The Low Anthem Inspired by Dylan & Darwin

Taking cues from the founding father of evolutionary theory, Charles Darwin, an isolated Block Island house-turned-recording studio is The Low Anthem’s Galapagos. The Providence folk trio’s debut, Oh My God Charlie Darwin -- a major label re-release after finding its success on a local level -- swaps finches for folk instruments, looking to the English naturalist as not only lyrical inspiration, but as a model for their own reconnaissance of uncharted sonic terrains. The group took a grassroots approach to every step of the musical process with Darwin -- together playing 27 different instruments, lyrically contemplating social Darwinism, and even hand silk-screening the album’s covers -- resulting in a record that embodies the DIY Americana aesthetic.

“[On Darwin] there’s this real love of the natural, but it’s also kind of futile because the world is moving away from that old-school simplicity and the humanity of older kinds of recording towards recording that’s done more by computers, and where the players are less significant,” explains Knox-Miller. “I definitely see our record as sort of a dying art form, that sort of naturalism in recording.”

The group’s re-release of Oh My God Charlie Darwin on Nonesuch Records after a limited independent release late last year, coupled with critically-acclaimed performances at SxSW and Bonnaroo, have led fans and critics to hail The Low Anthem as the next big thing in folk music. Over Jameson and dumplings, a discussion of Darwin, Dylan, and the new album with Prystowsky and lead guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Ben Knox-Miller before their headlining show at the Bowery Ballroom went down.

“What does love mean if survival of the fittest is actually the way that everything came to be?” questions bassist Jeff Prystowsky, explaining the album’s Darwinian symbolism. “We’re playing these songs, we’re artists, and it’s such a cutting theory to think that maybe our feelings of love and connection to our fellow man are somehow in our own interest, that they’re selfish… That has a significant impact on the art that you make and the way you live your life.” Created in 2006 during their freshman year at Brown University, The Low Anthem was the brainchild of Knox-Miller and Prystowsky’s red-eyed musings while working the late shift at a campus alternative radio station. “We worked together at the radio station doing late-night DJing. We’d do two to 5:30 A.M. when you can play anything you want, so we had a lot of time to talk about music and things like that,” says Knox-Miller.

Knox-Miller and Prystowsky painstakingly recorded their first tracks by themselves in an apartment without proper equipment or a sound engineer, and their homemade debut album subsequently became a local success in Rhode Island. Clarinetist Jocie Adams joined the band soon after for Darwin, an album which meanders fluently from hushed, hymnal folk ballads to rowdier, Tom Waits-esque rock tunes.

“This next record has a bigger sound because it’s the three of us playing live. All the arrangements are written by Jocie and very deliberate and very beautiful. The result is a record that really has a lot more surprises on it, a lot more variation from song to song,” says Knox-Miller.

Having completed the bulk of the recording for Darwin in an isolated house on Block Island during the bleak winter months, Knox-Miller and Prystowsky now roll their eyes at being casually lumped into the category of “cabin bands.”

“I’m getting a bit tired of everyone talking about the cabin. The last four reviews that I’ve read started out as ‘Another band records in a cabin’… Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, The Low Anthem: cabin folk,” laughs Knox-Miller. “But yes, we recorded in a remote location in silence, which is a good way to record. It’s the natural version of what a studio is meant to be, which is a place that’s closed off acoustically from the rest of the world.”

Their love of isolated islands isn’t the only affinity between The Low Anthem and their album’s namesake. Darwinian references are embedded throughout the lyrics of the poetic album, most notably in the title track “Charlie Darwin”—“And who could heed the words of Charlie Darwin/ Fighting for a system built to fail.”

“Darwin and this idea of survival of the fittest is an illuminating way of thinking about almost any question ... The record takes on a complicated stance towards religion and Christian values, which are at the core of American values. It’s definitely not a record that’s pro or con towards Christianity, but it’s amazing to think of Christianity as more of a circumstantial thing that society has evolved with,” says Knox-Miller. “Also, the guy is in love with every little detail of the world. He’s fascinated with studying things that were taken for granted for so long and willing to rewrite the foundation of how we look at the natural world around us. It’s a beautiful, inspiring story.” In love with the musical world, the three band members play 27 various instruments on the album, from zither to Tibetan prayer bowl to cell phones, and are constantly searching for new instruments to incorporate into their unique sound.

“We’ll stop at tag sales while we’re on tour, old vintage stores, trying to find older instruments. We’re looking for a hurdy-gurdy right now, for instance. There are lots of world instruments that I’d like to explore,” says Prystowsky. Songwriters Bob Dylan (who both Knox-Miller and Prystowsky laud as the greatest songwriter ever) and Tom Waits area pervasive influence on the album, which seems to acknowledge this inspiration with their cover of “Home I’ll Never Be,” a Tom Waits song with lyrics adopted from the eponymous Jack Kerouac poem.

Clearly, it’s a winning formula. The Low Anthem have moved on from sports bars to performances at SxSW and Bonnaroo and opening gigs for Ray Lamontagne, Josh Ritter, and Elvis Perkins, and headlining major venues like the Bowery Ballroom.

“The best thing about [our new success] is that we don’ have to play in sports bars anymore because we can play in a club and people will still come out. We worked for so long—first as a duo and then with Jocie—playing these shitty, shitty clubs and trying to get real shows,” says Knox-Miller.

Prystowsky and Knox-Miller agree that the melancholy “Ticket Taker” is their favorite song to perform live because it holds most meaning for all members of the group. The moving, hymnal melody—“ And I will be your arc/ We will float above the storm”—transfixed the crowd during their Monday night performance at the Bowery Ballroom.

“We give our best every night to get to the psychic place where that song came from, to do it as best we can,” says Knox-Miller.  “We’re not jaded yet enough to just go out there every night and play a safe set… Every night we still have the ambition to do something magical. Probably more times than not it doesn’t happen, but at least we’re trying. And even when that trying fails, there’s a sort of beautiful decaying failure in that which in itself is maybe worth seeing and being a part of.”

Photos: Mo Pitz


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