Truitt, who plays mandolin.
Damrell said The Steeldriver’s music has been
described in many ways. His own description of the
music is rock and roll with acoustic instruments.
He said some have called it blues-grass while others
have called it goth-grass due to the material being
85% dark.
“Just like any other bluegrass band, we play a lot
of mountain murder ballads and that type of thing,”
he said.
Damrell said, before joining The Steeldrivers, he
didn’t have much experience performing bluegrass
music. He said before he heard of Chris Stapleton,
who used to be the frontman of The Steeldrivers, he
had never even liked bluegrass despite the fact that
he had grown up in Kentucky.
Damrell was born and raised in Berea. He can still
be found there, with his wife and two sons, when
not touring with The Steeldrivers.
“Every back road, every street, I know it like the
back of my hand. …I don’t think I’d ever want to
live anywhere else because I just know it so well.
Anytime I’ve spent a number of days or weeks away
from there, it’s always so good to be home,” Damrell
said.
Growing up, his father was a drummer, and he
began to teach Damrell how to play. However, they
found out that if they both played the drums, they
couldn’t really play together. So, Damrell’s father
switched and taught him how to play the guitar.
His father taught him a few cords on the guitar, and
Damrell took it from there.
“It was no thing to spend six or eight hours in my
bedroom, by myself, playing the guitar,” he said.
While attending the high school in Rockcastle
County, where he lived from fourth grade to gradu-
ation, instead of being a band kid, Damrell was in
guitar club and choir.
He said when he learned that he could sing was
when he really knew that he wanted to be a singer
and guitar player. Those two things were always
together, he never wanted to be one or the other.
Damrell’s dream has somewhat shifted now to also
include the title of songwriter.
Traveling with The Steeldrivers is much different
than what he was used to with his more local band,
Damrell said. He explained that The Steeldrivers
travel a lot during the summer and also the begin-
ning to middle of fall. Winter is their time off.
“Bluegrass bands play a lot of bluegrass festivals,
which happen in the summer,” he said.
Damrell explained they save their theater shows
mostly for the fall when the weather starts to get
colder.
When Damrell was playing with Soul Creek, the
farthest they traveled was from Berea to Horse-
shoes in Southern Indiana. He explained one of
the members had an extra long cab truck so they
would pack that up for their travels. He said, even
with the extra cab length, they would be left with
a wall of microphone bags sitting between them in
the front. With The Steeldrivers, Damrell said, they
most often take extra large SUVs or a plane to their
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