How bluegrass quintet Water Tower keeps it punk rock
To the average music listener, combining the words “punk” and “bluegrass” might seem sacrilegious. However, fans of either—or both—genres already know just how similar the two can be. Both were started by poor, common folk. Both were amalgamations of other styles before. And both can range anywhere from happy-go-lucky party music to fighting-in-the-streets political ballads. There’s a reason why “folk punk” has become a thriving genre over the decades.
It’s within this vein that Water Tower has made their mark. Formed in Portland in 2005, this five-piece “bluegrass punk” outfit plays the Kuumbwa Jazz Center on Friday, Sept. 26.
“We’re a five-year-old band with 20 years of history,” laughs founder and singer Kenny Feinstein.
That’s because over the past two decades Water Tower has gone through a lot of changes with music, lineups and personal issues. Even their name has changed over the years from Water Tower String Band to The Water Tower Bucket Boys before landing on Water Tower (for now).
“It’s to symbolize us moving into a more punk rock realm,” Feinstein explains. “Also just to keep it more simple since we met at the Oregon Water Tower.”
How are they punk, one might ask? Well for starters Angelenos can often find the band busking on the sides of the city’s many freeway offramps.
“There’s always better money on a freeway offramp,” he says. “It’s more dangerous for sure, but there’s also less pressure than on the street because you don’t have to put on a show. With offramps, you can test the same song for five hours and workshop it.”
The current lineup consists of Feinstein, Tommy Drinkard and Jesse Blue Eads interchanging on guitar, banjo, mandolin and fiddle, Taylor Estes on bass and John Seltzer on mandolin.
Originally from San Jose, Feinstein claims Santa Cruz as home because this is where all of his family is from. He has countless childhood memories visiting cousins and grandparents here. His mother, Ella Feinstein, was even once a Good Times journalist.
However, his teenage years were anything but typical.
“I grew up in Southeast Asia—in Singapore—for seventh grade,” he says. “Then Mexico City for eighth, ninth and tenth grades, along with Oregon for a bunch of that time. But Santa Cruz was the constant. Every summer, every Christmas was in Santa Cruz for my entire life.”
He decided to move the band to Los Angeles in 2015 while working on Fly Around with the album’s producer, Don Bolles, the infamous punk drummer for legendary bands like The Germs and 45 Grave.
“I was struggling in Oregon and I asked him, ‘Should I come to L.A. to finish this record with you?’ and he said, ‘Well, it’s better,’ and that was it,” laughs Feinstein.
The struggle mentioned is his addiction to alcohol and hard drugs like methamphetamines, a topic that can be found throughout many of Water Tower’s songs. A master in lyrical storytelling, Feinstein uses tracks like “AMPM” to tell about long nights and days hustling to score his next fix or “Lose Everything” about–well–losing everything to addiction.
It’s a path Feinstein knows all too well.
When the band started in 2005, Feinstein was still in high school. Four years later they found success selling out 500-capacity rooms nationally and in the United Kingdom with Feinstein at the precarious party age of 21 years old.
“And that’s when addiction took over,” he says. “The band slowly fell apart by 2013 when we went on tour with Against Me!”
It was around that time Feinstein began working on Fly Around with Bolles. He explains to GT that it was only supposed to take three weeks to finish but ended up taking seven years due to jail and multiple rehab treatments. But he never stopped working on it and often called Bolles from rehab to work on lyrics and melodies.
Now clean and sober (10 years from alcohol and over a year and a half from hard drugs), Feinstein and Water Tower are having a renaissance. Earlier this year they played the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and the Long Beach dates of the 30th anniversary of the Vans Warped Tour, two of the biggest festivals in bluegrass and punk, respectively.
They’ve also already put out several releases this year including a live album—Crappy Punk Rock Bluegrass (available on their Bandcamp or on CD exclusively at shows)—and are working on publishing their set from the Telluride festival on vinyl, CD, cassette and DVD documenting their trip to the fest.
It all harks back to their DIY ethos.
“It’s all about keeping that punk rock mentality,” Feinstein says.
Water Tower plays at 7pm on Sept. 26 at Kuumbwa Jazz Center, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. $35/$47. kuumbwajazz.org
