SHOVELS AND ROPE 2/19/2027
The summer and fall leading up to recording we spent writing songs, hanging
out with family in Colorado and playing shows opening for The Wood Brothers
and Gregory Alan Isokov, both of whom have large audiences. So each night we
were playing in front of a lot of people, many of whom had never heard of us.
We decided to take those opportunities to rattle our comfort zone cage and try
out a bunch of brand new, just written songs and basically learn how to play
them in front a few thousand people. The songs would grow and change show
to show, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. Maybe we go
down inflames? Maybe something beautiful happens while it’s burning? We
happily embraced the chaos. That’s kind of always how it’s been with us.
We had a new song that initially neither of us thought that much of called ‘Love
Song From A Dog’. During one of the first nights of the Isakov run we decided,
on stage, mid set, to try it out because the show was going well and the
audience was warm. To our surprise, it kind of killed and became a fan favorite
moment of our set each night. And honestly in all the years of doing this we’ve
never had so many people send us messages or reach out about any one
specific song as they did this one.. It just goes to show us that we don’t know
anything. When it came time to record it we thought it’d befitting and a nice
touch to have Greg sing on it since it was his audience who basically fostered it
into being by giving us the confidence and encouragement we needed to see it
the way they did. He generously obliged and the song was instantly elevated by
the sincerity and richness of mood that colors his voice.
The two of us can’t help but be obsessed with duality. The song ‘Two Wolves’ is
a meditation about two conflicting energies competing for power. The first time
we ever played it was on New Years Eve at Rupp Arena opening for Tyler
Childers in front of 15k or so country music fans who surely were like “what the
hell is this” but to us it seemed 100 percent appropriate because, if we have a
song made for an arena, this is probably it. A fuzzy, thick riffed stomper with a
hypnotic head bob refrain. It was a big show on a big stage and we were feeling
our saltiest rock n roll consummate professional selves in that moment, so we
went wide open with it off the rip because well, we had to.
For those who are new here we’ve spent the last decade or so bouncing around
in the ‘Americana’ realm quite a bit. Getting branded into that world was
admittedly a bit of a shoulder shrug for us as we’ve always identified more as
messy, misfit, folk songwriters and electric yarn spinners who’s harmonies land
somewhere between sweet and spit.. But the people were paying attention and
we were building a fan base so we kind of felt like “who were we to tell them
who we weren’t?” But when you go all the way to Europe and are standing on a
stage in front of a few hundred Scandinavians who are dressed in head to toe
denim and cowboy hats expecting something a little more specific, we can’t
help but feel like we’re about to confuse some people.
