David Howley, lead singer and guitarist for We Banjo 3, grew up in Galway, on the west coast of Ireland, an area steeped in traditional Irish music which featured tin whistles, Uilleann pipes, flutes, fiddles and later accordions and concertinas.<\/p>\n
Yet he and his banjo-playing brother, Martin, and another set of musical brothers, Enda (banjo) and Fergal Scahill (fiddle), listened to a variety of musical genres and since 2012 have blended traditional Irish music and American bluegrass into what they call Celtgrass, which can be heard when We Banjo 3 performs at Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts on Thursday, Oct. 17 as part of its American tour.<\/p>\n
The tour is an opportunity for audiences to experience the energetic performance captured on the band\u2019s most recent CD, \u201cRoots to Rise Live,\u201d recorded earlier this year at The Ark in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as the follow-up to the band\u2019s landmark 2018 release, \u201cHaven,\u201d which spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard bluegrass chart, a first for an Irish band. The Ark is a world renowned acoustic music venue, where We Banjo 3 has played often in recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really wanted to capture what a live show in America was like for us,\u201d David adds. \u201cThe Ark is like hallowed ground for folk music. We know we have great shows there and we enjoy it so much. Martin\u2019s wife is from the area. Even while doing a live album we wanted to make sure the quality of album was up to studio standards. We literally dragged an entire recording studio into The Ark. That allowed us to have the energy and life of a live performance with the quality of studio grade microphones, pre-amps and processing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRoots to Rise Live\u201d is an energetic mix of 14 tracks spanning original compositions, traditional tunes, and select covers that demonstrate the wide musical influences the two sets of brothers have used to forge their sound.<\/p>\n
A career as a touring band was perhaps fated for the brothers, David says. When they were children, the Howleys’ music-loving father would place a cassette player outside the door of the bedroom David and Martin shared so the youngsters could hear some of the music he enjoyed.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe made mixtapes for us,\u201d he says. \u201cI remember one that was literally a mixture of Garth Brooks, The Chieftains, and Doc Watson. Completely schizophrenic as you possibly can get.\u201d<\/p>\n
The exposure by both sets of brothers to traditional Irish music, American country and bluegrass as they grew up led them to master their instruments and win recognition among the finest musicians in Ireland. Enda Scahill has recorded with Grammy-winner Ricky Scaggs and performed with The Chieftains and his brother, Fergal, was recognized as Irish Champion of fiddle. Martin Howley is a seven-time All-Ireland Banjo Champion who has performed at the Grand Ole Opry and toured across Europe and the U.S.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe community aspect of Irish music is massive; probably the most integral part of the music is community. That\u2019s highly similar to bluegrass music,\u201d David says. \u201cYou look at bluegrass as a whole and as it developed and it\u2019s music of the people who get together after a day of work, pull out their fiddles and banjos and play. I think Irish music reflects that. They\u2019re both in some ways the same beast, but of slightly different nationalities. That\u2019s what we wanted to explore.\u201d<\/p>\n
With a curiosity about learning and playing other genres of music as its driving force, David says We Banjo 3 is an Irish band not because it plays a specific style of music, but because its members happened to grow up on the Emerald Isle. The band views music as limitless and prefers to invite its audience to join in its exploration of music, wherever it may go on a given night.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur music is really about the interaction,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can hear that on the Ann Arbor recording. So many shouts in the middle of the songs. It\u2019s like a war cry and all of a sudden we all play 50% better than we could normally dream of playing. That\u2019s the adrenaline, that rush you get when you\u2019re playing music. It\u2019s invigorating. It flows through your hands and your fingers and your skin. You just feel so connected to this very moment. That\u2019s what we want. We want people to come and rather than us playing to you, we want you to be part of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
An example on \u201cRoots to Rise Live\u201d is the track \u201cPrettiest Little Girl in the County,\u201d which originally was performed as a slow ballad. While on tour last year Howley says the musicians started playing the song faster than usual.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the middle of the song I just launched into Stevie Wonder\u2019s \u2018Superstition\u2019 without telling the guys and it made the show,\u201d David says. \u201cOne of the things we strive to do as musicians is we never want to be comfortable because comfort for us means we\u2019re negligent; we\u2019re not thinking about the music, we\u2019re just going through the motions. We always want to be literally on the edge of comfort, as much as we can be.\u201d<\/p>\n
He says We Banjo 3 has covered songs by The Jackson 5, Cher\u2019s \u201cBelieve\u201d and Hozier\u2019s \u201cTake Me to Church by Hozier among others \u201d while in concert, adding \u201cEvery night we throw in one or two songs just for fun. I want to show people this is just music and anything\u2019s possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cRoots to Rise\u201d tour continues the band\u2019s partnership with Mental Health America, aimed at raising funds and awareness for the organization, with $2 from the sale of every band t-shirt donated to the organization.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat they [Mental Health America] do is so important in the world,\u201d David says, noting he struggled with mental health issues as he tried to establish his career when he was younger. \u201cWhen I was 17 I would have given anything to have somebody that would understand. You isolate yourself in those times thinking, nobody can know how I feel. There world is hard right now; there\u2019s a lot of hate thrown around. Music is the great communicator, the thing that brings us together.\u201d<\/p>\n
We Banjo 3 will visit the First Year Experience course, “Connecting with the Arts,” led by Jorgensen Center director Rodney Rock, on the day of their performance to discuss their career, play music, and answer questions.\u00a0 Music students from the Capitol Region Education Council (CREC) Aerospace and Engineering Elementary School in Rocky Hill will perform with the band. CREC choir students previously sang with the group during performances in 2017 and 2018 at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford.<\/p>\n