The Farewell Drifters Blog

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New video of our song "The Death of Jesse McVille" from our Frankfort, KY show recorded by our friend Andrew Davis. This song is available on our first album entitled Sweet Summer Breeze on our store and also on Itunes.

Farewell Drifters on Vinyl!

On our friends new album. They are called The Wayside. Click here to listen to check it out.

Days are never ordinary

We are back in Nashville after our run of Southern shows. Wild weekend! Every second was a rush and we barely slept a minute of it.

Atlanta!

Spent our entire drive to Atlanta on our iPhones and Androids getting everything in place for our first shipment of the new albums. We have lot of news about release dates/label/shows/preorders coming soon. We got all of our artwork and orders in about five minutes before we walked onstage at the RedLight. Lots of people there and great to see our Atlanta friends.

Dahlonega, GA

At the Crimson Moon Café we were sitting in the Green room and got a call about filling in for our Australian friends The Greencards at the Bluegrass Underground the next day. For the second night in a row we were on our phones working it out until five minutes before the show. Crimson Moon was great by the way. I took some pics from the green room before the show.

Cumberland Caverns

After the Crimson Moon we got in the van and drove back to Atlanta to get our clothes and then turned around and drove through the night up to McMinnville, TN to play a show 333 ft below the ground in a natural amphitheater with the amazing Mike Farris and famous Newgrass Founder John Cowan. It was all filmed in high def to be distributed for National Public Television by Emmy award winning filmmaker Todd Jarrel. Christian was going to be out of town so we did it as a four-piece. Click here for some pics from photographer Sarah Gilliam!

This was a wild experience. They had a guy doing lights who had worked for MTV awards. Crazy fog machines. The cave was packed with people and film gear. It was a great mix of one of the best shows ever and the Twilight Zone. Those Bluegrass Underground people are brilliant. We saw that somebody in the audience posted a Youtube Video of our new song “Heart of a Slave.”

Chattanooga

We hadn’t slept in two days by the time we got to Chattanooga and we had two sets to play. It was a house concert and ended up being an amazing mixture of our normal show, storytelling, and just hanging out with everyone there. We drank a lot of coffee and energy drinks and ended up sitting around listening to great stories from the promoter about meeting Allen Ginsberg and all of those beat poets from the 60s. Then we went to the hotel and slept forever. I still feel like I just woke up.

Also

So if you haven’t seen it yet, here is our newest video of our song from the upcoming album.

The Brian Wilson Effect

How the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson shaped my musical consciousness and subsequently, the Farewell Drifters' sound.

a guest post by Zach...

Some of my earliest memories in life involve the Beach Boys. I remember nights when my dad got home from work; we (my dad and brothers) would all go upstairs together, and while he changed out of his work clothes into whatever he would be wearing that evening, he would turn on Beach Boys records. I always admired his record player and the care he took putting those records on, gently taking them out of the sleeve, and placing the needle carefully on the vinyl. But after that was when the fun began. I remember dancing around, jumping on the bed, singing at the top of my lungs to “Surfin’ USA” or “Fun, Fun, Fun.” Certainly it was a celebration for my 6 year old heart in a number of ways. My dad was finally home! I got to be goofy and dance around! I got to sing along to my favorite songs! Looking back, that moment between a father and son is a beautiful one that makes my heart ache in the best kind of way. While the Beach Boys’ soaring harmonies provided the backdrop for such a meaningful time in my life, I can’t help but think of the seeds that were sown in my musical heart. A lifetime appreciation of voices blending together in carefully arranged harmonies began there in that bedroom without me ever knowing it.
The first tape I ever owned was the Beach Boys’ “Endless Summer.” Man, I wore it out. I remember looking at the cover of those guys with the beards thinking, if I could just make music like them, it would be the best thing I could ever do. I knew that music stirred up something in me, and I loved to listen to the radio and my walkman. Throughout elementary school, I listened to all kinds of music, mostly whatever I could find on the radio and talk about with my friends. In 7^th Grade I discovered the Beatles, which was mind blowing, and in turn led to a high school experience filled with classic rock and 90’s alternative/grunge. What happened to the Beach Boys? I think I felt as though I had outgrown them. I still thought they had great, fun music with wonderful harmonies, but that they just weren’t cool enough or artistic enough for me anymore. That was kid stuff, anyway. I had never even bothered to get their albums on cd.
Then, in my sophomore year of college, my brother gave me Pet Sounds. I had always heard about this mysterious album, and even seen it in my Dad’s collection, but had never really listened to it. After one listen, any thought I had of the Beach Boys not being artistic enough, or only being capable of creating “fun” music immediately left my mind as the beautiful arrangements enchanted my ears and made my heart jump with joy at the emotion the music was producing in me. I felt connected again. To what? I didn’t know, but I just knew that it felt good when I put that record on and listened to it. It helped me believe that life was full of meaning. It wasn’t the lyrics, it was the depth of the sound. If music could be that beautiful and powerful, then how much more beautiful and powerful could life itself be?!
The irony is that at that point in my life, when I heard Pet Sounds, I was in the middle of a diehard bluegrass kick. I was in love with the sound of those old time instruments coming together with harmony singing. It rang true to me with an authenticity that other music lacked. Yet, here was this Beach Boys record that moved me in a way that not even bluegrass had. What was I supposed to do with this? I didn’t know, so I just let it be. I continued with my bluegrass interests, playing and writing bluegrass music at Belmont University, and simultaneously joining a group of guys who were recent bluegrass converts like myself (the beginning of the Farewell Drifters). All the while, in the back of my mind, I longed to create music that resonated with me like Pet Sounds did. But I didn’t really know how. I studied orchestration and arranging in college, and wrote orchestral parts for pop/rock songs and arranged big band jazz charts. I sang in the Chamber Singers, an a cappella choir of 24 members. I played in the bluegrass ensemble. I wrote a piece of choral chamber music. I wrote and performed a senior recital of bluegrass/country/gospel music. I was in a bluegrass band outside of school. My head was all over the place.
After I graduated, I knew what I wanted to do – create an album with the Farewell Drifters. We had done some recording before that, but I wanted to do it for real. So Josh, Trevor, and I rented a house together here in Nashville. And somehow in the midst of writing and arranging the album, the harmonic sensitivities I had honed in college became an increasingly interesting palate to work from. We would stay up late at night working on vocal harmony, as I experimented with different intervals and voicings while we sang together. We were still a bluegrass band, but playing our own music with these little harmonic nuances were making my heart leap with the same enthusiasm as it had for Pet Sounds. My longing to create deep, lush music like that was felt like it was finally possible. It certainly wasn’t realized, but the surface was being scratched, and I began to think it was possible. A vision was beginning to take shape.
Sweet Summer Breeze came out with those subtle hints of harmonic depth present, and an attention to harmony singing and strong arrangements. Now, a few years later, our next album is complete. We have grown as a band, and continued in a similar direction, focusing on songwriting, and then using that as a vehicle for lush harmony and meaningful arrangements. We’ve explored further the sonic landscape our voices and instruments can create together. It’s a musical vision that is evolving and alive, a part of the bigger, broader vision for the music we create. Have I consistently looked to the Beach Boys and Pet Sounds for inspiration in my music? Not specifically, but they are always there, a part of my DNA - from my earliest memory to one of my deepest musical experiences.
For Christmas, I got Brian Wilson’s biography. I had always heard that Brian was the musical genius behind the Beach Boys, and I wanted to learn more about him. Of course it turned out to be true that Brian really was the creative force behind a lot of what the Beach Boys did. I completely identify with his early love for harmony and the sound of voices blending together. He was the mastermind that arranged the Beach Boys harmony on all the classics that you and I know. The man could also write a great hook, which I greatly admire, but that is a little off-topic. Brian took the time and had the ear to create beautiful vocal arrangements that have stood the test of time, and influenced the generations of musicians that have come after him. Pet Sounds was his crowning achievement. It was on this album that his instrumental arrangements became equally as beautiful, complex, and yet tasteful as his vocal arrangements. Arguably, Smile, his unfinished masterpiece, is the true testament to his genius that finally came to fruition five years ago. But, Pet Sounds was a fully executed project by Brian at his creative peak in the 1960’s. I could go on to further describe why I identify with Pet Sounds more than Smile, but many more people have discussed the topic much more eloquently than I could.
I wrote all this to say that Brian Wilson’s music has truly impacted the way I hear and create music, probably more than any one other person. It was a joy to recognize that fact, as I realized that he was the genesis of the Beach Boys’ sound. It was so interesting to learn more about him as a person, and learn something about myself along the way. It made me step back, and want to recognize the profound way his music has shaped my own vision.

Do I have other influences?

Of course.

Do I believe in the emotional power of music, an end to which vocal harmony and the perfect arrangement are a means?

Yes.

Do I believe those are the only means to create meaningful, emotional music?

Certainly not.

But that doesn’t diminish the effect that Brian and the Beach Boys have had on my musical conscience. I just wanted to say that, and give them credit for stirring the deep things in my heart when I was only 6 years old, when I was a wandering 19 year old, and right now, as I’m knee-deep in Music City at age 25.

Labels: Random

Everyone Is Talking Video

Thanks to all of our Nashville friends for playing along. Big thanks to Brian Lee and His Orchestra. This song will be on our new album Yellow Tag Mondays coming in May 2010.

January 2010 Tour Blog.

We are back from our run of shows with The Apache Relay and Allen Thompson. It was an amazing week with our good friends that started with our first ever run in South Carolina and ended with a sold out show in Roanoke, VA. Thanks to all of you who came out to the shows! Here are some pics from last week.