Make Like A Shovel | Roadkill Ghost Choir

Words by: Donovan Farley

We’ve been working with JamBase contributor Donovan Farley for a while now and noticed he has a great eye/ear for up-and-coming acts. As such, we’ve enlisted Donovan to pen a column for the site dubbed Make Like A Shovel in which he’ll profile acts we think you’ll dig.

Any time a young band is compared to the likes of Radiohead, My Morning Jacket and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, I have two reactions: the first is to roll my eyes so intensely that I get dizzy and fall over. The second is to give them a listen, because even though that’s a nearly impossible comparison to live up to; holy shit, someone just mentioned Radiohead, MMJ and Petty when describing a new band, right? Over the past two years, surprisingly enough, I’ve come to find those comparisons apt when discussing Deland, Florida’s Roadkill Ghost Choir.

Now dear reader, relax, I’m not crazy and I didn’t wake up this morning and put a few hits of acid in my coffee. I’m not saying “as good as” or “equal to” (such a statement would absurd in regards to any band), I’m simply saying those are accurate talking points when discussing the band. And although singer/songwriter Andrew Shepard certainly sounds like a young Tom Petty, I’d more compare the band’s ethos to that of Wilco (One could also draw comparisons to The War On Drugs). What I mean by that is although ripping constant guitar solos is certainly within the talented band’s wheelhouse, Roadkill Ghost Choir eschews individual fireworks for the sake of the overall sound.

The comparison is something Shepard echoes when I spoke to him via email earlier this week, saying, “I want our music to transcend any one member, to better service the song as a whole rather than having a ‘This motherfucker can shred’ moment. I also never wanted this band to be stuck in a genre of music… I hold bands like Radiohead, Wilco and Bob Dylan as sort of a compass for Roadkill. They played by their own rules and made the music they wanted to make on each record but still carved out their own sound.”

So far throughout the band’s barely three-year history, that’s something they’ve been able to achieve consistently. RKCG is one of those bands that are able to pull off a diverse array of sounds while still maintaining a beguiling style all their own. Twice I’ve seen a talkative crowd that was made up of mostly people not there for RKGC fall under their spell. Watching the band’s opening set for Band Of Horses at the Boulder Theater two years ago, it was very cool to see the buzzed and talkative crowd slowly begin to quiet down and listen to the intriguing opening band. The same thing occurred during the band’s early afternoon set later that summer at NYC’s Governor’s Ball Festival (I get around).

The restraint the band shows in not going completely Crazy Horse on every song is one of the things that set them apart, and both live and on record they push ahead in search of new sounds instead of relying on established strengths. The band is able to pull this off because their lineup is a unique one that’s perfectly suited for such an endeavor. Shepard’s rhythm section consists of his two brothers, Maxx and Zach, so to say they have a strong connection is a bit on an understatement. The brothers Shepard provide a tremendous core and allow lead guitarist Stephen Garza to play mad scientist with his playing, filling the spaces around their big sound perfectly. Rounding out the lineup is pedal steel/banjo player Kiffy Meyers, whose haunting contributions perfectly cap the band’s ghostly sound.

That’s not too say these guys don’t let loose, as several of the tunes in the Roadkill canon feature enthralling jams and breakdowns that get weird enough for you to realize where the Radiohead comparisons came from. That is, if Radiohead was from the American South and still played guitar music. “The live show, to me, has always been something I’ve wanted to improve upon constantly,” Shepard told me, “I hate feeling stagnant, more so now then in the past. I want to keep things changing and evolving into something that’s entertaining for not just the audience but ourselves. We’re the ones who have to play these songs every night, we might as well have fun and explore the sound.”

That sort of “to thine ownself be true” attitude has paid off in a big way for the band that has already played the Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Governor’s Ball, Shaky Knees and Austin City Limits festivals, in addition to appearing on David Letterman’s show. “We’ve been lucky to be a part of some really great festivals and shows. Just getting to be on the other side of a festival like Lollapalooza or Bonnaroo is insane. It’s both stressful and fun for us to be a part of something so massive.”

It’s honestly a bit of a risk for a young band to so confidently stray from straightforward folk or rock, but it’s clearly been paying off for the band. Shepard’s often goosebump-inducing lyrics paint an eerie picture of a world of fallen saints, biblical allusions and people who live amongst the shadows of life, and it’s no wonder the band’s website mentions masterful American gothic novelist Cormac McCarthy as a reference.

The haunting lyrics are paired perfectly with the RKGC’s overall sound, one that has been stretched considerably with the release of the band’s full-length debut, In Tongues. Whereas their first release, Quiet Light, showcased an effective brand of spectral folk, In Tongues pushes the band’s sound to new depths, which has only served to add to the strength of the band’s live show. Said Shepard, “When we first started playing live as a band, it was radically different. We had a lot more twanged out, mellow moments with the occasional bit of heaviness. Now, it’s considerably louder and we try to make it more of a seamless, dreamlike experience. The more I wrote and played with my bandmates, the more I wanted to challenge how we operated as a group. Specifically on In Tongues I wanted to get deeper into the sounds and atmosphere and that meant we had to figure out how to do that live. The challenge of bringing this record to life in a venue setting has had it’s moments of us hitting walls but it’s been exciting to step back, piece it together and figure out how to make these songs come to life.”

It’s that sort of dedication to creating something unique and lasting that has defined Roadkill Ghost Choir thus far, made them one of my favorite young bands and why they’ve received such strong accolades. While the young band obviously has miles and miles to go to truly be in the class of the legends they’re compared to, they’re off to a hell of a start.