Ronnie Fauss’ Built To Break Out On November 4th

RONNIE FAUSS FUSES COUNTRY-FOLK VIBE AND ROCK SPIRIT ON BUILT TO BREAK, RELEASING NOV. 4 ON NEW WEST’S NORMALTOWN IMPRINT

Built to Break features guest vocals
by Old 97’s frontman Rhett Miller on “Eighteen Wheels”
and a surprising cover of Phosphorescent’s “Song for Zula”

Ask a hundred singer-songwriters when they got serious about making music, and almost all will say the passion possessed them while they were still kids, or maybe in college, or after an attempt to hold their first “real” job. But Ronnie Fauss’ musical path is the exact opposite of conventional: He didn’t fully embrace songwriting until after his first child was born. And the working professional didn’t start sharing his songs with the world — much less consider “troubadour” as a viable option — until a few years after that. He didn’t even start singing until he realized it was the only way to give his songs exposure.

All of which makes his association with New West imprint Normaltown Records even more impressive. Fauss’ second album for the label, Built to Break, releases Nov. 4; it follows his well-received 2012 label debut, I Am the Man You Know I’m Not. To say this is a more rapid than normal trajectory is such understatement, we hope it doesn’t inspire 99 jealous fits.
As for sharing the same label umbrella as John Hiatt, Steve Earle and some of his other biggest influences, Fauss says the notion never even occurred to him back when he first started playing in public.

“It’s literally just one of those old-school stories you don’t hear anymore,” says Fauss of his evolution from self-releasing EPs to recording for a label he’s idolized. A Dallas resident born in Oklahoma but raised in Houston, Fauss happened to be playing at Houston’s Cactus Music when New West/Normaltown owner George Fontaine Sr., a fellow Houstonian, heard him.

“We met and just connected and became friends. It really happened that organically,” Fauss says. But he earned his contract by crafting strong songs with an appealing, folk-tinged country-rock sound that owes as much to Whiskeytown and Old 97’s, his Dallas homeboys, as it does the Cali country of Laurel Canyon and the spirits of Townes and Gram. Or the influences of Earle, Hiatt or two other heroes, Guy Clark and John Prine.
In fact, Old 97’s frontman Rhett Miller even lends his voice to “Eighteen Wheels,” a raucous honky-tonkin’ road song that would serve as a perfect companion on any trip.
Like I Am the Man You Know I’m Not, Fauss tracked Built to Break mostly in Nashville. Both were produced by drummer/percussionist Sigurdur Birkis.

“We made a conscious decision to make this record a little more rock ’n’ roll and a little bit less country,” Fauss says of their work. “We wanted the loud songs to be really loud, and the quiet songs to be really quiet. And we wanted the one country song, ‘Never Gonna Last,’ to be really country.”

That ear-catching melody features fiddle, resonator and the gorgeous voice of Austin-to-Nashville émigré Jenna Paulette. The song contains a fine example of Fauss’ lyrical skill in the compact, yet so-astute line, “All we know about tomorrow is that it’s never gonna last.”
Though his lyrics often address life’s emotional tolls, he’s quick to assure songs such as “The Big Catch,” which examines divorce’s effects on a child, are not autobiographical.
“It’s an interesting thing to explain at home: ‘I’m really happy; we’re all good. This is just a song I wrote,’” he jokes. Then he adds thoughtfully, “I think there’s a little bit of truth and a little bit of fiction in every single one of my songs.”

Turning fiction and truth into stories that resonate with listeners is no small feat, but Fauss pulls it off on every Built to Break track. He’s particularly proud of “The Big Catch,” which he regards as the album’s emotional anchor. The kind of ballad Slaid Cleaves might have written, it features Eric Neal’s fiddle, Devin Malone’s pedal steel, and pretty harmonies by Camille Cortinas. She also accompanies him on the album’s only cover, Phosphorescent’s “Song for Zula.”

“It’s an incredibly gorgeous song, and I wanted to try to bring something a little bit unique to it,” he says.

It’s safe to say “unique” applies to the entire collection, from the Dylan-inspired “I’m Sorry Baby (That’s Just the Way It Goes),” to the song in which Fauss addresses actual country — as in countryside: the aptly titled “A Place Out in the Country.” But the twang in this sweet mid-tempo melody owes more to Jackson Browne’s neck of the woods than Texas or Tennessee.

Fauss wrote it after watching The Promise, about the making of Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town. Originally, he says, it was “a quiet little folk song.” Then he envisioned “a real Americana-type thing, with lots of pedal steel and harmonica.” But fate intervened, stranding Fauss on an airport tarmac. By the time he got to the studio, the band had worked out a twinned-guitar section instead. He was unsure — until he heard it.
“I just fell in love with it,” he says. That gave the song a third incarnation as a circa-70s Laurel Canyon throwback.

“I just allowed myself to get out my comfort zone, veer off into this different path, and I’m so happy I did,” Fauss says. That happened repeatedly during these sessions; Fauss cites “A Natural End” as another instance in which he thought he’d mapped out the song’s course, only to have Birkis point the compass in a new direction. “He said, ‘Take the third verse, turn it into a bridge, write a new melody and take out the guitar solo,’ and explained why. I said, ‘OK, I trust you. Let me give it a shot,’” Fauss recalls. That treatment boosts the momentum just enough to give the song a strong finish.

Fauss may have a fun-seeking, risk-taking streak, but he’s also a loving father. And even though he returned to songwriting to avoid being consumed by parenthood, that experience affected his creativity. He became more prolific, and the songs got stronger. “That finally gave me the confidence to say, “Maybe I should do something with this,” he explains.
Though his early, home-recorded EPs were popular, Fauss says even those, much less his label work, would not have seen the light of day had he not been convinced he had something solid to offer. “I’ve got this standard that I try to hold myself to,” he admits. “If it’s not something that I would listen to if somebody else did it, I’m not gonna put it out.”

That standard was put to the test on the album’s final track, “Come on Down.” Fauss rejected its first incarnation, done in full-band mode, because he believed the strings, accordion and electric guitar overloaded it. Birkis disagreed.

“While he went out for a break, I sat down and played it live with Sadler Vaden [Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit] on the 12-string guitar next to me,” Fauss says. That gave the beautiful ballad, an ode to the working class, the breathing room its thoughtful lyrics needed; the only addition was pedal steel. Another mix of fiction and experience, Fauss says, “It’s about a guy who works in a factory, which isn’t autobiographical. But at the same time, a lot of those sentiments are what I feel.” In the end, his character realizes, “This work will break our bodies but it only builds our souls.”

No, writing, recording and performing songs isn’t factory labor, but it still can be challenging. And even if Fauss’ rapid acceptance makes it seem like a breeze, he knows better than to take his good fortune for granted — which means laughing when it comes in the form of performance payments made entirely in $5 bills. Hey, if that’s troubadour life, Fauss can handle it. Because he’s not built to break.