Grammy-winning Rangers are on a roll

It’s no secret that the Steep Canyon Rangers are on a roll these days. The group won a Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album in 2013 with “Nobody Knows You” and the band has wasted no time releasing another collection of award-worthy songs. “Tell the Ones I Love” is a blend of blues, bluegrass, country and jam-band grooves, showcasing the group’s songwriting strengths and infectious harmonies, uniquely at home in the mountains of Western North Carolina. 

The all-original album, however, was recorded far away from the Blue Ridge Mountains. “Tell the Ones I Love” was brought to fruition in the famed Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock, N.Y., named for the recently deceased drummer for The Band. The new studio was a departure from the comforts of Echo Mountain Recording Studio in Asheville, N.C., where the Rangers recorded their previous album, but the result is an awe-inspiring, 12-song collective that brims with the confidence of a seasoned band pushing the boundaries of the honored genre.

{module Share this!|none}What can be considered a success story today, though, came from humble beginnings. Founding members of the Steep Canyon Rangers—front man and guitarist Woody Platt, bassist Charles Humphrey III, and banjo player Graham Sharp—began penning bluegrass songs and playing them in low-key venues while attending college in Chapel Hill, N.C. The band’s first album was released in 2001.

Shortly thereafter, mandolin player Mike Guggino and fiddle player Nicky Sanders joined the band. But the band’s latest musical addition, comedian and banjo picker Steve Martin, is by far one of the most interesting. After a chance meeting between band members and Martin’s wife at a party in Brevard, N.C.—a quaint Appalachian town the rangers call home base—Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers have become inseparable, recording music, appearing on television, and playing shows across the country.

There are countless bluegrass bands in North Carolina, but the Steep Canyon Rangers have not only earned their place among their bluegrass peers, they have become one of genre’s beacons. Through spectacular live performances, the group creates a potent concoction that demands attention. The Rangers’ latest album and their upward musical trajectory only solidifies that the band is in a league of its own.

Q&A with Woody Platt of the Steep Canyon Rangers

SML: Congratulations on your Grammy for “Nobody Knows You.” How was the award ceremony experience? 

Woody Platt: It was a pretty surreal evening. At the last minute our label offered up a limo; we were staying with Steve (Martin) in Bel Air; everything was just very surreal. And then to actually win, it was over-the-top. It was a wonderful moment for the band, and we’re still grinning about it. 

Going from the bars in Chapel Hill, in the early days of the band, to winning a Grammy seems like it could be overwhelming. 

We’ve just been blown away by the great things that have happened in our career. We joke about it, but when you start a bluegrass band in college with your buddies there’s a lot of goals you might set for yourself—like maybe a gig or two or trying to get a record deal—but a goal to win a Grammy is something you don’t think about.

“Nobody Knows You” was your first record on Rounder Records, a highly respected label. Did you consider signing with them to be a big step in your career? 

Yes, it was. I can remember when we couldn’t get labels to respond to our inquiries; we’d reach out and never hear back. When we hooked up with Steve, his stuff was on Rounder and it made a lot of sense for them, and for us, to streamline the music through them. They are the Cadillac of bluegrass labels, so it was a real honor to be accepted by them, and then to have a Grammy record with them has helped our status. 

What has the band learned from its relationship with Steve Martin? 

Lots of things, such as his ability to entertain an audience—and for us to watch that night after night from the stage, some of that is rubbing off on us—how to design the best show possible, all the effort and energy that goes into it. Working with Steve has opened the door to a whole new level of entertaining that is really important for a band that wants to put on a good show. It’s not just about the music—it’s about the whole experience. 

You once said that the Steep Canyon Rangers have learned not to play down to an audience, to leave out the hokey, backwoods, stereotypical redneck jokes. 

It’s about presenting this American music in a very respectful way. Bluegrass has its roots in the South and in the mountains, and being a hybrid of other genres of American music, it doesn’t mean it has to fill that stereotype and be accessible to only rural or mountain folk. It’s a very heavy, intellectual music that features some fantastic, virtuosic playing and really good harmony singing. I think presenting it at the highest level is very important. 

Thematically, what is different about your latest album, “Tell the Ones I Love?”

The themes of our songs have become more relevant to our lives and our everyday experiences and not so much of the tried-and-true cliché themes found in bluegrass, you know, like moonshine or killing your girlfriend (laughing). There’s a lot of that in bluegrass, these themes you expect to hear about, and for us, we try to be more relevant to the times. Even the title track to our new record, it’s a train song, and that’s a very old bluegrass theme, but it has a modern spin on it, something we can relate to now. 

“Tell the Ones I Love” was recorded at Levon Helm’s studio. How was that experience compared to your previous sessions at Asheville’s Echo Mountain Recording Studio?

Very different. Being up in Woodstock, N.Y., in Levon’s barn where there’s been all that amazing music played and recorded, where Levon lived, Echo is a great studio, but it was just too easy for us to hop in our cars and drive back to our homes. it was like it was a day job, but when we were up in Woodstock, we’d go back to the rental house down from the studio and keep working on music and just stay fully entrenched in it. It’s an interesting time to camp out with your band in a house for 10 days, grocery shop, eat meals together, to live like a family, and to try to capture that comradery and brotherhood.

In true Steep Canyon Rangers’ fashion, there are a lot of different influences that pop up across your new album. Who influenced you as a teenager? 

I was all over the place, but I was really influenced by my mother’s music, which was Doc Watson, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Neil Young, a lot of (Bob) Dylan’s folk albums, they really got me. I love the harmonies of the Beach Boys. But growing up, one genre I didn’t listen to was pop/Top 40 radio, and I, actually, didn’t really listen to country music. I listened to my brother’s music too. He was into a lot of alternative music. I even listened to the Drifters. I really was all over the place.