SONG PREMIERE: Hear Moonsville Collective’s “raw, rootsy storm of Americana” On “End of the Line”

Photo credit:  Martin Franco Vielma

California’s Moonsville Collective is made up of seven members, all of whom play an equal part in contributing to the band’s rustic, rootsy Americana sound. The band carries the kind of welcoming vibe that makes them an ideal act for catching at a fall festival and dancing to the magic that can happen when a handful of musicians throw a mandolin, banjo, slide guitar, drums, harmonica and a fiddle into the pot and get to playing. There is a communal spirit to their music that carries a certain warmth, like passing a bottle of whiskey around the campfire with your closest friends. On their new album Heavy Howl, which drops October 30th via Rock Ridge Music, Moonsville Collective tap into bluegrass, Americana, country, and old-timey music with hints of Bob Dylan peppered throughout. Glide Magazine is excited to premiere one of the album’s standout tunes, “End of the Line”. To get some insight into the song, we figured it would be best to let the members of the band explain it:

“The song is very close to my heart. In the course of a year my father had just lost his best friend, and my mother hers – my grandmother. My father and I went fishing in the Sierra Mountains not long after and what I saw in him will never leave my mind. I couldn’t help but think about how we honor the ones who pass; how they never leave if we carry them with us. And also, how we have to cherish what we can still see and touch. Some time later, the band was on a trip to the central coast. I remember losing sight of Los Angeles as we hit the Grape Vine, and a Tom Waits tune was on my mind.”  –Corey Adams (vocals/banjo/guitar)

“We had been playing this song live for a while. We knew it pretty well before we got into the studio so it was a pretty smooth tracking process. We had recorded it once before up at the Big Brown house in Idyllwild but we didn’t capture it exactly how we wanted. We really like how the track came out on this album. It has a kind of nostalgic varnish brushed on it. It’s hard to aim or manufacture the exact feeling a song will possess; sometimes it just surprises you in a good way. That’s the way it should be.”  –Ryan Welch (vocals/banjo/guitar)

“These types of songs live don’t always catch people’s attention as others might. They are often more of an ‘album song’ than a ‘live song.’ We have to play them nonetheless as they are close to the vest and need to be let out.” –Corey Adams

Since “End of the Line” is more of an “album song”, here is our exclusive premiere straight off Heavy Howl…

Moonsville Collective release Heavy Howl on Rock Ridge Music on October 30th. For more tunes, tour dates and info check out moonsvillecollective.com.