The Good Neighbor Policy may just be Missoula's best original band.And that's saying quite a bit for a group of four guys and a woman, all 20-somethings, who've only been together for about a year and a half.
Yet spinning their upcoming CD, "Kill," you feel something in the music that you don't get from many Missoula bands. In a music scene filled with irony and noise, too much nuance and puffed-up pseudo-intellectualism, the five-piece band is a sudden squall of freshness and originality whose tunes are expertly composed with snapping and tight arrangements that scream musicianship.
"I don't know if I could last another winter here," says pianist James Palmer, who moved to Missoula to join his friend and fellow Austin, Texas native Thomas Pendarvis (lead vocals and guitar). "It's getting cold."
Cold fingers are not good for pianists. But for now, Palmer's fingers are instrumental to TGNP's improvisatory rock, his classical and jazz chops clearly central to the sound, weaving lines and licks that stitch melodic themes through the band's tunes.
Pianists get the short shrift of most rock bands' mojo, so Palmer's presence is fresh enough. But add to that the a cello, played by Bethany Joyce, and the mixture is magical. Joyce, a music student at UM, met the band at one of its early gigs in Missoula and adds melodic architecture to the overall sound.
"I went to their first show, and they had really good harmonies," says Joyce, who shares a home with bassist Rob Mottram in the university area. "It's something I hadn't heard before."
There's nothing contrived about GNP, except for possibly its name. Bored into a coma during history class in Austin many years ago, Pendarvis was awoken by his teacher, screaming at him to open his textbook.
He did, right to the chapter dealing with Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "good neighbor policy," one that unfortunately this country could never quite implement.
That was many years ago, long before Iraq, and therefore long before the name became ironic, at least in context of the current American foreign policy. But it's not war that The Good Neighbor Policy writes about anyway, as the songs explore personal anguish and regret in powerful and sometimes disturbing ways.
"Maybe the good Lord gave up on me," sings Pendarvis in the moving ballad, "This Beast," a smoky and slow paean to anguish. "I got these habits, or should I say, they still have me."
Such is the fare for TGNP. It's music that reverberates in the bones and occasionally rocks the house, but leaves a bitter smear around the back of the throat. Straight-beats morph into funk, ballads explode into rock. And always, the background vocals are pitch-tight, and always subdued.
For their part, TGNP doesn't have much to say in terms of their sound, other than the band tries to write music with a contemporary and very accessible feel, music for "the common man" and "the working man" (or as Palmer says, "songs about things that suck for the everyman"). There are shades of punkish anarchy, but more often it's perfectly playable on adult alternative radio.
Pendarvis, as the leading songwriter and vocalist, can write a ballad. With a voice that sometimes channels Beck or a young Lou Reed, he's quite adept on his instrument. And as chief composer, he's got a way with harmonies that is sometimes startling.
"I thought, 'If you could combine this beautiful noise, and have a good country twang, and good songwriting, you can't go wrong,' " he says.
You don't exactly feel like you've thrown in a Hank Williams CD when listening to TGNP, but there is that element of "twang" that Pendarvis speaks of.
Asked to sum up the band's sound, bassist Rob Mottram launches into smart-ass mode.
"Let's see," he says, "something pretentious. How about post-modern Marxist, esoteric rock?"
There's a slight pause. Mottram laughs, and continues: "I have no idea. It's just good. I like it."
Pendarvis and Palmer, high school buddies, were raised in the music incubator known as Austin.
It's there that they formed their first version of The Good Neighbor Policy, though the competition was fierce in a town where everyone's fighting for a gig.
"We had at least three people in our band, and all of them were in three bands," says Pendarvis. "They were like, 'I have five minutes to practice before I have to go to work.' It was a nightmare. ... Every night we played, there were huge bands playing, and all of our friends went there instead of seeing us. If you want to play, Austin's not where you want to go, because you'll die there."
After a brief stint in Florida playing punk, Palmer moved to Missoula. About a year later, Pendarvis joined him and resurrected TGNP.
They grabbed Pete Shanafelt, drummer with Sharktopus, and also added Mottram on the bass.
From there, The Good Neighbor Policy has flourished in Missoula, playing regularly at the Badlander, the Loft above Higgins Alley, the Palace, and for KBGA's birthday party as well as embarking on a tour through Missoula's new Habbilis Records, the local recording studio that also sponsors tours for its bands.
As dicey as the Austin scene was, Pendarvis is not totally sold on the band's chances for success in Missoula. Hence, the band may be short-lived for the valley.
"Missoula's great," he says, "but I wouldn't mind playing where someone can hear us."
Reach arts reporter Jamie Kelly at 523-5254 or at jkelly@missoulian.com.
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