Robert Jon & the Wreck hail from Orange County, California, but sound like they just rolled out of Georgia or Florida circa ’82. The band, which proudly wears its Allmans and Skynyrd influences on its sleeve, features a charismatic frontman, surging Hammond organ, multi-part vocal harmonies and plenty of hot licks and biting slide guitar by Henry James.
Their most recent album, Heartbreaks & Last Goodbyes, was produced by Dave Cobb, who has worked with Marcus King, Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile and John Prine.
James says Cobb helped the band structure the material and gave them sonic ideas, including playing them classic Seventies albums by Free and the Faces. That was music to the ears of James, who calls himself “the ’70s rock nerd, the guy that knows what year this album was recorded and who played on it.”
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“Our influences are all over the place, which I think is actually a strength since we all influence each other and play one another our favorite albums, which are completely different,” he says.
“I’m very well versed in my influences and my players, specifically from that generation. 90 percent of what I listen to is ’60s and ’70s rock, as well as R&B, jazz, funk and country from that time.”
James is a true-blue guitar guy who grew up reading Guitar World, so you know he’s got taste! For more proof, his favorite players include Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Duane Allman, Dickey Betts, Ritchie Blackmore, Eddie Van Halen and Steve Howe.
“I’m a guitar guy who obsesses about pedals and pickups and amps,” James says. “But I also know that all my favorite players were focused on the music first, and that’s what we all try to do.”
For all that wide range of influences, the Wreck are distinctly a California band, and James says that he thinks it can be heard in their music in a variety of ways.
“I think there’s a subtle slickness to what we do,” he says. “We love session guys and have respect for Toto and the Wrecking Crew and these musicians who laid down tracks on so many great L.A. records. That’s in our DNA, as is the California country thing from the Flying Burrito Brothers to the Eagles.
“Some of the guys are big fans of the Bakersfield country sound and, I’m a Van Halen fan, too. They exemplify California hard rock.”
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are another influence on the band, right down to the structure of their name. They are, says James, very much a band, not a backing group.
“It’s very democratic. We make decisions as a group,” he says. “That takes a lot of the load off any one person and we try to lean into everybody’s different strengths, which helps the sum be greater than the parts.”
