Oct. 20: Boston Bluegrass act Grain Thief brings string-based tunes to Stone Church

NEWMARKET, NH – Even in this day and age, where a lot of things are modernized and even futuristic thanks to technology and cultural advances, there are still musicians playing music rooted in century-old traditions. With this approach comes a sense of purity where the song isn’t corrupted by fancy electronics or loud amplifiers.

An example of this is bluegrass, which is still present in the American musical landscape with a wide array of bands and musicians performing it all over. Hailing from Boston, Grain Thief is one of these bands and they’re going to be taking the stage at The Stone Church in Newmarket on October 20. Fellow Massachusetts bluegrass act Mamma’s Marmalade is going to be playing as well with the show starting at 8 p.m.

I had a talk with guitarist and co-vocalist Patrick Mulroy about the band’s live album that was released a few months ago, performing at music festivals, looking forward to returning to The Stone Church and plans to get back into the studio to make a new record. 

Rob Duguay: Back in May Grain Thief put out a new live album titled Ain’t Hungover Yet. Where was it recorded and who initially had the idea to make the album in this fashion rather than doing it in the studio?

Patrick Mulroy: Well, it was actually a whole lot easier than recording in a studio. We’ve played the Podunk Bluegrass Festival in Connecticut a few times and they always record the performances while giving us the stems. For this time around, we thought that it sounded pretty good so we had our bassist Mike Harmon mix and master everything and then we decided to put it out. That’s pretty much it, there was almost 0% thought put into it and then we just decided to do it. 

RD: Was there a different vibe or a different feel going into doing this live set while knowing that you couldn’t do any second takes or any do-overs?

PM: We always want to make sure every show is a great show. We had actually put out a soft release of a performance beforehand, and it was only available through our website through Bandcamp, so we’ve always been stoked on the live performance. With this particular recording at this particular time, we just wanted to make a real record out of it so we decided to put some resources behind it after we had already played the show. Like I said, going into any show we like to make that it’s a great time and it’s pretty easy with these festivals where everyone else is enjoying themselves. Podunk is just a fun place to be, so it’s pretty easy to get yourself into a headspace to have a good show, a great performance and make people dance. 

RD: That’s fantastic. Grain Thief has toured all over the United States, so what would you say is your favorite city to perform in outside of the New England region?

PM: Personally, my favorite city to perform in is Egremont, Mass., even though that’s still local to these parts. We just got back from Raleigh, NC, which is a great time, and we’ve played all over the East Coast and the Midwest. I think everybody in the band would answer that question a little bit differently depending on how each city treated them. We’ve had great times in Saratoga, NY, great times in Nashville and great times in random towns like Easton, MD, that was a memorable performance for us. We really just like traveling around and playing, so it’s not so much as where and each show is a little bit different and each place is a little bit different, we meet people everywhere.  

RD: I can totally see that. Speaking of traveling, performing and touring, what are your thoughts on coming up to perform at The Stone Church? 

PM: This will be our third time there, so we’re pretty excited to be back. We’ve got a lot of roots in the area, we’re all New Englanders and a few of us have some New Hampshire roots as well. Newmarket is a great town and The Stone Church is a great venue. We had a lot of fun during the last couple of times we were there and this time we’re going to be playing with Mamma’s Marmalade, so we’re excited to share the stage with them. 

RD: Mamma’s Marmalade is a pretty good band, I know about them. Are there any plans for Grain Thief to record a new studio album going into next year?

PM: We actually have some studio time happening next month and we have a couple weekends booked going into December. We’re going to get in there, lay some stuff down and we’ll hopefully have that all tied up and ready to release next summer.