Queensland-based Jen Mize shares the lessons he learned from her “loose unit” father in her latest single with her band The Rough N’ Tumble, “Double Talk.” While it’s relatively new, this song’s Americana sound makes it feel like a classic from the first listen.
“My dad, Dan, was a bit of a known entity in Las Vegas in the early eighties,” Jen recalled. “Dad was the kind of guy who would walk up to the toughest fella in the bar, and with no provocation ask him if wanted to step outside just to see who was tougher. He admittedly got his ass handed to him more than once, but that was just who he was. A cowboy (with a way with the ladies) who might have had a few screws loose. How he ended up with my saint of a mom no one has ever understood, but by the time I came along he was turning out to be a pretty great dad. Dad wanted to prepare me for the potholes of the world. So, he warned me off guys like him.
“They say ‘write what you know’, and ‘you don’t have to have a good memory if you never tell a lie’… I really feel like when I’m doing that, lyrics and melodies pour out of me at a furious speed that I can barely keep up with. After writing the verse and chorus of this one, I felt it was time to open it up to the fellas in the band for a possible cowrite so, into the Dropbox folder it went in hopes that someone would bite.”
Someone did bite, her bandmate Jeremy Edwards, who brings the male perspective to life in the second verse.
“Maybe it was the Stones of it all,” Jeremy said. “Maybe it was the killer chorus melody. Maybe I wanted a chance, now as the father of a teenage lad, to lay a few things out clear and straight for my son.”
“Double Talk” comes from Jen Mize & The Rough N’ Tumble’s sophomore album, which they’ll release later this year.
Image used with permission from Bec Gracie Publicity
