Winter Roots Concert
Red Wing presents
The Steel Wheels w/ special guest Driftwood
February 22nd – JMU’s Wilson Hall – Harrisonburg, Virginia
EVENT SCHEDULE
Box Office | 5:00pm
Doors | 6:00pm
Music | 7:00pm
FREE PARKING
in the Warsaw Ave Parking Deck
(details below).
Enjoy a weekend in Harrisonburg, VA!
We are thrilled to partner with Hotel Madison again for the Winter Roots Weekend! Use this link to book your special room rate at Hotel Madison for February 21 and/or 22!
Winter Roots Concert Line Up
Virginia-based folk-rock band The Steel Wheels have spent almost twenty years writing, recording, and touring, all the while constantly honing their evolving brand of American roots music. Additionally they are the founders and hosts of the Red Wing Roots Music Festival, a beloved staple of the Shenandoah Valley. Through the years, The Steel Wheels
have drawn on both traditional form and modern sounds to capture the beauty in all of life’s varied trials and triumphs. Their new album, Sideways, which released on February 9, 2024 via Big Ring Records, is a meditation on resilience and survival. Trent Wagler, the band’s lead singer and primary songwriter, penned many of the songs in response to loss, and the uncertainty that comes with facing what we can’t control.
Sideways begins with “Wait On You,” bounding out of the gates with a fervor carried by The Steel Wheels’ signature close harmonies and propulsive mountain energy. Through a seemingly simple story of the naivety of youth, the belief that we can skate by without being prepared for misfortune and the unexpected, the album kicks off with a kind of emboldening invitation in the face of an unavoidable truth. The world doesn’t wait on us—it’s our responsibility to shore ourselves up, to show up, to be ready to be a part of it all.
In 2019, The Steel Wheels were blindsided by the death of fiddle player and vocalist Eric Brubaker’s young daughter to a sudden illness. This incredible weight inspired some of the lines of “Easy on Your Way”, an almost hymn-like anthem that speaks to the desire to find something to say or give in the middle of heartache. But in spite of the weight at the heart of the song, it still rollicks with energy like a barn dance dirge—it’s a call to just be in your grief and pain while holding on to hope that we are in it all together.
In addition to finding resolve in loss, many of the songs on Sideways heavily grapple with the experience of watching the suffering of those we love, but feeling unequipped and helpless to know what to do—or if there is even anything we can do. In the depths of a pandemic, mostly isolated and sequestered from the rest of the world, Wagler’s own child faced a serious mental health crisis and needed immediate treatment. Thankfully they were able to find a program to receive the help they needed. Still the complicated, unending journey of mental health, experienced from the inside and as a spectator, was at the front of mind as the songs for Sideways were written.
“We all cast ourselves in the leading role of our story. I wrote the song ‘Hero’ in the midst of trying to help my child, and needing to be okay with it being their story. The refrain ‘I thought I was the hero’ is poking fun at myself for thinking I should or could fix anything. I had to take a backseat to listen and understand exactly what they were needing in that moment. Many of the songs on Sideways, including the title track, were a reflection of my own emotional confusion and processing.” – Trent Wagler
Sonically, Sideways encapsulates the band’s most ambitious outing to date. At their inception, The Steel Wheels played exclusively on acoustic instruments, around one mic, drawing inspiration from the mountain music and string band traditions of Virginia, where the band was formed. But 2017’s Wild As We Came Here represented an evolution in the band’s sound. It was then they first collaborated with producer Sam Kassirer (Lake Street Dive, Langhorne Slim, Josh Ritter), adding sonic textures and pushing the boundaries of what the band’s sound could be. This same chapter also saw the addition of Kevin Garcia (drums, percussion, and keys) to the band.
“We’re more than a string band, what we do has fundamentally changed from four guys around a mic. This was clearest to me when we were writing Sideways. I realized we were being influenced by so much other music—psychedelic rock, pop, jam, you name it—just overall paying attention to a broader palette of sound, not so focused on our own little world.” – Trent Wagler
For the recording of Sideways in 2022, The Steel Wheels once again tapped Kassirer to help them bring the album to life. The band holed up together at the Great North Sound Society in Parsonsfield, ME, moving into the studio for a week, cooking their meals together around a woodstove in a farmhouse, and, most importantly, playing all together again—for the first time in over two years.
The result is at-once a powerful, anthemic, at-times joyous, and contemplative reflection on our shared human experience—both tapping into the personal and reaching for something universal. And all throughout Sideways, we hear and see the image of resilience, resolve, and strength despite the trials. We are reminded that we are all still here… pushed and bent by the wind, yes, but still standing.
As Wagler says, “It’s beautiful and crushing to be alive sometimes. We aren’t here to sing songs that only cut one way—but if they do, they’ll cut sideways.”
Music has guided Driftwood to hallowed ground many times since its founding members, Joe Kollar and Dan Forsyth, started making music as high schoolers in Joe’s parents’ basement. Whether the Upstate New York folk rock group—which today also includes violinist Claire Byrne, bassist Joey Arcuri, and drummer Sam Fishman—are converting new fans on a hardscrabble tour across the country or playing to a devoted crowd at hero Levon Helm’s
Woodstock barn, the band’s shapeshifting approach to folk music continues to break new ground. And yet in many ways Driftwood’s latest work, the transformative December Last Call, finds the group coming home.
Recorded in that very same basement where the Driftwood dream began, December Last Call lyrically reflects on the recent past, musing on the ways the group grew up, together and apart, through curveballs like new parenthood or pandemic shutdowns. But sonically, the band’s sixth album looks confidently to the future, experimenting with new sounds while staying true to the bluegrass roots that built them. Across the album’s nine tracks, the band often leans into hard-rocking electric guitars and driving percussion: On “Every Which Way But Loose,” we get a foot-tapping beat and a sweeping chorus, and on “Up All Night Blues,” the band shines with an ambling, sing-along-able reflection on the challenges of new motherhood. But other tracks, like standout closer “Stardust,” take a simpler route, allowing bare-bones vocals and acoustic instrumentals to underpin a deeper emotional message.
One of Driftwood’s biggest differentiators—and perhaps its biggest strength—is the sheer breadth of talent in its lineup, with Claire, Joe, and Dan all contributing as songwriters and vocalists. This creative push-pull, where each selects songs to share with the group and record together, bakes vulnerability and collaborative spirit into every recording. “It’s at the heart of what we do,” says Dan. “Everybody has a strong love for songs, for songwriting, and we each appreciate everybody else and the way that they contribute to that.
”While 2019’s acclaimed Tree of Shade tapped Simon Felice as producer, the band opted to self-produce this latest effort, leaning into their creative impulses and striving to capture their distinctive live energy. Figuring out how to channel that on-stage intensity into a recording has actually, in many ways, been a lesson in restraint. “When I look back at the things we were writing and playing, oh, I don’t know, 10, 12 years ago, they were really arranged: a lot of you do this here, we’re going to do this there, we’re going to break down, we’re going to do a big build,” Claire explains. “These days, it’s more like, ‘Let’s play the song and just see what happens.’”
This approach makes all the more sense when you consider Driftwood’s live shows, which operate not only as effervescent, twang-studded musical parties, but also as reunions for their throng of devoted listeners—folks who have started to feel less like fans and more like something bigger. “They’re supporters. They’re friends,” explains Joe. “It’s crazy how much love we’ve got and how many wild situations on the road we’ve gotten out of because of those people.” Many of them are quite literally invested in the band’s future: December Last Call was a crowd-funded effort, and it wasn’t the band’s first. It’s as if every listener, ticketbuyer, album backer, and general band evangelist is in on Driftwood’s biggest secret: this whole band thing has endured for nearly two decades because it offers a kind of community you can’t get just anywhere.
“Driftwood is basically a beautiful friendship that happens to play music together,” says Joe. “I know it’s rare. I know I’m lucky to know these people and lean on them and go through these massive life changes together.” For Driftwood, each song is like a journal entry: cathartic to create, yes, but capable of unlocking new lessons—and when shared—forging new bonds. “We’re communal, right? Humans need to be connected,” Joe says. “And we get to have this special thing.”
Winter Concert Sponsorship
WILSON HALL PARKING
FREE Parking in the Warsaw Avenue Parking Deck directly behind the Forbes Center. Handicapped parking is on each floor next to the elevators. Exit the parking lot on the ground floor and follow signs to campus. Walk through the tunnel under South Main Street. Wilson Hall is the building at the top of the Quad with the clock tower. Alternatively, a free shuttle will run from the Warsaw Parking Deck to Wilson Hall starting one hour prior to the performance and returning immediately following.
A limited number of additional handicapped parking spaces are available in Lot A behind Wilson Hall, accessible via Bluestone Drive. All laws pertaining to proper use of disabled parking placards or license plates apply.
Physical address for Warsaw Avenue Parking Deck: 157 Warsaw Ave, Harrisonburg, VA 22801
Physical address for Lot A: 981 Madison Drive, Harrisonburg, VA 22801
Physical address for Wilson Hall: 951 Madison Drive, Harrisonburg, VA 22801
Night-of Box Office / Will Call is located at Wilson Hall.