Strung out: Is the banjo cycle over?
An omnipresent instrument on the pop landscape, has the banjo finally reached its tipping point? We asked three folk- inflected B. C. bands to tell us why the banjo is here to stay. Or not.
The Matinee
Matinee guitarist Matt Rose has plucked a banjo or two in his lifetime. Not just with his Vancouver folk- rock band The Matinee but also as a session musician with country boy Dallas Smith. On the banjo’s appeal: “I was drawn to it because I’m a fan of a lot of bluegrass. It’s a unique tuning from the guitar, with five strings. It’s a different setup. I play a little mandolin — part of me loves that kind of roots, traditional stuff. I remember seeing Steve Martin play the banjo and thinking, ‘ Wow, I feel I should play that.’ ” On banjo’s cyclical nature: “Country also goes through these cyclical things where all of a sudden they get sick of banjo and they want a fiddle, and then they get sick of the fiddle and they want a steel guitar, and then they get sick of steel guitar and go back to the banjo again. In pop- country, banjo is back big time right now.” On to the next?: “I don’t see there being a lot of banjos in pop music going forward. It’s totally fine with me. There’s always going to be banjo and banjo players. What Béla Fleck has done is take it to a level I can’t even wrap my head around. And there’s an audience for it.”
The Washboard Union
Banjo player Chris ( Dunner) Duncombe isn’t about to lay his fivestring down. If anything, he wouldn’t be in Vancouver folk band The Washboard Union if he hadn’t picked up the instrument in the first place. On the banjo’s appeal: “I’m probably a bastardized Scruggs style. Definitely not clawhammer. More bluegrass, yeah. When we first started rehearsing, we had too many guitar players. My brother said, ‘ You gotta get a banjo.’ So he got me a kids book and rental banjo, and I literally started to learn it that night and just loved it. It was backward from guitar, it was a percussive instrument, it was so different.” On banjo’s cyclical nature: “It’s always been there. It’s been the heartbeat for bluegrass, it provides the backbone and the rhythm in the absence of a guitar. And you know a banjo’s playing the second you hear it. It can lurk in the background, it can be a solo instrument. It can be haunting.” On to the next?: “I hope not, or I’m out of a job. ( Laughs.) I can’t go back to playing Flying V guitars. ”
Current Swell
Singer- guitarist Dave Stanton admits there aren’t any banjos on Current Swell’s new album Ulysses, released earlier this week. Odds are there won’t be too many in concert if you plan to see his band at the Commodore Ballroom May 10. But Vancouver Island- bred Current Swell had a few on its last album Long Time Ago ( 2011), back when banjos first caught a wave. On the banjo’s appeal: “We used it to create a looping groove ( on songs like For The Land). It really helped to drive the song. It definitely fit the lyrical material and the feel of the song. Every once in a while we’ll grab the banjo and put it on a song or play it live or play it at a radio station.” On banjo’s cyclical nature: “I remember Dave ( Lang, guitar) saying, ‘ I hope Mumford & Sons don’t make the banjo not cool.’ I like Mumford & Sons, and I am stoked that music like that is on the radio these days. I like the idea of more folk music on the radio.” On to the next?: “Ulysses is definitely more of a rocking album and more experimental in terms of some of the sounds we used. We used synthesizers and a little bit of piano, which we always had not wanted to do. We went for it, and we’re all happy with it.”