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The Nathan Spenser Revue came in Wednesday, March 4 for a live studio performance at the KSL Broadcast House. They played "The Great Basic Drive." Mark Nott filmed and edited the video, which you can also watch on KSL.com's YouTube.SALT LAKE CITY — Americana singer-songwriter and Utah artist Nathan Spenser is busy this week, releasing two new albums. The albums were created with a collection of musicians around the region.
Spenser’s albums — the first was released Tuesday and the second will be released Saturday — feature an eclectic mix of Americana, folk, jazz, blues, and roots music. This comes from Spenser’s love of a wide variety of music as well as his collaboration with musicians who come from backgrounds featuring styles of music.
As a child, Spenser took piano lessons and lived in a home where music was all around him. From Bruce Springsteen to Bonnie Raitt, Spenser was constantly being introduced to different artists and different songwriters. The diversity of styles had a profound effect on him growing up.
At 15, Spenser started playing guitar. He says he looked up to the greats like Jimmy Page as models for playing, but he had an epiphany while listening to The Beatles that would change his whole outlook on playing music.
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Video: Psych-rock band The Wild War plays
Wednesday, The Wild War joined us in the KSL studios to film an in-studio performance, playing their song, "I Saw This." The two friends met at 14 and have played in bands together in the years since, most recently as a two-part psych-rock band.“I had the revelation I think when I was about 17 years old, listening to The Beatles, that I thought, ‘Man, these guys are producing such fabulous songs with their own voice,’” Spenser said. “And that’s what I wanted to be doing, too.”
Spenser has been writing his own music ever since, and has been honing his craft as a storyteller through years of playing around Salt Lake.
“Each one of my songs has different stories, and I can think of myself as a storyteller above all," Spense said. "I think I have a lot to say about my culture here in the Intermountain West.”
A large part of Spenser’s eclectic sound comes from the different musicians he plays with. The group features a regularly rotating cast of musicians, and each contributes his own unique style to the group.
The group often features a trained professional jazz drummer who adds a lot of range to the rhythm section, as well as violin, banjo and mandolin players.
“All of the people I'm playing with have a combined 200 years of musicianship,” Spenser said. “The guy that is playing mandolin for us is one of the best mandolin players in the Intermountain West region.”
The album released on March 24 is a studio album of all original songs that were recorded a few months ago, but the songs featured are a collection of new and old songs.
“It’s based on songs that I have written over the past eight years," Spenser said. "It’s kind of the cream of the crop of new stuff and old stuff. The album has all the same group and the same instrumentation.”
The album being released on March 28 will be a live album of a past show at Fats Grill, and will be released at Fats Grill along with a live show that evening.
