Roselit Bone Shines At Treefort: Apocalyptic Country Is Here

As the beating noonday September sun bore down on the growing Treefort crowd standing in front of the Radioland truck stage; and the band wound down their sound tests before beginning to play, this reporter had every reason to expect another raucous, memorable show from Roselit Bone. Based out of Portland, Oregon, the eight-piece band’s sound could be described as halfway between classic, skilled ranchera country and that of the house band for the “slow hot death of the world,” as the vocals off their 2014 song Slow Hot Death hauntingly intonate. Led by the twangy, versatile vocals and sun scorched, weather-beaten cowgirl poetry of Charlotte McCaslin, Roselit Bone’s soaring horns and weaving guitar harmonies had electrified their audience in the two previous shows seen by this reporter over the last few years; and this first of two Treefort 2021 performances was no exception.

Roselit Bone’s journey began as a duo in 2013 with a dark Western dream, growing to a revolving musical ensemble with violin, lap steep guitar, trumpets and dobro (to name a few), and a sound that captures the chaos and cracking facade of the modern world, all with a wry sonic homage to Hollywood Westerns past. Their subjects range from identity struggles to environmental decline to systemic violence to all-out apocalyptic nightmare visions while their lyrics wield honesty and defiance to confront a world on fire.

Charlotte sat down with me in the Fern Room of the Owyhee Hotel a few hours before their second Treefort show at the Neurolux to talk the festival, her writing influences, apocalyptic country, urban warfare and where to find eggs in the Middle of Nowhere, Wyoming (Spoiler, you can’t):

Interview Transcript (Charlotte McCaslin)

• What’s your time been like at Treefort so far?

  • C: It’s been one of the most fun Treeforts that I’ve had, just because cause we’re not on tour – usually we’re on tour, and then we wind up here. So we don’t get a lot of time to hang out and network with the other bands. Being able to do it the whole weekend is really nice. We pulled it in pretty late Friday, and just chilled at the hotel. And then yesterday got up and went skating, while listening to Help, who we did see the night before at El Korah Shrine.

• Ooo what are they, punk?

  • C: Yeah, they’re a band from Portland that are really intense, I’d say dark punk. Kind of in the vein of Big Black or Flipper, reminds me of Flipper a little bit, one of my favorite bands.

• Cool!

  • C: Yeah, they’re very cool. So seeing them the night before, on a stage, they were scary. And then at the skate park, I got pumped up and was skating to it. At Treefort, y’know, bands have these second chance shows, where you see a band at night, and then you see them during the day. And it’s fun to see the difference in those performances. I’m sure with us, we’re definitely not 1000% at noon on Saturday outside.

• I don’t know if I trust anyone who is!

  • C: No, I was still drinking my morning coffee on stage yesterday.

• Having seen Roselit Bone a few times, it was definitely different seeing you in the dark atmospheric hall of the Neurolux, versus the open back truck stage outside.

  • C: Yeah, it’s a little lighter. There’s kind of a limit to how much control you have over the audience and atmosphere. Everything else is going on.

• I’m glad you guys have that opportunity to perform today at the Neurolux, and I heard you have another horn coming, correct?

  • C: We do have a 2^nd trumpet coming.

• I love that brass band section.

  • C: We were hanging out at Neurolux Friday night; and ran into Family Worship Center, who were acquaintances before and now we’ve become better friends. But they asked to borrow our trumpet player Julian for their show yesterday, and he loves doing that stuff. Probably more than playing in Roselit Bone, he loves sitting in with bands.

• Getting to put on a different hat?

  • C: Yeah, reaping the glory. They all dress in all white, so he already had his white jumpsuit, for some reason.

• That is a good inverse from the dark moodiness of Roselit Bone, Family Worship Center as this bright, soulful group. Have you noticed your shows in Boise evolving over time? I know you’ve performed here a few different times.

  • C: It’s hard to say because of the pandemic. But I know the crowds get better every time, our last show at Neurolux was really good. It was kind of the off season; a lot of people came out. The radio station is really supportive of us, and the Record Exchange too, we’re friends with Catherine who owns that now. We feel like we have a lot of support in this town. Almost as much as in Portland.

• Aw, home away from home.

  • C: Yeah, as far as evolving, I don’t remember the before times too well.

• Roselit Bone’s music has been described as “apocalyptic country,” and with your often dark and gritty lyricism, skilled mariachi country backing and explosive forays into sonic dissonance, I can see why. What’re your thoughts on that as one label, among others, for your sound?

  • C: I don’t have a problem with it, and we’re always evolving. I think people seeing us tonight will see that we’re sort of heading into a more synthy direction, incorporating elements of new wave and electronic sound, not like dance electronic. Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of synthy pop, synth wave, dark wave, and industrial; I’ve always listened to industrial. There’s a little bit of that coming into the sound, that might not reflect on the last record, but definitely will on the next one.

• I look forward to whatever that looks like next. There’s something kind of special about how more and more bands around this moment are starting to experiment with dissonance too, and I think seeing you guys live, that’s something that comes to mind.

  • C: Yeah, we’re always had that to us. I think that’s part of the apocalyptic sound, it reflects the chaos of our times.

• I got to see another band, Algiers last night, and it seems like you both had your fingers on the musical pulse in different ways with that sort of sound. Reflecting the anxieties of our age

  • C: Well, living in Portland too in the last couple years has been, y’know, I feel like we have a window to it that most cities don’t.

• Kind of a war zone, goin’ on?

  • C: A little bit, yeah. I got tear gassed a few times (laughs). And then we also had our hottest days in history, this summer I believe, where it got up to like 116 or something. Climate anxiety has always been a part of my writing, and I think that hasn’t changed, because it hasn’t gotten better.

• Yeah, and that leads me to another question I had about your writing. Among other things, your nightmare poetry on your 2017 album Blister Steel, really drew me in on my first listen to you guys a few years ago. And then that lyrical grittiness evolves, but I think remains constant on your 2019 album Crisis Actor. I’m curious what writers or media helped inspire that in you, the fascination with hellish, nightmare imagery and the macabre?

  • C: I mean I feel like I’ve always been a macabre person, even when I try not to be. But specific writers that inspire me are, probably pretty obvious, but Cormac McCarthy, William Faulkner and Leonard Cohen as a poet, I love his poetry. I’m a big lyrics person, especially recently, so that’s almost always the thing that I latch onto in music. And growing up, I listened to some of the scariest bands on the planet I think, y’know, like Swans.

• I was going to ask!

  • C: And one writer I really love is Will Oldham, Bonnie “Prince” Billy. His music is very pretty, but his lyrics are…

• Heartbreaking?

  • C: Yeah, his music is very pretty, but his lyrics are like literature, I think. Very heartbreaking, sometimes very sick, it spans the whole spectrum.

• I like Bonnie “Prince” Billy to relate to your guys’ sound too, because he brings in alternative music – all these dark, macabre influences into kind of a country folk format.

  • C: Yeah, he’s one of my favorite songwriters.

• I’ve also noticed, and I’ve been to about three of your shows now, that you love entering the crowd during your sets and dancing around. You love convulsing and moving in whatever way the muse grabs you. I think that really adds to the intensity and memorability of your shows, and helps shatter the barrier between the performer and the audience; the false barrier the stage creates. Were there performers in that vein earlier in your life that left a mark on you?

  • C: Yeah, I grew up in Orange County, so I would go see a lot of punk shows while I was in high school, including a lot of classic LA punk bands. And I think that was just always part of it, it’s a power that exists in punk music that you don’t see a lot in other genres. I think confrontation with an audience is a way to break down a lot of emotional barriers with them, and make people feel any type of way. I can be kind of an asshole on stage sometimes, but I think…

• I think a lot of people are here for it though!

  • C: (Laughs) Well yeah, I mean it’s all part of the act. And I just like a lot of theatrical, body horror kind of things.

• Kind of David Cronenberg-type?

  • C: Yeah.

• When you mentioned writers you liked, Leech Child is a song off your Blister Steel album and it’s one with some pretty disturbing, nightmare images. So, to hear that I can see part of how your performances are visceral, y’know? I remember them well, which is to your guys’ credit.

  • C: And I think I’m always just trying to make things as intense as possible, even if it’s a mellifluous, lush, beautiful song, I try to make that aspect of it hit as hard as I can.

• Roselit Bone can balance a melodic side with a darkness and dissonance; and I think that really leaves an impact.

  • C: Thank you.

• I think you guys are in a community with Swans, and other similar groups too.

  • C: Yeah, they’re a big influence on the live energy and intensity.
    

• What was the last performance you witnessed that you remember leaving a lasting influence on you, y’know the kind that got under your skin and still follows you around?

  • C: I mean, I really liked Family Worship Center yesterday. It’s music that I don’t think I could personally make, I don’t think I’d be capable of making, because it’s so free and joyful. I like seeing bands that are completely different than what I do, but still I feel cut from the same cloth. They were, I think, the first band I saw post-pandemic; I went to a house show on the 4^th of July. They left an impression on me.
    

• What’s a story you’d like to share about your time in the recording studio or on tour?

  • C: Oh, I’m trying to think of any story that won’t get me in trouble, (laughs) I don’t know if I can. The van chatter gets very dark and…problematic (laughs). The very first tour we made out east from Portland, past Boise, we were touring in a short school bus, a diesel school bus. And our radiator blew in the middle of Wyoming, and it was my first time in Wyoming, first time really being on a long tour. As soon as we got out of Portland, got into Wyoming, the needle went to red, and steam started blowing out of our engine. And we pull over into this BLM land, there were seven of us in the band, and none of us were mechanics (laughs).

  • C: There was nothing for miles around. We took apart the engine, and saw there was no water in the reservoir, so we had to pour all of our drinking water into it in order to get us about 20 miles down the road to the next truck stop. And we pulled into the Love’s truck stop, and a trucker came up and offered his advice, and we’re like “what do we do,” because there was a crack in the top of the radiator. He told us to crack an egg into it. So we’re like at this truck stop in the middle of nowhere, there was a massive dust storm happening at this moment, like right when we pulled in, the bus is about to blow up and we’re like, “okay, let’s go get an egg!”

  • C: So we go into this truck stop, and I asked the clerk if they had eggs, and she said, “No.” And I asked, “Where do you get eggs, in this town?” and she just says “I don’t know…”

• This kind of sounds like a Cormac McCarthy setting, these musical misfits caught in this foreign land.

  • C: (Laughs) Oh definitely, because we were in this school bus, there would be people that would pull off on the side of the road to help, and then they’d see us, and they just wouldn’t even stop. They’d just slow down, see us, and get right back on their way. They don’t like helping people in Wyoming.

• Hopefully there was a chicken around that was a little bit more helpful.

  • C: (Laughs) Yeah, I had to go find one.

• So were you able to find an egg?

  • C: No, we wound up getting some putty that we put on it that got us to Cheyenne. There was this mechanic there that was making all these Larry the Cable Guy jokes at us, and I was laughing at them because I didn’t want him to take all our money. But then they did anyway, like $1200 for a radiator.

• So, you laughed at highway robbery?

  • C: (Laugh) Yeah, I was like “Ohhh, that’s a funny joke,” but it didn’t pay off.

• I’m glad you guys made it out of there alive!

  • C: Yeah, alive’s a strong word. Part of me probably died there (laughs).

• Is there anything else you’d like to mention or discuss before we leave today that we might not have covered?

  • C: I don’t think so. This is our last show before we hit the studio, to record our next album.

• Do you think that’ll come out next year?

  • Hopefully, we’ve been working on it throughout the whole pandemic, but it just keeps getting derailed, y’know? Plagues, and uprisings (laughs). We’ll probably be playing a lot of new songs at our show today that we’re going to go into the studio and record at the end of October.

• Thanks so much for talking with me today, this has been Charlotte McCaslin from Roselit Bone. Check ‘em out, they’re something else!

Roselit Bone has a Facebook Page. Roselit Bone can also be found on Bandcamp, Spotify and in a Cowboy’s Fever Dream

Photos by Trevor Guyer (Roselit Bone on Neurolux stage) except photo #2 ( Roselit Bone on Radioland Truck Stage) by Ed Simon