As the banjo player in Wood & Wire, Trevor Smith has traveled all around the county, shared the stage with some legendary acts, released four excellent albums (five, if you count their live record), played hundreds upon hundreds of concerts, and was even nominated for a Grammy. While the band's plans to hit the road for most of 2020 were dashed, Wood & Wire was still able to release a new album — the wonderful No Matter Where It Goes From Here — at the end of August, and are continuing to reach new listeners all around the world.
Long before Smith was plucking his heart out as a founding member of the accomplished Austin, Texas, bluegrass outfit, he was cutting his teeth and playing keyboard in hardcore bands in his native Arizona. With Wood & Wire not on the road for once, Smith had time to talk to My First Band host Tyler Maas about the process of making Wood & Wire's latest record and how he's keeping busy at the moment before the conversation shifted focus to his musical past.
Over the course of the conversation, Smith talked about his formative years in the Tucson hardcore scene, discovering bluegrass in his teens, dropping out of high school (with the encouragement of his parents!) to move to Austin and join Green Mountain Grass, the year he spent in Asylum Street Spankers, and the experience of both being nominated for a Grammy and attending the awards ceremony in quite possibly the coolest suit ever. Oh, and apologies for the background noise on Tyler's end of the conversation.
My First Band is sponsored by Mystery Room Mastering and Lakefront Brewery. The show is edited by Jared Blohm. You can listen to My First Band on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify and wherever else you get podcasts. Music used in this show comes courtesy of Devils Teeth ("The Junction Street Eight Tigers") and Wood & Wire ("Home & The Banjo").
