Wednesday, July 27, 2011

The Local Artist Speaks: WATER TOWER BUCKET BOYS


The Water Tower Bucket Boys are three fellows who take bluegrass to a whole new level. Beyond the food stomping good time, the music these guys put together has been described as "both celebratory and faintly disturbing". I think that is quite a clever combination.

Meet....the Water Tower Bucket Boys!!!

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Comments by band member, Josh Rabie.

How long have you lived in the Portland area?
We have all lived in the Portland area most of our lives, however, we started the band in Eugene. All of us went to college together at the University of Oregon.

Give us a brief history of your band/project:
Well as I mentioned we started getting serious about the band during our time at the UO in Eugene. Kenny and Cory played in a pop punk band together in high school (there hit song was, "Girls Dont Poop"), but that project fell through around the end of high school. Kenny and Josh started playing acoustic bluegrass and old time around the end of high school and by the time we all arrived at the UO the Water Tower Bucket Boys had begun. Josh and Kenny had known Cory for years, so he jumped on the band wagon and took over the banjo position. After college we wanted to get even more serious about playing music and this is now our career and our livelihood. We are best friends and have been together almost 5 years now. We started touring in Europe about 2 years ago and we now return to the British Isles every 6 months. We have a large dedicated following over there and the people are amazing. We also tour extensively along the west coast US. In addition to playing old time and bluegrass, we also play cajun, swing, jazz, and punk rock. Our original sound is blend of all these genres.

What’s the first song you ever learned to play?
Funny you should ask that, as weird as it sounds all three of us (Josh, Kenny, Cory) all got inspired to play guitar from listening to Blink 183 haha! We found this out many years later during a conversation about our first days of playing guitar, and oddly enough it was Blink that inspired us young lads-we were about 13 years old at the time. So there you have it! The first song Iearned was, Whats My Age Again.

What’s your favorite local venue to play? To see other bands?
hmmm good question...well our favorite venue to play in Portland is probably Mississippi Studios, the sound in there is incredible...However, the best sounding venue we have ever played in was in a tiny little town in southern Ireland called Kilworth. The venue is called The Kilworth Village Hall. Its an ancient little place that use to be a church back in the day. Its made entirely out of stone and was built in the 1600's. The sounds echoed through the 400 year old walls and was hands down the best gig of our last UK/Ireland tour and probably the best sounding show we have ever played

Speaking of other bands, who do you like on the Portland music scene?
Portland has some many amazing bands these days, we are definitely proud to be Portlanders. All the members of our band listen to all types of music but i can give you a few names.
I really enjoy the Fleet Foxes, Caleb Kaluder Country Band, The Bellboys, The Decemberists, I'm also a big Modest Mouse fan. There are so many good bands in this town, its a really special place.

Tell us about a recent “Only in Portland” moment you might have had.
-well this is not a "only in Portland moment", but I can give you a "only in Eugene" moment...about 3 years ago we had a CD release party for our first record "The Squid and the Fiddle". The show was at the local hippie student co-op The Campbell Club. We are all really big fans of the Red Hot Chili Peppers so we decided to do the entire show with only socks on our penises. Other than bit of footwear we were completely bare. Its was a very memorable moment for all of us, and needless to say there were a few drunk girls in the front row trying to yank the socks off while we played!!

Finish this sentence: “I cannot live without_Banjos and scrambles eggs, tossed with some local arugula____”

Check out this video about the band:

Water Tower Bucket Boys from on-par productions on Vimeo.

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