THE BODEANS: ODD MATCH, HOT HARMONY

The Everly Brothers. Buddy Holly. Ritchie Valens. Chuck Berry.

Those are the names that tend to crop up in connection with the BoDeans, the young Wisconsin quartet that was one of the major new rock arrivals of 1986. Their debut album’s simple, direct naturalism--not to mention specific chord progressions, riffs and rhythms--evokes for many the moods and methods of those rock fountainheads.

Right, BoDeans?

“When we first met we were really into Genesis and Yes,” said Sammy Llanas, who obviously knows how to burst a bubble.

“Then around ’78 the Stones put out ‘Some Girls,’ and we really dug that. That influenced us a lot. . . . And Tom Petty, like when ‘Damn the Torpedoes’ came out.”

But what about those ‘50s and early ‘60s icons?

“What I grew up on was the late-’60s, early ‘70s AM radio,” continued Llanas, 25, sitting with the other three BoDeans in a Hollywood hotel room during the hard-touring band’s most recent swing through town. “It was really wide open, and in an hour you’d hear Nancy Sinatra and you would hear Tom Jones and you would hear the Beatles and the Stones and Motown, Creedence.”

So what about those ‘50s roots?

“People always talk about the Everly Brothers, the harmony kind of thing,” Llanas said in a scoffing tone. “But what we really liked was in Springsteen’s band when Miami Steve was there, Bruce would be singing and then all of a sudden Miami Steve would come in and sing with Bruce. . . . That’s what we were going for. No one ever mentioned that, but that’s where it really comes from.

“We never really listened to the Everly Brothers hardly at all.”

To hear Llanas and Kurt Newmann describe themselves, it’s surprising that the BoDeans’ oddly matched pair of singer-songwriter-guitarists from Waukesha ever got together at all.

“I’m a very personal, private kind of person,” said Llanas, speaking with a rasp that’s just a step away from his strangely gnarled singing voice. “Most of the time when we do anything (on the road) it has to be in this group situation, and I would rather stay in the hotel by myself than go out with the group. But that’s just the way I am. It’s not that I don’t like these guys or anything.”

“But Sam can be a real social person,” said Newmann. “He can sit down and talk to anyone, whereas me, I’m not real good at that. I never was. I’m trying to get better, but. . . . I wasn’t ever much of a socialite person. In high school I didn’t talk to anyone but Sam. All I did was stay home and play drums.”

Beau BoDean is the name Newmann used on the album, where all four musicians adopt the surname BoDean. It somehow fits Newmann, whose heartland, white-bread good looks and smooth, unadorned vocals make him a sharp contrast with his shorter partner. Llanas is the spice in the band, with a feisty spirit and a peculiarly ragged, nasal voice that’s been described most memorably as sounding like “a Munchkin on a dirt bike.”

“Why can’t they just say it’s a unique sound?” he complained, admitting that he’s become self-conscious about it. “It’s hard not to be. I never thought of my voice as being unusual at all, and now I do because people said it’s that way. But it’s the only one I got.”

With his Mexican-American heritage, Llanas is also largely responsible for the Tex-Mex and country currents in the BoDeans’ brew.

“My father played bass in a sort of Mexican-style polka band. He listened to a lot of Mexican records around the house, too. . . .

“I’ve always liked country music a lot. I really don’t know too much about it. My dad used to listen to Hank Williams. I remember hearing Hank Williams when I was like 3. I’d hear ‘Kaw-Liga.’ That’s the song I remember hearing first.

“That and Johnny Cash. My dad used to watch all the Johnny Cash specials.

“The only song on the record that I consciously wanted to be a country song was ‘Looking for Me Somewhere.’ But everybody seems to think that everything in the record is sort of country. I don’t get that.”

Newmann and Llanas met in high school, and it was their shared passion for music that cemented their partnership.

Said Llanas: “We were attracted to each other because I’d never met anybody in my whole life I knew felt the same way about music as I did. We would be at a party and the room would be full of people and there’d be music going on, and everybody would be doing something else but we’d be like. . . .”

“We’d be sitting by the speakers,” said Newmann. “Music was the only thing that felt good to me. . . . From day one, when I played music I was far away from the rest of the world, and it always felt real special.

“I told my Ma, when she would always try to talk me out of playing, I said, ‘I gotta do this or die trying.’

“I watched my parents get up at 6 in the morning every day and go to work . . . and it just amazed me that they could do that. There’s got to be something else out there. And music really touched me. It was like, I have to do this. Nothing else feels even close to this. So you make that decision and nothing else can get in the way. That’s all that’s important.”

Llanas’ story is similar.

“My dad worked in a factory and I used to go down and bring him his lunch, and I’d walk into this place and it was so dark and loud and dirty. . . . They made steel castings. I decided early on that I’m gonna find something else, I don’t care what it is. I knew anything would be better than that. Luckily I found this.

The pair’s first performance was in an impromptu band Newmann formed to play at his 19th birthday party in the basement of his parents’ house. Newmann played guitar and didn’t sing, and Llanas sang but didn’t play. They had a bass player, and Newmann had taught his brother to play drums.

Recalled Llanas: “The thing we got out of it was Beau and me felt this chemistry. It was just apparent from the moment we walked up there and started playing. We didn’t have to say anything, we just sort of knew what to do.”

They began working as a two-piece, playing a local bar once a week, writing songs and recording demos. Llanas took up guitar, Newmann started singing, and the distinctive BoDeans harmony was born.

“It was out of necessity--trying to fill the sound out as much as we could,” said Newmann. “When I started being able to get through a song and he would sing, it would be, ‘Wow, there’s a neat sound here.’ There was a power to it. All the Marshall stacks in the world couldn’t get that power that we had when we sang together.”

With drummer Guy Hoffman and bassist Bob Griffin aboard, the BoDeans continued their basic strategy: earn money playing the clubs in nearby Milwaukee, then sink it into demo tapes and send them out.

They eventually got some offers, and decided to go with L.A.-based Slash Records, a small company with two assets: a reputation for fostering street-level rock ‘n’ roll bands (Del Fuegos, Los Lobos, Violent Femmes) and a distribution arrangement with a major label, Warner Bros.

Producer T Bone Burnett helped shape the “live” sound of “Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams,” advising the band to scale its vision down from a big wall-of-sound approach to one that would suit the clubs that the BoDeans would be playing.

The album came out in June, and immediately won notice with the mix of buoyancy and melancholy in the sound, and innocence and wisdom in the lyrics. The songs suggested those classic early-rock sources, but had the stamp of originality as they traced the youthful heart’s dips and swerves with aching accuracy.

The BoDeans were suddenly one of the critical favorites of the year, but they aren’t exactly kicking back and basking in the acclaim. At sales of less than 100,000, the LP wasn’t a major hit, and the BoDeans still feel they’re on the outside looking in.

“A lot of people think we’ve been real successful, but I think we’re just getting our foot in the doorway,” said Newmann. “We’re still at a point where tomorrow we could be in the gutter. . . . Now we have to work really hard to be successful.”

Their response has been to tour hard. They’ve been on the road since May, sweeping through certain areas twice instead of the customary hello-goodby. They’re a little travel-weary, but they’re willing to put up with the annoyances that come with the territory.

Reflected Newmann: “There’s a point where you want to work in a more professional way and you want things set up in time or the right kind of equipment so you can put on the best show. Otherwise you end up looking like a fool.

“And when you see some bands on the radio or something and you think it’s just trash but they’re popular, that gets kind of discouraging, too.

“But then you see a performer like Tom Waits or Elvis Costello or something, and it’s just like--’Look at these guys. They’re great.’ Way beyond anything that’s on the radio. That’s a nice place to get to. If I could ever get to someplace like that it would be a hell of a lot better than being a star on the radio.”

The BoDeans’ second album is on their minds. They rushed the first record, partly from eagerness to get it out, partly because they were recording in Los Angeles and every day here cost them money.

Said Llanas: “We like to do things really slow and do them right, and sometimes you don’t get to do that. It’s a drag. When it was all done and mixed we heard things that we knew weren’t right. And we would have liked to go back and do this over and do it right, but there wasn’t any money or any time to do that.”

They’re considering New York as the recording site for the follow-up, and they’re looking for a producer who’ll give them a “more produced” sound. The main thing they want to do is surprise people.

“I’m sure there’s gonna be people who are gonna want to hear the first record on the second record, but that’s too bad,” warned Llanas. “The first record was where we were at the time, and hopefully we’re growing.”

Newmann said they’re not worried that any changes will alienate the BoDeans’ fresh following.

“We’re real simple writers and what we do is basic because that’s all we know how to do. So I don’t think that would ever be lost. We’re always gonna be the same people writing the songs and performing them, so there’s always gonna be that BoDean-ness about what we do, and hopefully that’s what people like about it.”