Late last year, we introduced you to a band with a growing national presence called Michigander.
Now, we're bringing you more on another band that's so proud of its roots that they’ve included our state in their name.
The Michigan Rattlers are made up of singer-guitarist Graham Young, bassist Adam Reed, drummer Tony Audia and keyboardist Christian Wilder.
The four friends grew up performing together in Petoskey. Young says they went their separate ways after high school, and he moved to Los Angeles. When they decided to get back together, he and Reed came up with the name Michigan Rattlers while on a long drive to LA.
“It was a four-day trip,” he explained. “I think we felt like we needed to have some sort of identity by the time we got out. Calling ourselves Michigan Rattlers, I think that was like ‘We’re from Michigan. Here we are,’ and I think we really wanted to represent that part of who we were.”
Young says he wrote the title song for their most recent album "Waving From A Sea" on an off day in Burlington, Vermont while on tour. It had been a couple of years since they had put new music out, and he says it was crunch time.
He was looking for ideas in an old notebook when he came across some lyrics that had never been used.
“I was like ‘This could be something,’ which is a nice treat when you just kind of stumble upon something that you already did,” Young added. “Your former self already did a lot of the work for you!”
The album was produced by Dominic John Davis who has been playing bass on tour this year with rocker Jack White. It was released last August, and the Michigan Rattlers recently wrapped up a cross-country tour of almost 50 shows in support of the album, concluding at St. Andrew’s Hall in Detroit.
"Heaven" is one of Young’s favorite songs from the record. He describes it as the album’s sonic jumping off point.
The song, he said, is about trying to be present in the moment and understanding where you are in life, adding “that’s all you get, and so you can be upset about it, or you can be anxious about it, but I think a lot of it is just accepting, and once you accept it, you can find the beauty in it."
"We don’t know what’s coming, and this is probably it, which is a heaven in itself. It’s like, we’re breathing, we’re having this conversation, and what could be better than that?”
The song "Geranium Day" was inspired by a place known for its flowers where Young has spent a lot of time over the years, Mackinac Island. Young’s family has a long history of staying there, and he tries to go up to the island every summer.
“It’s something you’re looking forward to, but it seems always like life gets in the way,” Young said. "Then you get anxious and whatever, and then before you know it, you’re leaving! You were just there for four weeks, and it’s over, and you’re like what happened? I don’t know what happened! This was what I was looking forward to all year!”
With the tour behind them, Young expects this to be another stretch of time working on a follow-up to "Waving From A Sea," but the band does have one more show on the calendar.
They’ll be at the Goshen Brewing Company in Indiana on August 2.
