Artists
Matt Stillwell, Dirty Guv’nahs, Chase Rice, The Chillbillies, Fairview Union and more…..
MATT STILLWELL (Nashville, TN)
Performing on Friday and Saturday
Matt Stillwell’s move to Nashville was the ultimate eye-opener.
“I watched friends do showcases and hope someone would show up,” he says. “I watched them being promised record or publishing deals that might or might not happen. So I made the decision that what I needed to do was to eliminate the ‘no’s, and the way to do that was to go build a following.”
A man with a work ethic as big as his talent, Matt did just that, and in this age of American Idol and viral videos, he has built his following the old-fashioned way–one city, one club, one crowd at a time. Now, with the release of his new CD, Shine Deluxe, fans nationwide can experience the magic that Matt brings to bear every time he steps in front of a microphone.
Shine Deluxe showcases the qualities that have brought him to the threshold of national attention–the songwriter’s knack for finding the truth in any situation, the vocal chops to do justice to the joy and passion in each song, and the ability to take an audience on a roller-coaster of emotion and leave them better for the ride.
Matt is best known as a performer with a rowdy sense of fun, and that side of him is in full flower on the new CD. Its gem is “Shine,” an anthem to the joys of the Mason jar and the moonshine produced in places like Matt’s beloved western North Carolina. It’s a song in a league with some of modern country’s best sing-along anthems, and it is the perfect focal point. There is also “Whiskey Well,” about the process of turning heartache into a party, “Sweet Sun Angel,” is a feel-good summertime anthem that evokes images of carefree days in the sun with the one you love. and “Dirt Road Dancing,” celebrating the outlook that says the music should be loud, the drinks cold and the men and women single and rowdy.
Dig a little deeper, though, and you’ll find Matt’s keen eye for the nuances of love and loss, and the twists and turns of a good story. There is “Somewhere Between Me And You,” with its unblinking look at a relationship gone wrong, “Go Away,” dealing with the aftermath of lost love, “Drunk Enough,” a haunting ode to drunk dialing and lost love, and “Moment Of Weakness,” a harrowing look at temptation and the decisions that change everything. Matt, who wrote seven of the album’s thirteen cuts, also demonstrates his ability to make a song his own, as he captures all the longing in Ryan Adams’ “Oh My Sweet Carolina.” READ MORE ON MATT HERE…..
CHASE RICE (Asheville, NC)
Performing on Saturday
No matter how hard you look, you’ll never find a low fuel gauge when you’re around this rowdy, Carolina-raised country singer. It’s unbelievable how someone who recently decided to pursue his natural talents for the music arena already has a resume that reads like a rising country star. He’s balanced his academic endeavors alongside a successful career in college football, worked on the pit crew of a NASCAR points leader, experienced the sharp knife of mortality with the loss of his father and rose to the top on the harshest TV reality program Survivor. “I guess you can say that I have competition in my blood. My parents, my dad in particular, always pushed me and my brothers to never settle. I remember he promised us that the cancer he was battling would never take his life and he was right. I lost my shadow to stand in due to a heart attack, not his aggressive cancer.”
Chase was first recognized on the national scene competing every week on the hit reality show Survivor: Nicaragua. He would endure the extreme environment up to the very last episode, but would come just one vote shy of the million dollar pay off. “There are no tricks or staging on that show. What you see truly happened. I am a healthy guy and I ended up losing nearly 30 pounds while I was there. I would have enjoyed the pay off, but it made for a great song. My songwriting friends and I compiled a list of the important things in life that have more value than money. Shows like that will definitely put your life in perspective and it ultimately got me to Nashville.”
While Chase idolized singers like Garth Brooks from his childhood, he didn’t fully embrace the idea of a performance career until college. Throughout his high school and college years, he was a true sports fanatic. He landed a spot on the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill football team as a linebacker and would excel at the sport until an injury took him out of commission. “I remember how down I was when I couldn’t play anymore. My dad, who wasn’t a huge Gators fan, bought me tickets to a Florida Gators game. I still have a hat that he purchased on that trip. It reminds me of how much my parents sacrificed and pushed to keep their kids in a positive mind set.”
This ultimate down home guy left the farm life in Asheville for the speed and adrenaline of the NASCAR circuit. Landing a spot on one of the most successful teams in the points race, Hendrick Motorsports, Chase would become the rear tire carrier for Ryan Newman’s Nationwide series car. “NASCAR and country music fans are often the same market so it was exciting when I got the first opportunity to step out from the pit crew and onto center stage. The roar of the crowd that day is what keeps me jumping behind that microphone.” Chase’s first engagement as a recording artist on the NASCAR circuit came on his home territory in Asheville. He shook the arena with a rocking version of a song that is on his debut EP title Heathens in the Evenin’. Seeing fans get up and have a good time to his music was the first benchmark on his path to country radio.
With his debut Country As Me, Chase is delivering a sucker punch of endless energy and feel good times in package that continues to blur any lines between singer, songwriter and full blown entertainer. The lead single Buzz Back is a party hit destined for spring breaks and summer shenanigans. “Music is about having a good time, letting your worries go and just taking in every bit of life you can at that moment. As my belt buckle beckons, ‘Cowboy Up!’ and just enjoy the ride.” The rest of the EP highlights the sacrifice of our military families on Die Tryin’ and the impressionable imprint that your parents leave on you in My Old Man.
When Chase isn’t opening for acts like Sara Evans, Uncle Kracker and Frankie Ballard, you’ll find him jamming on a guitar with his songwriting circle Jesse Rice, Brian Kelley and Tyler Hubbard. “We write about our lives. When we hear a line that sparks our interests, you’ll see one of us typing it on our phones.” Aside from the music, Chase is an avid hunter, athlete and outdoorsman. He’ll be stirrin’ up dirt on his four wheelers or layered in camo on deer, quail and pheasant hunting excursions. From the fields on his family farm to the fields of play at baseball and football arenas, Chase is a phene for America’s favorite past-times. He follows the Colorado Rockies and the Boston Red Sox in the spring and Florida Gators and Carolina Tarheels football in the fall. If anyone is prepared for the thick competition and tireless adventures of a rising country artist, it would be one that has endured the gut wrenching scene of Survivor. He’s set to hopefully fulfill the lines that are spoken near the end of his favorite movie 8 Seconds. “And the dues he paid to get here are worth every sacrifice.”
DIRTY GUV’NAHS (Knoxville, TN)
Performing on Saturday
I don’t believe that things happen by chance… incredible things happen when people work hard, live humbly, and give credit where credit is due. You just gotta stay curious and dig in.”
– James Trimble, lead singer – The Dirty Guv’nahs
That sentiment rings true to the curious journey of Knoxville, Tennessee’s favorite sons, The Dirty Guv’nahs, who came together on a lark in 2006 to perform just a single show. That one, short, inauspicious set however, led to a series of extraordinary events—a life-changing path for these six UT, Knoxville grads—but still just the prologue to a story that continues to unfold.
The Dirty Guv’nahs new CD, Youth Is In Our Blood, produced by two-time Grammy-winner Justin Guip (Levon Helm, The Black Crowes) at Helm’s renowned barn/studio in Woodstock, NY is the follow-up to their eponymous 2009 debut. It is a hot, roiling stew of gritty, soul-influenced rock ‘n’ roll, mixed with a hefty helping of roots, funk, blues and country. It’s the sound that has earned them the distinction of being voted Knoxville’s Best Ban —three years in a row—by the readers of that city’s alternative weekly, Metro Pulse.
Considering the accolades the band has received in its hometown region, it is downright ironic that not one of the Guvs had planned to pursue music as a career. In fact, lead singer, James Trimble, who now holds a master’s degree in public administration was preparing for med school when one of his UT roommates, Guvs bass player Justin Hoskins, committed his “band” to perform for a friend’s benefit concert. The only problem? There was no band to speak of.
With barely two weeks to prepare Hoskins (who just finished his master’s in business) recruited Trimble, and his younger brother Aaron Hoskins (the band’s only remaining undergrad). Chris Doody (who also has a master’s in business), had recently returned to Tennessee and signed on. Another roommate, a Knoxville man-about-town known as The Guv’nah, introduced them to guitarist Michael Jenkins (whose degrees now include a bachelor’s of science in nuclear engineering and a master’s in business). “We were four guitarists and bongos,” Trimble recalls. “I became the singer by default. By the third practice Chris moved over to keyboards. None of us had ever played in a band, we really didn’t know what we were doing.”
Nevertheless, something clicked and that show led to another gig. Then Trimble graduated and left the country to travel for the summer. He returned a few months later a changed man, with a passion to play and write songs. The band reunited and people responded to the music and the energy. Soon there were more offers and bigger venues even though shows were sporadic as band members continued in their academic pursuits.
By 2008, a year and a half into their musical venture, the guys got serious and decided to record a CD, so they had music to sell at shows. They headed to Athens, Georgia to work with producer David Barbe, known for his work with R.E.M and The Drive-By Truckers. The Dirty Guv’nahs has a raw, energetic feel, that Metro Pulse described as “…rock the way God intended,” an apt description of their cathartic live shows that consistently drew capacity crowds to Knoxville’s largest bar venue.
The CD arrived in April 2009 and The Dirty Guv’nahs had big plans for its release. “We wanted to play the Bijou Theatre,” Trimble notes. “It was time to move from bars to rock venues.” But theBijou’s promoter AC Entertainment declined to book them, fearing the Guvs wouldn’t draw a big enough crowd in the 750-seat theater to be profitable. Undaunted, the band decided to rent the theater instead, assuming all costs for venue fees, tickets, lighting, and security themselves, a bold and risky move for any artist. The show was a stunning success, and just a handful of tickets shy of a sell-out.
Impressed by the numbers, AC Entertainment chief Ashley Capps, who also organizes Bonnaroo, immediately invited the band to perform at the festival. They played two sets and wowed fans and industry tastemakers alike, one of whom sent tracks to Guip. “He heard some of the songs and loved them,” Trimble says. “And he invited us to come up to Woodstock to record our next CD.”
The result of those sessions, two weeks in December 2009, between final exams and Christmas, is The Dirty Guv’nahs’ new disc, Youth Is In Our Blood. “The time we spent at the studio was great, but tough,” Trimble says of the recording process. “By the second day it had snowed 10 inches, a mountain’s worth for us Southern boys. I came down with the Swine flu and we had a hard time adapting to the specifics of making music in the studio. Justin had some hard talks with us and gave us two days to figure it out or go home. What we had accomplished thus far wasn’t good enough for him to put his name on.”
The day of reckoning came and it didn’t start out well. “We had to dig our van out of several feet of snow,” Trimble, a natural storyteller, reveals. “We’re headed down the mountain to the studio and the van starts belching out this acrid grey smoke. We pulled into the nearest gas station thinking the worst. Turns out we’d driven the last eight miles with the parking brake on!”
Opening the parking brake proved the metaphorical end to a bad beginning. They arrived at the studio, found their groove and laid down five solid rhythm tracks that day. “He definitely pushed our buttons and challenged us,” Trimble says about Guip. “He encouraged us and helped us create some great music. There’s a real honesty that exists on this record, it’s the struggle of a man trying to find his place in a world full of expectations.”
With their new record, a shack-shaking live show and a growing legion of fans, there’s no doubt The Dirty Guv’nahs are indeed perfectly poised to find their rightful place in that world.
CHILLBILLIES
Performing on Saturday
The Chillbillies, defined
Like any musical group worth their weight in bar napkins, the Chillbillies resist the temptation of onlookers, writers, and music aficionados to compartmentalize their music into a genre. However, to convey a sense of the group’s sound to those who have never heard the band necessitates a degree of labeling. So, when pushed, the band reluctantly self-identifies as “rhythm, boogie and blues.”
I call it “Coconut Country.” Since the waning of Southern Rock’s popularity, current trends in music have merged contemporary country with the edgier sound that was Southern Rock. Fold into that mix Jimmy Buffet, the CEO of great live music, and artists like Kenny Chesney, and you get Coconut Country.
Or, a better way to explain it: Mix two parts classic country with two parts southern rock, one part parrot juice, a splash of bluegrass, add ice and blend smooth. Repeat as needed.
This is not to imply that the Chillbillies play only country music; in fact they don’t even play mostly country music. But all of their tunes bear a seasoning that flows from a love of classic country and Southern Rock. The soul of the band is rooted in this love, and it shows.
But don’t be mistaken, their love of music is not in the abstract, as though all music has some inherent artistic value. It is the contention of the Chillbillies that some music is good, some bad, and some, as in the case of Elvis, sacrosanct.
In an effort to uncover what falls into the “good” category, I asked what tunes they each had on their iPods. An odd silence fell over the room. This group of gentlemen has undoubtedly purchased a lunch pail full of iPods for multiple kids and grandkids, but probably thought them something of a child’s toy or simply another high tech nuisance. Sensing the need for clarification of the question, I rephrased. “So what are the cds you guys listen to when you’re in your cars”?
That did the trick. What came forth was a litany of musical acts and artists as diverse and eclectic as any you might imagine, including The Del McCoury Band, Merle Haggard, The Kentucky Grass Project, Jack Johnson, Johnny Cash, and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
More than just “a band”
In a world of constantly evolving and in some cases devolving, musical acts and styles, the Chillbillies represent a landmark, a beacon if you will. They’re like an old oak tree that one might use as a point of reference, to give directions to passing motorists. Too accomplished and too seasoned to care very much about new musical trends the Chillbillies are a living tribute to the best live music beer joints and honky-tonks would have to offer.
Preserving and promoting music that speaks not only for a region, but for a time in our collective history is all part of their charm, and the driving force behind their significant following, but they won’t cop to that. To the Chillbillies, it’s all about entertaining a crowd. “The audience can dance or not, we really don’t care as long as they have a good time,” says Irwin. “That’s pretty much our thing, to sound good and have fun, but mostly have fun.”
And their love of their audience is clear. How would a band begin to cover, “You Don’t Have to Call Me Darlin’”, without the benefit of a crowd to do the sing along?
Not surprisingly, the band conveys a similarly cavalier attitude with regard to their music. Their no-practice axiom is well known, but some might not have a true appreciation of what that means. “We don’t use play lists or lyric sheets—in fact, we never even play a song the same way twice,” says Irwin “We never practice and don’t believe in it. We are just a bunch of guys with gray hair, some more than others,” he laughs. “We just love to play.”
In short, if your band never practices, yet maintains a solid performance and vibrant following, they are good. They’re also incredibly tight. For the uninitiated, that means that there is an intuitive quality to their play that only happens as a result of the combination of skilled artists and a lot of time on stage together. “What key is the next song in? Well, you’re just supposed to know,” Irwin says. And somehow, they do.
As if that weren’t enough, the Chillbillies have a repertoire that goes far off into the irretrievable depths of memory. Patrons of live music are always amazed when a band has the ability to take requests. In some cases these requests go far enough and deep enough to play “Stump the Band,” a rare find these days. This cast of musicians is seriously pedigreed, and their jocular and casual nature, while pumping out great music is evidence of this fact.
Currently, the band has two cds that are available on their website, though they’ll scoff at the mention of commercial success. “We are proud of the fact that we lost $3,200 in our first year,” Massengill says. Irwin nods. Again, this is a window into the soul of this band. They joke with one another incessantly. It’s obvious that the chemistry between the members is one that only manifests after years of playing music and being friends. As they jump from one tale to the next, you sense they could finish one another’s stories, having heard them repeatedly over the years. Hanging out with them for an afternoon, you’ll likely to hear the phrase, “Hey, tell the one about…” often. Maybe George Massengill will tell the story about having his young son, sit in with the band on the drums to the amazement of regulars. Good-natured jibes and humorous anecdotes are a constant. This collection of professionals, passing themselves off for a time as beer joint minstrels, love the music, respect one another, and truly just love the act of performing. “We are going to do this as long as we can have a good time,” says Irwin. “The second this becomes work, we’re done.”
FAIRVIEW UNION
Performing on Friday
The Fairview Union is a 5 piece country rock band. Their popular high energy live shows feature a mix of southern rock, blues, and today’s country music along with their own up beat original songs. They released their first CD “Better Day Bound” in Jan of 2011 and in April appeared on Knox IVI’s internet TV show, 11 O’Clock Rock, where they performed several tunes from the album. In May they opened for award winning country music star Tracy Lawrence at The Cotton Eyed Joe. Two months later TFU beat out 14 other regional acts when they won Wild Wing Cafe’s battle of the bands. That title afforded them the opportunity to play ShineFest at Fontana Village in N.C. along side ever popular recordings artists Blackberry Smoke, The Black Lillies, and Matt Stillwell. Shortly after they were asked to play Bristol’s Rhythm and Root’s Festival where thousands flock every year to hear the best in country music. The Fairview Union’s highly anticipated sophomore CD “Up for Gettin Down” is due out Jan 28th of 2012.
MY HIGHWAY
Performing on Friday
Robert Frost, a notable American author, once wrote a poem called “The Road not Taken” which also doubled as an album title for country music recording artist Shenandoah in the late 80’s. Neither
of these titles reflects the popularity of Western North Carolina’s hottest band “My Highway”. My Highway’s popularity has skyrocketed over the past couple of years as evidenced by over 600,000 YouTube hits as well as being a mainstay at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino.
To say these guys are country would be an understatement. Truth is they were born and raised in the Great Smoky Mountains where moonshine stills, hard work, and living week to week isn’t a way of life, it is life! Each member of My Highway was weaned on Waylon, faced their trials with Tritt, and searched their souls with Skynyrd. Kevin Roberts, a self- taught musician, is the bands lead guitar player and is the show within the show. Just to watch this guy play is worth the price of admission! Dale Fulbright, the
groups’ drummer, has been playing since the age of 7 and his experience shows. If you’re looking for the soul of My Highway, locate the guy swinging the stix. Bassist, Ed Cable, adds 30 years of knowledge and skill to My Highway’s sound. His years of strumming the strings have allowed the band to expand their set lists and delve into different genres of music. Josh Lane, an accomplished songwriter and vocalist, has been performing country music and climbing on stages for the better part of his life. At the age of 18 Lane could pick and sing over 100 country songs in their entirety! The final member, Josh Beasley, co-founded My Highway with his lifelong friend Josh Lane. Beasley, a talented rhythm guitar player and vocalist, seems to relish each opportunity given to step on stage like it’s his last. There is an old saying,”Do what you love, and love what you do.” Being one of the front-men for My Highway is Josh’s dream turned into reality.
As for their sound, it’s real, raw, country, with a splash of southern rock. And their tempo, wide open! This bunch empty’s the tank every time they step on stage. Coming to a show? If so, be prepared to “Turn it up!” which happens to be an original song on their self-produced album from 2011. They look forward to seeing you soon!
PLEASE NOTE: Tickets WILL be available at the gate, however, they will be more expensive then the advance ticket prices. Get them in advance to save money, and make sure to reserve your room at Fontana before the lodging is all gone!