Cowboy and Indian

Cowboy and Indian are a two piece band from Austin Texas comprised of singer Jazz Mills and Jesse Plemons (who is an actor in NBC’s Friday Night Lights), they performed a stunningly beautiful set of music at the Desert Rocks Music Festival near Moab, Utah on May 29th. Their simple style of music involves hauntingly beautiful vocals accompanied by sparse acoustic guitar work and evocative and original songs that will stick in your head for days, my mind thought of Joni Mitchell and M. Ward but they have their own sound for sure. Jazz has a voice second to none, seriously I’m not sure I’ve ever heard one as clear and beautiful.

Below is an interview with Jazz titled Five Minutes with Jazz Mills of Cowboy and Indian from Indie Sounds, see original interview here

Everyone is Austin is suddenly talking about Jazz Mills and her Cowboy and Indian project. There’s quite the buzz going on, so Indie Sounds felt it needed to get in on the ground floor …

Indie Sounds: Cowboy and Indian is you … and some others?  Others such as?

Jazz Mills: Cowboy and Indian was originally just me and Jesse Plemons, who is an actor on NBC’s Friday Night Lights, but because he has to spend so much of his time in Los Angeles, I asked Daniel James of Leopold and his Fiction to join in. That way, when Jesse was gone … I could still promote Cowboy and Indian.

IS: So when and how did Cowboy and Indian get started?

Jazz: Cowboy and Indian got started about six weeks ago. We are very new. After SXSW, people who saw me and Jesse play (at the Indie Sounds Day Party, among other places) began to create a buzz about the duo and since I was never really that interested in promoting my embryonic solo career … Cowboy and Indian was born. I am much happier being a part of this project.

IS: And what did you do musically (and in life) before the current adventure?

Jazz: I have been singing my whole life with my mother (Tree Mills), but was never really that involved with performing until I was a vocalist in T-Bird and the Breaks. Since my parting with T-Bird almost a year ago, I have just been singing with a lot of different people around town.

IS: Tell us about the videos of you and Stephanie Hunt shot by Holly Bronko?

Jazz: Stephanie and I have always loved singing together, but hadn’t ever written together until about a month ago. Holly saw us sing our songs live at a party I threw at my house and wanted to shoot videos for them. I was already going to be in the studio with Holly for a photo shoot … so … we shot both videos live in about 15 minutes. Holly is absolutely brilliant. She will be working with Cowboy and Indian a lot.

Here are a couple of those videos:

IS: What’s the plan for recording and for live shows?

Jazz: We have many different ideas for recording. All of this is happening very fast so we don’t really have a set plan, but we have been recording some with Joe Humel (of Charlie Faye and Dustin Welch fame, and now in business as Rockstar Bagels) and some with Barrett Walton of Infinity Recording Studios. Daniel has recorded the majority of Leopold and his Fiction’s music and I think he will be very involved in the recording process for Cowboy and Indian.

We will be performing at the Desert Rocks Music Festival in Moab, Utah this weekend and then we are sharing a bill with Drew Smith’s Lonely Choir at Momo’s on Saturday, June 5th. Also, we will be on the bill with The Black and White Years and L.A.X at The Sessions big show at One World Theater on July 10th, and then leaving for a two week tour right after that.

IS: And where is all of this going to lead?

Jazz: I am not really sure where all of this is going to lead, but right now the most important thing to me is that I am completely in love with the people I am creating music with and my manager. I am constantly inspired by Daniel and Jesse. They are both definitely much cooler than me and I am honored to be involved with them. We will hopefully inspire and move many others the way we do each other.

Here is another live video which displays Jazz’s incredible voice.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 29th, 2010 at 2:00 pm. It is filed under Desert Rocks Festival, Live music reviews and tagged with Cowboy and Indian, Desert Rocks 2010. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.