folk music – Memphis Flyer

Maura Rogers and the Bellows

Sometimes a rotten turn of luck can lead you to your spirit family. That’s more or less the story of Cleveland, Ohio-based folk rockers Maura Rogers and the Bellows.

The band — made up of Maura Rogers (vocals, guitar), Meredith Pangrace (accordion, vocals), Quinn Hyland (bass, vocals), Jeff Babinski (drums, vocals), and Al Moses (lead guitar) — got its start when front-person Maura Rogers needed a distraction from a life-threatening ailment. That distraction ended up helping to save her life. Some years have passed, and Maura Rogers and the Bellows released their third album, Always, in April of 2019. They’re stopping at Black Lodge Saturday, October 19th, with a concert to promote it. I spoke with Rogers over the phone about organ transplants, accordions, new babies, and the Stax Museum.

Memphis Flyer: I read that the band has something of a unique origin story. There’s an organ transplant that was involved?

Maura Rogers: Yeah, definitely. Meredith Pangrace — she plays accordion — joined the band in 2011. She joined in a time when I was actually really kind of sick. For me, the music was something that was a distraction from being ill. I was in kidney failure. (The music) something that I’d always wanted to do. … I knew I wanted an accordion because I love the sound of the instrument and the emotion of it. I put an ad on Craigslist, and Meredith was the only person who responded. She joined the band, and we became friends. We connected right from the beginning, and I felt a very intrinsic connection to her, both as a person and as a musician. Then the kidney failure got progressively worse. In 2012, I was in need of a transplant, and she had gotten tested and it turned out she was as close a match as my own sibling, which is actually really rare. … So August of 2012, she gave me a kidney, and she’s still in the band and will always be in the band. I mean, we are Maura Rogers and the Bellows, and the “Bellows” are the accordion.

Is there anything she could do that would make you want to kick her out?

[laughs] Well, I’m definitely certain there are some things, but she’s a good person. And everybody in the band — it’s really a great group of people. It’s the first time that I’ve felt so comfortable and confident in each one of the members and what they’re bringing to the table. We just work through things when they arise and really enjoy each other. It’s like family, and you can’t quite kick anybody out of your family. They might drive you crazy at times, but they’re still always going to be your family.

Had you done many musical collaborations before forming the band?

No, I had just been a singer/songwriter. I started writing songs in 2006 or 2007 and then released my first solo album as a singer/songwriter in 2010. Some local musicians reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in forming a band, and I thought, “You know, why not? Let’s give it a shot.” And it’s just more complex. There are different contributions that everyone makes to the songs that really bring them to life. As a singer/songwriter, I yearned for that but just couldn’t do it on my own.

Maura Rogers and the Bellows

And Always is the most recent album?

Yeah, and we worked with an amazing producer, Jim Wirt. Both as a producer and a musician, he’s just full of wonderful ideas. And he just has a very special way about him when he works.

I really enjoyed the music video for “92 Days” from the new album. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Noelle Richard directed it. My wife teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Art, and Noelle was a recent graduate. I was looking for something to give somebody that with an art background that could really bring a unique perspective to the video, and I met with Noelle and they just had a wonderful idea and full of just a lot of compassion and a lot of humanity and that was kind of the focus. I really thought that connected with, for me, what inspired the song originally. It came from a place of feeling trapped, and I thought that Noelle really kind of captured a sense of how I personally felt it was trapped, but Noelle was able to say, “This is song about overcoming something and really finding the beauty in a situation that is difficult.”

You mentioned that you just had twins. Are they your first children?

Yes, our first children! We have Benjamin and Mera, and they are just blowing me away. You think you know love, and then you meet these new little beings and you’re just really shaken at the core about how how deeply you can feel for something. It’s brand new, and it’s been amazing. It’s exhausting, for sure, but nothing compares for me.

With new kids at home, are you nervous about going on tour?

I am petrified of going on tour. That’s so funny so funny that you ask because when Jeff [Babinski] brought up the idea, it was back in the spring and I was just like I don’t know. And my wife was like, “Do it, do it! Go! It’s going to be so good for you.” Okay, yep. let’s do it. So, Jeff took over the planning, and after they came and just, you know, building this relationship with them, I thought, “Oh, my gosh, I will be gone for days!” But I also know that it’s important for me also as a parent that both these kids grow up and they see us doing things that we love and things fulfill us because I think, more than anything, kids need to see those examples so that they find the things that, in their own life, can really enrich their existence. I know a lot people who don’t have that, and it breaks my heart. Having the example, I think, improves the odds.

Maura Rogers and the Bellows

Is this performance at Black Lodge going to be your first time in Memphis?

Yes, it is. I’m really excited. It’s not everybody’s first time, but I would say that [it is] for the majority of the band.

Does Memphis hold any special significance for you as a music town?

Oh, for sure! I think that there are roots to the history of music — American music — in Memphis. It holds a lot of meaning, and I think that if we have some time, we have some things on our agenda to check out. Hopefully we make it to those things. A friend of the family if one of the directors of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, so we’re definitely thinking of checking that out.

Stax is one of my favorite museums. I’m a soul music junkie, though, so I acknowledge my bias. But anyway, why Black Lodge?

My drummer, Jeff Babinski, runs a film community in Cleveland. It’s called Emerge Cinema. They connected with Piano Man Pictures, who came up to Cleveland to play one of their films. So Jeff reached out to them when we were looking into booking. … I’m really curious because it’s a unique space from what I’ve been told. Have you been there?

Oh, yes. It just relocated, but Black Lodge is one of the last movie rental places in America. They’re just a center for weirdness in the community.

Oh, that’s awesome! I love it. That sounds perfect.

Maura Rogers and the Bellows at Black Lodge, Saturday, October 19th, 8-10 p.m. $5

North Carolina’s Hiss Golden Messenger will be playing the Levitt Shell this weekend as part of Todd Snider’s “What the Folk Festival.” We caught up with band founder M.C. Taylor to find out more about Hiss Golden Messenger, what it’s like to tour all your life, and to get his take on modern folk rock.

Flyer: What is the biggest thing you’ve noticed about your reach as an artist since signing with Merge Records?

M.C. Taylor: There is definitely a lot more interest in what I’m doing because Merge has such a long reach, but the music I make has always been a slow burn, not a drastic uphill climb. We aren’t a super flashy band; I just write songs that I hope will last for a really long time. It isn’t the hippest thing to be doing, but it’s what I can do well.

Is it important to work with a label close to home? You’ve worked with other North Carolina record labels.

The location was something that was attractive about Merge. I can just go down there and shoot the shit for a while. I think it’s helpful, especially with the kind of music I make, which is rooted in traditional music from this part of the world. There is something comfortable about having them in your own backyard, but that’s not the only reason I started working with Merge.

Do you think the label is introducing your music to a much broader audience? What type of audience is coming to check you out that didn’t before?

Yeah, I think so. It’s hard to tell how much of it is Merge’s doing and how much of it is due to the amount of time we spend on the road. Merge has been in the game for so long, and we have a tight crew of people who are all pushing in the same direction. We talk a lot to Merge, but we also have our own game plan, which is something Merge really appreciates. Everyone in the live band has been doing this forever. We aren’t 21-year-olds who just started touring.

In my musical life there have not been any miracles. What I’m doing as a musician is a lot of really hard work. I’m not expecting any handouts or any free rides just because I’ve never gotten any. It’s a last-man-standing type of situation, and all I can do is keep writing songs that are better than the last batch.

How did you link up with Todd Snider? Have you played with him before?

Honestly, this is just a one-off thing. Todd is going to be performing solo, and he called and asked if I’d be willing to play solo, too. Todd isn’t really on my radar, but I am stoked to be able to play.

You’ve been touring with a backing band lately as opposed to going on the road solo. How are those experiences different?

I like the full-band thing just because I played solo for so long that I started to get lonesome. I still love doing the solo thing, because it’s a little like tight-rope walking. You have to recover in your own way. I like that pressure. I love the idea of playing alone and in small ensembles. I’m doing a few solo shows here and there over the summer, and the next one will be this thing with Todd. Solo shows are becoming pretty rare. My booking agent also books the band, but when we start booking solo stuff we have to be very specific, because it’s a pretty different vibe.

As someone who’s been touring for over 20 years, how do you find inspiration to keep creating new music? Are you surprised at what influences your songwriting now as opposed to when you first started writing music?

Yes and no. I mean my core influences have sort of remained the same. My process of working and what appears in my songs have evolved over time as I’ve gotten older and had kids, but the things that I was attracted to as a 19-year-old still speak to me. My skill set has probably evolved. I’m always looking for something deeper, and that can be hard to put your finger on.

Take the Grateful Dead, for example. So often they sounded so bad, their playing was out of tune, their playing was amateurish at times, you never knew what the hell Mickey Hart was there for. But at the same time their music is so deep and so compelling to me. That’s the place I’m trying to get to.

How do you feel about being labeled folk rock? Do you go out of your way to play with like-minded bands?

At this point in my life, I’m kind of up for anything. We say no to most stuff that comes our way, but not because it’s a folk festival specifically. There is a lot of folk music in my music, but I don’t really deal with folk music in a delicate way. Sometimes my issue with that world is that it feels like there is some Civil War reenacting going on. We can be harder on folk music than we are currently, and it will still be pretty durable. People are kind of scared to experiment in the folk-music world, and I have the complete opposite approach.

Todd Snider’s What the Folk Show with Chicago Farmer, Elizabeth Cook, and Hiss Golden Messenger at the Levitt Shell,

Saturday, July 11, 7:30-9 p.m.

Levitt Shell