FEBUARY 2008 ONLINE EDITORIALS
Head for the Hills Talk About Music and the Town They Love
By Nathan Harper
Your friend works at New Belgium brewery and rides her bike to work each day. Weekends she’s in the hills camping, or at the Aggie, Road 34 or the Mish watching local bands play their hearts out, a sense of palpable camaraderie evident throughout the venue because when she looks around at the crowd, or up at the band on stage she doesn’t just see other people, she sees her friends.
The music that fuels this Front Range lifestyle, whether it has the booze-and-bruises appeal of Motorhome or the softer, almost pagan love of nature found in The Wildwood Holler, all has roots in bluegrass. It all goes back to a group of people around a campfire, banjos, mandolins and guitars in hand, playing their tribute to the beauty that surrounds them.
Head for the Hills shares this muse - the band is comprised of avid outdoorsmen and was essentially born out of the Colorado mountains - and in a world fraught with obtuse genre labels, they are lucky enough to be members in, and arguably frontrunners of, something that has simply been called Colorado Bluegrass, and that sound is attracting fans nationwide.
If an analogue to the Mishawaka Amphitheater exists anywhere else, Horning’s Hideout in North Bend, Oregon, is it. Larger, but just as embedded in nature as our own haven on the Poudre, it is the home of the Yonder Mountain String Band’s annual Northwest String Summit. At last year’s festival Head for the Hills won the best band competition, earning them a spot on the main stage this year.
Fort Collins and the Portland area, which North Bend is part of, share many of the same ecological ideals, and, unsurprisingly, they are also home to similar music scenes.
“I think there’s a connection between music fans and people with sustainable goals everywhere - it’s a mentality that makes what we do possible as musicians,” Head for the Hills fiddler Joe Lessard said.
“There is somewhat of a similar atmosphere too; people are musically informed and really looking to enjoy themselves,” agreed bassist Matt Loewen.
As for performing at the festival itself, the band has high expectations for the experience.
“It is really incredible to play at a festival like this because of the size,” said mandolin player Mike Chappell. “A festival like Bonnaroo is too large for me. When you have 80,000 people and 100 bands, things seem to be rather impersonal. Playing with 15 bands and having 5000 people there brings a much larger sense of community, and it feels more at home.”
“I always look forward to being surrounded by bad-ass veteran musicians, not to mention the guy in the tent next to me has a nine-year-old daughter that picks the mandolin like Ronnie McCoury,” Lessard said. “It’s a simultaneously intimidating and inspirational experience at festivals that, in the end, just makes me want to practice.”
And while the band’s trip to Oregon will be part of their first ever regional tour of the Pacific Northwest, even after last summer’s busy touring schedule, it’s the hometown fans that the band loves to play in front of most.
“I think the many successful Colorado bluegrass bands are a testament to the fact that it’s possible not to uproot, but rather to create a thriving scene within a location,” Lessard said.
And it’s a relationship which the band feels is beneficial for them not just as performers, but as artists as well.
“We are really lucky in that we have great fans and they enjoy, maybe even expect, new and fresh material,” Loewen said. “We play enough that having fresh stuff is not only necessary to hold fan interest, it becomes crucial to us having the best possible performance.”
“The scene is really cool because there are so many really good bands in the Front Range,” added Chappell. “Colorado is a melting pot for interesting acoustic music, (and) the fans are really into it - they make it known by showing up and having a great time.”
And should their success continue along their present course, fans needn’t worry about Head for the Hills future shows being anywhere other than good ol’ FoCo.
“I don’t think we’ll need to move to Nashville too soon,” said Lessard.
Bluegrass enthusiasts wanting to see the band at the top of their game will have a chance as Head for the Hills return form a tour of Montana and the Colorado high country to take the stage at the Aggie on Saturday, March 1st with the up-and-coming Greensky Bluegrass, winners of the 2006 Telluride Bluegrass Festival.