Following the dissolution of Punch Eye-Q in 2003, the group which would become Specklers began to come together. Jason Harrington and John Perry had worked together in Punch for the previous 8 years or so. During this time, Lucas Broussard worked as the engineer and producer for both Punch Eye Q albums. Lucas also joined in for a gig here and there.
Scott Domingue had been playing with another Lafayette band; Devyre. Devyre and Punch Eye Q shared quite a few bills and their members had gotten to know one another. Lucas and Scott had also gotten to know one another while taking classes at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette.
In late 2003; John, Lucas, Scott, and Jason formed a group and began working on new original music. This group rolled through a handful of monikers; Rehab Doll, Rumpled Pagan Skins, etc. before disbanding in 2005 when John moved to New Orleans. It would be 3 years before Jason and Lucas reformed into what would become Specklers; with Scott rejoining the group in 2009. During the initial sessions between 2003-2005, a number of tunes were fleshed out and recorded. However, with John’s departure the group dissolved and the songs went into hibernation.
What’s the Weight is one such song. It was captured in a classroom on the ULL campus. One Friday afternoon, after classes had let out, we hauled our personal gear and Lucas’s Tascam 688 (8-track cassette) into the Music Theory classroom. Here we had access to a well tuned Steinway baby grand piano and a quiet room.
Lucas sat at the piano, John tuned up his bass, Jason plugged in his guitar, and Scott prepped his drums for the session. Within a couple of passes, we had captured the arrangement and performance of What’s the Weight.
Not long after, we was introduced to John Troutman, a transplanted musician from Alabama, who was serving as Professor of History at ULL while he researched the influence of traveling Hawaiian lap-steel players on the sound of Delta blues music in the South. John’s work was later published as. Kika Kila: How the Hawaiian Steel Guitar Changed the Sound of Modern Music.
For What’s the Weight, John Troutman contributed the haunting pedal steel part which interweaves with the organ part layered in by Lucas. John would later (2012-2015) contribute his pedal steel sounds to Specklers for many live performances before accepting a position as the Curator of American Music at the Smithsonian Institute’s Museum of American History in Washington D.C.
A different version of What’s the Weight would later be released on Jason Harrington’s album, Storm on the River, which was released by Right-Note Records in 2007. This would be the first time that Jason would play with future Speckler drummer (Animal Monk), Frank Kincel of LA Backbeat drumsticks.
