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We’re Strong Apart, We’re Stronger Together

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With her first solo album in a decade, Sally Rose is getting back to her Americana roots. But don’t worry, she’s still a rock n’ roll riot grrrl at heart — and she’s bringing some much needed queer femme representation to the world of country music.

In a year in which the world of local music has seemed frozen, somehow Sally Rose has managed to stay as busy as ever. The bassist and vocalist for Shagwuf and the Sally Rose Band is used to living at a very fast pace. “I am notorious for overbooking myself,” she said. “This past year, I have, in normal Sally Rose fashion, managed to stay overbooked and overbusy the entire time, but that is a very natural coping mechanism for me.”

The latest example of her indefatigable work ethic is her new solo album, Tread Light. “This will be, technically, the third album I’ve put out since March 13 of last year,” she said. The pandemic put paid to the release party for Dog Days Of Disco, the album she released in March 2020 with Shagwuf. That show had been scheduled for, of all days, March 13 — the very day that news broke about the true extent of the COVID-19 pandemic — and the band had to make the heartbreaking decision to pull the plug only hours before doors were supposed to open. All touring and promotional plans were cancelled, but Dog Days Of Disco still came out, and Shagwuf followed it in fall with an EP, Trendy Weapon, and its accompanying short film, The Year Was 2020.

Now, only a few months later, Sally Rose is making a statement all her own with Tread Light, her first album as a solo performer in a decade. As with everything that came out of 2020, the pandemic had a great deal to do with the album’s gestation. “The notion of doing a solo album has been in the back of my mind for at least two years now. I’ve had a lot of people ask me about doing it; I just felt like I didn’t ever have the time or the resources,” she said. “It was an idea I neglected for a long time.”

Once she went into quarantine, though, that all changed. “It turned into this window of opportunity for me to refocus on getting back in touch with my singer-songwriter roots,” she said. “It reminded me how powerful it can be to write music in solitude. Really, you’re the only person you’re writing that music for. Trying to find a greater appreciation for writing and performing music by myself in my little cabin became really important to me. It became really valuable and sacred to me to be able to pick up my guitar and write music by myself again.”

The album she created may be a solo album, but she didn’t make it alone. Compatriots from Shagwuf and the Sally Rose Band, including Sweet Pete Stallings on bass and guitar, Benjamin Jensen on drums and upright bass, and Catherine Monnes, aka Sally’s mom, on fiddle and cello, helped beef up the sound, along with Charlie Bell on pedal steel and producer Lance Koehler throwing in the occasional “big bada boom.”

No, what makes this a solo album is the fact that it is, for the most part, a significant departure from what Sally’s usually up to, musically speaking. As a self-described “country girl who has lived in Nelson County her entire life,” she sees Tread Light as “somewhat of a homecoming album.”

“I spent the last 10 years really working hard to embody this hustling riot grrrl that I always wanted to be when I was little,” Rose says. “I wanted to be a person on the frontlines as an activist and an ally, [and] I thought that was only possible if I was playing loud rock n’ roll. The irony there is that I was working really hard all these years to play into this stereotype for a genre that already has a lot of people speaking up on issues. Although punk rock might not be the most incredibly inclusive and diverse genre, it’s far more inclusive and diverse than country or Americana, or even the indie-folk or singer-songwriter genres.”

This belated realization, coupled with months of sitting at home with an acoustic guitar, led to an epiphany. “It kind of hit me like a ton of bricks,” she said. “There needs to be representation in the country music scene for queer female artists. It is that much more important for me to take up space in the country music scene as a queer female artist, to give representation and to remind, influence, and even educate people in my hometown about the fact that I am queer. Country music is predominantly owned and run and operated by cishet men, and I am almost ashamed that I spent so many years running away from the fact that I can be both a rock n’ roller riot grrrl and also be a queer female artist playing and writing and singing country music. Because we fucking need the representation.”

Rose was also inspired by seeing a similar project from a friend. Besides playing with Shagwuf and the Sally Rose Band, she’s done regular live performances over the past several years as a duet with Erin Lunsford of Erin & The Wildfire. “It’s always really special, singing with somebody that i love, trust, and admire so much,” Rose said. “She and I would always talk about the struggles of being a frontwoman and a manager of your own band, and how hard it can be touring as a woman and dealing with the finances, the taxes, booking tours and shows, and managing band dynamics.”

Another thing Rose and Lunsford bonded over was their songwriting. “She and I had talked about putting out solo records for a long time, and when she came out with her solo record in 2020, it was this huge inspirational moment for me, being like, ‘Holy shit, my girl’s doing it,'” Rose said, referring to Lunsford’s 2020 album, The Damsel. “It took my breath away, and totally inspired me to do the damn thing.”

Rose’s collaborative relationship with Lunsford tied into the sort of solo album she wanted to make. “I love collaborative projects, and really wanted to make an album of duets,” she said. “Even though this is being promoted as a solo record because it’s not the Sally Rose Band and it’s not Shagwuf, at the heart of it, Tread Light is an album of duets.”

Indeed, Rose’s most prominent vocal partner on the album is Lunsford, who contributes her voice to three of the album’s ten songs. Other duet companions include indie-folk artist Devon Sproule, punk rocker-turned-folkie Tim Barry, singer-songwriter Sarah White, and Alethea Leventhal of Charlottesville electro-goth group Ships In The Night. “Everybody who plays on this album is either a dear friend, one of my idols, or both,” said Rose. “Because of the pandemic and everybody being at home, it allowed me to reach out to a lot of my personal legends and approach them when nobody was playing shows. It made each of those people a lot more approachable and available, because everybody is looking for ways to create, collaborate, and have some sense of togetherness right now.”

Rose at Minimum Wage Recording Studio with Tread Light producer Lance Koehler.

While it’s the final song on the album, Tread Light‘s title track might be the hardest-hitting. As the only song that overtly addresses everything we’ve all been through over the past year, it is both empathic and encouraging, as Rose and Tim Barry duet on lines like “It’s OK to break down in the grocery store. It’s OK to admit fragility,” and “We’re all trying to get by in such compromised times. In your loneliness, you are not alone.” The song, and the album, ends with a powerful message: “We’re strong apart, we’re stronger together. If we can brave this storm, we’ll survive any weather.”

“It was so gut-wrenching to see that even a global pandemic couldn’t bring us together,” Rose said of the song’s lyrics. “In March [2020], when I wrote ‘Tread Light,’ it felt like if anything was going to humble American society and slap everybody in the face, [it was] that regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, upbringing, background, financial comfort or discomfort, any one of us can get sick, any one of us can die tomorrow.”

To Rose, the fact that even this literal life-or-death situation only served to further increase the divisions that exist in America was particularly disheartening. “I have very strong ideals and opinions as an activist, and of course I like to think that i am on the right side of history, but it made me realize that sometimes it takes trying to listen to somebody else’s struggle and somebody else’s perspective to bring us together,” she said. “I’m hoping that resonates with this song, that even my neighbors that I might have really really different political views with, if they need something, if they need soup, then I can make soup and drop it off on their porch. Because I don’t want them to die.”

Other songs on the album have a less political take on the world, but nonetheless impart a particularly Sally Rose-ian worldview. “Bleeds,” a classic honky-tonk blues, feels musically timeless, like it could have been written in Bakersfield in 1965. But when Rose and Erin Lunsford sing “Why did you ghost?” on the chorus, the listener gets a firm reminder that this is a very up-to-the-minute album.

Meanwhile, “Colorado,” a song Rose has previously released with the Sally Rose Band (on 2012’s Live At George Bower’s), was never intended to be on the album. “It made the cut in one night, when I was on psychedelics with a small group of friends — this was all pre-COVID, for the record — and they wanted me to play guitar and sing a song,” Rose explained. “The only song that I could remember how to play at the time was ‘Colorado,’ and it took me straight back to when I was sleeping in teepees and working on a farm out there with one of my dear friends, Emily, after I had been brutally devastatingly crushed and heartbroken — like I have been many times.”

Heartbreak also pervades one of the two covers on the album — Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You.” Asking Rose about it, I couldn’t help but reminisce about my late teenage years in the mid-90s, driving around Charlottesville on lunch break from my summer job painting city school buildings, all the windows rolled down, sweating my ass off, listening to Mazzy Star’s So Tonight That I Might See on a crappy boombox in my passenger seat. Rose has resonances aplenty with this song, and they’re of a much darker and more personal nature.

“As someone who is a self-proclaimed codependent empath, I have had a tendency to fall for people that I thought I could fix with love, and I’ve gotten burned a lot by ignoring red flags, thinking that trust and love and nurturing could heal people who had traumas or demons. And that is simply not the case. It led me to get hurt a lot when I was younger,” said Rose.

“‘Fade Into You’ is one of those songs that I always felt deeply whenever I was in a situation where I would get hurt so bad, and I would be completely blind to somebody’s narcissistic, sociopathic tendencies. I would get lost in the relationship, and put it on a pedestal, and see nothing but light and hurt in someone, when really they were just a pretty fucked-up person. No amount of love, or trust, or comfort could fix those things. Therapy could fix those things, but not me as their partner. So now when I listen to ‘Fade Into You,’ it reminds me of the many many times that I did fade into relationships, and fade into partners, giving more of myself than I could or should have. That’s what a lot of us hopeless romantics do, and there’s a lot of beauty in wanting to love and wanting to be loved. ‘Fade Into You’ is just one of those tragically beautiful songs that perfectly encompasses that feeling.”

As 2021 gets going, Rose finds herself hoping things get back to something like normal life. “Moving forward into 2021, I’m just hoping I can get back to some sense of ‘normalcy,'” she said, “by practicing with the boys in Shagwuf when it’s safe again, and by pursuing my solo career as a musician. Those are my dreams and goals for 2021.” She laughed. “Touring would be great. Playing live shows would be great. Hugging friends would also be really, really great.”

Of course, touring isn’t possible right now, but Rose is more than ready to return to action on the live music front as soon as it’s safe to do so. “What I would do to be able to play and go on tour right now, and sleep with a crick in my neck in the back of the van without AC, sweating our asses off, and not getting fed, and drinking too much… I miss all of that so much,” said Rose. But when asked about touring behind Tread Light at some point in the future, she wasn’t really sure how she’d approach it.

“That’s something I have not thought a ton about, just because touring feels forever away,” she said. “I would love to tour Tread Light as a solo album, potentially with Erin Lunsford, and do a solo album duet tour. I feel like touring by myself would probably be a really great growing experience, but also, if I’m being completely honest, boring as fuck, and really lonely. Touring is an important part of my life because of the friendships that you make and the experiences that you share with the people in the van — those inside jokes that you’re going to have with that person for the rest of their life. So yeah, I haven’t even talked with Erin about that [idea] yet, but it’s definitely something I would love to do.”

Unfortunately, the Sally Rose/Erin Lunsford duet tour won’t be coming to a venue near you anytime soon. However, you can catch a preview if you tune in on Sunday, February 14th to Sally Rose’s special Valentine’s Brunch album release livestream. Not only will the stream feature Erin Lunsford joining Sally for a special duet performance, the whole thing will be coming to you live from Minimum Wage Recording Studio, where Tread Light was tracked. The livestream will kick off at 1 PM on Sunday, and you can watch it on Facebook Live by following this link. Whether you’re heartbroken (“like I’ve been many times,” says Sally) or enjoying a snowed-in quarantine Valentine with your sweetheart, this performance is sure to lift your spirits.

All Photos by Rich Tarbell

The Damsel: Erin Lunsford’s Fierce and Vulnerable New Album

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After a string of EP’s and albums with her band, Erin & The Wildfire, Erin Lunsford has released a new solo album called The Damsel. While The Wildfire’s records seem to be explorations in everything from soul, R&B, and even funk to Americana and blues, Lunsford seems to have found her solo voice in the latter, more down-home roots sound. Although this new album dwells mostly in the Americana and folk realms it also hearkens to the previous soul years of her band, particularly in Lunsford’s powerhouse vocal stylings. The Damsel is a powerful and deeply personal album about navigating singlehood and loneliness with power and poise.

According to Lunsford, the title of the record is “meant to be kind of ironic – like a reclaiming of the word ‘damsel’.” In the age of feminism and personal empowerment for women, the archetype of a damsel feels antiquated and obsolete, even counterproductive, but Lunsford had a different spin on the word. “When you think of a damsel, you think of a single woman who is kind of helpless. I wanted to reclaim it. Just because you’re alone doesn’t mean you’re helpless,” she said. “And there’s nothing wrong with singlehood.”

In addition to themes of personal empowerment, vulnerability and being a single woman, the album also has a through-line of homage to Lunsford’s family. Lunsford explained that the cover image has several tie-ins to her family. “The umbrella in the centerfold was my grandfather’s, and he got it in Japan when he was in the Korean war,” she explained. “The necklace I’m wearing was my grandmother’s… and the earrings I’m wearing on the album cover are from my cousin.”

The album’s debut single is “Virginia Brother,” which she says was chosen as a single “purely for sentimental reasons.” “It’s about my younger brother, who lives in my hometown, Fincastle, and we released it on his birthday,” she said.

Lunsford’s family informed other songs on the album as well. “The song ‘Wherever You Are’ is about a conversation I had with my mom when I told her I wanted to move to Richmond from Charlottesville,” she explained. “I got out of the car after that conversation and wrote it all down.”

The other two singles that were released before the full album were “27 Summers Down” and “How Many Birds.”

“I thought ’27 Summers’ was really representative of the album theme as a whole,” said Lunsford. “It’s talking about missing my hometown, being fine with being single, feeling really strongly tied to my family and missing them, and talking about the physical scenery of my upbringing.” “How Many Birds” was chosen for a more practical reason. “[It’s] the most produced song on the album, with the most instrumentation — it’s got a full drum kit — so I thought it would appeal to a lot of people.”

The Damsel was recorded in Richmond at Scott’s Addition Sound. “I worked with an engineer, Stewart Myers, who I’ve worked with several times,” said Lunsford. Myers, who co-produced and mixed the album, also contributed bass to some tracks. Lunsford worked with a variety of other musicians to flesh out the album’s sound, including every member of her group, The Wildfire.

Christina Swanson, Lunsford’s visual collaborator and curator for the album, took all of the photos for the album cover as well as the cover photos for the three singles from the album. The creation of the album’s imagery was a fully collaborative process. “We had conversations about how we wanted to style it and the colors we wanted to have,” said Swanson. “It was about picking out feminine colors and feels, but also making sure to position Erin in a way where she felt very powerful.”

Lunsford feels that Swanson’s input was crucial to shaping the album’s overall focus. “Christina was super instrumental in helping me figure out what the message was there,” she said. “Along with the idea of the title, I wanted to appear vulnerable, but also fierce.” The photo of Lunsford on the cover has her, in her own words, “appearing kind of exposed… and still being strong,” which is an apt summation of The Damsel as a whole.

“Vulnerable and fierce” are two words that may seem unusually juxtaposed, but they perfectly encapsulate this record as a whole. The vulnerable subject matter and personal lyrics at times read more like a private diary entry than a song, but Lunsford’s fierce and powerful voice is a strong contrast, making for a brilliant and harmonious dichotomy. “You can still be beautiful… and vulnerable while still being a single damsel,” she explained.

Lunsford took the visual component of this album much further than just the album cover. Swanson had the idea to have original artwork made for each song on the record; this concept eventually became a visual album that acts as a companion piece to The Damsel, especially with the album entering the world during a time of social isolation.

Photo via Erin Lunsford/Facebook

“The idea was, how do we create a way to support the visual arts community?” Lunsford explained. “I found a way to keep things going with live streams. I have this awesome platform to be able to connect with my fans still… but a lot of visual artists don’t have an outlet right now.”

The first artist Lunsford and Swanson brought in was Jessica Camilli, a Richmond artist who made the original print that Lunsford used for The Damsel‘s t-shirt design. “[Camilli] has been in the Richmond visual arts scene for years, so she really helped connect us to curate a list of people,” said Swanson. “We really wanted to focus on artists who were women, gender non-binary, or artists of color. We were really trying to have a diverse group of artists take a stab at these songs.”

Lunsford and Swanson hope to eventually hold a live gallery showing and exhibit for the art created along with the album. Since Camilli coordinates monthly art displays at The Camel, the goal is to display all of the works in The Camel when Lunsford plays her in-person album release show. Ideally, artists will be able to display and sell originals and/or prints of the artwork they created for The Damsel.

Over the course of creating this assembly of related artwork, Lunsford and Swanson have developed a strong partnership and assembled a highly effective and cohesive team of creators. “The point of the whole project has been to connect people, bring people together, and have a collaboration between groups that we wouldn’t necessarily see otherwise,” said Swanson.

With the expansion into a fully-realized collection of art to accompany the album, The Damsel has grown into something much larger than Lunsford’s music alone. Instead, it has become a collective effort around which the creatives of Richmond can coalesce. Lunsford also worked to set up a charitable component of the work through Culture Works RVA, a non-profit organization that provides grants to local working artists. Culture Works’ COVID-19 relief fund has already given grants to over 100 artists in the Richmond area, and support generated by The Damsel has the potential to push their giving even farther.

Of course, with the album being released in the midst of a pandemic, there’s sure to be some adverse effects. How does The Damsel cope with the pandemic all on her lonesome? “Initially it was pretty devastating,” Lunsford divulged.

Her disappointment was for good reason. As ambitious as Lunsford is, you better believe she had big plans for 2020. “I had a whole tour planned for April and May to release [The Damsel],” she said. “I had specifically blocked off time from band dates so that I could take some time to tour solo… I had set up three full band shows. But I’ve kind of had to pivot to online stuff to try to keep people engaged with my music and promote the album that way.” She’s been as diligent about this pivot as she’d originally intended, playing weekly live streams and connecting with fans through social media.

Photo via Erin Lunsford/Facebook

Regardless of the ways social isolation has thrown a monkeywrench into her plans, Erin Lunsford has outdone herself with the comprehensive multi-media project The Damsel has evolved into. She’s proven herself not only as the powerhouse vocalist and badass woman that Richmond already knows and loves, but also a sensitive and highly conscious artist with an uncanny ability to organize and execute her bold, complex ideas and sophisticated arrangements.

The Damsel is a stunning album, a personal and autobiographical record of what it means to be a single woman in the modern world. But it is also a meeting place for thinkers, painters, sculptors and creatives of all kinds to interpret and imagine Lunsford’s lyrics, and to explore her inner world with their own eyes and hearts.

The Damsel and its accompanying visual album are available through Lunsford’s website.

Top Photo via Erin Lunsford/Facebook

PHOTOS: The Best of Lockn’ Festival 2018

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This past weekend, thousands of jam band fans, deadheads, festy fiends, and music lovers of all kinds flocked to Infinity Downs Farms in Arrington, Va. to see their favorite national, regional, and local acts perform at the annual Lockn’ Festival. Over 25 bands and musicians filled the bill for the four-day jam and rock music fest, which launched back in 2013, including major acts like Umphrey’s McGee, Lettuce, Dead & Company, funk legend George Clinton, Sheryl Crow, Matisyahu, and Widespread Panic. Of course, the usual suspects were there as well, with multiple performances by Keller Williams, along with Bob Weir and friends.

Lockn’ saw several Richmond acts take the stage including the psychedelic rock circus that is People’s Blues of Richmond and instrumental funky jazz group Butcher Brown, along with Charlottesville’s Erin & the Wildfire and Disco Risque. Although the music is what brings in attendees, the sense of camaraderie, good vibes, activities, and overall camping experience is what keeps them coming back year after year. All throughout the day, people could be seen doing yoga, riding around the campgrounds on bikes, hula-hooping, swimming in the Tye River, and dancing into the wee hours to late-night sets. A newer addition to the festival was Garcia’s Forest, a late-night dance party with DJs blasting the music of the Grateful Dead legend himself.

Also, new this year, was Hamageddon, a 14-inch high metal pig sculpture that cooks a pig-on-a-spit in its “belly” and shoots fire from both ends. LOCKN’ partnered with Chef Craig Hartman at Virginia’s BBQ Exchange to serve Hamageddon pulled pork sandwiches all weekend long. Yeah, you missed out if you weren’t there.

Photo Courtesy of Lockn Festival

RVA Mag was there to capture all of the great performances, barefoot dancing, chill vibes, and more. Below, check out what you missed, or relive the magic from Lockn’ Festival 2018:

John Mayer and Bob Weir

Lettuce

Butcher Brown

People’s Blues of Richmond

Tim Beavers, People’s Blues of Richmond

George Clinton

Erin Lunsford of Erin & The Wildfire

Sheryl Crow

Photos By: Branden Wilson and Darienne Skye Montgomery, Intro by Amy David 

 

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

RVA Track Premieres Erin and The Wildfire’s ‘Great Love’

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I have loved Erin & The Wildfire ever since I first had the chance to interview the Charlottesville-based band after hearing them play one night in 2015 at Cary St. Cafe. Lead singer Erin Lunsford has been captivating crowds with her sultry, wide-range vocals, along with the original crew, made up of UVA grads Matt Wood (bassist), Ryan Lipps, (guitarist) and drummer Nick Quillen, who have grown their fanbase at local and regional shows, and Virginia festivals with their folksy/funk tunes and unique spins on classics like “Stayin’ Alive” and “Signed, Sealed, Delivered.”

In September, RVA Magazine caught up with the band right before they dropped their first full-length album, Thirst. On this record, we see Erin & the Wildfire switch up their sound to a more soulful, R&B vibe, And with the addition of newer members Garen Dorsey on horns and Austin Patterson on the trumpet, that jazzy/blues really comes alive.

Most recently, the band was in the studio with local film collective RVA Track to record a live music video for the song, “Great Love” off the latest album. Lunsford’s sweet, but powerful pipes have the ability to give you the chills when she hits those high notes on this one.  Combined with the harmonizing vocals from the rest of the band on this bluesy love ballad, its enough to send anyone back to a time to remember that former flame, or passionate lover that got away.

Lunsford told RVA Mag last year that much of Thirst is about unrequited love and personal experiences and relationships she’s been through.

“There’s one person in particular that several of the songs are about,” she said. “And a couple other random dudes that I dated sprinkled in. “’Great Love’ was the amalgamation of all of those experiences, it’s not actually a surrender, but its kind of close. Understanding what the realization of what I’m looking for and what I’m willing to give up and what I’m not willing to give up.”

If you haven’t had a chance to listen to this album yet, check it out below because you’re in for a treat.

The audio for the “Great Love” video is by Scott Lane, and the video was filmed and edited by Daniel Bagbey, along with Joey Wharton and Gabrielle Silvers. And be sure to catch Erin & The Wildfire at Floydfest July 25-29 and at Lockn in Arrington, Va. in August.

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

Erin & The Wildfire on new sound, new album, & unrequited love before show at The Camel tonight

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It’s been two years since RVA Mag caught up with Erin & The Wildfire, the Charlottesville folky/funk group led by sultry powerhouse vocalist Erin Lunsford. The group has been busy touring, performing at festivals, and in the studio recording their first full-length album, Thirst, set to drop tonight at The Camel.

In 2015, the then four-piece had just a self-titled EP under their belts, but the group is back with two new members and has switched up their sound to a funkier, soulful, R&B vibe for their latest 12-track album.

Covers like “Stayin Alive” and “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”, paired with Lunsford’s vocals, and the band’s backing funky grooves helped them carve out their place in the Richmond music scene, but the vocalist said for this record they wanted to go with a different vibe.

“The first EP was more Americana and folk blues, and even then, we were talking about wanting a more R&B and funk feel, that’s the kind of stuff we were covering,” Lunsford said.

More recently, the band put out songs like “Here I Go” “Got Dem” and “Blame the Rain” that were a little closer to the sound the group wanted, but didn’t quite have enough soul for them just yet.

“It was still a little too folk, too Americana for what we wanted,” she said. “And they were still just singles, not complete pictures.”

After that point, Lunsford said the songs the band started writing, and the feeling they were going for just came together in an organic way and they were able to pinpoint that sound that they desired and what they thought represented them as a band.

A busy summer schedule playing at festivals like Rooster Walk, Red Wing Roots, Front Porch Fest and Steppin’ Out kept the band preoccupied up until early 2017 when they decided to take a couple months off to get into the studio to record the new material they had been hard at work on.

“It was an incredible experience and we’re super proud of this full product,” she said. “Everything we’ve done in the past has been bits and pieces nothing has felt really wholesome and like it represented our sound.”

Looking to stay local this time around, the band sought out the talents of Adrian Olsen over at Montrose Recording in February to lay down the tracks for their new full-length album and wrapped it up in May.

Erin & The Wildfire dropped two singles ahead of Thirst’s release, “One Woman Show” in July, an upbeat anthem to empower all us women, and “Great Love”,  a bluesy, heartfelt ballad that really shines light on how the band has evolved.

“To me, it is the ultimate tune from this album,” she said referring to the second single.

Much of the album is very personal, specifically about unrequited love according to Lunsford.

“There’s one person in particular that several of the songs are about,” she said. “And a couple other random dudes that I dated sprinkled in. “’Great Love’ was the amalgamation of all of those experiences, it’s not actually a surrender, but its kind of close. Understanding what the realization of what I’m looking for and what I’m willing to give up and what I’m not willing to give up.”


As far as the name of the album, there’s a little story behind that as well. There’s a track on the album called “Thirsty For Your Love” and the group wanted a title that would sum up the theme.

“We wanted to go with ‘Thirsty’, but that’s kind of a double entendre these days,” she laughed. “We thought Thirst represents the songs, wanting for love, wanting for something more.”

Part of the reason for those soul and R&B influences on the tracks could be attributed to the two members recently added to the group. The band brought on Garen Dorsey to play horns and Austin Patterson on the trumpet rounding them out as a six-piece with Nick Quillen on the drums, Ryan Lipps on the guitar, and Matt Wood on bass.

“I think that it really enhances our sound, its make our music much more interesting and much more vast,” she said. “Funk and soul is not funk and soul without horns. They are just awesome musicians in their own right so they just are raising our music to the next level.”

If one element stood out for me on the old EP, it was the amount of soul and passion that came through when Lunsford opened her mouth to belt out a tune. And if these tracks are any indication to the rest of the album, I’m really going to dig the new vibe!

You can catch Erin & The Wildfire perform Thirst at their album release party tonight at The Camel along with Mckinley Dixon and Sid Kinglsey. Show starts at 9 pm. Tickets are $7 and you can get yours here. Thirst drops online on Fri., Sept. 29.

And if you’re lame and miss tonight’s show in Richmond, the crew is also doing cd releases in Blacksburg on Oct. 12, Charlottesville at The Southern on Oct. 13, and in DC Oct. 20. Check out the rest of their tour schedule here.

*Photo Credit: Tristan Williams Photography