Biography
After tasting critical praise and radio exposure with the release of How Is It Where You Are?, Rodeo Boy’s members opted against capitalizing on the momentum. Instead they stepped away from music entirely for roughly four years. Bassist Charles Brookshire later cited the need to recover from the surrounding excitement and to collect themselves before starting another album, a process they began within a couple of years. The recording itself occupied about twelve months. When the finished work finally appeared, the band had to rebuild contact with listeners who had concluded, after the prolonged silence, that the group had split. Re-emerging in 2002 with a firmer sense of their own limits, Rodeo Boy issued The Pine and Promise early in the year. Brookshire, a Wilmington, NC native, not only plays bass but also sings backing vocals and adds occasional piano, organ, and guitar. Completing the lineup are lead guitarist Jason Caperton, who grew up in Whiteville, NC, drummer Jeff Reardon, and vocalist-guitarist James Reardon, his brother; the Reardon siblings spent their youth moving with their military family. Also in 2002 the quartet appeared in a Dawson’s Creek segment shot in North Carolina, the band’s home base. Originally a trio formed by the Reardon brothers and Brookshire’s roommate, the group recruited Brookshire on bass once the roommate proved unreliable, then began playing regional shows. A local record-store owner soon asked them to cut a 7" for a label he planned to launch; the session grew into the full-length And the Streets Did Shrink. An association with the Godrays later produced a split 7". Before sessions for The Pine and Promise, guitarist Caperton joined as the fourth member.
Albums