Zachariah Hickman, double bassist, founder and frontman for Boston’s Barnstar!, says his bluegrass band is not one to keep to steadfast traditions in the genre — there are no long instrumentals or fiddle solos to be found.
While Barnstar! is more likely to play covers by Rod Stewart and The Faces, Cat Stevens, Paul Simon, and the Hold Steady, Hickman says they’re also not going to turn the dial the other way and allow a drummer into the band. It’s atypical bluegrass — instantly recognizable and yet totally surprising (which potentially explains the exclamation point in their name).
Hickman is a busy guy. He plays bass for Josh Ritter and has been musical director for Ray Lamontagne’s tour. He’s ringmastered his own circus, released his own brand of mustache wax, and produced a vaudeville-style variety show, Zack Hickman’s House of Ill Repute. The band’s other members — Mark Erelli, guitar; Jake Armerding, fiddle; Charlie Rose, banjo; and Taylor Armerding, mandolin — are similarly busy. For Hickman, their upcoming tour, which includes a stop at the Stone Church in Newmarket on Saturday, Feb. 13, is a treat.
“Whenever we have a chance to get together it always feels like a minor victory,” he says.
Hickman spoke with The Sound recently about the band’s origins, how Barnstar! appreciates good rock and roll, and how he sometimes has to work overtime on the stage.
How did you form Barnstar!?
For a long time Barnstar! was just a generic name for whatever sort of bluegrass shenanigans I wanted to present. And once I got that particular group of guys together, it became a fair bit more serious and an actual band, as opposed to just a moniker for whatever mischief I was making.
It kind of just started out as very much a once-in-a-while side project, but people seem to like it and that’s always fun. So we’ve decided to take it a little bit more seriously.
Is it tough to get everyone together for rehearsals and touring?
Barnstar!’s going to be opening on a tour for Josh Ritter, which is very convenient for me because I’m also in Josh Ritter’s band. Sometimes it works out that we can do a little double duty. That’s always good for us.
But that must be taxing for you though.
Yeah, those nights are pretty exhausting. That’s like three hours onstage a day. It’s a long time — a lot of stuff going on in the brain.
Why do you enjoy being a musical director as well as a musician?
Well, I’m a very organized person and I like to think that I have a talent of sort of seeing the big-picture projects. So getting the opportunity to see the big picture, and then putting things together in a way I’d like them to be put together was a real treat. People in Boston sort of joke that my nickname is “Band Dad.” I’m usually running performances, whether I was asked to run them or not. So that position suits me well.
Did you always want to play bluegrass?
I came to bluegrass in a very roundabout way. I grew up in southern Virginia — Lynchburg — but I didn’t play bluegrass growing up at all. And actually, I went to the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and got a degree in jazz. So I’m trained originally as a jazz musician. And then I started playing with Josh Ritter when I was 18 years old as a freshman in college, and I was always a big fan of acoustic music and songwriter music. When I moved to Boston, I would play at the Cantab Lounge, bluegrass nights, every Tuesday for years and years. I learned a lot from that.
How is Barnstar!’s music different from traditional bluegrass?
There’s a long history of fiddle tunes (in bluegrass). There’s a lot of history of people that are using songs as a vehicle to show off how fast they can solo, and in Barnstar!, there’s much more of a focus on content of the song itself. We’re playing cover songs; we’re not generally playing traditional bluegrass. We’re more likely to cover punk bands or ’70s rock and roll, just with bluegrass instruments. We kind of treat it more like a rock and roll show, it’s just we have the wrong instruments in our hands. We don’t play any instrumentals.
You describe it as “song-based bluegrass” — can you talk a little more about that?
I like the fact that we focus on lyrical content as much as anything else. On our first record we covered a song by a band called Dawes. It’s called “When My Time Comes,” and it’s a great opportunity to actually listen to the content of the lyrics, then build the song and rearrange it around that.
How much improvisation goes into your live shows?
A fair amount. We have a general structure of the song. But some songs, like our cover of Patty Griffin’s “Flaming Red” will have an instrumental section in the middle where Jake the fiddle player will just show off what a total badass he is. And that could go on for one minute or that could go on for four minutes. We try to be very present. Everything is improvised. It’s a definite part of the fun.
Since Barnstar! Isn’t really a traditional bluegrass band, have ever considered hiring a drummer?
Part of what’s fun for me in Barnstar! is that, as the bass player, I get to sort of be the drummer. I get to lay down the bass and slap the bass on the upbeats for a real percussive effect. I’m a very aggressive bassist, and not having a drummer is a chance for me to kind of show off in a rare way, which is personally very satisfying. Nothing against drummers, but I don’t think Barnstar! will have a drummer anytime soon.
Barnstar! Performs Saturday, Feb. 13 at 7 p.m. at The Stone Church, 5 Granite St., Newmarket. Presented by Bright & Lyon. Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 at the door, available at brightandlyon.com.