#bb bowness

[ksbeditor]

Quick Q and A with Mile Twelve

Quick Q and A with Mile Twelve

Mile Twelve makes some tasty bluegrass music.  Nothing is more joyous than seeing people doing what they are meant to be doing and that’s the case with this band.  Mile Twelve consists of some of the most outstanding and versatile pickers and players around: Evan Murphy (guitar), Nate Sabat (bass), BB Bowness (banjo). Bronwyn Keith-Hynes (fiddle), and David Benedict (mandolin). Mile Twelve raises…

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[sellinout]

TRANSCRIPT for EPISODE 5

Courtesy of Steph DiBona!

[music]

EVAN MURPHY: Friends of mine who will say, you know, you guys look like you’re doing so good, you’re like touring all over the place. It would be really bad if it didn’t look like we were doing good because none of us are doing anything else with our lives. All of us are giving up doing anything else to do this.

MIKE MOSCHETTO: Take it from me, Mile Twelve is doing good, their band is their job. I’m Mike Moschetto, this is Sellin’ Out.

[music: “I’m a casino that pays nothing when you win / Please put your money in”]

MIKE: Hi! Thanks for listening again to Sellin’ Out, the podcast about music and money and the tangled web that is woven from the two. And today I’m doing something a little different from my usual fare. If you’ve been listening to the first few episodes, first of all thank you, secondly, you know where I’m personally coming from, you know plenty of conversations with folks involved in some aspect of subculture, aggressive guitar music, the nebulous nature of DIY whatever. I’ve made enough friends and contacts in that milieu that I could have nothing but these kinds of navel-gazing conversations about that stuff if I wanted to, but I’m excited to shift gears a little bit and get out of that wheelhouse because this episode I’m joined by Evan Murphy and BB Bowness, the guitarist and banjo player, respectively, of the Boston-based bluegrass group Mile Twelve.

I’ve known Evan for a number of years and can actually claim to be sort of the provenance or his inspiration to play the banjo and go deep on Americana but that’s a story for another time. And I was also introduced to BB earlier this year when Mile Twelve invited my fiancée and I to open for them which was very gracious, and I’ll once again express my gratitude here. But not only did they give an amazing performance at the show, they sold the place out before Amory and I had a chance to even really promote the show ourselves. So that made me want to speak to them about making ends meet in a music scene that’s totally alien to me but also similarly niche in a way if that makes sense. Like, not quite to the same degree as you know, loud rock, as hardcore punk with somebody screaming his or her head off, or you know, ten minutes of deafening instrumental post-rock, but still I’d say that bluegrass and American traditional music have sort of a self-contained and insular audience. And I’m hoping I can explore more genres that are a little more outside of my wheelhouse in the future but we’ll start here. So without further ado, here are Evan and BB from Mile Twelve.

[music: “so ring out for the empty lives you made whole / and sing out to the wandering ones / for whom you toll / some day when my time has come / you’ll ring to call my soul, call my soul”]

MIKE: Most of the people I’ve spoken to for this show are involved in some degree with hardcore, punk, emo, and generally speaking these are communities that operate on a DIY ethic, and we presume like out of necessity, right, because it’s kind of, it’s all nichey, there’s a ceiling on how many people are interested. And so everyone has to kind of fend for themselves, there aren’t generally many like, interlocutors trying to make a buck off of it, or at least not make a living. So I’m gonna frame a lot of my questions to you in that way, because that’s who I’ve spoken to so far and that’s probably who’s listening by dint of my involvement in it. So I don’t normally like to do it this way, but I think it would be most helpful if we start at the beginning of Mile Twelve, so like tell me how it came together, what were the initial aspirations at the outset?

EVAN: I guess, well, BB, who’s here-

MIKE: She’s here.

EVAN: - yeah, and Bronwyn who plays fiddle in the group, I feel like you were the two, it was your brainchild three or four years ago, that you wanted to form a full-time group.

BB: I think yeah we both had a bit of a taste for it by just playing kinda casually around with some other young people. We had this band called Blue Hat Yeah. It just gave us the bug for it. Like unfortunately that band, the guitarist lived in New York, so he couldn’t really make it more of a thing than it was gonna be, which was very casual, and the mandolin player was already in another band. So yeah we played some shows, maybe like six shows or something, not very many, but we just loved it. And so both of us were like how can we make something like this happen but with people who are ready to commit to like trying to be a full-time band.

EVAN: And I was living in New York at the time.

MIKE: You did move for a little bit, didn’t you.

EVAN: Yeah for a couple years I was there, and I remember seeing Blue Hat Yeah coming up on Facebook, and being like, seeing them post videos and stuff. And I was so frustrated because I had just left Boston and I knew all those guys. And that was like the band I wanted to be in, basically, like, and I was like “oh man, I missed my shot.” Like I just moved to New York right before these guys got together. So when that band didn’t end up working out and I was moving back from New York to Boston, it was like, we were seeking the same thing.

MIKE: Kismet.

EVAN: Yeah. And I was like it seems like there’s fertile ground in Boston for like a new band.

MIKE: It’s so funny, I know so many people who have moved to New York thinking like, “Oh I can really jumpstart my music career there.” It’s like “well, maybe I’ll get out of New York and that’ll kind spice things up a little bit.” And you’re originally from New Zealand.

BB: Yeah.

MIKE: So, why Boston?

BB: There’s good scenes for bluegrass all around the country, but Boston has an especially like hot bed of young people. So that was really attractive to me. It was also, I kind of wanted to move somewhere to me because it was more similar culturally to New Zealand.

MIKE: Ok, that makes sense.

BB: So yeah, kind of a combination of those two.

MIKE: And I think when Evan told me that Boston was kind of a hot bed of, or it had like a really active bluegrass scene, I think I was surprised. Is that like, should I be surprised?

EVAN: Most people are surprised.

MIKE: I mean I know there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of really talented folks, but like, I don’t know I wouldn’t think of it as a bluegrass town.

EVAN: Yeah I mean the reason for it is Berklee, uh, and the New England Conservatory I guess. But Berklee in particular has um like a roots music program, I can't remember the official name of it. But Bronwyn again, our fiddle player, went through it, Nate, our bass player, went through it. And um it’s become so magnetic that like some of the best teenage folk and bluegrass musicians will end up moving to Boston to study at Berklee because its got this great roots program now. So so many people in their like early twenties end up here, when they’re starting out as bluegrass musicians.

MIKE: Obviously you do well here, but where else, do you have like other markets, other regions that are favorable to you?

EVAN: Yeah, I mean we do a lot of touring in the places that you might expect, like the Carolinas.

BB: Virginia.

EVAN: Virginia, I don’t think we’ve ever played in Kentucky, which is the Bluegrass State, but -

BB: That’s true.

EVAN: - a lot of the southeastern U.S. we’ve toured in. I wouldn’t say that like Boston has a huge bluegrass audience as compared to other places. Like, I guess it is more of like a musician’s town, but I do think that, and you probably are pretty aware of this as a fellow young musician that like, there’s actually like a connection between sort of like urban hipster life and acoustic roots music. Like a lot of people who like craft beer and really good coffee and like, they also like roots music. So it’s like we’re not a hipster bluegrass band, we try to like appeal to real folks in the southeastern U.S. who have grown up on this music. But I guess what I’m saying is that like areas like Boston do have their share of like young, hip folks who wanna come see some bluegrass music.

BB: Yeah, what’s that venue that the Punch Brothers played? House of Blues.

EVAN: House of Blues.

BB: Yeah, the Punch Brothers like sold that out almost I think.

MIKE: That’s a huge room.

BB: That’s a huge room! And they’re a bluegrass band. I mean you know, they’re obviously their own case but it’s still like, I know the Stringdusters have also played in Boston with like a massive crowd -

EVAN: Or like the Davis Square Theater has folks, and like Passim like you mentioned.

MIKE: Of course, of course.

EVAN: Even like Lizard Lounge, like, Boston’s pretty friendly to the acoustic music.

MIKE: Acoustic music, totally.

EVAN: ‘Cause I think young people are friendly to it.

MIKE: Do you, when you tour to these places where you might more commonly associate something like bluegrass and folk, like Appalachia for example, are you received any differently do you think because you’re like based in Boston? Am I projecting onto them a sort of traditionalism that maybe isn’t there? Have you experienced that at all? Or like, “you guys are pretty good for being from Boston.”

EVAN: [laughs]

BB: Yeah, I do feel like when audiences in the South listen to us they kind of hear us as a more progressive band, and I think when audiences in New England hear us, they hear us as a more traditional band. But that just might be my own head, you know, playing games on me.

MIKE: Interesting.

EVAN: I remember we played at this place called, um, Bill’s Pickin’ Parlor. And it’s a really like traditional-looking place. I mean, it’s like all wood inside, and there’s photos all over the wall of like bluegrass legends who’ve played there, and we were up on stage and I remember, like, we do a mostly, I mean you saw our set at Passim, like it’s pretty bluegrassy, you know, there’s a lot of traditional-sounding stuff in there. But then we were doing like, Rocket Man-

MIKE: Rocket Man, I was just gonna say.

EVAN: -and Nate wrote this song that’s like really dark, and in like it’s in five, and it’s kind of metal sounding. I remember cringing and thinking like-

MIKE: Are they gonna eat us alive?

EVAN: -are these people gonna hate this? But they didn’t really, they like, I have really not encountered many people who have come up to us and been like you guys are subverting, you know, the tradition.

MIKE: You guys are appropriating bluegrass culture-

EVAN: Yeah!

BB: [laughs]

EVAN: We haven’t gotten a lot of that.

MIKE: -for your own twisted progressive views.

EVAN: And I think that we try as a band to like shed, so that, like bluegrass is pretty transparent I think. Like if you can’t play it, people will notice, like there’s not a lot of covering it up.

MIKE: There’s like a high bar of entry.

EVAN: Yeah.

MIKE: In terms of like chops, I guess.

EVAN: Totally. And so we’ve really tried to practice so that when we go to Bill’s Pickin’ Parlor or any venue we want people to, yeah, come up and be like, you know, that sounded legitimate to me. And I think we’ve mostly gotten that.

MIKE: That’s like my fear, is to go to someplace like where the music originated and be like, “I don’t know, I think you’re just faking it.

BB & EVAN: [laughs]

[music: “Traveling onwards through the night / Gazing upwards to the light”]

MIKE: At what point did you make the leap to being a full-time band? Like how was that transition for each of you?

BB: Some of us, like Nate, when the band first started Nate was actually still in Berklee, still in school. So, he could only so much, but.

MIKE: Is he a baby?

BB: Yeah, he’s the youngest. Bronwyn and I were just both teaching private lessons, which we’re still doing, so in that sense nothing’s changed for us. Just a whole lot more busy. For Evan, you had a part-time music teaching gig?

EVAN: Yeah. Yeah I was doing a couple different things that were a little more structured, like some really early childhood music classes and some private lessons. But both through companies, so, with a lot less flexibility to just like move and cancel things at will. And it was when we decided to tour Australia and New Zealand, ‘cause we were gonna be over there for like a month, and I’d had these jobs for like two years, and the strain of trying to balance the band schedule with the teaching schedule was just getting to be way too stressful. And it was at that point when we were gonna be gone for a month that I was like, alright I guess I’m done doing these jobs. You know, cause like the band is just getting too busy, and that’s when I contacted them and said like, I can’t do this anymore.

MIKE: You just said like, I gotta leave I’m out of here? Or did you try to put in for a month off of work?

EVAN: No, I just said I’m out of here ‘cause I had had-

MIKE: You weren’t like loving it anyway?

EVAN: Well, I enjoyed doing it. Like if the band suddenly collapsed tomorrow I’d probably go back and do those jobs again, you know like they were fine. But they were like serious, like they weren’t all that comfortable with me taking off long periods of time, which was part of what made it stressful. Because like I’d be, you know the band would be talking about like going on a two-week tour or something which for a full-time band is not like that long of a thing. And I’d be sitting there like sweating, like thinking like “oh man I have to email both of my bosses and get-” So there was, by that point I was like I’m done with this. This is just not sustainable to do this, with...

MIKE: When I was, I was a postman before this. And I remember the first time we had booked a month-long tour and I went in to, I was just like well I’m gonna ask for the time off, if I get it, great, and if I don’t, then I’m out of here. And I was like “I’m gonna be away for the entire month of October,” and they were like “alright we’ll see you in November.”

BB & EVAN: [laughs]

MIKE: I mean I was kind of shocked, I didn’t get paid for any of it but it was like I guess the Postal Service needs people that bad around Christmas time so they weren’t, they might have, but then I did it again the next summer which is kind of the slow season and they could afford to tell me to piss off and they didn’t. And they just would have hired like three new people to replace me or something I don’t know.

EVAN: Well that’s like one of the things about being a full-time musician that’s so strange is that, if you’re a full-time musician it doesn’t actually mean you’re gigging like, eight hours a day five days a week. Right like anyone who plays music knows that, that’s not really how it works. Like you might have weekends, you might have a like run here and there. But even though the schedule is so jumpy it totally negates like the possibility of having any kind of consistent part-time job. I mean, unless you have the coolest boss in the world, then like, I mean, BB, she can talk about this, but she even worked at a coffee shop which you’d think of as one of the most laid back type of part-time, you know like maybe they’re expecting you to have kind of flexible hours, you might have other artists working there. And even that like didn’t last that long before-

BB: Yeah, it gets tricky. It just like there's a point where it’s like, what, there’s not much point to this anymore. I’m so busy and when we get back from tour it’s like I wanna you know, vacuum and like do my washing, and practice, like there’s so many things that get neglected.

MIKE: You miss like trashing hotel rooms so you gotta get back and like penitently clean your own place.

BB & EVAN: [laughs]

MIKE: I guess that’s a good way to define what a full-time band is, ‘cause I would, I’ve spoken with a lot of people who I would think would say that they’re in full-time bands in that they arrange the rest of their lives around what they’re doing with the band, whether or not it’s at the expense of the rest of their lives. Right like maybe you tour four months of the year, but you come back and you like drive for Uber to pay the bills. But, basically, you’re planning your whole year out in advance, eighteen months even just to get everything done. But I guess the distinction with you guys is that it’s, it negates your ability to work on the side, aside from like side hustle freelance, like private lessons like you said. And maybe because we’re recording this at tax season, how did all that kind of play out for you? Loke writing everything off?

BB: Yeah.

MIKE: Are you guys doing all that yourselves or do you have like something keeping the books for you like a manager?

BB: We just do it ourselves, yeah. We have this email chain [laughs] it’s a bit of a nightmare.

EVAN: Yeah, everyone just types in...

BB: So you know there’s the January email chain of finances, where it’s like “Bronwyn’s Uber”, and then like “Nate’s cup of coffee” and, everything from tiny expenses, parking, or whatever, to like large expenses.

MIKE: There’s like a company card?

BB: We do, we all have debit cards.

EVAN: We do have an accountant actually prepare our, like, what we receive is called a K-1, which I would have never known about until we started doing this, but um, basically the band tallies up everything that we made for the year, and everything that we spent, and then sends that to the accountant. And he might look at it and say like you know, “you made $100” obviously, hopefully it’s more than that, “and you spent $50, and then $50 divided by five is $10, so everyone owes taxes on that $10.” And then you get your K-1 or whatever, and that’s like how.

BB: Yeah.

EVAN: So we all get this document that’s like, this is what Mile Twelve is paying you as one of the partners, and you owe taxes on that amount of money. And you can’t really deduct any expenses from it because they’re already deduced from it.

BB: Except for meals I think.

EVAN: Oh yeah, you can do, yeah you’re right.

BB: Because there’s a meal deduction for when you’re on tour like the per diem. Which is great for like New York City, and like those more expensive cities, ‘cause we’re all very, well, we try to cheap, we’re not like that cheap, but we try to be pretty cheap on the road.

MIKE: That’s part of it.

BB: But it doesn’t matter if you spend that much or not, you can claim 50% of whatever that city’s per diem is.

MIKE: Wow.

BB: Yeah.

MIKE: And how many days of the year are you on the road typically? Or, I mean, it probably varies from year to year but like on average?

EVAN: I jut counted because of taxes and I think I got something over 100.

BB: Yeah it was like 120 or something like that, yeah.

EVAN: And it varies everything from a gig in New Hampshire and a gig in Connecticut to like, Japan. Or Australia. And like the whole international touring thing is like, that’s particularly not very lucrative, and we all know that going into to it. Like, ‘cause they‘re so, the expenses are crazy, for the flights and stuff like that. So we’ve done Ireland, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, and now Japan, and they’re all like, I wouldn’t say for fun, because that diminishes how much work goes into them, but they’re kind of just to do, and for street cred, and like...

BB: Pretty cool experiences. And New Zealand especially for me was like amazing.

MIKE: Little homecoming.

BB: Yeah, five days in New Zealand, but like each gig was like, you know, oh my gosh! This is what I’ve been doing with my life and now you can all see it! So, pretty special.

MIKE: Was there a lot of people? Did a lot of people turn out?

BB: Yeah, oh wow, yeah the hometown gig especially had 180 people. Which is, it’s a small town, Whanganui is, I don’t know what the population of Whanganui is, it’s pretty small.

EVAN: People were like bursting out of that building, that was crazy.

BB: Yeah, it was really special.

MIKE: I did a tour of Europe, and our overhead was like, our flights, we had to rent a vehicle, pay the booking agent, pay the driver, who weren’t always the same person, and pay for merch up front. You know, whatever meals, we got provided a lot of meals, like the Europe hospitality is like, tchk tchk.

EVAN: Yeah.

MIKE: And the way it kind of worked out with guarantee sand everything, we came up even, except for the flights. What are some of the things that you guys have to consider when you’re touring overseas? Like, you’re bringing your own instruments I presume.

BB: Mmhmm. Even Nate brings his own bass, most of the time, he didn’t to Japan, but every other tour.

EVAN: So that’s an expense, like we all just share the expense for things like that, like Mile Twelve covers the expense of him flying with his bass, so the flights are huge.

MIKE: Yeah.

BB: Yeah. Visas are usually...

EVAN: Oh yeah, visas.

BB: Somewhat expensive.

EVAN: Rental cars are brutal, and um, there’s even sort of, this is more abstract but even factoring in lost income for so much time on the road of like, you know, like I don’t teach nearly as much as like BB or Bronwyn or David, our mandolin player, who we haven’t talked that much about so far.

MIKE: Well, he’s the new guy right?

EVAN: He’s the new guy, yeah. He’s been in the band a year now.

MIKE: He’s gotta earn it.

EVAN: Yeah, totally.

MIKE: He’s like the Jason Newsted, if that makes sense.

EVAN: Like we’ll, wait who’s that?

MIKE: He was the bassist of Metallica after the original bassist died.

EVAN: Oh [laughs]

MIKE: And they were just super shitty to him when he joined the band, so like the first album that he played on, when they mixed it, they just turned the bass way down so he’s barely on it.

EVAN: Oh man, oh geez.

BB: [laughs]

MIKE: So I presume you’re not that.

EVAN: No, no. David’s like, David took the reins as soon as he joined the band, he’s probably one of the most organized, productive members of the group, but um... Yeah, we might, look at like a longer international tour and think like, alright the band’s probably gonna make very little money, is it worth like all these people missing students for like three or four weeks, or is it worth, you know, just like the psychological kind of, you know, toll of like being on the road that long. But usually we decide yes, it is worth doing that.

BB: Yeah, I think as we go on, we’re getting more and more fussy, like, I think we’re all pretty glad that the Japan tour was so short.

EVAN: Yeah.

BB: And I think, we’re talking about going back to Ireland and we’re probably gonna make it much shorter this time.

EVAN: Yeah.

BB: And even if that means like less money, it’s also less stress, you know, less time in a different time zone, less time away from your loved ones.

EVAN: Yeah I think the way we’re starting to look at the international thing is like, if you’re not really doing it- ‘cause like the rationale has been like it’s gonna cost so much money to get over there, it’s gonna cost so much money to be over there. We have to stay over there for a really long time to make up for it. But now it’s like, kinda like, we’re not gonna make any money anyway, so like, let’s just go over for like a week or something.

BB: And have fun.

MIKE: Yeah, totally. When Aviator went to Europe we went for like four weeks just because we were like well, A) it’ll probably be the last big hurrah that we ever do, then it was just like well, the longer we stay the closer of a chance we stand to recouping. Because, kind of a weird subcultural difference is that like lost income is not even a factor, it’s just an assumption. Unless you have a job that you can telecommute somehow, even overseas, like, I don’t know if you guys could do Skype lessons, or something?

BB: Mmm, it’s a little crazy.

MIKE: Which is hard, especially someplace like Japan.

BB: We have done it, but.

MIKE: But like, that doesn’t even come into the conversation, it’s just assumed, unless you get paid vacation time or you can work remotely, then it’s just like, oh, tough.

EVAN: But like BB said, I think those kinds of evaluations are changing over time. I mean when we went on our first tour of Canada we didn’t make anything, and we were just like hooray! Like this was so much fun!

BB: Yeah, so excited.

EVAN: And now it’s like we’ve been at this for like a little over three years, which isn’t that long, but all of us are giving up doing anything else to do this, so then those considerations start to get more real. Like if we’re not making money, if it’s not lucrative, if it's not sustainable, if it’s too psychologically challenging, it’s not gonna last. You know like if we burn hot and fast that’s not really good for anybody, like we wanna be at this for ten, fifteen years maybe, just in this band.

MIKE: Til you die.

EVAN: Or, yeah, til we die.

[music: “one night as we lay sleeping / a storm had found our course / the [unintelligible 23:30] took water o’er the sides / the waves they came in force / we woke and tied our lifelines / I prayed the seas would tame / I'd never seen or smiled so wide as in the wind and rain”]

MIKE: As things have kind of progressed and grown for you guys, we should talk about like overhead costs here, like, I see friends whose rock bands are successful and they might have to spend more on like have someone mixing front of house for them, or bringing their own tour manager, rentals for like bigger sound system or lighting or whatever. All these production costs. So their guarantee might be going up, but their take may be staying the same, or less even. Has there been an analogue for that, with your experience?

EVAN: I mean, bluegrass music doesn’t tend to have a lot of equipment overhead, and least for us, like we’ve talked about a few different things. Like we’ve talked about hiring a full-time sound guy, which we would consider to be more like, they would become like the sixth band member sort of. Like it might be that, well I mean you could structure it different ways, you might structure it like when we make 50 bucks they make 50 bucks, and when we make 500 bucks they make 500 bucks.

MIKE: They also make 50 bucks.

BB: [laughs]

EVAN: Like we’ve thought about doing it that way, but we don’t have like, lights and amps and stuff are not part of the deal for us, like it’s pretty acoustic. And then...

MIKE: Even as you play bigger and bigger venues, it’s all...

EVAN: Yeah, the thing that some bluegrass musicians do end up doing is in-ear monitors, which a lot of bluegrass musicians to get that like natural feel use these large-diaphragm condensers where you’re all signing around one mic, or there’s only a few mics on stage.

MIKE: You do that, right?

EVAN: Yeah we do that, but they’re super sensitive, and like you can’t use monitors basically, or like you can barely use monitors. So you know we’ve talked about that, those are super expensive. Um, and then like recording. You know like we did a Kickstarter for our first album, which went great, we raised the money quickly. But all of us were like, I don’t think we can do the Kickstarter thing again, like we can’t, you know some people do it twice or whatever, and that’s fine, but we didn’t want to do that. So now just like every cent we make from our merchandise is going into this savings account to do another album which is like, we’re in a better position than some people to be able to do that, but, that’s like, that’s a huge expense. It’s just like, alright we spent $20,000 to make an album and now everything we make on it is just gonna get saved up to make another album in like a year or whatever.

MIKE: And how long does it take you guys to cut a record?

BB: We did like ten days last time in the studio for 12 songs. And that was like a bunch of mixing too, not all the mixing though.

MIKE: Okay. But did you guys all play together, at least instrumentally?

EVAN: We were isolated, instruments simultaneously, and then record vocals over them. And some of the songs, we used a metronome for all of us, some of the songs just the bass player would have a metronome in his ears, but it makes it a lot easier for like editing purposes to do that so we went with the metronome.

MIKE: And I guess you can’t really, you kind of have to aim high in terms of the facility that you’re looking at to record, like you can’t, there isn’t really a lot of lo-fi bluegrass, there isn’t a lot of... I mean, am I wrong about that?

BB: I don’t know, honestly I don’t know what most people do. I guess a lot of people do their recording in Nashville. But, I mean the recording studio we used was pretty... the studio itself wasn’t that glamorous by any means, but yeah. I feel like, for me at least, the most helpful thing is having a producer, so we’d probably want to do that again. Just having someone outside of the band who can like you know tell us when it’s good or if it’s bad.

MIKE: Another set of ears never hurt.

BB: Yeah.

EVAN: Yeah, a good producer is great, and we had a good producer on our last project which really helped. He was also the engineer, so he was working quite hard on that album.

MIKE: A lot of that stuff gets folded into being one person anyway.

EVAN: Yeah.

MIKE: So what’s like the pipe dream for Mile Twelve like? This will date me, but like maybe it’s a certain type of person wants to see themselves on MTV, which isn’t a thing that people know anymore so I should probably cut that out.

BB & EVAN: [laughs]

MIKE: But like for me I always wanted to play at 924 Gilman out in Berkeley, California which I never got to, but like um, what’s like your-

EVAN: It’s not too late, Mike.

MIKE: Thank you. What’s like your, uh I’ll do alive podcast from there, how’s that. What’s like your Madison Square Garden? Or is it like Madison Square Garden, what’s like the ceiling?

BB: Probably not. [laughs]

EVAN: No, I mean, for me it’s the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, that’s the one I’ve always wanted to play.

BB: That’d be cool. I mean, any like, we’re playing Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival this year, I think we’re playing the main stage, and that’s, like, big festivals like that, like big bluegrass festivals are kind of, I think for all of us, a bit of the dream. So yeah like for me, Rocky Grass, or Telluride, in Colorado.

EVAN: Yeah.

BB: MerleFest, any of those, like kind of bigger ones.

EVAN: Yeah, the bigger ones. We got a festival called ROMP this year, which was one of the ones we’ve-

MIKE: Yeah I’ve heard of that one!

EVAN: Yeah you know that one?

MIKE: I think so.

EVAN: We’ve been dying to play that one.

MIKE: Where is that? That’s out in, um...

EVAN: That one is actually-

BB: In Kentucky.

EVAN: -in Kentucky, yeah. Sometimes people like nice folks who usually are like in their 60s or above will come up to us after shows and say things like, “oh remember us when you’re famous.” And like, I always kind of laugh and think like, that word doesn’t really like happen in bluegrass all that often, you know. It’s like if you’re a bluegrass musician, there’s like very rare cases, like Alison Krauss & Union Station, or like Ricky Skaggs, or like Del McCoury, where bluegrass artists have achieved at least some-

MIKE: You had me with the first two but I don’t know...

EVAN: So even Del McCoury we’ve dropped off, but yeah, who’ve achieved like real kind of mainstream fame, and I, at least for me and I think BB would agree, none of us have any delusions of mainstream fame. Like that’s just not really a thing in like roots music. But we’d like to get to like bluegrass fame, that would be fun.

MIKE: I think there’s people who kind of like, like a Mumford & Sons, like, you could find like a real idiot who would be like “oh that’s bluegrass.”

EVAN: Right, right.

MIKE: I feel like that’s only a few steps removed from a larger pool of-

BB: Audience.

MIKE: Yeah, a larger audience. Don’t you think?

BB: Yeah, I think so and I think some people accidentally fall into it, you know, and that’s cool. Yeah, whenever I see bands that like, you know the Stringdusters, or some bands like that who have clearly a huge following they’re super successful.

MIKE: Punch Brothers even.

EVAN: Totally.

BB: Yeah, just always like wow. I’m always amazed. Actually at that Punch Brothers show a couple years ago at the House of Blues I was like “this many people? Are coming to see a show that there’s a banjo player, and not just a banjo player who’s like strumming it but like one of the best banjo players in the world?” And ugh, like yeah it gives us hope.

EVAN: I always think of like, could this band play a Tiny Desk concert for NPR?

MIKE: Oh, yeah.

EVAN: And like, there’s a lot of bluegrass bands who I see and I like, I respect the chops that they have and I respect their vocals and I might personally be a huge fan of them, but I would look at them and think like “this band will never play a Tiny Desk concert.” And that’s fine, but like I want this group to be the kind of group that could do a Tiny Desk concert at some point.

MIKE: I think that Rocket Man cover is gonna take you there.

BB & EVAN: [laughs]

MIKE: I might be biased because that’s like one of my favorite songs.

EVAN: Totally.

MIKE: But, uh...

EVAN: That was accidentally the most popular thing we ever did. And I was like-

MIKE: It’s so good.

EVAN: -I was really resistant at first and, because there’s this cover of ‘Rocket Man’ on Youtube that has like-

MIKE: William Shatner?

EVAN: -millions, no that one’s even better.

MIKE: [laughs]

EVAN: But it has like millions of views, like it totally went viral. And it’s a bluegrass cover of Rocket Man from years and years ago, like it predates ours, and um, they really bluegrassify it, like they give it the like [snapping fingers on a quick beat] “and I think it’s gonna be a long, long” you know with the mandolin chopping and the banjo and everything. As opposed to like, you know we do it with the kind of the same rhythm and structure, more or less.

MIKE: Yeah like the feel of the original, but like, your instrumentation and-

EVAN: But it’s funny because like people, you know like it was inadvertently the most popular thing we’ve done so far I think like to the point I was like “maybe we should stop doing ‘Rocket Man’?” and it’s like “no we have to keep doing that because people like it.” But in the back of my head I’m like “man there’s this other bluegrass band that already like did this really famous cover of this song.”

MIKE: It’s like my favorite move, is to stop doing what everyone loves.

EVAN: Yeah. [laughs]

BB: [laughs]

MIKE: I think that’s why I haven’t made it.

EVAN: [laughs]

MIKE: I saw Feist, and she didn’t play that song “1234” and I was like “fuck, yeah.” It’s super ballsy. And we were walking out, I heard people complaining about it and I was like “shut up.”

EVAN: Yeah, yeah I know. Springsteen won’t do “Thunder Road” very often, you know, it’s like he kind of pulled back a little bit.

MIKE: I respect it. We kind of alluded to this I think before we started taping was, a big part of what enables you guys to be as successful as you are is that your main audience are, uh, older, more likely to spend their money, more likely to value art and music, and maybe they’re like, I don’t know if they’re a little more educated, at least around here, I guess. I feel like the case for Boston is that like “oh, it’s this cultural thing,” it’s like this folk music so that gets a lot of academia play. Yeah, I don't’ have a question, just saying like, what’s that like, that’s pretty cool.

EVAN: Yeah.

BB: Yeah, it’s really helpful. Like we do some shows where it’s like we happen upon a young audience, and it’s all like, every time it’s a little strange for us, ‘cause we’re not used to it. But also a noticeable lack of CD sales on those gigs. Yeah the older audiences-

MIKE: They all just pirate it later.

EVAN: [laughs]

BB: Yeah exactly they’re just Spotifying, which is cool, it’s just that that’s the new thing. I think that bluegrass right now is still a little bit backward in that we are still selling some amount of CDs and people are buying. You know, some of our ticket sales re a little more expensive now and people are coming out, mainly ‘cause they can afford to.

EVAN & MIKE: Yeah.

MIKE: Yeah I mean that’s huge.

EVAN: There’s kind of like a built-in structure to bluegrass and I’ve never really played in any other genre so I don’t know exactly what it’s like. But bluegrass just has this like setup where it’s like its either gonna be, it’s most likely gonna be at a festival, or kind of like quiet listening room like Club Passim or Café Luna, and usually the band is gonna do two sets and there’s gonna be a break and people are gonna talk to you in the middle, and like they’re like older working professionals who have disposable income or they’re retired and they’re expecting to come and buy a CD from you, or a t-shirt, and they’d like to come and shake hands with you in the break. And it’s just like kind of set up in this folksy way that like facilitates merchandise sales.

MIKE: Do you find that your bluegrass audiences typically very discerning? Like, do you think there’s a lot of built in audience like “oh, a band that I think I might like is playing I’m gonna go check it out.” Do you think that’s...

BB: That’s huge, yeah. We have such a big leg up on, I’m not sure again, like I haven’t really played in any other genres of music, but we’ll go to a town for the first time, never been there as a band, and it’s a full room, you know there’s like 80, 100 people there. And like they’re all, they all clap for the mandolin solo, and they’re clearly like, they know bluegrass, they think they’ll like us, they come to the show, they like us.

MIKE: So there’s like tropes that you’re operating on, that kind of, they know to respond to every little solo section, every trading fours, you know.

BB: Yeah. Not all the time, but like, yeah the fact that it’s somewhat common-

MIKE: There’s like a cultural literacy to it-

BB: Yeah, exactly.

MIKE: -that’s built into it.

EVAN: That’s one of the biggest advantages of bluegrass, it really... I feel like you could be one of the greatest songwriters who ever lived, and you could be toiling in obscurity and going on tour and playing to like three or four people in some like smoky bar and like no one might-

MIKE: You can just say my name. [laughs]

EVAN: [laughs] -and like no one, if unless you got like really, really lucky no one might ever know that you were like the greatest songwriter who ever lived ‘cause it’s like so competitive. But if you’re like the greatest bluegrass band who ever lived, people will find out about you. Like it is a pretty small world and like BB said, there’s a kind of hunger, like, “I heard this like, you gotta see this person play banjo,” or “you’ve gotta, like, this band, you gotta hear the harmonies in this band,” and like, the word will just spread. And that’s the, one of the trade-offs.

MIKE: I’ve said both of those things about your band since I’ve seen you.

EVAN: Oh, well that’s good man, but like, it’s the trade-off, the lack of like, mega fame in bluegrass, where you’re not gonna be Lady Gaga, and you’re not gonna be like Beyoncé, like the highest you’ll get is like Del McCoury, who you didn’t recognize his name, right? Like that’s like that’s kinda like, that’s what they, like you couldn’t hope for more than like getting to Del McCoury’s level in bluegrass. But, you know it’s a small world and the good side of it is that if like you’re a good new band, people will just show up to see you.

BB: Oh yeah, and people are just so supportive. I mean I think it’s because there’s not like so many young bands that are really like “ok we’re all just giving up our day jobs and we’re gonna try to do this as a full-time gig.” So, there’s just so many people who have helped us out, like “come play this gig,” or “come play at our festival.” Yeah, it’s like it has been really exciting to see how supportive people are and how excited people are about us.

EVAN: We look back with horror now at like early videos of us playing at some of these festivals, and like, we sound like garbage and it’s like, people must have just been like, “we’re just gonna give these kids a shot ‘cause they’re like a new bluegrass band.”

BB: “Cause there’s not many other people that are-

EVAN: Yeah, totally, I don’t know, it’s like- [laughs]

BB: “We’re desperate for music someone help them out, maybe one day they’ll be ok.” [laughs]

MIKE: If I were like a bluegrass aficionado, I would be very excited at like, “oh people are still doing this now actively, starting new bands and writing original music with these same signifiers that everyone can appreciate but taking it to new, bold places.” So, that’s really great.

EVAN: Yeah, we get that a lot with people saying, “oh, I’m glad to know, you know, young people are playing bluegrass, and there are like-

MIKE: And they’re playing it in five!

EVAN: Yeah, and they’re playing it in five.

BB: [laughs]

MIKE: And I’m like, counting on my fingers, “wait a minute! There’s an extra-”

BB: Actually one comment that we get at gigs is like, they’ll just come up and say, “wow you’re so young!”

EVAN: [laughs] Yeah, yeah.

MIKE: Like pat you on the head.

EVAN: Yeah, totally, totally.

[music]

MIKE: As always, if you like what you’ve heard here, I urge you to support Mile Twelve however you see fit. I’ll have the necessary links in the description of this episode. If you want to get in touch with me, I’m at [email protected], on Twitter @SellinOutAD. Find out how you can support the show at patreon.com/sellinout there’s exclusive bonus content available there. Leave a nice rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts from, please. It helps other people find the show.

Our theme song is “No Cab Fare” by Such Gold, photography is by Nick DiNatale. I’m Mike Moschetto, catch ya next time, this is Sellin’ Out.

[music]

MIKE: Do you ever feel kind of, I don’t wanna say trapped, I don’t wanna make it sound more grim than it is, but, do you know what I’m getting at here?

BB: I know exactly what you’re getting at.

MIKE: If I could fucking speak, then I would be a real-

BB & EVAN: [laughs]

MIKE: -then I would be a really good podcaster then, and I could articulate a single thought that I had.

[smfeducation]

Get to Know AMS: BB Bowness

This month, the SMF Education Department will be introducing you to the 16 young musicians participating in this year's Acoustic Music Seminar. Each one will be visiting the Savannah Music Festival for an incredible week of playing, creating, and writing with world-renowned artists like Mike Marshall, Darol Anger, and Bruce Molsky to name a few. 

  Check back tomorrow to meet a new participant!

  Get to know: BB Bowness

  Age: 22

  Hometown: Koitiata, New Zealand

  A banjo prodigy from New Zealand? You better believe it. Since she completed her BMus in Banjo at the New Zealand School of Music, the first person to ever do so, BB has been making her mark on Boston, Massachusetts while immersing herself in the city's vibrant acoustic music scene. 

For the last ten years, BB has been inside the banjo "vortex" as she calls it. "It won't be letting go anytime soon," she says.  "[The banjo] has such unique qualities that continue to both baffle and inspire me." Soon after beginning her banjo studies with tutor Mark Warren, she received the Frank Winter Memorial Award at the Auckland Folk Festival to travel to the USA and study with world renowned banjo players Tony Trischka, Alan Munde and Bill Evans.

  Next, she won the Uncle Dave Macon banjo competition in Murfreesboro, Tennessee at just 15 years old and came runner up in the Rockygrass bluegrass banjo contest in Colorado. In 2007, she was invited to join Colorado bluegrass band, Long Road Home, for their tour of summer festivals in the USA. BB has performed throughout New Zealand and Australia with the bluegrass band, Twisted Oak, and recorded her own debut album Village Green with some of New Zealand's best acoustic artists. 

  BB is excited to soak up more information from the acoustic community when she arrives at AMS.

  "I'm incredibly excited to have the opportunity to attend AMS and get to study with my musical heroes alongside some of the most amazing young musicians around," she says. 

  Watch this video of BB playing "21" with Cy Winstanley and Vanessa McGowan. 

    Make sure to see this year's participants in action with Julian Lage and Mike Marshall at the Lucas Theatre for the Arts on April 6th at 5PM. For more information visit the Savannah Music Festival's website.