It was conceived and written during the pandemic, yet Dave Simonett is leery of tethering Trampled by Turtles’ new album Alpenglow to the lockdown. “Fucking COVID record,” he snorts when he wanders into that territory in answering a question about its inspiration. “I won’t say that the changes in the songwriting have to do with…
This week, we call into Minnesota to talk to frontman and lead-songwriter Dave Simonett of the innovative jamgrass pioneers Trampled by Turtles. LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • SPOTIFY • STITCHER Celebrating a new record, Alpenglow, produced by Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, the six-piece band has gone from storming shaggy local bars in Duluth to playing their…
At a steady pace, Trampled by Turtles have built an international following for their acoustic music from their home base of Duluth, Minnesota. They have maintained a DIY aesthetic for nearly two decades, yet they opted for a new approach for their latest album, Alpenglow. Using an outside producer for the first time, the band…
In the fourth episode of the new FX thriller, The Patient, a therapist played by Steve Carell wants to soothe a fellow prisoner while they are being held captive by a serial killer. So he sings this: “Almost heaven, West Virginia/Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River/ Life is old there, older than the trees/Younger than the…
An unlikely entertainer, John Denver connected with millions of listeners at the peak of his career in the 1970s. Never fully stepping away from folk music even as he crossed over to the pop chart, Denver also left a significant mark on country music into the mid-1980s. It's been 25 years ago this month that…