During a recent performance at Blue Ox Music Festival in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Americana/indie folk trio The Last Revel (who are based in Minneapolis, MN) seemed to be in pure musical ecstasy. Guitar, banjo, fiddle, and upright bass combined into a dynamic and energetic sound that fired up the assembled crowd, with many dancing along to the music. Guitarist Lee Henke, banjo player Ryan Acker, fiddle player Vinnie Donatelle, and upright bass player Ryan Krauss (who just joined the band) were clearly enjoying themselves, feeding into the tight chemistry they have created. Fully dialed in, they were enjoying every note they played. The group has been on a wave of momentum since reuniting in 2021 and regaining their passion for creating and performing music together.
There’s an underlying sense of gratitude and reignited purpose in every opportunity the band gets to perform in the studio and live stage. Originally formed in 2011, that rekindling of friendships and creativity has led to two strong albums – 2023’s Dovetail and their just-released album Gone For Good.
“You never know which show’s going to be your last one,” Henke tells SWT during a recent interview. “So, you have to put everything you have into every show and every performance and every recording.”
“That perspective has been emboldened specifically since COVID, and specifically since the end of the hiatus. I think we all found more gratitude for what we’re doing and the fact that we get to do it, and it makes it that much easier to care and try that much harder.”
It’s a far cry from how they were feeling when they went on hiatus in 2019. They were feeling burned out after a relentless tour schedule. In fact, Henke contemplated stopping creating and performing music altogether because he thought “maybe that was an unhealthy life choice.”
“I didn’t feel like it was all that sustainable of a career for me,” he admits.
However, the onset of COVID in 2020 and the perspective he and the others gained from their time away led to a renewed interest in music. “That kind of shocked everybody’s system in a certain way,” Henke says of the pandemic.
Just as it seemed he had finally accepted he might be done with music for good, Henke “ended up having a bunch of new songs come to him overnight.”
“It’s like I relieved a pressure valve or something,” he says. “It helped me realize that one of the only things that makes me really, really happy consistently is playing music, and I really missed my friends. And sometimes it takes a break, like that old saying, ‘distance makes the heart grow stronger’, but a break that was really important for me to recognize how important Ryan and Vinnie are to me and to the music we make together.”
While that energy came out on Dovetail, it’s even stronger on Good For Gone, with the band writing and recording even more succinctly as a group and expressing themselves more freely lyrically.
The latter release was produced by Trampled by Turtles’ Dave Simonett, and according to a press release is a “multilayered ode to the life of an artist, life on the road, and what it means to be a human being in uncertain times” with the band “exploring the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of what it means to pursue your dreams in real time, and doing so with their hard-won and road-honed delivery.”
SWT caught up with Henke to discuss the band’s new music and renewed passion for creating and performing together.
How would you describe the band’s sound? How does the sound now compare with the early years?
I think, and not to put the early years down, but I think we were trying to figure out what we wanted to sound like for so many years, and we were trying out a bunch of different styles that were all related in some way or another. Sometimes when I hear a young band, I can tell that the vocalist is trying to sound a certain way rather than just singing the way that they sound. And I think now we have very comfortably slipped into, this is the way the band always wanted to sound. And the irony is that we were trying way harder in the past to sound a certain way rather than just showing up and playing and making music without any urge to sound a certain way. It just is the way that it is, and I think it sounds better than it ever has.
How do you think the band’s chemistry compares?
Honestly, in the early days, I think we were doing a lot to try and impress each other. It was more competitive. There was more ego involved in the past, trying to play together, trying to make this part about yourself or this part about someone else. And now I feel like we’ve all really embraced the fact that what we do as a band is the most important. It’s not about any single individual; it’s about recognizing how strong we are together.
One of the words in the press release that seemed to be repeated a bunch was perseverance. How has that been important of late?
Yeah, definitely. I think it’s been said before, you meet a bunch of people that work their whole lives and they’re just so excited for retirement. I think that’s a really sad idea to us, where we would rather be able to do this forever. So instead of retirement, we want to be able to play music together forever. So, we’re living in a way that feels like a really fulfilling career, so it’s easy to persevere in the sense that we like doing this, so any of the struggles along the way are worth it.
What’s the story behind the album’s title?
There’s a lyric in the song “Until Death” that “just because I’m leaving, don’t mean I’m gone for good”. It has multiple meanings to each one of us. I think for me, the horse on the front cover, her name was Beans, and she passed away. She had a spinal injury that made it hard for her to walk, but we took care of her as long as we could, and we lost that horse in the middle of the tour last year. She was a great horse, but she was a lot to worry about all the time. And sometimes when something leaves, it’s good. And I look at that metaphor in touring, too, is sometimes being away is the most important thing you can do for your family. I guess the perspective for me is leaving can add that distance that your heart desires for the person that you’re away from. It can make stronger bonds. And not to mention the work we do is on the road, and whether you’re working in construction or whatever it is, it’s important to do that for your family.
The album’s songs touch on some pretty universal topics like making it as an artist, life on the road, and what it means to have dreams. Can you talk a little bit about those topics and why they were important to convey?
I’ve always kind of thought of our songs as brutally, personally honest. Vinnie’s got a song on this record called “Wait Up” that was written about doing our time and feeling assured in the fact that we’ve been working at this career for a long time and taking pride in that persistence. And I think this album feels a lot like a kind of an anthem to the hard work that’s been put in. And I think we’re finally all feeling as a group that we deserve or can at least appreciate anything good that comes from this.
I imagine the time away from the band really helped you grow and see more of the bigger picture of things.
Yeah. I’ll just share this story. Towards the end of the hiatus, it was like March 2020, and I don’t know if you remember this, but it felt like the whole world was ending and I had just bought some mushrooms to microdose for anxiety and depression, and I bought enough for six months or so of micro doses and I didn’t start yet. But then March 2020 happened, they sent us home from the woodshop that I was working in, and I was like, “Well, I might not have time to take any of these or see the effects.” So, I just took all of them and I sat on a patio for 30-some hours, and it opened up something in my brain. It showed me all these things that needed work, and issues I have. And the next day, I called my therapist, and I was like, “I think I finally have something to talk about.”
And kind of went down a wormhole of all of these huge perspective changes for me. And one of the first things my therapist suggested was, “You should call your friends.” I hadn’t spoken to Vinnie or Ryan for years, and I had no intention of getting the band back together when I was going to call him. I had some apologies to give and some actual vulnerable conversation that I had been avoiding for a lot of years with them. And after doing that giant change in perspective, I think it’s made us all a lot more comfortable to share how we’re feeling in the moment, which helps when you’re on the road together and you’re practically living together. It helps all those perspectives feel heard and seen and shared.
That’s great to hear that everyone in the band has that kind of relationship now.
Yeah. I think we’re all happy about the fact that we can be ourselves and share ideas and actual feelings with each other. I think it makes the material we make too as a band a lot better for anyone who liked us before.
The album was produced by Dave from Trampled by Turtles. How did he come aboard? How did he impact the songs?
Dave’s kind of a hero, Dave and Trampled by Turtles. They’re absolutely a band we look up to in so many ways, and I’ve always been such a huge fan of Dave’s songwriting and just the way they go about being the band they are. So, Dave was our first pick when we started talking about having a producer and thankfully [he was available]. It was a dream come true to have him help us with the record, and he was very helpful in the studio.
He’s a vibe master. He really set the mood for us, and he could tell when we started feeling anxious about anything, he would take us on walks and show us the native plants that were growing, or there was a little trout stream. He helped us stay kind of in the moment, looking back. He was very good at keeping us focused on the now, rather than any possible thing we could be doing or anything that’s happened previously. He also had some really subtle suggestions for changes to make within each song. He added a bar here or he changed a chord here, but they were so subtle and simple, but they made a huge difference in all of those songs.
The song “Solid Gone” was one that you did the vocals for. What was the inspiration for that song? What were your favorite moments putting that one together?
Ryan actually wrote that song. It’s become like a staple of the band. When Ryan writes a song and I sing it or Vinnie sings, it kind of brings new meaning to the song in a lot of different ways. But Ryan wrote that one, and I’ll speak to it as much as I can because he shared the story. His wife was a traveling musician as well. While we were on the road and she was on the road with her band, her band got in an accident and totaled their van, and it really shook Ryan up, just even though everyone turned out to be fine in the band by the way. But just the thought rattled Ryan enough to think you never know if they’re not going to come back every time somebody leaves. It’s not a hundred percent that they’re going to come back. And I think that rattled him enough to write that song about losing someone and how hard that is to deal with. But when I sing that song, I know Ryan thinks about that.
I think about that horse, and I think about anyone I’ve lost in my life when I sing it. And, I don’t know, this is kind of a bigger picture thing, but I think with every song in this record, we’ve all done a good job to pick and choose what we relate it to in order to put in the right emotion to serve the song. I think that’s something the band has always cared about more than anything else: approaching everything with true and vulnerable emotion. I always say I’d rather listen to a good song sung by people who aren’t very good musicians than a bad song played by really good musicians. I’ve got to feel it.
What were some of the biggest surprises of writing and recording the songs?
For the song “Static”, I had a riff written for that song that kind of sounded like “The Joker” by Steve Miller Band. It kind of had this fun, bouncy baseline in the bridge, kind of bluesy baseline. And the morning of the day that we were going to record it, I was just kind of sitting there with a cup of coffee and Ryan came over and we were just chatting, and I was like, “I’m just feeling kind of weird about this bridge. I don’t know if it serves the song the way that it should.”
I’m not kidding you, within 20 minutes of walking over to the studio, we had put together new chords and new ideas and the vocal melody in the bridge of “Static”, that all kind of happened step by step in the studio with Dave and Dave’s like, “ooh, add another chord here, add a little space here.” And we played that song like three times, and by the third time, it was right. So that was a pretty big surprise. We completely changed the entire mood of that song by just switching up that bridge at the last minute.
What are you most looking forward to in the future?
We have a really big fall tour planned where we hit most of the country with this other band called Oliver Hazard. And we’re playing rooms that I’ve heard about since I was a kid, like The Troubadour in L.A. There are venues that I’ve always wanted to play, and I get really excited about it because sometimes the venue is inspiring on its own to really, really beautiful shows. I can think back to several shows at several different venues across the country where it’s like the venue just fits the music, and it fits the emotional connection to the songs in such a beautiful way. So, I’m looking forward to that tour sharing these new songs with everybody.
You can follow and listen to The Last Revel at the links below:
Facebook: facebook.com/TheLastRevel/
Instagram: instagram.com/thelastrevel/
YouTube: youtube.com/@LastRevel
Spotify: The Last Revel on Spotify
Bandcamp: thelastrevel.bandcamp.com/
You can catch The Last Revel on the tour at the following shows:
July 19 – Pine Creek Lodge – Livingston, MT
July 25 – FloydFest – Floyd, VA
Aug. 2 – Red Lodge Summer Fest – Red Lodge, MT
Aug. 3 – Bluegrass and Beer Festival – Keystone, CO
Aug. 7 – Cedar Lounge – Superior, WI
Aug. 8 – Ledgestone Vineyards – Greenleaf, WI
Aug. 9 – Whey Pit at Seven Acre Dairy – Belleville, WI
Aug. 29-31 – Rhythm & Roots Festival – Charlestown, RI
Sept. 10-13 – Bender Jamboree – Las Vegas, NV
Sept. 18 – Red Room at Cafe 939 – Boston, MA
Sept. 19 – 118 North – Wayne, PA
Sept. 20-21 – Annapolis Baygrass Festival – Annapolis, MD
Sept. 20 – Mercury Lounge – New York, NY
Sept. 24 – Shitty Barn – Spring Green, WI
Sept. 25 – Garcia’s – Chicago, IL
Oct. 8 – Gothic Theater – Englewood, CO +
Oct. 9 – Aggie Theatre – Fort Collins, CO +
Oct. 10 – Urban Lounge – Salt Lake City, UT +
Oct. 11 – Shrine Social Club – Boise, ID +
Oct. 15 – The Crocodile – Seattle, WA +
Oct. 16 – Aladdin Theater – Portland, OR +
Oct. 18 – The Independent – San Francisco, CA +
Oct. 19 – Troubadour – Los Angeles, CA +
Oct. 20 – Music Box – San Diego, CA +
Oct. 22 – Meow Wolf – Santa Fe, NM +
Oct. 24 – Parish – Austin, TX +
Oct. 25 – The Kessler Theater – Dallas, TX +
Nov. 6 – The Burl – Lexington, KY +
Nov. 7 – HI-FI – Indianapolis, IN +
Nov. 8 – The Basement East – Nashville, TN +
^ = With The Infamous Stringdusters
* = With The Mud Minnows
# = With Lena Marie Schiffer
& = With Clay Fulton & The Lost 40
+ = With Oliver Hazard
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.
