The twangy pull of a banjo’s strings, the steady strum of a guitar and the ghostly sound of a saw being played with a violin bow combine to perform an impromptu concert on the steps before a group of housemates and friends as they relax in the nice weather and enjoy the music.
The musicians standing on the lawn of Vesta cooperative house, 505 M.A.C. Ave., are three of the five members of Lansing-based band Frontier Ruckus, who found themselves back in East Lansing to begin their upcoming Western tour.
The tour began Friday night at Mac’s Bar, 2700 E. Michigan Ave., in Lansing, and will include lead singer and guitarist Matthew Milia, banjoist David Jones, saw and trumpet player Zachary Nichols, percussionist Ryan Etzcorn and singer and bassist Anna Burch, who are all MSU alumni with the exception of Jones, who graduated from the University of Michigan in 2007.
As their largest tour to date, Milia said that it is still less stressful than it could have been.
“This is our first professional tour with a booking agent where I don’t have to go through and book all the shows myself,” Milia said. “It’s a lot of stress off our backs.”
The stress was a variable that booking agent and owner of New Frontier Touring Paul Lohr was happy to take on after becoming familiar with the band.
“We saw them live and seeing a band perform live is a primary criticism to take on any new, developing artist,” Lohr said. “They were awesome — they have that X-factor that’s intangible.”
Frontier Ruckus, which has been with the Nashville, Tenn.-based booking agency for a couple of months, already is impressing Lohr, especially with the response they hailed from their recent short tour through Europe.
“With Frontier Ruckus, they’re a stage presence and there’s a charisma about them that has the ability to grow bigger than it is now,” Lohr said. “It’s good to see a band always experimenting and always trying to keep it fresh and continuing to move forward.”
One way the band is trying to keep things new is by switching the lineup around to keep things easier while on the road, giving bassist duties to Burch, who until recently was only responsible for vocals, but with such a long tour a smaller group makes more logistical sense, Milia said.
“It would be really hard to support six people on the road,” Jones said. “Five is going to be difficult, but six would be basically impossible.”
The tour, which Jones says will keep the band on the road steadily until mid-October, is both musically and personally exciting for band members, as some are going places they’ve never been, let alone toured through.
“We’ve never been out West, so we’re really excited about that,” said Milia. “I’ve never even been to California.”
Jones said he’s excited to simply have a new road to tour down, with different things to see and take in.
“I’m looking forward to the mountains,” said Jones. “I’ve never seen the mountains before.”
While the group might be looking forward to the long, winding musical road ahead of them, they will be encountering more than just new venues. Finding themselves more involved in the business side of the music they love is what seems to be the most nerve-racking part of the upcoming months.
“We’re in a whole new world of professionalism in which we don’t really belong,” Milia said. “There’s all this paperwork and contracts and memos, so we’re just trying to keep our heads above water at this point.”
Jones agreed, saying that dealing with the business aspect of being a musician is definitely an odd change for the band.
The band has plans to continue touring soon after the western tour as well, saying the way they’ve been operating is by waiting for events to schedule routes around. For this tour, Joshua Tree Music Festival 2009 was the catalyst.
“Joshua Tree was kind of the impetus. That’s kind of the way we’re rolling right now,” Milia said. “We’ll get an offer, a really good offer and that will be somewhere that’s kind of a haul and we’ll have to do stuff to get there and back.”
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Lohr said that they’ve also been in demand after successfully making a good impression while on tour, with many places in Europe contacting him after their short stint overseas.
“I’ve gotten countless e-mails from interested parties over there just from the impact they made on that short run,” Lohr said. “That also tells me that this band has a very broad-based appeal.”
With the upcoming opportunities to get their names and music out there, the band looks forward to being able to pursue what they love doing.
“It’s like full steam ahead,” Milia said. “We feel some steady momentum picking up behind us and it’s really what makes us happiest.”
Knowing this chance doesn’t come around to every musician that would like it to, Frontier Ruckus seems set on taking advantage of it.
“We’ve got a chance to do it now seriously, so we’re gonna try,” Jones said. “It’s really all we got.”
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