This article originally appeared as a column in the June issue of the Victory Music Review.

As a musician and a scholar, I’m fascinated by how music is passed on from generation to generation. I learned the fiddle from my father, and grew up around stories of his days busking in the streets of Europe and hanging around his local old-time jam sessions. Having shared the folk revival belief that many traditions were in danger of dying out, I’ve been gratified to see new generations stepping up to the plate to embrace them.

For this month’s column, I interviewed Josh Rabie of the Water Tower Bucket Boys. Josh plays fiddle and guitar, and co-wrote a number of the songs on their new album Sole Kitchen. Banjo player Cory Goldman, mandolin/guitarist Kenny Feinstein, and ex-punk-rocker bassist Walter Spencer round out the group. I work with the Boys professionally, but I’m also a huge fan of their music. Their particular blend of old-time/bluegrass picking mashed up with punk and jazz influences is wild on stage, and the fact that they are first and foremost folk virtuosos has endeared them to me. Josh’s fiddling has been especially influential to me, and I thought he’d have a unique perspective, having discovered folk music and given his life over to it at a fairly young age. I transcribed the interview from an informal phone conversation.

Interview with Josh Rabie of The Water Tower Bucket Boys

Devon Leger: When did you start fiddling? Was that your first instrument, and what led you to the fiddle?

Josh Rabie: Fiddle, started five years ago. First played guitar, started getting into blues and old-time, then I wanted to learn banjo, and then fiddle. Before blues and old-time, I just kind of played pop songs and new-age rock, like Nirvana and Green Day. And Jimi Hendrix. I was really into Jimi Hendrix. I had a shrine to Jimi Hendrix in my room. My parents were going to send me away because of it. They thought it was creepy.
 

DL: What drew you into the old-time music community?

JR: In high school, I was fifteen years old and I heard Sophie Vitells and Gabby McRae playing old-time music in the halls and I wanted to play with them. Actually, the Government Issue Orchestra did a demonstration at our high school. Immediately I was like, “Oh my God!” I started getting into flatpicking bluegrass guitar first and then playing backup for old-time.

Tennessee Mountain Fox Chase: Water Tower Bucket Boys

 

DL: How do you think the folk revival generation has accepted this next generation of musicians? Do you feel like your career and your music has been supported by the folk revivalists, or have you hit a lot of walls trying to get through to people?

JR: They’ve been really supportive. Even when we do the crossover stuff, like punk-rock stuff, people are good to us. We want to be able to do a little bit of everything: Cajun, old-time, bluegrass, swing. Kenny has a sitar, we want to do Indian music eventually. I’ve always wanted to start a reggae band. I feel like traditional music has a lot of barriers and rules, and with Water Tower we’ve always been like, “Fuck the rules, let’s just do what we want to do.”

DL: What are your main fiddling influences?

JR: Sammy Lind. The big one. Definitely a lot of bluegrass fiddlers, like Kenny Baker and anyone that played with Bill Monroe. John Ashby. Dewey Balfa. Definitely Courtney Granger. When I first him I almost started bawling, like, “This is what I want to sound like.”

Other people in Portland like Caleb Klauder. I’ve always looked up to him, as far as learning how to sing and learning how to be a competent musician.
 

DL: Do you think it's possible to get the same level of inspiration from a local old-time fiddler in Portland as you could from "source" musicians like Tommy Jarrell?

JR: Oh yeah. I did! What drew me to old-time music was Foghorn Stringband. When I first heard Sammy’s fiddling, I was like, “Oh my God”. I’d never heard anything like that. I got into Tommy Jarrell later. I draw a lot of inspiration from the local old-time fiddlers. A recording is good, but to actually see them or hear them is more valuable.

DL: Old-Time vs. Bluegrass: Gloves-off bare knuckle boxing match... Who wins?

JR: Really, is that the question? Awesome! I go back and forth so much. They both KO each other. I love ’em both. First it was bluegrass, then old-time, then bluegrass, then old-time. I love everything about them. I hate the snob that will only play one. I think you can take elements of both and add to each one to make them better.
 

DL: What are your non-old-time musical influences? How do you incorporate the swagger and attitude of modern rock/pop/hip-hop/punk into your music?

JR: Number one for me is the Velvet Underground. I think they’re my favorite band of all time. And also Bob Dylan, and also Spaceman 3. In Water Tower, we all listen to all kinds of different music and we want to write our own songs based on inspiration from those other genres.

Heaven: Water Tower Bucket Boys (comp. Rabie)

DL: What's your take on old-time/bluegrasss musicians who wear their pop/hip-hop/punk influences on their sleeves? Like the Carolina Chocolate Drops covering Tupac Shakur, or Nickel Creek covering Britney Spears.

JR: I think it’s cool. Why not? Why the fuck not? I don’t have any expectations or rules for anybody or any band. I love covers. We’re starting to do covers of all kinds of songs. Old ’90s songs from Sugar Ray. Punk bands like the Misfits and Rancid. ’Cause really we’re all kind of punk rockers at heart.

Josh’s experiences with old-time music mirror my own. Although I grew up hearing old-time music, I had actually gravitated away from it. Foghorn Stringband brought me back again. I’d never heard that kind of ferocity in old-time music before! Living in such a rich, local old-time scene, it was easy to start learning tunes from great musicians in Seattle. Like Josh, I value the tunes I learned directly from Northwest sources much more than tunes I learn from recordings. That might be the ultimate legacy of the folk revival: the ability to play folk music with good friends in communities far removed from the music’s origins. After all, music transcends borders, and good music is good music no matter where you are.

Read the original article here.