At least they’re having fun: an interview with The Crane Wives

by Rose Blanton

When most people see the name of this band they might automatically think of The Decemberists, which honestly kind of sucks for The Crane Wives, but the group of folk musicians from Grand Rapids seem to be oblivious to this fact. I mean this in an envious way; those kids are having way too much fun up on stage to be bothered with what people may or may not think of them. If you’ve seen them play or had the pleasure of speaking with them, one thing is for sure, they love music. To love anything as much as these kids love banging on the banjo is a gift. Keep on keeping on.

Rose Blanton:  It’s been over a year since you guys released The Fool in Her Wedding Gown, have you guys been working on other projects or just touring?

Kate Pillsbury: We’ve been spending a lot of time touring because we’re trying to establish ourselves as a national act instead of a Michigan band. It makes sense to slow down a little bit and tour with the albums we already have, BUT we’ve been writing a lot of new music.

Dan Rickabus: We’re having a lot fun jamming and ruminating on our music. And we’ve found that old songs are transforming into something cooler.

RB: People who have written about you guys claim you defy musical stereotypes, what are these stereotypes and how do you, as a band, defy them?

KP: I hate that, someone we know wrote that about us in the very beginning of our career and we thought it sounded so cool, but now, three years later, we’re like that has to change. But I will say we try not to fit in the box. We try to mingle different genres. 

DR: We don’t take genres into account, we just make the music we make and it comes out as us.

Emilee Petersmark: The unique thing about us is that we don’t have any frontman. We’re a collective group. At best, Kate and I share that.

RB:  Where did the songs on The Fool in Her Wedding Gown come from? How did that album come to be? 

DR: What’s crazy is that we wrote most of those songs individually and then when we brought them together, they had this magical narrative that flowed through them. There’s definitely a lot of internal, romantic conflict in the songs. Like being with a person and either knowing that they’re wrong or you have to leave or you want something more.

RB: You guys have been quoted as saying that you’re really lucky to have developed your band in Grand Rapids, because you had so much support and it was really community driven. Do you think the lack of struggle hurt you as a band, perhaps hindering your development? 

KP: That’s something we’re struggling with right now. Now that we’re trying to break out of this regional scene, we’re finding ourselves thinking “How do we do this?”. Everyone is so talented and it’s so competitive. Chicago is somewhere that we’re trying to play more and more.

RB: Why folk music? 

EP: Folk is very versatile. You can tell stories you can’t tell in other genres.

KP: Story telling was always the backbone of our writing. And we just love the banjo.

DR: The organic sound of folk music is an easy format to express honest emotion.

RB: What’s next for you guys?

KP: Well, we’ve phased out our booking agent, so now we’re just really focusing on our new material and having an adventure.

RB: If you won the lottery, what would you do with the money?

Tom Gunnels: I’d build a log cabin in California and I’d learn to fly a plane.

Ben Zito:  Buy a recording studio and fish the rest of my life

EP: Travel, you guys would never see me again.

KP: Pay off my student loan, buy a cluster of houses somewhere warm for my family and I, travel.

DR: Take care of my family’s debt, but a shit ton of land in north Michigan and turn it into a commune.