In the overlapping genres of Americana, bluegrass, country, and roots, a local band has found its niche. Kentucky Mule is kicking arse and will be a supporting act at The Crepe Place on September 18.
Landing somewhere between Wayne the Train, Devil Makes Three and Broken Compass, Kentucky Mule is the creation of 36-year-old Coleton Joe Tidwell.
Songwriter and lead singer Tidwell has created a barnburner of a band, but shirks at being called the leader “Somewhat, I guess. But we’re pretty democratic,” says Tidwell from his home in Santa Cruz.
“I came up with the name and I had written the majority of the songs,” he says.
Tidwell grew up in Gridley, California. While it’s not hard to imagine once you actually visit Gridley, it sits squarely in the middle of the real Northern California. Grizzled cowboys, burly ranchers, squads of agricultural drones, and blue-collar workers with red hats fill the landscape.
Growing up in Gridley might as well have been growing up somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Texas.
Coming from modest means, Tidwell didn’t see much of the world beyond bushels of walnuts, rice and almonds. Spending time in Berkeley and Los Angeles, he began attending UCSC in 2015, double majoring in history and political science.
Starting a band always comes from a unique experience and for Tidwell, as odd as it may sound, he originally saw Kentucky Mule quite differently than the band you see onstage now.
“I wanted it to be punk disco. Like the spiritual vibe of the late ‘70s, like a punk disco counterculture kind of thing. Then I wanted to put that through the lens of the moments that is happening in our country,” says Tidwell.
Luckily, Tidwell took Kentucky Mule in another direction with people like Merle Haggard as a north star.
But Kentucky Mule is a full band. A killer band that reeks of authenticity with Scott Willis on lead guitar, Will Lermini on bass/vocals, Lizzy Smith on fiddle/vocals and Rich Issac on drums.
Credit the Coen brothers’ film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, for being a signpost directing the young Tidwell in the right direction.
“I was very impacted by that soundtrack,” says Tidwell. “When I was getting out of high school, I wouldn’t have even played folk and then subsequently country without it. When I was a teen, it was all rebel music. I wanted to listen to screaming music and deathcore and punk. That soundtrack just was a re-injection of Americana back into all of our lives.”
In another twist of fate, Tidwell admits that if it weren’t for the pandemic, he would not have started a band. “I would do open mics, here and there, because I was a musical person. Then the pandemic happened and then I got a chance to write a whole bunch of new songs.”
Post-pandemic, Tidwell met guitarist Scott Willis at one of the first parties as people began to leave lockdown.
“Everyone kept talking about how it’s gonna be the Roaring 20s again. That there would be a resurgence of live music and everyone’s gonna be excited to go back out. And thought it would be rad if we recaptured the energy of punk and disco.
“Making music that allows people to forget their problems by dancing in dark spaces together. We both kind of conceptualized it. Scott knew Will, our bass player, and we roped him in.
“We met Lizzie, who’s our fiddle player at a festival, like less than a year in. And then we met Rich, our current drummer. We were in need of a drummer, and we heard someone practicing in a room while we were at Santa Cruz Rehearsal Studio.
“We’d actually just tried someone else out that wasn’t a good fit and we were just like kind of standing outside smoking. And then we heard in the distance someone drumming in a different room. He sounded pretty good.
“We knocked on the door and he was alone in there just like jamming on the headphones. We asked him to join right away because we needed a drummer for a gig in like eight days,” says Tidwell.
Tidwell’s vocal range can get gritty but he nails Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” in a way that you could see Simon Cowell on AGT bopping his head and giving Tidwell a contract. Kentucky Mule is ready for the long haul.
Kentucky Mule will be appearing on Friday, Sept. 18 at The Crepe Place, 1134 Soquel Ave, at 8pm. And at Boots on The Green Country Music Festival on Saturday, Sept. 12 in Monterey.
