"I think in the South, we have a tendency to try to be very polite," says Lee Bains III. "Sometimes at the expense of saying what we really feel."
It's into that climate that the Alabama-born Bains emerged with his band, The Glory Fires — but their new full-length, Dereconstructed (released on Sub Pop), is anything but polite, and puts an unexpected spin on Southern rock. Bains is unapologetically progressive in terms of politics, and the band's music bridges the gap between Skynyrd and punk rock. It makes for an unexpected listen: riffs straight out of the Southern-rock playbook, with lyrics questioning aspects of Southern culture, from the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow to widespread religious intolerance. It's straightforward and honest, and as a Southerner, it made Bains a bit uneasy.
"I have a friend who I share my writing with all the time," Bains says. "And when I wrote this record, I was nervous about even sharing it with him." But, while it might have been easier to lay the politics aside and make a party-rock record, he says the route he took was simply honest.
On Dereconstructed — a telling and loaded title alluding both to the politics of the post-war South and to literary theory — Bains attempts a difficult task: determining which Southern values to carry with him, and which to discard.
There's a spirit of rebellion on the record that recalls outlaw country; on the title track, Bains sings, "They wanted meth labs and mobile homes / They wanted moonlight and magnolias / We gave them songs about taking your own damn stand / In spite of those who'd define and control you." But earlier in the same song, he recalls: "We were whooped with the Good Book / Wound up shamed, sorry and worse."
Christianity is a topic of special concern to Bains; he was brought up in the church like so many in the South, went through a period of questioning, and settled into a revised version of religion. "I'd still call myself a Christian," Bains says. "But what that means to me now is very different from what it meant growing up."
Seven of the 10 tracks on Dereconstructed mention Christianity or Christian themes and images explicitly. Pilate makes an appearance on track one; the song "What's Good and Gone" starts, "In the beginning was the Word and the small naked Earth heard it." Biblical imagery is part of Bains' milieu, and throughout the record he brings us into his world time and again. But he's not Pat Robertson or Joel Osteen, flaunting his piety for us to admire; he's Flannery O'Connor, quietly allowing his religion to inform his work.
For a Bible-belt dweller, Bains also shows courage in privileging God over country, rather than equating the two. "And, when it would come time to say the Pledge in class, I would sit my ass down at that desk," he sings on one song, "And the only words I'd say were ‘under God.' I figured we were beyond the help of anyone else."
That song "Flags," begins with a reference to the tendency of Southerners to still raise the Confederate flag, but quickly turns to questioning the way flags of all types — American and otherwise — affect ideology. Now we're a long way from Skynyrd.
It's not all politics, though; Bains, while questioning certain aspects of Southern life and thought, takes time to write sweet anthems to his home. "The Weeds Downtown" is a perfect, ambivalent ode to Birmingham: "I know that Birmingham gets you down / And I guess that makes sense," Bains begins, "When so many old friends retired, / If not expired, by the time we were 23." He goes on to point out that, while things aren't perfect, there's also beauty that's unique to the region: "Paris and New York don't have honeysuckle vines like grow on 32nd Street."
Weeds and wildflowers are some of Bains' chief signifiers of the South, and play into his vision of a balance of urban and rural — several times throughout Dereconstructed, he notes how flowers and weeds grow amid urban development. At first glance it feels like Bains is showing off a degree in the natural sciences or something; it's a safe bet to say there won't be another rock record this year with as many references to specific types of flowers. "I don't have a background in botany, no," he says with a laugh. "My grandmother was into that kind of stuff, so maybe I got that from her."
But more than just a laundry list of wild plants, Bains is presenting a theory on mixing the best of different worlds: Sweet-smelling flowers growing free in the city also allude to traditional Southern values like independence and individual rights running through a broader social context that's more friendly to minorities, and less politically oppressive.
It's a complicated task that Bains has taken on, but he's met it with care, poetic vision and straight-up rock 'n' roll on Dereconstructed, one of the most thoughtful rock entries so far this year. Not everyone will agree with everything Lee Bains III has to say, but, especially in the context of Southern rock, that's what makes it all the more worth saying.