Old School Freight Train

By Greg Tutwiler

When you hear a name like Old School Freight Train you might initially think you were going tohear a group playing some funk tunes from the 70s. The term “old school” is commonly used bythe younger generation to mean something classic, usually 10 plus years older than yourself.When I asked Pete Frostic, mandolin player, about it he said, “One time, early on, we showed upat a gig where they had been billing us as a 70’s funk band. Needless to say, we made sure tonever make that mistake again. It was a club down in Wilmington, North Carolina. I don’t recallthere being too many people that stayed a real long time. There were not very many people thereto begin with, and even fewer when we left,” he laughed. “We were wondering why so manypeople were leaving, so, on the set break, we looked at one of the flyers. It’s pretty funny now. Atleast it wasn’t our fault.”

There’s nothing old school, musically, about this group. Blending Jazz, Bluegrass, Folk, Celtic,Latin, and World rhythms together, OSFT has come up with a formula that’s clicking with a lot offolks. It is an improvisational style of music that makes every time they play a genuinely differentlistening experience.

An Early Beginning
Pete and Jess Harper (guitar, lead vocals) got together while attending William & Mary Universityin Williamsburg, VA, along with Ben Krakauer (5 string banjo) who was still in high school at thetime. “Ben and I had a band together for a while prior to 2000, and Jesse and I had a bandtogether, and when those bands kind of fell apart we started to pick up the pieces and form oneband, with the idea that we were going to play everything that we were all interested in,” Pete said.Jesse had met Darrel Muller (upright bass) playing a gig in Boone, North Carolina and invited himto join in. The four of them started playing in the fall of 2000, adding a female fiddle player whoeventually decided she didn’t want to travel as much as the rest of the band. They met Nate Leath(fiddle) at a festival he and has been with the group ever since, rounding out the line-up.“With this group, we really wanted to focus on the music,” Pete told me. “All of the other bands wetreated like, ‘hey, we got a gig, let’s learn some tunes.’ But this group didn’t play gigs for the firsteight months we were together. We only rehearsed; twice a week for eight months. We justfocused on learning the songs, and how to arrange, and pick songs and write.”

Not Really Bluegrass
Their sound comes from what they listen to, which Pete is always expanding; everything fromBluegrass, David Grisman, Classic Jazz, Funk and Soul like Stevie Wonder, and Ray Charles.“Those were the influences when we started – but more recently we’ve been getting into a lot ofworld music like Indian and Brazilian. So the horizons are just spreading out for us as we continueto discover and enjoy more music. All of us want to learn as much as we can about anything whenit comes to music. So whatever we’re listening to at the time really influences the writing and thesound and arranging.”

Smoky Beginnings
In the beginning they played mostly bars. “It was the worst of the worst, smoky bars, nasty places,anywhere they would let us play,” Pete recalled. “A few people would listen and encourage us, butbasically it was a good to hone our abilities playing together, and get used to playing gigs live, andget used to taking chances. We didn’t really worrying too much about totally bombing something. Ithink it’s important in our music at least, to be able to take chances and feel like if you fail it’s notthe end of the world.”

These days Old School plays listening rooms where there’s 200 seats or more, and even somebigger venues where there are 500 seats or more, and even bigger ones when they’re openingfor someone like their mentor David Grisman. “We do play some of the more progressiveBluegrass festivals, like MerleFest and the Four Corners Folk Festival. We play some collegecampuses too, but we all wish we were doing more of those because it’s such a great time whenwe do that. It’s a perfect match for us. They’re just difficult gigs to get because the people whobook them change every year.”

Old School Freight Train?
“It was one of the first songs that we learned. It was something that Darrel and Jesse wrotetogether, and we didn’t have anything better. It just stuck with us. We couldn’t forget it. You know,you want a name that people remember. Even if people mess up the words and put them indifferent order, that’s fine, at least they still remember us.”

What makes OSFT unique is the improvisational aspect of their music. It’s always different.“There’s a lot of songs that have built in solos, so each of us gets to improvise on that level, but I’dsay more than that, our band is all about, or has come to be all about, group rhythmicimprovisation. Basically we’re trying to make a groove just really feel good, and I think that ithappens slightly differently pretty much every night, which is really fun for us. Like if Darrelchanges up his line, if one beat is slightly off place, I get to react in an entirely different way. Andthen maybe the fiddle will react in a different way because of what I’m doing differently. So it’smore of a group improve thing that way.”

Music Evolution
“Once our music changed to the point where we realized it just didn’t make any sense for us to beplaying the earlier stuff any more, we just put it aside and never play it anymore. Some of thetunes were more Bluegrassy in the beginning, and I remember those feeling really good at thetime, but then at a certain point we realized that wasn’t what we were supposed to sound likeanymore. So let’s just put this tune to the side and move on.”

The group’s been together almost six years, yet their current CD, Run, is just their second officialrelease. However, they have appeared on seven Pickin’ On records released by CMH Records inCalifornia. “They’ll call us up and say ‘we want you to do an album of Pickin’ On in the style ofsomeone like Cold Play, and here are the tunes we want you to cover.’ At first we viewed it likejust a pay check, but now in hindsight we really learned a lot from those CDs. It made us figureout how to play grooves that weren’t Bluegrass grooves, and it made us learn how to function kindof like a pop band, because the Cold Play rhythm section is basically drums. And so we had tofigure out how we were going to make this drive and feel good with that same intensity that theyhave, without drums. So these CDs kind of brought us to a real hyper awareness of our rhythmsection. I really think we benefited a whole lot from doing those.”

A Song Democracy
While OSFT will occasionally perform or record a cover song, most of the band’s music is originalmaterial. “Generally one of us will write a tune, but then all of us contribute on the arranging sideof it. Whatever each band mate would be playing on the song, they pretty much make upthemselves, with a few exceptions. We try not to say no to any tune until we’ve played it live. Wewant to make sure we give everything a fair shake and see how audiences react and see how itfeels to play it up on stage.”

“We all have so many creative ideas, we’re just brimming with stuff. When we’re rehearsing andarranging something we’re generally picking from five or six different little arrangement options.It’s nice to have everybody saying ‘hey, how about this.’ Sometimes it can be a little hectic like youmight feel frustrated that your idea didn’t get in, but then usually four people will agree that onething is better, and if it’s not your thing you need to realize that probably those other four guys areseeing it from a more objective viewpoint.”

All of Old School’s songs, original or cover, have a similarly unique feel. “As a band now, we putour stamp on anything we play. I think that any tune we would pick to play would have that stamp.”

Pickin’ On Fun
“You never get too comfortable where you are because there’s always the next level,” Pete said.“But we have consciously said we’re never going to play a room again where’s there’s smokingallowed. The smoke in a room for us makes it so difficult to play, and it really affects the singing.You’re literally standing on a stage with your head in a cloud for four hours. And it’s more thanthat. It’s really the attitude that comes along with that. It’s the fact that we’re just the band in thecorner making the noise, and we want to be the focus now because we think our music is worth it.We don’t want to play rooms anymore where people just view us as a bar band.”

“The lucky thing about this band is these guys are my best buddies. We get to hang out and wehave a lot of fun on the road. It’s hard traveling but all of us pretty much thrive on humor, so that’spretty much what keeps us going out there. Now that we’re busier we kind of leave each otheralone in the off times, which took us a while to learn to do. But we’ve been off for two weeks and Iwill not have seen these guys for two weeks, so I look forward to getting back together with them.They’re some of my favorite musicians too, so I feel lucky to get to play with them everyweekend.”

Run
OSFT recorded their current CD just like they perform their stage shows. “We cut Run live. Wewere isolated a bit, but we all played together, no overdubs, just took the best takes of each tune.One of things I love about this band is that we all play together as a unit so well. So doing the CDthat way was kind of a natural thing to do. It really helps with the energy. I think that a lot ofrecords that you hear are missing that element, that vibrancy that you can really get fromeverybody recording at the same time. And I also think that the polish that’s on a lot of newrecords that you hear is just kind of almost annoying to me. I want to hear some grit, I want tohear some emotion in the music and I want to hear some mistakes because then I know thatsomebody was going for it, you know? They might have screwed something up but that’s okay. Ithink that’s an important part of music.”