Hearing the phrase “you only get a few” could be deemed either a threat or a relief based on its context. For Upstate, the layers swirling around it are connected at the very top by a new album, as the New York band from the Hudson Valley release their third studio LP, You Only Get A Few, this Friday (March 31) via Royal Potato Family.
The night before (Thursday, March 30), Upstate show off the record at Brighton Music Hall, giving Boston audiences a preview of their latest sonic tapestry, a blend of folk, R&B, gospel, rock, and jazz glowing at the core of a very lived-in, and lived-through, album. A lot has changed since Upstate’s last record, 2019’s Healing, so we connected with the group over email to get the scoop on You Only Get A Few, what we can expect in Allston later this week, and the freedoms that come with a band finally making music on their own terms.
Vanyaland: Hello from Boston! The You Only Get A Few Tours kick-off show is with us in Allston at Brighton Music Hall later this week. We’re just as stoked as you guys! What can we expect from the Upstate live experience these days?
Upstate: The show is a real wide range of emotional and sonic registers. You won’t just get one thing and it won’t all blend together: Joy and sorrow, danceable grooves with a lot of energy, sweet and somber ballads, it’s all really deliberate for this tour.
In a lot of ways, the band has never sounded better. The addition of Dylan Mckinstry has pushed us to a new musical level, and the songs are some of the best we’ve written. We’ll be touring with a wonderful drummer, Doug Standley, formerly of the band smalltalker, and the arrangements have a lot of dynamic attention to detail.
The show also arrives on the eve of new album You Only Get A Few; does that add to the excitement? We’d love to claim that as the Massachusetts record release party over Northampton the next night.
I think the pre-release show is sort of the real release show, everybody there gets to hear some of these songs live before almost anyone has heard the record, and if they pick up a copy at the show they can spin the record when they get home before it makes its way into the world at midnight.
We saw on Insta that this was the first Upstate album self-funded and self-produced by the band. Does that make this record a little more special than the others, and if so, in what ways?
The biggest thing about this record, in comparison to the others, was that we made it at a time in the pandemic when we had no sense of what the future of the band would be. We weren’t sure if we’d ever really tour again in a big way, so we didn’t make the record with its “commercial” appeal in mind. We made it because we loved the songs, and tried to make a record we would love to listen to, so it has a more personal and authentic stamp in some respects than our previous albums.
With the freedom mentioned above, how did you approach this record from a creative perspective? Was that freedom exhilarating, terrifying, or a little bit of both?
It wasn’t terrifying for all the reasons above, there was a lot less pressure than we’re used to, and we really took our time and stewed on the songs. Dylan played a great role as a new member of the band, because he had an ear both “inside” and “out” so to speak. He was intimately involved in the writing and arranging, but also began with enough distance to hear everything in a fresh way.
The backstory of Upstate is fairly extensive, but focusing on the present, how has the band evolved, as people and songwriters, since 2019’s Healing?
After the big Healing tour and during the pandemic, two long-time members left the band: Singer Allison Olender and percussionist/cajon player Dean Mahoney. Dean’s energy had always been a huge part of the live show, as was the creative and original way he used his instrument, and a trio of three women singing harmony had been a central feature of the band for a long time. I think their absence, and the addition of Dylan, pushed all the rest of us to step up a lot musically.
We were also left with three original members who had all grown a lot as songwriters, so I think we really leaned heavily into crafting the songs with a new level of attention to detail. We’re currently touring with an incredible drummer, Doug Standley, previously of the band smalltalker, who helps us cement a new level of energy and rhythmic nuance into the live sound.
On the personal side, we had two marriages, two businesses started, a religious conversion, and one child born since the last record, and all of us are in very different stages of life from the people who wrote and toured Healing. I think though, that a careful listener will hear more continuity than rupture.
With the band back on the road, let’s close with a fun tour-related question. What would Upstate’s dream tour package consist of? And also, perhaps relatedly, if you could take any band on tour, who would that be; and if a certain band you all admired wanted to take you on tour, who would you hope that band would be?
Fantasy tour is something like a Red Rocks residency with kombucha on tap, some time to hit hot springs, extended family brought along to help with childcare, some days off for rock climbing, then down to New Orleans for a Tipitinas residency with a Frenchmen street excursion on Saturday night and stopover to hear the St Peter Claver choir on Sunday morning. All before a lengthy tour across all the Italian provinces opening for the Wood Brothers, ending the whole thing with an acoustic set on a Venetian gondola.
UPSTATE + GRAIN THIEF :: Thursday, March 30 at Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave. in Allston, MA :: 7 p.m., 18-plus, $18 :: Event page :: Advance tickets