West Michigan’s acclaimed alt-folk/rock band plays a sold-out show Thursday at Frederik Meijer Gardens after mounting a successful U.S. tour. The Local Spins interview with band member Emilee Petersmark.
Preparing for a Big Hometown Show: The Crane Wives play a sold-out, headlining concert at Meijer Gardens on Thursday. (Courtesy Photo)
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On Thursday night, The Crane Wives will play their first headlining show as part of the Fifth Third Bank Summer Concerts Series at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture — a sold-out affair for the much beloved alt-folk/rock band that got its start in Grand Rapids more than 15 years ago.
Since then, the band — Emilee Petersmark, Kate Pillsbury, Ben Zito and Dan Rickabus — has cultivated a national following, with their latest studio album, “Beyond Beyond Beyond,” so far racking up more than 18 million listens on Spotify and sparking successful U.S. tours.
Ahead of Thursday’s much-anticipated homecoming show, Local Spins writer Enrique Olmos chatted with Petersmark about the group’s recent tours, their fans and their Meijer Gardens concert.
Local Spins: How has it felt to you know be touring and traveling and selling out rooms across the country, even getting bumped to bigger rooms?
Emilee Petersmark: We keep saying every day is a miracle. It’s weird because I feel like part of me is still living in this place from 2018 where we toured you know the majority of the year for really long stretches out on the road and played to basically no one. So I think there’s still a part of me that when we show up to these gigs, that’s like, ‘Oh, I hope that three people show up and the bar staff have a good time.’ So it all just kind of feels like funny money still if that makes sense. It only feels real when you show up and, oh my god, there are people here.
Local Spins: What has the reaction from fans out on the road been like?
Emilee: They are incredible. I feel it’s one of those things where I don’t know how we got so lucky to have found our people, but it really does feel like we found the people that we were meant to connect with. These are a lot of young kids like anywhere between 16 to 25, so they’re in that like perfect part of life where you’re full of feelings and learning how to communicate those feelings and kind of discovering more about yourself. We just feel so grateful because these are the like the deep feeling, deep thinking creative people that I feel like really resonate with the songs. So it just is such a joy to be able to perform for them. Everybody’s always been so nice and kind. One of the consistent reviews that we get from venues is that our crowds are really polite and just really, really kind, so we’re very grateful for that.
Emilee Petersmark: Performing at the band’s last big GR show. (Photo/Eric Stoike)
Local Spins: What are some of your favorite and least favorite aspects about touring?
Emilee: I love the adventure of being on the road and away from home. I find it really exciting and appreciate the chaos. No matter how well you plan a tour, there’s always kind of like this little element of who knows what’s gonna happen and that’s still kind of exciting. My least favorite part is just, man, there’s not enough venue dogs or venue cats. More people need to bring their pets to work.
Local Spins: How does it feel to return home to a sold-out show at Meijer Gardens?
Emilee: It’s amazing. I feel like with so much of our recent growth, it’s hard to put into context where Grand Rapids fits in all of that. We look at our Spotify numbers and Grand Rapids isn’t even in our top 10 cities anymore. We kind of moved away from playing there as much. Now that when we get to come back, it just kind of feels like a hometown celebration. My family’s gonna be there, so I’m just really excited to kind of share what this experience has been for us in the past couple years with the people who have supported us since the beginning and have seen us in those really empty rooms. I’m hoping that we can come home and show them we’ve taken all of that support and tried to make the most of it.
Local Spins: You guys have a pretty tight-knit band and crew. Why are those people that you want to be traveling with and want to have on your team?
Emilee: I can’t say enough about our crew. I love having a crew. We were such a skeleton crew for the majority of being a band we all wore multiple hats and did many roles trying to keep the ship afloat. Now we have Steve Leaf, who is a longtime Crane Wives collaborator and someone that we trust implicitly. He does all of our tour managing for us and it’s just really nice to have like another business-minded brain out on the road with you to make sure that contracts are followed and t’s are crossed and i’s are dotted.
Then we’re also traveling with Morgan Haner who is an incredibly talented musician and also a very talented sound engineer. He runs our front of house so he helps us with our monitor mixes and makes sure that we sound consistent, even in all these different kinds of rooms which is a luxury that we never thought we would be able to have. Then we’re also traveling with Kendall and Jona from Cal in Red. They’re a Grand Rapids band that is also kind of having their own little blow up on social media. They are our merch team and we would be sunk without them because our our bass player, Ben Zito, he does management for the band so he has had this very specific very off like um crazy level mathematics to figuring out how much merch we have to bring and how you know how we sell it and he has this whole plan, and it’s been really difficult to explain that to like merch sellers the night of, so it’s just nice to have like a dedicated crew that you know, knows the ins and outs. It feels like we’re like a well-oiled machine at this point so it just feels really good to be part of a team that works really hard.
Local Spins: What is your hope for the future of The Crane Wives?
Emilee: I hope that we’re able to keep going and doing this as long as it is fun and it feeds us and feeds our fans. We’ve talked a lot about how I think the old model of the music industry was all about exponential growth and, you know, constantly trying to boost your streaming numbers and grow your brand. I feel like where we’re at right now we’re less interested in growing beyond what feels sustainable, because right now, we’re able to pay our bills and we are able to spend time at home, and touring is infinitely more comfortable than it was. I could do this much longer. So long as you know if the support is there, we’re gonna keep going as long as we can.
VIDEO: The Crane Wives, “Bitter Medicine” (from “Beyond Beyond Beyond’)
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