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<\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019re not a bluegrass band,\u201d insists Will Saylor, co-leader with brother Ben in Brushfire Stankgrass. Instead, the popular Asheville quartet uses bluegrass as the launching point for its musical excursions, venturing well into folk, jam and rock forms in the process. And while the group makes no claims to capture the essence of Asheville in its style, Brushfire Stankgrass\u2019 effective hybrid music \u2013 Moog synthesizer coexisting with banjos \u2013 does result in a sound that\u2019s uniquely Asheville. The group celebrated the release of City of a Thousand Hills<\/i>\u00a0 with a live-streamed show on May 24. And making up for lost time, a fourth and fifth release are in the pipeline, too.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The group released its debut, One for the Salamanders<\/i>, in 2010. Positive reviews in Relix<\/i> coupled with a packed touring schedule helped build the band \u2013 Will on guitar, Ben on banjo, drummer Micah Thomas and bassist Daniel Ianucci \u2013 a solid, dedicated following. A second release, Microclimates<\/i>, was released in 2013. But then everything stopped.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were going full steam after Microclimates,<\/i> and we all kind of got burnt out a little bit,\u201d says guitarist Will Saylor. The cumulative effect of \u201cgrinding on the road and all going through some personal life changes\u201d meant that it was time to step away from the band for while. So Brushfire Stankgrass went on hiatus.<\/p>\n
Songwriter and banjo player Ben Saylor moved away, settling for a time in Montana. But he and Will continued to write music that would be destined for the group when it reconvened. In fact, Will says, he and his brother have written more material than can fit on one album. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a backlog,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
In 2019 the band set up at Echo Mountain Recording and cut City of a Thousand Hills<\/i>. The rock textures that characterized Microclimates<\/i> are subtly scaled back on the record. \u201cI usually play my banjo through a lot of effects,\u201d says Ben. \u201cBut on City of a Thousand Hills<\/i>, I used no effects.\u201d He describes the album as \u201ca little more acoustic and bluegrassy\u201d than its predecessor.<\/p>\n
The time spent away from Brushfire Stankgrass yielded an additional cache of songs that explore the rock and jam side of the band. The best of those songs have been recorded as well. \u201cWe\u2019ve had seven years to [work on the next album, due out later this year,] The Rich Cache<\/i>,\u201d says Ben. \u201cIt has a more electric feel; Moog effects and synthesizers are used heavily on some tracks. It\u2019s more eclectic, and leans more toward jam\/fusion.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s what Ben laughingly calls \u201cthe new<\/i> new album.\u201d Recorded just before the band members went into quarantine, the as-yet-untitled collection of songs \u201cstraddles between jam rock and Americana,\u201d he says. Will emphasizes that when people listen to Brushfire Stankgrass\u2019 new releases, \u201cyou can hear the maturity, how we\u2019ve changed over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Will says that the band\u2019s debut was \u201ckind of raw and new. Microclimates<\/i> was a little more polished.\u201d And City of a Thousand Hills<\/i> benefits from the world-class staff and gear at Echo Mountain. \u201cThat was our first album that we actually recorded in a studio as opposed to home recording,\u201d Will says. While Microclimates<\/i> was a layered and overdubbed production, the band took a more organic approach for City<\/i>. \u201cWe all set up at the church and cut these songs one by one,\u201d he says. \u201cThat impa<\/span>r<\/span>ted a different character:<\/span> the music is a little more fluid feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n With COVID-19 restrictions still in effect, Brushfire Stankgrass marked the launch of City of a Thousand Hills<\/i> with a live-streamed concert broadcast from the Grey Eagle. That performance was part of The Grey Eagle Sessions, a regular series of concerts broadcast via the venue\u2019s Facebook page.<\/p>\n Ben and Will acknowledge that two signature characteristics of the region \u2013 mountain music and pioneering electronic synthesis \u2013 influence the music they make with Brushfire Stankgrass. But it wasn\u2019t necessarily planned that way. \u201cI think it would be a little bit contrived to say, \u2018Let’s make an Asheville-y sounding band,\u201d says Ben. \u201cBut that\u2019s the environment we make our music in, so we just sort of happened to end up that way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cWe\u2019re not a bluegrass band,\u201d insists Will Saylor, co-leader with brother Ben in Brushfire Stankgrass. Instead, the popular Asheville quartet uses bluegrass as the launching point for its musical excursions, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18822,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,30,49,62],"tags":[237,4201],"class_list":["post-18821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-americana","category-folk","category-new-release","category-rawk","tag-asheville","tag-brushfire-stankgrass","cat-6-id","cat-30-id","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18821"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18873,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18821\/revisions\/18873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}