Tag: jam band

From Death Metal to a Fishing Boat, How Billy Strings Finds Renewal (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on by Editor

Billy Strings has had his foot on the gas since he was a teenager, bringing his prolific picking to hundreds of shows around the country each year and winning over a throng of devoted fans in the process. His bluegrass bona fides may be obvious from the outset — he’s quick to cite such greats as Bill Monroe, Doc Watson, and the Stanley Brothers as some of his first musical influences, and no honest spectator could deny his talent on the guitar and mandolin — but astute listeners will also note elements of rock, jam bands, and even heavy metal in his performances, especially as Strings bounds around the stage.

The Nashville-based, Michigan-raised musician’s latest album, Renewal, comes on the heels of an exceptional year: His Rounder Records debut, Home, won the 2020 Grammy award for Best Bluegrass Album. And even as much of the music industry was grounded from touring, his innovative approach to livestreams and digital performances moved the Pollstar Awards to dub him the Breakthrough Artist of the Pandemic. But that breakthrough was more than a decade in the making, and the forces that shaped Strings as a prodigious young picker are still at work today, pushing him creatively in the studio and on stage as well as calming him at home between gigs. Here, in the second half of our BGS Artist of the Month interview, Strings tells us about his upbringing, his latest influences, and the way he unwinds between shows.

Editor’s Note: Read the first part of our interview with Billy Strings.

BGS: Tell me about where you grew up. How do you see its impact on your work today?

Billy Strings: I was born in Lansing, Michigan on October 3, which is my grandpa’s birthday. My mother, who lived in Kentucky at the time, had gone up to Lansing to visit her dad on his birthday, and that’s when I decided to show up. [Laughs] So that’s why I was named Billy as well, because that was my grandpa’s name — I was his little birthday gift.

We lived in Morehead, Kentucky, for a couple of years before coming back home to Michigan, where I really grew up. I grew up in a little town called Muir, population 600. My dad is an incredible guitar player, so he taught me how to play. He was always showing me music when I was a little kid: Doc Watson, Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs, Jimmy Martin, Larry Sparks, and stuff like that — a lot of good bluegrass. We’d hang out at this little campground and play music next to the river by the fire. That was my childhood, man, just sitting there picking by the river.

It was real good until I got to be a teenager and started to turn sour. I had to run off and figure out a new life. I took what my dad taught me when I was a little kid, and all of a sudden I realized that bluegrass is actually pretty sweet and people love this shit — that maybe I could do something with this; that it’s not just something that I do with my dad that I should be halfway embarrassed about.

Who are the artists that you feel really inspired by right now? And are those different than the ones that you feel like you were listening to a lot when you were a kid?

For the most part, it’s still Doc Watson — he’s the main nerve — and Bill Monroe, and Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, Ralph Stanley and Carter Stanley, the Stanley Brothers. But I listen to a lot of different shit. I listen to death metal, and lately, I’ve been getting into this music from Mali that Béla Fleck was showing me — some really amazing stuff. And Memphis trap: I’ve been listening to Young Dolph a bunch. There’s just an energy to it. I grew up around crack houses. I’ve seen that shit that they’re rapping about. It just gets me hyped: He’s talking about coming out of nothing and becoming a self-made millionaire. I listen to it before the shows sometimes to get myself hyped up.

You played in rock bands in high school — groups with music that might not sound a lot like what you’re doing today. Is there any lesson or anything from that time that you feel like you still turn to or still apply to the music that you make?

Yeah, performing live. I never learned how to perform in a bluegrass band. I learned how to perform in a metal band. I learned music by playing bluegrass when I was a little kid, but by the time I was doing it on stage it was in a metal band — we were headbanging and running all over the place — and I still can’t help but get into the music like that. I can’t just stand there and play.

You have been in Nashville now for a little while. Has anything that has surprised you about it, good or bad?

I really love Nashville. A lot of your favorite musicians, that’s where they live. You’ll see your favorite singer in the grocery store. I get calls for sessions, and it’s from people who I grew up listening to and who I’ve idolized for my whole life. Like Béla Fleck’s record just came out, and I played a handful of songs on that. I was so honored to play with David Grisman, and Chris Thile, Sam Bush, Stuart Duncan, and Edgar Meyer — all these cats that are just… well, I don’t feel like I’m really in that league. It really was an honor. And there’ve been several things like that! I went from listening to these cats on a record to being on a first-name basis with them… texting and being friends. It’s a trip.

What’s one thing that’s brought you joy recently?

Fishing. I love bass fishing. I grew up doing that with my dad as well, but I didn’t do it for a long time because I was so busy. When the pandemic hit, I started fishing again. I go out there in rain or shine. I just like it for the solitude. Last night, I was in front of thousands of people, and to come home and go out on my boat and be alone in nature — to check out the blue herons and the fucking ospreys, eagles, fish, everything doing its thing — it’s brought me a lot of joy, brought me down to Earth. I put my boat in at 5 o’clock in the morning when the sun is just coming up. I like being out there alone at that time of day. It’s just good for my mind.

And yet it’s so clear from your performances that interacting with listeners gives you a certain joy, too. What are the forms of feedback that you value most from your audience when you’re playing live?

Sometimes when we finish a solo, everybody starts cheering real loud, the whole place gets real loud. That feels good. But sometimes I look out there and I look around and I see individual people and I literally play to them. Last night, we played in Montana and I was looking around and there was this one dude just standing there with his beer just completely still. I didn’t even know if he was enjoying it or not. So I just walked up to the front of the stage and stared directly at him and I just started playing right to him. [Laughs] So he started laughing, and then he took a drink of his beer and started bobbing his head a little bit. I think he just started getting into it by the end of the show.

I’ll look for things like that. The audience is really in control of how I’m feeling up there. Sometimes, when they’re just on fire, I can’t help but have a good time. They feed us the energy, and we give it back to them. It’s reciprocal.

Photo credit: Jesse Faatz

Bluegrass is Trance (And Old-Time, Too)

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Bluegrass is trance. Old-time, too. 

With a slightly more zoomed out perspective, this fact comes into focus pretty quickly. American roots music and its precursors, especially their string band forms, have been interwoven with dance for eons. Before the advent of recorded music, when the popular musics of the day could often only be consumed by upper classes, dancing and other social group activities were the center places music inhabited. Before radio shaved popular music down into bite-sized, three-minute chunks, the tunes would last as long as necessary to provide a backdrop for a reel, a hornpipe, or a square dance, extending fiddle tunes into ten- to twenty-minute, cyclical, musical meditations. “Turkey in the Straw” as mantra, “Chicken Reel” as a slightly wonky, onomatopoeic sound bed.

Detached from dance, it’s easy to forget that string band music has been designed with trance embedded within its structures. Chris Pandolfi is a banjo player who’s explored quite a bit in trance and trance-adjacent music with the Infamous Stringdusters, a seminal jamgrass band with a level of bluegrass’s technical virtuosity that’s unmatched in all but a select few ensembles in a similar vein. Pandolfi’s new record, Trance Banjo, which was released under his solo stage name, Trad Plus, moves further and further beyond American roots aesthetics, cementing the banjo and its musical vernacular within trance – the electronica variety as well as the age-old, human kind.

Trance Banjo, and tracks such as “Wallfacer” — whose trippy visualizer music video almost cements this article’s central argument — recalls albums by Scott Vestal, or live shows by post-metal shredders like Billy Strings, or experimental, avant garde compositions by cattywompus flattop mashers like Stash Wyslouch. It’s not just a simple coincidence that so many players from bluegrass and old-time backgrounds find themselves dabbling with trance.

John Mailander, a fiddler who’s toured with Molly Tuttle and Bruce Hornsby and has been hired as a side-musician with many a jamgrass-leaning band, is comfortably uncomfortable in a very similar musical realm as Trance Banjo. On an EP of sketches and improvisations released last summer (from the same sessions and experimentations that became his upcoming album, Forecast) Mailander and his bluegrass-veteran backing band play with trance centered on sparseness, vacancy, and negative space in a way that’s engaging and baffling, both. Mailander’s rubric of vulnerable, emotive, and transparent expression as a foundation for improv is key here.

That personal touch, the personality endemic in these trance experimentations, is certainly what makes them most compelling and it must be, at least in part, what ties these songs to the centuries-old tradition of music as meditation. Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi make more than just a musical brand of showcasing their personalities and identities in the music they create, it’s more like a mission statement. Giddens has an incredible aptitude for writing and composing music based on empathy and human connection and Turrisi holds expansive knowledge of world folk music and percussion.

Their compositions and collaborations illustrate that, when we connect our music to dance, percussion, and trance, we’re connecting it to thousands and thousands of years of history — of humans of all ethnicities, cultures, backgrounds, and identities, gathering, connecting, sharing, and loving through music, dance, and trance. On stage, Turrisi and Giddens deliberately connect these dots as well, utilizing stage banter to educate their audiences about these exact connections.

While old-time has held onto its penchant for movement and choreography through the generations, bluegrass continues to grow distant from this and many of the other cultural phenomena that gave rise to it. Trance Banjo, and projects like it, while they seem to gleefully run away from what we perceive as “traditional” aspects of these genres, are in many ways guiding us right back to the very folkways that birthed them. 

Photo credit: Chris Pandolfi by Chris Pandolfi

On New Solo Album, Resophonic Guitarist Andy Hall Reaches for the Jam Songs

Posted on by Amy Reitnouer

Andy Hall is one of the fiercest slide guitarists we have around not just today, but probably ever. If there’s any doubt, you needn’t look further than his newest release, 12 Bluegrass Classics for Resophonic Guitar. The Denver-based singer and Dobro player of the Infamous Stringdusters has always pushed the envelope, but had never taken the time to put his own stamp on the formative tunes that all musicians of the genre play with one another. From teaching thousands of students online via ArtistWorks, to his work with Earl Scruggs, Dolly Parton, or Jack Black, it’s obvious that Hall is a master of the instrument, and the art itself.

BGS visited with Hall to talk all things pandemic, resophonic guitars, and what this record means in a time like our own. 

BGS: What was your initial inspiration for this recording?

Andy Hall: It was an interesting time in the spring when I was recording it, you know, but it’s all about taking opportunities that present themselves and making the most of the situation and what you can do. When everything stops, you have no idea what’s happening, you’re pretty quickly trying to figure out how to continue to be expressive. Our band the Stringdusters has toured so much for so long. …I don’t want to say I took it for granted, but when it all went away it was surprising — there was this withdrawal from doing the things that I love to do.

These are songs I’ve played for years and years, and I’ve always wanted to put my stamp on them, my take, you know? I totally overlooked them as anything I would record, because I always played them in jams. For most people, they don’t know these songs. So, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get a recorded version of all these jam songs. It was really just a matter of me sitting, playing, and enjoying these tunes enough to get a good representation of them.

At the same time that you’ve put your own stamp on these tunes, you said that they were formative. I noticed the speed-up in “House of the Rising sun,” just like Mike Auldridge of the Seldom Scene would do. Are there any influences you’re drawing from, more than others, on this record?

Everyone has their own version of what their “classic” tune would be for a certain instrument. So “House of the Rising Sun,” definitely based on the Mike Auldridge version. To me, if you do that song on Dobro, that’s just how it goes. “Dixie Hoedown” was on Jerry Douglas’ first solo record, and something like “Fireball Mail” couldn’t be a more quintessential dobro song. I was always too impatient to sit and get every nuance of somebody’s playing, so I kinda gloss over it for the general idea and fill in the blanks myself. So due to my impatience I have my own style with a lot of them.

So that’s what a lot of these are like, but you can trace most of them back to an original version — like “Cherokee Shuffle,” Sally Van Meter, a great dobro player from Colorado, did that on a record called the Great Dobro Sessions. One that’s totally my own is the first one on the record, “Leather Britches.” I’d never really heard a version of that, but I wanted to try and get that repetitive, cyclical, rolling sound of the fiddle. So a lot of them are jam tunes that I never heard a Dobro version of, and wanted to develop my own thing with. 

“Foggy Mountain Rock” really comes through that way. 

I actually was fortunate enough to get to play with Earl Scruggs some, and that tune is a perfect example of how I didn’t take the time to learn it officially like Josh Graves. When I auditioned for Scruggs’ band, I went to his house and jammed with both Earl and a fiddle player named Glen Duncan. My mind was just blown, you know, we’re just sitting in Earl’s living room playing “Foggy Mountain Rock.” When we finished playing it, it was clear I hadn’t done it the way he was used to hearing it. And he complimented it! “Oh, I love how you put that four chord in there. I love when people do their own thing.” That really justified my whole approach. If Earl Scruggs says it’s cool, then I’m good. 

Do you teach many of these in your class over at ArtistWorks?

There are a couple in my school. “Panhandle Rag” is in there, “Cherokee Shuffle.” I’m about to transcribe not just the melodies, but the solos for a few of these so that the students can have a crack at them. It seems primed for that kind of thing. This is a specialty project geared at Dobro nerds. With the Stringdusters or other projects I do it’s a bit more broad, usually song-based. This record definitely ties into ArtistWorks; it’s just getting deep into the slide guitar thing… because that’s what I love! 

“I am a Pilgrim” is so woody, while “Cherokee Shuffle” has that cutting metallic ring of the Dobro… Can you talk about some of the guitars you used on this record?

“I am a Pilgrim,” “Amazing Grace,” and maybe “Foggy Mountain Rock” were all played on a 1929 Squareneck Tricone National guitar. To me it just has a super unique blues sound. So I used it on the tunes that were slower, just to get some variety. I wrestled with how much variety to put on the record in that way, because I have a bunch of different slide instruments. I’ve got a Chaturangi, which is an Indian slide guitar with all of these resonant strings, of course lap steels and things of that nature, but I decided I wanted to keep it kind of Americana sounding. The National fit into that. All the rest I did on my favorite Beard guitar.

Speaking of formative years, I’m curious if there are any younger Dobro players that stick out to you, or even influence you?

For sure. As a Dobro player, when I was in my twenties, at a certain point I kinda felt like I had heard everything, because there weren’t all that many. I’d heard all of the Jerry Douglas and Rob Ickes, Mike Auldridge and Josh Graves. There’s a lot to dig into, but compared to any other instrument, there was a much smaller pool of stuff to draw on. It’s been cool as new players come up to hear new styles. I think the first guy that was new when I first moved to Nashville was Randy Kohrs. He had a technique that nobody else had.

Out of that came a couple of younger players that I really love like Josh Swift, who played in Doyle Lawson’s band for years. His technical ability is just insane — nobody else can do what he does. There’s a young guy named Gaven Largent who I remember teaching when he was probably 12. There’s a guy named Tommy Maher, who plays in a band called Fireside Collective. Andy Dunnigan from the Lil Smokies, he uses the Dobro very lyrically, and he’s the lead singer too. I love seeing that — a lead singer Dobro player!

I’d say one of my biggest influences in recent years is Roosevelt Collier, a lap steel player. I met him in 2013, on JamCruise, and of course became fast friends with the slide guitar connection. We stayed in touch and actually did a record together a few years back. Roosevelt’s very gospel, sacred steel, very singing, very emotive style, is something I’ve really tried to absorb. It just gets you in the chest. 

What do you foresee, or hope, will be the impact of this record?

There’s something about the coronavirus, or the lockdown, that made every part of life simpler. A lot of things got stripped away and we just got down to basics, be it hanging out with our families and making food, or with the music we’re not doing big tours or big production — we’re sitting in our basements by ourselves playing. It’s certainly one of the silver linings of the whole pandemic thing, the simplicity and the sweetness, and that’s what I was feeling with this. It’s just a reflection of me sitting and playing, and hopefully people will relate to that. People have had to strip everything down to being simple, and that’s what this record is. It’s a reflection of that return to the basics that the pandemic has put on us. It’s really forced us to get back to the root of why we do what we do!

Photo credit: Tobin Voggesser

Blue Ox Music Festival: Six Reasons to Go

Posted on by Editor

As I have attended Blue Ox Music Festival each of the past three years, I have found it’s about both the music and the people who love the music. A lot of folks come from isolated rural areas or spread-out small towns, so spending a weekend with so many like-minded, friendly, and positive music lovers is a refreshing and special feeling. There’s a strong sense of community — that’s what keeps bringing me back.

Blue Ox Music Festival 2019 will be held June 13-15 at Whispering Pines Campground in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Here are six reasons to go.

 

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1. The Mornings
A short stroll through the campground in the morning really shows the best in people. You’re sure to have more than a handful of strangers greet you cheerily or invite you into their campsite for coffee and conversation. Additionally, the festival offers yoga every morning — it’s a great place to wake your body up in the morning, limber up before the long day, and meet new folks.

 

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2. Friends of Friends
Blue Ox is a meeting point for music lovers from all around the Midwest. You’re bound to run into a friend, a friend of a friend, or maybe even a long-lost relative. The festival is a beautiful representation of how music brings people together.

 

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3. Diverse Sounds
The lineup draws from a very diverse variety of genres and styles. There’s truly something for everyone, from Deadheads and alt-country lovers to traditional bluegrassers and funky folks. If you were to walk around the grounds and asking passersby which act they’re most excited about you might hear dozens of different answers. It’s really special to see so many fans of so many different styles all in one place.

 

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4. Emerging Talent
Sure, there will be plenty of names on the bill that you already recognize, but one of the finest features of a music festival is discovery — discovery of new bands and sounds from near and far. Like Armchair Boogie, an eclectic group from Madison, Wisconsin. They offer a totally unique and original cocktail of sounds from rockabilly to funk to bluegrass and beyond. The guys recently began recording their sophomore album, What Does Time Care?, so be on the lookout for some new tunes soon.

The Lil Smokies played the Blue Ox side stage in 2018 and the crowd nearly doubled in size over the course of their set. They combine incredible technique and heaps of talent with extremely well-crafted songwriting. It’s really easy to get hooked on their music.

The Wooks are a string band made up of five absolute shredders who blur the lines between traditional bluegrass, honky-tonk, jam bands, and more. This is their first year at Blue Ox and you won’t want to miss them.

 

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5. The Backwoods Stage
Twelve hours of music every day can make it easy to forget about (or be too worn out for!) the Backwoods Stage. It’s the place where all the beautiful late-night weirdness happens. You might find Billy Strings jamming a few tunes with Horseshoes & Hand Grenades, or Jeff Austin picking a few with The Travelin’ McCourys. There’s no telling what might go down, but it’s sure to be a highlight.

6. The Jams
Blue Ox jams — whether on the main stage, during late-night, around the parking lot or the campground — are unique in that you’ll hear everything from The Rolling Stones to John Hartford, and Andy Statman to Hank Williams over the course of an hour or so. Most Blue Ox folks are totally open-minded, which makes for some very cool and unique jams. It’s an event that really does have a little something for all roots music fans out there.

Don’t forget to follow along across BGS social media channels this week as well for special on-site coverage from Blue Ox. Even if you can’t make it to the festival, you can watch key sets from the weekend on BGS.com via JamgrassTV.

Photo credit: Scott Kunkel

LISTEN: The Infamous Stringdusters, “Somewhere in Between”

Posted on by Editor

Artist:The Infamous Stringdusters
Song: “Somewhere in Between”
Album: Rise Sun
Release Date: April 5, 2019
Label: Tape Time Records

In Their Words: “I remember back when my wife and I had our friend Daniel Walker over for dinner. He brought his guitar and had this little idea he wanted to write about, so we threw on some dinner and started a fire in the outdoor pit. We were both wanting to write about a state of mind we had been experiencing a lot and decided that it was ok to be feeling it. That feeling centered on being somewhere in between where we have come from and where we are going, but not being there yet. Sometimes it’s ok to be in that state of mind and we shouldn’t always be feeling pressure to have it all together all the time. Sometimes when writers write, it’s for our own healing and well-being and when a song is finished, it’s awesome to be able to share it and have other people identify with the meaning.” — Jeremy Garrett, The Infamous Stringdusters

Photo credit: Aaron Farrington

Greensky Bluegrass Capture the Live Jam on ‘All For Money’

Posted on by Editor

With their progressive mindset and undying faith in the power of the jam, the electrifying live shows put on by Greensky Bluegrass have captivated roots and rock fans alike for nearly two decades – but the Midwestern five piece has always been more than a group of gifted musicians. Layered, thought-provoking songcraft is also a big part of their DNA, and with their new album, All For Money, those two worlds come together like never before.

This month, the band – composed of mandolin player and primary songwriter Paul Hoffman, guitarist Dave Bruzza, banjo picker Michael Arlen Bont, Dobro player Anders Beck, and bassist Mike Devol – embarked on a milestone tour of listening halls that are well suited to showcase both sides of the Greensky Bluegrass double helix, and according to Hoffman, that everything-at-once approach is the next step of their journey.

“We don’t have any grandiose dreams or visions of things we haven’t accomplished,” he says, “and I think it’s been that way for the last 10 years. Being able to go out and play the right venue in all the right towns where we can put on a big show and present everything we do … it’s about getting that to happen everywhere now.”

BGS: You guys were inspired early on by The Grateful Dead, and I hear that improvisational spirit on the new album. Do you feel like All For Money is a return to your roots?

Paul Hoffman: We talk about this album being a lot more like a show than previous records because for us, [studio work and being onstage are] kind of two separate art forms. … With this record we went for the show aspect right from the get-go. It’s a little loose, and a little improvised, and we’ve succeeded with that more and more on every record – finding ways to capture that live spirit but still utilize all the tools available to us in the studio. Like for example, maybe there’s a place where there’s two mandolins at once. We couldn’t do that live, but if it sounds cool on the record, let’s do it.

Tell me about recording in Asheville. What kind of vibe do you guys get there?

We love that town. In the young days of the band we thought we should move there and maybe it would spark our career. We didn’t, and it was probably for the best, but the studio is really cool. It’s like an old church and it’s got a lot of room to work in. All our early records were done in Michigan in this studio that’s really small, and you don’t need a big room or an extra room downstairs with a ping pong table and video games and a kitchen and three couches. You don’t need any of those luxuries, but as soon as we went to [the studio,] Echo Mountain, to record the last record, it was like “Man, this is nice” … and now we probably do need them. [Laughs]

Digging into the live show versus studio album idea, you have a couple of really lengthy songs here. “Courage for the Road” is over nine minutes long, and I get that in a live setting, but why stretch it out for the album?

I think sometimes we’ve found that our fans are separate. Some of them are live music aficionados and don’t really enjoy listening to the records, and some people who like our records come to the show and are like “Why are all these songs so long and psychedelic?” I think there’s a part of us that figures those things don’t need to be separate, and maybe if we did a bit more from both sides of the equation, there’s something there for everybody.

The goal for that song is for it to remain interesting the whole time, and when I listen to it I feel like I’m listening to a well-mixed, well-recorded, live jam. It was so organic with how it happened that it kind of had to be left alone, and I think that translates to the listener as live energy. That’s the thing you sacrifice in the studio if you start overdubbing too much, and that’s when some people complain. What they’re really complaining about is that it loses some of that honest energy and integrity, so those jams should preserve that.

Tell me about the inspiration behind that song. Is this literally about being on the road, or more of a relationship thing?

It’s all of the things. I like to write about multiple things at the same time, and I think it helps. People are gonna read into it how they want anyway. So I’ll often start talking about something and then realize I’m talking about something else, too. It works really well as a simple song about being on tour, but it also works as a song about being in love with someone and not being able to let go, or being obsessed with something for the wrong reasons.

Why might you need some courage for being on the road?

It’s a lonely place sometimes, and that in itself is a paradox. You’re surrounded by people who love you every night, but then the lights go down and the crowd goes home and you’re all alone again. It’s hard to even have an argument for feeling lonely on tour when so many people are coming to see us and support us, but they are real things. And even in general, when you make that commitment to quit your job and leave your family for six weeks at a time, and maybe come home with little to show for it, it’s hard for musicians to keep sticking it out.

Tell me about the song “All For Money” and the interlude in the middle. When you were writing it, were you thinking, “It would be cool to do two minutes of jamming right here”?

Sometimes it comes up in the moment, but with that song it was real intentional. I wanted to explore this idea of the pressure of success and the whole “Be careful what you wish for” kind of thing. Back in the day when we were playing in a bar and all we had to do was win over some fans, in hindsight that’s almost easier than living up to the expectations of all these fans now, who travel and spend money to see us all the time.

They see us a lot so it’s like you’ve got to come up with new tricks and something happened in the last couple of years where it was like the pressure built up. That’s not to say it was too much or that we don’t love it, but it occurred to me that there was a real paradox of success happening where it was like “Man, this is hard!” Sometimes we joke around like “Why don’t they stop following us?!” … Which is absolutely not what we want.

So there’s a joke there, or at least a duality to be explored, and I wanted to set the song up in a way that it’s supposed to get creepy or disorienting, and to make you feel uncomfortable. I talk about being supported but surrounded, contained but captured, and then it comes around to that triumphant chorus that’s all about the love and the songs creating emotion and camaraderie. It goes on this journey of joking around and all these lies we were told in the beginning, and then it gets scary and uncomfortable on purpose. It’s almost supposed to be discomforting, more than a jam.

I love your lyrics, because as you explained there are lots of layers and you’re not afraid to question yourself. What were you trying to get at with “Do It Alone”?

I was trying to touch on this angst-y, rock and roll thing. I wanted something that had an anthem vibe, something a crowd would cheer along with, and again I was thinking about a couple of different things at once. One moment I’ll be thinking about a friend of mine who’s in love with a girl who doesn’t love him anymore, and the next I’m like “Man, I miss my dog.” [Laughs] Sometimes really specific lyrics about really different things can help you get some insight into that other thing.

Photo credit: Dylan Langille/ontheDL Photo