Home/Rolling Zone/ Vootie Presents the return of Railroad Earth to Bozeman’s Emerson on Feb.19th at 8pm
Vootie Presents the return of Railroad Earth to Bozeman’s Emerson on Feb.19th at 8pm
Tickets are $30 plus fees and available at Cactus Records in Bozeman and online at vootie.com. Railroad Earth returned in 2014 with Last of the Outlaws, the band’s seventh full-length and one that aims to stake their claim as an alpha dog in the current Americana Folk-Pop scene. For a group who’ve always been difficult for journalists to place inside a stifling genre box, Last of the Outlaws proves to be the group’s most direct artistic statement yet, placing them within striking distance of the commercial success enjoyed by acts far their lesser. But few of these in vogue outfits have the experience or mileage on the road that RRE has accumulated in well over the course of a decade. “We’ve been together for 12 years now,” states Todd Sheaffer, singer, guitarist and the band’s chief songwriter. “We started out playing a more string-oriented bluegrassy style and this album is perhaps the biggest departure we’ve had since that starting point. It’s just a natural development; it hasn’t been influenced by anything in particular. We’ve always just done our own thing. We were around when the big bluegrass craze hit, which started with “O Brother Where Art Thou,” and we’d make records and people would accuse us of getting in on the whole bluegrass fad. No, we were just playing the music we play. Then that came and went, and here we are still playing. Now there’s this folk-pop craze, and our music always had elements of folk-pop in it. But we’ll still be around playing Railroad Earth music after all this, because that’s what we do.” The origin of Outlaws is rooted in Railroad Earth’s own backyard of Sussex County in the most rural part of New Jersey. It was there in a town called Knowlton, where mandolin player John Skehan went to a house to answer an ad about a piano for sale. Once he stepped inside, he realized he was where RRE would be making their new album. “The house is set back from the road, so you don’t really see it,” describes Sheaffer. “But it’s something to see. When he built the house, he made this big room with a studio in mind.” “We started talking about recording and I said, ‘Well I know this space and it’s big enough where we can all set up and play,’” Skehan explains. “Tim [Carbone – violinist] went there, checked it out and talked to the owner, Dean Rickard, and he turned out to be just the nicest guy in the world and he really became an important part of the equation for this album.” John wound up passing on purchasing the piano, but its old keys can be heard prominently across the scope of Last of the Outlaws, as he flexes his chops on the instrument he learned before switching to the strings. And while RRE may not be looking for any kind of crossover appeal, Last of the Outlaws is just too good of an album to be ignored. But regardless of where the next step in the evolution of this band takes them, the strong and loyal following Railroad Earth have established these twelve years, and over 1000 concerts, will remain unshakable in their assurance of keeping the group in the game for the long haul. “I feel that Railroad Earth has a longevity that transcends whatever ‘of-the-moment’ frenzy there happens to be, and our fans are always there for us.” Sheaffer asserts. “We’ve played on bluegrass festivals. We’ve played rock festivals. We’ve played hippie festivals. We’ve played traditional festivals. It doesn’t matter. Our music encompasses all those things and it still is just Railroad Earth music.” •