An interview with Underground Springhouse
By Ava Rowse
In an interview before their Oct. 4 show at the 8x10 in Baltimore, Underground Springhouse band members shared a sentiment they learned from Phil Lesh, the Grateful Dead’s bass player.
“Our live studio records are meant to be advertisements for our live shows,” Underground Springhouse guitarist and vocalist Mitch Davidson said.
They make music for a crowd, not to put it on Spotify. Much of the band's inspiration is drawn from the giants of Jam like Grateful Dead, Widespread Panic and Phish, in terms of both the structure of their live performances and their attitudes in general.
The attitude of these bands alike is to keep moving forward with the things you love, and to keep doing the things you love.
Underground Springhouse’s lead singer Charlie Haas is the only remaining original member of the band, though the current members were all friends in college, so they still hold ‘OG’ status.
Haas mentioned a question that plagued them all as they were finishing up their degrees.
“Do we keep playing after we graduate college, or do we go get jobs?” Haas said. “They all wanted to go get jobs and I wanted to keep playing.”
The band transformed into a space for friends to continue playing together because they love to do so.
Underground Springhouse played a lot of their original music, featuring specifically requested songs like “Gimmeadial” and “For a While,” both off of different albums. Rock-style variations were made to their music, switching it up from the otherwise beachy twang present in their recorded music. The heavier rock elements of their shows are what keep me coming back to see them live.
The band played their latest single, “Island Grass,” toward the end of the show, displaying the variety of sounds they experiment with. The process of writing often happens on the road, Max Motley said.
They described that they all bring pieces to the group, learn them, and build songs together from that. Sometimes someone will have a full song ready to be learned and practiced, but other times a finished song can consist of many elements meshed together from different ideas. The spirit of jam shines through in the band’s emphasis on community and collaboration.
Motley said playing music together is like “a conversation.” Changing tempos, transitioning into new songs, and building off of riffs are all parts of the conversations they have on stage.
At the end of my conversation with the band, I asked them what kind of impact they hope to leave on their listeners. After a moment of reflection, Haas spoke for the group.
“We will have succeeded if our music just makes people emotional in any way,” Haas said. “If it triggers emotions in someone, whether it's happiness or sadness, if you can listen to our music and feel something, then we’ve succeeded.”