A Musician’s Dream

Jeb Venable went to see a concert and left as a member of the band. Here’s what happened.

“Those who ramble aren’t necessarily lost,” Jeb Venable proclaims from the corner booth at The Outland. It would be a cheesy statement if the Cape Girardeau native and Springfield resident weren’t living proof. At 24 years of age, Venable is the touring bass player for the Ryan Bingham Band, whose song “Dead Horses” was the No. 15 most-played song on XM Radio’s X-Country channel as of March 4. The band is also playing at this month’s South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas and will be coming to the Snorty Horse Saloon on April 6. How did Venable get such an unusual opportunity? Through an unusual audition: He just got up on stage and started playing.

It all started on a Wednesday night in late January, when Venable was in St. Louis to catch the Ryan Bingham Band’s show at Off Broadway on Lemp Avenue. Bingham arrived at the show before his band and met Venable. Venable told Bingham he played bass, just making conversation. By the time the show started, in fact, Venable thought nothing of it.

Apparently, Bingham did. He asked Venable to come onstage and play a handful of tunes. When Bingham came to Springfield the next night to play at the Snorty Horse, Venable showed up with his bass in hand, hoping for another chance. He got it; Bingham and the rest of the band rehearsed four songs with Venable before the show, going through each song just once. They then brought Venable out to play with them—for the entire two-hour set. After the show and a brief band meeting, Bingham tracked Venable down again. “There are two options,” Bingham said. “You can go home or you can get in the Suburban with us.” Seeing his chance to ramble, Venable went home and packed two shirts, two pairs of jeans, his Ken Griffey Jr. baseball glove and a sleeping bag and hopped in the band’s blue Suburban SUV, nicknamed “Blue Thunder.” He’s been living out of it ever since.

In the six weeks that have passed since he joined, Venable, a man who had never traveled further west than Tulsa, has traveled across the western United States and met country music legends such as Lyle Lovett, Guy Clark and Joe Ely. Venable says the experience has been everything he hoped for, except for the hygiene. Being on the road so much sometimes means not being near a shower for a while. “I get to being pretty ripe out there,” Venable says. “I got some comments. But body odor is rock ‘n’ roll.”
Venable and his nomadic bandmates— singer/songwriter Ryan Bingham, guitarist Corby Schaub and drummer Matthew Smith—were all recruited into the group the same way Venable was and for the same reason: music is their life. Venable even has a bass clef note tattooed on his right bicep. He owns nothing but the items he didn’t pack the night he went back to his parents’ house, which he says is incredibly liberating. “Before this, I was renting my life from City Utilities [and] I was renting it from my landlord,” Venable says.

The life the road has given him is rich with stories: playing with Marc Ford of The Black Crowes during a show in California and playing with songwriters and fellow road warriors Leon Russell and Billy Joe Shaver. Venable’s tales are always interspersed with random observations, as well, like a down-home Larry King on cigarettes and Jack Daniels: “playing catch is like American meditation,” “truck stops are the hoosier flea market,” “Oklahoma is the anus of the United States of America.” Sitting in the corner booth of The Outland on his only night off before driving to Lubbock, Texas for another show, Venable dispenses stories and thoughts in equal measure. After a few rounds, one could say he might be rambling a bit… but he certainly doesn’t appear to be lost.