Next week, Eau Claire, Wisconsin music festival Blue Ox makes its return for its 11th edition with another fantastic lineup from top to bottom. Read our festival preview here. Before we pack our bags (say hi if you see us there!) and get ready for a few days of amazing music and experiences, we’d like to highlight a couple of Minnesota artists who have been cornerstones to the festival thanks in part to their decades worth of incredible music.
First up is the eclectic Americana band Pert Near Sandstone, who hail from the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota). Longtime followers of us at SWT might already be familiar with the band as mandolin and fiddle player Nate Sipe penned an eye-opening essay for us about their excellent cover of The Replacements’ “Can’t Hardly Wait.”
[Alex: It’s a single I’ve listened to on repeat. And I think you will too after hearing it. Josh: I’ve also interviewed guitarist and singer-songwriter J Lenz in the past for Milwaukee-based publication the Shepherd Express, and we talked about the band’s 2020 album Rising Tide.]
Pert Near Sandstone’s current lineup also features Kevin Kniebel (banjo), Justin Bruhn (bass), and Chris Forsberg (fiddle). Since forming in 2004, they’ve recorded eight full-length albums, two live albums, and several singles.
Their studio and live albums include: Live: Just Outside of Sandstone (2005), Up and Down the River (2007), Needle & Thread (2008), Out On A Spree (2009), Paradise Hop (2011), The Hardest Part of Leaving (2014), Discovery of Honey (2016), Live at Blue Ox (2018), Rising Tide (2020) and Waiting Days (2023).
[Alex: If it’s your first listening, I’d start with the live albums, and you’ll instantly get captivated by their energy, songwriting, harmonies, and musicianship in general. The studio albums are all great and worth listening to as well. I think the word bluegrass can be scary to some. It shouldn’t be; it’s one of the best genres to see and experience live.]
Former full-time member (and now frequent collaborator) Ryan Young plays fiddle with Trampled By Turtles. Speaking of which, Dave Simonett of Trampled By Turtles considers them one of his favorite contemporary bluegrass acts.
In addition to performing every year at Blue Ox Festival since 2015, the group acts as host band and plays an important role in curating each year’s musical lineup. Bruhn will be this year’s MC at Blue Ox.
“We try and get our two cents in with booking the bands,” Lenz told Josh in 2020.
The band will be playing twice at this year’s festival – Friday at the Backwoods stage from 11:30PM – 12:30AM and on the Saturday at the Main Stage from 7:00-8:15 PM.
Josh caught up with Bruhn and Sipe to learn more about the band’s music.
(Make sure to check out the second artist we’ve interviewed, Charlie Parr!)
The band has released eight studio albums and two live albums since forming in 2004. What about the band’s approach to songwriting is so appealing?
Justin Bruhn: Having four songwriters helps with a diversity in songs. We all have our own voice and approach. As we present each song, we are open to suggestions, edits and additions. We all have a very open mind when it comes to the arranging and production of our songs. The collaboration is part of the appeal and, in the end, helps make our individual songs part of the whole.
Nate Sipe: The real trick is also getting a sound that has been consistent. It’s proven less about the songwriting to me and more about the delivery. It feels like our sound is an organic thing that’s come out from the sheer time we’ve been playing with each other, faith in each other showing up with the correct energy. It now usually comes together with fair ease once we sit down to get after it. One consideration that often informs our song selection for a recording project is: what will translate best for a live performance on stage?
The title for the band’s 2023 album, Waiting Days, refers to a period of pent-up anticipation and longing, particularly for being part of a community. The songs were written during the wintertime. Why do you think being from the Midwest makes you understand that sentiment? How does that feeling help get the best out of your playing?
Sipe: I always attribute the creativity that comes from the great northern states as a product of isolation. Historically, without as many touring artists passing through, as compared with Chicago or Denver, the Indie and DIY spirit of musicians and artist communities had to be self-igniting. Wintertime also has a lot to do with that, certainly. The process is natural. It forces people indoors to find relief and distraction from cabin fever, seasonal depression, and boredom.
It can be a hibernation where incubated ideas have the time to take form. Songwriting is an introspection, a catharsis. Played in a room along with others is a celebration. Performed in a concert venue with a live audience made up of dancing and carousing friends, it becomes an experience that is unequaled; to be fully with that is liberation. We play for ourselves, truly, but that heightened experience fuels the desire to keep doing it, for over 20 years now!
How do you think the material from Waiting Days most showcases the band’s growth? Is there a song that especially does that?
Sipe: I think you’d have to look across full albums to hear the development, as all of our albums navigate diverse moods from song to song, developing a throughline story of sorts. We have clearly grown from the traditional string band repertoire that we leaned heavily on for a long while. Many of the tools we’ve collected from that schooling are still used, the acoustic styles and live energy, as Pert Near is a live performance-based band. In the recording studio, one big development is utilizing much more instrumental elements that are not in our touring band.
Small things like tambourines, organ swells, tinkling chimes, and trilling pipes can add a lot to the song, elicit the imagination, and further create the world in which that story exists for the listener. Perhaps one of the more clearly divergent pieces from our earlier songwriting is “Out of Time,” written by our guitarist, J Lenz. This song uses effects that we would not have messed with a decade ago. I also edited a music video for that song using found footage along with a collage clock that I assembled. I’m proud of how those pieces work together.
The band has its own spin on progressive bluegrass. What elements do you hope differentiates it from others? What about the band’s approach do you think people most gravitate toward?
Bruhn: Well, we love to perform. Our band really is all about the connection to the audience in the live setting. What may set us apart is our performance style. A lot of bands will have individual mics for each singer where the musicians tend to stay in one spot. We are very active on stage, having only two mics that we share. We all share lead-vocal duties, which mixes things up a lot, and we all sing harmonies, too. Our show is always varied. We are also very spontaneous, off-the-cuff, and ready for any turn. That really resonates with people. We also don’t take ourselves too seriously and are ready to self-deprecate. All of these things contribute to a live show that is light-hearted, fun, and raucous.
Sipe: I wouldn’t say we hope to differentiate from anything necessarily. I feel that our approach is self-gratifying, in that we play what we want how we want. That has always been the informal pact in our band since the beginning. That and to have fun doing it, as corny as that may sound – it is valuable to create a joyful time that an audience can participate in, and that feels more and more like an act of resistance to the gloom of the news.
What are your current plans for new music?
Bruhn: Pert Near’ has a new album already in the can! Final mixes and edits are currently happening with our eyes set on a winter release. We recorded again at Neon Brown Studio with our dear friend and collaborator, Ryan Young. We will be releasing singles throughout the year leading up to the release and eagerly anticipate the full release later this year!
Sipe: It will be a bunch of original songs, continuing our songwriting and recording development. We are thrilled by how we’ve been able to capture these new ideas in the studio. Keep your ears out for fresh singles later this summer!
You can follow and listen to Pert Near Sandstone at the links below:
- Instagram: instagram.com/pertnearsandstone
- Facebook: facebook.com/pertnearsandstone
- TikTok: tiktok.com/@pertnearsandstone
- YouTube: youtube.com/@PertNearSandstone
- Spotify: Pert Near Sandstone on Spotify
- More Links: linktr.ee/pertnearsandstone
Joshua is co-founder of Scummy Water Tower. He’s freelanced for a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites, including: Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Guitar World, MTV News, Grammy.com, Chicago Magazine, Milwaukee Magazine, MKE Lifestyle, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, A.V. Club, SPIN, Alternative Press, Under the Radar, Paste, PopMatters, American Songwriter, and Relix. You can email him at josh@scummywatertower.com.
Scummy Water Tower Productions co-founder, reviewer, business manager, and editor. Thank you for visiting this site: scummywatertower.com, and YouTube for Water Tower Sessions!
Contact me: alex@scummywatertower.com
