Newish bands with mandolin or lute?

[Randi Gormley]

A buddy of my who is freelancing these days just sent me this email:

"Hey you know any current rock/pop bands who use lutes or mandolins? Mumford & Sons is one. It's for an article about a music store. Guy says the past few years, he's been selling more of both."

I said I'd ask here since you guys have way more exposure than I do -- I could come up with Punch Brothers and I'm With Her (thanks to the article on Sarah Jarosz) but rock and roll isn't my thing. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[noah finn]

The Lumineers?

Mandolin Orange

[Franc Homier Lieu]

I've seen some YouTube videos of Frank Turner accompanied by a guy playing a Breedlove mandolin.

[Tommcgtx]

It's not a regular feature, but Ed Kowalczyk (from Live) has been touring with Zak Loy who's been playing a Godin A8 on a few songs. Chris Cornell (from Soundgarden) has a song or two with some mandolin in them.

[allenhopkins]

Who is this guy who's been selling more lutes over the past few years?

I would say that the sale of one lute would be more than most music stores could claim.

[colorado_al]

Not new, but Bruce Hornsby has Ross Holmes, from Mumford & Sons, playing fiddle and mandolin with him on tour. It's pretty sweet. I saw them in Denver this summer. Some traditional, but also a lot of Bruce original material and a lot of Dead-like jamming.

[Petrus]

Second for The Lumineers. In the YT video you see Neyla Pekarek on mandolin though apparently she's usually on cello. (Starts around 1:10, but the video seems really underexposed.) In the photo it's Jeremiah Fraites on mandolin. (When I first heard the video I thought of the little girls from the Nashville series who covered it in an episode in the first season.)









http://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-l...3356/biography

[David L]

Glen Hansard was recently on the Late Show with Colbert. He was playing a mandolin. His singing partner was playing an octave mandolin.

[Paul Merlo]

Flogging Molly is a band with a big following and includes a mandolin player. I'm wondering if it's also part of the growing popularity of jam-grass bands like Yonder Mountain String Band, Greensky Bluegrass, Infamous Stringdusters, Leftover Salmon, The String Cheese Incident, etc... ?? But mostly we'd have Dawg to blame because of his affiliation w/ Jerry Garcia. There are other more mainstream alt.americana bands like the Avett Brothers and the Decemberists that feature acoustic instruments too.

Not to mention, fans of musical bands tend to actually learn and play those instruments themselves. (No offense to pop music fans who think any strung instrument that's not a guitar is a ukelele)

[Perry Babasin]

Many of the bands Paul referenced are followed by devout Deadheads, and I think it very definitely has a connection to the "hipster" resurgence of interest in "Folk" or Americana music which very often includes mandolin.

Watch the DVD concert that accompanied the movie "Inside Llewyn Davis" a loose semi-biography of '60s folksinger Dave Van Ronk (saw him several times back in the day!), The Coen Brothers who also brought us "O, Brother, Where Art Thou" produced this film.

T-Bone Burnett produced the concert film called Another Day, Another Time at the Rhyman Auditorium, featuring music from the movie. With artists like The Punch Brothers, Milk Carton Kids, The Avett Brothers, Carolina Chocolate Drops and Rhiannon Giddens, Colin Meloy, Marcus Mumford, Conor Oberst, Willie Watson, David Rawlings, Gillian Welch, rocker Jack White, Joan Baez and Elvis Costello. I love this show, and the Punch Brothers are the "House Band". Very Cool!

[Lord of the Badgers]

AAAarrrrghhhh ... lumineers & mumfords... !!! overplayed, saturating the airwaves and, especially the former, beloved of hipster types... did you guys have to???!

As you were.

[MDMachiavelli]

The Lumineers?

Mandolin Orange

That's one I was thinking.

[jefflester]

I'm wondering if it's also part of the growing popularity of jam-grass bands like Yonder Mountain String Band, Greensky Bluegrass, Infamous Stringdusters, Leftover Salmon, The String Cheese Incident, etc... ?? But mostly we'd have Dawg to blame because of his affiliation w/ Jerry Garcia.

Wait, did we just enter a time machine that took us back 15 years. :-) (well, except for the Stringdusters)

[vates]

Flatfoot 56
The Dreadnoughts
Dropkick Murphys

and dozens of others if you'll look in this direction

[Martin Beer]

AAAarrrrghhhh ... lumineers & mumfords... !!! overplayed, saturating the airwaves and, especially the former, beloved of hipster types... did you guys have to???!

As you were.

Indeed! I have facial hair and play double bass, and have done so since before Mr Mumford was even playing pubs. If one more person asks me if I've been influenced by Mumford & Sons, I'm not quite sure how I'll respond...

[Steve VandeWater]

Trampled by Turtles are in my cd player right now. They feature a mandolin

[catmandu2]

lutes or mandolins...Guy says the past few years, he's been selling more of both...

Who is this guy who's been selling more lutes over the past few years?

I would say that the sale of one lute would be more than most music stores could claim.

Right, 'the guy' was probably thinking of ukes

[Don Grieser]

Check out The Billyhawks. Plenty of mando content in the Americana genre with some blues/rock/bluegrass influences.

http://thebillyhawks.bandcamp.com

[Russ Donahue]

Steve Earle still uses a mandolin...

[J.Albert]

Then there's these guys:
(probably been posted already)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4Ao-iNPPUc

[Ausdoerrt]

Then there's these guys:
(probably been posted already)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4Ao-iNPPUc

If you mention these guys, then I just gotta one-up you!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h1BZ1D5ixM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85rRNICYOn0

[Pasha Alden]

Apologies for the off topic on this thread, but wondered, is the lute more difficult to play than the mandolin? I know they are closely related, but I've heard that a lute is extremely difficult to play.

[Handy Hummingbird]

Oh Pep! Is a brilliant Australian duo (with varying other members as far as I can tell), that has an exceptional mandolin player and also uses bouzouki. Stationary Blues and Big Strong Man are tracks definitely worth checking out:

ohpep.com

Generally great songwriting too.

[Jim Garber]

Right, 'the guy' was probably thinking of ukes

I thought octave mandolin or bouzouki but Ukes are even more popular these days.

[McIrish]

Not to be too self promoting, but I play mandolin in a band and have toured quite a bit in the last couple years. I don't find that mandolin is being used as a primary instrument in most non-bluegrass bands. It's always the icing on the cake (so to speak). I'd like to see that change. Over the last few years, I've been more an more into seeing what can be done on mandolin using it as the main instrument to build songs around. We featured it on a few songs on our last CD and I've written a lot of songs on mandolin for our next CD. I don't think the potential of the mandolin has been exhausted in a band setting. I'm looking forward to what others are able to do as mandolin is going into a new renaissance era. People like Sam Bush, Chris Thile and Mike Marshall are inspiring a new crop of players that don't play traditional music.

Here's a poor (audio-wise) recording from a concert earlier this year. This was on a Weber Absaroka. I've since moved to a Northfield Big-Mon and have started doing a lot more intricate mandolin work.