Interview: Brett J. Kent (Powder Horns)
Forget everything you think you know about Powder Horns.
The local project of Brett J. Kent emerged in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic as an aggressive yet hook-filled garage punk band, quickly making noise in the local scene. With each successive release, Kent has grown more confident as a songwriter and vocalist, refining the sound without dulling its impact. Those early songs were fueled by pain and anger — but that’s no longer where Kent is coming from, and the shift is unmistakable on his triumphant new album, Heavy Dreamer.
In recent years, Kent has found love — and with it, a sense of emotional grounding. It’s clear within seconds of the album’s soaring title track that he’s in a better place. Newly introduced brass arrangements underline the warmth now coursing through Powder Horns’ sound, evoking early E Street Band bombast with a dose of The Gun Club’s ragged spirit.
Where Kent once screamed “You parasite” with clenched-teeth hostility on 2023’s “The G.O.M.s,” he now earnestly declares devotion on “I’d Burn Down the World for You,” a love song addressed to his partner, Emily. After several fuzz-drenched releases where Kent was more shouter than singer, the cleaner production, expansive arrangements, and vulnerable vocals mark the most daring turn Powder Horns has taken — and it pays off.
Ahead of Heavy Dreamer’s Jan. 23 release, Asheville Stages caught up with Kent to break down the album track by track, offering insight into each song. A release show initially set for Jan. 24 has been rescheduled to March 28 due to the impending winter storm.
1. “Heavy Dreamer”
The title track of the album! I wrote this song about my partner, now fiancé, Emily. On one of our early dates, she said she was a heavy dreamer. She dreams often and vividly. This track sort of set the stage for how I would begin to write the group of songs that became this album.
Most of these songs were written in solitude of my old house in the woods off Town Mountain road. Instead of plugging in and cranking the distortion as I usually did when trying to write, I stuck to my acoustic guitar. This guitar is particularly important to me: my Uncle Denny’s godparents got it for him in 1963 when he was just a kid. Anytime I would visit him, I would bug him to let me play it. As he’s gotten older, he’s discovered a practice called Death Cleaning where you gift your possessions before you die rather than will them out after you pass. He was struck by this [concept] and passed his Gibson LG-1 on to me. I’ve put more miles on this guitar in the three years I’ve had it than it has seen in the last 30 years, including writing this song and album on it.
2. “Smell Dead Flowers”
Another aspect of this group of songs is that I’ve branched out beyond just basic chords. I felt like I reached a point in my musicianship where I was exploring sounds and notes naturally.
I’d visited the catacombs of Paris, and when I returned I stumbled into the verse chords of this song. I can’t say if the chords made me think of the bone structures that I’d seen or if the bones helped me find the chords. Either way, the song was born there. I kept thinking about the finality of death: Flowers wilt away, but grow back. Human remains support a thriving city. We are all just wilting away.
This song really took shape for me when Emma Garau’s drumming was added. The back beat with the bass rhythm invoked a death/life cycle that I think stands as a beautiful symbol of where we end, nature begins.
3. “ON/ON”
This is another song that was born from a chord that was in my repertoire prior. I was really learning to let go of any theory and just used my ears to piece together a song structure that felt right to me. I love this song because it’s simple and not simple at the same time. In the studio [Drop of Sun], Seamus [Rooney] and I had the most fun making this work. We toyed with the layers quite a bit and the final product really hit for me. I liked it so much I chose it as the first single. Big shout to Clay White for the flute solo here.
4. “The Darkest Part”
This is the most fun song to play. It’s heavy and dark and weird and I love it. This is another track that really took off when Emma added her drum part ,which added to the chaos but is perfectly juxtaposed by Tony Bones’ simplified bass thump. Before we recorded these songs, we had been playing them live and we always added plenty of extended “soft boxes” where it was a free jam but wasn’t completely unstructured. “The Darkest Part” recording hits on this especially with Peter Dimery’s sax solo at the end.
5. “Ghost”
The song came together very quickly when I wrote it — it was an exercise in simplicity. I’ve always thought if you can’t sell a standard chord progression, then you’re doing it wrong — [and] this is an example of selling it. When this track goes big, it gets huge, but it also has some of the most delicate moments on the record. Alex Farrar’s mixing prowess shines brightly here. He is the master of his craft and that is not a hot take.
6. “Thorns 4 Teeth”
My friend Ryan Sheffield has a song called “When I Die” and he wants to be thrown in the ocean. When I die, I’d like to be returned to the forest. I was living up on a mountain and I really felt like it was just me and the trees up there. I just kept thinking about it. So, the song was born. It’s the funeral of the album. I remember telling Emma to play a funeral death march on the snare for the second half of the song. She delivered. Deborah Adedokun, who sings harmonies on the album, told me she had nightmares of rose bushes growing out of her while she was learning this song. I took that as a compliment.
7. “Better Place”
This song feels like “classic Powder Horns” to me. It’s a pummeling riff that’s idiosyncratic enough to be captivating but not too weird to just rock the fuck out to. I really dig the way this song came out. Everyone really comes together instrumentally here to be heavy but catchy. It almost sounds villainous to me.
8. “Heart of the Sun”
This is another song, like most of the album, that wasn't written so much as it fell out. I was playing guitar while Emily was making dinner and the main riff appeared along with the main lyrics. I can’t talk about the track without mentioning Rex Shaffer’s guitar. He elevated this album and particularly this track. I don’t know how exactly he did it, but he makes this song for me. He takes this song beyond the stratosphere and propels it straight into the sun.
9. “Sore Eyes”
This song is the narrative triumph of the album. We went through hell and this is the emergence back to Earth. Justin Lawrence’s violin is the star of the show here. He brings out classical chops and really just soars in the way only he could. I always felt like this song could fit in a Wes Anderson movie or something like that. It’s just a sweet love song.
10. “I’d Burn Down the World for You”
Ah, the end of the record. This is another love song and really the crux of what we’ve worked through narratively to get to — something new, something great, and something you wouldn’t have if you didn’t struggle to find. Lyrically, this is the story of a new relationship without any metaphor. I tried, for the first time, to just be as honest as I could be. I fell in love and this is how it happened. I feel like it’s also worth mentioning that most of the locales mentioned were wiped out by [Tropical Storm] Helene, which makes it all the more impactful for me.
IF YOU GO
Who: Powder Horns w/ Mechanical River, Cheeks, Zeb Camp Wright
When: Saturday, March. 28, 8 p.m.
Where: Eulogy, 10 Buxton Ave., eulogy.com
Tickets: $14
(Photos by Jonny Leather)
