Published: June 30, 2009 10:48 am      

Fiery act

Versatile Toluenes coming to Greenbo

GREENUP — It’s an integrated career for The Toluenes, a southwestern country band that also produces jewelry and has made an award-winning television pilot that is being shopped around Hollywood.

Members Jamon Scott and Dan Crawley grew up together in southern Kentucky hating one another. “It’s a very long story, but there’s a girl involved. You know how that goes,” Crawley said.

Their explosive, early relationship gives the name of the group another layer of meaning: although they took their name from the Roger Clyne song “Heaven on the Highway out of Town,” which mentions the chemical toluene, a liquid hydrocarbon used as a solvent and an agent in gasoline.

Scott first became interested in music as a “little kid,” he said.

“We had an old floor model stereo and my mom said I would fall asleep standing up watching the record go around,” he said.

Crawley had always loved music and wanted to play guitar, but his desire to become music became real after hearing the Kentucky Headhunters perform at a festival in his town.

“I thought, ‘they’re from around here, and if they can do it, I can do it,’” Crawley said. “Then, I had to start learning how to play guitar.”

Although they’re not fond of labels, they can agree on southwestern country.

“We joke and say we’re the best southwest band from the southeast,” Crawley said, adding they are fans of southest bands such as The Gin Blossoms and The Refreshments, so it’s fine with them to fall under the same label.

Besides, the musicians understand that labeling is a way of communicating.

“You never want to think you’re like someone else, but you’re very clearly a product of it,” Scott said. “To put that label there kind of helps people understand what you’re about, espeically when you’re trying to build a reputation for yourself.

The ventures in addition to music work together to help market the band as well as give the members other creative ways to express themselves.

The jewelry and potentially a line of denim, called Sancho’s Blues after a character in one of their songs, is a method of merchandising.

Scott, who developed an interest in designing jewelry from a former girlfriend who makes jewelry, said it was Crawley’s idea to market it in conjunction with the band. He said the jewelry makes use of semi-precious stones and has a southwest native American style.

The television series has brought critical accolades and that grew from a friendship between Scott and standup comedian Buddy Scott Sullivan, who co-wrote and starred in “Bottle Rockets.” The film has won several independent film awards, was screened in Las Vegas and Cannes festivals and was named one of the best television pilots in 2007. Scott compares the pilot in style to “Seinfeld” and “Home Improvement.”

“We tried to find a way for years to combine his act and my act,” Scott said. “We’ve tried to do some really strange stuff, and then finally we decided, what if we did a TV show about two guys doing what we’re doing? Basically, we play ourselves.

“We’ve got it in the hands of people picking at it in Hollywood right now,” he said.

Each show would end with a live performance of a song that Scott wrote well before the film was made.

“The song ties up all the loose ends,” he said, stressing the plots, as well as the stories told in their songs, are true.

“We don’t write this stuff,” he said. “We just write it down.”

LEE WARD can be reached at lward@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2661.