A Brief History of Detour

by Michael Faubion

Back when I was playing music for a living, it was pretty much out of economic necessity that the bands I was in, or formed, were trios. There wasn't enough money in a gig to divide up four ways. So out of musical necessity, I learned to play guitar as lead and rhythm together.

I wasn't very good at learning other people's licks or remembering them once I did, so I just made up stuff and played what sounded like it fit. After a while, my guitar playing evolved into a personal, if not unique, improvisational style.

As I gradually graduated from sideman to frontman I started adapting and arranging songs to work in a three-piece band suited to my style of playing.

Bands went through various incarnations as I played around Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Montana. I wrote a bunch of regional songs, trying to nail down what this music I was making was about. Was it country, was it western, was it honky-tonk, old rock, rockabilly? I always had trouble plugging into a particular genre, too. Yes, we played country gigs, but the repertoire had to include Elvis songs, Chuck Berry, Creedence, Eric Clapton's "Cocaine", Waylon and Willie, the Hanks Jr and Sr, Merle, and "Help Me Make It Through The Night."

Along about 1988, when my wife and I were living in Reno, I finally stumbled upon the name for the band I wanted to build. I knew the music wasn't mainstream--maybe the tunes were, but the sound was different. It was basically going the same place, but taking an alternate route. That's it, an alternate route, a Detour.
Detour was born in Reno with electric guitar, bass and drums. We played one gig at the State Fair and were well received. Then my wife and I moved to Alaska. Detour surfaced briefly in Bethel, but it was tough to find all the necessary parts to sustain it--a bass player, drummer and gigs.

After moving to Anchorage, I hooked up with Henery "Hank" Roesing and we started up 60/40, which is a wonderful magical ensemble with great old songs, originals, harmony and two guitars. It has a flavor all its own and will continue as it is.

But I have gotten itchy to try doing some other things as well. Since meeting Tom Torvie in the past year, I realize I've found a kindred spirit. Tom played the honky-tonks on the road in some of the same parts of the country I did back in the 70s and 80s--small town bar gigs two weeks at a stretch. He's got a million road stories and knows all the stage jokes. He's also a great bass player and fabulous singer.
We started talking about getting a different kind of band together than either of us were playing in at the time and started working up the song list. We brought Howard Okland from 60/40 into the mix to carry the percussion. Howard is one of the rare drummers who is content to play a steady basic groove with brushes on snare and hi-hat. With aging ears no longer able to adjust to three-digit decibel levels, this is perfect.

So now, almost 20 years later, Detour is back. The guys and the songs are 20 years older, but that's just given us more experience and validates the quality of the songs.

So what is Detour? Can we apply a genre? Can we answer the most difficult question that can ever be asked of a musician, namely, "What kind of music do you play?" I'm hoping the name "Detour" says a lot, along with the motto "Cruisin Music." It should generate an expectation of hearing something a little out of the ordinary, maybe some road songs, truck driving songs perhaps. Detour might be where American music turned off the Radio Expressway and went down a blue highway and stopped off at all the roadhouse honky-tonks and truck stop dance halls at crossroads two miles out of town. Well, that's what it is. If you gotta have a label, I'm going to call it "Roots Country."

I like to say this Detour is American music going in a general direction from Bob Wills to George Thoroughgood. Yes, there's something common to both and the Detour takes in everything in between: Hank Sr. and Lefty Frizzel who turned their troubled lives into songs and gave us the subject matter; Jimmie Rodgers who melded tin pan alley with delta blues and laid the foundation for rock & roll as well as country; Johnny Cash and Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins and all the rockabillers who came out of Sun Records and Memphis; Buck and Merle out of Bakersfield; Chuck Berry, Freddy King, T-Bone Walker and all the great blues players; the outlaws of the 70s who bucked the Nashville music machine. This is the road the music's on, picking up influences and applying them like stickers on the old guitar case.

This is where Detour has been, and where it's restarting from now. Every time we play we use parts we've picked up along the way. We're not any kind of knock-off band. We don't intend to play anything like anyone else ever played it, unless that's the way it feels like it ought to be played. And then it will still come out sounding like us.