Frontier Ruckus On European Audiences, New Album, Bob Dylan, More
July 13th, 2010 by admin
Frontier Ruckus is a folk-band based out of Detroit, Michigan. After successfully and independently gathering interest via touring and releasing the acclaimed debut The Orion Songbook, Frontier Ruckus was signed to Ramseur Records, home of such greats as Avett Brothers, Paleface, and Samantha Crain. Sounds Good Ink recently chatted with frontman Matthew Milia.
Had you been doing fairly well as a band before you were signed to Ramseur Records?
Well, before Ramseur The Orion Songbook came out on Quite Scientific Records out of Ann Arbor. The first touring that we did was for that. That did pretty well on its own, in that it got us our first little bit of national exposure. It’s definitely burgeoning much more rapidly since Ramseur Records, of course. They have more sway nationally and have been around more longer; they are more established.
But The Orion Songbook did a lot for us on its own. It got a nice little dedicated following, just from people who really liked that album. It definitely wasn’t anything too magnificent, but it at least got a handful of people who became aware of us. And those who did like it really liked it. That was a nice thing because that’s an album we’re really proud of. I think that it will hopefully stand the test of time. I like that album a lot and I like that it’s our first album. I love that there are people out there who fell in love with it.
Have you been touring regularly as a band, even before your recent success?
Yeah. One of the first points of business with Ramseur Records was getting a really good booking agent. We wanted to be touring nonstop. We all graduated from college and touring is what we wanted to do. The first couple tours I booked myself. Our friend Brandon in New York City helped book our first couple tours with me. And those shows could be really spotty. You know, we’d show up at a venue and they didn’t even know we were playing that night [laughs]. I mean, this was really early on. Then things started to slowly get more legitimate. Then, since we got a booking agent last year, we’ve been touring non-stop and it’s been increasingly more productive.
So now the venues actually know you are supposed to be playing [chuckles].
Yeah. On a good night, yeah [laughs]. We also have a good booking agent in Europe, so we just got back from a month over there for a second time. That’s amazing as well.
Alright, this next question, if you haven’t been asked it a million times already, then I assure you that you’ll be asked it a million times eventually. Regardless, talk about your experiences playing for a European audience. Were there notable differences from your experiences performing for American audiences, or were there a lot of similarities?
It was really fantastic in Europe. I think it might be similar to the way that Americans receive European bands. Like, European bands do really well over here. Maybe it’s the exoticism of it. It’s like a precious import. The fact that they are so far away makes us give them more attention for it. But the crowds over there, people come out to see American bands for one reason or another, but they are also very attentive. Audiences were just really into it. It was either that you couldn’t hear a pin drop because they were so quiet, or they happened to know the words and were singing along at the top of their lungs.
You must have had a European following that welcomed you.
A little bit. Yeah, people would come to the shows and they know us over there, which is mind blowing. But we’ll hopefully just keep going back and build it similarly to how we do it over here.
Now, was this European following something you all intentionally sought and tried to build, or was it more a pleasant surprise? Like, one day did you just start noticing a sizable amount of people from Europe were visiting your site and hearing your music?
Well, the first time we went over there was before we were on Ramseur. We got invited to go over there by this Norwegian festival. They flew us over there, so that was the big hurdle right there. If someone was gonna pay for our flights then, well, we were gonna go. I set up whatever I could around it, getting us to a couple more countries. We had great experiences in London, Netherlands, and Germany. So those were the countries that we returned to this time, with a couple more. We played the same place in London twice now and got really close to selling it out this time.
Has everyone in the band basically wanted to be in a band since you were all young, or did Frontier Ruckus start off more as just a fun thing that grew into something more serious?
Well, it truly started in high school with Dave and I, just playing guitar and banjo together. It really just started as a way to express myself. But I just fell in love with writing songs. I definitely didn’t start writing songs as a means to travel and see the world, but that was a by product that just came around organically later. We are fortunate, and really grateful, that it happened. So in high school it was really just for fun, and really gratifying creatively.
In college we started a full band. It was really fun to play music and to play live. That was when the whole live element came in. We just loved playing at Max’s Bar in Lansing and The Blind Pig in Ann Arbor, then the Division Avenue Arts Cooperative in Grand Rapids. It was fun. Again, I continue to write more complex songs, I guess, and that was increasingly gratifying. It was the creative expression of writing songs and the cathartic energy of playing them live, then developing a small community of people that supported us. But in college most of what we did and our development was in Michigan. We made these connections of people amongst the various towns we played in, making this little network of friends and other bands.
Now, in regards to the songwriting, are the main songwriter for Frontier Ruckus?
Yeah, I write all the songs.
As far as your own personal songwriting process, are you fairly regimented and disciplined in your approach? Or do the songs come more randomly? Or is it a little of both?
Well, I’m in a weird lifestyle now because I’m always on the road. I really don’t have much private time on the road. On the road I’m constantly shredding my notebook with images and rhymes and such, but I’m really not writing complete and cohesive songs. That is, unless I get an off day and into a room by myself, but that’s very rare. But when I do get home, I pretty much just wake up in the morning and am so eager to have some time to just piece together some new little fragments I’m working on. But I really don’t get home enough. I’m hoping for some down time coming up in the next couple months. We have a new album coming out next month, so it looks like the touring cycle is coming up again [chuckles].
In regards to the album, it must be really nice and refreshing to know that your upcoming album will have so much professional promotion behind it.
Yeah. It’s a bigger machine. I just really am proud of this new album. I’m excited for it to come out, and I’m grateful to have a bigger machine behind it. I’d like it to get out to as many people as possible.
Will the new album have a sound that your fans are already familiar with, or is it more experimental than your previous work?
It’s really not that much of a departure, and I don’t mean that in a humdrum, negative way. I can’t think of anything that’s that different. If anything, it’s just a little more focused than what we were trying to do with The Orion Songbook. We’re trying to perfect something, though I don’t know what that is. I guess it’s just the current stage of Frontier Ruckus. If you look at Bob Dylan albums, they seem to come in groups, or different stages. For instance, Highway 61 Revisited and Bringing it All Back Home, those are kind of in the same vein, though one may be a more intense version of the other, or less diluted. I see this as the same stage of Frontier Ruckus. Our upcoming album is a little more intense than The Orion Songbook. It’s a little more challenging. There’s a song on our new album called “Pontiac, the Nightbrink,” which is about nine minutes long.
That must be the longest song you’ve recorded up to this point.
Yeah, I’d say so. There are also a lot of cool scenes on the album, and they interweave. I really like the album. I can’t really describe the concept, but I feel it. When I listen to the songs I feel that interweaving. And, like anything I write, it’s about memory first and foremost.
So memory is the terrain that your songs explore the most?
Yeah, that’s pretty much why I write; to deal with memories.
As much as you can pinpoint this, who were some of the artists and bands you were listening to while writing and developing the songs for Deadmalls & Nightfalls?
Bob Dylan & Neil Young, Leonard Cohen & Paul Simon…they are always my greatest influences for songwriting. Maybe some Bruce Springsteen for the more anthemic songs [laughs]. But there are some songs, like “Nerves of the Nightmind” and “Silverfishes,” which have a more epic, anthemic quality, so maybe there’s some Bruce Springsteen in there.
The thing that’s so interesting about Bruce Springsteen is that I think a lot of people, especially those more familiar with his hit songs, forget how great and special of a lyricist he is. I mean, he’s always been in the mainstream, and mainstream has always had a stigma attached to it, some deserved and some not. But, you read his lyrics and think, “Wow, this really unbelievable.” Very intelligent and literary stuff.
Yeah, like Greetings From Asbury Park, his first album, is really a lyrical mindfuck.
Absolutely. And on that album he crams so many words into each line.
Right. I do that too, so maybe that’s his influence as well. I love language. I kind of overdose on language. I can’t get enough of it [chuckles].
Sure. Though, Springsteen did become less verbose as he went on. He seems to now put more space between the words as well and draw them out. But, as far as your writing goes, have you always written with this “language overdose”?
Yeah, I’ve always been pretty verbose. I really don’t know how to write things in a simplified manner. The things I write about really overwhelm me. You know, complex associations of memories and places and such. Actually, as an experiment in self-imposed challenges, I’ve been trying to write in a more simplified and laconic way. I don’t know if it’s going to work. There is definitely a lot to be said for understatement in the economy of language. I’m attempting that, and we’ll see how that works out.
Frontier Ruckus will be releasing Deadmalls & Nightfalls on July 20th. For more information, check out: www.frontierruckus.com
