Hot off the release of their new CD, "Sober & Stupid", Lincoln's Forty-Twenty are ripping up stages in town and all over the country with their own brand of Punky-tonk. I spoke with fiddle player David Wilson and bassist Lern Tilton about the band.

SCS: How and when did Forty Twenty form as a band?

David: We started jamming out old-school country songs in Lern’s basement sometime in late 2001. We were all pursuing other musical endeavors at the time, but eventually we thought for some reason that it would be a good idea to conduct our jams on a bar stage. So we went down the block from Lern’s house, and talked the folks at Coyote Willy’s into letting us play an “Old-School Wednesday” once a month.

SCS: How would you describe your band or your sound to someone who's never heard or seen you?

Lern: Heavy metal music played in a traditional country format.

David: Yeah, it’s somewhat traditional country, only a little bit louder and sometimes uncomfortably faster

SCS: What can people expect at a FortyTwenty live show?

Lern: heavy drinking crowd, influenced by a heavy drinking band, playing loud and having fun.

David: That sounds like a traditional country show to me. Just add chicken wire.

SCS: What types of music and which musicians/groups influenced the band members?

Lern: I’d say my main influences are Buck Owens, George Jones, Jason and the Scorchers, and NOFX.

David: We’ve probably all been influenced by classic country in one way or another growing up, along with the inevitable other genres of music that sneak in there. I’ll go with Hank Williams Sr., because I think he’s a guy that’s influenced a lot of different types of music. Johnny Horton and Buck Owens albums don’t leave my vehicle.

SCS: Why take your band name from a John Deere tractor model number?

Lern: Why not? All the other good names were taken.

David: Yeah, at the time, we just took the best-available name. It’s just numbers. And hard-working old-school country numbers at that.

SCS: How have you grown, musically and creatively, since the band first started?

Lern: This band is still in the baby stage. We had our first album sound, and then tried to doll it up a little on this one, but I think that we are basically still writing the same songs.

David: Yes, the same songs over, and over. They don’t stop. Actually, I think we morphed quite a bit since the first album. I don’t know if that’s the right word. We didn’t really grow-up per se, but I think we represent a band much more now than we did at the time of our first album. And we’ve expanded creatively a little bit. I mean, we put a lot more cowbell in the new album. That’s creative.

SCS: Is there a single songwriter in the band?

Lern: Not one.

SCS: HAHAHA, no I was actually trying to find out if any of you are available for dating, but let me rephrase my question. How do you work out your material as a band? Does one person write the songs, or do you work on them together? How do songs go from an idea in the writers head to the finished product?

David: Usually, I’ll get something stuck in my head, like a chorus, or sometimes just words that end up being a verse. Then I’ll build a song around that. I guess sometimes it starts as a melody with no words. If after a few weeks I don’t start to think it’s a really terrible song, I play it acoustic for the band. They either dislike it, or think it’s OK.

Lern: I get a bunch of ideas in my head and either write down the words or an acoustic line, then I work in a bass line. When I have those parts figured out, I present it to the band and they throw in their parts or they say, "that song sucks" and I write another one.

SCS: You just released your second CD, ‘Sober & Stupid.’ I once saw in one of your mailings that you pretty much disowned your first CD. Is this one that much better, or is the first one that much worse?

David: That’s funny. I don’t remember that mailer, but if there’s one thing has stayed true with FortyTwenty over the past three years, it’s that we sure as heck don’t take ourselves too seriously. We should probably watch what we say more. Our first album was a snapshot of where we were in February of 2002. ‘Sober & Stupid’ is where we were in October of 2004. Both are different places in time. And both are good and bad in their respective ways for multiple reasons.

Lern: I would say that the first one still holds its own against the new one. The new one is just a lot more polished.

SCS: When and where was your first local show, and how did it go?

Lern: Coyote Willy’s. We rocked all eleven people!

SCS: What do you like and dislike about the music scene in Lincoln, and how would you compare it to other places around the country that you play?

Lern: The music scene in Lincoln is great. There is a lot going on in other states like Texas, or Oklahoma, but nothing compares to a good ol’ home-town hoedown.

David: Yeah, Lincoln has been very good to us.

SCS: Who are some local bands or musicians that you admire or feel should be recognized?

Lern: The Mezcal Brothers and the Darlings are bands I was rocking to long before we got started. The Tijuana Gigolos, Dead Echoes and Axes to the Sky are some really good local bands also... although not necessarily in the same genre as FortyTwenty.

SCS: Have you learned anything in your experiences in a band that you feel newer local bands could learn from, or made any mistakes they should avoid?

Lern: I think we're still learning those lessons.

SCS: You've been touring all over the country for a while now. What was your most memorable live performance, and what made it that?

Lern:Probably opening for Hank III at Coyote Willys, because it was our first really big show at home.

David: A few months after that Hank III show, we opened for Jason Boland in Manhattan. It was a sold-out show, packed shoulder-to-shoulder with about 400 people. That was the first time I remember a good-sized crowd seeming to dig what we were doing.

SCS: What is your best fan experience?

Lern: I can’t tell groupie stories to the press.

SCS: The you at least have to tell us what your most embarrasing moment in a show was

Lern: Getting too drunk to play when we opened for the Legendary Shack*Shakers in Kansas City on my birthday.

SCS: Yeah, birthday shows can be that way!

David: Opening for BR549 in Lawrence in 2003, we accidentally started into their cover version of Uneasy Rider, which I brought to an awkward, abrupt stop, before starting right into something else. It was pretty brutal. Oh, and there was also the time we were the first act for the day at the Wakarusa Festival one Saturday last summer. Unbeknownst to us, they had us start the show before they opened the gates. So we played our first two songs on a huge stage to a gigantic empty field. I took a picture of the incident, which ended up on the back cover of our new album. Luckily, they eventually opened the gates, and people showed up.

SCS: Who recorded Sober & Stupid, and where was it done?

David: We recorded both our albums with A.J. Mogis at Presto Studios. We went with the if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it theory. A.J. does a great job, and we had been looking forward to working with him again. The cool thing was that the new album didn’t end up sounding exactly like the first album. We recorded some things differently this time around, and just took a fresh-start approach to the whole thing.

SCS: If you could tour with any band in history, who would be your dream band to tour with?

Lern:Jason and the Scorchers: they started the whole cowpunk scene.

David: Llegendary Lloyd and the Ramblin’ Bastards.

SCS: Who was the first person or band you saw that made you want to play music?

Lern:Elvis.

David: My dad.

SCS: What was the first album/CD you bought?

Lern: Elvis.

David: John Denver and the Muppets, “A Christmas Together”.

SCS: Whose music are you listening to right now? – What other bands would you recommend people check out?

Lern: All of the above.

David: BR549 “Tangled in the Pines,” The Railbenders “Segundo,” The Weary Boys (self titled).

SCS: What are your top five albums of all time?

Lern: