Wood Belly is band with a changing sound.
Born in 2015 along Colorado’s Front Range as a bluegrass band, they traveled the traditional route many string bands have trekked, a route of open jams and backyard picks, club shows and festival contests. Things kicked into high gear in 2018 when they won the band competition at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, and throughout those travels and post-Telluride victory they began to change their sound. While they remain rooted in bluegrass, the addition of drums and other instrumentation has found them digging into folky soul and American roots music.
Wood Belly will return to Durango tonight (Dec. 1) with a performance at Animas City Theatre.
If you go
WHAT: Bluegrass and Americana with Wood Belly and Jack Cloonan.
WHEN: Doors open at 6 p.m. Friday (Dec. 1).
WHERE: Animas City Theatre, 128 E. College Drive.
TICKETS: $15/$20. Available online at https://tinyurl.com/tvkkp2a4.
MORE INFORMATION: Visit www.animascitytheatre.com.
It’s a progression many bands make; while they’re still a “festival” band, they’re broadening their sound to appeal to people that may not be down strictly with the music of Bill Monroe. It was also lineup changes, and the progress halting pandemic in 2020 that inspired the alteration.
“Coming out of the other end, and we are no longer a string band. We’re still playing a lot of bluegrass music, but more like the Leftover Salmon flavor of bluegrass, with drums,” said Wood Belly founding member Aaron McCloskey. “Then we also have a lot of newer material that is more of the Americana realm.”
That newer material is all over their brand-new release “Cicada,” which dropped in November. Theirs is an expanding sound, a result of adding new band members to the lineup. That lineup consists of original members McCloskey who plays banjo and guitar, along with guitar, mandolin player and vocalist Chris Weist and Chris Zink on dobro and lap steel. The two new additions are bass player and vocalist Brennan Mackey and drummer Dylan French.
“Bluegrass bands expand and add drummers. With the lineup changes we had, rather than doing the same thing with different people, we made a conscious decision to go in a different direction and try some things,” McCloskey said. “And now we’re just sort of writing music and co-writing and arranging without really thinking about the genre. We’re just making music and seeing what happens.”
What’s happening is the development of a sound that’s still ripe for festivals and left of the dial radio while also appealing the rootsy and folk-rock crowd. Cuts on “Cicada” have mass appeal; while a tune like “Play Me Out” are straight out of the newgrass playbook. Dig into a tune like “Cry Cry Cry,” and you’ll hear horns and shuffling drums under the string instrumentation, giving the cut a Big Easy vibe.
Then you’ve got cuts like “Over Yonder” and “Heavy on My Mind,” the former having a jam-band feel with subtle psychedelic and wandering guitar, the latter a big ballad that’s a perfect, dramatic closer to the record.
It’s all in the actions of a changing band that’s exploring new sounds.
“I think as an artist you don’t ever really want to put yourself in any kind of confined area,” McCloskey said. “You want to be able to follow creativity wherever it leads you, so our current iteration is leading us to a lot of fun and new places.”
New and exploring sounds will hopefully lead the band to new venues, traditional radio stations along with streaming services and, ultimately, to people with eager ears ready to take in their music.
“Festivals and bigger events are always the priority for us. We want to play in front of new people and bigger audiences, and meeting folks from other bands, that’s always a blast, the meeting other musicians in the backstage hang. That’s being part of the scene. We certainly will be doing clubs and other things, and concert series as well,” McCloskey said. “We want to do it all.”
Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager. Reach him at liggett_b@fortlewis.edu.
