Interview with Among The Acres: ‘I miss spending all my disposable income on concert tickets’

Connecticut, US-based band, Among The Acres, which blends elements of Americana, folk, rock and pop, will release their next album, Dreamcatcher, on 13 November, which we’re expecting to showcase the same kind of soaring melodies and poetic lyricism that characterized last year’s album, Looking In.

The band comprises Sean Lemkey (lead vocals/guitars), Michael Day (lead vocals/guitars/banjo), Greg Ganci (bass/vocals) and Erik Lindblad (drums/vocals).

Dreamcatcher will feature 10 tracks, including the title track of the same name and ‘Had It for a Moment’ – both of which will be released before the album launch – as well as two songs that were released last month, ‘Go It Alone’ and ‘Devil’s Cut’, according to their frontman, Lemkey.

‘It’s about that perfect point in time when the relationship is still new’

‘Had It for a Moment’, which Lemkey wrote, is about the same relationship as the one in ‘Go It Alone’, he said: ‘It’s about that perfect point in time when the relationship is still new, without any unrest or turmoil. I was on a bike ride thinking about this past relationship, wondering if we’d made different choices, would the outcome have been different? That’s the premise. The chorus holds out hope for it.’

The opening lines to the song highlight that: ‘We had it for a moment, a perfect beat in time, so many words unspoken, so little to rewind, and when our hearts fell open, the planets all aligned.’

‘This song is a tribute to everyone who’s had the same experience, of the life they haven’t been able to bring into this world’

Day wrote ‘Dreamcatcher’, a deeply personal song for him and his wife: ‘They’ve been trying to have children together but have been having setbacks,’ Lemkey said. ‘This song is a tribute to everyone who’s had the same experience, of the life they haven’t been able to bring into this world. He wrote it for his wife. The line that stands out is ‘like heartache for lost love, a heartache that never was’. It’s both beautiful and sad, that’s a motif we seem to come back to in our music, which is an outlet to process ups and downs. We like to take misgivings or sadness and try and turn those experiences into songs that are uplifting.’

The lyrics are incredibly poignant: ‘I’ll be your dreamcatcher, keep your nightmares locked away, a love as ancient as the rhythm, of heartbeats we’ve passed along the way, heartbeats gone today.’

Unusually, all four of them sing on many of their tracks, creating a beautiful tapestry of four-part vocals and honest, reflective lyrics. ‘We do try to sing together as much as possible – like on ‘Devil’s Cut – although ‘Go It Alone’ is just Erik and I. And on ‘Dreamcatcher’, Mike’s wife Jenna is a guest singer. Sometimes, I sing doubles of harmonies, it’s a patchwork, figuring out whose voice works on a part.’

One challenging song on the new album is ‘Haven’t Found It Yet’, in 7/8 time for the verses. ‘It’s very high in my register to sing but I’ve got more comfortable with it,’ Lemkey said. ‘That was a challenge but I think we nailed it in 2-3 takes. There’s a lot going on it it, there are frequent chord changes, it moves around a lot! It’s complicated and the drum part is sporadic but the bass line glues it all together.’

‘Listening back on the new album, I can’t always tell who’s me and who’s Michael’

Interestingly, their voices have evolved since the band got together in 2017. ‘Michael and I, it works really well because we have different timbres to our voices, although they’ve changed over time. Now, listening back on the new album, I can’t always tell who’s me and who’s Michael, whereas before we could. I’m not trying to compare us to Pink Floyd or The Beatles [laughs] but it’s kind of like that, when you’re not always sure if it’s Paul or John singing!’

They got together somewhat serendipitously when a producer friend of Lemkey and Lindblad’s from the high school they attended together – who was working with them individually on projects in 2013-2014 – would show them things that Day and Ganci were working on with him. ‘We worked on a few sessions together and started jamming together in 2017. Michael’s actually a guitar teacher, he gave me a lesson, because I was mainly self-taught [laughs] and we workshopped songs together. I did the same with Greg. It all happened so organically. The greenhouse session of ‘Lightening Strike’ (on YouTube) that you like was the first time that we all played together as a quartet.’

When a local radio show was going to play their recording, they needed to come up with a name quickly, Lemkey said. ‘We honestly were just texting nature-oriented buzz words back and forth in our group chat, and that is what emerged [laughs] and it stuck!’

‘Devil’s Cut’ – itself a reference to what Lemkey calls ‘the potent stuff left over in the whisky barrel’ (as opposed to the angel’s share, the amount of distilled spirits lost to evaporation from the barrel into the air as the whiskey ages) was written by Day: ‘I used this as a metaphor in the song for all those in my past who wanted something from me that I couldn’t give at the time,’ Day said. ‘Something they probably deserved (their “angel’s share”) but I was too young to give because I was devoting myself to things like touring. That’s where the line ‘You asked only for your angel’s share, but the devil took his cut and left nothing to spare’ comes from.’

Ganci and Lindblad also write songs – Ganci wrote ‘Wave’, for example – although Lindblad write songs for a solo project he has, rather than for Among The Acres. ‘We’ll bring a general arrangement to the table, everyone will lend their parts to the tempo, feel and time signature,’ Lemkey said. ‘Erik will then be ‘what if we do it like this, what if we do it in 6/8 time?’ It’s really helpful. We’ll sometimes butt heads about it, we’ll have stubborn moments [laughs] but we’ll take a step back, we’re very open to each other’s ideas.’

Lemkey’s favourite song of theirs is ‘Had It for a Moment’ – ‘I really like all the parts. From the last album, my favourite is ‘Falling’, it has a certain quality. It has a really good energy to it. We have a blast playing it live, we never get tired of playing it, you never feel that you’re just going through the motions. It’s a favourite as a band, too.’

They recorded their upcoming album at a studio in Massachusetts, which Lemkey describes as ‘beautiful, with vaulted ceilings and a big church organ’: ‘We did most of it live and then did over dubbings with harmonies and guitar bits afterwards. We like to do as much of it live as we can.’

‘We’re considering doing a follow-up album of covers’

I tell him that I love their cover of The Who’s ‘Pinball Wizard’, which was recorded in his basement but has not been released yet as a single. ‘It’s not on the new album but we’re considering doing a follow-up album of covers next year, which could include that. It’s hard to find good songs that haven’t been covered by everyone else, where you can take a stand, go above the song and do it justice.’

One song he’d like to do on that album, if they go ahead with it, is a cover of ‘Airbag’ by Radiohead. ‘We’ve already played a folky cover of that,’ he said. ‘I also love ‘Drops in the River’ from Fleet Foxes’ Sun Giant EP. That’d be a good one to include, we already cover it in our live set.’

Cutting their teeth playing everywhere from breweries and small clubs to festivals and showcases throughout the Northeast, they have been honing their powerhouse of a live set non-stop. Soon after their inception, they won CTNow’s ‘2018’s Best New Band’ and ‘2019’s Best Americana Band’. Their first album, Looking In, recorded at Telefunken Elektroakustik Soundstage, received critical acclaim from various indie blogs, music curators, and listeners.

Lemkey acknowledges that it’s been a ‘weird’ year with the pandemic, although the band has recently started to do a few socially distanced gigs. ‘The time at home has given us a chance to focus on writing and recording and to just hunker down,’ he said.

The band members also got to hang out over lockdown. ‘Erik lives with me, Michael is only 15 minutes away and Greg is five minutes away. We go camping together and have bonfires together. We make an effort to hang together, have a beer. They’re some of my best friends.’

He would be ‘super honoured to share the bill’ with Fleet Foxes (an American indie folk band). ‘They’re a huge inspiration for me. Michael would say the Avett Brothers (an American folk rock band). I’ve also been admiring what Mt. Joy (an American indie rock band) have been putting out. If that was my line up, I’d be living the dream. I miss spending all my disposable income on concert tickets.’

Slowly – very slowly – gigs are starting to re-emerge over there. ‘Breweries are becoming live music venues because they have a lot of space and the infrastructure for social distancing. They’ll set up little circles with a stage. A museum in Connecticut has a beautiful lawn and they have started playing live gigs there for around 100 people. We did one, so there have been a nice handful of opportunities to play.’

Lemkey expects these kinds of gigs to be the way forward in the current climate of social distancing: ‘ I think we’ll continue to see small, more intimate gatherings, where you can connect better with your audience. I like them, you feel as if you’re part of something special.’

(Photo from left to right: Erik, Greg, Michael and Sean. Credit: Whimsical Studios CT)