Ex-Black Flag Singer and The Germs Drummer Collaborate with Psychedelic Bluegrass Band, Water Tower
It is just a matter of life that many things don’t go according to plan. When Kenny Feinstein, founder of the Water Tower band, started working on a specific album, he anticipated that it would take three weeks for him to complete. The album was completed seven years later, and it was released in March 2020, right in the middle of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
The album has a profoundly emotional backstory. There are many ways music can save peoples’ lives, and in Kenny’s case, he was saved in the sense that the pending completion of this album gave him a purpose and a goal to strive for. He struggled with crippling addiction for a significant period and working on the album made him forget that helplessness and hopelessness for a while.
“This album saved my life,” Kenny says, and he means it. Today he shares the music that is the culmination of his life’s most challenging times in hopes that people who stumble upon it will gain inspiration from the music and the story underneath.
The album is Water Tower’s first as a band. Titled Fly Around, this is a concept album that revolves around traveling from home to find a better one. It lyrically tells a story of love, loss, obsession, and moving — themes that are common with the rest of the album, and that resonate with all three members of the band.
Folk traditionalists can easily recognize the titular track, but another notable track on the album is titled Anthem, later animated by director Rodd Perry. As for Kenny’s opinion on the outcome, he said, “He truly understood my vision of the music and interpreted it into something wonderful.”
It is, indeed, something wonderful. The quirky animated music video begins with Ron Reyes, former Black Flag singer, in a dilapidated church in Vancouver and takes us to Portland, Oregon, on a raft with the Water Tower down the river. Later, to Los Angeles to meet up with Don Bolles, former drummer of The Germs. The animation ends with all five of them sharing the same stage.
Fly Around is only the first of a two-album record deal with Portland’s Dutch Records. The ten-track collection has songs rooted in bluegrass and folk, indie rock, with a hint of electronic landscaping. It represents a transition for Kenny Feinstein and the rebirth of their band in an entirely new location.
Water Tower is an indie-folk/bluegrass revivalist band based in Los Angeles composed of a trio of musicians proficient in multiple instruments. Juice Bergland and Tommy Drinkard are the other two of the trio and were hand-picked by Kenny as they proved their musical skills, common interests, and compatibility with Kenny Feinstein. Together, the three are breathing life into a new generation of folk revivalists.
The band busks every day on the freeway off-ramps in Los Angeles to make a living in music. The message they convey in each performance is to drink clean water and protect the body and soul from dirty water, especially since humans are made up of a considerable percentage of water. Whether or not this is an allusion to something is up to your interpretation.
Learn more about Water Tower, the members and history, and Kenny Feinstein himself by visiting this website. Keep up-to-date with their latest activities by following them on Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok.
