John Depew

How'd you get into bluegrass music?

 

My dad played mandolin in a Kansas bluegrass/gospel band (Salt Creek) in the 80’s and 90’s. He started me playing mandolin at maybe 5 or 6 years old and taught me how to sing tenor bluegrass harmony probably around 8 or 9. My musical interests wandered elsewhere in my teens and 20’s but I always maintained a soft spot for bluegrass and acoustic music in general. During Covid, I took a bunch of material I’d written for an electric trio I’d been a part of and rearranged it for solo acoustic instrumentation. That’s what became my first solo record, creatively titled John Depew…That record ended up getting me hooked loosely into the KS bluegrass scene and led to me meeting a bunch of great people, some of whom I’m working with now, led to me coming back to some of the regional festivals for the first time since I was a kid, playing a few of them, Lovegrass and Tumbleweed in recent years and several this year, including Pickin’ on the Plains in Colby.

 

Where are you from and what was the roots or bluegrass style music exposure like where you grew up?

I’m pretty much a lifelong resident of Reno County, KS. Grew up in the Pleasantview area and now live outside of Arlington. Spent a very brief time in Washington state and Montana when I was a younger adult but always liked Kansas. There are a few folks close around that have been musically active all my life, and I’m thankful for their influence. I really never knew anyone in my own generation that was interested in this music until I started traveling around the state to play gigs starting in 2021. Turns out there’s a pretty healthy crop of younger players out there, I just didn’t have exposure to them growing up because of locale and economic limitations.

 

Who are your bluegrass influences, local and professional?

 

On a local level, I’ve been really inspired lately by Ken White and Shelby Eicher, both guys who formed in bluegrass and stepped into jazz later. I’ve also really respected the McLemore brothers for pretty much my whole life, although I don’t know them super well. When I was a teenager and mostly uninterested in roots music, Split Lip Rayfield kept me connected albeit through a very different take on the tradition, and I think it’s hard to overstate the impact the Split Lip guys and others in that kind of punk-grass scene have made in growing the audience for bluegrass in recent decades.

On the professional level, my early influences started with Tony Rice Unit (Manzanita totally changed my life when I found it at 12 years old), Russell Moore’s singing, and Chris Thile’s playing in Nickel Creek. I’ve continued to have a taste for smooth, dynamic playing like you hear from Tony and Chris, but also have been really influenced by John Hartford, Mike Cross, Tim O’Brien, people like that who can really hold a stage as solo performers. That’s one aspiration I’ve had, to learn how to own a stage as a solo act. Also, most anyone who is playing in unusual meters or using creative chord progressions or generally doing other things that challenge my brain musically.

 

Who are your professional level influencers outside of bluegrass?

 

I’m a huge fan of Aiofe O’Donovan, who is bluegrass adjacent. Also, Madison Cunningham has been blowing my mind recently. Darrell Scott is another bluegrass adjacent guy that really inspires me particularly as a solo performer. MewithoutYou was an odd quasi-hardcore band (I still love) that made a big impact on me in my teens and twenties. And there’s an AudioTree recording from a band called Pinegrove that really altered my approach to music from the time I first heard it. The list goes on…

 

What do you consider your music style to be?

 

I’d say it depends on the day to some extent. Last year, I put out a digital record and did some duo shows with my buddy Andrew Morris that I’d put in the camp of bluegrass, not like straight up trad bluegrass but it’s not sooo far off.

I just released a new trio record featuring my friends Peter Oviatt on banjo and Calvin Bennett on upright bass. This record is pretty progressive, I’d say but also uses a lot of the tools of bluegrass. Peter’s an awesome banjo player, and I played exclusively mandolin and octave mandolin, so it’s a mando-banjo-bass trio, which I think is a really cool tonal combination. I had a UK based magazine call it ‘bluegrass prog,’ like referring to prog rock, which I think fits pretty well.

And my typical solo set kind of draws from both ends of the spectrum and averages out somewhere in between, I guess.

What kind of struggles have, or do you currently face as a local artist?

There are a lot of things that make this a hard business to be in. Music is a lot like farming, in that you’re kind of forced to find ways to excel at being cash-broke a lot of the time. So, you’re a shade-tree mechanic and an accountant as well as being a booking agent, tour manager, sound person, cook, and full-time driver. All of that can make it hard to put as much time into the actual music as would be ideal.

But another issue I’d be quick to point out is the struggle to keep ego in the right place. I swing wildly between thinking I’m a complete hack and should just crawl in a hole and never come out again (this is a strong 50-60% of the time), and on the flip side feeling like I have almost some kinds of divine right to make a living in music (the other 40-50%). Keeping this all sorted out and trying to avoid being too much of an ass because of either set of feelings often seems like a losing battle.

I’d say the vast majority of my problems as an artist come from this ego stuff, not really from all the diverse work it takes to keep it above water.

 

What is your day job and what challenges does it pose for your musical conquests?

 

For almost two years now, music has been my day job. I’ve gone through periods of feeling like I’d be able to give MORE to music if I actually had an 8-5, for the reasons listed above, but realistically, most of that is due to poor time management on my part. When I’m really diligent, I can keep the business moving and also put in a couple hours a day (sometimes more) of work on the music itself, and that feels really good. I try not to take it for granted, because I know it’s not guaranteed that I’ll be able to do this indefinitely. I’m thankful every day to have this opportunity for however long it might last.

How long have you been writing music?

I don’t remember for sure when I wrote my first song, but I’d say it was probably early teens, maybe 14 or 15 years old? I’m 36 now, so that’s a solid 20 years. When was the first time I wrote what I consider to be a really good song, one that stands the test of time? Maybe 2012 or so…at the earliest. So that’s 8-10 years of a lot of not very good songs before a decent one finally came out.

 

What can you tell me about your song writing process?

 

Songs come from lots of different angles. Once in a while I get one that just comes out feeling fully formed in minutes, but that’s the exception, not the rule. The past few years, a lot of songs start from a point of just messing around on an instrument, looking for new sounds or chord movements that I don’t intuitively understand, and then building from there. I’ve been writing a lot of mixed meter stuff, a lot of chromatic chord movements and stuff like that. As far as lyrics go, usually once I get the guts of a tune into my fingers, I’ll write something more like a stream of consciousness that starts naturally with a lyric that comes out while I’m playing the tune. At first, I don’t try to fit the words to the meter, just kind of puke out words onto a page, and then go back and look for the good stuff, try to refine it down til it feels right. The ‘feeling right’ is a really important aspect. I’m still learning to trust my gut on this stuff, because I think it knows better than my head does a lot of the time.

That one point I want to just reiterate. I think the job of the songwriter, or at least MY job in songwriting, is to ‘un-write’ the song. That is, you have to come up with the thing initially, obviously, but the larger challenge is to go back and try to edit yourself out of it, in other words, to recognize where you’re trying to force it to be something you want it to be that isn’t right. When I succeed at this, I find I have a really good song.

 

what is a song you wrote you are particularly proud of?

 

There are a few that I’m pretty fond of, for different reasons.

A Better Day, Pitimakin Pass, Comb Ridge, and Chicken Fried all come to mind immediately. Generally, whatever I’ve just finished is my favorite song though. I’ve been pretty prolific this winter (for me) so exciting new ones include 3 mandolin songs: a hybrid picking 5/4 piece that references Debussy and Danny Barnes, a split-tuned song about birds, money, and love for the brotherhood of mankind, and a repurposing of an Eric Satie melody into a sparse waltz about haikus and sobriety. Haha! I’m stoked to start work on the next trio record

 

What advice would you give aspiring musicians?

 

From an instrumentalist perspective, I’d say listen for things that give you goosebumps. Listen to the tone of your instrument, try to learn how to make it sound the way that gives you shivers. You don’t need to play a million notes in every bar, that doesn’t necessarily make good music. Aspire to learn how to speak in your own musical voice and draw good tone from an instrument. Listen to Aiofe O’Donovan or Jackson Browne or Darrell Scott play solo if you doubt this. A real master knows what not to play.

 

What kind of pick do you prefer?

 

I’m a habitual loser of picks, so I don’t trust myself with anything that costs more than a couple bucks. I’ve been using Dunlop Flow picks in a 2.5 or 3.0mm thickness (pretty thick). I change instruments a few times in about every solo set, and I don’t like to swap picks for every instrument. These do well across any flat picked instrument, but I should mention I’ve switched to heavier gauge strings on guitar and mandolin (13’s on guitar and 11’s or 12’s on mandolin) because I feel they respond better to a thick slab pick like these. I like a fairly sharp point, and these picks have that; the only complaint I have is they wear down in a month or two of my average rates of play.

 

What make and model is/are your instruments?

 

Right now, I have:

Krutz mandolin (prototype model)

Martin D-35

Martin 00-28 (right now set up for clawhammer playing, super fun!)

Gibson L-4 arch top

Kutthroat Stringworks Octave Mandolin

Hoyt openback banjos #125 (fretted) and #231 (fretless)

Gold Tone BG-250 resonator banjo (I’m not much of a 3-finger banjo player but maybe someday I’ll get it figured out)

Do you have kids? What would you like to see in the community for promoting bluegrass music to local youth?

I do have 3 daughters. There’s a program at one of the local home-school co-ops that teaches bluegrass (not a co-op that we’re a part of). I think more of this kind of thing across the state would be nice. It would be even better if we could get a string-band curriculum into public schools, but I don’t expect that anytime soon. The cool thing about bluegrass is there’s a pretty well-established canon of material, as well as a basic tool kit that allows an individual to fit into almost any other group of people i.e. knowing how vocal harmony works, knowing the basic roles of each instrument in a string band, etc. That’s a cool opportunity for belonging if we could find a way to teach those basic skills to more young people early on.

What shows or projects are up next for you for the rest of the year or perhaps the next year?

I’m SUPER STOKED to be playing some short tour runs and a few awesome festival gigs in a trio format, that’s me, Peter Oviatt on banjo and Calvin Bennett or Jordan Hehl on bass. First up there’s a 4-night run across the state of KS with Calvin on bass:

(2/27-Wichita @ Barleycorns with Little Big Twang

2/28-Lawrence @ AMA with Signal Ridge

3/1-Hays @ Toby Ironworks with 80 Proof Alice

3/2-Alma @ Volland Foundation)

The trio (with Jordan, mostly) will also be playing Pickin’ on the Plains in Colby this year, a cool one in Hastings, NE called Flatwater Festival, as well as a couple of other out of state tour runs (MO/IL/IN/MI & CO/UT/OR/WA) and at least one other big fest that hasn’t announced yet.

This trio is still young, but I’m really excited to see where it goes from here. It’s definitely an honor to be getting to work with guys like Peter and Calvin and Jordan, all of whom are way better players and way more knowledgeable about music than me. It’s a welcome challenge and I’m doing my best to deserve them and looking forward to seeing what comes out.

I also have a handful of solo shows booked for the year and want to fill some more dates in that format so definitely will be out and about playing solo quite often in between trio runs.

Where can people listen to you or contact you if they want to book you for a gig?

There’s also my website, www.johndepewmusic.com as well as my SubStack, https://johndepew.substack.com/ which is probably the best way to keep tabs on what’s going on. For booking, reach out to me through the website, social media, or email below, or Kelsi who does a lot of the booking as well as kick-butt graphic design, she’s at kelsiausherman@hotmail.com. I’ve been doing some studio session work here and there as well as occasionally working as a sit-in for bands who need a mandolin, for those kinds of things, just hit me up directly. john-depew@hotmail.com.