L.A. Beat

Dustin Bentall is more than his father’s son, though he is following in his father’s musical footsteps.
 Dustin Bentall, the son of ’90s Canadian rock icon Barney Bentall, is making his way as a roots rocker along the lines of Gram Parsons and the Byrds.

 He and his band, bassist Del Cowsill (son of the late Billy Cowsill), drummer Rich Knox and fiddler Kendel Carson will be playing Lethbridge, when they hit the Slice, Nov. 3.

“We’ve come to Alberta several times, over the past couple years but couldn’t make it  work in Lethbridge,” croaked an ailing Bentall, just leaving a Hallowe’en gig at the Ironwood in Calgary.

“ They show this time  will be very different. The last time I was there, I was still pretty much a greenhorn as  a performer. I was still learning  a lot. I still am. But I’ve played 300 or 400 shows since then. I know Kendel wasn’t there and I don’t think Del was in the band yet either,” he said.

“Del has those Cowsill  genes and  Kendel (who plays with Canadian acts like the paperboys and has played with Spirit of the West)  is phenomenal. She’s spent a lot of her life  touring and paying and she’ll play things on the fiddle that will make people just tear their hair out,” Bentall enthused, adding their harmony vocals are an integral part of the band’s sound.

“We’re all good buddies so it is going to be good,” he said.

He was still suffering from a little jet lag after a three week European tour mostly concentrating  on Holland, but with a couple shows in Germany. It was his second time playing Europe, though the last time he was playing in Denmark about three weeks ago.

“Kendel’s been there a couple times though. And there is a record label there who is interested in my music, so I finally got to meet them,” he said.

“And there’s a lot of North American people  who live over there now, who had seen the show, so they came out.”

 Audiences over in Holland are different, but he was warned about it by Kendel and some of his other friend who had played there  were familiar with them, so they prepared him for the experience.

“ In Holland, audiences only applaud for a short time after each songs, but they were really enjoying it. They’d come up after the show and buy CDs and say how much they enjoyed the show,” he observed.

“It’s very cool because they see us as an Americana band. And while that’s what we do, but we never think about it. But over there, you are one of them,” he said.

 He got into Americana and folk music after his dad introduced him to the music of Bob Dylan and the Band. But what really  got him into it was hearing Gram Parsons for the first time.

“A friend of my dad’s gave me some work when I was 16. The first time I heard Gram Parsons was in his truck. He asked me if I knew about his double album “ Grievous Angel,” he said adding that got him to learn about his time hanging out with the Rolling Stones and playing with the Byrds.

 

“ What I liked best about him was his delivery and performance. He wasn’t a very prolific writer, but the songs he did write are just so amazing. He tried so hard. He didn’t have the perfect voice, but you could tell how much he wanted to be Elvis,” Bentall said.

 Bentall is looking forward to finishing up a new CD  with Ryan Dahle of Limblifter and Age of Electric fame,  as producer.

“ I should have an EP out early next year and the full length CD out closer to summer,”  Bentall said.
Dahl brought a lot to the table for the new music.
“He brought a lot to the table. I’d play “Sin City” by Gram Parsons for him and say I want the song to sound like this and he’d do it,”  Bentall said.

“ He really pushed me in a lot of different directions. We took a lot of time in the studio. he‘d take the same old heard them before chord progressions and melodies and  take them in a different directions,” he said adding the CD isn’t finished yet and they have’t played a lot of the songs live.
“We didn’t have a lot of time to record. So we took a couple days. And as soon as one song was done, we’d go on to the next,” he said adding he is looking forward to learning how to play the finished songs with the band.

“ Some of the songs are pretty difficult because Ryan and I did a lot of rewriting,” he said.
Bentall doesn’t get a lot of comparisons to his famous father, but does get to hear a lot of stories about him.

“ I get a lot of people coming up to me saying they saw my dad. They’ll not be able to remember the name of the bar and expect me to have something to say about it. I wasn’t there. How can they think I’d  even care about it,” he said.

 “But they only have positive things to say,” he said adding he doesn’t mind talking about his dad.
“It’s all good. Dad has a good reputation all across the country.”

 Dustin Bentall with Cosmic Charley play the Slice, Nov. 3 at 9:30 p.m. There is a $10 cover.