"Livin' la Vida Ely" with Stony River Band

Tune into a conversation with members of Stony River, an Ely-based string band. Stony River’s sound is a lively blend of country, soul, and grass; their songs are heartfelt, down-to-earth, and guaranteed to get your heart grooving and your feet moving. Nick Allen, Nick Holtz, Dillon Wilkins, and Zeb Butterfield have been making music together for over a decade. Their performances showcase their proficiency on the strings as well as the joy of playing side by side. 

Stony River Album Release Party at Ely’s Historic State Theater on Friday, July 24 

Stony River Music website

Stony River on Spotify

Stony River on Apple Music

Stony River on YouTube

Finding Zeb part 1 & part 2 -- A Fox21 KQDS Duluth-Superior news production featuring Stony River's frontman, Zeb Butterfield. Aka some of the most delightful 20 minutes you can spend on the internet. 

Boundary Waters Connect -- Sponsor organization behind the Wilderness Edge Podcast. 

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CONVERSATION HIGHLIGHTS: 

0:00 | A note about the wildfires and a heads up that we'll offer an episode about them next week

0:44 | We have a strong commitment to gathering, and we aren't going to give that up

4:08 | Introducing Holtzie, Al, Zeb, and Dillon

5:45 | What brought you to Ely?

6:18 | Holtzie: "Next thing you know, I fell into a good little community..."

8:01 | Quick interlude: How did you guys meet?

8:40 | Al: "I went to VCC and stuck around"

10:01 | Zeb: "I came up for a summer job and have been living la vida Ely ever since"

12:13 | Dillon: "If we wanted to start a family Ely seemed like the spot to do it"

13:10 | Stony River -- what's in a name?

16:13 | Zeb, when did you get into writing lyrics? What is your process?

17:12 | Zeb the frontman, the byproduct of growing up in a musical family

18:58 | What does the process of making a new song look like?

20:15 | Have you been playing original music all along?

22:11 | "We made an active decision a couple of years ago to seriously work on our music"

24:00 | Recording 10 Miles of Bad Road

27:43 | Shout out to John Berquist of the Moose Wallow Ramblers

28:15 | How would you describe Stony River's style? What does it mean to be grassy, but loose?

29:50 | What does giving back to the community look like to you?

30:28 | "We want to be recognized as an Ely band"

36:00 | Organizing open mic night at the Boathouse

39:48 | Organizing the Shagawa Shindig at Semers Beach on the Fourth of July

40:50 | The Ely music scene has no age limit, it supposed to an all ages thing

43:29 | Two bands, a baby, and a full time job

44:36 | Nick Allen, anchor of persistence and vision

46:45 | How can the Ely community support Stony River? Listen, show up, purchase merch!

49:03 | Entering the world of entrepreneurship

52:15 | Shout out to the wives, they keep everything on track

52:35 | On playing the Blue Ox Music Festival

56:13 | The Ely community really embraces music

57:22 | Shout out to album release party open Thor Leisman

58:35 | Thank you, listeners! Consider giving this podcast a 5-Star review!

59:53 | Shout out to Boundary Waters Kitchen & Market, album release party caterer

1:01:09 | Ten Miles of Bad Road by Stony River -- Title track of the forthcoming album

Transcript

A note about the wildfires and a heads up that we'll offer an episode about them next week

SPEAKER_07 0:07

We want to be recognized as an Ely band. This is where we've made all of our music as adults, and this companies to be represented. One of the things that really amazed me when I first came up here is when there was music all over the place, and for like a young me and Nick running around, it was very nice to go see live music from all these older guys, and then go to the open mic night that they would have over at the steakhouse and all the places that would let us just sit up back and play music and stuff for them. And it was, yeah, it was a good time. Like the town definitely

We have a strong commitment to gathering, and we aren't going to give that up.

SPEAKER_07 0:44

wants music in it, and we're happy to be doing our part as we get older.

Lacey Squier 0:58

Welcome to Wilderness Edge, a podcast about the people who live on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Northeast Minnesota. My name is Lacey Squire. Over seven years ago, my husband and I moved to Ely in order to live closer to the wilderness. We knew that a more intimate relationship with the Boreal Forest and waterways would be good for us, but what we didn't anticipate was the pleasure of being in community with our new neighbors. This podcast is a celebration of the people who make up the everyday experiences of life on the edge. And as such, I invite you to join me in conversation with members of Stony River, a local string band. Nick Allen, Nick Holtz, Dylan Wilkins, and Zeb Butterfield have been making music together for over a decade. Their performances showcase their proficiency on the strings as well as the joy they experience playing side by side. Stony River Sound is a lively blend of country, soul, and grass. Their songs are heartfelt, down to earth, guaranteed to get your heart girving and your feet moving. Hey guys. Welcome. It's so exciting to have you here. I hope our listeners feel like they're just like hauled up in a cozy living room together like we are, surrounded by windows and trees in the cute little town of Ealy.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Beautiful day today.

Lacey Squier 2:17

Yeah. So I wonder if you'd all be willing to take turns introducing yourselves to our listeners. Names, a little bit of context, whatever you want them to know for the first moments of our podcast before we get into the nitty-gritty. Nick?

unknown 2:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:32

My name's Nick Holtz. They call me Holtzie. Uh I play the upright bass. Um that's about all I got for myself.

Lacey Squier 2:41

All right. Well, I'm gonna dig in further. Don't you worry.

SPEAKER_03 2:45

Uh my name's Nick Allen. Some people call me Al, and uh I play the fiddle sometimes. Just sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes I play other things. Yeah. You never know.

Lacey Squier 2:56

I feel like you two were one of the first. I mean, you you weren't one of the first people I met, but I have a memory of the first time I met you at the bowling alley.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

Oh, yeah.

Lacey Squier 3:07

I moved to town in like January of 2019.

SPEAKER_03 3:10

Okay.

Lacey Squier 3:11

And early on, um, Eric went fishing and I went bowling with Jamie Stocks.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

Okay.

Lacey Squier 3:16

And you guys were at the bowling alley. And I don't know if I made this up or not, but in my memory, you're just like, as always, just like walking around barefoot, like both like long-haired Knicks. Like, just I don't know. I just remember having a having a great first impression of like, I'm gonna love living here.

SPEAKER_07 3:35

For everybody out there listening, they're currently barefoot in the living room.

Lacey Squier 3:37

Yeah, yeah. The Knicks. So thanks. Nice to meet you guys. Zeb.

SPEAKER_07 3:42

Uh Zeb Butterfield, uh singer, guitar player, and predominant lyricist. He's the talent. He's the talent. He has the talent.

Lacey Squier 3:50

Uh, and Minnesota Emmy Award uh news show feature.

SPEAKER_06 3:57

Feature, yeah.

Lacey Squier 3:57

Character. Yeah, you were you were the subject, right? Okay, we're gonna circle back to that.

SPEAKER_06 4:02

Um, and I am Dylan Wilkins, I play mandolin.

Lacey Squier 4:06

Amazing. Welcome,

Introducing Holtzie, Al, Zeb, and Dillon

Lacey Squier 4:08

guys. Thanks for having me. Okay, so the Wilderness Edge podcast is a lot of things, but also, like I said in the beginning, for people who are curious about the actual towns, the people who populate the places along the edge of the wilderness. I'm curious if you'd be willing to share a little bit about um how you got to living up here. Maybe you're born and raised folks, maybe you made the choice. Like I'm curious if you if you moved here when and why, and if you stayed, say more about that.

SPEAKER_05 4:42

Sure. Well, I came up here, I want to say January of 2015. Uh I attended Vermilion Community College at the time. Um, and I went to school for fisheries and wildlife management. Um, and I I graduated with that degree, and part of me wanted to leave and move on to do other things, and then I kind of I mean, Zeb and Nick are kind of big reasons why I stuck around. Um, they had handed me an electric uh bass guitar and they're like, hey, we need a bass player, man. And uh next thing you know, we kind of fell into you know a good little community. Um and now I'm raising a family here and uh continuing to enjoy what Ely has to offer.

Lacey Squier 5:18

Did you play bass before?

SPEAKER_05 5:20

I did not actually. I played oboe in sixth grade.

Lacey Squier 5:23

Um, I don't even know what an oboe is.

SPEAKER_05 5:25

It's a read instrument, it's similar to a clarinet. Um, I did not take it seriously and never practiced. So when it came time for uh performances, I just kind of faked it. And I kind of my my siblings would say I ruined music for the family, ironically, because I didn't treat my instrument well and I didn't practice all these other things, and my parents said no instruments,

What brought you to Ely?

SPEAKER_05 5:45

you know, because they didn't want to deal with it for my other two younger siblings. Um, but eventually my sister did play trumpet and then my brother played violin. But yeah, there's a good little stretch.

Lacey Squier 5:53

There's a little redemption there.

SPEAKER_05 5:54

Yeah, my family was like, I don't know if we can uh we want to do this right now.

Lacey Squier 5:58

So the children can't be trusted with instruments, yep.

SPEAKER_05 6:00

Yeah, no, I fell into music in my 20s and kind of took it off from there, which I think was more organic, and I I took it seriously, you know? Yeah, um, I enjoyed it, and I mean with these guys, it was very much uh here, we're playing this, figure it out kind of thing. It wasn't like here's sheet music or here's anything else, it

Holtzie: "Next thing you know, I fell into a good little community..."

SPEAKER_05 6:18

was very much just kind of by feel and by ear. Um, so that was that was a really fun way to for me to come up in music, I think.

Lacey Squier 6:24

Yeah, wow. Do you remember how you guys met?

SPEAKER_05 6:27

Well, Nick Allen and I worked at a daycare together.

Lacey Squier 6:30

Cool.

SPEAKER_05 6:30

So I met Holtzie, and then Zeb's just he was always in proximity, and then well, everyone in town knows where to find him.

SPEAKER_07 6:36

Is it cool if I loan my base to this guy I work with? He's really cool, and I was like, Yeah, go for it. And it's been with him ever since.

Lacey Squier 6:43

Oh, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_05 6:44

And then Dylan was just like, he was the gypsy that was always around, but not around.

SPEAKER_07 6:48

And he he would come through and we'd play together, and then he'd be gone and we'd be like, Oh, it was really nice playing with that guy.

SPEAKER_05 6:53

Just as it got good, he decides he's gotta go venture off to Texas.

Lacey Squier 6:58

All right, well, thank you, Nick. Holtzie. Can I call you Holtzie?

SPEAKER_05 7:01

Yeah, you can call me Holtzie. Thanks.

SPEAKER_03 7:04

Al I uh I moved here in 2009, went to VCC, stuck around. Um and uh I met I think Dylan is one of the first people that I met in Ely. One of I think it may have been the second time he lived in Ely.

SPEAKER_06 7:23

But uh 2009, might have been right before I left the first time.

SPEAKER_03 7:28

Okay, but uh he actually uh introduced me to some people who play, uh you know, himself included, and that's kind of how I started uh uh dipping my toes in the music scene in in Ely and getting to know folks. Zeb and I worked at uh the boat house together while I was in college. That's how I met him. And uh we started jamming together pretty quickly once we found out we played.

SPEAKER_07 7:57

Haven't really given it up yet.

Lacey Squier 8:00

No, it

Quick interlude: How did you guys meet?

Lacey Squier 8:01

doesn't seem like it.

SPEAKER_07 8:02

Yeah, hard habit to shake.

SPEAKER_03 8:03

It is uh mighty addicting. Um Ely's a great place, the community's good, it's safe, it's you know just a good place to be. So I don't plan on leaving anytime soon.

Lacey Squier 8:19

Me neither. Cool, thank you. Well we'll we'll we'll circle back.

SPEAKER_07 8:24

Uh well I'm Zeb and I moved up here maybe 2012 for a summer job. I always wanted to move to Ely, like my brother lived up here, and I come up about when I was about 15, 16, and I always thought it was amazing that the road got narrower

Al: "I went to VCC and stuck around."

SPEAKER_07 8:40

and narrower until you just out of the wilderness poops, this little beautiful town. And uh it fascinated me. And I so I came up for a summer job and just kind of live in La Vita Ely ever since, you know, just couldn't get away from it.

Lacey Squier 8:55

Okay. I know you guys probably already developed all your merch, but I think live in La Vita Ely is something to consider developing. No a song lyric, perhaps.

SPEAKER_07 9:06

Definitely, you know, there's always room for more.

Lacey Squier 9:08

Yeah, yeah. Well, I do wanna I do just want listeners to know that if they want a more thorough introduction to Zeb, they can have it because we have linked in the show notes the Finding Zeb part one and part two series made in 2018 by your friend, childhood friend and collaborator.

SPEAKER_07 9:27

Uh, we used to work a lot together in the uh the drama department in the school, and we also were kind of band geeks together. And uh yeah, did a lot of writing different plays and different things like that, and then he got a hold of me years later, wanting to do this thing, and I was like, Yeah, you can come up and interview me. And he's like, I interviewed your your family, is that cool? It's like, yeah, that's that's fine. And yeah, it was uh it was a very interesting experience for sure.

Lacey Squier 9:50

Well, it's an utterly charming way to spend 20 minutes online. Oh, yeah, yeah, it's a really sweet story, and I think that it's

Zeb: "I came up for a summer job and have been living la vida Ely ever since."

Lacey Squier 10:01

it sort of does represent some aspect of you, Zeb. I don't feel like I know you very well, but there is a lot of the energy you bring is powerfully conveyed, but also the sort of mysticism I think people who don't live in Ely have around those of us who do is also captured. So good times. Maybe maybe you should do a follow-up. Does he still work in the biz?

SPEAKER_07 10:26

Yeah, we should. Oh, I'm sure he does.

Lacey Squier 10:29

All right, let's work on that afterwards.

SPEAKER_06 10:35

And uh yeah, I am so this is Dylan. I moved here originally in 2006 to go to VCC. I I left town the first time in 2009, despite my best efforts to to escape Ely, and I say that very tongue in cheek for the listener here, you know, like but um it's like you know, it always just draws you back in. Um bamboo to Montana for a while and then came back and was here for like five or six years full time, and then I was here only in the winters for quite a while, which is kind of an anomaly for a lot of people. Um then yeah, I was out gallivanting, working as a raft guide and doing whatever, but yeah, the as as getting older, you know, creeps in on you, like if we want to start a family, Ely seemed like a spot to do it. So that's kind of how we ended up at the back here.

Lacey Squier 11:28

Yeah. Cool. Thanks for sharing. Thanks for sharing. Um okay, so y'all are members of the band Stony River, and you're about to have an album release party.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

Yeah. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you.

Lacey Squier 11:44

That's really exciting. So the album release party is gonna be on Friday, July 24th, correct. At Ewe's Historic State Theater.

SPEAKER_03 11:51

Yep.

Lacey Squier 11:52

People can get tickets now at the State Theater website.

SPEAKER_03 11:54

Yeah, save five bucks.

Lacey Squier 11:56

That's I mean, that's a beer. That's right. That is um and we put the link in the show notes. But let's tell our listeners more about Stony River. And how about you guys just tell me a little bit more about Stony River? How did how did you choose the name?

Dillon: "If we wanted to start a family Ely seemed like the spot to do it."

SPEAKER_06 12:13

That's my fault. Oh um, so I I have like a running list of of like band names rolling around in the back of my head. Like oftentimes it's pretty tongue in cheap and tongue in cheek and off-color, you know. Um, when we were, I guess when I moved back to town and these boys were shifting gears from what were you guys at that point? The strings and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 12:38

We were close enough for country. Close enough for country, and we were in electric, yeah. Full electric band.

SPEAKER_06 12:44

Yeah, but I moved I moved back to town and ruined that, and then uh we were thankfully. Thank you. Thank you for ruining that. Yeah. And uh yeah, we were choosing band names, and I had a small pile of them, and this was yeah, you busted that one out, and everybody almost immediately agreed.

SPEAKER_07 13:00

Yep, no, that's the name.

Lacey Squier 13:02

You just feel it. Yep, it feels right.

SPEAKER_03 13:04

Well, I I have a deep love for the Stony River,

Stony River -- what's in a name?

SPEAKER_03 13:10

which uh starts kind of down in the Isabella area and flows into Birch Lake, uh, just east of Babbitt. And uh me and my buddy Van generally paddle it every spring while the water tie Nick Holtz has come with us. Oh it was. We wrapped a boat once, and you know that's quite the experience. It was pretty fun.

SPEAKER_06 13:32

I've been I've gone through some rapids backwards on that river before. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:35

Sometimes you start going forwards and you end up going backwards. Oh, that's life.

Lacey Squier 13:40

Yeah, that is life. Yeah, I don't think I've ever been on the Stony River. I'm aware of it, and I know we have Stony River Township as a neighboring township.

SPEAKER_03 13:50

Yep. So it's nicknamed the Bony River.

Lacey Squier 13:54

Oh.

SPEAKER_03 13:54

Because it's real rocky. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_07 13:57

Yeah, they weren't lying when they named it.

SPEAKER_03 13:59

Yep. There's a pretty small window where it's actually navigable in terms of in the spring, yeah.

Lacey Squier 14:07

Because the water has to be high.

SPEAKER_03 14:09

Yep. And once the melt is done, it's kind of game over, you know.

Lacey Squier 14:14

Well, that seems kind of poetic. It takes a little bit of regional know-how and a little bit of uh adventurous spirit to want to navigate Stony River. I like that. I like that. What a metaphor.

SPEAKER_06 14:27

I love a metaphor.

Lacey Squier 14:28

I love a metaphor. Yeah, yeah. Well, I know you mentioned Zeb that you're the primary lyricist. I'm so curious. I as like a as a music um, you know, amateur music aficionado who has no technical skill whatsoever, but generally extremely passionate about music, I'm always like, I'm all about the the lyrics, you know. I like to listen like I'm reading. I'm just curious about your process and when did you get into writing lyrics?

SPEAKER_07 14:58

And I've been making up songs since I can remember, honestly, one of those things, and just finally started to decide to kind of write them down and do something serious with it and actually work on the craft of things and like rewrites and check it out and actually come up with a viable story in a lot of ways. And then sometimes they just come to you and you're like, Oh, well, that's a song. But yeah, it's mostly just you know, it was a lot of sitting in a room with coffee and a guitar with the dogs listening to me sing stuff over and over and being like, I've had enough.

Lacey Squier 15:33

That's a charmed life for a dog, I think.

SPEAKER_03 15:35

For about 10 years, I have been telling Zeb that he needs to be our front man. We spent a lot of time trading, you know, the who's leading a song role back and forth, and we played a lot of gigs that way, and it always felt a little um maybe hard to get momentum going. Yeah, yeah, disconnected uh isn't quite the right word, but um you know, when when one person has a fixed role, it there's continuity there that kind of keeps people's attention, I think, a little better than oh, it's a Zeb song, oh, it's a Nick song,

Zeb, when did you get into writing lyrics? What is your process?

SPEAKER_03 16:13

oh, oh, oh, Nick's doing another one. Okay, okay, oh, now it's Zeb again, you know, and so it's been really fun to watch Zeb just like embrace that role and step in, like crank out something.

SPEAKER_07 16:26

I think when we were having the conversations early on in this band, I said something along the lines of fine, I'll be the front man.

SPEAKER_05 16:35

Yeah, but Zeb's pretty good at just ad living as well. Like, there's been times where he just starts like as a band, we'll come up with a jam and we'll just be trying to fill space, and then all of a sudden Zeb goes into the chorus, and we're like, Okay, and then we get through the song, we're like, wow, that was really good. Who wrote that? Zeb's like, I just wrote it right now.

SPEAKER_03 16:51

Yeah, free before you and and it will never be heard again. Yeah, right. Because he's unless there was a recording going on, he's not gonna remember it.

SPEAKER_06 17:01

They come in and then they go out to the world. Yep, or his or his rewrites for things like wheels on the bus. Right. Yeah, those are which we will not elaborate on.

SPEAKER_07 17:10

I will encourage all the

Zeb the frontman, the byproduct of growing up in a musical family

SPEAKER_07 17:12

young people out there to have fun with cadence and lyrics out there. Yes, it's a good time. Songs you know, have have some fun with it.

SPEAKER_03 17:19

You don't have to sing the right words, you just gotta sing in time. In time, correct, and hopefully in tune.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 17:28

Yeah, I think it's just a byproduct of growing up in a very musical family, whether whether you're good or not, you can make music kind of thing. And just walking around the house singing and stuff as kids, it was pretty natural. There were always instruments around and stuff, and it was always pretty well encouraged.

Lacey Squier 17:45

So yeah, that's really powerful to grow up in an environment where you're encouraged because you're all up on stage, or in whatever venue you're at, like people's eyes are on you. It must take a certain amount of confidence and like ability to get through feelings of discomfort in order to be out there doing all that. Or is it just old hat for you, or you get so into the flow of music that you don't feel that way anymore? You don't have to like build up to be on stage or performing.

SPEAKER_06 18:16

I would argue it's very relative to the stage you're standing on, probably.

SPEAKER_03 18:23

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 18:25

And you know, some days the nerves hit a little harder than others, kind of thing. And you're trying out new songs and stuff in front of people and just building up the confidence level to that. And if you're doing everything right, nobody sees that you were freaking out the whole time.

unknown 18:39

Yep.

Lacey Squier 18:40

Have you been playing original music all along?

SPEAKER_07 18:43

Back and forth, yes.

SPEAKER_03 18:45

Yeah, we always would hide them in the covers, right? We'd play a bunch of covers and three of those songs would be ours, but you wouldn't know. You know.

Lacey Squier 18:57

Well,

What does the process of making a new song look like?

Lacey Squier 18:58

what does the process of making a new song and then recording it look like?

SPEAKER_07 19:05

Currently, I'll show up with about a half, two or three quarters fleshed out song. Yep. Put it to the band, and then they'll take it.

Lacey Squier 19:14

And you've already got like melodies and yeah.

SPEAKER_07 19:16

Generally in my eye in my head, I have some some ideas, and yeah, typically try to have a chorus ready, just a hook to bring everything back. And but these guys help flesh it out.

SPEAKER_03 19:27

Yeah, I would say I would say that the the melody, the melodies usually evolve from the band playing together. You know, there's the there's the lyrics and the singing and that melody going on. You come with that in place, but as far as you know fleshing it out to be a full song, a hook that's gonna come back every time a verse finishes or something, that stuff kind of just pops out as we play something a hundred times or it generally falls together pretty organically.

SPEAKER_05 20:04

Yep. Yeah, the rhythm kind of evolves a little bit too between you know, Zeb's kind of rhythm bass with his guitar, but then we have the mandolin and the bass as well, so we all kind of just kind of towed try to steer the boat a little bit

Have you been playing original music all along?

SPEAKER_05 20:15

there in the beginning, and then we're kind of like, Oh, wait, I liked what you did there. I'm gonna copy that.

SPEAKER_07 20:19

Oh, wait, but you did this, and how you hear it one week might be different than how you hear it the next week because of that very dynamic. Yeah, we we have fun with it, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:27

You the songs you've already recorded are still evolving.

SPEAKER_03 20:30

Yeah, the songs on our forthcoming album. Uh, we we made a pretty uh uh active decision at one point a couple of years ago to actually try something seriously versus just fooling around and doing it for fun. Uh and we had been playing gigs around town and and just taking the money that we would make, putting it in a bank account for a few years, so we had a little bit of capital to work with. Yep. And Zeb wrote all of these songs in about a two and a half month period of time. Uh, after we decided, oh hey, let's uh let's book a studio for you know February, and it's November right now, and you know, so not only did he crank these tunes out just rapid fire, um, but then somehow we managed to get them polished up, you know. Yeah, he'd be you know pretty short span.

SPEAKER_06 21:36

Yeah, Zeb be showing up to open Mike Knight with just like try to have a when did you write that? He's like, Oh, yesterday.

SPEAKER_07 21:42

Try to have a mix every week during that time period, just so whether it was good or not, we could start working on it and fleshing it out and things like that. And it was a very interesting way to write an album, I think. And yeah, we're still working on those songs and trying to make them better. I think it made it more.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

More cohesive.

SPEAKER_07 22:01

It made a very good album and it's made a very good band so far, the way that it's working.

Lacey Squier 22:05

So what a power, it's just like a product of a time. It's

"We made an active decision a couple of years ago to seriously work on our music."

Lacey Squier 22:11

very time based and place-based project. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:15

Which was kind of our goal. We were just trying, I mean, with Zeb being the lightning, we were trying to capture that in a in a job, essentially.

Lacey Squier 22:22

So wow. So what's the album called?

SPEAKER_07 22:25

Ten Miles of Bad Road.

Lacey Squier 22:27

Ten Miles of Bad Road.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

Which is uh a single that we have already released. Yes, and you can find said track on all your streaming services.

Lacey Squier 22:35

Yes, I think.

SPEAKER_07 22:36

I believe that was our our one take, wasn't it? It may be long gone was our one take. We did do one song and one take in the studio.

SPEAKER_05 22:45

It's very impressive to us, anyways. Yeah, because it was the first time for the three of us, Dylan, Zeb and I, Nick, Holtz, but Nick Allen has had some experience in the in the studio before, so it was like it was a little nerve-wracking. I think we kind of wasted the first day a little bit, and we still we got good good stuff on, um, but it was a little bit, you know, it was a little bit a new experience for all of us. It was quite interesting.

SPEAKER_06 23:07

Yeah, shutting the nerves down on that was it took a little bit.

Lacey Squier 23:11

There's so much lore to that, like just thinking about artists in the studio and how legendary that can be. And you know you're doing something important, you know you're doing something expensive.

SPEAKER_03 23:24

Yeah, that's there's just a lot of pressure, yeah, you know, right.

Lacey Squier 23:27

Yeah, so of course, and like why would you show up to a new space and do something you've never done before and it just goes perfectly smoothly the first time? Like it makes sense to me that it would take some time to get into a flow. Where were you? Where's the studio? Who were you working with? Oh, we went uh pure nosing.

SPEAKER_03 23:45

We went to uh Sparta Sound, which is Rich Matson's studio. Oh, yeah. Uh in Sparta, Minnesota, which is uh Ghost Town, uh Ghost Town on the range. Uh and I actually think I credit him and Jermaine's uh

Recording 10 Miles of Bad Road

SPEAKER_03 24:00

hospitality with the reason that things went so well.

SPEAKER_07 24:05

They did a great job putting us at ease.

SPEAKER_03 24:07

Yeah, within five hours of being there, these three had calmed down and we were actually doing work, right? And you know, my first time going to a studio that was not my experience. Uh we it was kind of a hot mess the whole time we were there, you know.

SPEAKER_07 24:26

I also saw moments when each of us had to say we're taking a break. Oh, absolutely. You know, you get overwhelmed sometimes doing stuff like that.

Lacey Squier 24:34

Well, my my relationship to craft and artistry is just through writing, and I cannot imagine the pressure of like trying to produce something and record it at the same time, and you're like making decisions about how to proceed. It'd just be like you know, the generative process and then the editing process are so different, but your time in the studio is so precious and so limited, you end up having to do both at once, and that would just be that would be really overwhelming.

SPEAKER_07 25:02

I say how it worked for me when we were in the studio. The best way I could say is that when we would go back and listen to the stuff that we just recorded, I'd have to listen to it not like I was listening to myself, but like we were just listening to a band that you know was playing on, and that made things so much easier to judge on all those things and make those calls. Just like judge it strictly on the music, not on what you your shortcomings that you feel are coming through or anything else. Just listen to it solely for that.

Lacey Squier 25:32

Yeah, like become disembodied a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 25:35

Objective.

SPEAKER_05 25:36

Yeah, and our our process in the studio was we did it all live, so we all kind of circled up. Um eventually we did put Nick Allen in a cage because I like cleaning through a lot of microphones, but uh, we were all kind of circled up looking at each other, and we'd run through the song all together in real time. So we I mean, there was a there's not really any studio magic on the album.

SPEAKER_03 25:55

There's a lot of there are I think there are two songs on the album that have some overdubs, but most of them are just live actual live takes.

SPEAKER_05 26:07

Yeah, yeah. So that that kind of is fun. I that I think helped um capture who we are as a band um by doing it all live instead of just tracking the whole thing out. I think it kind of gave it a little bit more uh more body.

SPEAKER_07 26:18

Play 40 shows in a weekend and take the best of the cuts. Yeah.

Lacey Squier 26:23

Speaking of who you are as a band, I mean, I know I gave a little bit of intro at the beginning. I used your words, really came from your website. Um feels very authentic to me, having heard your music, and we've put all the links in the show notes, people should and will listen. But I'm just curious, how would you describe your music and your style?

SPEAKER_01 26:42

Fun.

SPEAKER_06 26:43

Just what is fun? It's grassy, but it's loose. We're yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 26:51

We got one rule, and that's if we're not having fun, we're not doing it anymore. That's a good rule. Yep.

Lacey Squier 26:57

But I gotta dig in. What does the word grassy mean?

SPEAKER_05 27:01

Well, it's funny. We saw there's this old album. It's uh I'm gonna mess it up, but we have it. Jane found it at um uh Rick's Relics, but it's the Moose Wallow Ramblers, and they're uh old Iron Range band. Uh and this guy, John Burquist, who's like an Iron Range legend, he had one of the show one of the notes for one of the um tracks was uh uh it was uh northern crabgrass at its best. And we kind of were like, you know what? We don't really play traditional bluegrass, um, we don't play country, you know, as far as what it is today.

SPEAKER_07 27:35

We're not quite found by any of those combos that those have, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 27:38

So we're like, you know what? Let's just call it northern crabgrass because you know I feel like John Burquist would listen

Shout out to John Berquist of the Moose Wallow Ramblers

SPEAKER_05 27:43

to our music and be like, that's northern crabgrass. I think he would be proud. Um but yeah, so I don't know if we really kind of fall into anything like that.

SPEAKER_07 27:52

Yeah, our own branch of Americana, yeah, up here. Blue bluegrass adjacent, but like you know, we're not just saying bluegrass and yeah, bluegrass instruments with modern influences, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:04

We're also missing a banjo. That's fair. And you can't play bluegrass music without a banjo.

SPEAKER_06 28:09

Way to go, Earl Scruggs.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

Just the way it is, right? Those are the rules. There is

How would you describe Stony River's style? What does it mean to be grassy, but loose?

SPEAKER_03 28:15

bluegrass music, is a pretty strict traditional formula, right? There is it's a five-piece band. There are set expectations for each instrument as far as how you are playing and what you are playing, and we are just way too uh loose for that.

SPEAKER_07 28:33

That's a good way to put it loose.

SPEAKER_06 28:35

It also, though, because we don't have the banjo, it it like gives us freedom to like fill in some of that space. Totally.

Lacey Squier 28:43

Yeah, it has more dynamism perhaps than that formula that you're talking about. Sure. Yeah. So I'm curious do you do you sort of aspire to uh represent the iron range with your music?

SPEAKER_07 29:00

We definitely would we want to be recognized as an Ely band. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 29:05

This is this is where we've made all of our music as adults, and this is how it needs to be re-represented. Yeah. Because it's one of the things that really amazed me when I first came up here is that was back in the Tuesday Night Lives days, and there was music all over the place. And for like a young me and Nick running around, it was very nice to go see live music from all these older guys and then go to go to the the open mic night that they would have over at the the steakhouse and all the places that would let us just sit out back and play music and stuff for them, and it was yeah, it was a good time. Like it's the town definitely wants music in it, and we're happy to be doing our part as we get older.

Lacey Squier 29:45

You're doing a lot. That's that's one of my questions for you as a crew. I mean,

What does giving back to the community look like to you?

Lacey Squier 29:50

I know that it's not all Stony River, I think each of you individually is doing different things in the in the local music scene, but I I wonder, yeah, if you would take a moment to popcorn share the different things that you're doing in terms of an extracurricular engagement to kind of foster the live music scene or the arts and culture scene in town. I just want to take a moment to celebrate the different things that y'all are up to.

SPEAKER_06 30:17

Holtz he's the premier sound guy in town, you know.

SPEAKER_05 30:19

Yeah, that's kind of what got me into it too. Um, which that was funny too. I was yeah, I caught a show at the bowling alley, like you're talking earlier, and Dylan was one of those times where

"We want to be recognized as an Ely band."

SPEAKER_05 30:28

he was in town, and I think it was actually the three of these guys, and then they had a buddy Dan who was playing some percussive instrument. And he had the washboard, yeah. I was having a few beers and dancing, and I went up to Nick and I was like, Hey man, you gotta turn that mandolin up. And he's like, Oh, sure, okay. And he turned the mandolin up a little bit in the mix, and you know, a couple days later at work he's kind of like, Hey man, you ever you ever like done any sort of like live you know mixing or anything like that? I was like, I have no clue. And it's like, well, I think you know, if if you're interested, we'd really love to have you as our sound engineer. Yep, and that was for Van and the Free Candies at the time too. And uh, so he brought me on, and Mike Gemberlin was the uh their sound engineer at the time, and they had this giant old PV uh analog mixer from 1978. I think it was rumored to have come out of first AV at one point.

SPEAKER_03 31:15

Yeah, which whatever.

SPEAKER_05 31:17

Oh, I think it's absolute fact. Yeah, uh, so anyway, so it's this big thing, and I just remember Mike uh he helped he like he set it all up, he showed me what to do, he did the first set, and then he's like, Hey man, I gotta go feed my dogs, I'll be back. And then it comes time for the second set, and he's not really around, and I'm like, we gotta like okay, bring the band back up and so you know, whatever. So then I into the frying pan. Yeah, so I started just doing it. And I mean, it was all the hard work was pretty much. Yeah, I was just playing with dials. That's how we handle him. I thrive under pressure, I like it. Yeah, um, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:02

When I gave him said electric bass all those years ago to learn on, uh, it was about a week before we played at the bowling alley, and he he He was our sound guy. He was our sound guy who then became our bass player for that game.

SPEAKER_07 32:15

Halfway through the game, it was like, come on stage, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:18

Hey buddy, you should come up here. Oh, so we play one song, and then you say, Well, you can't leave now. Yeah, can't take the bass away.

SPEAKER_05 32:24

Yeah, because I'd had it, yeah, like you said, for like a week or two, and then they had they were rehearsing at we were playing with Andy Mesterschmann at the time, yeah, and he has the church over there, and so we were rehearsing there, and I was used to like seeing them all in front of me, right? Um, and whatever. So we went to that first rehearsal and they looked at me like, You're good enough, bud, we're doing it. And I'm like, okay. And we show up to the bowling alley, and every they turn around to face a crowd, logically, and I'm like, Hold on a sec, I need to read your guitars, like I need I need your fingers, right? Yeah, so we tried we tried to put Zeb's tuner backwards so I could see it, but when you play a chord, you know, it's it's either a triad or sometimes they're four. But if I may not be the note that the fourth so the the tuners bouncing around all these different things, and I'm just like, oh gosh, I don't know what I'm doing up here. I'm gonna give you the thumbs up every time. Hold on.

Lacey Squier 33:09

I mean, I just I was about to remark on how like wholesome it is that this group of friends really encouraged each other to grow into their talents, and now I'm thinking you guys just hazed each other.

SPEAKER_03 33:22

There may have been wild hazing involved. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 33:24

Hey, you want to borrow the space gigs on Friday?

SPEAKER_05 33:29

But no, that was good. I liked it, you know. And now, yeah, now I do different things with you know, anywhere from the state theater to Washington Auditorium. I collaborate with NLAA.

Lacey Squier 33:38

Yeah, you're helping Link facilitate the live theater productions, yeah. Concerts that come to town.

SPEAKER_05 33:43

Yeah, correct. So yeah, it's been fun. Um I kind of liked being backstage, and then now it's like I'm kind of addicted to being in front of people like that. I really, I really like being on stage. I don't know if I'd you know you'll catch me in like a theatrical performance. Right. Um I don't know if I can dance and remember lines, but if if I'm just ripping a big thing.

SPEAKER_07 34:03

If they forced you to do it, you could do it.

SPEAKER_05 34:04

I'm sure I could.

Lacey Squier 34:05

Yeah, if you if you were just told to go up on stage. Next week, you're in Jesus Christ Superstar.

SPEAKER_05 34:11

Here we go. You'll figure it out. I'll figure it out. I could be an understudy.

Lacey Squier 34:13

Yeah. Judas. Yeah, yeah. That's a good fit because you'd be Judicing Judas, and that would probably be annoying for Austin, but anyways. So um, Nick, what about you? You got some extra curriculum.

SPEAKER_03 34:27

Uh yeah, so I I guess by default, I organize the open mic night at the boathouse throughout the winter with a lot of help from these guys. Right. It's it's definitely not a team me thing, it's a we thing. But you're the primary contact. I would say that about all aspects of the I am the one who uh actually went to Brian and said, hey dude, the steakhouse isn't doing an open mic night anymore, and we need to have an open mic night in this town. It's just that's like a I I believe that's a crucial piece of a community that without it there there is no arts like music scene anymore. Uh, because that's where everybody learns, right? That's where I learned. Where I grew up in Stillwater, Minnesota, and there's an open mic night every other night of the week, right? Literally four nights a week. You can go somewhere and people will let you make noise in front of a whole room of people, whether you should be or not, you know. And uh, so I thought that needed to be here still. And we Nick Holtz and I, man, we did a solid two years. I I don't want to exaggerate, but it may have been three years of just us. Zeb was working at the boathouse, so he wasn't able to like every every once in a while he would come out, you know, maybe once or twice throughout the winter where he would actually be able to play with us. But Nick and I, for an entire couple of seasons, played for three hours with no one there.

Lacey Squier 35:59

No one

Organizing open mic night at the Boathouse

Lacey Squier 36:00

else was drinking.

SPEAKER_03 36:01

Because no one would come to play. There would be three people sitting in the bar listening to us and being very kind.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:09

You know, and uh eventually, you know, one person showed up and then couple of their buddies show up. A few weeks later, another person shows up, and now it's turned into this really cool scene where you know by by the time the season is uh I only do it between uh well after deer season and then through April. Uh but uh um yeah, and sometimes it doesn't really fire up until like after Christmas. You never really know. But um once it's going gangbusters, there's there there's like a fight over the signup sheet where if you're not there by 6 15, you're not getting on the signup sheet at all. And there's 12 spots, right? And keep our build, right? Yeah, and the and the whole yeah, the bars full, it's just a super cool way to spend time together in the winter when the community really kind of comes in on itself, and uh there's not a lot going on.

Lacey Squier 37:12

Well, it's like a family affair, there'll be kids running.

SPEAKER_03 37:14

Absolutely, yeah.

Lacey Squier 37:15

Like every generation is there. Yep, it's a really fun social scene, and it's a wonderfully enriching music experience.

SPEAKER_07 37:23

The player-to-player support that you see on all levels of it is kind of amazing. Like, you know, everybody gets nervous before they play, and they people get confused when I tell them it's like I I do too. Oh, yeah. Just sing to the microphone and you'll be fine. Right. Yeah, don't look at everybody. So many people go up on stage for their first time of all ages at this point. Right. And it has it's been an amazing thing to watch all the other musicians supporting each other and coming back every week a little bit better. You can tell they're practicing at home and they're working on new things, and it's been it's been beautiful.

Lacey Squier 37:56

And just getting more like full throated, whether like literally or rhetorically, they're just showing up with more like more anchored in their own power and ten.

SPEAKER_03 38:04

As they get a little more confidence and then the little the little micro groups that form up.

SPEAKER_07 38:09

Yep, yeah. More more music in town's good, and it's been very nice to see.

SPEAKER_03 38:12

Yeah, yeah. So I also do uh the Shagua Shindig down at Seamers Beachindag for the Fourth of July. Congratulations, and uh yeah, I was trying to figure out how many years we've been doing it. I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_05 38:28

I think it's pretty similar to open mic, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:30

It's gotta be eight years give or take. Uh and that's really grown too. I mean, the first year we did it, I think there were three bands, two of them were my bands. Uh, and uh it was super fun, and then we've had years where it rained and there wasn't a whole lot going on, and you know, the last few years we've got really lucky with our weather, and it has really blossomed into a super cool scene similar to open mic, where it's just a bunch of families having a good afternoon, and uh that's one of my main pieces with any kind of music going on is that there's no age limit, right? Right, it is supposed to be an all-ages thing. There should be babies and there should be people who are 80 years old, you know. That's what's bringing everybody together and actually making it fun. And the coolest part of the Seamers thing for me, I've said it quite a few times this week because we just did it and it's fresh. But I do a lap around that park after we get everything cleaned up. I found one singular beer can on the ground.

Organizing the Shagawa Shindig at Semers Beach on the Fourth of July

SPEAKER_03 39:48

And there had to have been 150 people there that day, you know, you know.

Lacey Squier 39:52

I would say for the record, like absolutely way more than 150 people. Well, yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 39:56

I'm trying to be conservative, yeah, yeah.

Lacey Squier 39:58

I would say multiple hundred people.

SPEAKER_03 40:00

Yeah, yeah. There, but yeah, everybody is super kind and and everybody knows the mission, right? We're there to have a good time and we're there to do it again next year. Yeah, and if we trash the park or we make a scene, or you know, that isn't gonna happen anymore. And so it's really great to just know that you know the community has our back and you know wants to help us facilitate this fun, you know.

Lacey Squier 40:27

People are grateful for the amount of work. I think people see, you know, you guys getting there early and setting it up and staying late and tearing it down, and generally understand it's a labor of love and it's about being interested in cultivating a music scene. That's like the principle of like, well, there has to be an open mic and there has to be local music on party

The Ely music scene has no age limit, it supposed to an all ages thing.

Lacey Squier 40:50

weekends, and yeah, we wanna we wanna make it happen because we see the value.

SPEAKER_07 40:56

A lot of these things started because the old things that were going on were working them theirselves out, and well, we're not gonna see that happen. So yeah, yeah, someone's gotta step up.

Lacey Squier 41:06

Someone who was leading now is kind of like sunsetting their engagement, and who's gonna step up?

SPEAKER_03 41:12

Now there was a there was a couple of real bleak years kind of when the Tuesday night lives died, and it was rough. The steakhouses open mic died, and there was just no music at all in town. I had a little meltdown and almost left because it was like, man, I can't, I can't live in a place like this. Uh, but I didn't want to leave, so I just decided that it we'd make it happen again, right? You know, by any means necessary.

SPEAKER_07 41:41

And it's been another thing really cool to see is a lot of those old timer guys kind of giving the nod, like good to see you're out there doing that.

Lacey Squier 41:48

Yeah, yeah, what an honor to be seen.

SPEAKER_07 41:52

Yeah, it's it's pretty cool.

Lacey Squier 41:54

Yeah. What are there any other extracurriculars? I mean, y'all are out here raising family, so that's pretty huge. Yeah, that's definitely anchored.

SPEAKER_03 42:03

That's that's not extra, that's just curriculum. That's life. Yeah, that's that's life.

Lacey Squier 42:07

Yeah, that's an anchor part of life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 42:11

Yeah. Um Al and I also both play with Van and the Free Candies.

SPEAKER_07 42:17

Um, which you know two bands, a baby and a full-time job, geez.

SPEAKER_06 42:24

Yeah, I mean sometimes it feels like a lot, but it's also super fun. You know, like there's there's points throughout the summer it's like, why do I do this? But uh, but it's good. And it's it's also like like the candies are such a different it's such a different beast to a point, you know, like in a great way that uh it's like a nice way to mix it up, you know, like you're not just getting burnt out on doing the one Yeah, you're not doing the same thing over and over, right?

Lacey Squier 42:48

Quote that changed my life uh the best rest is a change of work.

SPEAKER_03 42:52

Yeah, that's a good that's a good I've I've leaned on that a lot, you know.

Lacey Squier 42:58

Switch it up a little bit.

SPEAKER_06 43:02

If you can't tell though, Nick Allen's the visionary of the band.

Lacey Squier 43:06

I it's I see that there's many roles to be played. Absolutely. But I also see Nick that you have been an anchor of persistence and vision. I'm curious for all of you guys, like just call it stubborn.

SPEAKER_07 43:21

Yeah, yeah.

Lacey Squier 43:22

Tomato tomato. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 43:24

Okay.

Lacey Squier 43:25

What is the future you're working towards? Like what's the vision? And

Two bands, a baby, and a full time job

Lacey Squier 43:29

I don't want to I'm not asking that to discount where we're at, because I think the place we're at is so beautiful, right? You've the place you're at, I say we, but I just mean as a community and as someone who who gets the pleasure of participating as a a patron and a viewer. But like where we're at is so beautiful. Weekly open mic nights in the season where we can really come together, big parties in the summer, album release party, recording new work, like all of that is so beautiful. But I want to hold space for whatever you might want to manifest for the future.

SPEAKER_07 44:00

You know, I don't really how big do you want the dream to be? Yeah.

Lacey Squier 44:06

It goes all over. As big as it is for you.

SPEAKER_05 44:09

Yeah, I don't know. I think it'd be fun to play, you know, three or four regional festivals, you know, in the summertime and maybe put one on up here. That'd be kind of fun.

Lacey Squier 44:17

Could be a good time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 44:21

Short stints on the road. Nothing too crazy. I mean, with with the you know, young families, it's like we're kind of the days of hopping in a van and cruising the country.

SPEAKER_03 44:30

Well, we just gotta have two vans.

SPEAKER_05 44:31

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 44:32

We gotta have the family van and the non-family van.

Nick Allen, anchor of persistence and vision

SPEAKER_03 44:36

Right.

SPEAKER_06 44:37

Come convince my wife that she's gonna go on the road chasing the van around. I don't know, man. And she spent a lot of time living in a van. I don't know. She just got out of that place.

SPEAKER_03 44:50

Um boy, I've spent so much time trying to get to this point that I don't have a whole lot of like pressing bigger dreams. I just am grateful for what is going on and the fact that I get to be part of it, right?

Lacey Squier 45:09

Well, and I ask in part just as a way of getting at my my actual question, which is I suppose how can this community, and there's so many people who love Ely, right? There's so it's not just the people who live in the region, it is also the 326,000 people a year who come to town.

SPEAKER_07 45:28

So anywhere we go, people have an Ely story.

Lacey Squier 45:31

Yeah, and so how can that cohort of people support you in in your dreams? You know, and I mean it seems like the first answer is go to the album release party. That's a good start. So buy a ticket, buy a ticket, and if you can't go to the album release party, is there any way? I mean, people can buy merch maybe after it's over or something.

SPEAKER_03 45:51

Uh we currently do not have any kind of an online store.

SPEAKER_07 45:56

Um but our music is up on streaming.

SPEAKER_03 45:58

Our music is up on streaming. Uh I think that I think you will be able to, you know, purchase it from Apple Music or something like that, which we would certainly appreciate over the free streams. Um, but don't let that stop you from listening. Right. If I'd rather have it listened. However, you listen, just keep listening uh and keep showing up when when we do stuff because it's way more fun when folks are there. Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_05 46:25

Or go catch, you know, a local show wherever you have. Wherever you're at. Yeah, go see live music. You might have music. Yeah, you might not be supporting us, but you're supporting someone like us, you know, which is all it's all good, I think.

SPEAKER_06 46:37

Yeah, down the road we might end up with like more of an online presence merch store situation. We're we're currently like with the album release party. Like

How can the Ely community support Stony River? Listen, show up, purchase merch!

SPEAKER_06 46:45

we just kind of did the big merch splurge. Um, so we are, I think, kind of trying to gauge your business.

SPEAKER_03 46:52

Yeah, we're trying to gauge like I don't know what sales are gonna look like. Right. What should our inventory look like? Yeah, where should we stick it? How much overhead should we be carrying?

Lacey Squier 47:03

I had to take myself off the merch committee for the Ely Film Festival because I was not an asset to that process.

SPEAKER_05 47:09

Were you over buying or?

Lacey Squier 47:11

I was overbuying, yes. Well, what we actually yeah, I had to famously I panicked because we had such good sales on the first day that I was like, we should get more.

SPEAKER_07 47:20

And then we had more.

Lacey Squier 47:21

No, first day sales are not the same as second day sales. Anyways, I digress.

SPEAKER_03 47:26

Yeah, I mean the business side of things is totally foreign to us, right? You're entrepreneurs now.

SPEAKER_06 47:34

I mean strings and stuff productions.

SPEAKER_03 47:36

Yeah, we got a we got a production company LLC that we're doing to make sure that we cover our our uh tax liability uh because we don't want I don't want the IRS coming to my house, right? Nor we gotta make sure we're on the up and up. Yeah. So so that's all been a pretty fun new adventure. And just just trying to think about okay, if we order this many stickers, it's this price. But if we order this many stickers, it's a different price. And where does that sweet spot live? Do we get you know, do we get 72 t shirts in this run or do we do 36? Right. How many albums should we get produced?

SPEAKER_07 48:25

Right, right. A little bit of practice in reading the future.

SPEAKER_03 48:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do we really think we can sell 100 of these? I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 48:33

Yeah, we have a hundred vinyl records, that'll be for some.

SPEAKER_03 48:35

Yeah, well, we have uh slightly less five hundred vinyl records, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 48:41

Yeah. On the 24th.

SPEAKER_06 48:43

Yeah, yeah. So that's interesting. Yeah, some of those things too, like yeah, like there's not exactly like a local um producer of vinyl, for example. Like we went, we went with like our most local option, which was a company called Outawax out of the cities. Um but like And they were great. Yeah, it's an expensive endeavor though,

Entering the world of entrepreneurship

SPEAKER_06 49:03

to to do something like that. You know, so it's like how much it's like it's a big gamble, I guess, is where I'm trying to go. Yeah. Like, how how much of this do you want to just like have sitting in boxes? Like, is it going to move? Is it not?

Lacey Squier 49:16

Well, I hope listeners hear you say that it's limited edition, right? Because there's only a hundred of these records out there for the first edition. And so this is like get it while you can, because it actually it could go fast, right? And so hopefully people are really motivated. I I'm really I don't know, I always fear that it sounds condescending to tell someone you're proud of them. Like, but I feel so proud that you all would be getting into that entrepreneurial space, and that's something I keep observing in town among my friends and and just people I know is that there's this sort of like drive to like we want to own it, we wanna have the process, we wanna sell a product, we wanna I don't know, not to be reductive about like art and business, but I think it's really powerful that you've come to this stage of your growth as a band.

SPEAKER_07 50:11

Yeah, it's been it's been very interesting to have something to just kind of show all the work that we've been doing for a long time and uh I'm pretty excited about it. Pretty excited to share with a broader audience as well and just let people listen.

SPEAKER_06 50:25

We we are also like relatively fortunate because we get to like learn from what's worked for Vane and the Free Candies, for example.

SPEAKER_03 50:36

Yeah, that's true.

Lacey Squier 50:37

Um we're all standing on the shoulders of others, right?

SPEAKER_07 50:41

I would say the wives keep everything moving too. Yeah, they keep they keep us on track.

Lacey Squier 50:47

Shout out to the wives, shout out to the wives, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 50:50

Kane and Brittany, thanks. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 50:52

Thank you guys. Dylan, you mentioned um getting in front of a larger audience. I was looking at Al's shirt over here. You guys just played a pretty good size regional festival. We did.

Lacey Squier 51:05

Tell us about it.

SPEAKER_04 51:06

Oh, it was excellent, it was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_06 51:08

Yeah, we got uh we got to play the backwood stage at Blue Ox a couple two weeks ago now, something like that.

SPEAKER_07 51:15

Got to rep Ely down in Wisconsin for everybody, yeah. It was uh by all accounts, we did a good job.

SPEAKER_03 51:23

Yeah, I mean, I couldn't have been happier. We you know, we did a a pretty expensive or extensive uh practice regime going into it, right? We really wanted to have we were getting together three times a week.

Lacey Squier 51:39

Well, we talked to the point where like I've been sleeping like no more than four hours a night.

SPEAKER_03 51:43

Oh, yeah, for weeks, you know, and but it paid off. I mean, we went up there, it went off m without a hitch.

SPEAKER_06 51:51

Anxiety be damned, we didn't we didn't botch it. Yeah. Oh, I did it. There's the explicit, sorry. But we could go more. Whoa.

Lacey Squier 52:01

But I think it's important too to note there was like a voting function to this, right? Like that was the year.

SPEAKER_03 52:07

So we learned we lost oh so last year we did a band competition to try and play a Bluox, and

Shout out to the wives, they keep everything on track.

SPEAKER_03 52:15

we got third in the competition, and the folks who organize it said, Hey, you know, we try to keep uh a couple of the bands that didn't win this competition in mind for the following year's lineup. So just leave this weekend open for us for for a little while. And I thought they were just giving us, you know, like

On playing the Blue Ox Music Festival

SPEAKER_03 52:35

lip service. Yeah, you know, sorry you didn't win, yeah, let you down, easy kind of thing. But uh we saw we ended up it was our own Christmas.

SPEAKER_07 52:43

I saw it online and sent it to the group chat of the guys, and it's like, hey, they're taking submissions if you were abandoned, you think you'd fit in at Blue Ox. So we just submitted our stuff into it, and within it within a week or so.

SPEAKER_03 52:56

Yeah, I think it was two days after we uh submitted it, and they had reached out and said, Oh yeah, we got a set for you, you know.

SPEAKER_07 53:04

Wow, and that's yeah, one thing led to another.

SPEAKER_03 53:08

We got to play.

SPEAKER_06 53:09

Yeah, yeah. It was it was great too. Like the sound was good, like the whole yeah, the whole atmosphere about or surrounding it was great for the most part.

SPEAKER_03 53:17

Yeah, the porta potties were clean every time I went in. I mean, they were important, they were they were cleaning those things three times a day. Seriously, you know, and there was never I mean, it was just uh, you know, I've been to many music festivals in my life, and that was a very well put on get together, you know. They they got it figured out down there, they know what they're up to.

SPEAKER_05 53:41

I was excited. I just got to plug and play. I didn't have to set anything, I didn't have to get everybody else's lines checked before I checked my monitors.

SPEAKER_03 53:51

It was your hometown, David. It was my hometown. That's the first time you ever played.

Lacey Squier 53:57

Yeah, that's pretty badass.

SPEAKER_05 53:59

Yeah, I was raised in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, so that was kind of fun.

Lacey Squier 54:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 54:02

It was fun to get back there and see it. Saw a lot of people I haven't seen in a lot of years. What a homecoming. It was good, yeah. It was a lot of fun.

Lacey Squier 54:08

And did y'all invite them to Ely on July 24th?

SPEAKER_05 54:11

We tried to do it.

SPEAKER_07 54:11

Well, we certainly said anybody will listen. Yeah, yeah.

Lacey Squier 54:16

I'm excited for you. I think we're kind of coming to the the end of our time here. So I wonder if there's anything you would have as a final word, maybe related to Stony River, your experience as musicians, or just living living on the edge of the wilderness.

SPEAKER_06 54:36

Uh I would like to say, like, circling back a little bit, you know, like the the community is like very embracing of us as musicians, and like not just us in in particular, but like it is really nice to see the community come together and like just like the open mic thing, you know, like you got that good old Northwoods pride where it's like negative 20 outside, and people are like, I can go out. I'm going in. I'm doing it. English.

SPEAKER_07 54:58

I thought about not coming in tonight, but it was like, no, I'm not letting anybody down, and I showed up.

SPEAKER_03 55:02

Yeah, I mean, there was a gal that was driving from Finland, Minnesota to come to open mic night on Wednesdays through blizzards, right? I mean, that's pretty cool.

Lacey Squier 55:13

She's probably looking forward to it all week, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 55:16

Jeremy will drive up from Aurora, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:19

Yeah, after he works at the mine all day, he'd show up covered in dust and ready to play. It's like, hell yeah, that's what we're looking for, right there. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 55:30

Just yeah, a really good showing of the community supporting each other and just wanting to be part of something bigger.

SPEAKER_06 55:38

Yeah, and then we also should give a plug. We've got a fantastic opener for we do for our album release party.

SPEAKER_03 55:46

Thor Leesman and his uh cohort of folks are gonna come up and do an opening set for us. He's out uh machinen um and is is fantastic, so look him up as well. He just his band, Thor Leisman and the Regulars, just released an album probably in the spring three months ago, yeah, something like that. And it's available everywhere, and it's I I certainly enjoy it. I

The Ely community really embraces music.

SPEAKER_03 56:13

spin it at least you know once a week or so. Sounds great.

Lacey Squier 56:16

We'll put a link in the show notes. Yeah, cool. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_07 56:19

Cool, support each other, support local music.

SPEAKER_03 56:24

Yeah, go to live music. Yeah, enjoy yourself. Don't listen to AI Slop.

Lacey Squier 56:30

Do not do that. What a pleasure to have you guys on the show. So great to be in conversation with you.

SPEAKER_05 56:37

Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_03 56:38

Yeah, thank you. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for giving us this space to chat.

Lacey Squier 56:42

You're welcome. And I would just say on behalf of the community, thank you for all that you do. You know, the the hours you spend rehearsing, the the creativity you put into having original music and just being standout musicians. It's it's really awesome.

SPEAKER_06 56:57

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Lacey Squier 56:59

And listeners, you're awesome too. We love you. Thank you for listening. Um be sure to check out Stony River through the show notes and buy your tickets to the album release party. We'll see you at Ewe's Historic State Theater on Friday, July 24th.

unknown 57:16

Doors at 5.

Lacey Squier 57:16

5 p.m. Doors doors at five.

SPEAKER_03 57:18

Doors at five, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 57:19

Fabulous prizes.

SPEAKER_03 57:21

Oh, yeah. We're raffling

Shout out to album release party open Thor Leisman

SPEAKER_03 57:22

off a uh a test count. A test pressing of our vinyl. So when they produce a vinyl, you get five test pressings.

SPEAKER_06 57:31

And there's only four of us.

SPEAKER_03 57:32

And there's only four of us. So we're gonna raffle off one of them. Sign we're gonna have a couple of different merch packages for door prizes. And yeah, it's gonna be a grand old.

Lacey Squier 57:43

Well, and it's kind of like movies at the state theater, right? Okay, your cost of the ticket, you know, the seven dollar movie is a way to support the theater. But truly, if you want to go above and beyond, you get some concessions. Yes. And so the metaphor here is like by all means come to the album release party, we'll see you there. But to really show up, purchasing a record, getting a t-shirt, engaging with the merch and the materials is the way to really show up and go above and beyond. That's what I'm saying. That's coming from me.

SPEAKER_07 58:12

Well, also. Well, we're hoping to give them a night that they'll want something to remember it by.

Lacey Squier 58:16

Oh, hell yeah.

SPEAKER_06 58:17

Also, speaking of concessions, we should give a plug to Boundary Waters Kitchen.

SPEAKER_03 58:21

Yep. Oh, yeah. Who is doing hors d'oeuvres during our open or our our album release?

Lacey Squier 58:27

Horse doors. Amazing. The ticket also gets you snacks.

SPEAKER_03 58:34

Yeah.

Thank you, listeners! Consider giving this podcast a 5-Star review!

SPEAKER_03 58:35

Snacks. What? Snacks and you get in advance. Yeah, $10 in advance, $15.

SPEAKER_06 58:41

If you're a procrastinator like me. Yep. Or if you talk to Zeb directly, $20.

Lacey Squier 58:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 58:47

Okay, Jen, $20.

Lacey Squier 58:50

Oh, amazing. All right. Well, the Wilderness Edge podcast is produced by Brett Ross of Borgo Roots Media, and the music that we feature is made by Nick Allen. This podcast is brought to you by Boundary Waters Connect, which is the economic and community development project of Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness. You can learn more by visiting Boundarywaters Connect.org. And we'd love for you to follow this podcast wherever you listen, and triple bonus points for a five star review. Thank you so much.