Andrew Shepard admits it — the music business can be terrifying. But it sure beats the hell out of retail.
“It’s strange, we’re pretty new to it and we’re learning more and more about it every day,” said Shepard, singer/guitarist for the Florida sextet Roadkill Ghost Choir. “It’s stressful, but I’d rather be touring than working a job in retail, which I hate. Those were some of the worst years of my life.”
For Shepard, his two brothers and their three other bandmates, 2013 is turning out to be one of his best. Embarked on a nationwide tour of random spots — the itinerary includes stops in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Minnesota — Roadkill Ghost Choir is gaining praise and finding fans with a sound and live show both eclectic and unusual. The band is rolling through the country in a 15-person passenger van (an upgrade from six people in an eight-person van of recent years), extolling the musical virtues of its debut EP Quiet Light.
“The best way to reach out is playing live, it’s always cool to see people come out to see us,” Shepard said. “It seems topsy-turvy and a very volatile environment to be in, but at the same time it’s incredibly fun and it’s cool to experience it.”
And it’s a welcome respite from home, which in RGC’s case is the sleepy town of DeLand. Sitting inland about 40 miles north of Orlando, DeLand is many things, but cool is not one of them. Yet the town’s lack of excitement is the very reason Roadkill Ghost Choir finds itself perched for a breakout year.
“(DeLand’s) a small town, kind of like a retirement community, nothing much goes on there,” Shepard said. “But it helps in the respect that we don’t have much to do other than play music. So I think it has formed the music that way by being able to do nothing but focus on it.”
Through that focus, Shepard, his brothers Maxx (drums) and Zach (bass), Kiffy Meyers (pedal steel, banjo, guitar), Joey Davoli (keys, trumpet) and Stephen Garza (lead guitar) developed a stew which mixes bluegrass, punk, country and indie-pop to inspired results. One is apt to hear Radiohead and Bob Dylan amidst a My Morning Jacket montage.
Or not. Shepard would just as easily not define it at all.
“We’re not thinking in the normal genre way, it’s whatever feels right at the time as we’re playing it,” he said. “That’s what it comes down to for us, instead of trying to fit into some mold — in some scene or movement genre — we’re just trying to play what’s right. We try to not create something that’s going to be tied down to one sound.”
The band started in early 2011 when Shepard was offered a solo show and wanted some help filling out the music. So he asked his brothers, who he hadn’t played with much before, and Meyers to join him in what was to be a one-off performance. “It kind of never stopped after that,” Shepard said.
That initial collaboration moved into the song writing zone, where Shepard’s rough arrangements became polished by the new collective around him. Shaping sounds and playing with tracks, the six-man crew sent out Quiet Light in September 2012, a five-song selection mastered in Omaha by Doug Van Sloun, who has worked with Bright Eyes and She and Him.
“We like to listen to a lot of the same stuff but everyone’s got their own taste for sure,” Shepard said. “That makes writing the music an experience, where people are coming at it from different a point of view than you are.”
A few more weeks on the road, then it’s back home to rest, and write. The aim is for a new record by the start of next year, which is plenty of time when there’s not much going on in the immediate world around you.
“We’re writing now and we’ll do more when we get home,” Shepard said. “You just have to be home, somewhere that’s not moving.”
Which must be unusual for a band that is clearly going places.
