Album Review: Fill Yer Boots

Title:  Fill Yer Boots (BandCamp)

Artist:  Johnny Badseed and the Rotten Apples (Facebook, BandCamp, ReverbNation, Musicpage)  

Johnny Badseed and the Rotten Apples is an alt country band from Tulsa, OK with snotty vocals, a mandolin, and (at times) stand-up bass.  The end result is the sound of a traditional country band fronted by a punk rocker that learned how to sing listening to The Sex Pistols.  Country and punk have been woven together many times over the years with everything from the alt country of acts like Uncle Tupelo, Drag the River, and Lucero to the cow-punk of acts like Custom Made Scare to the entire sub-genre of psychobilly to bands like The Staggers that don’t really fit into any of the aforementioned groups.  What Johnny Badseed and the Rotten Apples does differently is how distinctly opposed the elements that they have mixed together are.  About the closest thing I can think to compare this band’s sound to is the Jello Biafra and Mojo Nixon collaboration album Prairie Home Invasion.  Lyrically Fill Yer Boots has little to nothing in common with the Biafra/Nixon record, but sonically it does have that same combination of drastically punk rock vocals with traditional country music.  In fact, musically Fell Yer Boots is probably more distinctive than Prairie Home Invasion. 

Johnny Badseed and the Rotten Apples have done something that doesn’t often happen; they created a record with a very unique sound that shows an inventive blending of genres and elements.  I can’t wait to see what these guys come up with next.