The world music-infused Ann Arbor indie-folk band continues to tour behind “The Threshold and The Hearth,” with upcoming stops in Petoskey, Traverse City and Rockford. (Story, videos)
Michigan Shows: The Ragbirds play Petoskey and Traverse City this week, and Rockford in January. (Photo/Katy Batdorff, as featured in The Local Spins 2017 Calendar)
THE BAND: The Ragbirds
THE MUSIC: World fusion, folk-rock
WHERE YOU CAN SEE THE BAND: Saturday at the 11th annual BlissFest Winter Solstice Celebration at Emmet County Fairgrounds’ Community Building in Petoskey (with The Turnips and BoomaTwang, $7-$20); 10 a.m. Sunday at The Little Fleet in Traverse City (holiday concert, $10-$25); 8 p.m. Jan. 28 at The Corner Bar in Rockford (Cool Beats Concert Series, $20)
EDITOR’S NOTE: The bulk of this story was first published at Local Spins in April, following release of the band’s full-length “The Threshold & The Hearth.” Local Spins is revisiting interviews with Michigan artists who are featured in the 2017 Local Spins wall calendars now available online here.
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For 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.
‘Best Album Yet’: Singer and multi-instrumentalist Erin Zindle. (Photo/Anna Sink)
“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 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.)
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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.
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 Ragbirds, “The Threshold & The Hearth”
The band, which also features Zindle’s brother, TJ Zindle, on guitar, Jon Brown on drums and Dan Jones on bass, raped up its touring in 2016 to promote the new album, and after a brief break over the holidays, will kick off a tour of the Midwest and East Coast starting Jan. 12.
“We have a busy year planned as we release this album city by city across the country,” Zindle said in an interview earlier this year. “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.
Drawing Devout Fans: The Ragbirds return to northern Michigan this week. (Photo/Anna Sink)
“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.”
VIDEO: The Ragbirds, “Breakdown”
VIDEO: The Ragbirds’ “Alleyway Saints” (Live)
VIDEO TRAILER: The Ragbirds, “The Threshold & The Hearth”
Copyright 2016, Spins on Music LLC
