Ahead of the Reina del Cid, Marah in the Mainsail, Farewell Milwaukee and special guest Good Morning Bedlam show, we got to ask each of the bands a few questions. Read what they had to say below, and don’t miss them in the Mainroom on Friday, March 9.
Liz Legatt: What do you admire most about your counterparts for this show?
Farewell Milwaukee: We first saw Reina del Cid at Ed’s No Name Bar a couple years back during the Mid West Music Fest. It was packed and the band was on fire. I was struck right away by the beautiful songwriting and Toni’s guitar playing. They seemed like veterans of the scene, but I later realized they were a fairly new band. I’ve been a fan ever since and can’t wait to share an evening of music with them.
Good Morning Bedlam: We are incredibly excited for a show where every band on the bill has a distinctly different sound from one another. Although each act has its roots in the same genres, Americana, rock, and blues, all of our bands have a different unique take on what can be done with those genres! We are all bands that can appreciate and inspiring each other, and are known for putting on entertaining live shows! This is going to be an exciting night of music!
Marah in the Mainsail: We are SO pumped about this lineup. Reina Del Cid is a master class of folky roots rock, and have made such an impact on the MPLS music scene. So excited to see them perform.
I actually hadn’t heard of Farewell Milwaukee before this show, but the more people we tell about the lineup, the more we hear about everybody loving them so much, the passion there is really cool. I think we have a very intertwined fan base with them, it’s crazy we haven’t crossed paths before. I think we’re gonna click great at the show, and it’ll be an amazing time for fans of both groups. Good Morning Bedlam is our brother band. We’ve been playing and touring with them for years. We’re all great friends, and I think it’s really gonna show on stage. They are amazing musicians that constantly push us to be better at our craft.
LL: Would you say that your Minnesotan roots have had any influence on your folksy sound?
FM: The name Farewell Milwaukee is a tribute to our hometowns and the Midwestern roots we all share. We’re huge fans of where we’re from and believe it has shaped our sound greatly. I’ve always been a fan of southern music like Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Allman Brothers, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. When you think about it though, there are a ton of Midwestern bands that have those same leanings mixed with their midwestern upbringings, and the result has been beautiful. Bands like The Jayhawks, Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt, Drivin’ N Cryin’, and Bellwether all fall under that category and are large influences on us.
GMB: We are incredibly influenced by our Minnesota roots. Minnesota has very down to earth people, it’s very raw, and we find a lot of beauty in that. These are the same things that we strive to bring to the table when we are writing our songs.
MITMS: Definitely! We take a lot of inspiration from nature. With songs like “Northern Born”, about when you’re freezing your butt off, but you just keep going because you’ve got that MN blood. And our last record “Bone Crown” is all about a forest kingdom of MN native forest animals. Musically, we take inspiration from a very wide variety of genres, but it all builds on top of a gruff, folksy, northern core.
LL: How do you know when a song is finished?
FM: There’s a point with a song where you just have to push it out of the nest. I’ve recorded songs and released them, and then three years later I’ve come up with a better line for the song. Playing a song live can help it take on a life of its own. Lyrics can change as you play them live, or you can sing the line wrong enough times it becomes right. Haha…I like to embrace that. It’s the beautiful thing about music. It’s always changing. Always morphing. Understanding that has been a very freeing thing.
GMB: Usually about four months after we start playing them live!
MITMS: This is such a hard question, and honestly, as a songwriter, I struggle with overwriting songs and making them too long and complicated. I think a song is finished when the last note leaves you in a different place than the first note. I think to feel complete, you need to experience a journey as the song progresses. We have a song called “The Great Beyond” that I think is a great example of that journey. It starts out small and quiet, and then slowly descends into total chaos, and ends in one of the most intense crescendos we’ve written. It’s all about the journey!
LL: Apart from music, what do you work towards in your free time?
FM: There are six of us and we’re all married and have a couple kids. Our lives apart from music are spent with our families and raising our kids. We’re a dad band and are very proud of our families and the fact that we’ve been able to invest time in both areas.
GMB: Living fully creative lives by going to shows, reading, traveling to new places, and being with the people we love. Also, we do music so…What free time?
MITMS: Personally, I’m all about stories. Movies, comic books, whatever. Before I started the band I was planning a career as a comic book artist and writer. Our albums are all story albums, so the whole record has a concrete plot line with characters and twists. Our album Bone Crown comes with a written short story that you can follow along with each song, and then all of our merch designs are based on those characters. So aside from the music, I’m always dreaming up stories and characters, that usually end up bleeding into the music we write. But regardless of the medium, I always want to be a storyteller.
LL: Tell us anything else you would like people to know about you or your current projects.
FM: We have some fun shows shaping up for the spring and summer schedule, and we’re starting to move into the writing phase. We love making records, so hopefully, new music will be on the horizon.
GMB: We are working on releasing a new album this July called “Like Kings.” We can’t wait for our fans to hear it! It’s a wild album with all of the twists and turns of our daily lives. Be on the lookout for it!
MITMS: Marah in the Mainsail is a really unique project. There’s kind of a culture and mythos that’s formed around the music that I just love. Some fans dress up to fit the setting of the story and know all the interactive parts of the show. We have this great group of fans that all howl like wolves instead of clapping after each song, it’s just a lot of fun, and so cool to have such a passionate fanbase. We crafted the sound of the band around the narrative of the stories we tell, and in the end, it almost sounds like a movie score, or a live play or something. We strive to put on a thrilling live show first and foremost, but there’s a really deep well of the backstory behind the music, and the more you dig in, the more little secrets you uncover in each song, and the more you’ll enjoy the live set. I would encourage everybody to take a listen to our album “Bone Crown” on Spotify, or wherever you stream music, before the show. There are some really cool interactive moments in the set, and if the audience knows they’re coming, we can all do them together and make it such an incredible night. Teamwork makes the dream work. Let’s do this thing together!
Blog by Liz Legatt (Marketing Intern)
