Petticoat, Petticoat--What's In A Name?

Kentucky music. Okay, let’s stop right there. What just came into your mind? Banjos? Upright basses? Ungodly beards with straw hats and gap-toothed smiles? Country music, right? And if you’re really out of touch, there might even be a cowboy hoedown in that little mental image of yours, too.

Time to burst your bubble. If you haven’t noticed, there are more quality bands – rock bands, indie bands, alternative bands, folk bands – crawling out of Lexington, Kentucky than could fit in a 10-gallon hat.

One of the groups that are quietly making a loud splash in the Kentucky scene and are reaching their collective musical arms further and further out-of-state as well is Petticoat, Petticoat. The five-piece has just finished their biggest show at Midwest Music Summit at the conclusion of their national tour supporting their debut album Every Mother’s Child. All this, and the band is less than one year old. Well, not really.

“All of Petticoat has lived in Lexington their entire lives. I think, except for me,” recalls frontman Dickie Haydon, “I moved here when I was 4.” Because of this almost-lifelong exposure to the city, Lexington is one of the biggest parts of their music. “Our biggest muse is Lexington, and our love for the city and everyone we know comes through in our writing. It’s a key part of our songs.”

And that’s an understatement. Songs such as “Redevelop,” “China Plate,” and “Love in an Alley” all contain strong messages of the safety and comfort that home gives. “Where I stand is where I’ll make our home / We’ll watch the people below redevelop and grow / In the neighborhoods that we knew so long ago,” Haydon sings in “Redevelop.”

“[We] all grew up on the same street. We started playing together when we were about 12 or 13,” and from there the origins of Petticoat, Petticoat were formed, Haydon says. Their first unnamed band lasted until high school, when an original band member named Ryan moved off to Florida, leaving Dickie to start Petticoat. Sort of. “The way I usually explain this to people is Petticoat was the name of a completely different band, we just kept the same name. It was just about playing as much as we could and having a good time. We weren’t really trying to go anywhere with it.”

Picking up a keyboardist along the way, this prototype Petticoat was a total pop band, gradually melting into an experimental outfit, finally culminating into the well polished band that exists today. Would they ever change the name then? “We’re upbeat and poppy and not very extreme on any levels. I think it fits now. It’s complicated,” Haydon says with a laugh. “But the name was on our shirts, our Web site … it would just be too much trouble to change it.”

So what is Petticoat today? It certainly can’t be summed up in simple throwaway descriptions like the earlier Petticoats. It’s ethereal green, the sound of that perfect summer in your mind that exemplifies everything that is youthful and perfect. That unattainable memory that is both wonderful and tainted with dark edges, knowing you can never go back to that. Such is Every Mother’s Child, beautiful, light and airy acoustic instrumentals that are perfectly wrapped around Haydon and Kristin Messina’s haunting voices. So, just what is it? Folk? Lo-fi? Just their own brand of indie? Dare I say it, country?

“No offense,” says Haydon, “but people from Illinois don’t know country as well as we do. I’d say blues rock.” It may be up for dispute just what their music can be defined as, but that’s part of their brilliance. It’s up to you, which puts their music on a very personal level with your ears. It isn’t surprising to feel a personal touch coming out of their music; afterall, music is personal to them.

“Music is in my family,” remembers Haydon, “My dad was a musician all throughout his teenage years, up until he was 30. My uncle is a professional pianist. I grew up around it.”

Growing up would lead to his childhood friends becoming bandmates, and in Messina’s case, sweethearts. And from there, they were off to college. “It was just the logical choice to go to college ya know?” So now Haydon, an education major; Messina, an art major; and the other bandmates, two English majors and an engineer tour in summers, when school is out. The touring will continue if Haydon goes into teaching. “I would drop teaching for music in a heartbeat. Without a doubt,” Haydon assures.

So there was Petticoat, freshly supplied with some new members, just last October, when along came Matt Sparks and Rob McGregor, otherwise known as Kalmia Records. “They’re cool guys,” remembers Haydon, “It wasn’t like a big impersonal meeting with the briefcase, it was just like, ‘Hey, we want to put out your record,’ and we were just like, ‘Cool.’” The fittingly Lexington-based label agreed to put out one record from Petticoat, and that record was Every Mother’s Child.

In January of 2006 the band started tracking with producer John Vice. “He was the real brains behind everything, he became really like our mentor and our guide.” With the experienced Vice behind the controls, the album was cranked out by April. The experience was totally new for the band. “The only other experience we had with recording was on our own in our practice studio with this little 16-track. We were able to be there and be comfortable and not worry.”

Despite minimal distribution, the album has been selling out every venue Petticoat has played at, and is receiving rave reviews.

“It’s like having a baby, like having a kid, not that I have any experience in that. You put all that effort into it, all that work, and it comes out and it’s there and everybody can see and there’s nothing you can really do about it. I’m totally satisfied.”

From there it was touring around the Midwest in not a van, but a pickup truck. “This is going to sound very ghetto and amateur, which is what we are, but we just took a camper top and put it over the pickup bed.” No joke.

What’s next? School mainly. Maybe a tour come winter break, hopefully farther than they’ve been before. But for now, Petticoat will be satisfied playing the local scene, and going on holiday. And Haydon wouldn’t trade it for the world.

“It’s stories and experiences that I’ll have for the rest of my life. When you’re little and people are like, ‘You have to find the one thing you want to do for the rest of your life,’ music is that for me. I would be completely fine if we never went anywhere, and were confined to playing small places and touring regionally, that would be good enough. The one thing that keeps me going when I started playing music 7 or 8 years ago is that every year it’s progressed, something better has happened. If I could make this my full-time job and just play music, then I’ll be a 60-year-old playing music, maybe it will be Petticoat, maybe not.

“Maybe we’ll change our name by then.”

(Published at Sonic Reverie)

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