After more than two decades of being a band, Duluth, Minn.-based folk-rockers Trampled by Turtles still don’t feel like they fit in anywhere … and that’s a good thing.
Mixing bluegrass with rock, the band has crafted a sound that is as narrative, rootsy and Americana as it is fast and indie/alternative. Songs like “Whiskey,” “Codeine” and “Wait So Long” have roots in old-school mountain fiddling—but reverb and soulful vocal performances transport the classic genre into modern times.
Trampled by Turtles is set to perform at Stagecoach on Saturday, April 27, returning for a third time after appearances in 2010 and 2014.
“There’s a lot to love about (Stagecoach), but for me, I really love coming to that area of the country,” frontman Dave Simonett said during a recent phone interview. “I love seeing that desert. I’m a tourist there, so I just get to see the good parts, but I really think it’s one of the most beautiful parts of the country.”
In 2010 and 2014, the band played alongside country greats like Merle Haggard and John Prine. In 2024, the band is on the bill with acts like Diplo, Nickelback and Post Malone, as Stagecoach continues to integrate acts outside of country music.
“We’ve always kind of felt that we don’t really fit in anywhere, and that does have its downsides,” Simonett said. “For me, I’ve always felt like that was a really positive thing about our band, and I like a festival that leans into that a little bit, too. There’s plenty of country music at Stagecoach, but there’s also a late-night show with Diplo, and Wiz Khalifa, and stuff like that. I think it’s great, because I think that, in general, your average concert-goer likes more than one thing. I think people get into the theme, and that’s great … but I think it’s giving more credit to your audience to be put through a little bit of a challenge in a diverse lineup, because in the end, a lot of people really end up liking that.”
While the group was a Stagecoach regular in the fest’s purer country years, Trampled by Turtles is not the purest of country bands. The bluegrass tinge is strong and apparent in the band’s music, but elements from other genres and rock instrumentation distance the songs from the classic country crowd.
“I have a complicated relationship with bluegrass in particular, and probably a complicated relationship with any kind of dogmatic approach to music, where a genre has to be within a certain bounds to be considered valid or something like that,” Simonett said. “We love all bluegrass music, and we definitely have borrowed a lot from those people, but we’ve also butted heads plenty with the bluegrass community throughout our lifespan. I always fall back on that adage that everyone’s allowed to like what they like, and we’ve never claimed to be something that I don’t think we are. … Grow or die is my philosophy. We have had people in the past say that we were kind of their gateway, and then they ended up loving bluegrass music, which to me is wonderful, because there’s a lot of great stuff there.”
“Grow or die” could certainly be a mantra for the band. Since Trampled by Turtles began in 2003, the band has grown regarding the maturity of their music, their stage presence, their personal relationships and more.
“I don’t think anybody is the same at 23 as they are at 43,” Simonett said. “There’s just a lot that happens in any human life between those two numbers. I will say that I feel more comfortable in our band, and I’m having more fun in our band, than I ever have.
“We’ve never really put any rules on our music, or any kind of intentional limitations on anything, and I do feel like we’ve always been on this slow path. I know there are going to be a lot of turtle jokes about that. We just have taken it our own way, and I feel like we’ve hit a stride that maybe another band might hit when they’re just starting or something like that. We’re just in this very beautiful, loving relationship with each other, and I really am happy with our music, more than I have ever been. The older we get, to me, the better it is, and I think most of the guys would agree with that.”
Since Simonett brought up the Turtles name, I had to ask him his thoughts on whether musicians can figuratively shoot themselves in the foot with their band’s name.
“Nobody thinks (the band name) is gonna last,” he said. “For us, It started as we just had to have something, because we were going to play a local festival in Duluth, where we started, and just needed something, like, tomorrow. It was kind of the first name that nobody fully hated—and then here we are, 20 years later, stuck with it.
“I would say put a little more thought into it. If you are one of these people reading this, and you’re starting a band—it’s like a tattoo, man. You might regret it.”
While Simonett has “pride in the band outlasting people who thought it wouldn’t work out because of” the name, he admitted there can be trouble with a cheesy band name.
“I’m not comparing us to any of these bands, by any means, but there are a lot of very well-known bands with really dumb names,” he said. “Look at the Beatles; they spelled it like a drum beat. That’s cheesy as hell. Maybe you have to work a little harder (if you have a silly name), I guess, and you might start yourself a little behind the rest of the pack.”
This October will mark the 20th anniversary of Songs From a Ghost Town, the debut album from Trampled by Turtles. Simonett said he often feels nostalgic, but feels it even more when it comes to anniversaries like this one.
“I moved this summer, and I was unpacking, and I had all these boxes that I’ve taken with me for 20 years throughout all these different apartments and houses or whatever,” Simonett said. “I hadn’t really opened this (box) for a while, and it was all this old paraphernalia from our first couple years as a band. I found notebooks where I had written those songs. … There was this little ledger in there about each show we played: ‘We made this amount of money, spent this much gas, this much on one hotel room that we all shared; and here’s how much we lost that day.’ It was really wonderful to sit and look at that, because honestly, I get so focused on moving forward that I forget what it was like, and that was a really special and adventurous time in my life, so I definitely look back on that a lot. That was the first time I’d ever made an album, so it was really fun and really exciting.”
Some of the band’s most popular songs to this day are gems from their first record, and there’s a strong chance you’ll hear some included in their Stagecoach set.
“I know a lot of people who do have albums that old, and they just kind of hate them,” he said. “It’s almost like a different person that wrote that, which is OK. It’s OK to have an awkward school photo that people can still look at, and I’ve always just kind of imagined the album to be a little bit of a snapshot of a place and time. It’s all just kind of building blocks.”
