The Devil Makes Three Archives - The Bluegrass Situation

You Gotta Hear This: New Music From Max McNown, Miss Tess, and More

Posted on January 24, 2025 by Justin Hiltner

Wherever you are on this wintry week, we hope our collection of roots music premieres warms you all the way up. We expect it will!

In this edition of our premiere roundup, don’t miss a brand new track from stupendous string trio, The Devil Makes Three, who debuted “Ghosts Are Weak” from their upcoming album on Wednesday on BGS. Plus, there’s straight-ahead bluegrass to be found, too, from Tyler Grant, who pays homage to a towering train bridge on “Goat Canyon Trestle.”

Singer-songwriter Bre Kennedy has reimagined “Before I Have a Daughter,” a song co-written with Lori McKenna about breaking generational cycles, healing, and motherhood. (A theme shared with another premiere this week.) And, Tobacco & Rose repurpose a love song infused with a Buddhist twist with their new track, “Tara.”

In the mood for some music videos? Catch Leslie Jordan’s new video for a Sarah McCracken co-write, “The Fight,” that also grapples with parenthood, discipline, and family. And, the sensational Max McNown brings us the video for the title track for his brand new album, Night Diving, which releases today.

Just in time to shepherd out the once-in-a-lifetime blizzards across the Deep South, Miss Tess showcases her music video for “Louisiana,” a centerpiece of her upcoming album, Cher Rêve. Then Sarah Quintana, who calls New Orleans home, brings us down the road to the Big Easy with an artful music video made with Kat Sotelo for the title track of her soon-to-be-released project, BABY DON’T.

It’s all right here on BGS and, you know the drill – You Gotta Hear This!

The Devil Makes Three, “Ghosts Are Weak”

Artist: The Devil Makes Three
Hometown: Santa Cruz, California
Song: “Ghosts Are Weak”
Album: Spirits
Release Date: January 22, 2025 (single); February 28, 2025 (album)
Label: New West Records

Read more here.

Tyler Grant, “Goat Canyon Trestle”

Artist: Tyler Grant
Hometown: Boulder, Colorado
Song: “Goat Canyon Trestle”
Album: Flatpicker
Release Date: January 24, 2025 (single); March 28, 2025 (album)
Label: Grant Central Records

In Their Words: “The largest wooden trestle ever built still stands in the Mojave Desert of eastern San Diego County. I wrote this uptempo bluegrass song to tell the story of the trestle and the ‘Impossible Railroad,’ which was conceived by sugar and shipping magnate John D. Spreckels in 1906 and completed in 1919. History songs are tricky and I am very proud of this one. It will tickle the ears of any enthusiast of the classic railroad songs. I furnish some Doc Watson-style flatpicking and Michael Daves delivers on the hot tenor vocal part. The moral of the story is, if you take on the desert, it will always win.” – Tyler Grant

Track Credits:
Tyler Grant – Guitar, lead vocal
Andy Thorn – Banjo
Adrian “Ace” Engfer – Bass
Dylan McCarthy – Mandolin
Andy Reiner – Violin
Michael Daves – Harmony vocal

Leslie Jordan, “The Fight”

Artist: Leslie Jordan
Hometown: Johnson City, Tennessee
Song: “The Fight”
Album: The Agonist
Release Date: April 25, 2025

In Their Words: “‘The Fight’ was written with Sandra McCracken on her back porch in September of 2023. When I read the piece that my grandfather wrote with the same title, I knew I had to save it for my co-write with Sandra. I have long admired Sandra’s ability to tell a story in her songs with honesty and raw vulnerability. I knew she could help me capture the true intention of this piece. It is heartbreaking. Gut-wrenching. A mother’s internal dialogue after she loses control and hits her son. We sat for a while and chatted through what we thought was really happening in the story, how it made us feel, and then I started playing the chord progression you hear. The story my grandfather wrote begins with these two lines:

‘The rebellion was over, and she had sent him to wash-up.
There comes a time when children must be made to realize limitations and authority.’

“Sandra immediately started scribbling in her notebook and turned it around to show me.

‘The rebellion was over
She sent him to wash his hands
She tried to reason with him
But he could not understand
There comes a time when you find the limit’

“I started singing the words along to the chords and it felt like we had caught lightning in a bottle. I was also very excited to have my friend Brittney Spencer lend her incredible vocals on this song! When she heard it, she immediately had an idea that would lift the chorus. She really brought the song to another level.” – Leslie Jordan

Track Credits:
Leslie Jordan – Acoustic guitar, vocals
Brittney Spencer – BGVs
Kenneth Pattengale – Guitar
Harrison Whitford – Resonator guitar
Daniel Rhine – Upright bass
Joachim Cooder – Drums, percussion
Evan Vidar – Pump organ

Video Credit: By Jake Dahm. Edited by Leslie Jordan.

Bre Kennedy, “Before I Have A Daughter” (featuring Lori McKenna)

Artist: Bre Kennedy
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Before I Have a Daughter” featuring Lori McKenna
Release Date: January 24, 2025
Label: Nettwerk Music Group

In Their Words: “I am so excited to share this version of my song ‘Before I Have a Daughter’ with the one and only Lori McKenna. I wrote this song with Lori a few years back after small talk that led to a conversation about me not knowing my mother, who struggled with addiction as I grew up, and wanting to get to know her and heal with her before I have a daughter. Writing this song was the beginning of a healing journey with not only my mother, but with myself. [It’s] how I have learned to have grace and appreciation for my journey, as well as hers. This song continues to grow with me in real time and I am so honored I get to share this version with Lori with you all from where I am on my journey now.” – Bre Kennedy

Max McNown, “Night Diving”

Artist: Max McNown
Hometown: Bend, Oregon
Song: “Night Diving”
Album: Night Diving
Release Date: January 24, 2025
Label: Fugitive Recordings x The Orchard

In Their Words: “We stepped into the writing room and Erin [McCarley] asked, ‘What’s something in your life that you keep fighting and can’t seem to overcome?’ ‘Night Diving’ became the answer to that question – it’s a song that addresses addiction and I think it’ll resonate with people on a lot of different levels. The ‘Night Diving’ song and video contain the deepest waters of symbolism I’ve created to date.” – Max McNown

Track Credits:
Jedd Hughes – Electric guitar
Todd Lombardo – Acoustic guitar, mandolin, additional electric guitar
Jamie Kenney – Bass, acoustic guitars, additional electric guitars, drum programming
Aaron Sterling –Drums
Max McNown – Lead vocals, background vocals

Miss Tess, “Louisiana”

Artist: Miss Tess
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Louisiana”
Album: Cher Rêve
Release Date: January 24, 2025 (single); February 7, 2025 (album)

In Their Words: “‘Louisiana’ was the first song inspiration for my new album Cher Rêve, coming out February 7. It was deep in the pandemic and I had reached a point where I was really missing traveling, friends, live music, and dancing. I became fixated on my memories of basking in the Cajun culture of South Louisiana (Lafayette & Eunice, mainly during the Blackpot Festival and music camp), and started to write a song about it.

“My excellent co-writer friend and fellow Blackpot visitor, Maya de Vitry, helped me work on it for about six hours one day while she was house-sitting. Since it was a challenging time to hang out with people in person, we finished it over the next month via email. It is one of my favorite songs on the album and really sums up my feelings and nostalgia for being down there, playing and enjoying music beneath the tall Louisiana pines. I am thankful this recording includes the talents of so many amazing Lafayette-area musicians, including Joel Savoy (fiddle + studio engineer), Trey Boudreaux (bass), and our dear friend Chris Stafford (Wurlitzer), who passed away tragically this past May.” – Miss Tess

Track Credits:
Thomas Bryan Eaton – Electric guitar, vocals
Joel Savoy – Fiddle
Miss Tess – Vocals, guitar
Kelli Jones – Vocals
Chris Stafford – Wurlitzer
Trey Boudreaux – Bass
Matt Meyer – Drums

Sarah Quintana, “baby, don’t”

Artist: Sarah Quintana
Hometown: New Orleans, Louisiana
Song: “baby, don’t”
Album: BABY DON’T
Release Date: January 24, 2025 (single); March 28, 2025 (album)

In Their Words: “Kat Sotelo is the amazing performance artist and videographer behind this video. She designed and executed the concept, built the set, and asked the band to wear blue jeans. We wanted the first single to feel like something off The Ed Sullivan Show in the ’60s with a live performance lip-sync and vintage transitions. Silly moments of stop-motion animation flaunt Adrienne Battistella’s stunning band photos.

“I love Kat Sotelo’s work. She is a longtime friend and collaborator and my muse. She is a lovely human, creative powerhouse and inspiration to us all! She and I have been working together since my first project, Mama Mississippi, in 2012. Thanks for this adorable video, Kat!” – Sarah Quintana

Track Credits:
Cello: Chris Beroes-Haigis – Cello
Drums: Rose Cangelosi – Drums
Saxophone: Rex Gregory – Saxophone
Sousaphone: Jason Jurzak – Sousaphone
Recorded by Justin Tockett at Dockside Studios

Video Credit: Video and set design by Kat Sotelo, photography by Adrienne Battistella.

Tobacco & Rose, “Tara”

Artist: Tobacco & Rose
Hometown: Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Song: “Tara”
Release Date: January 31, 2025 (single)

In Their Words: “‘Tara’ is a repurposed love song. The initial melody and lyrics were inspired by a crush that subsided as quickly as it appeared, but I was inspired to revive the song after following along to some guided Tara meditations. The Buddhist deity, Tara, is known for her compassion, but also for her encouragement to action. So I dedicate it to her, and, in fact, the writing of this song spurred into action the completion of my record, as it was the last song I wrote for it, and a standout track at that. I love this song, in part for the unusual wide guitar voicings that I got from my viola studies as a teenager, and for the melody that soars into head voice at the end of the chorus. And lyrically, I treat this song as a Buddhist-themed reminder for myself to stay awake and aware, and to treat all challenges, afflictions, and aversions as opportunities to get better at human being.” – Richard Moody

Track Credits:
Richard Moody – Guitar, vocals, strings, keyboards
Joey Smith – Bass

Photo Credit: Max McNown by Nate Griffin; Miss Tess by Jo Vidrine.

LISTEN: The Devil Makes Three, “Ghosts Are Weak”

Posted on January 22, 2025 by Justin Hiltner

In Their Words: “‘Ghosts Are Weak’ is about breaking free from destructive habits and patterns. It reflects on how leaving behind a substance or lifestyle often comes with losing certain friends along the way. The song also carries a warning– escapism only works for so long. Sooner or later, the drugs lose their grip, but the ghosts of those choices grow stronger. Through raw lyrics and a haunting melody, ‘Ghosts Are Weak’ captures the struggle of moving on and the shadows left behind.” – Pete Bernhard

Photo Credit: Jin Lee

GIVEAWAY: Win tickets to WinterWonderGrass (Squaw Valley, CA) Mar 27-29

Posted on January 13, 2020 by Shelby Williamson

Britain’s Got Bluegrass: April 2019

Posted on April 4, 2019August 2, 2019 by Editor

Get off your couch and go hear some live music with Britain’s Got Bluegrass! Here’s the BGS-UK monthly guide to the best gigs in the UK and Ireland in April.

The Devil Makes Three, April 16-26, nationwide

They’re a bit smart, this band. The roots rockers’ sixth and latest album, Chains Are Broken, draws from authors including Ernest Hemingway and essayist James Baldwin — but hey, that doesn’t mean they don’t still want to give you a rollicking good time. The Devil Makes Three are playing three nights at Vicar Street, Dublin — or join them in Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester or Brixton, and tell them we sent you.

Molly Tuttle, April 10-20, nationwide

Molly Tuttle’s uncanny ability to combine hot-picking guitar with soul-searing songwriting has made her Kind Of A Big Deal in the States, which makes us even more grateful and amazed – gramazed? – to hear that she’s playing no fewer than 10 dates in our humble home. Molly has made no secret of her love of this country — she toured last year with Rachel Baiman, and earlier this year was a featured artist with the Transatlantic Sessions. This month the two-time IBMA Guitarist of the Year launches her debut album, When You’re Ready, and Britain gets to hear her mellifluous melodies hot off the vinyl presses. We are not worthy.

The Hanging Stars, April 6-13, nationwide

The Hanging Stars define their sound as “Cosmic Country”, so if you’re wanting to prep for a summer of love, let us recommend a night out with this bunch. Their recent album Songs for Somewhere Else has the honour of having been recording in LA, Nashville and Walthamstow, which is a sentence you won’t hear often. Their acoustic-psychedelia has a strong ’70s vibe, inspired by the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, and you can catch it this month in Manchester, Nottingham, Southampton and London, where they’re supporting The Long Ryders.

The Peregrines, April 16-18, London, Ashington and Norwich

You know how some actors just fizz with chemistry when you throw them together? Hepburn and Tracy. Hanks and Ryan. Bullock and Reeves. (OK, Bullock and practically anyone.) Some musical pairings can be just as electric. When Grant Gordy (of the David Grisman Quintet) and Joe K Walsh (of Joy Kills Sorrow) play off against each other, the sparks fly as surely as if one of them was standing on a Van Der Graaf generator. Their trio with bass player Ben Somers, The Peregrines, isn’t just a great showcase for their individual talents but also an excellent introduction to what progressive bluegrass is capable of. You can catch their act for three nights only.

Lake Street Dive, April 20 (Bristol) and 21 (Edinburgh)

Two dates. Two cities. Two chances to get down and funk your ass off, and if you plan to be there for both, hey, we’ll do the drive from Bristol to Edinburgh with you. Lake Street Dive has a groove that just won’t quit, as evidenced by their latest album, Free Yourself Up, and they also just happen to be some of the nicest people you’ll ever come across. If you still haven’t seen their cover of Jackson 5’s “Want You Back,” do yourself a favour and watch it right now. Go on. We’ll wait.

Photo credit for the Devil Makes Three: Jay Westcott

LISTEN: The Devil Makes Three, “Pray For Rain”

Posted on August 14, 2018August 14, 2018 by Editor

Capturing your band’s live sound in the studio is right up there with writer’s block as one of the most common challenges you can face as an artist—particularly if, like The Devil Makes Three, your live shows are your bread and butter.

The California trio, whose high-energy tours and festival appearances attract a fiercely dedicated fan base, have already released a couple live albums. But as they were writing Chains Are Broken, Pete Bernhard, Lucia Turino and Cooper McBean made a conscious effort to further capture their live instrumentation in the studio by inviting their touring drummer, Stefan Amidon, to record with them.

“We recorded with a [session] drummer who we really liked on our last album, Stranger, and it was just fun,” Bernhard says. “It gave us a lot more, I dunno, freedom I guess. There’s a certain freedom in playing as a string band too, but it was a different kind of freedom. But yeah, we’ve been playing with [Stefan] for years. Sometimes people see us play and they’re really shocked that we have a drummer, but that usually means that they haven’t seen us in like three or four years.” He laughs. “So we wrote a lot of the songs including drums, so when we went into the studio, it seemed like the natural progression to have him play.”

However, that doesn’t mean drums are a permanent addition to the band’s setup.

“I don’t like to predict the future,” he says. “I think that maybe we’ll use him if we think the song is appropriate, and if we write a song that’s just like a guitar and a bass, then we’ll do that. The main thing I like to do is just approach it like there really aren’t any rules, you know? And if the song wants drums and it wants a bass clarinet, then that’s what we’re gonna do. And if it doesn’t want that, if it wants like an electric guitar and standup bass and vocals and nothing else, then that’s what we’ll do.

“We still play without a drummer sometimes, it just really depends on the gig. But for us it was really exciting to do it and just try it because we hadn’t done it before. But yeah, for the next record, maybe we won’t. Maybe we’ll use drums on some songs like we did on Stranger and not on others; maybe we won’t use them at all. I think it really depends on what we’re excited about writing. There are no hard and fast rules.”

That lack of rules when it comes to their recording process led them to venture out to Texas for a new sort of studio experience as well, working on Chains Are Broken at the Sonic Ranch, the largest residential recording studio complex in the world.

“I’d never been to a recording studio like that before,” Bernhard says. “I’d never done like a live-in sort of studio. It was really cool. It was a very strange experience. You live at the studio, and there’s a lot of other people recording there too, so it’s kind of like—I don’t know, I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like band camp or something. Because while we were there, there’s like a jazz artist next door who’s recording, and there’s a rock group, and then there was Tito & Tarantula, which is a little more on the punk side of things, and it was really cool and very, very different. We’re used to sort of going into a city and recording in a studio and kind of spending a lot of time someplace in the middle of everything, and this could not be further away from that.”

He adds, “It was incredibly isolated. It was down by the Mexican border. It was really, really pretty and really quiet and really peaceful, and we just focused on playing every day for a couple of weeks and before we recorded the record, we sort of hung out and played the songs and talked about how we wanted to change them, things we liked, things we didn’t, and it was like we got so much more space and time to work on the record than we ever have before. It was really cool. It’s kind of creepy out there though…It’s the desert, you know? And I think that kind of influenced the sound of the record too. Just sort of the environment is very kind of empty and really pretty but also a little bit lonely.”

You can hear that influence on tracks like “Can’t Stop,” a deceptively upbeat song with dark lyrics that only reveal themselves if you’re listening closely. Bernhard says it’s about the pitfalls of being an artist.

“I think mainly for me it’s just a song about being an artist of any sort—a musician or a visual artist—and what I think is sometimes necessary to be an artist. When I wrote the song I was thinking a lot about how a lot of artists kind of finish their lives in a terrible way, you know?” he says. “Like someone like Hemingway, he was given electroshock therapy and he basically drank himself to death, and somebody like Townes Van Zandt also met with a sad end. I was reading James Baldwin and he was talking about how being an artist is one of those things where instead of you choosing to do it, it’s one of those things where you can’t help doing it. You have to do it. And you don’t have a choice whether you do it or not, and you do whatever’s necessary in order to make that happen.”

He continues, “And sometimes that’s kind of not that great. But people who are artists and feel they have a vision that they want to see happen and that they’re driven to are willing to do that. And I think that was the inspiration for the song, you know, really not being able to stop. You might want to, but you can’t. And I think that’s sort of a part of the life of being an artist or a creative person in any way, and it is kind of dark sometimes. I think it’s a really great thing and it’s a wonderful gift to be given, but at the same time, yeah, it can be kind of a dark thing. And just that feeling of not being completely in control, I think that that’s part of being an artist of any kind. You kind of give yourself over to that, and it takes you wherever it’s gonna take you, and sometimes where it takes you isn’t that great, but that’s part of the ride.”

Sonically, Chains Are Broken is a heavier record as well—a natural progression stemming from the band’s live show.

“I think it actually sort of unfolded in the live show over the years, playing with a drummer, and everybody in the band is really into heavier music,” Bernhard explains. “It’s pretty funny, actually, if you like go around the room and ask the band what kind of music everybody’s listening to right now, the answers you get back are really hilarious for the kind of music that we play. We all started out in the punk scene, and as we’ve gotten older, I think Cooper especially got really into sort of slow metal and a lot of experimental music, like drone music.

“So yeah, we definitely made the album heavier just out of our music getting heavier over the years onstage. I think it’s just kind of happened naturally. And it’s also so fun to play like that. I think we’ve always tried to emulate that, even when we were just three people playing acoustic instruments. We always tried to play as fast and hard as we possibly could, so it’s sort of a continuation of that.”

But like their live show, no Devil Makes Three record is immune from being tweaked with and evolving, and Bernhard says the group is eager to see how Chains Are Broken shifts as they take it on tour.

“I think the thing that happens for us, you know, we write a record, we’re excited about it, we go out on the road, and then a lot of times we change it.” He laughs. “We change how we play the songs. We like to do them in a different way, we might change the tempos of them, it’s like things evolve and we find a certain way that we really like to perform stuff. I mean, I think that’s part of why you want to see a band live, too. Just sort of to see the different songs and see how things evolve.”

Photo credit: Jay Westcott