Trampled By Turtles

By Jeannette Madden
Staff Writer

Since Trampled By Turtles is headlining the first-ever High Plains Festival, we wanted to take this opportunity to introduce you to the band, just in case you aren’t already familiar with them. They’re currently riding high on the April 2010 release of their fifth album “Palomino,” which debuted at number one on the bluegrass charts. Formed in 2003 in Duluth, Minnesota, Trampled By Turtles is a pan-genre spot-welding sort of North Country & Mid-Western Blue-collar ’grass-meets-Basement-Tapes-era The Band with a fistful of gunpowder tossed into the wood-burning stove, all of which is permeated by a poignant, seductive desolation.

The Reader was able to talk with a very young sounding Dave Simonett, vocals and guitar, about “Palomino,” what life’s been like since the release and how the band feels about being the big draw at the High Plains Festival.

High Plains Reader: Let’s talk about ‘Palomino.’ Can you tell me any differences between it and your previous albums? Any progressions or changes?

Dave Simonett: Well, it was recorded a year and a half after the one before it, so I think the main difference would be the songs coming from a different point, you know, like a different point in my life where they came from. The recording style was real simple to the one we did before it but I think we did a better job. Our goal is really to try and capture a live feel without being at a show. We set up live in the studio. I sang live on all the takes so it took us awhile to figure out the right room and the right person to work with to get where we thought we were hitting that and I think we got as close as we’ve come on this record.

HPR: That seems to be the way a lot of bands are going, trying to get that live sound.

DS: It’s a really hard thing to get. You’d think it would be easier, like you just set up in a room and play but when you’re not in front of a crowd the feeling is a whole lot different. Onstage there’s a feeling that you have one shot to get the song right and if you don’t it’s not that big of a deal, you know? In the studio you have unlimited chances to get it right but if you make a mistake and you have to start over you almost feel like it’s worse. It’s just two different mentalities and it’s kind of hard to combine.

HPR: What other changes have you noticed with the band or what you have going on since ‘Palomino’ was released?

DS: We’ve definitely gotten invited to some festivals that we’ve always wanted to play. It’s sold more records than we ever have before so the attendance at shows has been great. It feels really good – it feels like a progression, anyway.

HPR: And you went from managing yourself to having people that do that for you now…is that correct?

DS: That is correct. Which helped a lot.

HPR: Tell me about that. Obviously, it’s worked out well.

DS: Yeah, they’ve done a fantastic job and I love working with them. Its two guys and they split the job between the two of them and before that we were doing just about everything in house except for booking. We’ve had a booking agent for awhile. Bringing people in that can concentrate on steering the band a little bit and bringing people in who know a lot of people in the music world is such a huge help. Instead of us kind of throwing darts at a dart board those guys set up a plan. We released the record ourselves, which we’ve always done, but they set up a really great system of putting an album out, which we’d never done before. It was great and we love it.

HPR: And you self-produced, correct?

DS: Yeah. This one was us. To be honest, with this band there’s not a lot of producing going on so it’s pretty easy. Really, the producing on the album consisted of finding the right take of the right song, finding the right studio. We did it at like six different places, you know, so we went in and found rooms that felt good and tried a few songs here and there. Weeding through that and finding what we felt was the best one and then putting the album together was the extent of it. We didn’t have to deal with string sections and synthesizers.

HPR: Obviously I just write. I’m not totally involved in the music industry or songs, but I do wonder why bands don’t want to at least partially self-produce, because it’s their music and they know how they want it to sound.

DS:  I think most bands end up partially producing probably everything. But I think that one reason a band would bring in a producer is just to get somebody’s outside perspective. Maybe there’s a great idea for a song that since you’ve been playing it the same way for six months that you can get into a rut. Or, just throwing ideas out there for you to try. We’ve worked with producers before and had a great time with it. Like I said, with our band and the style of music that we play the job is a little less intense but if you were a rock band and say you had no rules on how you wanted your record to sound there’s so many directions you could go. Getting someone who’s talented at putting that together is pretty valuable.

HPR: How does it feel to be headlining the first ever High Plains Festival?

DS: Feels great! It’s really great to be back at Soo Pass and we’re very flattered to be closing the night out. For sure it’s going to be a blast. We can’t wait.

HPR:  What’s your process and inspiration for writing and creating your music?

DS:  Oh God, who knows. Technically, I will write the song – the lyrics, the chord structure and the melody and then bring it to the band and everybody works out their own part. No two of us actually live in the same town, so this usually happens when we’re on the road. We’ll throw something out backstage and then try it out onstage and figure it out. It’s kind of an organic process. Where the songs originate from? I have no idea. There’s no formula for that.

HPR:  So you’re not all in Duluth? I know that’s where you started.

DS:  No, I moved down to Minneapolis maybe six years ago. Ryan [Young], our fiddle player, is in Saint Paul. Dave [Carroll], our banjo player, is in Duluth. Our mandolin player [Erik Berry] lives north of Duluth maybe twenty miles. Our bass player [Tim Saxhaug] live in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

HPR: Holy buckets.

DS:  Yeah, so we meet in the van.

HPR: Did you go to South by Southwest again this year?

DS:  We did. I love it. I love Austin anyway; it’s one of my favorite towns in the world, it’s such a great music town. We’ve only done it for two years, but I think I have an idea of how it was ten years ago and it has definitely changed. It’s gigantic now, just insane. Ninety percent of the people that are there are involved in the music business or music world in some shape or form and it’s rare to be surrounded by that many people that do what you do. Normally, there’s a band and there’s an audience or you’re a musician at a family reunion and you’re the only musician. At South by Southwest, everybody’s involved in it so you have like a brotherhood or something. I think it’s fantastic and I had a great time.

HPR: Last question time. Tell me something about each of the band members, including your self.

DS: I love how you saved the hardest one for last. Well, I’ll start with myself. My wife and I just had a daughter about two months ago so that’s been my life lately. I guess Erik would be the same. He’s having his second kid this fall. Our banjo player, he’s in Costa Rica on vacation right now. Our fiddle player, Ryan, used to play drums in a hip hop band, so that’s an interesting fact for a bluegrass guy. And then Tim used to play in a weekly casino band right before we met him. He was playing like Frank Sinatra wearing tuxes and they’d play like four casinos a week.

Catch some Trampled By Turtles music here:
Catch a Trampled By Turtles video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7yZqm69QXw&feature=related

Questions and comments: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)