Banshee Tree Strikes a Balance on New Album

Banshee Tree is debuting a new look this spring.

The Boulder band has been active for over a decade at this point, quickly becoming regular players in the local and state festival circuit. The ability to jump between genres, whether it be bluegrass or EDM, helped establish the four-piece as one that could easily fit into many pockets and scenes, as evidenced on its 2021 self-titled debut.

A sophomore follow-up seemed imminent — at least, that was the plan. But work on the second LP temporarily stalled when violinist Nick Carter decided to move out to California to pursue his solo career before recording began. Banshee Tree faced an unexpected crossroads.

“It was kind of an interesting journey because we started it with Nick about three years ago,” says drummer Michelle Milo, adding that she and bassist Jason Bertone’s parts had already been laid down by the time Carter announced his departure. “Those have been complete for that long, and we started building guitar tracks around it. We were waiting on Nick’s parts, but he left in the middle of the project, so we had this half-finished album.”

Instead of panicking, scrapping and abandoning the whole idea, while searching for a new fourth member, Milo, Bertone and vocalist-guitarist Thom LaFond had an idea, and person — on-stage collaborator and saxophonist Jesse Shantor — in mind. It wasn’t too much of a long shot, either.

“All four of us, including Nick, individually were like, ‘What about Jesse?’ He’s someone we played with many times, and we stay with him on tour. He’s become a great friend,” Milo explains. “It was kind of like a wide left turn, but we all were like, ‘This guy seems like he’d be perfect.’”

Restructuring the framework of the existing new material, Banshee Tree went about making space for Shantor’s sax where initially Carter’s violin would have been placed. Shantor even flew from his California home for an intensive workshop and tryout.

“We did a week straight of eight-hour rehearsal and reimagining the songs and seeing if it would work with him. By the end of it we were like, ‘Yes, this works,’” Milo recalls. “So he moved to Boulder and he just finished the album with us.”

“In the studio, Thom would sometimes just let me lay sax tracks over the whole track, often leaving me alone in the booth to generate ideas,” Shantor, who officially joined the group in 2024, says. “Then we would come together and work on ideas one by one and see what was fitting best into the existing arrangements.”

The final results can be heard on upcoming record, Bad Luck, set to be released on April 17. The revamped Banshee Tree already played a hometown sneak-peak last month at the Fox Theatre but will be back in town after a quick West Coast run for another show on April 12 at the Bluebird Theater opening for MarchFourth Marching Band.

Capturing the metamorphosis made for a more impactful process, as Milo sees it, and in some ways, the forced progress felt necessary. Carter even contributed a violin yarn that can be heard on a musical interlude alongside Shantor’s sax, a little nod to the fiddler who brought and meant so much to Banshee Tree.

“It kind of became so much more than we expected it to because of that whole process. The growth of us as musicians and producers and writers over the course of three years,” she explains. “We even have one track in there where we left Nick’s old violin part and threaded it with the saxophone as kind of an ode, a passing of a baton song, so we’ve got both members in there.

“It’s like an encapsulation of an entire period of three years for us,” Milo continues. “Even though it took longer than we thought, I’m very glad for it.”

Lead single “Bright Blue Light” shines in its optimistic tone and flow, though LaFond found some unlikely inspiration in an odd exchange after Banshee Tree played Northwest String Summit.

“We finished our set and our tent neighbors came up to us afterwards and they were like, ‘Woah, you guys are, like, kind of demonic. That was kind of demonic,’” Milo recalls of the freaked-out fans. “We can get a little dissonant and jammy playing live, and Thom was like, ‘Thank you,’ and they were like, ‘No, we’re serious. We’re actually scared of you,’ and then they moved their tents. I think they were tripping on mushrooms.”

The incident left a less sinister impression on LaFond, who wrote “Bright Blue Light” about the innate duality of music and the people responsibly for making and performing.

“Thom wrote that song coming out of that experience as a meditation on you can’t help what comes through you,” Milo relays. “There’s going to be dark and there’s going to be light that comes through you, and the music is just meant to express that. We’re not meant to hide the dark side and only show the light side.

“This album is an exploration of both of those things, and it’s okay. It’s okay to have the melancholy, the dark and the light all in one thing,” she adds. “That’s just the experience of life. It helps and hurts us.”

We won’t give too much away before it drops, but Bad Luck also includes a heartfelt bluegrass ballad, featuring Leftover Salmon banjo picker Andy Thorn, while the title track leans on lo-fi indie. It’s no surprise that Banshee Tree can do both, a chameleon-like approach is one of its calling cards. That’s why they’ve been tagged as bluegrass, Americana, indie rock and even EDM-swing.

“We just embraced it, like, ‘Okay, let’s just find the sound we want’ instead of being stuck to it the way it always was,” Milo says. “We allowed it to open our minds to new possibilities. Then it started to sink in. I really started to embrace the sound that was unfolding, and the more we played, the more a sound started to unfold. Yes, we dip into bluegrass, we dip into electro-swing, but the main core of the sound is psychedelic indie-rock.”

That doesn’t sound too demonic when it’s broken down that way, now does it. Sometimes it’s better to have “bad luck” than no luck at all, too. The title is meant to be ironic, in that sense.  

“That’s what the album kind of became about, transitions,” Milo says about the band’s decision to go with the flow and embrace whatever changes may be. “Sometimes something that comes across might present itself and seem like bad luck, but if you lean into it, it can be a transition to something beautiful that you never expected.”

Even after the local release show, Milo can tell it’s going to be a whole different vibe once Banshee Tree fully unleashes Bad Luck.

“When you push yourself to do something completely new, and you’re on stage doing a bunch of new stuff you’ve never played before, it’s like entering beyond what you thought was possible for yourself,” she says. “It’s expansion for the music and yourself. Jesse always says, ‘I love doing hard shit with my friends.’”

Banshee Tree, with MarchFourth Marching Band, 7 p.m. Sunday, April 12, Bluebird Theater, 3317 East Colfax. Tickets are $37.