Laney Jones and the Spirits set sights on the West in first national tour

Most of Laney Jones’ career has been doused in the sounds of folk and acoustic music, but it was simply an opening gig that led to an outright explosion of electric noise and rock music.

Jones and her romantic as well as musical partner, drummer Brian Dowd, had been making a musical living and residing in Nashville for years before going on the road to open for Portland’s Blitzen Trapper, an experimental folk rock group. The group requested Jones, who had just released her album “Stories up High,” stick to a three-piece group.

This request meant attempting to achieve a larger sound with a very limited number of musicians, leading to Jones taking up the electric guitar instead of a much lighter acoustic. Alongside simply wanting to accommodate for the type of crowd likely awaiting Blitzen Trapper, she began writing a different kind of song – songs fit for rock and roll.

Lyrically, Jones has been exploring themes of freedom alongside ideas of escaping the mundane. Her entire musical process has also been shifted since this heavier adoption.

“My last record I wrote with an acoustic guitar and everything just kind of happened from sitting down and seeing what comes out,” Jones said. “Now, it all starts with a jam with guitar and drums and bass guitar and shifts from there.”

Jones hasn’t stopped yet, and after adding a fourth musician to the group about a year ago, she is now the frontwoman of Laney Jones and the Spirits.

Each member of the group has a diverse musical background and ways of going about the creation of their sound, but Jones tries her best to keep it simple, sincere and immediate as a lyricist, lead vocalist and guitarist. This diversity also leads to a plethora of influences, ranging from Radiohead and the Pixies to Wilco and the Beatles.

Jones and the Spirits spent most of January writing and recording songs for an album that was just recently finished and mastered, although a release date is yet to be known beyond a general timeline of early next year. A few more of those songs can be expected as upcoming singles, even though at the time of recording, Jones was almost afraid of the fact that they hadn’t been heard and approved by crowds.

Jones’ most recent single, “Another Rolling Stone,” exists in juxtaposition to most songs on the record, as it was heavily road tested.

“It was one of those songs that I wrote very immediately, but trying to get it just right recording wise took a little bit,” Jones said. “There’s this ending jam part that originally hadn’t been in the song or the vision when I wrote it, but just kind of evolved that way through playing it out on the road and exploring that sound.”

The group is embarking on their first national headlining tour, taking them across the country and to an array of places they have never seen before, including Spokane and the District Bar on Sunday before playing in Seattle on Monday and Happy Valley, Oregon’s Pickathon festival on Friday.

“As we make our way out West, this is really cool and gratifying because I know it solidifies us as a band,” Jones said. “And the sound just grows as we play. There’s really only one way to develop that electric chemistry, and it’s just to play.”