Off in the Woods plays at Polson auditorium
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POLSON — To introduce their new album to the hometown crowd, the band Off in the Woods will play a live concert at Polson High School on Oct. 15 from 7 to 10 p.m.
Vocalist and guitar player Jon Schumaker describes the band’s sound as “Montana soul music,” a mishmash of late 60’s folk rock with lots of reggae influences plus rock, funk and jazz.
Schumaker and three other PHS grads comprise the band: Nathan Noble, drummer, Sean Burress, bass and Layne McKay, saxaphone and guitar.
They recorded the CD in Seattle in January at Robert Lang Studios, where Dave Matthews, Nirvana and Ziggy Marley have all recorded.
McKay has a degree in audio engineering and engineered the CD, and they all produced it. Off in the Woods got a good deal, since the studio owed McKay some days. Usually it costs $600 to $800 per day for a studio, and the band was in for a week, according to Schumaker.
The CD is all original music, mostly written by Schumaker with the song “Turquoise Trail” written by Burress, but they all collaborate.
The band has been playing music together since middle school, Nobel said, but “we really have only been gigging out for two summers.”
Off in the Woods played this summer at The Raven in Woods Bay, Brookie's Cookies in Bigfork and they’ve done a couple of shows in Oregon.
Schumaker has known he wanted to be a musician “pretty much by the time high school rolled around,” he said.
Noble joked, “I always wanted to be a dinosaur, but with this economy the way it is …”
For now the band is “holding down the 9-to-5, writing, and playing as much as possible,” Schumaker added.
Schumaker’s musical influences were Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood and East Indian classical plus some 60s and 70s reggae. He even studied with Guru Sandip Burman, a protégé of Ravi Shankar, and adapted eastern classical music to the guitar.
Clyde Stubblefield, a drummer for James Brown, was an influence for Noble, as were old 60s and 70s reggae such as The Wailers and The Wailing Souls.
Band members are trying to come out even on the CD and make enough money to make another album — they have enough original music to cut at least three CDs.
“The show is free,” Schumaker said, “with good music and good people. It’s a family-friendly event so come one, come all. We’d like to pack out the auditorium.”
For fans who can’t make the Polson show, Off in the Woods will also play the Craggy Range in Whitefish from 10 p.m. until closing on Oct. 14 and the Top Hat in Missoula from 10 p.m. to close on Oct. 20.
