From CVS to SXSW: Grey Season’s Sidewalk Path to the Main Stage

Folk-tinged rock band Grey Season is having a breakthrough summer, scoring sets at South by Southwest (SXSW), Bonnaroo, the Lowell Summer Music Series (opening for the Blues Brothers), and Boston Calling.

July 31, 2015

There’s a spot on Newbury Street in Boston—between two trees that frame the local CVS pharmacy—that most people walk by without pausing. That is, unless the five-piece, folk-tweaked, alumni rock band Grey Season is playing one of its infamous busking sets. And while the band is in the midst of the hottest summer it's experienced, gig-wise—scoring sets at South by Southwest (SXSW), Bonnaroo, the Lowell Summer Music Series (opening for the Blues Brothers), and Boston Calling—it's not too cool to return to its favorite street. “All of our songs work busking on the street,” says bassist Ian Jones ’15. “When the power goes out, we can still play music…. We’ve perfected the art of street performing.”

Read more about Berklee bands finding success on the 2015 summer festival circuit.

Jones’s sentiment was recently on display under a small white tent near Faneuil Hall, where the band played two rousing sets for an ever-shifting, ever-entertained group of passersby as part of Berklee’s Summer in the City series. The crowd moved in cycles—pedestrians stopped to listen, some stayed for the whole thing, others just for a song or two. Many walked over to the table to grab a CD as well as a booklet detailing the full Summer in the City performance schedule.

Transitions between each song were seamless, showcasing the band’s mastery of the art of drawing and keeping a moveable crowd. The soaring five-part harmonies in “Lost and Found,” a track off its most recent record, Time Will Tell You Well, echoed off the square, complemented by the band’s unique combo of folk instrumentation (banjo, mandolin, and Irish bouzouki) with rock ‘n’ roll electric guitar, bass, and drums. “It’s got old-time elements and instruments, but the sound overall is pretty modern,” says multi-instrumentalist Chris Bloniarz '15.

"Lost and Found" is a poignant one for the band, as it’s the song that first brought the musicians together. In 2011, Bloniarz, Matt Knelman '11, and Jon Mills '11 were living in a Berklee dormitory. Knelman, a guitarist, frequently heard singer, guitarist, and bouzouki player Mills through the wall and liked what he heard. Late one night, Bloniarz —“Our band’s jukebox,” Mills says of the multi-instrumentalist—was about to turn in when he heard strumming and singing out on the sidewalk. The weary-eyed student immediately burst to life, grabbed his banjo, and flew downstairs to join Knelman (who was also rushing to grab an instrument) as Mills launched into “Lost and Found.”

The future seemed unavoidable for the trio which, from the first second, had street cred and original music under its belt. At the behest of the group's friend Ian Jones, most of the musicians moved into a house in nearby Allston, presumably to give the trio a home base. Jones had also brought in his childhood pal and rhythm section collaborator, Ben Burns ’16, to the house, so when the trio decided to record something, it seemed right to add in drums and bass “in order to get a fuller sound on the recording,” says Bloniarz, who majored in music production and engineering.

“That’s from their perspective,” Jones says wryly, noting that he’d been orchestrating his inclusion since he’d met them. “He was plotting his way in,” Bloniarz adds, laughing. Jones's savviness is a thread that has continued to weave through the band’s steady stream of success. While his Stones-esque rock swagger may slightly hide it, Jones majored in music business/management at Berklee, and he knew the band had something special worth promoting. “People were always around,” he says, adding that even their rehearsals drew a crowd.

And the positive vibe only increased from there. In 2013, award-winning producer Benny Grotto (Ben Folds, Amanda Palmer) approached the band after a gig at Cambridge's Middle East nightclub, saying he wanted to record its album at the legendary Levon Helm Studio in Woodstock, New York. After a beyond-successful Kickstarter campaign to fund the recording, the band was off to record an album at the homestead of one of its heroes, Levon Helm, the recently departed drummer from the Band.

This past school year, the band was featured on Berklee’s Heavy Rotation Records annual compilation, performed at the compilation’s debut showcase, and, as a result, was selected to be Berklee’s export to the SXSW festival in March 2015. The leverage from nailing that gig got the group an invitation to Bonnaroo, and the momentum has only continued to land it bigger and more high-profile gigs. “It’s all about turning one win into another,” says Jones. But he bristles at the scenester lingo of needing to “network” for a “career.” Rather, he says that they’re “interested in making friends,” and Bloniarz takes it a step further, saying that they focus on “making meaningful connections with people" every chance they get.

In the end, Grey Season is a band for and by the people—a group that never forgets its roots, both in sound and in location, and that continually defers to each other’s talents to help push it forward. At the end of its set near Faneuil Hall, a new fan approached Grey Season, saying to Jones, “You guys don’t focus on the individual, but on the collective. You don’t see that that much these days.”

Watch Grey Season's NPR Tiny Desk Contest submission, "New Kind of Dirty:"