Primarily comprised of its creative masterminds and founding members Daniel and Jenna Watters, Austin, TX-based indie soul act The Watters can trace their origins to when the band’s founding members met as children. As the story goes, they first met while playing on the same pee wee football team in Sedona, AZ that Jenna’s father coached — although they did attend rival grade schools. The duo eventually went to high school together and at that point, began a collaboration that can trace its origins to when the duo performed together at their high school graduation and then fell in love; in fact, they’ve performed together for over 12 years, written together for over 8 and have recorded 6 albums together while in the Denver, CO then Nashville, TN-based nationally touring act The Oak Creek Band.
Now writing and performing together as The Watters, the duo’s forthcoming debut effort Great Unknown was influenced by Daniel and Jenna’s own personal experience. As Daniel Watters explains in press notes: “The concept of the Great Unknown came to us while we were in transition between Nashville and Austin. We were living in Sedona, AZ with my folks for three months having left Nashville and had no idea where we were moving to. Our bassist was going to move to California and so were we, but we happened to stop in Austin on our way back and fell in love. We were so torn on what to do, but we trusted our instincts and made the hard decision to leave our musical brother and start a new life in Austin. The Great Unknown is [about] the power of intuition and the beauty in uncertainty. Instead of finding fear in the unknown, I find it easier to see the beauty and opportunity in the unknown. Our move to Austin was a complete leap of faith, but a year later we are very happy here and feel an overwhelming support system here.”
Recorded at Cacophony Recorders, Great Unknown features some of the Austin, TX area’s best and most renowned musicians including Band of Heathens‘ Trevor Nealon, Golden Dawn Arkestra‘s Joe Woullard and Zumbi Richards and Erik Hokkanan and was recorded live to tape to best capture the band’s live sound. Album title track and first single “Great Unknown” has the band pairing Muscle Shoals soul with 70s AM rock — a soulful horn arrangement and Jenna Watters’ effortlessly soulful vocals are paired with jangling guitars and gently propulsive drumming, along with a careful and deliberate attention to craft. Lyrically, the song focuses on two very different things -taking a big chance on your dreams with the hope that things will come out in your favor but also on something that people often forget, sometimes you can’t fight the tide; things will sort themselves out in their own time and in their own way even your own dreams.
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