Interview: Kier Byrnes Gets Ready for the New England Americana Festival

Kier Byrnes (Photo Courtesy of Adam N. Signore)

The height of the music festival season has just begun, and a bunch of them have already taken place all over the New England region. This trend isn’t going to be letting up anytime soon with the next installment happening on June 6. That’s when the New England Americana Festival is taking place starting at 1pm, and it’s all going down at the Bellforge Arts Center located on 45 Hospital Road in Medfield, Massachusetts. There’s going to be a plethora of performers taking part, including the Somerville based country rock act Kier Byrnes & The Kettle Burners. Byrnes is also a co-organizer of the festival and he and his band will be closing things out at 7:30pm.

We recently had a talk about the origin behind the New England Americana Festival, drinking moonshine in a shed before making a new EP, and what people can expect when they attend this year’s edition.

When it came to crafting the idea for this particular festival, how did it come about? Was this solely your idea or was it you and a bunch of people getting together to make this happen?

The New England Americana Association has been hosting the festival ever since the first one happened back in 2007. It was an annual thing that took place around the Boston area and I was one of the founders of it, but it was a group of us who participated in the organizing. It was a really communal event and it was great, the fact that a whole bunch of bands got together to enjoy each other’s music and work collaboratively with each other. We put out an album where bands recorded Americana standards and another where bands collaborated with each other, it was really cool. I eventually moved off the committee and then the festival went on for a few more years just before the pandemic, and that’s when things fizzled out.

I think it got too big. It ended up taking over Harvard Square and there weren’t enough volunteers to help sustain it. Meanwhile, during the pandemic, obviously everything shut down and a lot of people that were involved in the music community had either moved on or moved away. I realized how important music was during that time, I really missed it. After the pandemic, there wasn’t really an infrastructure for bands to bring people together in a community type of way.

[embed]

That bonding is a major part of this style of music, the community that surrounds it. I talked to the other founders and other people who had chaired the association over the years to see if it would be ok to relaunch the festival. I saw how it was tough finding our people again and the community of musicians who appreciate this style of music, so in 2024, I put together an event with 19 bands on two stages at a brewery in Medford. That was sort of the revival, it was such a big success, and we sold the place out. I knew that we needed to find a bigger venue and we were going to host it at Deep Cuts for the following year, but unfortunately, there was a scheduling snafu and the place had been double-booked.

I was left without a venue, but then I was put in touch with the Bellforge Arts Center through Michael Marotta, who had ties there and we were working with him on something else. After talking with them, I realized that this might be a match made in heaven, so it was decided that it was going to be the place to hold it. Everyone was a little bit nervous about the logistics because we had 14 bands that were going to be on two stages. That’s no small feat in terms of stage management, and speaking as a musician myself, I know having this many performers is a little bit like herding cats. Working with the team at Bellforge, Michael, and the other members of the New England Americana Association, it ended up coming together pretty well.

It was a a communal effort with Nate [Leavitt] from Other Brother Darryl helping out with social media. We had Damian [Israel Shiner] from Damian & The Displayers doing graphic design and many other folks chipped in wherever they were needed. We had over 1,000 people show up last year and we’re doing it again on June 6, we’re very excited about it.

You should be, it sounds like it’s going to be a blast. The lineup for the upcoming edition is pretty diverse with Beware of the Dangers of a Ghost Scorpion, Consuelo’s Revenge, Regals, Tigerman Woah, Other Brother Darryl, who you just mentioned, Nate Perry & Ragged Company, Jennifer Tefft & The Strange, and many others. How did the process go with curation of performers? Did people reach out to you and you had to turn a lot of people away?

We wanted to embrace as diverse of a population as possible while representing the many different styles that are all a part of the Americana music family. We also wanted to work with people who are members of the community who are from their own areas, hence Consuelo’s Revenge coming from Providence and Regals coming from Manchester, New Hampshire. We had an application process where we had over 100 acts apply on the website for these 14 slots, so it was very tough. There were some bands who didn’t make it this year, but we’re definitely going to keep them in mind for the future. It wasn’t an easy task by any means, but I’m really proud of all the bands that we have signed on to be a part of this.

[embed]

When it comes to putting on an event like this where you have so many different bands on multiple stages, what would you say is the most challenging aspect and what would you say is the most rewarding?

The great part about it is that there’s an infrastructure set up with the sound and the backline courtesy of Johnny Dalton’s team. I can’t say enough good things about his operation at Kung Pow! Recording & Mastering, they do a great job. The team at Bellforge led by Paul Armstrong is also amazing, they do events there and they do them well. There’s always unforeseen circumstances. For example, last year we had to have a rain date because the original date got rained out, but it didn’t deter it at all.

As I mentioned, 1,000 people still showed up, so that was a pretty positive thing. I think for me personally, I’m terrible at social media. I’m not great at it, embarrassingly so, but there are a lot of folks who are very skilled when it comes to posting and sharing the necessary things on Instagram and Facebook. Fans have been great with tagging as well to help promote the festival, but that to me has always been one of the biggest challenges. The biggest reward is the day of, once things get going and the show goes on, I can breathe a little bit.

Earlier this year, you and The Kettle Burners put out a new EP titled *Moonshine & Other Spirits. *From giving it a listen, the production quality is fantastic, so what was the experience like making this record?

It’s a collection of songs that we’re really into. We had been out doing some ski resort shows up in Northern New Hampshire and we actually spent one of the nights in a shed where a moonshiner had his still set up. We had a warm place to crash and all the moonshine you could drink, so it started out as like a wilderness adventure. We were off a dirt road and a 15 minute hike into the woods, we were in the middle of nowhere hanging out while not being sure if we were going to come out of this alive. (laughs) It was the kindness of strangers, the kindness of people, and a lot of stories came out of it.

[embed]

That’s what inspired the music and the vibes, so we just set up our instruments to play and record some stuff up there, which we brought back to use for the EP.

Going back to the New England Americana Festival, there are people who are probably going to attend while not knowing much about the bands and they’re just looking to enjoy a Saturday afternoon. What can they expect when they arrive?

First of all, it’s an easy place to get to. It’s only about an hour away from Boston, Worcester, and Providence, so it’s kind of a central point in New England. There’s plenty of parking, there’s great food being served, and there’s plenty of music. You get a cross-section of the area’s top talent and many people who are performing have either been nominated for awards or won awards. Each band has approximately a half hour set, give or take, and the sets change over pretty quick with there being two stages.

There’s nonstop music, it’s a great experience for people to come together and it’s free, which is also amazing. The artists are going to be sitting in the field watching each other perform and if you like them, you can literally walk up them, engage with them, and talk with them. It’s not one of those things where you’re standing a mile away and you’re watching them on a big screen. We try to bring people together to make connections while having a good time.

In order to make Culture Beat’s content available to everyone, we decided to stop utilizing a paywall. With this being said, we are utilizing the crowdfunding service Buy Me A Coffee in order to have our readers support our endeavors, which they can do so right here.