Country songs from the dark side of town

Those damn country singers. They're just as bad as those cussing rappers, feeding us dark tales of the macabre, madness and murder.

The Handsome Family - the Albuquerque-based husband and wife duo of Brett and Rennie Sparks - had their song Arlene banned by American radio stations in 1995 because it was about a woman being bludgeoned to death.

It's hard to believe the band's gentle, and even cheery, country jaunts would incite censorship.

In the Handsome Family's case you can blame Rennie since she writes the words and plays bass while Brett sings and writes the music. Even when Brett is telling a seemingly delightful story of a horse named Prancing Bill and a little dog called Clyde in the Song of a Hundred Toads it all comes to a sombre end. Poor old Bill falls on to jagged rocks, Clyde turns viciously on his owner and the owner is left eating dirt.

"Like Nick Cave said about his album Murder Ballads, 'They're 10 songs that all end the same way'," laughs Brett.

With death. Or despair, at the very least. Like on the Bottomless Hole? "Yeah, but that song's kind of whimsical, or a joke, or a conundrum," he chuckles hoarsely.

"Death and dark things are half of the world essentially and most people, when they write songs, set out to try to avoid that. That to me seems kind of imbalanced and false. There's a lot of darkness in our stuff but there's also a lot of humour. And a lot of, what you'd call ... beauty, I guess.

"And some of my favourite songs combine the mundane and the spiritual. That's the way life is, people have spiritual experiences walking down the street or crossing a field, just as much as when they're on their knees praying."

Brett has the sort of voice that scares children but his gruffness and quiet bouts of coughing and spluttering are harmless. It's the Handsome Family's music you have to worry about.

Brett (born in Texas) and Rennie (originally from Long Island, New York) married 16 years ago after meeting in college.

"We were friends and then in love before we started doing this nonsense. People always ask if it's hard working with your spouse. I always say back to them, 'Maybe you're having problems with your spouse'.

"I mean if you can't work with your spouse, then who can you work with? But I guess that's why there's so many divorces and so many kids are [expletive] up because their parents can't get along with each other. If people can't work together, then they shouldn't have children together. Everyone should be forced to write a song together before they have children."

He's constantly reeling off statements like this to reveal the odd little world that he lives in. "Chicago is a big town full of everyone from tarts to Filipinos," is another example, yet he confesses he's not really a wordsmith. Still, while he may not write the lyrics, he sings the songs as if he wrote them.

"You have to be an actor to a certain extent. You have to make the lyrics yours. I don't know anything about acting but I think it is a lot about being an actor, assuming a role and believing it."

Until 2001 they lived in Chicago but now the couple are based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Even though that city has a population of 800,000 it is a place fondly referred to as being in the desert.

"I prefer the southwest to any other part of the US. It's beautiful, it's mild, people are more liberal, and has a lot of different ethnic groups like American Indians, Hispanics ... it's kind of a cooler culture to me than the midwest, which is pretty bland. I mean Chicago is obviously an exception but I lived there for 15 years and it was time to move on.

"But in Albuquerque I can still walk half a block and go to the local, or the sushi restaurant, or the supermarket, or buy cigarettes. I'm not living in the middle of nowhere with lots of coyotes," he laughs again. "Although I did see a coyote the other day at my parents' house."

There's a few coyotes in your songs, too?

"I guess. They're cute and cuddly and ferocious. They kill cats. That's the weird thing about Albuquerque, up at the edge of town in the mountains, you'll wake up and you'll find a black bear in your swimming pool 'cause the bears don't have enough nuts to eat because it didn't rain enough. So they're looking for food and people find all these bears in their yard. That doesn't happen everywhere."

When TimeOut talked to Brett, the Handsome Family had already played shows in Australia and he's looking forward to their first visit to New Zealand. For eight years their live show has consisted of just Brett, Rennie and a laptop on stage.

"You still have those moments when you're like, 'Oh shit, I forgot to go to the chorus', but of course the laptop has gone to the chorus. That's your Milli Vanilli moment."

Country music and computers? Weird family.