Kitchen Dwellers: Ridin' High Into 2017 [Interview]
Galaxy-Grass primed for spring tour
By Eric Frank
April 18, 2017
Few bands have blown up the jam-grass scene in recent memory as profoundly as the Bozeman, Montana-based Kitchen Dwellers. Their distinctive sound includes crafty songwriting, precise picking and unerring vocal harmonies that have landed the band in the center of the jam world which, as is becoming evermore apparent, is right here in Colorado. Proof comes from the scores of fans attending sold-out shows night after night, a notion that has garnered national interest.
With a spring tour set to kick off here in Colorado on 420 at The Fox Theatre in Boulder, the Dwellers will be hitting the summer concert season hard, making appearances at famed venues Nectar's in Burlington, VT (April 26), Gramercy Theater in New York City (April 28) and the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton, MA (May 11). The foursome will be hitting the festival circuit too, with stops at Charm City Bluegrass Festival in Baltimore, MD (April 29), SummerCamp Music Festival in Chillicothe, IL (May 26-28) and, of course, BeanStalk Music & Mountains Festival here in Colorado's Rancho Del Rio (June 22-25).
As the band took some much needed time off, I had the privilege of speaking with Shawn Swain between the end of the Dwellers' winter tour and the start of their spring tour which, as previously mentioned, begins here in Colorado. Before we begin, we urge you to check out Kitchen Dwellers' new album, Ghost In The Bottle.
"I can't wait to get back to our home away from home and debut our new album to fans old and new," says bassist and all-around badass Joe Funk. "Colorado has influenced us in countless ways and the album draws from several of the amenities Colorado offers."Check out Kitchen Dwellers live in Colorado this week!
Kitchen Dwellers Colorado Tour, 2017
Thursday, April 20 @ The Fox Theatre (Boulder)
Friday, April 21 @ The Bluebird Theater (Denver)
Saturday, April 22 @ The Historic Brown (Breckenridge)
Now on to the interview...
COjam: Kitchen Dwellers' spring tour is about to get started and it begins here in Colorado. Can you tell us what we can expect?
Shawn Swain (SS): Yeah! So it opens with The Fox Theatre on Thursday, 4/20 where we'll be celebrating the release of the new album Ghost In The Bottle. And then we'll do it again in Denver at The Bluebird Theater (Friday, April 21st). Tickets are on sale now and moving pretty swiftly. Seeing as how it's 420 on The Hill in Boulder, it really doesn't get to be much of a better party than that! And then there's a small intimate show up in Breckenridge on Saturday the 22nd at The Historic Brown. [That show] is first come, first serve and it's free. We should be debuting some new material as well as pretty much all the material from the upcoming album.
COjam: Speaking of the upcoming album, can you tell us a bit about Ghost In The Bottle and how it was recorded?
SS: It was produced by Andy Thorn of Leftover Salmon and on the album there are a number of awesome guests. There's Anders Beck of Greensky Bluegrass on one song, Bill Payne from Little Feat is on two tracks, Tim Carbone of Railroad Earth is on a track and Mihali Savoulidis of Twiddle is on a track as well. We're looking forward to releasing this and then kinda diving head-first into festival season. We hired an engineer, A.G. Lunsford, who's a pretty legendary engineer. He's kinda this 70's Rock n' Roll far-out-style producer who brought the "Galaxy-Grass" thing to life for sure. We were definitely excited. Essentially what we've come out with is a bluegrass themed or influenced prog-rock album, I'd say..? You can definitely expect a lot of songs standing around nine or ten minutes long. A lot of instrumentation parts. A couple tracks it'd be hard for us to say that there's much bluegrass going on at all! But it definitely took the Galaxy-Grass to a serious level on this album and we're excited to see what people think so far. We've released two singles which are now currently available on YouTube, which are "Visions Of More" and "Colder Nights". Those will give people a taste of what we're going for... it gets pretty far out at times. It's been hard to hold on to and not show too many people, ya know? We're definitely excited about the final product.
COjam: Where was the album recorded?
SS: We got to record at some amazing places. It was partially recorded up at Mountain Star Studios, which is kind of up above Boulder in between Nederland and Blackhawk. It sits up at about 10,000 feet, no cell phone service, no Internet. Just up there recording for a week. And then we finished it off at Desert Rose Studio in the desert south of Durango. So we kind went to the high mountains to the high desert and I think there's a little flavor of each of those spots in the [record].
COjam: So Ghost In The Bottle really is a true-blue Colorado album?!
SS: Yeah it really is! You know, I'm the only one in the band from here and even though I've lived in Montana for almost a decade, Colorado is still my true home. It meant a lot to me to be able to work with Colorado guys and in Colorado. It was important for me in the long run and I'm grateful to the band for wanting to go along with it. They're a good bunch!
At this point of the interview, fellow Kitchen Dweller and guitarist Max Davies jumped into the conversation, offering his take on the recording process.
Max Davies: I was just really excited about the whole recording process. Laying down multiple tracks and focusing differently than if we were to play live is very rewarding. Listening to playback until the late hours of the morning and being goofy in the studio is something I've been doing with friends in basements for years. I also like how the album covers a wide range of topics from relationships, humor and personal reflection. It hits home on a lot of levels. I think the final product is great but when I consider the time and effort put in by everyone including the producers, engineers and guests, it's really the process that I am most fond of.
[Back to Swain]
COjam: Growing up in Telluride as you did, you're quite familiar with Colorado and its music scene. What have you noticed over the years about what makes Colorado a unique place for music?
SS: Colorado has a really special and unique music scene, especially when it comes to keeping the bluegrass tradition alive. It's been one of the forerunning states in that genre the past several decades and a lot of it has to do with... just a strive and a love for mountain culture in that state. Things like COjam are particularly helping to keep everyone informed on what's going on in the jamband and bluegrass world in Colorado. They go hand in hand. It's really cool [because] you don't really see that in a lot of other places. It's a unique mecca for the people looking to explore a more creative outlet for these genres of music. People in Colorado are really accepting to a different style of traditional music, for sure. Don't slack on purchasing your tickets to Kitchen Dweller's Colorado shows!