864-271-4442 or visit www.facebook.com/SwansonsWarehouse. [Photo: Morgan Burden]
By DAN ARMONAITIS
Brooks Dixon considers himself a “very contemplative type songwriter” who, on his own, tends to write “slower, thoughtful stuff.”
The Brooks Dixon Band, on the other hand, represents something a bit different.
“With the band, we definitely have a fun energy, and I think a lot of that grew out of the kind of settings that we’ve played in and just our personalities,” said Dixon, who formed the Greenville-based group about 4 1/2 years ago. “We really like being with each other, and we have a lot of fun. So, it’s kind of funny that while I’ve always had a little bit more of a slower, down-tempo songwriting style, here we’ve got an album full of fun lively tracks.”
The album to which Dixon referred is “Pocketful of Dreams,” the first full-length effort from the Brooks Dixon Band, which will celebrate the release with a performance on Friday, Dec. 6 at Swanson’s Warehouse in Greenville.
“That’s our live show,” Dixon said of the energetic sound that most of the nine songs on the album have. “When we play with the band, we’re having fun, we’re upbeat, we’re moving around and, a lot of times, kind of rocking out. (The album) is definitely more representative of our live show, and that’s what we love about it.”
Over the past few years, Dixon has released multiple solo EPs that had more of a folk-oriented vibe and were recorded in Nashville with session musicians rather than his own band.
“We’d been playing so much with the band over the last few years that we really wanted something that was representative of the band’s sound,” Dixon said. “We had plenty of songs and we picked what we thought were the nine best, and we had a lot of fun making the record.”
In addition to its namesake on guitar and lead vocals, the Brooks Dixon Band includes Ross Kreig on saxophone and guitar, Shane Byler on drums, Jake Watson on bass and trombone, and Sara Middleton on vocals and percussion.
The music on “Pocketful of Dreams” spans a wide range of styles but is mainly driven by catchy, funk-tinged pop songs that have the soulful feel of classic 1970s-style R&B. Of course, there’s still plenty of the type of introspective folk-pop material that has represented the bulk of Brooks’ solo output.
In addition to the regular band members, Dixon and company enlisted the help of keyboardist Aaron Bowen and guitarist Jacob Johnson on the album, which was recorded at Studio 101 in Woodruff.
“We did ‘Good Intentions’ down there back in 2017,” Dixon said, referring to a song originally released by the band as a single but now also included on the new album. “We did that kind of as a feeler with the hopes of making a full album, which it obviously took a long time to cross that finish line. … But, yeah, (that recording) was something that we liked and we knew it would be pretty easy to get the band back down there to make a full album.”
Dixon credited fellow Greenville-based singer-songwriter Nathan Angelo with helping with the band with much of the pre-production for “Pocketful of Dreams.”
“I first met Nathan when I first moved back to Greenville after college and was trying to immerse myself in the music scene and find people who I thought really got it, and he was one of those guys,” Dixon, 27, said. “We hung out and I picked his brain on a bunch of stuff before we ever played a show together, and we’ve played a couple now. But, yeah, he’s just a really talented songwriter who’s done it for a long time now and someone I respect a lot.”
Dixon said Swanson’s Warehouse, the venue for Friday’s release concert, is an events space run by his friend and former landlord David Stone.
“You can fit about 150 people in there, and I thought it would be a really nice, fun spot for a CD release show,” Dixon said. “So often you can end up at a show where there’s not much interaction with the crowd. We play a lot of bars and, in those situations, we don’t always get to hang out with our friends as much as we’d like.
“So, we really wanted to make this a true hangout party in addition to the show. Doors open at 7 and we’re going to play and have a great time, but we also wanted to make sure we got some hang time before and after with our friends and fans. It should be a really fun time.”