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The Wrinkle Neck Mules have lurked patiently in the shadows for 12 years. The Richmond, Virginia based five-piece has played hundreds of shows all over the US and UK, released 5 albums and quietly established a cult-like following in many corners of the world. The band once described itself as having “a rock skeleton with bluegrass blood and country skin”. That’s a decent description of the foundation The Independent of Raleigh, NC called a “righteous Americana mishmash”. Their hometown paper, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, went a step deeper to say “if you were to combine the riff-centric guitars of Gov’t Mule, the outstanding weirdness of Tom Waits and the Americana of “Blonde on Blonde”-era Dylan” you’d be faced with a sound like the Mules.

No matter who you believe, it’s clear the sound of WNM is a bit on the schizophrenic side. Sometimes it’s straight rock with three guitars straight across the front while other times banjos, mandolins and pedal steel guitars generate a sound that American Songwriter Magazine described like a “a back porch jam with (talented) friends”. To complicate matters further, the band has two voices – Andy Stepanian and Chase Heard – that share songwriting and singing duties.

The split personality of the Mules’ sound seems to pervade everything they do. On one side of the spectrum, they’ve had songs on ESPN Outdoors shows about bass fishing and played shows with folks like Ratt and the Marshall Tucker Band. On the other side, they’ve recorded with indie icon Bonnie “Prince” Billy and played fashion events for regarded designer and WNM fan Billy Reid.

This year, the Wrinkle Neck Mules song “Central Daylight Time” even showed up in a nationally running Geico commercial where the little green lizard dances around in a Texas honky tonk. The commercial and the wave of publicity shed some much needed light on the band since both the Mules and Stepanian nearly died in 2011. The band played only a single show in ‘11 and even shelved a record that was finished and set for release while Stepanian recovered from injuries sustained in a nasty car wreck in Argentina. The band has finally dusted off that recording, now called Apprentice to Ghosts, and which sees release today on Atlanta’s Lower 40 Records and Germany’s Blue Rose.

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