Out in the open: Steep Canyon Rangers stretch the boundaries

Over the better part of the last two decades, The Steep Canyon Rangers have done the single most important thing a band can do—be themselves.

From their humble beginning on the campus of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, the Asheville-based group has played signature festivals and legendary venues from coast-to-coast, winning a Grammy (in 2013 for “Best Bluegrass Album”) and admiration from actor/musician Steve Martin, who the Rangers continually collaborate with (onstage and in the studio).

And with the Rangers latest release, “Out In The Open,” they once again stand at a crossroads. Do they turn left and walk down the traditional road of bluegrass? Do they turn right and wander into the unknowns of Americana? 

Well, they do neither, blazing a new trail straight ahead, one which—within this new album — again is proof positive that the Rangers remain one of the most innovative and intriguing acts in any genre nowadays.

Smoky Mountain Living: Every time I think people try to put a label on what Steep Canyon is, you guys become more elusive…

Woody Platt [singer/guitarist]: [Laughs]. You know, it’s true. And I would say it’s not intentional. We just have followed our musical interests and influences. We’re on our own musical journey. We started our band—pretty clearly—trying to learn how to play and fit into the traditional bluegrass world. But, while we were doing that, we were playing college bars. It’s really just us being us, and after so many years of being a band, kind of having the confidence of just being us. There was definitely a time when we needed to fit in the bluegrass box that we were predominantly performing in. But, at that time, that’s what we wanted to do.

Well, you didn’t know where you were going to end up, too.

Yeah, you never know what’s going to happen. But, we’ve always been a little different. We’ve never completely fit in the traditional bluegrass circuit. We hadn’t been there forever, and we didn’t come from other bands. We came from our own sound, and we couldn’t really ever emulate “that [bluegrass] sound.” We decided to write our own songs because we couldn’t play the other songs as well as everybody else. 

With the record, there’s a lot of wordplay that deals with movement, time and distance. Is that a subconscious or conscious nature of the lyrics? 

You know, I can’t say it’s a concept album. But, it seems to happen that way, where you get into a groove and you write about it. The record is titled “Out In The Open,” and I feel like that’s a perfect summary of where we are, who we are, [with] no shame in it. We recorded the [album] in a circle with no overdubs. You’re completely vulnerable, and you’ve got to do your part. If we weren’t a working band, I don’t think we could have pulled it off. For whatever it lacks in perfection, it gains in authenticity and energy.

I remember [Steep Canyon Rangers’ banjoist] Graham [Sharp] told me that it was about “serving the song,” and not trying to fit into whatever the last album was…

That’s kind of been the thing lately. The last two albums have just been a process of “here’s the song.” How can we create this song, and put this song forward in the best way? And sometimes, it’s really easy to figure that out [or] it takes time. Any kind of changes our band has made have been completely natural, not contrived. We didn’t sit down and say, “hey, let’s change our sound for this end result.” We’re always thinking, always evolving, trying to be more and more creative musically.