Since they started five years ago, many writers and critics have called the Grand Rapids folk band, The Crane Wives, “the next big thing.” Now members of the band have quit their day jobs to prove them right by breaking into the national music scene.
The band is on tour with their new album, Coyote Stories. They'll do a show at Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo on September 10th at 9 p.m. WMUK's Rebecca Thiele talked with one of The Crane Wives two frontwomen, Emilee Petersmark, by phone.
Five Years A Band
Probably the most notable part of The Crane Wives' music is the harmonies between Petersmark and fellow frontwoman Kate Pillsbury. Petersmark says they met each other in college, but didn't become close friends until they both started working at the same Chinese restaurant.
"It was the most miserable experience of my life - of either of our lives, I think it's safe to say. And so I think that shared misery really helped a lot in bringing us together as friends and then the next logical step obviously was to play music together. And honestly we've been so fortunate in that it's just very natural for us to sing together. Our voices can emulated each other in ways that I've never experieced with another singer."
Petersmark and Pillsbury call themselves "music soul mates."
It was during that time that they named their then duo "The Crane Wives," after a favorite album of theirs "The Crane Wife" by the indie group The Decemberists. The story behind that album is also a reference to a Japanese folk tale.
Becoming Full-Time Musicians
In a videoto raise money for The Crane Wives new album, Kate Pillsbury said that The Crane Wives have always relied on the generosity of fans to fund their music. But now, they will rely solely on that generosity as they leave their day jobs to become musicians full-time.
"I think up until this point, we had kind of made it a pipe dream. It would be nice to play music full-time, but we've got student loans, we've got bills. Dan [Rickabus] just bought a house and he's got a wife. [Ben] Zito just bought a studio. It's hard to kind of follow the path of most average adults, you know, 20-somethings and also try and fund that with a musicians salary," says Emilee Petersmark.
"But we kind of realized that, at this point in our lives, this is what we want to do. This makes us the happiest. And so it just kind of seemed like we were wasting time trying to juggle everything when we really should be focusing our attention on the thing that we want to do, which is make music."
Emilee Petersmark says playing for audiences outside Michigan has been a little scary, but so far they're doing well on tour:
"These are crowds that don't know you and you have to kind of win them over. We've been very fortunate with turnout in a lot of places that we've never been before - like we went to the East Coast recently and we had people show up, which is really all that you can ask for. But more than that - they showed up, they seemed to enjoy themselves. A lot of them bought CDs."
Petersmark says hopefully they'll make enough of an impact in these cities that they'll be able to come back.
Coyote Stories
The band's decision to branch out to national audience is reflected in Coyote Stories. The band often references their national tour with Coyote Stories as #comewhatmay. Petersmark says "come what may" actually comes from their first track on the album called "Keep You Safe."
"The whole song is about how sometimes you have to take risks. Because staying in and being safe...I mean, anything can still happen. You're no safer inside than you are outside so you might as well go out and experience the world," explains Petersmark.
Unlike previous albums, Coyote Stories is more experimental - there's an electric guitar and it even has some jazz elements. Petersmark says The Crane Wives called themselves a folk band more out of convenience than style. After all, they did have a banjo player up until early this year.
"We try not to define ourselves with what has to fit within the genre. We have a ton of different musical influences between the four of us. So I think we encourage that to shine through," says Petersmark.
