A Bigger Bang: The Cadillac Three Reintroduce Themselves as Badass Hillbilly Rockers on New LP

Ten years ago, Jaren Johnston, Kelby Ray Caldwell and Neil Mason were on the verge of a breakout. Along with Ben Brown, the Nashville natives were playing in the rock band American Bang (formerly Bang Bang Bang, as longtime locals might remember). As part of a wave of Nashville rockers making some noise on a national scale pre-It City, the Bangers had signed a major label deal. But American Bang’s impact turned out to be more of a whimper, tied up in record label purgatory: Their self-titled album finally arrived in 2010 but disappeared quickly.

Six years later, Johnston, Caldwell and Mason are positioned for a breakout of another kind. The trio, now performing as The Cadillac Three and recast as country artists (albeit long-haired ones who drink, cuss and riff harder than your favorite indie rock band), is ready to issue its proper major label debut, Bury Me in My Boots, for Big Machine Records.

“I think when we started Cadillac, we were so pissed off at the end of American Bang with the Warner Bros. situation that we wanted to get back to the fire that was burning at the beginning, when we didn’t have people telling us what to do or trying to pull us in many directions,” Johnston tells the Scene via phone. He’s calling from England, where the band regularly plays sold-out club gigs. “We just said, ‘Let’s just start writing back like we did, the stuff that originally influenced us.’ My first two cassette tapes were Skynyrd’s Greatest Hits and Metallica’s … And Justice for All.”

When they were high school kids (Johnston and Caldwell attended Hume-Fogg, Mason went to Hillsboro), each of the Three was doing time in numerous local rock bands. Johnston played in Welcome Lane, while Caldwell played with The Pink Spiders’ Matt Bell in Silent Friction. Perhaps most notably, Mason was part of the more jam-oriented Llama, which released its major label full-length Close to the Silence for MCA in 2001.

“You’re so influenced by everything you’re listening to at that age — everything from Nirvana to Dave Matthews Band, stuff you listen to when you’re a kid,” recalls Johnston. “And obviously we’re all born and raised in Nashville, so there’s that natural Southern thing in there. I always gravitated towards that.”

“Plus, we were just figuring out what we were gonna do,” Caldwell chimes in. “I started off playing lead guitar back then. Jaren was playing drums. Now he’s singing and I’m playing lap steel. It’s evolved in a cool way.”

Those roles crystallized on the band’s debut, released independently as The Cadillac Black, then reissued under their current moniker in 2012 after signing with Big Machine. Bury Me in My Boots takes that vision and pushes everything into the red with its Southern-fried boogie, sludgy grooves and beer-battered odes to the good life. They may be labelmates with Rascal Flatts these days, but The Cadillac Three have virtually nothing in common with that oft-maligned pop-country trio: Johnston’s bourbon-baked snarl and metallic riffs smash into Mason’s thunderous drums and Caldwell’s lap steel, which he channels through bass and guitar rigs.

Band members had a hand in writing every song on Bury Me, sometimes working with pros like Luke Laird (Kacey Musgraves) and Jesse Frasure (Florida Georgia Line). Johnston’s playful side is all over the bluegrass-influenced “Slide” and day-drunk ditty “Ship Faced,” but his Southern pride is more nuanced on the defiant “This Accent.” Mason contributed “Graffiti,” a gorgeous slice of nostalgia about small-town kids immortalized in spray-paint tags.

“It’s just that feeling of being a kid,” explains Mason, “and having those first experiences where you’re running around and feeling that freedom you don’t really ever get to feel quite the same way again.”

Johnston has built quite the songwriting career for himself apart from the band, scoring chart-topping hits for Jake Owen (“Beachin’ ”), Frankie Ballard (“Sunshine & Whiskey”) and Keith Urban (“You Gonna Fly”), among others. Even so, The Cadillac Three have struggled to score hits of their own, despite country radio’s trend toward the heavier, louder sounds of Jason Aldean and Brantley Gilbert. The band’s 2013 single “The South” was a stomper that featured Dierks Bentley, Eli Young Band singer Mike Eli and Florida Georgia Line (with whom The Cadillac Three are currently touring) listing off Southern states above Johnston’s Stones-indebted riffing. The Cadillac Three followed that with “White Lightning,” which is as close as they come to an openhearted power ballad. Neither cracked the Top 20, but for Johnston it doesn’t really seem to matter when the crowds keep buying tickets to their shows.

“I think the thing for the band is, we’re gonna keep doing what we’re doing, and if country radio comes around and wants to play something of ours and make it a hit, that’s great,” he says. “Honestly, it’d be the best way for that to happen, because when it does, we will have already built the groundswell of fans which is what you really need in [country]. We want to put in the work, play shows and build a real fan base. And then once you have that hit, you can take advantage of it.”

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