Inspiration comes from many sources for the band's members. Michael says, "A lot of stuff that I like is the 1960’s and 70’s folk revival like Dave Van Ronk and Townes Van Zandt. Once you get into that, you start getting into older musicians like Mississippi John Hurt.”
Roadtrip adds, "I'm from the east coast so I grew up listening to a lot of the east coast family bands like The Rankins. The idea of getting together with a bunch of friends or family in the kitchen and playing folk songs and improvising on them is a strong influence for me.”
At this point, David says, "I'd say my primary influence is Frank Fairfield. I basically saw a couple of videos and fell in love and that was basically all there was to it. He influences me as a fiddle player. He's got a very distinctive style of playing that might be described as ‘sawing a baby.’ "
When it comes to songwriting, Michael and Ben are the band's main writers. Michael talks about his approach and says, "I sit down and play with chords and once I find the chord structure I like, I'll try to sing or hum a melody and after that it's just about getting words behind it. I'm not a words guy. Ben writes poetry that we'll put to music so he writes differently than I do. Once I write a song, usually he'll have words for it and we'll take a second pass at it or he'll have a song ready and we'll work on it from there."
The band's choice to play bluegrass comes down to one major factor in Michael's view. He says, "The number one thing is that it's easy to play. You're playing in G or C or D which is nice because some of us have only been playing our instruments for a year. Being able to pick it up and have it be accessible is a big thing.”
As the house band in a bar, covers make up much of what the band performs. Michael explains, "It's easy to learn and do and it's what people want to hear. They want to hear songs that are familiar. Ben and I made an album so we write stuff together but typically it's covers that we're playing for people."
Comments
We have been to a couple of performances and danced and sung along. This band is a ton of fun .My has been and I even held our birthday celebration at the Legion and the band was our entertainment. All of our friends really enjoyed the band .