Front Country drops new single "Do Re Mi"

Article Contributed by McLachlan Mana… | Published on Thursday, March 5, 2020

FOLK POP BAND FRONT COUNTRY RELEASE NEW SINGLE AND FRESH SOUND

Bay Area founded, Nashville based indie Americana band Front Country has released a new single and video, unveiling a revamped sound and touring ensemble. Their electrified rendition of a Woody Guthrie song is the first in a series of singles they will drop this year leading up to the release of their long-awaited third album.

Diving headfirst into 2020, Front Country has released new music to give their fans a glimpse of the future of the band. The intrepid ensemble found one another in the eclectic roots music scene in San Francisco, banding together to play a residency at a Mission District bar. What began as a strictly acoustic ensemble, winning band contests at Telluride and Rockygrass, and garnering millions of plays on Spotify with their blend of stringband timbres and pop songwriting, the group is now growing beyond their original instrumentation to reach new heights of expression.

As Caifornians who moved to Tennessee to escape rising costs of living, the members of Front Country found inspiration in the words of folk music hero Woody Guthrie who sang:

“If you ain’t got that Do Re Mi, boys /

If you ain’t got that Do Re Mi /

Well, you better go back to beautiful Texas /

Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee /

California is a Garden of Eden /

A paradise to live in or see /

But believe it or not, you won’t find it so hot /

If you ain’t got that Do Re Mi.”

The band says it is also inspired by Guthrie’s legacy of protest songwriting and activism. “Woody has always been an idol of mine,” says frontwoman Melody Walker, “He was a bard, traveling around America in the thick of some of our biggest human rights struggles, singing songs for the movement in real time.”

Walker’s songwriting hasn’t shied away from the issues either, especially in the tumultuous climate in U.S. politics of late. She says the next album will be the band’s most personal and political record yet, weaving heartfelt appeals with irresistible hooks. Of the new expanded instrumentation, she says, “It’s a bigger, bolder realization of the sound we have been searching for all along and we are so ready to bring the power to festival stages this summer and beyond.”

The music video for “Do Re Mi” gives a look inside what this new sound is all about: drums, keys, electric bass, but also the mandolin and dreadnought guitar, keeping the band rooted in their early beginnings as a stringband, while growing toward something more. “This is a new chapter,” says guitarist Jacob Groopman, “In the past we really enjoyed the challenge of pushing the limits of the string-band format. This time around, we wanted to see what would happen if we just let the song take us where we needed to go instrumentally and sonically.”

Of their move to Nashville, and their new hometown’s influence on the new music, Mandolinist Adam Roszkiewicz says, “The new album is really a continuation of what Front Country has been doing since the beginning: letting the songs dictate where we go musically without any rules or restrictions. Living in Nashville has given us more resources to follow our own musical path, and has allowed us to be part of a vibrant and eclectic community of fellow music makers who are doing the same thing.”

Watch the video here: