Michigan Rattlers, with special guests Elias Hix and Maxwell Rincón, perform at the A&R Music Bar on Wednesday, February 12. Doors open at 7pm. You can purchase tickets in advance for $22 or at the door for $25.
Columbus residents might be predisposed to disliking anything from up north, but Michigan Rattlers offer a compelling reason to make an exception. Lead singer Graham Young, while originally from Michigan (and with some band members still residing there), has called Los Angeles home for the past decade. Though the band began as a folk-influenced acoustic duo, their sound has expanded considerably since adding more members. Their latest album, 2024’s Waving From a Sea, defies easy categorization. While hints of Americana and folk-rock remain, they’ve embraced a broader sonic palette, incorporating horns and keyboards. Critics at No Depression, Bluegrass Situation, and Rolling Stone have already praised their work, and with an evolved sound on their latest album, comparisons to artists like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, and The War on Drugs are apt. Michigan Rattlers capture a Midwest yearning in their poignant lyrics and richly textured music, making them the perfect soundtrack for a cross-country road trip. They launch a five-week US tour in Columbus this Wednesday, culminating in a final show in, ironically, Detroit on May 16. I recently spoke with Graham Young, admitting my own preconceived notions about their music before hearing it.
For some reason, I thought Michigan Rattlers were a bluegrass/banjo finger-picking band. When I got around to checking out Waving From a Sea, I discovered how wrong I was. Have you always sounded this way or has the sound evolved over the years.
It’s definitely evolved a little bit, so you’re not so far off. We never had a banjo and we never really ever bluegrass, but the first iteration of the band was me on an acoustic guitar and then Adam on an upright bass and it was kind of this acoustic alt-country duo thing.
From that first EP, and how you started, how do you think the sound has evolved?
It feels pretty natural to me up to a certain point. It did start with the two of us, this acoustic thing, and then Christian, the keyboard player, came in and then Tony, the drummer, came in. With adding those two pieces, it naturally evolved into this more rock and roll thing. And we started playing electric instruments but still had kept it in this more alt-country/Americana thing. I think with this new record, Waving from a Sea, it was definitely a conscious effort to push out of that alt-country/Americana thing into this more indie zone. But to us, it felt natural because that’s what we wanted to do.
It seems like with Waving From a Sea, the addition of horns and keyboards is a new thing unless maybe I haven’t dug deep into your older albums. Did you have horns and keyboards on earlier stuff?
We never really did. Looking back at it, I feel like we inhibited ourselves a little bit and I felt we thought we had to be this thing and sound this way and this is what we were. I think part of it was we didn’t really have the confidence to try new things. This time around, we thought, well, we can do whatever we want.
Before you were trying new things, were there bands that you considered to be your peers, bands that were doing sort of the same things you were doing?
For sure. Back when we started, we wanted to be the Old 97s, and we wanted to be Justin Townes Earle, and we wanted to be Jason Isbell and people like that. We were 22 and those guys were our heroes, not that they’re not heroes still, but I think as time has gone on, we’ve grown up and expanded our sound a little bit, I guess.
I was caught in traffic today and listening to the album and the song “Gridlock” seemed appropriate even though the lyrics aren’t about being caught in a traffic gridlock. I think the album really is perfect driving music. Do you have perfect driving albums?
Springsteen is always a go-to for me in any area of my life. He’s got some albums that are great driving records. The ones that I think of are Nebraska and The Ghost of Tom Joad. I associate those albums with late night driving, kind of a desolate thing where it’s not pump up driving music, but it’s “you’re all alone and it’s a dark night, and you’re cruising along” kind of driving music.
Do you think of your own music that way?
I don’t necessarily think about it but that is definitely something that people have mentioned before that we make good driving music which I do agree with now that I’ve heard it. It pops in my head more often than it used to. I can imagine driving off into the sunset.
Speaking of driving, you’ve got a pretty lengthy tour coming up. It’s like three months of touring in a way.
I think it’s just under 50 shows maybe.
When you see that ahead of you, do you think, “What are we getting ourselves into?” or is it more like, “I can’t wait to hop back in the van with the guys again”?
I think we’re all looking forward to it right at the moment. We didn’t really tour that much last year. We’ve historically been a band that’s on the road quite a bit, and we want to be there, we love playing. I think we’re pretty excited. We’ll see how we are three weeks in.
What is the longest run of dates you’ve done?
I don’t know right off the top of my head. I feel like at some point we’ve probably done five, six weeks. I feel like four weeks is the sweet spot. As a four-week example, the first two weeks, you’re excited. You’re digging in. Week three is like, “Holy shit. This is a struggle.” And then week four, you’re going home, and then it becomes fun again. That’s how it breaks down.
Do you try to route tours through cities you’ve hit heavily in the past or are you trying to hit new markets?
I think the majority of these spots we’ve been we’ve been before. There’s a few that we’ve never been. Mostly it’s going back through these markets that we’ve been to before and trying to get them going again. We’ve toured so much, though. there are really few places that we haven’t been to at least a handful of times.
Do you consider yourself more of a recording band looking for perfection in the studio, or are you more of a live band that lets loose?
We definitely fall in more of the live band category and trying to expand things and break out of certain album arrangements. But, Waving from a Sea was a record that we did really try to use the studio and take our time and craft these songs in a way that we really had never done before. I think this tour coming up is definitely going to be recreating these songs that we took our time with in the studio and combining that with the live aspect that we’ve always had which is I think is going to be super fun.
Have you mostly done headlining shows or do you typically go out as an opener?
A little bit of a mix. I guess it’s been mostly headlining stuff. From day one, our ethos as a band has been to get out there and play and be that kind of live band. We just kind of went out and started playing headlining shows, which seems crazy. We played a lot of rooms with 8 to 15 people, and it’s been building from there. We have had a few support slots. There was a year where we supported Greensky Bluegrass, who’s another Michigan group, and then this band called The Little Smokies, who are like a Jamgrass/Bluegrass band. It was always kind of strange that we were opening up for these bands.
Where in Michigan are you from?
We come from Petoskey, which is probably seven or eight hours north of Columbus. We’re from the very tip of the mitt. I don’t know if you know where Traverse City is but we’re an hour and a half north, right on Lake Michigan.
What is it about Michigan bands where you need to include Michigan as part of the name? There’s Michigan Rattlers and then Michigander that I’m currently aware of.
I live in Los Angeles. I’ve been here for 10 years now. It’s confusing, but everybody else is now back in Michigan. They’ve been back in Michigan since a year before the pandemic, maybe like 2019. We were out here as a band for a few years. It started with me and Adam the bass player. I moved out here by myself and then after he was done with college, I told him to come out here and we’d do the band thing for real. When I drove out with him from Petoskey, when he moved, I think we just thought we needed a band name. I’d been out here for a little while and I think I was feeling pretty homesick. I think we were feeling really connected to our Midwest Michigan roots. I would say that we definitely would not have put Michigan in the band name if we had started the band in Michigan. I think that only happened because we were not there, we had moved away.
If a new, young band from Michigan moved to LA today and said to you, “We’re ready to go on the road, what should we know? What are some tips?”
Be comfortable driving is a huge one that I don’t think you really think about. You are going to be a driver for hours and hours on end. Being able to do that is a huge thing.
Being organized is huge, because it can be chaotic, being on the road and not being in your space. It helps to keep the spaces organized.
And then vague as it is, you gotta keep the faith because it can get pretty lonely out there, especially when, as a young band, you’re playing to 15 people, which is tough. That’s all part of it and you just gotta really, really believe in it. If you really don’t believe in it, it’s not going to work. You’re going to run out of steam pretty quickly.
