When we found out we had a couple days off in Philadelphia, we immediately contacted our pal, Alyssa Pearson, to let her know we were coming through. She'd been working on a few films lately, and we'd been sending along unmastered files of our now released album, We Made Ourselves a Home When We Didn't Know, to use however she saw fit with whatever project she saw fit. We clearly trust Alyssa quite a bit. And we clearly feel pretty honored any time she does choose this lit

We are ending where we began this record-- on leaving. This is the final post of the We Made Ourselves a Home When We Didn't Know blog (and livecast!) series. And we are completing it with the first song we wrote, years ago, in a yellow house in East Nashville. This song was the floodgate opener that brought "Tiny Moses" later that week, then "Take Me With You" just a week after that. It was where we started to leave the homes we had been living in, and began dreaming of

We are winding down our weeks of playing from the new record, and we saved one of the more complicated ones for second-to-last. "Appalachia Greener" is complicated because we pulled out every trick and treat in the studio for this one. From Mallory giving Chris Leonard very specific instructions for drums, breaking it down even to single lines ("Make it sound like little mouse feet scampering across a cymbal!" or "Can you make it sound like there are rocks falling down a mo

"Complications" is a complicated song for us. It’s a complicated arrangement and dang if there aren’t some tongue tangling twisters to get through as well. It’s also a complicated theme and one that we’re still working out. But allow us us to tell you a bit of a backstory. We started writing this song a couple years ago when we were “vacationing” with a friend’s family. “Vacationing” is a loose term for us, because it looks pretty similar to our everyday life; we’re staying i

It's been a few years since we've held down steady, traditional jobs. While we love what we do and the freedom that comes with living on the road, sometimes it's nice to punch somebody else's clock for a couple days. Which is why when our friend Kristie asked us to come make meal kits at My Veggie Chef, we jumped at the chance to stand in a commercial kitchen with some friends and scoop vegetables into plastic bags. Yesterday was Mallory's day to be at work. Which meant that

Greetings from Savannah, GA, Blackbeard's favorite drinking spot, our favorite Southern city and setting of our favorite true crime story, "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil." You see, it's Mallory's birthday today and we're partying (Party, party, party, party!) and there's no better place to party than Savannah. So while we're wandering around the Hostess City of the South, eating pralines and drinking manhattan's in one of Savannah's 24 public squares, we're going t

A couple of weeks ago, we introduced you to Great Uncle Bob, my (Mallory's) maternal grandfather's brother. We told you a little bit of his life, and then about the car accident he and his wife Joanne were in, and the two caskets that rest in Alabama because of it. We also alluded to some family secrets he told us before the accident. Unfortunately for you, our lips are still sealed on those ones. For now. But here are some things we learned that aren't so secret while we

I really, really love 'Bobby and Joanne! Bryan texted Mallory. Bryan is one of Mallory's favorite people, and they keep a pretty regular conversation going. He gives updates on the goings ons in Nashville and the larger world, and she tells him the weird things Scott says in his sleep. Or, at least that's what Mallory tells Scott she's saying. But also, Bryan is the ultimate encourager, and is the kind to tell a little folk duo that they're doing a good job. Ok, so... I kn

There's a trick to being a band who writes timely, socially aware music; we're just not exactly sure how the trick works. You keep yourself open to the world. You react. You jerk your knee back and you respond to the news- sometimes appropriately, sometimes in ways you don't intend, sometimes in ways your don't realize- and in that way writing timely, socially aware music is a lot like engaging in an argument online. In our experience with the latter, you don't plan it or eve

In our trek through the We Made Ourselves a Home When We Didn't Know, we thought we might tackle some of the harder things first. In the coming weeks, we are going to breaking down these songs we wrote and thought suitable for public consumption, and maybe figure out why we thought that in the first place. There will be a couple missing in this series, as we've already covered "Baggage" (boy have we!) with an accompanying music video. As have we with "Tiny Moses," and "Tak

Happy new album day! We Made Ourselves a Home When We Didn't Know is now out in the world, walking around on it's own two legs, meeting new people, living its life. And we're thrilled for you to hear it. This 13 song album, maybe more than any other, has been the album that we've been wanting to release for a while. Many of these songs were written before we packed it all into the camper, quite a few were written on the road---literally as we were driving---and a couple more

"Tiny Moses" is the single off our new record, We Made Ourselves a Home When We Didn't Know and we dropped it into the Earth's river of ears yesterday-- that's to say, the Internet. And to accompany it, on the coldest day of February this year, we gathered our most fool hardy friends (or, at least the most able to sustain freezing temperatures for extended periods of time) and asked them to volunteer the skill sets and talents they've honed. And, weirdly enough, they said y

"I thought when it said 'launch' that it meant-- 'hit this button and it'll take a little while for us to approve it and then we will send you another button to hit in order to actually launch it!'" said Mallory. Whoops. Well, just like Mallory's tendency to accidentally drop a mallet or a violin bow on her glockenspiel between songs, sounding a resonant but often out of tune note during another of Scott's boring segues, we have accidentally launched our Kickstarter campaign

We got a little carried away. What with all this Wednesdays at noon livecast Double Americana nonsense, and all this Rumbly Tummy food blog every first Wednesday silliness. We forgot, with all these self imposed deadlines and goals and new projects and release dates and what's nexts, to stop, look around, see where we are, and say "Hello." Hello! We are in the middle of it all. A little past the middle of the year, sitting in the middle of Wisconsin in the middle of the co