Interview .357 String Band bottle Lightning on new album

Stabbing Riverwest basement-punk attitude into the seedy underbelly of traditional bluegrass—a sound the band aptly dubs “streetgrass”—.357 String Band is far more unconventional than its Americana trappings might suggest. The band's music is fast, raucous, and drenched in PBR-sweats, a phenomenon that started in and around Riverwest’s Circle-A Café in 2004. It has since been exported across the U.S. and Europe, with the band playing some 500 shows in 10 countries, a constant string of extended van tours reaching Bozeman, Budapest, and beyond. The band comes home for the release of its third full-length album, Lightning From The North, Friday at Turner Hall. In advance of the show, The A.V. Club talked to singer-guitarist Derek Dunn about how streetgrass saved his life, even if the band has put his life in danger more than a few times.

The A.V. Club: How has the “streetgrass” sound evolved since the Circle-A Café days?

Derek Dunn: What's changed is us, personally. When we started this band, I was smoking a pack a day, drinking myself to death, smoking crack all the time. It was getting to the point that I couldn't sing anymore, I couldn't write. Over the course of a few years, I went to rehab, quit smoking, finally quit drinking. In a lot of ways this band saved my soul. I think any changes in our music is just the natural progression of that type of thing, of us basically growing up. We don't just sit around discussing what direction the band is going or anything like that; it's just whatever we've been writing that ends up working.

AVC: You guys have been on a relentless touring schedule for years. How do you keep yourselves together on the road?

DD: A lot of it has to do with finding ways to be alone while you're shoved in a van with three or four other people for six weeks at a time. We keep our van pretty clean on the road, and over the course of time, we've all learned to get sleep when we need it. Staying hydrated is big. It’s also important to avoid fast food like the plague. We drink Emergen-C and things like that.

AVC: You’ve recently toured across Europe. How is playing European clubs different from playing in the States?

DD: The sound is usually better. With the crowds, though, it varies. Crowds in Serbia and Spain, for instance, were way rowdier than the crowds in Belgium or Holland, where people tend to stand back and really listen to the songs rather than dance. So it varies as much as, say, American shows in New York are different than shows in L.A., which are different than shows in Fargo. Really, it all depends on the individuals in the crowd.

AVC: Of all the places you’ve been, where do they drink the hardest?

DD: First and foremost, nobody drinks like they do in Milwaukee, period. After that is Fort Wayne, Ind., then Bozeman, Mont. But sometimes I wish that Milwaukee had a bit less of a drinking culture. I think other things, like music for instance, suffer because of it; getting drunk is a higher priority than getting a band together. Plus, why do we have 8 million bars and no skate park? Drinking can be awesome, but it's not an artistic endeavor.

AVC: Tell me a good tour anecdote.

DD: Let's see. We got jumped by five good ol' boys in Anaconda, Mont., and had to beat them with the golf clubs they'd been planning on using on us—they actually ended up calling the cops to come save them, which was funny. We've had our van towed by the Serbian army; we were searched by the Hungarian army, the German police, and a bunch of times by U.S. police. We burn about 45,000 miles a year on the highway, so we've definitely had our fair share of near-death experiences. Right now we're on our way to play Churchill's Pub, in little Haiti in Miami, so who knows? Maybe we'll have another harrowing near-death experience tonight. Every day is a new adventure.