After a heavy touring schedule of headlining club dates and festival appearances in Australia, these down-home pickers set their sights on the United States where they were invited by the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) to perform at its weeklong 2014 World of Bluegrass conference and festival. This invitation turned into a full-blown tour that included 60 shows in 70 days across 43 U.S. states. The glowing success of the 2014 tour created a demand for a return trip to America, and the quintet traveled back to the US in 2015 for a two-month tour of club and festival dates during the American summer. This tour included the band’s biggest show to date, a slot on the main stage at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, where they performed alongside some of roots music’s biggest names, such as Béla Fleck, Punch Brothers, Kacey Musgraves, and fellow Aussies the John Butler Trio.
Now back home in Australia, and with no signs of slowing down, Mustered Courage keep the momentum at a fever pitch with the release of their third long-player White Lies & Melodies (Lost Highway). Their most ambitious album to date, White Lies & Melodies pushes the boundaries of what a progressive folk-rock album can be. “There is definitely a maturing that took place in the album’s symbolism, its instrumentation and its production,” says lead vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Nick Keeling. “We didn’t feel constrained by any style or genre for this one.”
The band enlisted ARIA nominated producer Forrester Savell (Karnivool) to helm the recordings. “I’ve been a big fan of Forrester ever since I first heard Karnivool’s record Themata in 2005,” says guitarist Julian Abrahams. “We did an initial trial session with him where we recorded two songs. We loved what Forry did and pushed forward.”
“We didn’t want this album to sound like a regular country/bluegrass album,” adds bassist Josh Bridges. “We generally approach our performances with a rock mentality, so Forrester being more of a rock/nu-metal producer let us approach recording with that same attitude.”
The result is an eclectic 12-track album that covers everything from traditional bluegrass and alt-country to rock and R&B. However, for all of its different influences the album never feels forced. Each song fits with the others as though it was always meant to be this way.
There are songs of love. “Flames of You and I” is about a love lost too quickly, with an arrangement that features an orchestral sound with timpani and bells. While “Draw 5” speaks of a love whose heart beats to a different drum than the one to which it is promised. “That song took me over five years to write,” says Keeling. “It’s one that I never put too far on the back burner and just had to keep trying to piece together. I’m glad I waited. I think I just needed to get to the next level of songwriting to be able to finish it. We’re calling it R&Bluegrass.”
There are also songs about death. Though, this may sound dark on the surface, Abrahams explains, “Everyone is ready for love. Not many people are ready for death. That inspires me to live.” “Burning Bridges” tells the story of a man on his deathbed, lamenting the mistakes of his life gone by. While “Leave this Life Behind” is a very personal song about a friend’s suicide. “It’s about recognizing a disease called depression that is all too common in the world today,” says Abrahams. “We all need to open the lines of communication a lot more with the people we care about before it’s too late.”
With the expanded sound featured on White Lies & Melodies comes the addition of a drummer for the first time in Mustered Courage’s career. “We've been wanting to add drums in the mix for a while now,” explains Bridges. “Acoustic music can be overpowered by the simplest things in a live setting, even with a PA system.” Abrahams continues, “If you play a loud room and want to get it rocking, a bluegrass band is gonna be in strife. We've had gigs where the people dancing are so much louder than the band. We thought it was time to add drums to get the house rocking harder. Also, now that we have drums, we aren't constrained to just your standard train feels. Now we can play hip hop beats (“Draw Five”), swampy rocking Americana (“Burning Bridges”) or indie sounding stuff (“A Thousand Bullets”).”
With White Lies & Melodies, Mustered Courage prove that they “have a knack for tempering the rough and raw roots edges of their twang foundation with hooky-as-hell melodies and rich harmonies. Bill Monroe would be proud of his Aussie brethren-in-arms.” (Folkadelphia, USA)