Guitar Player

COV E R STO RY
GREENSKY BLUEGRASS COULD BE THE PUNKEST
ACOUSTIC BLUEGRASS BAND IN AMERICA
BY MICHA E L MOL EN DA
LO O K AT T H E P H OTO AT THE TOP OF THI S PAG E . OH,
it looks all reflective and down-home and feel-good as any
collection of five acoustic bluegrass musicians should be presented. Don’t be fooled. These guys are rockers in disguise,
and their mission is to blow your mind. Like Led Zeppelin. Like
Hendrix. Like Kiss.
Well, sort of…
Some backstory is obviously needed here. Greensky Bluegrass was formed in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 2000, by original members Dave Bruzza (guitar), Paul Hoffman (mandolin),
and Michael Bont (banjo). From the start, the band was juggling various influences, and two main loves: bluegrass and
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rock. It took three albums—2004’s Less than Supper, 2006’s
Tuesday Letter, and 2007’s Live at Bell’s—and seven years to
zero in on the current lineup with bassist Michael Devol and
dobro player Anders Beck on the crew. And guess what? The
band’s desire to honor bluegrass while dressing it up in rock
jeans and leathers only intensified.
“There are so many people in my generation who got into
bluegrass and acoustic music through the back door,” says
Beck. “And it was Jerry Garcia who opened that door. It was
Jerry’s music that led me to Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs.”
The line between Garcia and Greensky Bluegrass is easy to
track, but the members also benefitted from not going through
J. VAN BUHLER
ROCK SHOW!
G R E E N S KY BLUEG RASS
years of seeking out fiddle tunes and bluegrass standards to play. In fact, Hoffman didn’t
even buy a mandolin until he was 18 years
old, Bruzza didn’t pick up the acoustic guitar
until he was 18, and Bont’s first banjo didn’t
make the scene until he was 20. Churn the
late-starters with a big helping of Garcia and
other rock influences, and you have a scenario
where learning their instruments was easier
and more desirable by way of experimenting, exploring, and writing their own songs.
The introduction of songwriting was huge,
as it forged a unique mission for the band. As
Beck himself explains on the Greensky Bluegrass website:
“It was all about the songs. You can be the
best pickers in the world, or the most educated musicians, but, all-in-all, the things that
connect with people are songs, lyrics, and
melodies. That was the real kicker.”
The emphasis on songs also drives the
band’s fifth studio album, If Sorrows Swim
[Big Blue Zoo]. All the arrangements, the
textures, the melodies, the dynamics, and
production touches were put in full service of
the moods the songs portray. The near-psychic interplay of the five Greensky Bluegrass
musicians is also evident—a creative dialog
honed through countless gigs and rehearsals.
So, in a way, Greensky Bluegrass is like Kiss.
This is a band that wants to knock your socks
off like any charismatic and sonically impactful rock and roll act. But they also want you
to look past the bombast and see something
deeper—to look into the heritage of bluegrass,
and consider where it has been and where
it can go. To paraphrase David Bowie: “This
ain’t rock and roll—this is evolution…”
Here, Greensky Bluegrass’ Dave Bruzza
and Anders Beck discuss why they are a different breed of bluegrass band.
Dave, can you specify some of the elements
that make Greensky Bluegrass so unique?
Bruzza: I immediately see us as something
that is not a very straight-ahead, authentic
version of a bluegrass band. It’s hard to put
it into words, but our band has such a unique
sound to it. I know that I don’t often play that
boom-chicka-boom rhythm very much—which
also makes us a lot different from conventional
bluegrass bands. I think I first realized that
you could change things up rhythmically in
bluegrass by listening to John Starling of the
Seldom Scene. That band was a little on the
left of things, musically. I’ve also listened a lot
to Norman Blake for different ideas, because
he does a lot of cool stuff. He’s just so dialed it
in there—really tasteful—and he knows when
to stay out of the way. He’s great.
Beck: I can contribute a couple of insights.
We are obviously influenced by all the bluegrass players we’ve ever heard, and, to that
extent, we have absorbed conventional bluegrass music. But we also have a lot of influences that come from outside of that spectrum.
Most everybody in the band comes from a
rock and roll background. We’ve all spent
a lot of time listening to the Grateful Dead,
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G U I TA R P L A Y E R . C O M / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 4
G R E E N S KY BLUEG RASS
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JOHN GATTA
rock bands, jam bands, and those kinds of
influences. And because of all those rock
bands we love, we’re always trying to emulate huge rock sounds, but with these five
acoustic instruments. We want our textures
to sound so much bigger than you’d normally think these five instruments are capable of creating. To do that, we have to think
of interesting juxtapositions. For example,
the typical bluegrass thing is the bass is on
the one, and then the mandolin is on the offbeat. But, sometimes, we’ll change that up,
and have everyone playing on the downbeat.
This sounds really basic, but all of a sudden it
like “anti-bluegrass.” It’s simple things like that
that often make us sound unique. And I think
it’s worth mentioning that our live shows are
much more like a big rock and roll concert
than a bluegrass show. We don’t all huddle
around a single mic and weave in and out.
Our goal is to take these instruments and take
them a step further—new frontiers, bigger
sounds, wider textures, different grooves.
In those cases where you all hit the downbeat rhythmically, or all jump on the same
lick, you’re almost talking about classicalmusic-style dynamic structures.
Beck: Actually, that’s very true. Mike, our
bass player, is a classically trained cellist. He
G U I TA R P L A Y E R . C O M / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 4
likens what Greensky Bluegrass does to a
chamber orchestra, and he really pushes us
to incorporate dynamics in the same way. He
talks about it a lot, and he knows what he’s
talking about. We don’t really know what he’s
talking about, but, apparently, we are doing
GR E E N S KY BLUEG RASS
what he wants to hear [laughs].
What was the gear you used for the If
Sorrows Swim sessions?
Beck: I played my Scheerhorn resonator guitar. Usually, we’d mic the acoustic
sound, and then use the output of my Fishman Aura pickup to run effects. The signal
path for the microphones was real precise
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and vibey: Millennia HV3D mic preamps, a
Urei 1178 compressor, and a Neve 8068 buss.
The mics were a stereo pair of Beyer 160 ribbons, and then a Neumann KM84 to capture
the resonator’s highs, and a Neumann U87i
to get the body sound, or low end. On the
Aura, I typically selected a Jerry Douglass
model—which sounds amazing. If I wanted
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distortion, I’d plug the pickup output into a
Fender Blues Junior cranked to around 11. Not
for the timid! I’d change up effects pedals
based on the mood of the song we were
working on, but I tended to keep an ElectroHarmonix Micro Pog, an Electro-Harmonix
Q-Tron, and an Eventide Space on my pedalboard. That Space—man, I could do movie
soundtracks all day with that thing.
What about strings?
I use D’Addario EXP .042s.
Dave?
Bruzza: I used a lot of guitars, actually—
what I normally play onstage. There was
my Santa Cruz Vintage Southerner, a 1990
Santa Cruz Tony Rice Brazilian Model, an
early 1900s Washburn Parlor, and this little
slope-shouldered Galloup guitar. Most of my
stuff was miked. We typically placed a Royer
SF-1 ribbon near the 12th fret, and routed the
mic through a Telefunken V76 preamp and
a Neve 32264a compressor/limiter. The mic
for the guitar body was a AKG C414, and we
sent that through a Millennia HV3D preamp
and the Neve compressor. We had a little fun
with the Galloup, running it through a couple
of amps to get distortion. Well, it was a little
more complicated than that! We plugged
the Galloup into a Littlelabs PCP and ran the
output into a Fulltone Tube Tape Echo. From
there, we went to two amps: A 1962 Silvertone 1482 placed in a bathroom, and a 1953
Bell public-address amplifier coupled with a
Marshall 4x12 cabinet. We miked the Bell/Marshall with a RCA BK5A ribbon, and the Silvertone with a Neumann U87. Madness, huh?
Was there any calculated plan to what
guitar you used on which track? Was it
purely a feel thing regarding the tone, or
did you compose some of these songs with
a specific instrument in mind?
Bruzza: Most of it was really what sounded
best. I’d play the guitars back-to-back, and
we’d figure out the sound we liked the most.
For most of the basic tracks, what always
worked was the Tony Rice model.
What strings do you like?
Elixir 80 Nanoweb /20 Bronze, .013 sets.
You and Anders are pretty much the
“drums” of the band, so do you guys work
out your parts together to give some space
to the mandolin, banjo, and the bass? Is it
kind of a natural thing, or do you actually
sit together and go, “I want to drive it this
way, so you hang back,” or “You use this
inversion, and I’ll use that inversion”?
GR E E N S KY BLUEG RASS
interesting to your readers is, within the band,
we’re the two guys that are in the same frequency range. We’re actually two guitars,
except I play mine flat [laughs]. It’s a Dobro,
so it’s a little bit different, of course, but we’re
really in the same frequency range. And so
we try to stay out of each other’s way in
sculpting out the spectrum of frequencies
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Bruzza: A lot of time, it’s pretty organic.
We both do a lot of listening. There are certain parts where definitely something happens, and we talk about it, and make it work
to what serves the song the best. But most
of it seems to be organic. Would you agree
with that, Anders?
Beck: Yes. I think probably something
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so that it’s not this big muddy thing. We’ve
been doing it together for probably seven
or eight years now, so it’s pretty natural—like
Dave says. But, in addition, we do talk about
the fact that because there are no drums, we
have to create specific grooves with all of
our instruments. When we get in that space,
it’s like all of our instruments become parts
of the drum kit, and we start visualizing the
grooves to the drum part we each represent.
For example, we often view the upright bass
as the kick drum, the mandolin as the snare
drum, the banjo as the cymbals, and Dave
and I as the toms. It’s always interesting to try
and create a groove without drums. That’s
one of the appeals of the band to me.
Anders, a Dobro is a little spikier than
a guitar. Do you ever clash with the banjo
or the mandolin?
Beck: Because of the nature of the instrument, and because I’m playing with fingerpicks, I occasionally clash with the banjo
when we’re both rolling. But, like I said earlier, it kind of works itself out. We stay out of
each other’s way pretty naturally. But then
we can also sonically build things up with all
of us all jumping on a particular range or lick.
I view the Dobro as sort of the “fill” instrument in the mix, because I fill the spaces in
between the vocals a lot. The Dobro’s harmonic nature makes it a very lyrical instrument in my opinion.
Dave, perhaps you can comment about
the glory and danger of developing a musical hybrid—such as what Greensky Bluegrass
is obviously doing. You have the benefit
of people who aren’t into bluegrass at all
saying, “Oh, wow—this is cool. I could listen
to this.” On the other hand, you may have
bluegrass lovers who are resistant to your
going against the grain. How do you guys
navigate that sea, so to speak?
Bruzza: It’s great to have people come in
expecting a bluegrass band—because “bluegrass” is in our name—and then see that this
is no hillbilly show. We push things, explore
and experiment a lot onstage, and perform
extended improvisational sections. That might
make some traditional bluegrass audiences a
little nervous. But I hope that those people can
see that we’re building on a tradition, instead
of going against it. My dream gig would be
blowing away an audience with everything
we do, but also inspiring them to leave the
concert and go check out some music by
Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs. g