A local band from the Florida panhandle survives two different kinds of storms while helping their community heal.
Last year when the residents of Mexico Beach, Port St Joe and other Florida Gulf Coast communities emerged from wherever they were hunkering down during the worst hurricane to ever hit their area, the devastation they discovered when they arose was breathtaking, devastating, heartbreaking.
And for the members of local folk/Americana band The Krickets, what they witnessed in their own backyards, and are still dealing with every day even months later, is no exception.
“You’re still just so numb to waking up every day to mud and piles of debris,” said The Krickets’ Lauren Spring, whose own house was seriously damaged in the storm. “So numb that you just walk over downed power lines now. I mean this is no joke. I’ve ridden through Mexico Beach a dozen times now and it still takes my breath away. And it’s not just a few houses, it is blocks of homes, my church, every restaurant, there’s just nowhere that wasn’t affected. But the ‘thing’ in Port St. Joe right now is you meet over at someone’s house at 9am and you crack champagne and you watch a bulldozer bulldoze their house down.”
Not only is a deep sense of camraderie apparent in those now infamous PSJ “champagne bulldozer” parties, but it is also very evident in the music that local bands like The Krickets and The Currys played and continue to play for their friends, neighbors, anyone who needs to feel something good in the aftermath of such devastation. It is a healing element that has been vital to the slow but steady recovery of this proud and close-knit community.
“We get to lift spirits,” Spring said humbly. “Soon after the storm, we played about an hour and a half away in Monticello, and it was just so wonderful to look out and see a really strong representation from Port St. Joe, so great to see them there. And The Currys played a few free shows right here in the area. I just gotta say, I haven’t been to a show yet where people don’t cry. You’re just trying to get in touch with something in yourself, and one line will just hit them right between the eyes and they’ll just cry. But it’s definitely an emotional place we’re all in, everyone’s so used to seeing everybody cry that you just kinda say, ‘Oh you’re fine.’
And as they and their neighbors continue to heal and recover from Mother Nature’s wrath, The Krickets are going full speed ahead with their ever-ascending career, recently releasing their excellent, critically-acclaimed new Kickstarter-funded album Redbird, the initial release of which was delayed due to the storm’s massive destruction. But they are also healing a bit within the band after experiencing an internal storm of their own, the departure of longtime Kricket Melissa Bowman, who was a centerpiece of the band.
“We kind of went our separate ways as far as what everybody wanted, ” said Kricket Emily Stuckey. “Melissa is a mom too, and she’s staying at home with her little boy, which is great, I’m so glad she could do that. She brought a certain element to the band, so now that’s kind of missing. But Amanda (Kolb‘s) joined the band and she’s kind of brought more of an instrumentalist piece, which we kind of needed, too. It’s been fun working with her and what she’s got to add with that. We are kind of figuring out how to use that, and it’s been really cool. And we’ve also kind of developed a more Americana-ish style. It’s funny, it’s changing so much. We sure miss (Melissa), but the band is headed in all sorts of different funky ways, and we’re really enjoying that.”
“That’s a really interesting way to talk about it,” continued Spring. “Like, if you had to possibly lose a little piece of what was going on before, Amanda brings kind of a whole new element to the band. She’s so good, she’s incredibly encouraging and super humble. And we’ve enjoyed the direction of the band. Emily’s right, the songwriting kind of took an Americana turn, instead of being quite so traditionally folk. It seems like it might have been an interesting trade off.”
And that new sound – rounded out by Amanda’s sister and longtime Kricket Katrina Kolb – is wholly evident on Redbird, which does sound a bit less folky than their previous efforts, but no less powerful and melodic. And having accomplished producer Sam Ashworth at the helm was an added bonus that raised the bar and the results.
“Sam’s objective as far as our sound and our record was to take it from super, super traditional folk rock to a much more polished contemporary folk sound, and have a much more polished production,” said Spring. “It was much more about the lyric and the vocal of the song this time around. He was completely committed to making the production of the songs just exquisite, and it is definitely different. We’d often walk in and he’d have the tempo changed and the arrangement changed, and we needed to learn that on the fly.”
And with their new lineup came some profound changes as far as how they put the songs on Redbird together.
“The processes were definitely different,” Spring said. “When we wrote Spanish Moss Sirens, Melissa, Emily, and I came to the table with songs prepared, like two or three each, and then we had a couple covers on the album. But on this one, we really tried hard to collaborate and co-write as much as possible on most of the songs. And with the exception of a few, most of them are co-written by at least two members of the band.”
Spring and Stuckey have four young kids between them, and luckily are married to musicians who get the crazy schedules that often accompany a musical life. But when asked about how they balance family and career, a tinge of understandable defensiveness regarding gender emerges, one that many female musicians undoubtedly share.
“I’ll admit that when we’re asked how we as female musicians ‘balance’ things, a feminist wave washes over me,” Spring said. “Most musicians, whatever gender they are, if they’re over the age of 35 or 40, they have kids. And whether they’re male or female, somebody’s at home helping them make it work. It’s like, on the album cover of Redbird, it features a female cardinal instead of a male cardinal. That’s because we kind of feel like the female’s often in the background, she’s often busy with a family life and juggling lots of things that aren’t necessarily very flashy and pretty and out there to be admired. But it doesn’t make her song any less important, or worthy of being heard. So while I’m sure both Emily and I feel like we’re burning the candle at both ends sometimes, it’s kind of hard to feel glamorous if you have spit up on your shoulder.”
So as the Gulf Coast continues to pick up the pieces, literally, in the wake of the havoc wreaked by Hurricane Michael, music remains a healing factor for both the musician and the fan. As for The Krickets, well, the togetherness brought on by the hurricane’s devastation as well as from the changing of the guard within their own band signifies a new chapter in both their personal and musical lives. These two storms may have dealt them a blow and stopped them in their tracks for a moment, but The Krickets are back, they’re closer than ever, and raring to go.
“I want to spend the next year really playing this record,” said Spring. “Just connecting with audiences, and playing our hearts out, and doing everything we can to feel what people feel when they hear the music. Just keep trying to connect with everyone we can. Change is painful, but the growth with who we have now is clearly evident.”
“Yeah,” Stuckey reiterates. “Sisterly love is pretty cool.”