Blackgrass uses traditional instruments in nontraditional ways
by Patrick Corcoran
A photographer, a hospital orderly, a social worker, and an actor walk into a bar.... While this may sound like the opening to an excruciatingly bad joke, that somewhat oddly matched foursome is the foundation of Blackgrass, one of Knoxville's more unusual musical outfits. The band walked into a bar together in April to celebrate the release of its debut album, Thirteen, and is slated to play next at Barley's June 14.
Lead singer Scott Trowbridge, a social worker by day, labels his band banjo rockers. Blackgrass formed out of the remains of Sunday School, a group that included both Trowbridge and drummer Roman Karpynec, who is an actor and filmmaker.
Following that band's breakup, Scott said he searched Knoxville's music scene for a musician interested in playing in a banjo or accordion rock band. A friend connected Trowbridge with Joshua Hurston Hall, a hospital employee in Crossville who became the band's banjo player. Shortly thereafter, Trowbridge recruited longtime pal and local photographer Christian Lange as the violinist, and the Blackgrass lineup was set.
If "banjo rockers" sounds a little incongruous, well, it is. Fans and band members alike agree that such contrast results in compelling music. "I don't think any of us really fit in with each other in the traditional sense," Lange says. "That's what makes the project so interesting to me. You have all these people from totally different backgrounds that share a common vision for the band's sound."
A rock music fan, Hall agrees that the appeal of banjo rock music is in its individuality. "Blackgrass is just a nice different piece of the puzzle," Hall says. "It just feels good to be weird."
Also described as Goth-twang and Appalachian punk, among other genre-bending labels, Blackgrass doesn't sound much like anything else around. Listing Reverend Glasseye and Sixteen Horse-power as musical contemporaries, Trowbridge says that the banjo rock scene is grossly underexposed. "There's really not a lot." Like any outfit with a violin, banjo, and upright bass, Blackgrass is often lumped with bluegrass, but the tag is misleading. "We play maybe one bluegrass song," Trowbridge says. The band sounds nothing like the Stanley Brothers, relying more on rock structures and tempos. With the crashing cymbals and relentless rhythms, Karpynec's percussion brings an element of John Bonham to the mix.
Although banjo-player Hall grew up among a noted family of bluegrass musicians, his experience was primarily as a drummer in alternative rock bands.
Lange also adds an unusual element, with a violin background entirely devoid of any formal classical or bluegrass training. "I'm self-taught on the violin," Lange says. "I've always played with rock and jazz musicians, ever since I was a kid." Trowbridge says Lange's musical background is ideal for Blackgrass. "I thought he'd be a real good match."
Trowbridge writes with the dark tinge expected of a band that calls itself Blackgrass. "My songs are a lot more Old Testament than New Testament," he says. An amalgam of religious references and violent imagery color most songs, with unforgettable lines like "Yea, though I walk through valley of the shadow of death/ I will fear no evil/ I've got a shotgun with a pistol grip."
When Blackgrass pulls it all together, the result is often stunning.
Trowbridge's feel for quirky religious dilemmas, most evident in "God Sings the Blues" and "To Give Up Religion for Lent," meshes wonderfully with the haunting banjo-rock backdrop. Blackgrass's best material combines thought-provoking lyrics with often upbeat music, resulting in an overwhelmingly distinctive sound.
Trowbridge says he set out to form a band specifically around the banjo because he thought the instrument was an ideal complement to his songwriting.
"It's like my dad always said: 'Welcome to Heaven, here's your harp; welcome to Hell, here's your banjo,'" he says. "I thought the banjo was just a great instrument for the types of songs I wrote."
The band's debut was very much a homespun operation. Lange designed Thirteen's packaging, a perfect complement to the somber music within. The album was self-produced, a process Trowbridge described as fun. Thirteen was recorded in the basement studio of Mary Ellen Coleman—who is also Trowbridge's wife.
The band has played in Cincinnati and Chattanooga and hopes the CD will lead to more out-of-town gigs. "We hope to be able to play out of town more with the CD. It's hard to get your foot in the door at some place where nobody knows you," Trowbridge says.
Whether other cities follow suit, Knoxvillians are coming to know the memorable lyrics and singular sound of the city's foremost banjo rockers.
June 12, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 24
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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