Annabelle’s Curse crosses borders.
Imagine being the best death metal band in New Orleans. Or an acid jazz combo in Utah. Or an ace Memphis-based polka ensemble. You might feel just a little out of place. Much like Annabelle’s Curse, a genre-defying indie-rock outfit that is making some unexpected noise in themountainous Virginia/Tennessee border town acknowledged worldwide as the birthplace of country music.
“Bristol is full of all kinds of music these days, so we’re not all that strange,” says Tim Kilborne, the group’s lead singer/songwriter and co-founder.
Consisting of Kilborne on guitar, banjo and vocals, guitarist Zack Edwards, mandolinist Carly Booher, drummer Travis Goyette and Tyler Luttrell on bass, Annabelle’s Curse incorporates traditional instruments, but their most recent album, Beyond the Station, is Americana with a different melodic and lyrical bent—a bit wilder, more expansive and oblique.
“Annabelle’s Curse is the best band you’ve never heard,” raved the Huff-Post when the 10-song set was released in June. “My goal on this album was to not emulate anybody,” says Kilborne. “I tried not to listen to a lot of music so I wouldn’t be influenced by anyone else’s work, to try to approach things fresh and be my own influence.” Recorded in Philadelphia, the band’s fourth album is a big step forward, he says. “I’m satisfied with it. This is us.” Kilborne, an elementary schoolteacher by day, is the writer behind impassioned Annabelle’s Curse songs such as “Regret, Va.” and “Doubt,” but brings them to the band to shape, he says.
“We are totally influenced by different things.”
Annabelle’s Curse was originally just Kilborne and Edwards. Both attended Emory and Henry College,but Kilborne was the older one when they met in 2011. A mutual friend introduced them “and we just hit it off,” Edwards says. The current band lineup has been together for about five years, progressively winning a dedicated following across the Kingsport-Bristol-Tri-Cities region for its energetic live show, which is influenced by bands like the Decemberists and Mumford and Sons more than classic or contemporary country. “Our fans are a total grab bag of people, and ages too,” says Edwards.Aided and abetted by Booher’s warm harmonies, much of the soulful drama resonating from songs like the standout “Young Again” come from Kilborne’s unique vocals, quavering and searching.
“Tim’s voice throughout the years has been like a tube amp that’s been left on,” saysEdwards. “As time passes on, it just gets warmer and richer.” As a songwriter, Kilborne draws inspiration from the bucolic moun-tains surrounding the area, which have inspired so much classic blue-grass and country music. “The setting here is one of the main reasons I’m able to write. It’s so breathtaking. It’shard not to be inspired out there.”
Musically, Bristol is in transition, says Edwards, and the new Birthplaceof Country Music Museum has helped to stir things up. “The scene has changed,” he says. “There are more places to play. And with the addition of the museum, it’s kind of bringing more attention to how all the music got here, a reminder that all of this didn’t just come from nowhere.”Even if the band’s propulsive sound is a few hollers away from Ernest Stoneman or the Carter Family, man-dolinist Booher, a longtime bluegrass player, helped to honor the famous 1927 Bristol recordings, cited as the big bang of country music, at a special tribute concert in September. Earlier this year, the band holed up in an abandoned warehouse and held their own Bristol sessions. “It was an old typewriter factory, and someone was turning it into apartments,” Edwards explains. “But they let us come in before the renovation. We ran power in there, and recorded and taped three songs and videos.”
But winning over the home crowd hasn’t been easy. “When we played the Bristol Rhythm and Roots Festival seven years ago, we performed to seven people,” he remembers. “But this past year, we played in the largest tent I’ve ever seen, overflowing with people. We had just been out on tour, sometimes doing well, something losing our [butts], and then to come back home and play to a crowd like that in you rown hometown … it was humbling.”Depending on the venue, Kilborne’s 4th grade pupils at Meadowview Elementary—and their parents—will show up to Annabelle’s Curse gigs.“The students come to our shows in Bristol, and some of them wear my shirt to class,” the lead man says with a laugh. “I tell them they won’t get any extra credit for that.” AnnabellesCurse.com
