The Cypress Knees

article by Vanelis Rivera

“He may not have a soul, but he has a voice and guitar skills.” Stacey Sheppard provides all the witty banter, from time to time referencing Jordan’s ginger status, when performing with husband Jordan Sheppard as Mama and the Outlaw. Sharing one mic, the couple perform as if alone, nobody watching what is a breath away from becoming an intimate moment. Killer vocal stylings snake between the couple and a busy audience at Brass Monkey occasionally taking pause between Stacey’s soulful resonance and Jordan’s growling vocal range.

They’ve come a long way since meeting in 2008 at a singing competition, getting married eight months later, and forming Roses and Revolvers (their first name as a duet that soon got misinterpreted as a Guns N’ Roses tribute band). “When I started dragging her on stage she started to fight it. We didn’t have any idea that it was going to happen,” says Jordan. A cowboy book at an estate sale provided their current title as a duo. “It was always a cover band,” clarifies Jordan. But last year, Jordan launched his first EP Sad, Slow, Drunk Country Songs, a collection of ballads (with a couple of kickers), years in the making, which he cut at home, featuring Stacey on a few tracks. A bit has changed in a year. Jordan, Stacey, and a bunch of fellow “wood hippies” are now in the final stages of releasing a self-titled EP—The Cypress Knees—meant to usher in an audacious new stage of songwriting and musicianship.

Though Jordan grew up with people in his grandparent’s living room playing bluegrass, he didn’t know he was born into an influential music pedigree until eight years ago. He learned his grandparents, who played bluegrass gospel, toured a major circuit with some heavy hitters, distinctly the Sullivan Family (bluegrass gospel pioneers) and the “Father of Bluegrass,” Bill Monroe. “He held me as a baby,” recalls Jordan. This happened backstage at the Ryman Auditorium (also known as Grand Ole Opry House) in Nashville, Tennessee—another momentous landmark in his family’s music history. “I wanted to play with my grandparents,” he says, choosing the fiddle as a “showoff thing,” typical of an eight-year-old.

At eleven, he began songwriting, which required another instrument. A member of his church family, local singer/songwriter Amanda McDowell, suggested he switch to either piano or guitar. “I was already teased enough for being geeky and a redhead,” laughs Jordan, defending his choice of guitar over piano. Even then, he had to practice incognito. “My dad didn’t want me to be mediocre at two things,” he explains, so he was sneaking into his father’s room with a baby guitar book playing on his father’s guitar. After a few weeks of learning “Sweet Home Alabama,” he walked into the living room, played it for his father, and received a hardened “Get out of here” (but it wasn’t what he thought). Jordan’s father was impressed with his quick guitar skills and, though annoyed at his audacity, gifted him the guitar. Jordan’s grandparents were Pentecostal: “They don’t really care about long-haired, tattooed people.” But when Jordan showed an interest in rock and roll, his father, who has always been a rocker, gave him a classic rock compilation tape that would become his introduction to the genre’s riff-centric guitar style.

“I got a band to play gigs,” Jordan says, adding his appreciation for the musicians that complete The Cypress Knees: Walt Silmon (bass), Hayden McConkey (guitar), and Michael Young (drums). “Hayden’s a great solo artist. For instance, today in the studio he laid down his solo and he did it in the first take,” beams Jordan. Each musician sets the table with their own flare. McConkey plays “eighties hair metal stuff” while Silmon is a “Red Hot Chili Peppers guy.” The band’s unique moniker, Silmon’s invention, refers to the group’s free-spirited lifestyle of kayaking “dirty swamps and bayous.” Also, “nobody really knows what purpose cypress knees serve and that’s kind of like us too. Good fer nothin’.” The band is still figuring out their sound, but they’re a “country band that desperately wants to be a rock band,” jokes Jordan. “I still resent being called a country singer. I’m thankful that I’m recognized as anything, but I don’t want to be compared to what is on country radio.” Jordan confesses he has spent years avoiding country as much as he could, though many of his songs seem to naturally lean in that direction. Musically he claims to be “a bit schizophrenic,” fluctuating from bluegrass to death metal: “I wanted to be Ozzy Osbourne so bad!”

His extensive palate, which currently includes Turnpike Troubadours, Tyler Childers, Led Zeppelin, and The Civil Wars, seeps as much into the music as his song concepts. “I want to head bang to this song, talking about a country road,” he says, striving to challenge norms: “Why can’t we do a blues breakdown in the middle of this country song?” Mostly, he keeps his “weird songs” to himself, admitting he wants to someday soon (on the low) compose a bluesy, psychedelic folk record. “I have never done heroin before,” he warns, before revealing the story behind “Nobody Ever Goes Home,” a song about heroin acting as a level playing field regardless of a user’s race, age, or socioeconomic background. In the song, heroin is an attractive lady dressed in white. “It’s super weird, and that’s the whole point. It was another attempt to write a bluegrass song, but it came out like a Russian folk ballad.” He hasn’t reached a point of comfort with his racier singles, the ones that would make “the ladies at church” have something to say, but what he has released is still worth talking about.

Jordan claims to be writing more now than he ever has in his life. When Stacey joined The Cypress Knees, she began to take lead on a few songs, which opened the door for Jordan to write from uncharted territory. “I love the fact that now I get to write from a woman’s perspective, which is strange, but it is opening up doors for me. Writing things like my car broke down and oil fields gets old after a while.” The upcoming EP is bluesy and “very Louisiana,” says Jordan. There’s also no denying it’s a rock and roll album. “Honest Woman,” about a double murder suicide, is Jordan’s “attempt at writing a bluegrass song,” but during the chorus—How could you do this to me—when the narrator is “losing his crap,” the song goes into a punk rock crescendo. “I never really know what I’m going to write about. I usually get a melody when I ride my motorcycle and a phrase will come that fits,” he says. Most of the time his songs are “oddball stuff,” but recently his focus has turned to writing songs for when Stacey takes the lead vocals or duets with him. “If I Were a Mountain” is a recent “happy” duet with a Janis Joplin sentiment that later gets “poppy.” The new project comprises approximately six songs that are meant to unveil The Cypress Knees as a “whole new band.”

“Jordan Sheppard sounds like he’s lived his lyrics,” writes JKLO Monroe. “That’s one reason you can feel what he’s singing.” But it’s not just Jordan’s exponential range that makes him a showstopper. His attention to the emotionality of a song is what captivates, and when Stacey joins in, the union is cathartic. The duo has performed all over the south, and even opened for Brothers Osborne, Love & Theft, Whiskey Myers, 3 Doors Down, and Dwight Yoakam. “I love playing gigs and recording, and I’m having fun, but I would love to be a songwriter and that’s it. Hangout with my kids, go fishing, write songs, and send them to someone else to sing,” he says. Playing for fifteen years has taught him that growth can be slow paced. “I’ve understood that I’m always gonna have to perform,” reveals Jordan, admitting that while he’s not a people person, in front of a crowd he experiences reality warp. The music takes center stage, and he simply follows its lead. “It’s about the music. It’s like a drug, almost.”

“I don’t play an instrument ‘cuz I’m lazy,” Stacey lightly taunts the Brass Monkey patrons between songs. She claims to be an introvert, though there’s no hint of it onstage. Who could guess that in the past, Jordan would have to drag her into the spotlight until she became more comfortable. Now, the connection between their harmonies imparts the presence of an unbreakable bond. Mid-song, the couple exchange tender glances and smirks, lips inches away from each other. It’s clear that whether on a festival stage or the intimate platform of a dive bar, performing as a duet or as a band, music is their intimate space, and one any audience would be lucky to get a glimpse into.

Follow The Cypress Knees on Facebook and Instagram (@jordansheppardnthecypressknees) for booking information and for updates on their performance schedule.