Strap in, space cowboy! San Antonio psychonaut Garrett T. Capps is a Bad mofo. He makes cowboy kraut with his band NASA Country & also lots of Tex-Mex rock n' roll. He is San Antonio’s resident cosmic country gonzo honky-tonk weirdo freak. He is a national treasure in Holland. He can usually be found at The Lonesome Rose, the bar he owns in the city he was born in.
People Are Beautiful, the final installment of the “Shadows Trilogy”, was written in the early days of the pandemic, when the light at the end of the tunnel was very dim indeed and recorded in December 2020 at legendary border-town studio Sonic Ranch during peak uncertain times. And well, it’s only gotten weirder every day since then really, but NASA Country’s here to spread cosmic posi vibes, even if every sprint around the sun lands us in stranger territory…
From the jump People Are Beautiful sounds like dialing in to an alien wavelength, trans-dimensional frequency hiss being a major part of the album’s total feel. “Gettin’ Better” kicks things off with a jangly, feel-good two-stepper, punctuated by free-flow slipstream percussion and glimmering modular synth refractions.
The vibe gets darker and the mood gets heavier on standout track “Rip Out the Darkness,” where a chuggin’ swamp blues riff disintegrates into a deep-space spiral, Capps switching between full-octave falsetto and a hoarse yell. “It’s gettin’ weirder every day” he says somewhere in between, in this ripper about the 24-hour news cycle blues.
Elsewhere NASA Country revives the krautrock fiesta sound they’ve been kicking around for a few years now. “Time Will Tell” is built around a shimmering, retro-futuristic synth arpeggio that could have bedrocked an extended Neu! jam. The closing, title track is another nugget of Honky-tonk Kosmische, ending things with a brusque motorik shuffle.
Across People Are Beautiful’s eight tracks, NASA Country surfs gravitational waves of carefully shaped reverb & frame-rattling feedback, moving at different speeds at different times. No matter how out-there they get, though, Capps never fails to connect with the slightly-freaked-out wit and charm he’s become famous for in San Antone.
Alan Mercer: Garrett, I am so waiting for you to come to Fort Worth for a show.
Garrett T. Capps: One day we will play Fort Worth.
AM: When you do finally get here, I want to interview you again and take some photos of you and put you on the blog again.
GTC: Alright, thanks Alan.
AM: Let’s talk about your new album today and we will catch up on the rest of your career when I see you in person.
GTC: Right on!
AM: Your latest album is phenomenal, like all your albums really. I know this is the final chapter of a trilogy of albums and you put your band name in the title. Why did you decide to credit them in this release?
GTC: We really became a band in 2020. I initially started working with the guys in the band when I recorded my album, ‘In The Shadows Again.’ That came out in 2018. They play on that album, but I also have a bunch of guest artists. I didn’t know what was going to happen after we made the record, but we ended up staying together as a band playing shows and going on tour.
AM: When did you start taking it all seriously?
GTC: We really started rehearsing once a week in 2020 when everything was shut down and we had never done that before. It became a hang out where we would jam and write songs since we didn’t have any gigs to prepare for. After doing that for the year, we decided our big event would be to record a new record.
AM: I love how it led to a record.
GTC: We were coming up with ideas together and writing lyrics together and working out different song structures together and that’s what you hear on the ‘People Are Beautiful’ album. So, it felt like NASA Country needed to be included in the title. It’s a big part of our lives and the whole band put a lot into the album. There are no musical guests on the record. That’s a first album that I haven’t had any guests, it’s just the band.
AM: Did you know it would be a trilogy when you recorded the first of the three?
GTC: No, but the first time I went to Europe I came up with the concept. I went there with a bar band I put together when the ‘All Right All Night’ album came out and that’s when I decided I wanted to make it a trilogy because it seemed like a fun idea.
AM: Well, I love a fun idea!
GTC: So, I incorporated some space sounds and some of the NASA Country guys on ‘All Right All Night’ just to make it a trilogy just for the shit of it. There’s no extreme science. ‘In The Shadows Again’ starts with a song called ‘Born Into A Ballroom’ and ends with a song called ‘Trouble’s Calling’ and the end of ‘Troubles Calling’ has this long soundscape and within that soundscape is part of ‘Born Into A Ballroom.’
AM: What made you think about doing that?
GTC: I don’t know why we did that, but the trilogy idea spun off from that. It was some sort of epic idea. So, the first track on ‘All Right All Night’ starts off with sounds from ‘Trouble’s Calling,’ the last song on the album before and finally the first song on ‘People Are Beautiful’ starts off with sounds from the end of ‘All Right All Night.’ It’s a half-baked idea but anytime people remember that it’s a trilogy of albums I get a kick out of it.
AM: It works. I also notice how you like to record the same songs more than once with different arrangements and styles. Do you think you can do a better job, or do you want to hear a different sound or are you just into experimenting?
GTC: Yeah, I do like to re-record songs and I think the reason is all the above.
AM: I like what you do. It sets you apart from other artists. I love every version of ‘In The Shadows Again.’ I think you’ve recorded it 4 times.
GTC: Yeah, I think I have. I don’t think about that stuff when I’m doing it, but when I look back, I do say, there is that version. It takes a lot of time, effort, and resources to go into the studio, so I try to do all new stuff, but I do repeat myself. It seems like in Country music that is pretty normal, at least historically.
AM: Are you excited about being up for an Ameripolitan Award?
GTC: Yeah, I think it’s great. Other than just trying to make music I enjoy and play shows that I feel are successful and fun, I have a career trajectory in mind. Everyone does things differently. I’m trying to streamline my process. I feel like I am all over the place all the time. Whenever I work with a booking agent or a professional person of some kind, we have trouble trying to figure out where I fit in.
AM: I understand why there are categories, but it must be frustrating.
GTC: It is, especially after the last few years. I had some momentum moving out of 2019 into 2020 that isn’t there anymore. Well, maybe it’s still there but I don’t know where it is. I feel like it’s been a rebuilding process. That being said, regardless of where I fit in, in the world of music, The Ameripolitan Honky-Tonk Male category makes sense because I am one of the owners of a honky-tonk in San Antonio.
AM: Yes, I know that, The Lonesome Rose. Most artists don’t own a club.
GTC: It’s the other side of my musical life. Music is my life in lots of different ways. Other than just wanting to perform and write original songs, I have always been fascinated with the concert business and the way it works. I want to know why certain artists come to town. San Antonio has always been mysterious to me when I was growing up. It always seemed to me that a lot of bands wouldn’t come to town. I grew up hearing about all this musical history and how San Antonio was the heavy metal capitol before I was born into the 90’s. It didn’t seem like it was there when I was a teenager going to shows. As soon as I could, I started trying to book bands that I thought had never been to San Antonio before or they had a bad show when they played San Antonio.
AM: What type of bands were you booking?
GTC: Mostly rock bands and country bands. With that happening along with my own music thing happening, The Lonesome Rose organically came together. The other people I work with own other bars, and they wanted to open a honky-tonk and I said to myself I need a honky-tonk. I’m booking country bands at random venues. I’d rather have a venue to call home for myself, so it all works together.
AM: Do you consider yourself a businessman?
GTC: Yeah, I definitely catch myself thinking business minded about lots of things. It can get annoying, but I think it helps more than it hurts.
AM: Garrett, I notice your social media posts have a positive and optimistic outlook blended with humor. Is that on purpose?
GTC: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I don’t know what else to do.
AM: (Laughing) I think it’s awesome. I wish more people would do that. I also love how you end every post with the word “Foo”.
GTC: I don’t know what’s going on with social media, so I decided at some point that if it makes me laugh, then that works for me.
AM: Your posts make me laugh, but they also open my mind and let me think.
