Grand Rapids folk trio Bennett: The Local Spins Artist Spotlight

With sibling-like harmonies, Bennett’s “natural, real” approach has caught fire in West Michigan, with the band releasing a new single later this month and a new EP this fall. (Podcast, video)

 

A classically trained violinist with a soft spot for Andrew Bird, a pianist who despised taking lessons but grew to love the instrument, and an acoustic guitarist reared on jazz, John Denver and James Taylor who now embraces the likes of The Avett Brothers.

Grand Rapids’ Bennett may bring disparate backgrounds to the musical table, but the contemporary folk trio – whose members met online through Myspace – certainly is on the same page when it comes to its engaging songs and sibling-like harmonies.

Guitarist Josiah Gentry, keyboard player Nicholas Warren and violinist/mandolinist Nick Rolls were “all in separate projects for a time” and playing some of the same show bills locally, Gentry says, when the planets just seemed to align themselves for assembling a band.

“We just kind of formed an idea and said we should start a project together and not do school,” said Rolls, a graduate of NorthPointe Christian High School who spent a year at Calvin College; Gentry attended Grand Rapids Community College.

BROTHERS AT HEART

That idea proved to be a good one: The band described as a “group of brothers at heart” earned acclaim for its “A Brand New Start” EP released in 2012 and has turned heads at live performances, including this week’s Tuesday Evening Music Club set which represented the trio’s Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park debut.

On Wednesday, the band unfurled its harmony-laden approach on Local Spins Live on News Talk 1340 AM (WJRW), performing the song, “Old Time Father,” on the air, propelled by Warren’s riveting lead vocals. Check out an exclusive video of that performance below, with a podcast of the show here. (And learn more about another up-and-coming Grand Rapids indie-folk act, Antrim Dells, in last week’s Local Spins Artist Spotlight.)

By focusing on its heartfelt lyrics, vocals and acoustic textures, Bennett finds itself steaming ahead on the current folk revival train led by the likes of The Avett Brothers, Mumford & Sons and The Head and the Heart, with a host of other West Michigan bands climbing aboard as well.

AUDIENCES HUNGRY FOR ‘NATURAL, REAL’ ACOUSTIC MUSIC

“I just feel like people are starving for just natural, real,” Rolls suggests. “Not that hardcore music isn’t real, but a lot of times I think you get these computers and stuff up on stage and it’s kind of like, ‘What’s actually going on up there and who’s controlling what and what’s being played?’ If you look at an acoustic guitar and they see you strum it, you just know that’s what it is. There’s an understanding from the audience in the instrument and the performers.”

Says Gentry: “I don’t know if it’s something that can be explained. For awhile, I was really into the hardcore scene in Grand Rapids which was really booming for awhile but it’s definitely I think really taken a transition to folk. I don’t know why but I’m pretty psyched about it.”

The group – which embarked this week on a two-week tour that takes them to Indiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and beyond – is also pretty psyched about a new single, “Back To You,” that comes out digitally on Aug. 20, a prelude to another Bennett album being tracked at Grand Rapids’ Stone House Recording by Peter Fox with an expected fall release.

“He’s magical. We just work with him creatively very well,” Rolls says of Stone House recording engineer and producer Peter Fox. “Our energies just work really well together, so we’ve had an awesome experience working with him.”

For more about the band, visit its official website or its Facebook page, with its music available on iTunes. And stay tuned for details about the upcoming new album as well as the band’s appearance this September at the 40th annual Wheatland Music Festival.

Email John Sinkevics at jsinkevics@gmail.com.
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