Seryn Truth Serum

Seryn's Nathan James Allen talks new album, touring highs and the brink of the big time

What does it take for a band to hit the big time? Hard work, luck, ambition, brains, money, rabid fans, a solid music catalog, television appearances, luscious beards?

Denton's Seryn, the headliner for CultureMap's first anniversary party October 10, has some of that stuff right now. Vocalist/guitarist Jenny Moscoso can't have one of those things without hormone injections. That could be asking too much. Everything else cannot be ruled out. Maybe, just maybe, big times are around the corner.

The six-member group is putting the finishing touches on its second album for release next year — a follow-up to their 2011 debut, This Is Where We Are. Also in 2014, an Austin filmmaker plans to release a Seryn documentary called A Canvas of Sound.

If a bluegrass/folk band and gospel choir got married, their kid would be Seryn.

"We’re really looking to blow it out next year," said guitarist and singer Nathan James Allen.

If you've seen them live, you know they can blow it out performance-wise. If a bluegrass/folk band and gospel choir got married, their kid would be Seryn. And the kid would play a ukulele. And an accordion. And a trumpet. And a banjo. And an electric guitar. And a xylophone. And the drums. And a kalimba.

What’s a kalimba? I don’t know; the kid asked for one for Christmas. Google it. Thumb piano, thank you. Kalimba is the fancy name for that.

Since its formation in 2009, Seryn has toiled. This year, that work earned them West Coast tour dates with the Polyphonic Spree. An invite to South by Southwest. Plus more shows than ever before, and in places they've never played.

Not just cities. Some outfit in in Avon, Colorado, said, "Let's cram some bands in a Vail Valley ski gondola and record it." Okay, let’s applaud that, because not everyone gets invited to bring the house down in a gondola, or bring the gondola down. Ah, wait. Let’s make sure that stays in the land of idioms. (See video above.)

"I think this is it," Allen says of the group’s fortune. "This is the time when it’s either going to happen or it won’t. But I don’t know. If I were going to start a band right now, the things I would be thinking about doing would be like, get on Letterman, get a big corporate sponsor and a picture of you with logo in the bottom corner, get everyone talking about you.

Singer Nathan James Allen compares the relationship between band and crowd to a drug deal. "Except the drug dealer is getting higher than his customer,” he says.

"When does all that happen? Well, it happens when you have a new record. It’s this weird deal that everything starts coming together for people only when you have a new album to put out."

That didn't happen when Seryn's first album came out. But that’s okay. Be patient, right? Recording the second album was a grind compared to the first.

"It took a while to finally do," he says. "We had to deal with a lot of internal stuff between everyone in the band, with group dynamics that we hadn’t faced before. In order to get to that second record, it took a long time for us to bring something new to the table. But now that we’ve recorded it, we’re already stoked to start the third one."

The group rehearses in Argyle. Allen used to fret about everyone being on time for practices. Now everyone knows to just roll in earlier than the planned time, and they start when they start. They’re also mellower on the road.

"It used to be, every time you go on tour, it’s like you’re going to see a movie you’ve been dying to see for a while," he says. "Everyone says, 'Man, this movie is going to be freaking incredible,' and you’re so stoked. Then you watch the movie, and afterward you realize you weren’t expecting it to be that sad or that loud or that serious.

"In the past, when we go on tour we’d expect a big take-off, and it starts off great and doesn’t let up until it’s over," he says. "But the reality is that it goes up and down, and you don’t know how it’s going to turn out. I think we were kind of surprised about that. It’s the same when we play. We’ll play great one night and then one time you’re just not going to be on.

"This last time we went on tour, we were expecting the ups and downs. Going on tour will wear you out, but secretly everyone in the band loves it."

Openly, everyone in the crowd loves the band. At least it's nice to think so. Maybe it’s not just love but an enslaving demand to be entertained. Allen compares the relationship between band and crowd to a drug deal.

"Except the drug dealer is getting higher than his customer,” he says. “When you’re playing for someone, and even if it’s just 100 people or even 20 people, if you perform the best you can and put all the love you can into it, and all the people clap, it’s just an amazing feeling.

"It’s like, 'We've got music for you, and all we what we want in return is cheering and applause.' When you’re playing and you look into the crowd and think, I don’t even know any of these people, that’s what makes it all worth it."

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The CultureMap first anniversary bash takes place October 10, 8-11 pm, at the Crow Collection of Asian Art. Tickets are $10 for general admission and $25 for VIP and can be purchased online.

Denton band Seryn performs at the CultureMap first anniversary party October 10.

Denton band Seryn

Photo courtesy of Seryn

Denton band Seryn performs at the CultureMap first anniversary party October 10.

Movie Review

Daniel Craig searches for elusive new bond in audacious film Queer

Drew Starkey and Daniel Craig in Queer

Photo courtesy of A24

Drew Starkey and Daniel Craig in Queer.

As recently as the late 2010s, if a movie was made about an LGBTQ+ character, it was more than likely about their coming out experience. Romance, if it existed, was typically chaste, and actual sex was almost completely out of the question. Things have changed dramatically in the 2020s, to the point that a major movie star has no issue starring in a film called Queer.

Based on the 1985 novella by William S. Burroughs, the film features William Lee (Daniel Craig), whom everyone calls just Lee, a writer living in 1950s-era Mexico City who spends most of his time haunting local bars with friends like fellow writer Joe Guidry (Jason Schwartzman) and hitting on younger men. His early interactions in the film seem to indicate that Lee has a bad reputation within the local gay community, as multiple people avoid him or give him odd looks.

Lee senses an opportunity when he encounters a newcomer, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). Despite some awkward interactions, the two of them start spending time together, although Lee has much more invested in the relationship than Eugene does. Their hit-and-miss bond continues until Lee, who’s starting to get into drugs in addition to the booze, convinces Eugene to accompany him on a trip to South America.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes (making their second straight film together after Challengers), early on the film seems to be mostly about the divide between an older person who’s grown comfortable in his ways and a younger person who’s living a relatively carefree life. The introduction of drugs into the plot changes things, though, with Lee searching out more ways to open his eyes to what the world has to offer.

Guadagnino and his team use some interesting visual storytelling techniques to introduce ideas that may not be present in the actual script. The most successful, demonstrated in multiple scenes, is the superimposition of movements by Lee over what’s actually taking place in the scene. The subtle overlay gives the audience insight into Lee’s true feelings, showing what he can’t or won’t say out loud.

Music also plays a big part in how the plot is perceived, with the use of anachronistic songs from Nirvana and Prince serving to heighten certain moments. The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is not as in-your-face as the one they did for Challengers, but it complements the film well, especially when the plot starts to get trippy in its final half hour.

Craig, who appears sweaty and disheveled for much of the film, is about as far from the suaveness of James Bond as you can get in this role. He takes multiple risks with his performance and almost all of them pay off. Starkey’s character is subdued by comparison, but still comes off well. Schwartzman and Lesley Manville are given showy roles, with both using altered appearances that make them nearly unrecognizable to deliver memorable performances.

Queer is not as accessible as Challengers was storytelling-wise, but the fact that it tells a story about gay men living their lives as they see fit with no interference or questions shows how far the film world has come in a short period of time. It also continues Guadagnino’s streak of making audacious films in a way that few other filmmakers are willing or able to approach.

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Queer is now playing in theaters.

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