The Barefoot Movement Interview by Christian Lamitschka for Country Music News International Magazine & Radio Show
Lamitschka:
Music has many new fans throughout Europe who may be hearing about you for the
first time. How would you describe yourself and the music you play to someone
who has never seen or heard you?
Answer:Â Our aim is to write catchy, memorable
melodies, accented by lots of vocal harmonies, and supported by our instruments
which are fiddle, mandolin, guitar, and upright bass. The new album has drums as well! It’s hard to pick a genre but maybe something
like modern folk-pop, Americana, or contemporary roots music? I think you can find our sound somewhere in
the middle of those descriptions!Â
Lamitschka:
How did you choose the title for the CD? Is there a story behind the
name?
Answer: “Rise & Fly” is
a lyric from our first single “Early in the Morning.” It’s been a long time since we’ve put out a
collection of original music. Our last
album was a holiday record. For a lot of
reasons, it took a long time to get this music ready to release. It’s also our first non-holiday offering with
this lineup. So it feels like we are
rising from the dust in a way. We felt
like the phrase “Rise & Fly” captured that feeling, and the excitement that
comes once you pick yourself up and are standing again.
Lamitschka:
Do you write the songs yourself? If not, how do you go about finding the songs
for your CD?
Answer:Â We mostly write our
own material but we do like to draw from traditional sources as well. Our first single, “Early in the Morning,” is
a chain-gang song that we found in the American music archives that the Library
of Congress curates. We like taking old
material and making it new again. The
rhythm of this song in particular set it apart from any other traditional tune
I’d ever heard. It’s so unique and we
feel really lucky to have found it.
Lamitschka:
Your current single is being played by radio. What do you feel is special about
this song that makes people want to hear it?
Answer: “Early in the Morning” is so special to us because
it introduces you to the whole band.
We’re all singing and playing and it’s a very collaborative effort. I grew up loving groups with multiple
singers, especially ones with male and female voices, like Fleetwood Mac. This song features everyone, you don’t just
hear one singer, it’s all of us. I hope
we do more songs like this in the future.
It’s a progressive arrangement of a traditional song and I think that is
a big part of who we are. One foot
holding steady in the roots of our music and the other is taking its own
journey all over the place. With all of
that going on, my hope is that there will be something about this song that
everyone can appreciate.Â
Lamitschka:
What will your next single be?
Answer: Single number two is a song called, “Every
Little Thing” that I wrote. It’s about a
relationship that went south and all the lingering stress that constantly pops
up in your memory. I love performing
this with my bandmates because it has a lot of energy from start to
finish. I get to really belt it out and
there is a lot of in-your-face rhythm instrumentally. It may be a little irreverent for acoustic
music, and I love that. I love the idea
of shifting the definition of what folk music can be. It doesn’t all have to be pretty, sweet, and
soft songs, though I love those too. But
occasionally, you just need to let out some frustration!
Lamitschka:
Do you have any interesting stories about how fans have been affected by your
music?
Answer:Â One of the sweetest
things I’ve ever heard is that one family played “River Song” from our album
“Figures of the Year” for their mother as she was passing away. The song essentially is about being
comfortable with the progression of life, knowing that eventually it will come
to an end, comparing that journey to a flowing river that someday will run
dry. It was such an amazing compliment
to know that someone chose a song of ours to help them through such an
intimate, emotional time. To be able to
be a source of comfort is a huge achievement for me as a songwriter, and it’s
the end goal of every song I write – for it to help someone in some way.
Lamitschka:
As an artist, you so many tasks such as recording, touring, interviews. What do
you like best, what’s your favorite activity?
Answer: I’d say it’s
performing. No matter how much you love
to travel, it can be challenging when you do it constantly. But once we get on stage and play to a
receptive, responsive crowd, and we know everyone is having a good time, it
makes all the effort it took to get to that moment so worth it. I also love when we finally get a new song
worked up and ready to perform. It’s a
great moment, to hear a song the way you imagined it when you wrote it, come to
life in the hands of your bandmates.
Lamitschka:
What inspired you to become a songwriter?
Answer: I don’t know that I
was inspired to become one, but rather, at some point I just started doing
it. It just happened, really. I always loved to sing so I think it was a
natural progression for me, to have the urge to sing a story that was
completely my own. The first song I ever
wrote was about a high school heartbreak.
So maybe that’s what instigated my need to express myself in a musical
way – my first experience with grown up heartache.
Lamitschka:
What has been your greatest challenge in music business?
Answer: For us, I think it’s been
lineup changes. It’s one thing when you
are a solo artist and you can just move from one hired gun to the next, but
when your dream is to have a working band, where the members are all a part of
the creative process, it is a huge setback to lose one of those members. We’ve been making music since high school so
it’s inevitable that this kind of thing would happen. It’s so rare to find the perfect group so
young, when people are still figuring out who they are and what they want. That’s why I’m so excited about this album,
because our current lineup has been together for four years, and we feel like
we finally have the right combination of personalities and musicalities.Â
Lamitschka:
Is there any place you haven’t played that you would like to?
Answer:Â We would love to
come to Europe! There’s so much I would
love to see and it would be a dream come true to bring our music to European
ears. Other than that, I have a pretty
big wish to play Saturday Night Live someday.
I grew up with that show and I would absolutely go nuts to have that
opportunity. They haven’t historically
featured a lot of roots music, but who says we can’t be the first?!
Christian
Lamitschka (Ch.Lamitschka@t-online.de) for Country Music News International Magazine & Radio Show