Hi! What was the original spark that encouraged you to start creating music together?
Well, Modern Folklore started when Josh and Dexter met at a local music venue’s open mic night and realized they shared similar songwriting styles and were both in need of musicians for their respective music projects. They decided to form a band together, based on their shared love of archetypical imagery as well as early indie and alternative rock influences.
Congrats on your new release, ‘Vol. 1’. Can you give us some insight into the EP?
Vol. 1 is a chronicle of what our experience was like in Rapid City, South Dakota during the year 2020. From our personal struggles to the issues we faced as communities, we wanted to create a document that captured the adversity we all faced during that time period. It’s a very honest record – for better or worse.
Where did you record it?
Vol. 1 was initially recorded at Flat Iron Recording in Rapid City. We ended up reworking a lot of the album and learned to record ourselves in the process – we really honed in on our sound during our home studio recording sessions.
Your music interweaves so many different styles and sounds. If you could collaborate with anyone in the world, who would it be and why?
I think as far as contemporary artists go, we would love to work with Car Seat Headrest. Will Toledo’s songwriting really captures the sense of familiar sounds being packaged in a new way that we strive to achieve with our songs and we think it would be a ton of fun to work together.
What’s been your favorite musical experience to date?
We have a pretty dedicated local fanbase, and one of our traditions is to have our fans and other local artists come up on stage and perform with us on some of our more popular songs. The feeling in the room when everyone is dancing and singing together is irreplaceable, and moments like that remind us why we are doing all of this in the first place.
Where are you based? Can you tell us how the music scene there has inspired your sound at all?
We are based in Rapid City, South Dakota. Our music scene is small, so we don’t really have sub-scenes; everybody supports each other’s music and goes to one another’s shows regardless of style. That being said, we feel the reason our band has such a varied sound is that Josh grew up in Arkansas, Dexter grew up in Oregon, Kyle is from Long Island, and Ed and Pat are from here in Rapid. We’re all from different places, different age groups, and all have completely different musical backgrounds – that’s the beautiful thing about being in a band, it’s more than any of us.
If you could perform at any venue in the world, where would it be and why?
Red Rocks Ampitheater. That venue is iconic, and the atmosphere there is like that of no other in the world.
Finally, have you got anything to share regarding upcoming gigs and what have you got planned over the rest of 2022?
We are planning a vinyl EP release party with a bunch of other local bands we love set for November, a corresponding single release of our song “City Lights,” and then we will be going quiet for a few months as we really hunker down to finish recording and mixing our debut album, set to release early next summer.
