In their eighteen-plus years in the music business, Indi-Americana band The Steel Wheels has walked away with prestigious awards, including the 2010 IMA Vox Pop Awards for Best Country and Gospel Song. In 2012, they started the Red Wing Roots Music Festival, adding to their legacy an annual weekend-long music celebration held in Mt. Solon, Virginia.
Their first studio album in five years, The Steel Wheels, met up at The Great North Sound Society Studio in Maine to record their Sideways LP. “It’s a real celebration of the live and collaborative process of being in the studio together,” explains lead vocalist, guitarist, and banjo player Trent Wagler.
Producer Sam Kassirer once again joins The Steel Wheels on their latest effort. Co-producing the band's albums Wild As We Came Here (2017) and Over The Trees (2019), Kassirer, a musician, plays piano on the album.
“We just felt we wanted another person in the room to help inspire and maybe get us to do things we never would think of ourselves. Sam is a solid and amazing musician who can play different styles. It was almost like he was another member of the band.”
Trent, a Virginia native, says the last four years have had a musical impact on the band. Fiddle player Eric Brubaker took the role of violinist on some of the songs. “We usually call him a fiddle player, but he is a great violinist. For example, in some of these songs, like “Enemy,” he layers several violin parts.” The singer explains that the new musical ideas result from their isolation.
“During the pandemic we were passing around these tracks. We got to flex muscles we never used before.”
While Trent admits that The Steel Wheels have departed from their earlier folk-roots style, he explains that it’s not intentional. “It wasn’t like we were trying to make a different kind of record. We started tapping into influences that we’ve always loved.” Trent references the iconic rock group The Band. “The way Levon and Robbie would use mandolin and fiddle along with horns, there was this wide-open pallet.” The singer says that adding drummer and keyboardist Kevin Garcia and electric bassist Jeremy Darrow to the band has broadened their sound.
Trent points out, “If you go back and listen to Red Wing, our first Steel Wheels album, keeping things acoustic and rootsy was important to us. A lot of the songs are still being led by me on banjo or acoustic guitar. There is almost always fiddle in our songs, but the bed underneath can sometimes be very electrified with effects. It’s more like this is where we are right now, and we are excited to perform both kinds of songs on stage.”
Creating an animated music video for the first time, the band teamed up with film producer, director, and stop motion photographer Stefan Zeniuk. “We thought we would love something like that in this album,” Trent recalls Zenuik’s reaction to the title track. “We sent Stefan the whole record, and he replied, ‘I’m digging this song Sideways,’ so we let him run with it.” Both Trent and Stefan worked out ideas for the video. “We both talked about it for a while,” adding, “[We] both felt happy about the collaboration.”
Seeds were planted for The Steel Wheels in 2004 after future bandmate and mandolinist Jay Lapp joined Trent on stage for a performance. “I had opened for Jay’s band as a solo act, and I asked him to jump on stage with me for a couple of songs, and he ended up staying there for the whole opener.”
Recalling how the band started, “After that night, we conceived a plan of me going up to his home studio and recording a solo record. Even though the record was released in 2005, it was the beginning of The Steel Wheels.”
The Steel Wheels frontman boasts impressive credentials, including degrees in theater and peace, justice, and conflict studies. “I think of how my education ended up pushing me in a very subtle way towards songwriting,” Trent says. He says he learned the importance of empathy by studying the characters he played on stage.
He hopes to find time to write new songs with a busy schedule ahead that includes touring and their summer Red Wing festival.
“We’re touring heavier this year because we have a new record, but after this little run we’re about to go on, we have a month off. I’m hoping to ride my bicycle [laughs] and write a lot of songs.”
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