Thursday, April 28, 2011

Trampled By Turtles



Trampled By Turtles (TBT) is a bluegrass quintet from Duluth, MN. Based on their instrumentation, the initial instinct is to view the band as a bluegrass or new-grass outfit, but spend more than a cursory moment with their music and it’s clear this tag doesn’t really fit. Trampled by Turtles exist beyond the box of categorization. For those who are simply fans of music, not bound by rules or forms, Trampled by Turtles take pieces of it all and just play from the heart. Call it alt-bluegrass, nontraditional string, indie-folk, rock-grass, punk-grass or anything else, they don’t care what name you put on it, just show up with an open mind and it won’t be long until you fall under their spell. The band consists of Dave Simonett (guitar/vocals), Tim Saxhaug (bass/vocals), Dave Carroll (banjo/vocals), Erik Berry (mandolin/vocals), and Ryan Young (fiddle). TBT came together in 2003 when several local bands fell apart around the same time. Dave began playing with Erik as an acoustic duo at which point they met Dave. Soon they picked up Tim and “just kind of started jamming in living rooms and playing for fun” explains Simonett. “It was kind of like a side project, and then eventually everybody else’s band split up so we started doing this one full-time.” The group is most famous for its high tempo, fast paced songs but also features Simonett's lyric writing abilities in slower ballads. Their high energy concerts have attracted an ever-growing, dedicated fan following.  This is "Never Again" off of their 2007 album Trouble.

www.trampledbyturtles.com

Smelly Dog

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