The Bread and Butter Band

Cara Mastrianni of West Asheville says, "Watching the Bread and Butter Band blew my mind! They were so tight and energentic, and their original tunes were spectacular! I loved all of their great dancing conver songs too, all in all, a fantastic band I would highly recommend to people of all ages and tastes!" - Facebook

The Bread and Butter Band, out of Asheville, likes to call itself a bluegrass band and, as a four-piece acoustic group with female and male lead vocals and lots of harmony, it certainly has the set up. But it’s more than that.

The upright bass, bluegrass banjo and shredding guitar complement the harmonies of Sean Patterson, Tim Comstock and Nicole Kendle, all of it accentuated by the dynamic fiddle playing of Aaron Farmer. The band’s music is categorically bluegrass and roots, but it stretches across genres and borders. There are strong whiffs of blues and country in the vocals, with a distinctly Appalachian-feeling fiddle, all meshing to create a down-home mountain sound.

The band got together in 2012. Competing in a songwriters competition, Kendle on banjo won a qualifying event and decided to put a band together for the final round. The musicians practiced together a couple of times in a little house Kendle was renting in Black Mountain, near hole 5 of the Black Mountain Golf Course. They lost the competition. But the band was born.

The most bluegrass thing about the band is the instruments it plays. Its music retains several elements of bluegrass, but because the musicians have varied backgrounds and influences, it’s difficult to pigeonhole the band’s music.

Bass player Comstock grew up playing in punk and rock bands. Guitar player, Patterson was an almost exclusively and rock and blues player. Kendle grew up with a strong musical theater and classical background, while fiddle player Farmer, grew up in Candler playing mountain and traditional music before realizing he could fit the fiddle into about any music there is.

“We definitely combine all of these influences into what we are doing,” the band said, “at the very least to keep things interesting for us and hopefully give the audience something a little different than what they are used to.”

The band plans to tour heavily for the rest of the year. At Pisgah Brewing, it will celebrate the release of its new album “Dead End Road.” Also playing will be The Accomplices Band from Savannah, Georgia. - Black Mountain News

A successful Kickstarter campaign provided The Bread and Butter Band with funds for two weeks of recording at Solomon Mines Studio in Fletcher — until owner and engineer Aaron Solomon heard the band’s gritty, high-energy brand of bluegrass, that is. “We had the incredible privilege of being in the studio for six months and experienced more top-quality professional studio time than almost any other unsigned band we know,” says banjoist and vocalist Nicole Kendle. “Songs evolved and turned into more than we knew we were capable of. All of us pushed ourselves past where we thought we could go and learned so much in transit.” The resulting debut album, Dead End Road, will be released during a celebratory performance, complete with special-edition pint glasses and koozies up for grabs at Pisgah Brewing Co. on Sunday, May 24, at 9 p.m. $9/$12 - Mountain Express