The Contribution has been living up to their name and giving back, they released their third single from their Wilderness And Space project April 21, benefiting HeadCount. Since this February, The Contribution has been releasing one single a month, as sort of a mid-month pick-me-up. They have partnered with a variety of nonprofits to which 100% of the profits from each single (sold as a digital download) will go to a charity (hand-picked by members of the band) in perpetuity.
The Contribution is the brainchild of Tim Carbone of Railroad Earth (violin, guitar, vocals) together with Phil Ferlino (keyboards, vocals) and Jeff Miller (guitar, vocals) of New Monsoon. Keith Moseley (String Cheese Incident), has been the bass player from the band’s inception along with vocalist Sheryl Renee (The Black Swan Singers). The drum chair has been occupied by Jason Hann (String Cheese Incident), Matt Butler (Everyone Orchestra), and currently Duane Trucks (Widespread Panic). Both Matt Butler and Duane Trucks appear on the band’s new record, Wilderness And Space. Although the band is comprised of some of the scene’s heavy hitters, the first listen to their music reveals their love of 60s pop and soul coupled with their ability to flat-out shred. The full ten song album will be released on vinyl this Fall on LoHi Records.
Tim Carbone tells Shows I Go To about how the nonprofits were selected, “I put it to the band at large. What do you feel strongly about? Matt Butler said we should go for the Rex Foundation. Keith wanted Conscious Alliance, who I have also worked with before. Phil suggested Rock the Earth. I thought we would go with HeadCount because I am politically motivated. They don’t choose sides, they just encourage people to register to vote. When you don’t vote, bad things happen. I think we found that out.”
Tim says, “I wrote the words to ‘This Too Shall Pass’ for our guitar player Jeff after his mother passed away from breast cancer.” He says they did some searching and found BCEF, a Breast Cancer Emergency Fund in SF Bay area, to pair up with that song. LoHi Records labelmate, Jim Brooks, suggested Piedmont Land Conservatory as he has held events to raise money for them in the past to preserve natural and scenic lands, farms, and open spaces in Piedmont North Carolina. The Delaware Riverkeeper Network is located nearby where Carbone is from and they do wonderful work in protecting the waterways, including the drinking water of nearly 17 Million people, throughout the entire Delaware River Watershed which includes Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and New York.
