issue 35 working_Layout 1 9/10/2013 2:32 PM Page 8
CIDER MAGAZINE
ISSUE 35
PG 8
WWW.CIDERMAG.COM
How did Bluegrass become your calling? And how did you get into playing with The Blind Owl Band?
Eric Munley
with ..
Mandolin player for The Blind Owl Band
Bluegrass became my calling I guess when I gave up playing the guitar and bought a cheap mandolin. Still not knowing how to play, less than a year later I met James and Arthur at our local festival, Backwoods Pondfest, in Peru, NY. A week later we played together for the first time and soon Christian was in the mix. 7 Months later we were The Blind Owl Band.
The campaign was a lot of work, I am still working on getting all the reward outs. We had 98 donors within the project that made this album happen, so it was def. worth all the hard work. It also gives us the budget to mail the album "This Train We Ride is Made of Wood and Steel" to more radio stations and pass out more albums for free, to get that music in people’s ears! Well first I think that if you cut up the country and created a few more states The Adirondack Mtns, where we are from and the other side of Lake Champlain then Vermont would get named one of two things, either Western Vermont or Upstate New York. The ADK hosts a lower population then VT, only 106,000 within the entire space. I think that kind of living connects us to VT. Also we came to Vermont first, we truly care about playing in Vermont, and simply Vermont folks are our kind of folks so the connection was easy.
The band held a very successful $$ drive to get the new album out, how was the campaign?
You guys have been accepted into the VT scene as if you were local. What manifested that opinion?
You’re stuck on an island and can have 1 instrument, 1 musician, and 1 book with you.. What are they?
Mandolin, of course. Probably Grace Potter.. hmm and any Alan Watts book, but written in Spanish so it would take a very long time to read.
I O
i o o h w b a w T w
That changes. I get to try soooo many beers because I spend a lot of time in bars all of the north east. I would say that my favorite consistent beer is Switchback. You can find it everywhere now in VT, Upstate, NY and NH which is great.
What’s in Eric’s CD Player right now? Swamp Candy from Annapolis, MD
What’s your favorite beer and why?