The Miners are an original alt country band based in Philadelphia, PA (yes, there are alt country bands in Philly). The Miners are: Keith Marlowe (lead vocals, electric and acoustic guitar), Gregg Hiestand (bass), Vaughn Shinkus (drums, vocals), and Brian Herder (pedal steel guitar) who leads a rotating cast of local pedal steel, lap steel and electric guitar players.
Originally formed in 2007, The Miners are known for their country-infused, guitar and pedal steel guitar laden, alt country originals influenced by the likes of Uncle Tupelo, Whiskeytown, Gram Parsons, and Merle Haggard. The Miners live shows are always an event and, beginning in 2015, they stage an annual sold out benefit at World Cafe Live (upstairs) in Philadelphia to raise money for breast cancer charities. The Miners play the Philadelphia area’s top venues including World Cafe Live (downstairs and upstairs), Milkboy Philly, 118 North, Bourbon & Branch and others. The Miners have also graced the stages of festivals including the Jenkintown Arts & Music Festival, the Philadelphia Country Music Festival and the Awbury Arboretum Harvest Festival.
I loved the band’s 2012 album The Miners’ Rebellion, a wistful, nostalgic view of childhood. On Megunticook, the Miners do what they do best — and in our interview, Keith Marlowe explains how he keeps it simple.
Who are some of your musical influences?
My early music influences were not necessarily country but were varied. I think this comes from the era grew up in; the 70s and 80s. I was weaned on classical music (my father was a concert pianist) and The Beatles. But my early exposure to pop, rock and country came via 70s AM radio. Playing in and writing songs for an alt country band, friends who have known me since high school ask me, “since when do you like country music?” as my biggest influences in high school were bands like Rush and The Police. But I have always liked classic country or country influenced rock and alternative bands. I again hearken back to 70s AM radio where in any hour you would hear Glen Campbell side-by-side with Kiss, the Bee Gees, Queen and Abba. MTV (I watched religiously from Day 1) and college radio further exposed me to New Wave, punk, ska and even metal and my first original alternative bands were influenced by R.E.M., Hoodoo Gurus, and The Smithereens and later bands like The Pixies, Throwing Muses, and Sonic Youth. But I also always dug bands that had had country influences in their sound including R.E.M., Long Ryders, X, Dave Edmunds/Nick Lowe, and the southern rock bands. When a band like R.E.M. cited Buck Owens as an influence, I went out and started to buy Buck Owens records. The breaking of alt country in the early 90s got me diving deeper into both bands of that era like Uncle Tupelo/Son Volt, Whiskeytown and the Jayhawks, earlier country influenced music like Gram Parsons and classic country such as George Jones, Merle Haggard and Hank Williams.
Explain the title of your album.
Megunticook is a lake in Maine that I spent summers on as a kid and still frequent as an adult. The Penobscot Nation called the area where the lake resides Megunticook, which means “great
swells of the sea” as the area, while coastal, has mountains that appear to rise from the sea. For me, the area in mid-coast Maine is my “happy place” that conjures up great memories from my childhood while creating new ones yearly. A song off our EP Norton’s Pond, is about the pond where our summer house was located, which feeds into Megunticook lake, thus tying the two releases together. The album cover’s photo is one I took of the lake from the top of a hike we do every summer. The vantage point is “Maiden’s Cliff” where, in the mid-1800s, an 1year- old girl fell to her death when a gust of wind blew her hat off and she tried to retrieve it. The area where she fell has a giant cross and plaque describing the event.
Do you have any songwriting tips you can share?
Everyone writes differently but I think there is a balance between copying another band’s sound versus using the music you like to influence your sound. Everyone is a copycat to some extent but the great bands take their influences and meld it into something unique, even if it is obvious who their influences were. So listen to the bands you really like and figure out what makes them great and how you can use that in your own writing. And stick to your knitting. Trying to write in too many different styles can cause you to lose cohesion in your sound.
Finally, write to your strengths and your band’s strengths and avoid the weaknesses. There are great bands that don’t have top Nashville A-Team musicians. If you lack great lead players use
musical breaks and bridges versus guitar solos in every song. Keep the songs and parts simpler so you can sound good versus writing difficult structures and parts.
Do you start off with the music or lyrics first? Why?
I typically am a music first writer. I think this comes from the fact that before The Miners, I was the primary songwriter for my late 80’s/early 90’s indie band, Tornado 5. However, we had a
female lead vocalist who wrote the lyrics and then came up with vocal lines to the music I had written. For The Miners, I still tend to come up with musical ideas and then start to think about vocal melodies and lyrics. I do sometimes have a lyrical concept or theme in mind but typically I do not approach writing the lyrics until I have a base musical idea to work with.
Do you play covers at your shows? Why or Why not?
Yes, we always like to throw in a couple covers into our set. Most of our shows are one-set affairs and if we are playing 10 songs, we like two of them to be covers. The reason I like to do covers is to provide something recognizable for people who may not know our songs and also to possibly expose people to music they may not typically listen to. I especially like to do this with traditional country songs as our crowd is not only Americana, alt country or traditional country music fans. I often get a kick when we play an old country cover and someone comes up to us after the show and say they like the Dead song we played and they are not really country music fans but liked our music. I then explain to them that not only was the song they liked not a Dead song, but a George Jones song that they heard the Dead cover, but that the Dead were really a country-based band and Jerry Garcia was steeped in country influences. Our covers typically are from Gram Parsons, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Uncle Tupelo and even R.E.M. (we do a cover of (“Don’t Go Back to) Rockville” that always seems to be a crowd pleaser). Our newest cover is a Tom Waits song.
What’s the first concert you ever attended? What do you remember about it?
My first concert was The Who with The Clash, Santana and The Hooters at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia (the same stadium Live Aide was held) during my freshman year of high school.
What I remember most is being far enough from the stage that when Pete Townshend did one of his famous windmills with his picking arm to strike a chord, it seemed like it I heard the chord five seconds after he played it. I also remember it being really hot. But the excitement of seeing some bands I loved and the energy, excitement and even scariness of being in a large
crowd to see music (JFK stadium held 100K people for concerts) had me hooked on live music. These concerts at large stadiums packed with three or four big selling bands seemed to be the flavor of the times as my next concert was to see The Police on the Synchronicity tour with Joan Jett and Madness. The opener of that show was a young band touring behind their first full length major label album, R.E.M.
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