Best of What's Next 2009: Southeast Engine [Musicians]

Photo by Sarah Warda

Hometown: Athens, Ohio
Album: From the Forest to the Sea
Members: Leo DeLuca (drums), Billy Matheny (keyboards), Adam Remnant (lead vocals, guitar, harmonica), Jesse Remnant (bass vocals)
For Fans Of: Wilco, Bright Eyes, Creedence Clearwater Revival

Ohio quartet Southeast Engine’s latest album tells the story of a sea-bottom cartographer who helps the government find the best spots to drill for oil. “This character has potentially bought into the standard American dreams and ideals, in a hollow, shallow sense,” says lead singer Adam Remnant, taking a break from tiling a bathroom, one of his day jobs.

Aptly titled From the Forest to the Sea, the record begins with a three-song dream sequence that follows the mapmaker into the ocean, where he experiences an underwater spiritual awakening. “He’s having some sort of nightmares or hallucinogenic visions that are leading him to escaping the world he has allowed himself to create,” Remnant says. Down-to-earth music complements the lyrics’ natural imagery. Recorded in an abandoned school auditorium in the small town of Stewart, Ohio, you can hear every creak in the floorboard behind Remnant’s Jeff Tweedy-like tenor and the band’s low-key roots-rock arrangements. 

When he’s not on tour, Remnant works full-time as a carpenter and handyman in Ohio, a job that fits right into his own American Dream. “It’s about having an interaction with your local community,” he says. “Having a sense that you’re moving in a direction where you want to be going, and the people around you are supporting you.”

What’s next? “The band,” says Remnant, “is focusing on a new batch of songs that are inspired by Athens County, here in Ohio, and part of the town’s history, also being analogous to the current state of our country and world.”

Listen to Southeast Engine's "Black Gold" on the PasteStation.

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