Erika Wennerstrom: "I want to sound like Nico and Lou Reed."

photo by Cambria Harkey

Dave Colvin, Erika Wennerstrom, Jesse Ebaugh

Heartless Bastards are having an incredible year: a spot on The Late Show with David Letterman, great reviews for their latest record The Mountain, and an appearance on the PBS program Austin City Limits, not to mention the non-stop supporting gigs for Jenny Lewis, the Decemberists, and the Avett Brothers. Somehow in between all of this, bassist Jesse Ebaugh, drummer Dave Colvin, and the bombastically voiced Erika Wennerstrom--who in person is a sunny mix between citified cowgirl and Janice from the Electric Mayhem--found the time to record two country standards with Alex Moss of the Black Angels, available online digitally and as a seven-inch, under the name Sweet Tea. I've known the band for years--in December 2001, I recorded the Heartless Bastards demo at Ultrasuede Studio in Cincinnati--and spoke with them by phone yesterday. Tonight, they share a bill with thenewno2 and Wolfmother at Music Hall of Williamsburg.

Heartless Bastards (Radio Room)
Marnie Stern (Club De Ville)
SXSW Wednesday Afternoon, March 18

Erika Wennerstrom's bandmates give her a tremendously wide berth onstage, three grizzled gentlemen crowding demurely to our far right as she holds court on the left, the sort of blast radius you'd give an M-80 or a mountain lion. The Heartless Bastards leader is a bellower indeed; "Can't do the things I used to do/'Cause I feel old," she demurely howls at the onset of the Austin-by-way-of-Ohio band's 2:30 p.m. set at Paste magazine's afternoon fete (say what you will, but that mag is fuckin' resilient), and she sounds old too, or wiser, wearier, more wizened -- Beth Ditto with less grandstanding, PJ Harvey with even more Southern discomfort.