Americana band, The Storm Windows, is trying to carve out their spot in music and Americana with the release of their debut album. If you are looking for something a bit different than the bands we usually work with take a look below at what all the band had to say when they chatted with BareBones Ent!
BBE: How would you best describe your music to new listeners?
TSW: We call it Americana because that’s a broad umbrella. We lean towards what I suppose you would call folk-rock, but we also aren’t afraid to make some noise.
Our debut album, The Storm Windows – which contains our first single “Life is a Railroad” – is a meant to be survey of the American landscape, like a cross-country adventure (including up through Canada) in a VW bus. The songs we chose for this debut album are mostly focused on the opportunity of the ongoing experiment, rather than its challenges, which we’ve saved for the second album.
BBE: What musicians would you say inspire the music that you make?
TSW: We chose the name “The Storm Windows” part in tribute to one of our musical heroes, John Prine, who wrote a song by that name, so there’s one. Our musical tastes span rock, folk and jazz – Joni Mitchell, Phish, CSNY (in particular Y), Fountains of Wayne off the top of our heads today – but there are plenty.
BBE: Is this always the type of music that you wanted to make or did it develop over time?
TSW: The main members of the band are brothers Rob and Don Mathews, with friends and a few hired hands helping out. We’ve played in lots of iterations over the years in different genres, but we can agree on the acoustic-based music we are playing now as common ground.
We both found ourselves in New York City a few years back and ended up playing as a duo and with a full band in some Greenwich Village clubs, doing both originals and covers. We spent a lot of time on the small stage at The Back Fence on the corner of Bleecker and Thompson (now a coffee shop) and the basement of The Baggot Inn around the corner on 3rd Street (now a gastro pub). There was a tourist aspect to the audience – we could break out a good 60s protest song or a two-part harmony version of Thunder Road that we still like to play. They swayed (or waved) beer glasses.
Don prefers the upright bass. It adds to the Americana / indie-folk theme of our project. We played in a touring bluegrass band for a while probably because of it, that took us to some interesting places.
BBE: What is it about your music that you feel makes it stand out?
TSW: We decided to pick a mix of original and cover songs (5 of each) for the first album. Our first single was about a railroad – then we’ve got a song we wrote via Highway 61 “Revisited”, that might be about climate change, and a nice folk ballad called “I Am Part Wind” that could be a campfire song.
We tried to pick songs from some of our less-than-mainstream favorites and reimagined in other contexts. For example, “The Telling Takes Me Home” by Utah Phillips channels Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Boxer,” “Bells of Norwich” by Sydney Carter reflects the early Byrds, and “A Sailor’s Prayer” by Rod McDonald recalls vintage Fleetwood Mac.
BBE: You recently released a new song, “Life Is A Railroad”. How was the creation of this song for you?
TSW: The song is an ode to the road less traveled. It’s been described in the press as “a track that perfectly articulates the bohemian spirit in this slap-happy sonic, accompanied with a lightsome melody.”
We were thinking about how philosophers and other deep thinkers frequently come up with analogies to explain to the rest of us the ‘bigger picture’ of what’s really going on out there – like the train (the present) rolling down the tracks (the past and future) – maybe the song is about that. Or maybe it’s just a song about a train, and trying to enjoy the ride. It’s also a travelogue: part road trip; part nostalgia for something lost; part optimism for something coming. The whole album is like that.
BBE: How has the response been to the song?
TSW: We are happy with the response we’ve gotten to “Life is a Railroad” and our first album generally. On the album we have a cover of Utah Phillip’s “The Telling Takes Me Home” that is getting a lot of streams. Here’s the Spotify link to our album
and our YouTube link to our video for Life is a Railroad [Stay til the end to see it]
BBE: What is next for your band?
TSW: We have a bunch of originals and cover that we plan to record. We are putting the last touches on our second album and expect to play some one-off gigs this summer, probably in the upstate NY region.
BBE: What is the best way for people to connect with you?
TSW: Currently please follow us somewhere – we are on Spotify and Soundcloud and social media in all the usual places. We update our website “TheStormWindows.com” pretty frequently and there is contact information there, including our email address RSM@thestormwindows.com for anyone who wants to connect.
BBE: Anything else you would like to add?
TSW: Thanks for taking the time to listen to our music.
