Tucson band travels the distance for inspiration

Some artists travel deep inside themselves for songwriting inspiration.

Tucson Laura and the Killed Men traveled 12,000 miles from one end of the country to the next and all points in between over nine weeks last summer in a hybrid compact car.

The alt-country quartet returned with more than enough material for their aptly named debut album “Everchanging Trail.” The band celebrates the album’s release Friday, April 15, at Club Congress.

“We were kind of inspired by the landscape and varying cultures that we encountered on this tour,” said lead singer Laura Kepner-Adney, formerly with the critically acclaimed Silver Thread Trio. “ ‘Everchanging Trail’ was about traveling across the country that fast and getting to see all the changing landscapes and cultures that developed over the years and how, as time has gone by, the people have changed the land and the land has changed the people.”

The journey to “Everchanging Trail” started two years ago, when Kepner-Adney teamed up with Sam Golden and his Tucson neo-soul pop-rock band Sun Bones for a weeklong tour. She learned all of the band’s songs and they learned hers so that each could jump into the other’s shows.

The combination worked, and the band and Kepner-Adney decided to join forces.

Which gave Golden and his bandmates — Seth Vietti and Bob Hanshaw — a chance to try out a band name they had been toying with for years: The Killed Men. (Hanshaw, who recorded “Everchanging Trail” with the band, has since left, replaced by bassist Björgvin Benediktsson.)

“When we started playing as sort of a backup band to Laura, we needed a name for that. It was perfect,” Golden said.

Laura and the Killed Men — LATKM for short — put out an EP and hit the road last summer on a whirlwind trek they nicknamed the Hybrid Tour; not only were they traveling in a hybrid vehicle, they also were touring with another band: Sun Bones . Same personnel, two different missions

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On paper, it seemed like a good idea — book shows for both bands and hope to make enough to keep the gas tank full.

But in reality, not so much.

“It was crazy. It works better in theory,” said guitarist Golden, who co-writes the band’s songs.

“Booking was hard for both bands, but we wanted to get both bands booked back-to-back in one city,” Kepner-Adney said. Golden quickly added that this plan materialized once or twice that tour.

“Usually it was more pragmatic: ‘Can we get a show as Sun Bones? Can we get a show as Killed Men?’ And whatever we got, we took,” he said.

Golden and Kepner-Adney wrote songs along the journey, drawing inspiration from Appalachian folk songs and early 20th-century country music. Their sound is as far removed from contemporary country as you can get and can best be described as contemporized Western.

“We’ve definitely drawn from lots of different iterations of country,” said Kepner-Adney, a Wisconsin native who has lived in Tucson off and on since 2005. “The album does end up feeling like a retrospective of country through the centuries. But you wouldn’t even call it country. It’s people’s music. I am drawn to country and folk and Americana music because it’s kind of by the people and for the people.”

Golden said that Sun Bones is on indefinite hiatus while the band focuses on LATKM. They plan to go on the road April 20, starting with a show in Phoenix. Their journey this go-around will take them as far north as Arcata, California, and as far east as Austin, Texas. This summer, they will tour Alaska.