of No City Fun and their appearance at South by Southwest. Sessions halted in early 2004, however, when bassist Garth Girard was diagnosed with colon cancer. As a result, the band’s attention turned to assisting Garth and his family through his surgery, treatment and recovery. Band members David Feeny and Thomas Trimble helped raise over $2500 for Garth’s family by running in Detroit’s annual marathon and the band added a page to its website where friends and fans could post their well-wishes. Garth was given a clean bill of health in 2006, and the band soon returned to writing and recording material with a renewed sense of mission and appreciation for each other and their music.

“Western Sides,” says Trimble, “is about more than proving to ourselves that we could still make music that we wanted to hear or that made us better people. It’s also about strength, commitment, and the sheer stubbornness of survival, be that physical, emotional, or spiritual. In that respect this record is as much for us as it is for the people who have followed us over the years. We really feel like we’re in this together.”

Discography
Late (1997), No City Fun (2003), Western Sides (2008)

 

Press

“There are, in fact, twin guitars in American Mars, but not the kind you’d expect from a Motor City act. Instead, guitarist/vox Thomas Trimble muses darkly over cold hearts and a cold heartland while producer/pedal steel player David Feeny adds twinkling touches. “-The Austin Chronicle

“…atmospheric heartland roots rock that romps like Ryan Adams and ruminates like Joe Henry.” – Harp Magazine

 “…Western Sides doesn’t aim to sound downbeat so much as honest about the long odds of life and love in the industrial Midwest, and the songs are built around hooks that manage the neat trick of creating a world of heartache that you can whistle along with in the car.” – All Music

 “Western Sides is an explosion of a different kind of pent-up experience – that is, the everyday kind made up of the growth, death, boredom, discovery and everything else that falls between those low-key ecstasies and decay that make up an ordinary life.” – Detroit Metro Times

“A dynamic and studied work from Detroit-based American Mars with first rate songs from the band and exceptional production” – Freight Train Boogie

 “American Mars, during the years between recordings, has become a leaner, more confusing, and profound rock & roll band by aiming for the lyrical places where only ghosts dare to whisper and the musical spaces where past, present, and future bleed into one another as the timelessness of one endless twilight sky.”-Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

 “American Mars’ No City Fun is a pedal steel-laden, song-driven disc rich with gentle sadness, melodic acumen and knotty wordplay whose reference points fall somewhere between Yo La Tengo, Calexico and the Flying Burrito Brothers. In a just world, American Mars would be huge.-Brian Smith, Detroit Metro Times

 “Living on the hard edge of Americana, drawing well-crafted emotional vignettes in chiaroscuro, looking at familiar things through the eyes of a stranger.”-Karen Koski, Billboard 

“A sense of haunting floats throughout No City Fun, the second album for the revered Detroit ensemble. It’s a sort of unearthly heartland rock…just in time to call it one of the best albums of 2001.”-Brian McCollum, Detroit Free Press