KNOXVILLE RISING
Tyler Larrabee is only 17 years old, but he’s learning some big life lessons through the conception and planning of the New Ground Music Festival, which takes place Sunday, Sept. 8, at Lakeshore Park.
Logistically, he’s getting a crash course in festival minutiae, the little details that are critical for a seamless experience on the part of the performers and the guests. Although he’s attended festivals as a fan and even played one of Knoxville’s biggest with his band, Stonefish — last May’s Rhythm N’ Blooms Festival — putting on his own has been illuminating, to say the least, he told BLANK Newspaper recently.
“Two days ago, Daniel (Fluitt) from Sugarlands (Distilling Company) asked me, ‘What are you doing for your ice?,’ and I was like, ‘Man! I need ice! And I need some place to store ice!’” Larrabee said. “It’s those fine details that have been a learning curve, because there is so much that goes into a festival that you don’t think about. I remember in the beginning, I got a meeting with Rusty (Odom, BLANK publisher and the innovator of Knoxville’s Second Bell Music Festival), and I was like, ‘Here’s my idea!’
“That was it. That was all I had, and I knew nothing else. Talking to Rusty was a smack in the face, because in talking with him, I realized that I don’t even know what I don’t know! Without Rusty, this festival wouldn’t exist, period. But on a personal level, I’ve learned about trusting other people and distributing your job and your workload.”
And those are life lessons that guys and girls twice his age have yet to master: delegation, so that micro-management doesn’t rob him of enthusiasm. Trust, that the tasks undertaken by others will get accomplished without his constant worry. And faith, that everything will come together like it’s supposed to, and a festival that celebrates some of Knoxville’s most vibrant young rock voices will knock it out of the park with an inaugural year that has a singular metric of success:
“I want people to see that there’s a new wave of music in Knoxville,” Larrabee said. “I want them to see, here are all these bands you’ve never heard of before — and look at how good they are. This isn’t a talent show, and this isn’t a kid’s music festival: This is a real music festival, and these bands all have the ability, the drive and the songwriting to make it. I hand-selected them all based on that, and they’re bands I know that, if they’re just given the opportunity, could do something big.”
New Ground might just be that chance. Larrabee knows a thing or two about such opportunities: He’s worked for everything he and Stonefish have achieved, but he’s had an assist here and there from some local music scene stalwarts, starting with the guy who first taught him how to play piano when he was 5 years old.
“I begged my mother to let me take lessons, and although we went through a few different options, I ended up at Knox Music Studios on Northshore, and my first piano teacher was Cruz Contreras,” he said. “The way he got me into it was that if I did well on my lessons, Cruz would play ‘Rocky Top’ for me, and I remember that motivated me. I wanted him to play that at the end of every lesson, so I worked hard to learn.
“I still remember him telling me about how he had started this band, The Black Lillies, and how he couldn’t teach lessons anymore, because he thought it was going to do really well. A few years ago, I read an article in Rolling Stone about that band, so I guess he was right!”
His next instructor pushed him to learn music theory, and in so doing, he picked up on sight reading and song structure. In the sixth grade, he began playing guitar in addition to piano, eventually switching solely to the six string, but it wasn’t until his freshman year in high school at West, where he’s now a senior, that Stonefish was born. On a mission trip to Alaska with his youth group from Middlebrook Pike United Methodist, he wound up jamming with pianist Zach Slimp. A few years older and preparing to start college, Slimp invited Larrabee to start a band with him back home in Knoxville.
Fellow West student Benji Gouffon overheard Larrabee talking about the project at school and promptly invited himself to the band’s practice; his falsetto and impressive range made him a natural fit. Drummer Ben Collins was recruited from Larrabee’s and Slimp’s youth group, and as an initial four-piece, the guys branded themselves, began a savvy social media campaign that earned them several hundred Instagram followers before they played a show and packed out their first appearance at an open mic night at The Open Chord in West Knoxville.
“That was when we realized, maybe we actually have something here,” Larrabee said.
In May 2018, the guys competed in the ACE Awards, formerly known as the Bijou Awards, at The Mill and Mine. The battle of the bands competition ended with them crowned as winner of the audience vote, and one of the judges happened to be Chyna Brackeen of Attack Monkey Productions — as well as manager of The Black Lillies and the driving force behind Rhythm N’ Blooms. She had some encouraging words, and when the guys completed their debut EP, “Synanceia,” Larrabee prepared himself to ride a wave of success all the way to the top.
Needless to say, he pointed out with a chuckle, it didn’t materialize.
“I was like, ‘Alright! We’re gonna be famous now! We’ve put out this album, now someone is going to discover us, and we’re gonna be at the Grammys!’” he said. “Of course, it’s not like that at all. When I finally got to know other musicians on a personal level rather than seeing them just from the outside, I got that understanding — everybody has to work. We put out our music, and it didn’t just take off. Yeah, it did good; they were good songs, and people liked them, but not everyone is going to come out and see your show.”
And so the guys doubled their efforts. Mac Chandler came on board, originally as a bassist but also as a multi-instrumentalist, and Stonefish recorded “Upstream,” a full-length album. “Synanceia” was a scattershot approach that saw each member bring in songs that drew on diverse backgrounds, Larrabee said, but “Upstream” was constructed as a team. As a result, it sounds more cohesive — shimmering indie pop rounded out by melodic keyboards, chiming guitars and steady percussion that works to complement Gouffon’s vocal range.
And the guys started trying to play wherever they could. As good as their music was, however, they were at the mercy of their youth, which often worked against them, Larrabee said.
“It’s hard to get respect, and it’s hard to get people’s attention, because they just kind of don’t understand how good our younger music community is,” he said. “For us, it’s a hustle. For youth musicians, it’s whoever hustles the hardest will be the one to succeed, and I’ve made it my personal goal to be that guy. No other band, our age at least, is putting out as much merchandise or as much music or playing as many shows as we are. I’ve never turned down a gig.”
He has, however, endured a lot of doors being slammed in his face. After going into debt to make “Upstream,” he and his bandmates figured a festival slot would be a way to recoup some of that money. Larrabee sent out emails to “every single music festival in the Southeast,” he said, to no avail.
“I was as thorough as I could be, with a description of the band and pictures and audio files and everything, but no one was responding,” he said. “It was frustrating, and then I thought, ‘Maybe we’re not good enough to do this.’ We finally got an in with Chyna, who asked us to play Rhythm N’ Blooms.”
That, he added, was an eye-opening experience in and of itself. When Stonefish arrived to play the Cripple Creek Stage on Sunday afternoon, the stage manager asked Larrabee what amp he wanted to use. The house amp, he replied, because his was likely subpar by comparison, and he didn’t really care.
“He said, ‘Tyler, you need to care: Whatever amp you’re playing with, that’s your sound, and that’s what your fans know,’” Larrabee said. “That just let me know that I need to care about every aspect of our music, and at the same time, I learned so much about the process of a festival. Having a W9 … having a stage plot … those are things I didn’t have until we played Rhythm N’ Blooms, but they’re what a band needs, especially if they’re going to go on tour.
“And that’s what I wanted New Ground to be: a learning experience for other bands I’ve worked with in the area and know are good. They all have the drive, but like us, they might be lacking the experience and the knowledge. I want to make it easier for these local bands to be found and seen, and I want them to get the experience of playing a festival and seeing what it’s like.”
As always, while his youth may supply him with an infinite amount of energy and enthusiasm, it’s also led to some erroneous assumptions about New Ground. It is not, he said, a concert being passed off as a festival. There are tents and an outdoor stage and vendors and sponsors and everything else associated with a festival. There are multiple acts on the bill, from The Pinklets — Knoxville’s girl-rock wunderkinds made up of the Abernathy sisters — to the Cam Cool Band, which is so new they’ve only released one song. When Larrabee reached out to the group about a WUTK-FM radio spot, their enthusiasm made him grin, he said.
“To be able to give them that opportunity, it makes me really happy,” he said. “It’s really cool to see people get excited about the industry and the networking and meeting new people and the audiences. And I want audiences to come out and see them.
“I want them to come out and watch a band like Vanosdale play and say, ‘Why have I never heard this band before?’ And then I want them to go home and share Vanosdale with their friends and have it grow from there. I feel like if people just have the chance to hear some of the music from some of these bands, they’re going to be blown away.
“I think that would be my biggest takeaway that I want people to have about New Ground,” he added. “There’s a whole new wave of music in Knoxville, and I want people to hear it and get exposed to it and help it grow.”
Tickets and more info is available at www.newgroundfest.com
