The Ballad Of Black Prairie

Funk says it made total sense for Black Prairie to create music for Wild Ones, thus starting additional collaborations with Portland artists, with the eventual goal of working on similar projects around the country.

“Black Prairie was born out of collaboration,” Funk says, “so we’re completely open to that. We’ve been working on yet another release, where we’re collaborating with songwriters from Portland and doing co-writes. We’ve kind of put a parameter around it, which is a songwriter, which is more of a traditional national style co-write, but we just show up and we write a song, and then record it a day later. We’re doing it with people like ourselves who’ve never really done that, and some of the songwriters have never done that before, either, to the point where they’re like, we had James Mercer from The Shins come and do it, and he’s like ‘so what are we doing?’” — Funk laughs — “and I was like, ‘dude, you didn’t read my emails? We’re gonna write a song.’ And he’s like ‘Oh. Uh, okay.’ And it turned out amazing.”

“I think we’re going to try and do a series of EPs and go to different cities and work with (artists native in those cities). For this one, obviously will be called ‘Black Prairie Sings Portland’ and I mentioned we got James Mercer on it, Sallie Ford, Langhorne Slim is on it…This guy named Michael Hurley, he’s kind of like a folk legend, and then Luzelena (Mendoza) who has a band called Y La Bamba in town, and then Scott McCaughey, who played in The Minus 5 and R.E.M. Yeah, it’s been a lot of fun doing that.”

And plans for the group’s next studio album?

“I think for our next record,” says Funk, offering a hint of Black Prairie’s near future, “which we’re going to write pretty soon, I think we’re going to try to do an all-vocal record. Maybe separate the two beasts. Using projects like (Wild Ones) to write instrumentally-focused music instead of dividing it up on the record. I think it’s hard for people in the United States to kind of figure that tradition out. I think it’s really prevalent in that being instrumental and vocal songs, I think it’s really big in Irish music and historically been big in some bluegrass realms, but we don’t quite fit into those realms, and I feel like we’re sort of at times moonlighting as quasi-folk musicians,” he continues, laughing. “And we’re also kind of unfocused sometimes, too. It’s sort of fun to think about maybe, full albums and focusing on instrumental verses and vocals, but we’ll see what happens.”

Funk says there is a lot of great music that uses instrumental components to songs with vocals, citing the music of Led Zeppelin as an example. “We’ve been talking a lot about that lately. We’ve been playing this Led Zeppelin song, “The Song Remains the Same”, and I think that’s had a really kind of a big impact on us lately. We’re doing it because we have this New Year’s party that we throw with our friend Laura Veirs, she suggested that Annalisa sing that song, and it took so long to learn for everybody, that like ‘Let’s just keep playing it in Black Prairie, you know? Let’s try it for an encore.’ And it came out great. But that song has so many instrumental components, also having elements of pop, and what not.”

“We’ve actually been listening to a lot of Led Zeppelin lately and trying to take a page out of their playbook, which if you listen to that music, it has so many strange starts and stops, and twists and turns, that, I think are deceiving, you wouldn’t think of them as a complex band, in the grand scheme of music. They’re amazing, they jam their brains out, but when you really stop and listen to it, that’s so insane why that goes to double time right there, like, why does it do that? It makes no sense, which is exciting to a band like us, I think.”

Funk adds that Black Prairie plans to write more material together as a group for their next album. “I’ve never been a part of a band that got together and ‘jammed’, and wrote music,” Funk says, laughing. “I mean, we’ve gotten together and written stuff, ground up, no problem, but really, this last record was written by the time the drums hit it, so when the drums came in, it was more John, our drummer, sort of arranging himself in, so the music wasn’t informed by drums, so such a different feel when the drums inform the songwriting process, like getting away from simple, from what I call four chords, you know, G-C-D-A, still playing those changes, but maybe trying to allow the drums to work a little bit more, and write riffs over the top of it. So, we’ll see what happens. I do that through the lens of the dobro and the accordion, and the banjo, the fiddle,” he muses, laughing.

As the band continues its musical progression, the juggling of numerous musical endeavors of each band member also continues. Funk says Black Prairie continues as a platform for musical collaboration, songwriting and respective of a rising interest in their music, the group’s future is growing as a priority.

“Yeah, I think projects tend to start weeding themselves out after awhile,” Funk admits, “and I think with Black Prairie, it’s sort of a wait and see or, I dunno, all of us having toured before, kind of dipping our toes in the water, trying to keep Black Prairie — I don’t want to say ‘sacred’ as its too heavy of a word — but something that we’re all excited about and all using it as a means to write.”

“So now that we’ve gone and played shows, we’re like ‘people really like this’ and I think it’s made us shift a little bit to the point where ‘do I prioritize this band?’ or for us — like The Decemberists of course, do that, still — so I think for our other side projects, as we all have side projects from our side projects…Everything’s so busy with Black Prairie, either touring or writing, and other life, that I think everybody’s said ‘let’s write more.’”

Does this ease any growing pains moving forward?

“I think it is difficult…it’s something that has interest from the public, it makes it pretty easy to pay attention to it a little bit more, and say ‘we’re a regular band’,” Funk says, with a laugh, not the kind reserved for sketch comedies about certain cities, yet the kind of laugh of a man from a band with the right kind of problems, and that no matter the situation, the future remains wide open, and everything will work itself out along the way.