A Beating Heart in Music City

Everybody knows Nashville is full of musicians—almost everyone you meet plays a little something or is looking for their big break to become a star. Kenny Wayne, Jr. falls into neither of these camps: he plays a lot of everything, and is distinctly unconcerned with stardom. His concern is only to play as much music as possible and build a rich community around it. The result? Wayne’s bringing back some good, old fashioned celebrations of song and dance. We got talking about his general philosophy as an artist and how it's brought these to life.

Wayne sees himself as getting into the spirit of bands from the 70s and 80s. It’s about making the music you want and the music that people genuinely enjoy hearing, not about the algorithm. “Most people trying to get on a record label are taking somebody’s advice that doesn’t know what music is supposed to sound like,” he states, criticizing the notion that, “if you want to get through this door, you have to do this.” It just shouldn’t be that way. “The machine is so massive and it’s producing some sh*t that nobody wants… let the real recognize real.” He wants to find a way, in his new work, to “create a path to where nobody has to be a server.” He admits the vision is “utopian,” but he had faith it can be brought to life. 

The method is simple: go to a venue and say something like, “I’ve got friends that make music, we will blow this place up, and you will feel it at the cash register.” The difference between Wayne and other musicians is that he does this not with the intention of “getting his music out,” but with the intention of getting numbers up at their bars—asking what he can do for them instead of vice versa. He finds that to be effective, half-joking, “They’ll be like, ‘Okay! Let me get Karen real quick,’ and Karen’s like, ‘You say something about money? I love that sh*t!’”

It’s all about giving other people what he can, all while doing what he loves most. At the same time, he’s working on his own stuff. His next album will be a Motown, Chess Records sort of thing from a project called Jefferson Street Revival Band—and it will, in fact, be recorded on Jefferson Street. “I’m just one at a time experimenting with different time periods,” Wayne explains. “People will be like, ‘you’re doing too much,’ but I’m just doing what I love.”

Wayne’s longer-running event takes place on Thursday nights at Ethel’s Tabernacle, starting sometime around eight or nine. “I show up with my instruments—which isn’t much, just drums, bass, guitar, and a loop pedal. And I just start getting jiggy with it,” he explains.  While friends will often join, he welcomes all willing participants—including touring musicians and total strangers. One time, he caught a friend of his tapping her foot on the beat and knowingly took her by the wrist to his drum set. By the time he let go of her wrist, she was playing and in total awe of herself. He likes this way of running shows and the way it draws people in who just want to play without ego, saying, “The setup kind of repels dickheads.” No one at Ethel’s is trying to one-up anyone else.

When he first started playing at Ethel’s there was a regular band, but people fell through all the time. He resolved to just keep showing up whether the rest of them did or not, and found everything turned out fine. “Before you know it, there’s just ten to fifteen people running around all the instruments,” he muses. “It’s not about the money for me,” he explains. “If I could make music all day every day of my life, I would. We play until 4 or 5 a.m. sometimes.” At first, Wayne wasn’t getting paid at all, and when he asked the owner for money, he outright refused. Soon, though, a deal was struck: for every twenty people Wayne brings in, he gets a modest $100. “My job is to build a network of friends that do what I’m doing and fill up a space,” he says.

Wayne’s other event is only just getting started: an “old fashioned juke joint” style dance party at Boogaloo on Hillhurst Drive. Each Wednesday, from 9-11 p.m., Wayne and some friends play old fashioned, swinging blues for crowds to dance to. He wants all kinds of people to come out and “be a part of it, not just watch it,” adding that he doesn’t want to just be great on stage, but invite everyone to “be great together.”