They refer to themselves as a “bluegrass adjacent” band.
If you saw a photo of local band Bluegrouse – Carol Calkin on fiddle and vocals; Jonti Fox on bass and vocals; Laurie Swisher on guitar and vocals; and Jess Wilton on mandolin and vocals – you’d think that through instrumentation they’d be stalwarts of the music of Bill Monroe. However, they’re more than that: They’re a band that can bang out bluegrass while also dipping into a load of other genres, busting out Americana and roots rock, gospel or something more familiar from the classic rock canon.
Bluegrouse just dropped their official debut. “Obscur Us” was recorded locally at Scooter’s Place and features a load of the aforementioned genres.
This lineup of the band came together pre-pandemic when Wilton joined.
“These guys started around 2017, and then the end of 2019 rolls around and they needed a mandolin player. I was the only other mandolin player they knew,” he said. “I went and saw them, and you know what happened in 2020, so I didn’t get to play with them for a couple months. And then we started getting together in the backyard – in those days that’s what you did. So we had some backyard practices in the summer of 2020, and the first practice I went to, I just laughed the whole time, and said OK, I’m joining the band. That was good enough for me, and it’s been history ever since.”
“The chemistry here is just unbeatable,” Swisher said. “We have so much fun when we are practicing, it’s always a lot of laughter, but we also work hard.”
Hard work means playing out. Summer months are a bit more stacked for the quartet’s performance schedule, as the past found Bluegrouse playing everything from festivals to backyard parties, fundraisers to shows in more traditional venues.
They also remain on a constant quest for material. While all four band members write songs, they continue to keep an ear to the ground for interesting tunes to cover. Those tunes can materialize from something they hear on the radio to the soundtrack that is piped in via the local grocery store. They’ll cover anything from Steve Earle to Eilen Jewell to The Beatles to more traditional bluegrass numbers. A band member will hear something they may want to cover, bring it to the other three and if it passes the test, it’s part of the repertoire.
“Our songs are a collaborative effort,” Swisher said. “If we hear something, we’ll say, ‘Wow, that would sound really good with our band,’ so we bring it to the band. We’ll play through it, see what everybody thinks, and then we all agree or disagree on whether we want to do it.”
It’s a diplomatic method to beef up your catalog.
“There’s no egos in this band; we all have a very open minded way of listening to feedback,” Wilton said.
Let “Obscur Us” serve as a gateway record into the world of rootsy folk and bluegrass. The band isn’t that worried about not being the most traditional bluegrass outfit out there, as the closest thing to “traditional” is their instrumentation. What this record will do is turn people onto some local, musical flair while also perhaps turning people onto the bands that inspire Bluegrouse: It’s all about musical education.
This year will find the band looking to play wherever will have them; they’re fresh off playing to a packed house at a successful CD release show and excited they’ve got musical product in hand.
“It was kind of a long process. I think we started back in February because Scooter is pretty busy these days. We were in and out of the studio, and we finally got it completed, and we got the actual copies back in December,” Swisher said. “We’re super stoked to have it out there.”
Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager. Reach him at liggett_b@fortlewis.edu.
