Pete Keating has spent years moving through Pacific Northwest bands like The Dandelion Greens, Wild Man Cooley, and Coyote Band before landing on his current outfit, The Renslow Trestle, a Seattle collective rounded out by Jacob Brown on piano and organ, Harrison Keating on upright bass, Trevor Olohan on drums, Gavin Olohan on electric guitar, and a backing vocal trio of Debbie Cantwell, Marita Schott, and Baylor Burbidge. “Louder,” out July 3rd, was written after Keating met an older musician living with Multiple Sclerosis who’d refused to let the condition keep him from playing guitar, and Keating had the song finished within two days of that encounter. What came out of it is an empowerment anthem about pushing forward through life’s growing weight, regardless of age or obstacle.
That sense of hard-won conviction comes through clearly in the recording itself. This is a song that feels timeless, warm and inviting in tone, with a real sense of experience showing through in the dynamics of the performance, the kind of lived-in feel that’s hard to fake. Some of that comes down to how it was made: producer Eric Lilavois tracked Keating’s acoustic guitar and vocals live together at Seattle’s London Bridge Studios, the same room that captured records for Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Mother Love Bone, a choice that preserves the true phrasing and intention of a singer-songwriter performance rather than smoothing it out after the fact.
Drawing on influences that run from The Carter Family and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott through to Etta James and the Laurel Canyon storytelling tradition of the late 60s and early 70s, “Louder” fits comfortably into that lineage of Americana built on genuine personal experience rather than borrowed sentiment. Following a recent opening slot for Carl and Wes at Portland’s Kelly’s Olympian, this single makes a solid case for a band that’s clearly found its footing after years of Keating working through different musical partnerships to get here.
