The world music-infused Ann Arbor indie-folk band brings its tour behind “The Threshold and The Hearth” to Grand Rapids, Grand Haven and Traverse City this week. (Story, videos)
THE BAND: The Ragbirds
THE MUSIC: World fusion folk-rock
WHERE YOU CAN SEE THE BAND: 9:30 p.m. Thursday at Founders Brewing in Grand Rapids (with Nick Dittmeier & The Sawdusters), 7 p.m. Friday at Tri-Cities Historical Museum in Grand Haven (sold-out Music at the Museum series show with Christopher C. Cordle opening), Saturday afternoon at Sweet Earth Arts & Music Festival in Traverse City
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For about a decade, The Ragbirds have crisscrossed the country with their world music-infused folk and roots music, cultivating a legion of fervent fans for an approach that stands out amid the indie scene.
So for singer and frontwoman Erin Zindle, the Ann Arbor band’s new album, “The Threshold and The Hearth,” feels like coming home.
“The Ragbirds have traveled for so long, both physically and musically, and the songs on our new album represent our return home in so many ways,” said Zindle, who formed The Ragbirds in 2005 with her husband, Randall Moore, before the couple got married.
“The influence of all our traveling can still be heard but it feels like we’ve found a sound that is more centered.”
It’s also a sound that’s won the band some national attention: “The Threshold and The Hearth” debuted earlier this spring at No. 20 on the Billboard Folk Chart and No. 29 on the Top New Artists Chart. (Check out videos featuring songs from the new album below.)
Written and recorded following the birth of Zindle and Moore’s first child, the album’s storyline “follows the relationship of a young couple and spanning 20 years of their life together,” Zindle said this week as the band prepared to mount a brief Michigan tour behind the new CD with stops in Grand Rapids, Grand Haven and Traverse City.
BUSY YEAR AND EMBRACING TOURING ‘WITH ALL ITS UPS AND DOWNS’
Recorded at Big Sky Recording in Ann Arbor, The Ragbirds worked with producer Jamie Candiloro (REM, Ryan Adams, Willie Nelson) to “make our best album yet,” she said. “We’ve heard only good things about the new release.”
The band, which also features Zindle’s brother, TJ Zindle, on guitar, Jon Brown on drums and Dan Jones on bass, plans to ramp up its touring yet again to promote the new album. It follows its Michigan shows with a swing into Ohio next week.
“We have a busy year planned as we release this album city by city across the country,” Zindle said. “We have always toured, so it’s a lifestyle that we embrace with all its ups and downs. Touring with a 2-1/2-year-old keeps us on our toes. It is a daily challenge and at the same time it makes everything we do so much more meaningful and it deepens our connections.”
Zindle’s musical connections began at an early age in Buffalo, N.Y., singing with her siblings and mother and growing up in a family that “made music at church on Christmas.” Her interest in world music was piqued a bit later in life.
“I took some early piano lessons and then started violin when I was 9,” she recalled. “I didn’t get serious about it until high school, but it was always classical music until I got a little older and started dabbling with Celtic and gypsy fiddling.”
The past five summers, Zindle also has taught songwriting at Interlochen Center for the Arts.
“It is a magical place and I get to work with students from all over the globe who are all so super talented and fired up to learn,” she said. “It’s a great opportunity for me to focus on and hone my own songcraft.”
She’s also eager to return to northern Michigan on Saturday, with The Ragbirds playing the Sweet Earth Arts and Music Festival in Traverse City to celebrate Earth Day.
RETURNING TO NORTHERN MICHIGAN ON CURRENT TOUR
“The Ragbirds have always made an effort to strive toward sustainable touring because taking care of our environment is important to us. We feel that the responsibility is in the hands of individuals making small decisions to improve this world or at least minimize the damage we inflict on it,” Zindle said.
The fifth annual Sweet Earth festival unfurls from 1 to 6 p.m. Saturday at the Hagerty Conference Center at 715 E. Front St. on the Great Lakes Campus of Northwestern Michigan College, with “learning lab” activities, interactive games, art and live music.
The Ragbirds, northern Michigan’s Oh Brother Big Sister and Charlie Millard, Detroit’s Third Coast Kings and The Drinkard Sisters, hip hop artist Mark Wilson and poet Maya James will perform.
Organizer Mara Penfil, manager of NMC’s Student Life Office, said there’s “something really special about the music that is created in your own back yard,” so having the festival support “local artists along their journey is an important part of actually being a community.”
And for Zindle and The Ragbirds, “Playing at Sweet Earth and other environmentally conscious music festivals is a wonderful opportunity for us to party with like-minded people.”
VIDEO: The Ragbirds’ “Alleyway Saints” (Live)
VIDEO TRAILER: The Ragbirds, “The Threshold & The Hearth”
Copyright 2016, Spins on Music LLC