John Andre Herrmann

"Herrmann's voice is soulful and without pretense.  His words - poetry set to melody - are introspective yet universal.  The songs are haunting in a way that a phrase stays with you.  They convey emotion without being maudlin." -- Jacqueline Johnson, Billings Gazette

"It's lighter than Blues, heavier than Pop, nowhere near Jazz and way beyond Rock." -- Dan Herrmann, Chief Engineer, Hurricane Oil

By Scott Prinzing, The Billings Outpost / Sept. 2000
I've thought about it for 24 hours now and I'm prepared to make the following statement: The John Herrmann Trio's gig last Friday at Club Carlin was the best show of the summer.  That's right, I am calling it like it is.  John Herrmann of Red Lodge, his percussionist extraordinaire Clay Green and their sidekick "Scratch Pad" pulled out all the stops and left people calling for more, resulting in a five-song encore.

It took a while for Radar to even begin to like it. In fact, I don’t think he left liking Dan Hicks at all. Oh well, I saw Michael J. Kersey there enjoying the show. He was completely sweet and polite. Jamie Leopold, one of my favorite Portland people was sitting back stage with Dan enjoying the event. Jamie has seen it all and obviously loves Dan Hicks very much, they both seemed very amused with the venue and the fantastic turnout. Anyway, I like this John Andre Herrmann guy. He took Dan Hicks’ mimicking like a gentleman. I love the "bad" boys of our musical world like Dan Hicks/Jeffrey Fredricks/Steve Weber/Brian Jonestown Massacre, but John Andre Herrmann is very sincere, a good singer and is sexy like you wouldn’t believe. Especially for a bald guy. Man, oh man, take me to see John Andre Herrmann again and I will be singing "Why be anyone else…see all you can see c’mon angels see all you can see love all you can love try all you can try c’mon babies try all you can try live all you can live". Elephant Country is available for purchase at Amazon.com, MP3.com and Riffage.com.

Review by Jason Kintzler, Editor-in-chief, The Retort, MSU-Billings:
While in Red Lodge last weekend, I came across a poster advertising "An acoustic Afternoon" at the Roman Theater.  Being a fan of acoustic music, and needing to be entertained, I decided to check it out. Among the performers was local talent, John Herrmann.  I'd honestly never heard of him prior, and am now ashamed to admit it. He was phenomenal and so was his show, combining great lyrics with witty jokes and smooth sounds he won the hearts of the audience. The historic Roman Theater provided the perfect setting for John and his sidekick of sorts, Clay Green, who accompanied John on percussion and guitar. The two put on a display of acoustic excellence as they went "unplugged," with only the microphone to amplify John's already powerful voice. The Red Lodge locals loved him and so did I.

After the concert, I picked up his latest CD titled Elephant Country. I haven't been able to leave it in one spot, yet. From my car, to my apartment, to my office it goes where I go. I think I need three. Never has a CD affected me, or should I say infected me, in such a powerful way.  The sounds are plentiful, Clay accompanies John with instruments most people have never heard of, instruments from all over the world. Clay could communicate in any language, a message unique to only the words of John Herrmann.   John's lyrics are from somewhere deep inside all of us. He speaks to your soul in poetic harmony. He wrote and arranged all of the songs on this album, as well.

His diction is unique, it's exaggerated, catchy, and keeps you listening.  There's a quality to John's music that pop artists today can't emulate. A quality found in most classical music, there's something hidden, something that makes you want to hear it again, and again.
I haven't been able to find a favorite song. I listen to this CD from start to finish. The only downfall was there's only eight songs on the CD. I'm left yearning for more, more songs, each distinct from the rest, yet deeply connected.

If you want something far from mainstream, with something for only you, buy Elephant Country.

Review by Jim Coates, Montana Free Press:
It's extremely difficult to put a label on the music and sound of John Herrmann and Clay Green of Billings.  The closest I can come is to coin one: New World Music.   Behind the haunting metaphorically transcendent lyrics of Herrmann lays the delicate partnership of John's instrumentations and vocals and Clay's fantastic array of percussion instruments from around the world.  The duo has woven a tapestry that represents the best of many genres - from rock to folk to new age to world music.

John and Clay have indeed created a new world of musical experience that cuts across generations and musical tastes.  Concerts attract adherents from the ranks of the retired to big brimmed cowboys to little children who have fallen in love with the charms of John and his playful sparkling eyes.  Clay provides the perfect partner with his quiet dry humor and innovative use of spangles and wrinkles in time.  You'll become a devout resident of the new world music of John Herrmann and Clay Green.

Review by Ed Kemmick - Billings Gazette
Musically and lyrically, John Herrmann is elusive.  On his new CD, "Elephant Country," the singer, songwriter and guitarist from Red Lodge creates music that is somehow dense and minimalist at the same time, and lyrics that pull back at the brink of saying too much.

That rich simplicity is particularly evident on "Sky Blue," which opens with the deep, slow groan of a didjeridoo, played by Herrmann, and moves into lyrics whose lightheartedness only magnifies their longing: "the sky/ain't so blue/since I waltzed/out on you/and the moon don't seem so bright/it's more like cheese/mistakes/made a few/right or wrong is a /point of view/this only makes me want you/more..."

The song fades out to the drone of the didjeridoo, heard beneath Herrmann's guitar and Clay Green's world-music percussion, which on this song includes a tuned wind chime.   Floating around the edges is Ken Nelson on the piano.  He seems to be turning the song over in his mind, exploring its possibilities, then throwing off whimsical little frills and riffs suggested by the tune.

The CD is full of such delights, and half the fun is just trying to figure out exactly what you're hearing.  Green, who lives in Billings and has collaborated with Herrmann for several years, uses dozens of percussion instruments to establish a distinct sonic atmosphere for each song.  His arsenal includes a variety of African drums, finger sticks, chimes, bells, rain sticks, shakers, triangles, traditional drums and a gong.

On "Sothisis," Green plays what is described as a "water gong."   As Herrmann explains it, Green struck the gong and then lowered it, still vibrating, into a bathtub filled with water. For the opening of "Sky Blue," Herrmann stretched a microphone outside the Helena studio where most of the album was made and recorded a summer thunderstorm.

Almost every song on "Elephant Country" resulted from musical discoveries and spontaneous innovations, creating a fascinating, layered complexity.  This is an album that repays repeated listenings, and it almost demands that you listen to it with headphones.

After hearing Herrmann's life, one is not surprised to learn that he is willing to embark on musical adventures.  His parents were born in West Virginia, but his father's job as a research geologist took Herrmann's family all over the world.

Herrmann lived in Australia until he was 5, and at 10 he moved from the relative serenity of Casper, Wyo., to the bewildering metropolis of Bogota, Colombia.  He also lived in Paraguay before attending nine months of junior high school in Billings, graduating from high school in Indonesia.

From Indonesia he went to work as a sandblaster in Borneo, played some music in the States and then, intending to take the long way back to Australia, hooked up with various musicians in Europe and ended up staying for four years.  He and Polish keyboard player Robert Usewicz released an instrumental album that sold 50,000 copies in Poland before putting together All Quiet, a five-piece band.

All Quiet toured Europe and put out one CD, but drugs and other indulgences ran the band into the ground after 2 years.  Herrmann took off in 1994, leaving behind his band, and, as he thought, his musical career.  As much fun as he'd had, Herrmann said, he started thinking that perhaps it was time to follow his two brothers and a sister, all of them successful professionals.

"I went to Australia thinking I wouldn't have anything to do with music," he said.  "I was through with it."  But music evidently wasn't through with him, and when he moved to Billings later in 1994, he started performing again, this time by himself, with an acoustic guitar.  He moved to Red Lodge about a year and a half ago and has been devoting himself almost exclusively to music since starting to work on his CD two years ago.

Even so, Herrmann remains ambivalent about performing for a living.  "I've given up trying to quit," he said.  "I guess when you do that, things go easier."  That self-effacing attitude is evident on "Elephant Country."  As in his live performances, Herrmann maintains a wry, slightly cracked perspective, tossing off bits of music and occasionally assuming an exaggerated diction or accent.

But he can be moving, too, as on the CD's title track, where he sings of his late father's life, and the wanderings of the Herrmann family.  On "Re: Joyce," Herrmann soothes the grief of a woman suffering losses with sympathy and stirrings of hope: "there's nothing I could say/not much I could do/it happened to you Joyce/and me angel too/one day you'll cry/I tell you one day you'll weep/the angels that surround you Joyce/will spring flowers at your feet."

On "Marrach Rong" (Gaelic for "Enchanted Life"), Herrmann opens the song whistling, accompanied only by himself on the mandolin.  It is a sweet, wistful song, an Irish waltz that sounds as though it might have wintered in Greece or southern Italy.  It ends with Herrmann's mandolin again, and the drifting strains of James Poulson's dobro.

Other musicians on the album include Susan Hutcherson on violin, Fred Brush on double bass, Melinda Payne on cello, Barry Fleming on harmonica, Clare Duvoir on pizzicato violin, Clain McDermuht on bagpipes and David Weyre on piano on one track.  Nelson, the pianist on the other songs, also plays fretless bass, double bass and organ on the CD.

"I love it," Herrmann said.  "I love being surrounded by talented musicians."  In fact, he said, when he imagines striking it rich, he likes to think about how much help he could give to all the talented people, all the starving artists, he's been inspired by over the years.

But Herrmann, who still does some carpentry to get by, will settle for less than riches.  "If I could make a comfortable living at this, it would be a dream come true," he said.

Review by David Crisp - The Billings Outpost
"Elephant Country" takes big, earthshaking steps.  John Herrmann of Red Lodge wrote and arranged all the songs for the new CD, which was recorded in Helena and Laurel.  He writes with a sure hand, sings with good grace, and gets ample assistance form other area musicians.

In short, "Elephant Country" is everything one could hope for.  Mr. Herrmann is an accomplished musician, who opened for Greg Brown at a benefit in Red Lodge.   When Mr. Brown invited him on stage for an encore duet, he looked like the most delighted human being on the planet.

He still seems delighted on "Elephant Country," an album of eight songs written between 1994 and 1997.  That's not because the songs are happy; they are mostly serious, even somber.  The delight shows in the depth of themes and the breadth of the instrumentation.  We get the feeling Mr. Herrmann is enjoying himself, and that he wants us to enjoy ourselves, too.

So we get sounds from all over: didjeridoo, windchimes, bongs, bells, rainsticks, gongs, wooden shakers - and that's just the conventional stuff.  On "Sky Blue" we also get a thunderstorm, and on "My Merry Go Round" we get whistling, a brief rap intro, and, according to the liner notes, a crash provided by "bad drivers."

This could easily be too much, but Mr. Herrmann keeps everything well in hand.   The parts all fit together, and if the sounds are occasionally exotic, they are also timeless and fitting.

As with many songwriters, Mr. Herrmann's songs seem to say more than the lyrics suggest.  "Elephant Country" itself remains a mystery, just as it was when he played it at the Greg Brown performance.  The song combines African scenes we've all pictured - "bloated children by the side of the road" - with less concrete images; "but the poison's in us all."  It's an odd but compelling tune, and it serves as the album's centerpiece.

Elsewhere, Mr. Herrmann is purely lyrical.  The sweet melody of "Marrach Rong" belies darker images: "One day you're a baby afloat in your tears, the next day your children have grown".  The musicians cut loose on "My Merry Go Round," a departure from the album's mostly mellow sounds: "My house is haunted; there's a downstairs full of sin; there's a family of skeletons in my bedroom moving in."

...It's worth a listen.  Mr. Herrmann and his colleagues have created a sound that is all their own, yet familiar and haunting.  For information about ordering "Elephant Country" go to www.elephantcountry.com, a website that is otherwise still under construction.