The Devil Makes Three, by Renee Williams
After releasing four full length albums, Santa Cruz's punk rock-Americana trio The Devil Makes Three spent the better part of ten years wowing crowds with their boozy drenched lyrics and frolicking guitars. During that time, DMT won fans over with their genuine approach to acoustic music and vivid storytelling. Without the help of a drummer, DMT showcased the relentless rhythmic beats of their string instruments and one by one, fans flocked to the shows. From the small house parties in Calif. to huge festivals in the US like Newport Folk, Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Telluride and Hardly Strictly, loyal fans helped the band launch to bigger shows with top artists Alison Krauss and Willie Nelson. Ending a successful tour of the UK and Europe, DMT returns to the US in support of their New West Records debut, I'm A Stranger Here produced by Buddy Miller and recorded at Dan Auerbach’s (Black Keys) Easy Eye Sound Studio in Nashville. The album received 4 stars in MOJO Magazine and the band is currently touring with Trampled by Turtles in support.
The Riverwalk Revival hosted by Friends with Benefits Fund is set for May 8 at Jessye Norman Amphitheater in downtown Augusta at 1 Ninth Street. Headlining the show is Trampled By Turtles with opening act The Devil Makes Three. Food and concessions will be available and gates will open at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $25 for General Admission.
The Devil Makes Three, consists of guitarist and frontman Pete Bernhard, stand-up bassist Lucia Turino and guitarist Cooper McBean. The band displays a distinctive mix of roots, blues, old time country, ragtime and punk. Having a passion for older music like Bob Dylan, Little Walker and Howling Wolf, Bernhard and McBean often found themselves being labeled weird and not quite fitting in back in their small hometown in southern Vermont. However, with the current surge of bluegrass festivals and a new found appreciation of roots sounds, Bernhard and McBean have found their audience and have been welcomed in to the mainstream. Although the genre of Americana, roots and bluegrass music is now more socially acceptable, the bands lyrical content remains unusual and mysterious. Bernhard believes that, as a lyricist, he is doing just what his musical forefathers did. “The lyrical content isn’t about hard-rock miners or a hobo or the things Woody Guthrie would have written about,” Bernhard, told the Aspen Times in 2013. “I try to avoid those things. I don’t like the idea of playing music as a historical re-enactment. I read about the things that happen to me and people I know. It’s things I know about, am passionate about...Woody Guthrie — that’s all he did. Storytelling with a beat behind it. The only thing that separates us is that now is not then.”
Bernhard’s passion for storytelling is the pinnacle of the band’s new release I'm A Stranger Here Painting a lyrical landscape with a primal drving beat in the chorus of Dead Body Moving: Bernhard sings “I am a dead body moving, I've got lightning in my hand, I won't be here for long so you got to understand. You can dance with the demon, look him dead into the eyes, I've already been where we go when we die, We are dancing on the graves of the past,
The clock is running and the spell is cast, Nothing before our eyes will last, We walk forever in circles on this well-worn path, So many songs to sing before they blow those horns. Will it be harvest or a killing storm, No time to bury and no time to mourn, This race started on the day I was born."
