The longtime fiddler and vocalist of the Lil Smokies rarely passes up an opportunity to jam. Whether it’s an official festival slot or impromptu midnight performance around a campfire far from the main stage, he just wants to play music. In the warmer months, you can almost always find him picking his way through festival campgrounds, getting lost in the moment, sometimes to the chagrin of his bandmates.
“I think it’s important to make time for,” he explains. “I have gotten in trouble for it. I have been chased down in the middle of the night by sleepy band members who were like, ‘Dude, the van is leaving now. Come on.’”
He laughs as recalls how his wayward ways almost found him stranded in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, during the Blue Ox Music Festival. “I’m just lucky I happened to walk out of the woods when I did because they were making their final pass through the campgrounds in the van. I just happened to see them, and was like, ‘Oh, hey guys,’ and they were all mad,” Simpson shares.
“They would have had to come back and picked me up eventually because we definitely had a show the next day, but they haven’t left me behind yet.”
He doesn’t regret doing his own thing, and never does. In the nine years since he’s been with the Smokies, he hasn’t missed a bus call, which is something he’s facetiously proud of.
“I can’t avoid it,” he quips. “That’s where all the real fun stuff happens.”
The Smokies feel at home on a stage, or in a festival campground.
Courtesy Itamar Gat/Eyes of the World Photography
Simpson credits this carefree code to a chance chat he had with founding Kruger Brothers guitarist Uwe Kruger, who gave the aspiring young musicician some words of wisdom after he sat in on a jam session at the Oklahoma International Bluegrass Festival.
“He said, 'Don’t ever drink, don’t ever do drugs and play every gig that you get whether you get paid or not,'” he recalls. “'Every chance that you get to play music, play music. If it’s on a street or on a stage in front of thousands of people, play.' I’ll never forget that.”
But it’s not just Simpson who feels that way. The Montana newgrassers that first formed as a college band in Missoula in 2009, embody Simpson’s ethos, too, as the Lil Smokies — which currently includes original members Andy Dunnigan (Dobro and vocals) and Matthew “Rev” Reiger (guitar and vocals), and latest lineup additions Jean-Luc Davis (upright bass) and Sam Armstrong-Zickefoose (banjo) — got its big break after winning the 2015 Telluride Bluegrass Festival Troubadour Contest.
It was then, after nearly a decade of busking and putting in its dues, that the Smokies became modern-day bluegrass darlings, particularly here in Colorado. (The band put out Live at the Bluebird in 2019, and Simpson is still known to host midnight sets at Camp Run-A-Muk during Telluride Bluegrass weekend).
And with an album on the way, Break of the Tide, the newly-minted five-piece is essentially playing a release show at the Ogden Theatre on Friday, April 4, the same day the record debuts. The Fretliners and Danno Simpson are also on the bill. The quintet is stopping in Frisco, at the 10 Mile Music Hall, on Thursday, April 3, and Washington’s in Fort Collins on Saturday, April 5.
With a trio of singles — “Ocean,” “Montana Flower” and “Sycamore Dreams” — already out, Simpson and his bandmates flex what they do best: whatever they want. While pundits have placed the Smokies under the all-encompassing umbrella of “country,” the music, including on upcoming Break of the Tide, is still a mad mix of contemporary folk, pop, bluegrass and Appalachian twang.
“This album is a culmination of songs that each of us — Rev, Andy and myself — wrote during the pandemic and post-pandemic. They’re real, and they’re raw,” Simpson says, adding that he and the took a more out-of-the-box approach on the album. “In the past, I think there was this undertone when we were writing songs of feeling like we needed to fit in a certain type of box, which was hard because there’s no definition of the box. You just kind of have to guess at it until something sounds right.”
It feels right, too, especially after welcoming two new members in the five years since the last full-length, 2020’s Tornillo.
“But I wouldn’t [call it] country. I almost wouldn’t say bluegrass, but then you’re splitting hairs,” Simpson admits, adding that “talking about music is like walking about dancing.”
“I usually just say we play original music; check it out, listen to it,” he continues. “It’s either music you like or music you don’t.”
Simple enough. But there is one constant that will never change, according to Simpson.
“The music is always the thing that is exciting for me, whether we’re just working up new material or it is something like adding a new band member,” he concludes. “The music is the thing that carries you through.”
The Lil Smokies, with the Fretliners and Danno Simpson, 8 p.m. Friday, April 4, Ogden Theatre, 935 East Colfax. Tickets are $50.
