Larry and His Flask could have easily lived out the rest of their career as just another punk rock band touring the small clubs in their RV, but a mid tour change of plans led to the band’s reinvention as one of the best bluegrass/punk rock hybrids… well ever.
Formed in Oregon in 2003by brothers Jamin and Jesse Marshall, the band played straight up punk rock for years, but in the middle of a US tour a couple of years ago, the band’s drummer announced suddenly he was leaving the band. Most groups would have simply fond a new drummer and soldiered on, but Larry and His Flask opted to completely revamp the band – from instruments to sound. Guitarist Ian Cook took over on the microphone, while former front man Jamin Marshall moved to the recently vacated drums. Dallin Bulkley (guitars), Kirk Skatvold (mandolin) and Andrew Carew (banjo) were all recruited and bassist Jesse Marshall started playing a stand up bass.
With the new instruments came a new sound, a stew of bluegrass, punk rock and folk. Fellow punk rock musical hybrids Dropkick Murphys took the boys out on tour and introduced them to the rest of the world. All That We Know, their just-released full length, is their latest calling card.
Cook spoke recently about the band’s evolution.
To the uninitiated, how do you describe your music?
That's always the hard one. I would say it's like a barn party while the barn's burning down.
Do all of you in the band share similar influences?
We all do. We come from the same original school of punk rock and now, of everything. Collectively, we tend to get into things at the same time because we are around each other so often. It's hard to not be into the same things together.
Because your music can appeal to different crowds, have you ever found yourself on a tour where you guys just weren't a good match with the other bands and their fans?
More often than not we're not a good match with a lot of things, but it always works. We've never really been out of place. We're definitely different than the bands we tour with, but the energy is the same so it translates well. We've never had a deadpan audience where they're like "Oh my god, I hate this"... at least I don't think so. Maybe we did and I just didn't know.
What prompted the decision to change the band up not too long ago (switching instruments, adding members, etc.)?
We lost our original drummer, when we were the punk rock version of the band, and on tour in Canada, he left soon after that, which was also hard because he's one of our best friends. We decided to break it all down back to acoustic and see what happened. I had a few songs written, and we converted a few songs from our old stuff and just had a big jam session, and people would come out and jam with us. We had as many as 11 people playing together including a cello and accordion, two mandolin players at once time, it was crazy. We just wanted to involve everyone we knew at first. When we started the constant touring it condensed down to six members who could tour and wanted to, and it’s been rolling ever since.
How long have you been working on the songs that made it on to All That We Know?
Some of the songs are really old songs, like “Land of the F(r)ee” and “I'll Be Gone,” we've been playing them solid for almost the entire time we've been doing the more acoustic version of the band, something like 3-and-half years. They're songs I had written way before we even started doing the acoustic stuff. And some of the songs are brand new, one of the songs wasn't even fully written yet and we had to finish writing it in the studio. So it ranges, from 3-and-a-half years to very, very new.
What was it like working on that record?
It was refreshing, and really, really, really good. It felt good because we had spent so much time concentrating on touring that we overlooked doing a full-length record for a long time. People were asking us about when we were going to put one out all the time. We felt a lot of pressure but it was a good pressure, so when we were in there it was super exciting. It had been so long since we'd all be in the studio. It was an awesome experience, just really fun.
As a band that's been at it for awhile now, are you surprised at how quickly things have been moving for you guys in the past year or two? What do you attribute that to?
I am surprised. I would have to attribute that solely to the Dropkick Murphys for helping us so much when they asked us to do that tour with them. Those were the biggest shows we've played, ever, and it was huge for us in terms of the popularity of the band and getting our name stuck in everyone's head. It was the big thing that kicked everything else into gear and since then it's been getting better and better. We've been trying to tour our asses off so we can get it all out there.
Those are all the questions I have. Anything else you want to cover?
That's about it I think.
Comments