As many you would no doubt be aware, the bluegrass influenced music played by bands such as ourselves seems to be growing in popularity. Perhaps it’s just a fad, or perhaps it’s nothing more than an interest generated by instruments that are particularly uncommon in popular music genres, but to be honest, we think it is something a little more than just that. We think it has something more to do with the old fashioned good times which the music evokes. The folksy melodies with a contemporary feel, the danceable rhythms, the vocal harmonies and the overall lack of pretentious wannabe rock-star vibes makes the music ultimately accessible, without compromising the musical integrity. It really has been wonderful to see the growth in the genre since we’ve been on the scene, and we’re looking forward to seeing where this increase in interest might take the music in the future.
To this end, a fascinating piece was posted yesterday over at Timber & Steel. For those of you who are unaware, this website has taken on the incredible task of cataloguing, reviewing and popularising the new acoustic music genres developing across this vast, wide, brown, flat nation of ours, and beyond. As you can no doubt imaging this is no small undertaking, and yet the good folk over there at Timber & Steel consistently post interesting articles, links and commentary on the burgeoning success of bands within acoustic genres keeping us all informed as to what is about to hit and become tremendously popular (think Laura Marling and Mumford & Sons – yep, they picked it well before they broke through) – always ahead of the game, and always with a seemingly effortless ease.
And so, it is a great honour for us to be able to post here that in a feature on the growth of bluegrass influenced Australian music the Timber & Steel have mentioned us as an entrenched staple of the scene. This really is great exposure for us, all the way over here in little ole Perth – and will hopefully contribute to helping raise our profile in time for a potential east-coast tour later in the year.
Read what they wrote about us below, and then check out the full article here.
WA’s entry into the Australian new-grass scene comes to us in the form of Perth six piece The Seals. Prolific buskers in their home town and bluegrass evangelists everywhere else The Seals combine guitar, banjo, fiddle, mandolin, bass and drums/percussion along with vocals from all five members (listen to their track “High” and tell us you don’t imagine the entire band crowded around a single mic Bill Monroe style).
The Seals have put together a lovely little mini-doco on themselves that you can watch below. Given how entrenched these guys are in the burgeoning new-grass scene don’t be surprised to start seeing them pop up everywhere – even if it’s just busking in your local mall.
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