The Kitchen Dwellers resume their spring tour at The Met in Pawtucket, R.I., tonight.
This Montana-based quartet, which features Shawn Swain on the mandolin, Torrin Daniels on banjo, Joe Funk on the upright bass, and Max Davies on acoustic guitar, has emerged as one of the most exciting improvisational bands on the jamgrass scene.
Two of my favorite aspects of this band is how big a role the banjo plays in the band’s overall sound, as well as the improvisational abilities of this band overall. The band is willing to take chances, which frequently leads to magical moments.
They will be bringing their psychedelic mix of bluegrass, folk and rock to stops in Brooklyn (April 28), Washington (April 29), Buffalo, N.Y. (April 30), Ferndale, Mich. (May 2), Indianapolis (April 3), Kalamazoo, Mich. (May 4), Chicago (May 5) and, finally, Milwaukee (May 6). Find more information, including ticket links here.
Davies answered some questions from Jam in the Stream recently.
What is the band most excited about right now?
Davies first mentioned the Dwellers’ new touring rig.
“For the last 9 or 10 years, we’ve been in our trusty Chevy van, and this is our first experience having a rig where we can feel a bit more in one place and have places to sleep,” he said. “So that is huge for us.”
He then mentioned some of the highlights of their current tour calendar.
“We’ve got some incredibly exciting gigs this summer, playing Red Rocks with String Cheese Incident and Under the Big Sky festival in our home state of Montana,” he said. “The band is playing at some of our best right now and with all of these new songs we’re just feeling really good about everything.”
The band has Sicard Hollow opening up for them on this tour, and hinted that there would be some collaborations on the tour, just as there had been last fall when they toured with Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country.
“So far, we’ve already been able to capture some magic with those guys,” Davies said. “Spending so much time on the road with other musicians just lends itself to picking songs and things just happen naturally. It’s been really fun to get to know these guys and play some songs with them. I think we’ve had them sit in with us nearly every single night so far this tour. We’ve been able to dive pretty deep into some of our songs with them, so it’s already been memorable from that aspect.”
There was some history between the two bands. In early February, Alex King sat in with the Kitchen Dwellers at the Elm in Bozeman, Mont.
“We heard that Alex was in town and coming to the show so it worked out that he had his guitar, which he said he always travels with,” he said. “We had him come to soundcheck and work on a song of ours, “Visions of More.” It was our first time playing with him onstage, and it was really fun to see the audience react to his playing. He owned it. It was a great indicator of how this tour was going to go. He came to our every first show in Nashville many years ago so it was kind of a full circle moment getting to play on stage with him. I remember meeting him that night in Nashville.”
Kitchen Dwellers released Wise River last year. Check it out here.
Asked if the band was working on new material, Davies said, yes, indeed.
“We’ve got a whole album in the works, and are really excited about some of this new material,” he said. “We’re trying things we’ve never done before and are kind of towards the latter half of that process. It’s been great to have these songs come to life.”
Stay tuned, and don’t miss the Kitchen Dwellers on their tour this spring, at one of their festival appearances, or this fall when the band heads back out on the road (another headlining tour is in the works!).
