Developing The Habit

The members of the Habit love a good story. The Brooklyn quintet is known for drawing inspiration from nineteenth-century cowboy ballads to current punk and hip-hop. They also love telling stories. Of the five musicians, four share lead vocal duties and all enjoy talking about their musical roots.

In a recent performance at 17 Frost Space, the Habit did a set of original songs from their debut EP and covers highlighting their tremendous respect for roots music. Many of the tunes’ lyrics are from the Lomax collection – a massive catalog of American folk songs and stories assembled by John and Alan Lomax in the 1930s. Among them were the blistering “The Habit” and “Bow Down Your Head”, a harrowing continuation of an anonymous poem from 1850 entitled “Blood on the Saddle”. But it’s not all doom and gloom. One of their original songs, “What Are They Doing in Heaven Today?” is infectiously upbeat pop meditation on the afterlife packed with hooks and a rousing chorus.

In many ways, the Habit is the quintessential Brooklyn band. It seems that only this borough could have produced a group of such disparate backgrounds linked by a love for American music. Although some have classified the Habit as cowpunk (a subgenre of punk rock associated with alternative country) and part of Brooklyn’s country resurgence, their music is far too subtle and varied to pigeonhole.

The band grew out of what was originally intended as a single recording project between indie/punk guitarist Willie Croxton and country/folk guitarist Brian Mendes. When the two musicians began to talk about the Lomax catalog of folk songs, they quickly found themselves devoting more study to traditional Americana and past masters like Gram Parsons, the Carter family and Jimmy Rogers (just to name a few). The group expanded to include country/folk keyboardist Siobhan Glennon, indie/avant jazz bassist Eli Thomas and hardcore punk/metal drummer James Pelletier. While the Habit may use country harmonies and lyrics from cowboy poems, their sound is primal and savage. Croxton is a magnificent screamer. Pelletier’s drum playing is a ferocious complement to Thomas’s locomotive bass lines and the guitar playing is feral. And yet the music has its softer aspects. Both Mendes’s and Gleenon’s vocals glow with the dark-eyed melancholy of the Old West. Though the imagery of their lyrics is sometimes brutal and gothic, there is always a sad honest compassion. Their tunes aren’t all about the past either. The title of “Son of the Desert Am I” is taken from a late 1700’s song, but the lyrics are about present-day Iraq.

You can catch the Habit and many new artists every Sunday evening at 17 Frost Space’s weekly Open Mic (7pm to 11pm). The admission is free and there is no charge to perform. More about the Habit can be found at www.reeltoreelrecords.com.