Editor’s Note: In February, Grammy Award-winning progressive bluegrass band The Infamous Stringdusters released its tenth studio album, 20/20, via Americana Vibes. The band chose the album’s title in honor of their 20th anniversary and the release, which features 20 songs.
“We’ve been around for 20 years, and I feel like we’re putting more into our music — both writing and the live shows — than we ever have,” says banjoist Chris Pandolfi via the album’s press release. “And the reality is that you do need to step a little harder on the gas to get the same results — it takes real intention.”
Adds bassist Travis Book, “We’ve always been very intentional in how we wanted our show to sound and to look, and, 20 years later, we’re still distilling the best elements of what we all bring to the band.”
The band, which also features Jeremy Garrett (fiddle), Andy Hall (dobro), and Andy Falco (guitar), sought to once again blur the lines between bluegrass, Americana, country, and indie-folk on the new release. It led to 20 dynamic and rich-sounding songs featuring elements fans have come to cherish about the group.
You can listen to a few of the songs below:
Prior to the band setting out on their tour later this month, Book penned an exclusive Artist Essay for SWT about embracing the mystery of songwriting and the swelling of creativity that results.
I came out of the womb humming a tune. At three, I would sing along with the car radio at the top of my lungs. My mother is adamant that I was singing harmony too, but I find that hard to believe. She would pick me up from elementary school, and the teacher would explain to her that while I was relatively well-behaved, my incessant humming was a distraction to the other students. Singing in our family was a given; it was something we all did, but creating music, writing songs, that was much more of a mystery. I always assumed the people who sang the songs I loved wrote them too, and it was a bit of a shock to realize that wasn’t always the case. I was already in bands and playing shows before I tried my hand at making up my own music, and the first song I wrote hinted at themes that would run as a thread through much of what I’ve written since.
I was fortunate to meet a great songwriter and enter into a songwriting apprenticeship early in my career. Benny “Burle” Galloway was a craftsman who claimed the most important tool for a songwriter was the eraser. We would meet every week in an apartment over his garage outside Durango, Colorado, and the only rule was you had to bring an idea. I found that these co-writes were fruitful, but what happened in the wake of those Tuesday-night sessions was even more profound. The act of writing led to more ideas, and the entire process became habitual. I would write more in the days after a co-writing session than I would in the days prior. When the ideas were flowing, it was crucial to listen and make notes, capture melody and lyric as it came, and not to wait for a later time to put it together. If it was happening then, I needed to drop everything and follow the muse.
If a friend sends an idea, or a melody appears out of the ether, and it sparks something in me, I follow it, without ceasing and without surrendering until I’ve got something more or less hammered into shape. If I have trouble remembering it, then it’s not worth worrying about; it wasn’t memorable! I try not to stand in the way, I let it flow. Then I use the eraser.
You can connect with and listen to both Travis and The Infamous Stringdusters in the links in his author box below
Travis Book
Contributor
