ROBERT M. DAVIDSON

Robert M. Davidson writes songs revolving around love, loss, and longing: mornings spent alone, evenings spent with too many people, and afternoons spent smoking cigarettes on his West Philadelphia porch while reminiscing over people he probably shouldn’t reminisce over any more. Strongly influenced by classic songwriters like June Carter, Hank Williams, and George Jones, country music has formed the main backbone of Bob’s writing for over two decades.

Introduced to Willie Nelson by his grandma and taught his first Hank Williams and Woody Guthrie songs by his grandpa, having spent his childhood on upstate New York’s rural Southern Tier, Bob was steeped in country from a young age. After a punk rock adolescence and teenage years spent between North Carolina and Brooklyn, he started his first country-punk band at 18 with neighborhood friend Seth Kessel.

THE BROKEN HEARTS BAND

After years of wandering in the wilderness and not releasing music, friend and bassist John McLean convinced Bob it was time to start a honky tonk band and maybe play some Dwight Yoakam covers. Veterans of Brooklyn-based punk bands like Worriers, Dead Dog, Beer Garden, and the Stockyard Stoics, John and Bob never shook the country music they were raised with and were excited to play it in Philadelphia. Robert M. Davidson & the Broken Hearts Band was born.

With West Philly Orchestra percussionist Elliot Beck on board and Bob’s cousin and former bandmate David Thompson playing piano and telecaster, the Broken Hearts Band started rehearsing in Bob and Elliot’s West Philly basement, playing shows and working through Bob’s decades-long backlog of songs.

THE PARADE

One heartbreak later, the Parade was written. With WPO’s Ello Sherzer joining up on fiddle, and unable to find anyone in Philly willing to record them on tape, the band got to work recording a set of mostly brand new songs in their home studio.

Inspired by the classic country of Hank Williams and George Jones, built on years of punk rock attitude and a DIY approach, and documenting a freshly painful love affair gone awry, the album quickly turned into something more than the honky tonk record they set out to make. Fleshed out by David’s Floyd Cramer-esque piano and manic tick tack guitar, Ello’s old timey double stops on the fiddle, and the Cosmic Guilt’s Zena Kay guesting on lush, haunting pedal steel, the album melds the Replacements-esque energy of tracks like Seeds & Stems and the title track, the western swing vibes of Please Don’t and Big Thoughts, and the quiet heartbreak of Dreamin’ and the all-too-raw a Half-Hearted Kiss into an album that feels cinematic in its scope and narrative, embarrassingly honest in its storytelling, and authentic in its roots and influences.

With the Parade set to be released in 2023, the Broken Hearts Band currently have an EP available on bandcamp and can be found playing shows around Philly and the Northeast.