ROARING FORK BROADCASTING COMPANY
Ten years ago, Bonnie Paine was at the Winfield Bluegrass Festival in Winfield, Kansas, walking through the campground. She passed musicians playing near the campfires and, like the sirens of Ulysses, she heard what she called “something a little different from the standard bluegrass picking kind of thing.”
That intoxicating sound was the fiddle of Bridget Law, guitar of Charlie Rose and bass of Dango Rose. Bonnie joined the campfire jam on vocals and the crackling of that festival fire marked the beginning of the band that became Elephant Revival.
Since that night in Kansas, Elephant Revival has cultivated a style of music that is ethereal, haunting and full of magic and wonder. The natural world, the creatures that inhabit it — both animals and humans — are the main characters in their songs that drip with mystery.
Elephant Revival is doing a two-night stint at the Wheeler Opera House on Tuesday and Wednesday. It is a rare chance to catch the band, given that they rarely tour.
Elephant Revival is Paine (vocals, cello, djembe, washboard and musical saw), Bridget Law (fiddle, vocals), Dango Rose (upright bass, mandolin, vocals), Charlie Rose (banjo, pedal steel, mandolin, vocals), Darren Garvey (drums, percussion, vocals) and Daniel Sproul (guitars, vocals) of Rose Hill Drive.
Paine grew up in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, in the heart of Cherokee nation. “It's at the foothills of the Ozark Mountains,” Paine said. “There are lots of little springs and lakes and lots of music. My sisters and I started playing music young. My mom sang all around the house, a capella, and she taught me a lot of old-timey folk songs.”
She and her three sisters all became drummers, and Paine picked up the electric guitar at age 10. The sisters became the backup band for a musician named Randy Crouch and did the same for a singer named James Townsend. Paine began singing and continued to learn different percussion instruments like the musical saw, bongos and congas.
After their festival meeting in 2004, Bridget, Dango and Charlie started playing together in both Oklahoma and Colorado.
“I would go out to Colorado and play random shows every once in a while, more as a surprise guest,” Paine said. “Dango sent me a message one day with a list of dates and venues with the words ‘Elephant Revival Concept’ and a question mark. And I was like, ‘Well, sure, we'll try that and we can change the band name later if we want.’”
The genesis of the name Elephant Revival occurred when Dango was busking outside the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. There were two elephants that lived together for 16 years until one of them got moved to the zoo in Salt Lake City. The elephant died for unexpected reasons, but many chalked it up to heartbreak from being separated from its partner.
“Elephants are tribal creatures, and it’s really hard for them to be separated like that,” Paine said. “Dango saw it as a powerful metaphor, like, ‘Let’s bring the tribe of humans together to make music.’ And then we dropped the word ‘Concept’ from the name and became Elephant Revival.”
When asked to describe Elephant Revival’s music, Paine said, “I guess at its core, it’s eclectic folk-rock.” The band has made six albums: “Elephant Revival “(2008), “Break in The Clouds” (2010), “It’s Alive” (2012), “The Changing Skies” (2013), “Sands of Now” (2015) and “Petals” (2016).
When asked if the band had a new record on the horizon — it’s been almost a decade since “Petals” — she replied, “I'm working on my first solo album and hoping to complete that before we go into another Elephant studio album. I've been meaning to do that for years. And so it's been fun to finally just take the time.
I'm halfway, probably three-quarters of the way through recording it. I just had Gregory Alan Isakov do vocals on one song that he helped produce and our new guitar player, Daniel Sproul, has been helping me with it.”
Paine has remarkable control over her voice. She can ride a note like a surfer navigates a wave. In terms of vocals, Paine said her main inspiration was the songs she heard her mom sing as a child.
“My mom sang these old-world sounding songs,” she said. “They definitely influenced my singing style. I like Nina Simone a lot. I grew up listening to her and Billy Holiday and Bonnie Raitt. My mom played these songs all the time and made up her own versions of them. She sang them to me at bedtime.”
The other major influence on her singing are the sounds she hears in the natural world, which may explain why so many of the themes in Elephant Revival’s songs are rooted in nature.
“My mom used to say about singing, ‘Your instrument is with you all the time,’” Paine said. “And when I take hikes through the wilderness, or walk through creeks or by rivers, I get inspired with a lot of melodies. The sounds I hear in nature are a big part of it for me.”
Paine also mentioned that the cello is a kind of harmonic partner in her craft.
“When I started playing the cello, about eight or nine years ago, that became my main writing instrument,” she said. “I had a vocal coach when I was in high school say that my vocal range is the same as a cello, and I was really shy so I thought singing with the cello would be like singing with someone. It’s one of the closest timbres to a human voice, which is kind of fun to play with.”
Elephant Revival will perform with the Colorado Symphony in Denver’s Boettcher Hall on April 3. The show will mark the second time the band has played with the symphony.
“I just turned in my first orchestration, and hopefully I did it all the way that will make sense to the Colorado Symphony,” Paine said. “I like pretty obscure classical music. And you think of most symphonies as this kind of overly regimented musical system.
“But these folks are just very open, and the conductors are really fun to work with. The Colorado Symphony prides themselves on being out of the box and kind of experimental, just like we are.”
Elephant Revival will play two rare shows at the Wheeler Opera House on Tuesday and Wednesday. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the show starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are available at elephantrevival.com or aspenshowtix.com.