Dirt Road Radio celebrates new album Friday at Perks & Corks

January 11, 2017 11:00 pm • Last Updated: January 13, 2017 4:23 pm

By Rick Koster
Day Arts/Features writer

From left: Dennis Walley, Trevor Chandonnait, Mike Scott, Jim Gannotti and Dan Spano (Photo by Kirsten Montgomery)

Americana band Dirt Road Radio hosts CD release party Friday

Folks who pursue an artistic discipline long enough realize something valuable along the way — at least if they’re lucky. At a certain point, once the artist lets go of the tangential or even primary motivation of being famous or hugely successful, a purity and a calm washes into the work. And, suddenly, the process becomes the magical outlet it should have been all along.

This is certainly true for Dennis Walley and Mike Scott, the songwriters and co-founders of the effortlessly hummable North Stonington Americana band called Dirt Road Radio.

Off-and-on musical partners since their college days together at Eastern Connecticut State University, Scott and Walley started in cover bands and then began an original rock act called Kirkby Overblow. They are now 43 and comfortably middle-aged. Walley is a social worker and Scott a technology executive — and Dirt Road Radio is something they do strictly for the joy of it, which is a quality marvelously obvious on their new CD, “The Shadow of a Dream.”

“The reward of playing in this band has little to do with the materialistic side of music and much more to do with the people we’re playing with,” Scott says earlier this week as Dirt Road Radio prepares for a CD release party Friday at Perks & Corks in Westerly. “It’s not uncommon for a three-hour band practice to consist of a handful of songs played in between a lot of conversation and laughter. We’re friends who play music together. No egos. No drama.”

That relaxed approach, though, doesn’t compromise the quality, performances or warm sound on the album, which is also a beautifully packaged product. Engineered and mixed by Walley at his home-based Stonewall Studios, “The Shadow of a Dream” consists of 15 tunes that celebrate an expansive roots tradition ranging from Pure Prairie League and Poco to Beachwood Sparks and The Avett Brothers.

There’s a decided continuity to the album, a sequenced flow that takes a batch of fine songs about life and love and heartbreak and elevates their respective qualities as a project meant to be enjoyed as a whole. Scott says, “The songs on the album were the core of any of our live set lists and represent the band as we were at that time. So, yes, we put the whole record together as a package from the artwork to the packaging to the song order.”

If the music on the new album bears almost no similarity to what Walley and Scott were listening to way back when they met and started playing together, well, that’s how folks evolve.

“Dennis and I have played together since we were 14 years old,” Scott says, “and we used to play Led Zeppelin and Hendrix covers. At college, we started Kirkby Overblow with lots of distortion and lots of riffs.”

They recorded and self-released a few albums and played the circuit with a determined vision of stardom — all with increasing frustration.

“We dreamed of making it, so much so that any mistake or off night would feel like a total setback,” Scott admits. “If we played a club and no one showed up, we felt like we were doing it all for nothing.”

Eventually, Kirkby Overblow broke up. Walley and Scott each married and had children and, by 2011, realized they hadn’t played together in about a decade. They decided to get together, just strum guitars for old times’ sake, and Scott was delighted that Walley had written and recorded an acoustic eight-song demo. Scott was astounded when he took it home and absorbed the new material.

“All the time I’d been listening to King’s X and Soundgarden, and Dennis was into Son Volt, Wilco and the Jayhawks,” Scott says. “I called him immediately after hearing the demo and said, ‘We need to play more of that.’ That was the inspiration for Dirt Road Radio.”

The two started playing together again on a regular basis, and Scott began writing again. By that autumn, armed with a dozen or so new songs and calling themselves Dirt Road Radio, they returned to the stage in a stripped-down format. The response was encouraging, and the music was fun and fulfilling, and they decided to add a live rhythm section. Over time, a variety of friends/players have helped out.

For purposes of recording “The Shadow of a Dream,” which was tracked leisurely starting in 2012 and was completed as time and circumstances allowed, the sound was filled out by Rivergod Ben Parent on bass, Nick Toscano on drums, Kelly Asciolla on fiddle, Brian Straub on pedal steel and Dan Spano on keyboards, with vocal help from Marcy Kelly. The album is now available on all major digital outlets, and physical copies will be available at the release party. The performance will feature what’s now thought of as the permanent linuep that includes Walley, Scott and Spano, with Jim Gannotti on bass and Trevor Chandonnait on drums.

The “official” group premiered many of the album’s tunes last August when the band guested on The Day’s “Live Lunch Break” concert series. The performance was relaxed but crisp and demonstrated the ensemble’s warmth and affinity in support of Walley and Scott’s harmony-drenched songs.

“For the most part, Dennis and I each write separately,” says Scott. Inspiration comes from disparate sources — an overheard conversation, a narrative idea, a mumbled bit of melody, or a spur-of-the-moment chord progression. “Then, when one of us has the core of a song ready, we’ll bring it to rehearsal, play it together a few times, and Dennis will start tweaking harmonies and melodies and the overall arrangement. He has an ear for this stuff,” Scott says.

The goal is for Dirt Road Radio to play out a bit more in the coming year, and to start working on new stuff for the next recording, hopefully out by next year.

“People who see us play always say we look like we’re having a great time onstage,” Scott says. “And that’s what it’s about. We’ll play anywhere, anytime and for anyone — and we’ll have the time of our lives doing it.”