Thor Platter

Band of the Week
Thor Platter Band
by Jeff Niesel

Meet the Band: Thor Platter (vocals, guitar, harmonica), Chris Hanna (keyboards), Billy Crompton (bass), Matthew Knott (drums)

Looking for Sunshine: After honing his chops in Buffalo and widening the scope of his vision in Cleveland for a few years, Thor Platter is now able to highlight his personal style. His new solo effort, Looking for Sunshine, reels in the work of his past while cultivating new directions for the future. "As with any album, there were a few surprises along the way musically," Platter says. "Originally, I had written 'When Family Lets you Down' as a solo acoustic piece that might not have made it onto this album... and now we've turned it into the closing track with an outro full of sound."

A Culmination of Vision: "Some of these songs go back ten or twelve years," Platter says. After toying around with them and riffing on these familiar melodies in his head for so long, Platter's relieved to finally have them nailed down and recorded. The final product, he adds, is a testament to his formative experiences and the wealth of talent with which he's been able to surround himself.

Keen on Collaboration: The band backing Platter on this project knows how to turn faintly glimmering notions into robust nods to the Americana tradition. "I didn't really feel like I was dictating what the musicians on this album should play," Platter says. "As soon and Chris Hanna started coming up with piano and organ ideas, and Billy was putting little bass fills in, I knew we were headed in the perfect direction."

Why You Should Hear Them: This is music to play as you're about to hit the road and pursue the remnants of long-lost love on the highways of America. Also, if you're simpyly itchin' for some new local music and you've got a hankering for harmonica-laced folk rock.

Where You Can Hear Them: thorplatter.com

Where You Can See Them: The Thor Platter Band performs with Rob Duskey and the Rounders, and Erica Blinn and the Handsome Machine at 9:30 p.m. on Friday, April 5 at Brothers Lounge. - Scene Magazine

Born and raised in Buffalo, singer-songwriter Thor Platter received a good dose of classic rock as a youth when his sister introduced him to her record collection. She had albums by guys such as Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan. His mother's love of traditional Irish music and her Beach Boys obsession left a lasting impression too. Platter also dug into his father’s collection of bluegrass and blues, giving him a fairly eclectic musical background.

“He had a CD that was like a bluegrass festival kind of thing,” Platter recalls one afternoon over beers at Brothers Lounge, the venue that will host a CD release party for Platter’s terrific new EP, Long Road Ahead. “[My upbringing] was heavy on the classic rock stuff and singer-songwriter stuff. That made me want to play guitar and harmonica and write love songs and songs about trees.”

In Buffalo, Platter played with the Fatbacks, a group that he says “played around a lot” and hit up regional festivals. At the time, he worked a day job and would re-invest his money into the band. But his band mates didn’t have the same mentality, so he decided to move on. He left Buffalo and arrived in Cleveland a few years ago. Though the two cities are very similar, Platter’s profile has increased since coming to Northeast Ohio.

“Once I moved here, I found it easier to promote myself,” he says. “Coming to a new area helped some too. But when I first moved here, it was going to be a stepping point. We were going to go to a bigger city like Chicago or Louisville or Nashville. But after moving here and meeting people in the music scene here, I realized it was starting to flourish into something. I decided to base everything out of Cleveland. In Nashville, everyone there is fighting for the same dollar there. And you don’t have to do that here. There’s still great talent here.”

In 2013, he issued Looking for Sunshine, an album of songs that he’d written over the course of the previous decade. For his new album, Long Road Ahead, he went to Blue Buddha Studio and worked with local producer Jim Wall, the guy who owns the Cleveland-based studio. The disc showcases his crisp vocals, which recall masters such as John Hiatt, Lyle Lovett or Willie Nelson. The song’s arrangements draw from bluegrass and folk but don’t strictly to traditional structures and allow his stellar band that includes bassist Matthew Charboneau and mandolin and fiddle player Bill Lestock to really shine. Two session players — Paul Kovac and Tommy Hannum — also contribute.

“I pitched the idea of doing an all acoustic recording,” says Platter when asked about his approach to recording. “It might be called bluegrass because you have banjo and mandolin and fiddle and upright, but they aren’t bluegrass songs.”

His original idea was for the band to record in the same room. Instead, Platter was in an isolated booth and the other three guys were in the recording room and they tracked it that way.

“I went back through and threw better vocals on it, as one does, though I wanted the least amount of edits,” says Platter. “Tommy Hannum, a famous Nashville session player put the dobra on and we put some effects on it to make it sound a bit more freaky on some of the songs.”

The album opens with the twangy “Lake Erie Shore,” a tune written by Patricia Zook that features a fair amount of mandolin and banjo and suggests the album will be a collection of traditional-sounding bluegrass songs. But the album clearly steers clear of traditional bluegrass.

“I would like to be in the alt-country vein,” says Platter. “The music could be called newgrass or some modern version. I consider bluegrass to be the Statler Brothers and Bill Monroe. That’s what I like about Americana as a genre. You can be a little bit of everything.”

“Josh’s Manifesto,” a song he co-wrote with local musician Josh Stevens is the classic break-up song. The two collaborated on the tune one night in Platter’s basement.

“I love the story that he tells in the song about getting inebriated and then going to tell a girl he isn’t in love with her anymore,” says Platter. “I added another verse to fill it out and changed the arrangement just a little bit. It turned out really nice.”

The album centerpiece, “Ride,” comes off as “creepy and dark.” “Headed east, looking for a place to lie,” Platter sings in the song’s sparse opening before an eerie sounding dobro emerges in the mix.

“It’s a fight or flight kind of song,” says Platter. “I used to write more about myself and now I try to put myself in other places. I had a buddy that was going through a break up. Even thought it’s not about that, it’s more about the crazy girl he was involved with. We routed the dobro through a rotary speaker.”

The group is in the process of recording a new “electric band record” that should be out in the spring of next year. Platter says he hopes that that disc, like Long Road Home, will reflect what his band sounds like live.

“I want to capture the talent of our live shows,” he says. “When I listen to the album from 2013, it’s not representative of what we’re playing right now. Everyone is really talented on that album and there are different people on this one. It’s reflective of the cohesiveness that we’ve gotten over the past couple of years. This new EP is more representative or what our live show is. Like this one, the next one will have a little bit of everything on it, and some banjo and fiddle too.” - Jeff Niesel - Scene Magazine

THOR PLATTER/Take Time: If you're an old folkie the thing that's going to blow you away about this Cleveland based cat is that he sound s like John Prine and Steve Goodman rolled into one. How'd he do that and do that from so faraway in time and distance? Heartfelt folkie/Americana stuff that hits all the right notes, Platter is aimed to be the new kind of the back porch and he's got it going on. Solid stuff genre fans will recognize as the real deal. - Midwest Record

Thor Platter Takes His Time
Thor Platter at Music Box Supper Club on October 26, 2017

BY JAY MINKIN , CORRESPONDENT
OCTOBER 27, 2017
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nd-roots-badgephoto by Joshua Dane
With a background of city lights and skyscrapers, it was a perfect setting for Thor Platter to unveil his new album, Take Time, Thursday evening at Cleveland’s Music Box Supper Club. Moving west from Buffalo nine years ago, Platter felt right at home at the beautiful venue on the edge of the Cuyahoga River flowing into one of the Great Lakes. The full house was a spattering of family, friends, Kickstarter supporters, and fellow musicians who share a comradery with one of Northeast Ohio’s very talented troubadours.

Platter was one of a handful of songwriters featured in the article "Believeland - A Roots Music Renaissance Simmers Just Under The Surface in Northeast Ohio" published in the Spring 2017 edition of No Depression magazine. His new record embraces the trials and tribulations of a songwriter who decided that going acoustic instead of electric would be the correct path. Previously headlining an electric band with pedal steel when he first began recording a few years ago, this past year Platter surrounded himself with two acclaimed teachers of the Americana roots craft in Paul Lewis on bass and Paul Kovac on banjo, playing as a trio. This led to a friendship with songwriter/musician/producer David Mayfield, who moved back to his old stopping grounds from Nashville and occasionally sits in with Kovac’s other bands, Hillbilly Idol and Clear Fork Bluegrass Quartet. Mayfield took time to review Platter’s songbook and there was just something right about the vibe coming from Mayfield's former studio Tiger Spa (Mayfield recently opened a new facility called Sweetside Recording Company). With the trio playing shows for several months, the new album was tracked in just six sessions, with few overdubs, to stay true to their arraignments and live recording process creating an amazing record that echoes of gone but not forgotten outlaw country royalty. Keeping things local, the vinyl album, which was delivered just in time for tonight’s show, was manufactured by Gotta Groove Records.

The 15-song set featuring all ten from the new album began with “Open Up Your Heart,” a song about trying to forget an old flame when dating someone new. Lifetime themes are spotlighted with “Fallout (Take Time),” which touches on friends who are going through dark times, as does the gorgeous “There For You,” written after seeing a community hit by hard times and unemployment that featured a bass solo from Lewis. One of my favorites from the new album, “Captain Black,” pays tribute to Platter's father, who kept a royal blue pouch of pipe tobacco lying on the dashboard of the family vehicle. The album’s opening track, “Destined,” a song Platter wrote when he first moved to Cleveland about a young man’s dreams, was followed by “Come Home,” which was written almost 15 years ago, when his childhood girlfriend left for the big city of New York (yes, she came back and they’re happily married). Closing out this portion of the show was “Since I’ve Been Gone,” a bluegrass story from when Platter revisited Buffalo full of sweet harmonies and Kovac’s banjo picking.

A slew of bluegrass interpretations came next, with Willie Nelson's “Sad Songs and Waltzes,” The Dillards' “Old Home Place,” Lester Flatt's “I’m Gonna Sleep With One Eye Open,” Hank Williams' “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive” – with interjections of old TV themes and classic rock riffs – and a take on “Tear Stained Eye” by Son Volt that can be found on the new record. For the finale, after the trio performed “Pullman Blues,” Platter was surprised when the drapes came off the instruments and amps behind him as Mayfield joined in on electric guitar with Brent Kirby on drums and Chris Hanna on keyboards to replicate the album track in which Mayfield layered instruments from an old band recording into a crashing finish.

Opening the evening were Cave Twins, featuring Mayfield with Abby Rose. Co-writing for the past year, the sly-witted stage performer Mayfield (mandolin) blended vocals with Rose's (guitar) sweetness and innocence around a single microphone making for olde-tyme entertainment. Their ten-song set was highlighted by “When The Sun Hits,” “Happy Anywhere,” “Trouble,” “That’s Yours My Dear,” “Take Your Shoes Off,” and “With You.” Expect to hear more from these two with an album release next year. - No Depression - Jay Minkin

Thor Platter named his debut album well. Take Time is an album that’s patient, empathetic and introspective in a way that most listeners would be wise to learn from.

In most cases, the music matches the mood. The best tracks on Take Time are characterized by relaxed banjo or guitar work and an equally relaxed pace. When Platter does add flourishes to his sound, he tends to opt for soulful emphasis on important lyrics or vocal harmonies. The best flourish he adds is Paul Kovac, a veteran player whose banjo work on the album is near perfection.

The theme of the album seems to be reaching out. “Open up Your Heart” offers support to a friend and benefits greatly from Platter’s experience with friends falling victim to the opioid epidemic in his Rust Belt home. It does, however, simplify the issues swirling around addiction to the point that I wasn’t terribly surprised when Platter told me during our interview that he didn’t really know how to help and just wanted to try. For the sake of fairness and transparency, I don’t think I have the patience and temperament to provide real help either. The next track, “There For You,” offers a similar message with a much more emotional performance and an interesting verse about how a physically intimidating man is better able to protect his woman by relaxing his muscles and offering to listen and provide moral support.

Neither work nearly as well as “Fallout (Take Time,)” a track that offers so much in the way of patience and tampered expectations that the offer of support feels both more real and painfully bittersweet. Here, the singer strains to interpret a request for money from an ex as a sign that she misses him. He offers to be there for her until they fall out, something he seems to fully realize will happen eventually. It’s through that character work that his desperation and dedication come through. Also of note is “Tear Stained Eye,” a Son Volt cover. I happen to prefer Platter’s version. It’s slower than the original, relies much more on the banjo, and features stronger harmonies.





Thor. That cannot be an easy name to have in the age of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Well, Growing up I didn’t have that. I had pretty much a gap because the comics weren’t big anymore. There was a wrestler named Thor who came around for a couple of weeks and I was a little bit nervous that he would turn into something like The Rock or Hulk or things like that. But I didn’t really have to deal with it too much. Then the movie came out and started making money, but I didn’t get any of that money.

Where are you based out of these days?

I’m in Cleveland. I was born raised in Western New York and I’ve been in Cleveland for nine years.

On your first track you talk about being “Destined” for San Francisco but even though you call it dark and snowy I get the feeling you enjoy it up here.

I wrote that song after I moved to Cleveland from Buffalo. I always imagined myself heading out West, and that still may be in the cards a little bit, but those were just time that I was thinking about where I’d come from and where I was going. There’s definitely a warm sentiment about Buffalo, which is really as dark and snowy as it gets. Around November it starts to get like that until April. Cleveland’s a little bit warmer by like 10 degrees or so and has a little bit less snow, but it’s still a pretty hard winter season.



The next track on the album, “Fallout”, seems to be from the perspective of the most patient man in the world. I mean you there’s just this hopefulness when you’re when you’re saying “I know you miss my voice” in regards to an ex-asking for money. It’s someone who is, to me, beyond understanding perhaps to the point of wishing that things are going to go.

I feel like there’s a time that even my mom thinks that when I’m calling I’m asking for money or something. Because when you have these relationships with people whether it’s your parents or cousins or brothers and sisters or even some friends you don’t talk to one another awhile, when you call, you definitely need something. I mean, sometimes you’re just trying to check on them but for the most part, I think that’s that’s probably true. Not to touch on a dark subject, but as I got into the writing of this album and recording of it, we had a pool of songs to pick from and some of the songs have this underlying theme. When I moved to Northeast Ohio, I moved not into Cleveland proper but into some of the places like Lorain Ohio that are really depressed areas. They’re starting to come comeback, but when I first moved here 10 years ago they were really depressed and in this epidemic of opioids. But you’re starting to see it everywhere. And I would run into people that I knew that I couldn’t help and maybe that’s my own downfall, not having the patience and the ability to help them. So a couple of the songs, while they might also have a love theme like “Fallout,” that song “There for You” is about two people that I saw when I was living out west of Cleveland and they were just in a really bad place. I thought no matter how bad you could get, if two people have each other, maybe they can make it through. It gave me a little bit of hope and then I looked in the ways that I could help and reach out to friends of mine who I feel were you know were dealing with some of those struggles that we’re going through now.

On Captain Black, I think you have a pretty nice tribute to your father going.

That was one that when I first started singing, it was hard for me to sing because it’s pretty literal. When I grew up in Buffalo, I would go fishing with my father on Lake Ontario and we would go on some other trips. I forgot how old I was, but I asked him to stop smoking cigarettes. He had been smoking from the time he was in the army up till whenever that was that I asked him. I think I was nine or 10 years old and I just it made a little card and I asked him to stop smoking cigarettes for me. And that day he stopped smoking cigarettes but he started smoking a pipe, which I guess is better because you’re not inhaling it. I don’t know. But as a kid I thought wow, I just I just changed my dad’s thoughts on this. He always smoked. He smoked a lot of tobacco, aromatics, and stuff like that from the local tobacco shop. But if we were just going somewhere, or if we were in this Chevy Suburban that he always had, there was always a pack of Captain Black pipe tobacco. So that was where that you know that whole vision came from and I just figured I’d write more of a literal song.



Oh, I had absolutely no doubt that that one was autobiographical because the way the human brain works, smell is so attached to memory. And the fact that you were using a smell to recall your memories, it just seemed like that’s got to be the smell that actually triggers it for you.

I think smoking and all cigarettes and everything is not good for you, but I have a couple of friends in Nashville, and one of them smokes Merit cigarettes, and that was what my dad used to smoke. A couple of years ago, I went out to visit him and I didn’t realize what was going on, but he lit a cigarette up and that memory came firing back at me. Not a lot of people smoke Merits, or maybe just not anymore. And then my grandmother smoked Parliaments and another friend’s girlfriend smoked those. It’s an uncanny thing. More so than even some pictures from childhood I looked at. I don’t remember being part of those pictures, but I could completely remember something based off a smell.

Last track I want to talk about is a pretty bold thing that you did on this album. You took a classic Son Volt song and did some significant reworking with it.

I picked that song because they’re not really one of my biggest influences. I dig the stuff. I definitely like the Uncle Tupelo and all that stuff was somewhat of an influence on me, but I grew up listening to Neil Young and to some classic country and old blues. Uncle Tupelo wasn’t really on my radar until after I discovered Wilco you know so whatever that was late late 90s early early 2000s. Then I started to see what the spinoffs were bout and all the different bands. When we looked through all the possible songs that I could play, including covers, that was one that we had been playing live for a little while the band and I decided that would probably be a good idea to try out.

I especially appreciate the banjo work on that song — and the whole album, really.

This whole album we wanted to kind of showcase the banjo is an instrument and not just as a bluegrass throwdown kind of thing. And I think that comes across on tracks like that and “Destined.” With Paul Kovac, I started to realize the difference between him and other banjo players for a few years now. He’s got 40 years under his belt playing banjo and he’s a very accomplished player. But I see other younger people that maybe are just starting out, or other bands that have banjos, and they can definitely do the quick t roll as fast as they can. But it’s hard to play the banjo slower. It’s actually really tough to stay in line. And then with Paul Lewis playing the bass, they intertwined themselves really nice on a song like that. This record definitely has more of a theme that I thought it was going to. I think that’s why I scrapped the other full electric project. It just wasn’t cohesive, it didn’t come together. - Glide Magazine - Trevor Christian