Author: Michael Donahue

Michael Donahue

Terry Prince & the Principles: Kent Stratton, Ian Younkin, Jesse Davis and Jeff Drzycimski

If you think Terry Prince is the lead singer of Terry Prince & the Principles, think again.

“There is no ‘Terry Prince,’” said Jesse Davis, 30, singer/guitarist/songwriter in the band that includes guitarist Jeff Drzycimski, 25; bass player Ian Younkin, 25; and drummer Kent Stratton, 34.

“Terry Prince” was character that showed up in a series of stories Davis wrote in his creative writing class as an undergraduate at University of Memphis. Prince was “this down-on-his-luck musician who was almost always having to pawn his guitar and have his band mates buy it back for him.”

“I liked the idea of a character who was a little bit like me and showed up in some of the stories, but who was more of a loser. He was always down on his luck, which I sometimes am. Kurt Vonnegut has his ‘Kilgore Trout’ and James Joyce has ‘Stephen Dedalus. I’m not putting myself in the same stable as Vonnegut and Joyce, but he’s just kind of like an author doppelganger who gets to live in the fiction.”

Once he and Stratton started the band, Davis said, “What if we were Terry Prince & the Principles, guys?’ I’ve just like the way it sounds. Kind of like a ‘50s band.”

Davis was born in Memphis and later moved with his family to Phoenix, Arizona and Henderson, Tenn. before returning to Memphis to attend U of M.

He grew up in a family that sang in church and loved to listen to music, but Davis didn’t pick up the guitar until he was a teenager. “I got to be 15 and 16 and was like, ‘Well, maybe I’ll try the guitar.’ I, honestly, just thought I could do it. I was like, ‘That’s do-able. THere are six strings. It can’t be that hard.

“I got a Danelectro 56 u2. The lipstick pickups. Thin, plastic guitar. I hated it. I eventually turned that into a Stratocaster and then turned that into a J-45 knock off and a couple of other guitars. I just kept on wheeling and dealing with the musical instruments.’”

Davis’s first band was one he and his girlfriend at the time formed. “I think we were called ‘Yard Sale’ or something. We played a video store and a coffee house.”

He joined a soul cover band, “Riverside Yard Sale,” after he moved to Memphis. He began writing music in

 “Smokey Mountain Yard Sale,” a standard rock band.

Davis met Stratton when they were in Time, a rock band they eventually were kicked out of. “They told me that my heart wasn’t in it, which was true,” Davis said.

He got a call from Stratton, who asked him if he wanted to play an impromptu show opening for a Canadian band at The Lamplighter Lounge. “We did and the Canadian guys came up afterwards and were like, ‘You guys are awesome,’” Davis said. “‘How long have you been playing together?’ We’re like, ‘I don’t know. A week?’”

That was two years ago. Terry Prince & the Principles was born.

Davis asked Drzycimski, who worked with him at one time at Memphis Pink Palace Museum, to play guitar.

Younkin, who was Drzycimski’s roommate, became the bass player after the original bass player left. He’d seen them play before he joined the band. “I thought they were great, playing unique music,” Younkin said. “No other band was playing music like them.”

Asked what kind of band they originally wanted Terry Prince & the Principles to be, Stratton said, “Weird. I initially saw it as more of a rock and roll soul band that had these weird elements that sounded very current, but with older song structures,” Davis said. “Now I try not to bring any preconceived notions as to how the song should when I bring a new song to the band.”

When they say “weird,” they mean “eclectic,” Stratton said. “What I love about it there’s so much variety in the songs, There’s an overarching aesthetic to it, but there’s a lot of different things going on.”

Davis writes the music and lyrics, but everyone contributes to the songs. “Mostly he (Davis) leaves it up to us to add whatever we want,” Stratton said. “And I think that’s one of the most interesting things about this band.”

“We all have pretty different backgrounds as far as what we listen to and what we like,” Drzycimski. “And I think we wear our influences on our sleeve pretty well. And the fact that all these things come together and they work – it sounds cool. It’s very weird and very interesting.”

Davis often uses the same themes in his lyrics. “I have certain things I definitely return to. I wrote a lot about distance. Whether it’s physical distance or time.

“When I moved to Phoenix I had a Southern accent and said, ‘Ma’am’ and ‘Sir.’ They were too cool for that. I felt really weird. And then we moved and I lived out in the woods in Henderson in this little two stoplight town and had long hair and wore a leather jacket and a jean jacket. They’re not about that there.”

He got some grief about his long hair in Henderson. “I was told that it’s shameful for a man to have long hair.”

The “lunch lady” made that comment, he said.

Then Davis moved to Memphis, where his look was accepted. His lyrics now include “that feeling of being apart” as well as “that feeling of ‘Alright. Cool. Now we’re all together.’”

Terry Prince & the Principles released two EPs – Here Comes Yesterday and You Are Here – and currently are recording a double single at Junior’s Sweatshop. The band is going to tour in Nashville and Jackson,
Tennessee this summer. “Further down the line I’d like to do a longer tour and then, eventually, a full-length album,” Davis said. “We’ve got enough songs now. Maybe write three or four more and pick the 10 or 12 best.”

All the band members are involved in other projects. Davis, who is a copy editor and occasionally writes music articles at The Memphis Flyer, also is in The Conspiracy Theory and in a duo, Richard and Jesse. Stratton is in an instrumental post rock/jazz rock band, “Breaking the Cage;” Drzycimski plays solo performances under his own name; and Younkin is in metal bands “Shards of Humanity” and “Autolith.”

Does Davis have any future literary plans for his “Terry Prince” character? “I’ve worked on a comic script that I haven’t gotten illustrated yet, but it’s about the character having to go to the future to fight dubstep because it’s the only music they have anymore. And they all have the key of complacency. So, it makes people obedient consumers. And he has to go show them the spirit of rock and roll.”

Terry Prince & the Principles will perform at 7:30 p.m. June 10 at “Time Warp Drive-In” at Malco Summer Quartet Drive In at 5310 Summer. Tickets are $10 per person.

'Time Zones' from Michael Donahue on Vimeo.

Listen Up: Terry Prince & the Principles

Michael Donahue

Swedish Gun Factory: Isaac Middleton and Thomas Bergstig

The performing careers of Thomas Bergstig and Isaac Middleton went from head to toe – literally.

Before they knew each other, Bergstig, 42, and Middleton, 25, sang in their first musical – “Hair” – in separate productions in different countries.

Now they are tap dancing – while playing musical instruments – in Swedish Gun Factory.

The duo recently released a promotional video, which features examples of their tap dancing and music, on youtube.  

Bergstig, who is from Stockholm, Sweden, began playing piano when he was 10, but he sang on stage for the first time in “Hair” when he was 21 after meeting a woman involved in theater. “Musical theater was totally my thing after that,” he said. “I guess it’s a combination of that wholeness of acting, singing, dancing. The whole production.”

A few years later, Bergstig and some friends formed a tap dancing group called JEERK, which stood for the last names of members Jansson, Eriksson, Erixzon, Regnell and Karlsson. “My name didn’t make it,” Bergstig said.

Like Swedish Gun Factory, the members of the group, which still performs around the country, play musical instruments while they dance.

In 2009, JEERK got a gig in Branson, Mo. Bergstig stayed after he met Memphis singer Alexis Grace at the Andy Williams Theater. He eventually moved to Memphis and he and Grace were married.


Bergstig taught tap dancing and, later, became music director at Bolton High School before landing the music director position at Playhouse on the Square.

A native of Harlan, Ky, Middleton grew up in Chihuahua, Mexico, where his parents were missionaries. “I just grew up in a different world, which gave me a different perspective of things,” Middleton said.

He played bass and later keyboards before venturing onto other instruments in “El Cordero” (The Lamb), a praise and worship band at his church.

Middleton became fascinated with tap dancing when he was 15. “I saw ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ for the first time. And it just blew me away. I loved it. So, I went on line and tried to learn the different steps on YouTube and stuff. I was terrible.”

His first theatrical venture was performing in the ensemble in a 30-minute repertory version of “Hair” at Western Kentucky University.

He took his first tap dance class in college. “I didn’t have tap shoes ‘cause I ordered the wrong pair. And then they wouldn’t come in for two months. So, my first dance class I spent just wearing jazz shoes. It’s just a soft shoe. I think it helped, honestly, ‘cause I wasn’t making too many loud noises and I got to think how it felt rather how it sounded.”

Middleton moved to Memphis last year to appear in Playhouse on the Square’s production of “Kiss Me Kate.”

He met Bergstig on a friend’s porch. “He seemed like the coolest dude. And he tap danced. I messaged him after I met him and I was like, ‘Dude, if you ever want to tapdance let me know.’”

Bergstig called him soon after. “He had all the choreography ready,” Middleton said. “We would try certain things, but it was him showing me the moves. And me hoping I would get it. And I usually got it.”

They began writing music and developing tap dance routines. They occasionally sing during a number.  “When we write something it, literally, can turn out to be anything,” Bergstig said. “And the tap dance helps, too, ‘cause we view it as an instrument more than the dance.”

“The main reason we got together and started working in the first place is he wanted to audition on ‘America’s Got Talent,’” Middleton said. “That was his main thing.”

They didn’t get on the TV show, but Swedish Gun Factory was born.

Bergstig and Middleton wanted a name people would strongly react to. “Swedish Gun Factory,” was “like a thing that shouldn’t exist,” Bergstig said. “A Swedish gun factory? No such thing.”

He and Middleton play several instruments, including guitar, piano, banjo and mandolin, and employ a range of musical styles from classical to punk rock while they’re tapping. “It can be almost a symphonic piece to emo to Death Cab for Cutie,” Bergstig said.

They dance in special tap shoes, which were created for JEERK. “We built these tap shoes out of sneakers because we were ruining all the other shoes so fast,” Bergstig said.

The shoes originally were built by a cobbler in Sweden. He added a metal plate on the inside so the taps could be screwed into the bottom. He then built up the inner sole with leather.

“It’s very comfortable,” said Middleton. “It’s heavier, so you feel a lot more grounded when you tap. So, you can do a lot more powerful things without doing much damage to your feet.”

“The only thing is it’s difficult to be really fast because they’re so heavy,” Bergstig said.

Their first gig was at the Hi-Tone. “It went really well,” Middleton said. “We had a guitar tap number that we did. ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia.’”

Bergstig and Middleton recently appeared in Playhouse on the Square’s production of “Million Dollar Quartet.” Bergstig played “Fluke” the drummer and Middleton played “Carl Perkins.”

In about a month, Swedish Gun Factory is going to regroup, but not go out of business. Bergstig and Grace are moving to Los Angeles. “I’m going to set up camp and really try to promote this thing,” Bergstig said. “There’s so much fun commercial art happening there.”

Middleton plans to eventually join them. “I’m kind of letting him set up camp before I plop myself down there.”

Except for the shoes, the Swedish Gun Factory members haven’t adopted an on-stage look. “He’s not a fan of skinny jeans,” Middleton said. “I enjoy the skinny jean look. But that’s just my emo self.”

For now, they wear blue jeans or sweats and button downs or T-shirts. “We’ll figure it out,” Middleton said. “We’ll start with the art.”

'Uncalled For' from Michael Donahue on Vimeo.

Listen Up: Swedish Gun Factory

Michael Donahue

Nathan McHenry plays Jerry Lee Lewis in ‘Million Dollar Quartet.’

The tips of the upper E, F and G keys on the piano in Playhouse on the Square’s production of “Million Dollar Quartet” are chipped.

“Those chips – that’s definitely because of my foot,” said Nathan McHenry.

McHenry, 24, plays Jerry Lee Lewis in the musical set in the mid 1950s at Sun Studios. He strikes the keyboard with his size eight and a half caramel-colored Stacy Adams wing tip during several songs.

He’s played the piano since he was five, but he used his right foot to hit the pedals, not the keys. “I don’t want to damage any of the pianos I’m playing.”

Performing in the show as Lewis was a different story; he had to use his foot a la the Killer. “You just kind of throw it up there and go for it. I use my feet on ‘Brown Eyed Handsome Man,’ ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’’ and during scenes when I want to annoy Carl (Perkins).”

He’s not trying to hit a specific note with his shoe, but to “hit the ballpark. The right area.”

McHenry, who will play Lewis through Sunday’s matinee/end of run, recently was named Playhouse on the Square’s music director.

A native of North Carolina, McHenry began singing in church. “First time I sang in church I was four. With my sister. Something about ‘the name of Jesus.’”

He also loved the sounds made by soul singers. He especially liked gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. “My mom remembers me in the bathtub trying to sing like a black woman in this high voice.”

Jerry Lee inklings emerged when McHenry was a child. “I always was someone with a loud mouth always making noise.”

And, to this day, he will “dance around and beat on things.”

McHenry got into theater after his mother gave him the choice of continuing with soccer or joining a theatrical group. “I would have picked anything over soccer.”

He fell in love with acting. He landed his first role in “Anne of Green Gables” when he was seven. “I played some little boy who was supposed to have a crush on Anne. And I didn’t know what a ‘crush’ was. But I still delivered the lines as they were written and got a big laugh every night.”

McHenry hasn’t stopped performing since. “Somewhere in the 70s and 80s is how many shows I’ve done.”

He began dancing in musicals in high school. “I never took a dance class until high school. But our choreographer helped me along. And in college I developed more of an affinity for dance and movement.”

McHenry studied classical and jazz piano, but he picked up the rockabilly style when he landed a role as a brooding filling station attendant with slicked back hair in “Pump Boys and Dinettes.”

He moved to Memphis in 2013 after auditioning in the Unified Theater Auditions. Playhouse on the Square director Jordan Nichols called him back to take on the “Memphis: The Musical” role of Huey Calhoun, a “fictional recreation” of legendary deejay Dewey Phillips.

He listened to clips of Phillips’s old “Red, Hot & Blue” radio shows on YouTube. “You just listen to him for a minute and you’re, ‘OK, man. That guy is just crazy.’”

McHenry apparently has an affinity for playing wild men. “I think there’s a part of me that’s a little psychotic, yeah. But, really, most people are often surprised. Especially after this show. People come up and meet me in the lobby and are surprised: ‘Oh, my. You’re a normal guy.’”

McHenry was given another internship so he could stay in Memphis and play Lewis in “Million Dollar Quartet.” “I look somewhat similar to Jerry Lee. But I think a lot of it is that kind of energy. Just that ‘there’s something not quite right up there.’”

He didn’t want to “over analyze” his role, but he watched a lot of Lewis’s videos as preparation for the part. “I was immediately impressed by how he – and no one else has done this – can play the piano almost like a guitar. He can make noises up higher on the keyboard that are not notes, but they fit. He can just sit there and bang it and he doesn’t care what he’s playing. And it works.”

McHenry is on stage just about every minute of the hour and a half-long show. “I leave for about 30 seconds after the first number and come back on and don’t leave again.”

He’s constantly moving, twisting, turning and fidgeting on stage. “The show is a big workout for me. I ran a little bit during the rehearsal process just trying to get my cardio up so I could get through stamina wise.”

McHenry leaps on top of the piano at one point in the show. “Jumping up there took a little practice. I try to just think about if I’m vaulting over something. So, I do jump up. I put a hand down on the top of it and throw my legs over. I jump and then sit on top.”

He looks cool and collected as he takes his stage bow in a glittery red jacket with flames and piano decals on the arms.

After the show? “It takes me at least five minutes to get my breath back. It’s hard to just get a regular cycle of breathing again.”

“Million Dollar Quartet” is at 8 p.m. Friday and at 2 and 8 pm. Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday at Playhouse o

'Wild One' from Michael Donahue on Vimeo.

Listen Up: Nathan McHenry (2)

n the Square, 66 Cooper Street; (901) 726-4656

'Just a Little Talk With Jesus' from Michael Donahue on Vimeo.

Listen Up: Nathan McHenry

Michael Donahue

Harlan: Ian Rone, Griffin Rone, Gabe Hasty, Harlan Hutton and Miguel Pilcher

m Harlan Hutton’s songs are like diary entries.

“Just about all my songs are usually trying to explain a very complicated feeling,” said Hutton, 19. “I used to just write so I could explain something to myself and just put it away and it’s gone.”

The songs are “just little diddlies. Like after Junior Cotillion and I’m feeling like I’m just going to get married at 20 and settle down in Memphis. The feeling that I was supposed to have after Junior Cotillion. Things like that. These little songs that are stupid about things I’ve been thinking.”

She let Gabe Hasty, 19, listen to one of her songs. “I remember hearing ‘Play Pretend’ for the first time and just curling up in a lawn chair and listening to it,” Hasty said. “It’s poetic. It really draws you in in a way that I don’t know. It’s just like sometimes when you hear something you can immediately know the quality. It’s just obvious sometimes. It was a phone recording. And it was done in probably two or three takes. But you can still hear the actual quality of the songwriting.”

He let Griffin Rone, 19, listen to it. “We knew we had to flesh that project out and play it as a band,” Hasty said.

With Hutton on lead vocals and guitar, Hasty on keyboards, Griffin on bass, Griffin’s brother, Ian Rone, 16, on synth and Miguel Pilcher, 21, on drums, the group recorded two of Hutton’s songs: “Foreverendeavor” and “Fingertips.”

They had so much fun recording the songs, which are on Bandcamp, they decided to play as a band.

Before playing music, dancing was Hutton’s main creative expression. “I did classical ballet for 13 years,” she said.

Hutton, who was a member of New Ballet Ensemble & School, said, “It came to a point where I needed to choose to become professional or not. And I chose ‘not.’ I’m like, ‘I’m not going to do it if I’m not going to go all the way with it.’”

Guitar was next. “I needed a new creative outlet, so I picked up the guitar and kind of taught myself how to play.”

Her mother helped her buy her first instrument – a $100 acoustic. “When you first start learning guitar there’s the bands that you want to listen to like the Strokes and that kind of stuff. Just learning how to play those kinds of songs is fun. And also helps you get over the painful learning curve of the guitar.”

She played in her room until she started hanging out with Hasty and Griffin, who also are in Melinda, one of the first local bands she used to go see.

Hasty began playing piano as a child. “When I was four years old my parents got me to start playing classical music, taking lessons,” he said. “At first they had to bribe me into with a GameCube.”

Around 14 “was when I really started to get into it.” Franz Liszt is his favorite, but he also likes Johann Sebastian Bach. “It’s the prototype for modern pop, I guess.”

Lucifer’s Canoe was Hasty’s first band. Then then joined Jimmy Shindig and the Wind Chimes with Griffin and Pilcher. “I got a Tascam 488 and started getting obsessed with recording music. That’s when Melinda was born. It was kind of a recording project.”

Griffin began playing bass after a friend said he wanted to start a band. “I was like, ‘You know what? I’ll pick up bass.’ And having never played really any string instrument, I figured it was the perfect place to start.”

He learned to play the stand-up bass after he joined the jazz band at Christian Brothers High School. That lead to private jazz lessons.

An actor, Griffin also played “Bill Black” in the “Sun Records” TV series.

Pilcher began playing piano as a child, but switched to drums when he was in elementary school at St. Ann Bartlett. “In fifth grade they made you choose,” he said. “Like you could either be in the choir or be in the band. And I was like, ‘I’m not going to be in choir.’”

He chose drums because that was the closest instrument to him in the room after he arrived late to the class. “The only place to sit was in the very back by the drums.”

Now, he said, “I’m obsessed with drums.”

Pilcher and Griffin formed Jimmy Shindig. “Our first show we ever played was at The New Daisy,” Griffin said. “It was a bunch of death metal bands. We were like rock and roll. We weren’t anywhere near death metal. We looked at all the names we were playing with and they were like, ‘Dark,’ ‘Death,’ “Cobra,’ ‘Evil,’ ‘Satan’s Eyeball,’ things like that. We were like, “Let’s find the silliest name. We’re going to be ‘Jimmy Shindig and the Wind Chimes.’”

Ian Rone, Griffin’s brother, began acting at 12 or 13 in a Playhouse on the Square production of “Peter Pan.” “I was ‘Twin No. 2’ in the Lost Boys,’” he said.

He picked up the bass when a friend suggested they start a band, Tiger Lake. “Griffin helped me for the first couple of band songs we made,” he said.

All the band members are in other projects. Griffin, Hasty and Hutton are in Melinda; Griffin, Pilcher, Ian, Hasty and Hutton are in Dave Bao Bao; Griffin and Pilcher are in the folky, jazzy Grandpaw Grew Trees and Griffin is in the indie rock band, Small.

Since she is two other bands besides Harlan, Hutton said she has band practice every day.

“It’s amazing, actually,” Griffin said. “It’s all the same people in different configurations that create a completely different style of music. Dave Bao Bao is borderline punk groove synth wave stuff. And then Harlan is very beautiful and melodic. It’s a lot sweeter than Dave Bao Bao. Dave Bao Bao is a little jarring.

“Sometimes we talk about making a super group. We’ve talked about going on tour this summer and doing three of the best songs from each band. It’d be kind of fun.”

“We’re going to call it ‘Transformers 5,’” Hasty said.

GRRL FEST. Doors open 7 p.m. May 20 at the Hi-Tone. Admission: $15.

Harlan, "Forever Endeavor" from Michael Donahue on Vimeo.

Listen Up: Harlan