(inspirational music playing) - I'm Carolyn Currie.

Singer, songwriter, mother, and lover of music.

Join me as I listen to and speak with some of Maine's premier musical artists on "Sound Waves."

(mellow music playing) - [Female Narrator] Production of "Sound Waves" on Maine Public Television is made possible by- (bouncy piano music playing) - [Narrator] "Reny's", a Maine shopping adventure for 77 years, now in nineteen locations.

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- [Male Narrator] Since 1852, Bangor Savings Bank Has been dedicated to keeping New Englanders At the heart of what they do.

That means investing in communities they serve, And supporting families and businesses.

You matter more.

- [Female Narrator] And by viewers like you.

Thank you.

(mellow music playing) (drumsticks tapping) (upbeat country music playing) ♪ Lost inside my head, feelin' beat-up, drunk, ♪ ♪ And almost dead ♪ It's coffee that'll keep me in the game.

♪ ♪ Drivin' all night long, and I'm thinkin' ♪ ♪ Right but seein' things wrong.

♪ ♪ I need more coffee just to keep me in my lane.

♪ ♪ No matter where I roam, these empty diners are my home ♪ ♪ Can always count on my old habits to keep me going.

♪ ♪ My vices may be few, like cigarettes, and guitars too ♪ ♪ But first things first, just keep that coffee flowing ♪ ♪ And I want you, I need you make it okay.

♪ ♪ And I'll take you however I can get it.

♪ ♪ And I can't go without you, I know 'cause I've tried ♪ ♪ And my hands would shake and my head would hurt all day.

♪ ♪ You precious thing, it seems that you show up in my dreams ♪ ♪ And I just can't wait to to wake to another mornin' ♪ ♪ Ain't no one cup that's enough, ♪ ♪ So make it strong and make it tough ♪ ♪ 'Cause I need all the extra help that I can pour.

♪ ♪ And I'd have a great big problem ♪ ♪ If I couldn't drink my coffee anymore ♪ ♪ Could be mornin', noon, or night, ♪ ♪ After dark or early light ♪ It's always helpin' do the things that must be done.

♪ ♪ Sometimes sugar, sometimes cream, ♪ ♪ Sometimes dark when I feel mean ♪ ♪ It suits me when I'm sittin' still or on the run.

♪ ♪ From the thirteenth century, Vietnam to the West Indies.

♪ ♪ And from the grinder to the press into my cup.

♪ ♪ From Hawaii to Brazil, keep them trees all safe until ♪ ♪ The day I run out of good reasons to wake up.

♪ ♪ And I want you, and need you, you make it okay.

♪ ♪ And I'll take you however I can get it.

♪ ♪ And I can't go without you, I know 'cause I've tried.

♪ ♪ And my hands would shake and my head would hurt all day.

♪ ♪ You precious thing, it seems that you show up in my dreams ♪ ♪ And I just can't wait to wake to another mornin' ♪ ♪ Ain't no one cup that's enough, ♪ ♪ So make it strong and make it tough ♪ ♪ 'Cause I need all the extra help that I can pour.

♪ ♪ And I'd have a great big problem ♪ ♪ If I couldn't drink my coffee anymore.

♪ (upbeat country music playing) (violin solo playing) (upbeat country music continues playing) - I want to just remind everybody at home And also point out that you are the beloved sons Of David Mallett.

Who was Maine's, one of Maine's famous performers, And writers, and poets, and singers, And had a long and wonderful career.

And sadly, we lost him in December, 2024.

I'm sorry.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- He left a lot of art behind.

- He left a lot of art behind And apparently he left a pretty good legacy of kids behind.

- We hope so.

- Who can carry on with making music And giving the world great stuff.

- Oh, we hope so, we can try.

- I'm sure you, I'm sure you are.

Before we get further though, let's, if it's okay With you see a clip about his, or see a clip of his work.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Yes.

All right.

Yeah.

Thank you.

♪ Some of us born to choose some are born to cruise ♪ ♪ And the rest get by somehow ♪ A crazy world for most of us.

♪ ♪ It's a legacy of Dustin's.

♪ Hard to keep the horse before the plow, ♪ ♪ But you're all right now.

♪ You're all right now.

♪ Now you can fly a bird if you ♪ ♪ Believe that you were right now.

♪ - That's hard.

- It was a good show.

- It's a, do you know where that was?

- That I believe was Husson.

- Oh, was it Gracie Theater?

- Yeah.

The, yeah, the Gracie Theater.

- He was always really excited about that.

- [Currie] Yeah.

About that show.

- Yeah.

- He's wonderful.

- Captured.

- Yeah.

Wonderful.

And was he proud Of you when you started doing your own stuff?

- Oh, he was our biggest fan from the get go.

Yeah.

Right, right.

From day one there was no bigger supporter.

- Yeah.

- Not much.

Got him all excited.

You could get him fired up, But you couldn't always get him excited.

- Yeah.

- And he got very excited around our band.

- So he's kind of your hero?

- Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

(drumsticks tapping) (upbeat country music playing) ♪ Paid the prison.

♪ Paid the farm.

♪ Paid the sheriff.

♪ Paid the bond.

♪ Paint the door.

♪ Paint the hall.

♪ Paint the ceiling.

♪ Paint the wall.

♪ Paint the city.

♪ Paint the town.

♪ Paint the captive.

♪ Paint the crown.

♪ Paint the main.

♪ Paint the fuel.

♪ Paint the good times.

♪ Paint the blue.

♪ Paint the world in gold light.

♪ ♪ That's how you make it through the long cold night.

♪ ♪ Paint the world in pastel.

♪ Paint the heavens and the halls of hell.

♪ ♪ Paint the world in gold light.

♪ (upbeat country music playing) ♪ Plant the field.

♪ Plant the seed.

♪ Pick your poison.

♪ Pick the weed.

♪ Drown your sorrows.

♪ Count your dimes.

♪ Crack the code.

♪ Pass the wine.

♪ Paint the vision, while you can.

♪ ♪ Paint the gods and the works of man.

♪ ♪ Paint the people.

♪ Paint the void.

♪ Paint the grief.

♪ Paint the joy.

♪ Paint the world in gold light.

♪ ♪ That's how you make it through the long cold night.

♪ ♪ Paint the world black and blue.

♪ ♪ It's looking like it all depends on you.

♪ ♪ Paint the world in deep grays.

♪ ♪ Empty your light until the last song fades.

♪ ♪ Paint the world in gold light.

♪ ♪ Paint the world in gold light.

♪ ♪ In gold light.

(upbeat country music continues playing) - I wanna know if your talent comes from nature or nurture.

- Oh, it's, I'm sure it's a little bit of both.

I don't know.

I don't know about The word talent, I guess is it's, it's almost more Just tenacity, you know, The blind determination we got from him.

- Okay.

- Kind of a faith And a belief in the, in the worthwhile nature of music, You know, that came from him.

I'm sure that, you know, some of the, there's a lot Of our dad in, in what we do now for sure.

Whether it's stylistically Or he's the writer I'm always gonna be chasing, He's the guitar player I'm always gonna be chasing, And he had a career that I'm always gonna be chasing.

It's, it, you know, there's a lot of aspects to what we got at it, you know, got from him.

- Okay.

So tell me about your upbringing.

Where, where were you brought up?

When did you guys start music?

Tell me about what your dad would do with you in terms Of helping you with your music Or telling you guys to stop messing around.

I saw a show recently where, nevermind, I'll tell you later.

Go ahead.

- Well, so Luke was born in Freeport.

- [Currie] Yeah - I was born in Dixmont, Maine.

And then when we were toddlers, our family moved to Nashville.

We were there for about nine years.

- [Currie] Oh, wow.

- Spent the summers in Maine still.

But when we were down there, all of our friends had parents That were in the music business.

- Okay.

- So then we moved back to Maine, back to our dad's House that he had grown up in, up in Sebec where There's not a lot of musicians, Professional musicians around.

But I think that was part of us, like having this feeling That we could pursue, pursue music as we got older, Because we'd seen a lot Of people doing it when we were in Tennessee.

So, but we didn't start playing together Until we were in our twenties.

Luke was in bands all through high school.

I was playing around the campfire and that kind of stuff, But we were like 23, 25 when we started this band.

- Okay.

And did you, I mean, When you were kids, did you sing together?

I mean, you didn't start have a band, but did you sing?

Did you mess around, try things out with each other?

- There was, there was always music in the house.

There was always any instrument you could think Of was gonna be laying around the house.

I remember our dad bringing us, I just told someone else this story recently too.

I don't remember what made me think of it then, but we were living in Dixmont at the time, And Vic Firth is up there in Newport, And you would go to the Dixmont dump And you would find bags full of drumsticks, Like the curly ones or the cracked ones or whatever.

So we just had like trash bags full of drumsticks, Which pretty much the, you know, the, the end result of That was that you're just running Around banging on everything that is available to bang on.

But it was, so there was - Wonderful - There was guitars laying around.

I, you know, I started playing drums when I was younger.

I played bass when I was in like middle school.

I kind of tried everything but guitar.

So there, there was music around, But we weren't always, our dad was really the thing, Like if you were in our house, Our dad was sitting and playing.

Our dad was singing.

He never put a guitar down.

It was in his hands 24/7.

So that was the soundtrack through our lives.

- Right.

- And for me, like even just taste wise, I kind Of grew to appreciate And want to kind of emulate what he was doing and, and, And that genre and that style of music much, you know, Later on in life I was listening to like the loudest, most Obnoxious music I could find when I was young - Also running around with drumsticks And whacking your house.

I mean, what's not to love about that?

- There was no family band situation, But we all had instruments, you know, At Christmas time it would be like a big sing along That was kind of like an event.

My dad would show up with his family and his brothers And our cousins and my dad would like lead the sing-along At Christmas.

So in that respect, yeah, we played together a little bit, But really for, for like us doing What we do now, it came much later.

(upbeat country music playing) ♪ Long live l'humanite ♪ Long live the song ♪ Long live the drinkin' and the dancin' on the lawn ♪ ♪ Long live your uncles ♪ And long live memere ♪ And long live this Saturday night ♪ ♪ Just soarin' through the air ♪ With them French Canadian girls ♪ ♪ And that French Canadian music's alright ♪ ♪ Alright by me ♪ And long live de Tocqueville ♪ And long live Thoreau ♪ And long live Jack Kerouac and Montesquieu ♪ ♪ And long live Evangeline ♪ Long live the coast ♪ Long live the poutine ♪ And long live the toast.

♪ And long live them French Canadian girls ♪ ♪ And that French Canadian music's alright ♪ ♪ Alright by me.

(upbeat country music playing) (upbeat country music continues playing) ♪ Yeah long live them French Canadian girls ♪ ♪ And that French Canadian music's all right ♪ ♪ All right by me ♪ Long live them French Canadian Girls ♪ ♪ And that French Canadian music's all right ♪ ♪ All right by me ♪ Vive l'Acadie!

♪ Vive l'Acadie!

♪ Vive l'Acadie ♪ Vive l'Acadie (upbeat country music playing) (upbeat country music continues playing) (upbeat country music continues playing) - Touring is Gross.

You don't want to do it.

- It's, it's not gross.

I love it.

But it's just, It's different now 15 years in than it was ten years ago.

Where we would jump in the van for three weeks And, you know, go out And play 25 dates in a row in places That we'd never been to.

And we couldn't afford hotels And we could barely afford to feed ourselves.

And by the end of that three week run, You're just feeling absolutely destroyed.

And somewhere along the line, I think COVID had a lot to do with it.

I think when everything shut down for a year and a half Or two years, and we weren't playing at all, we kind Of came back realizing, all right, this is home.

We've got a circuit here.

It's like the Northeast has been very, very good to us.

We're lucky that we have Maine to, to, you know, support us, You know, financially as much as it does.

We can keep our whole summer schedule packed With Lobster Festival and Donut Festival and Clam Festival and Red Hot Dog Festival and Whoop Pie Festival And whatever else is going on.

And Maine is so big That we've got all these different markets And regions that we can hit without like stepping on Each other's toes.

- And it's also like for now, like, like we got, We got some really good gigs, so let's, let's do Who doesn't wanna, who money is go where the lobster rolls are or whatever.

- Sure and the people who love you.

- Yeah.

Yes.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So, which is the true fans thing is a thing for us And for our business model, you know, we, You can go out there where you don't know anybody yet And try to get new fans Or you can spend more of your energy focusing on the fans That we've built and have been supporting us all along.

And we're kind of doing it for them.

So we're, we're doing the shows for them.

And they're buying every t-shirt we put out.

And they're, they're just great to us.

- And when we hit the road, we just try To be a little smarter about it than we used to.

We'll go play, play, go to some region, Play a few good gigs rather than like stretch ourselves Too thin and that kind of stuff.

- But rather than call it like we were discussing earlier - Rather than call it touring.

Yeah.

We just kind of never stop playing.

Yeah.

We're doing something every week.

We're doing anywhere between two to five gigs a week In the summer that gets on the busier Side of things in the winter.

Maybe we'll skip a couple weeks.

And it's okay, But we're not going out and playing 48 dates in a row in a van.

- [Currie] Right.

- It's just, we don't need to do that anymore.

- So I've asked other people this, what is, What has been the most exciting Or the highest, most sparkly moment in your career so far?

- There's a lot of sparkles.

Yeah.

There's been a lot of, every night is - [Currie] Every night is sparkly?

- Every night is one.

Yeah.

- [Currie] Well, that's good.

- Not always, But the doing, getting To do the state theater shows is pretty big.

- For us who grew up in Maine And in high school would hitch a ride down To see bands play at the state theater for us To actually get on that stage was pretty, pretty big.

And our first time, there was like a ten year Anniversary of the band.

We had I think eighteen guests that night.

We had something like fifty channels on the Soundboard that we were running.

So it, it was a big production.

It was on a big stage.

It was a big deal.

It was a big crowd that we needed to sell.

And we've been able to do it every year since.

So it's become a tradition, which is cool.

Just the fact that that's, that's now a tradition for us is, is amazing.

That's wonderful.

It's very sparkly.

- Yeah.

I think like playing with some heroes too is also something that's been the, - [Currie] Who are your heroes?

- Well, like our dad's our biggest hero obviously, So that, that out the way.

But, so like, a real surprising thing was when John Fishman, the drummer for Phish, offered to come on tour with us And play Second Drum kit And we just kind, it is just one of those things that kind Of floors you and then yeah, Chuck Lavell, who's the piano player for, for the Rolling Stones.

- Yeah.

- We ended up meeting him through another PBS show.

He has a show called America's Forests And we were on an episode, We asked him if he would ever want To collaborate down the road And next thing you know, he was playing on our new record.

- [Currie] Nice.

- On the song Dogs and Horses.

He, - I heard it.

The Keys.

- Yeah.

He, he did that remote, so he recorded That in Georgia and, and flew it in.

But that, that's amazing.

Like, you know, a lot of good live shows too, But that kind of stuff is pretty, pretty amazing.

(drumsticks tapping) (upbeat country music playing) ♪ Maria was fixin' her eyes on the back of the room.

♪ ♪ Waitin' for young Juan Morerra to step into the light.

♪ ♪ Of the bar where I sat, and I lit up a fresh Chesterfield.

♪ ♪ I guess I didn't know what I didn't know.

♪ ♪ The old man was playin' an ancient Egyptian guitar.

♪ ♪ Maria was dancin', I sipped on my Scotch at the bar.

♪ ♪ When just then Morerra walked in with a gun in his hand.

♪ ♪ And still I didn't know what I didn't know.

♪ ♪ I gotta get back to Sevilla.

♪ I gotta get back to Seville.

♪ I gotta see my sweet Maria.

♪ I gotta get back to Seville.

♪ Well, the room filled with smoke.

♪ ♪ And I followed Morerra into the street.

♪ ♪ The city was silent except for the tollin' of a bell.

♪ ♪ The old man lay dyin', Maria was wringin' her hands.

♪ ♪ I guess I didn't know what I didn't know.

♪ ♪ The gypsies were smokin' hashish while the bonfire burned.

♪ ♪ The stars, they were shinin', the moon and the world, ♪ ♪ They did turn.

♪ The ponies were saddled.

♪ Maria lit up a cigar.

♪ Still I didn't know what I didn't know.

♪ ♪ I gotta get back to Sevilla.

♪ I gotta get back to Seville.

♪ I gotta see my sweet Maria.

♪ I gotta get back to Seville.

♪ I gotta get back to Sevilla.

♪ I gotta get back to Seville.

♪ I gotta find my sweet Maria.

(upbeat country music continues playing) (upbeat country music continues playing) (upbeat country music continues playing) (upbeat country music continues playing) (mellow music playing)