Western-inspired indie-rock band from Indiana announces its final ride
When Adam Turla said, “Honestly I forgot about this, I was out in the garden doing some weeding and then saw my phone reminder,” it was the first time a musician had ever told me they forgot about an interview due to gardening. However it made sense coming from Turla, who plans to spend a lot more time in the garden after his band completes their final tour this year. After 25 years of constant playing, touring and recording, the indie-rock, Western-inspired, Murder By Death (MBD) is hanging it up.
“For 25 years we’ve been moving toward ‘the next thing,'” he said. “There’s been no rest, and that’s one of the things we realized.”
While MBD might not be a household name like Against Me!, My Morning Jacket, My Chemical Romance and Coheed & Cambria — all of whom they’ve played with over the years — they’ve earned a large fanbase. One example is MBD’s 2012 Kickstarter for their sixth studio album, Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon, which became the website’s third-highest funded music project ever at the time. Every album since exceeded the initial funding goals.
So MBD’s announcement in March that their following tour and their 10th studio album, Egg & Dart, would be their last, sent a shock through every fan’s heart, mine included. Fortunately, the band will still play their yearly Cave Show at The Caverns — an actual cave with killer acoustics — in Pelham, Tennessee.
“The rule is that we’re getting off the road,” Turla said. “I haven’t had much opportunity for spontaneity, because touring is the exact opposite.”
It’s difficult to express how much this band means to fans. Formed in 2000 at Indiana University Bloomington, they originally called themselves Little Joe Gould, later naming themselves after the irreverent Neil Simon play and movie. It’s a move Turla has remembered with a tinge of regret in past interviews when stating that the name — particularly the “Murder” part — often kept them off bills despite the music falling within the Americana genre.
“But it’s really hard to do that hindsight stuff,” he said. “Because I also think it won over some listeners from the punk/hardcore scene, and it has a lasting power.”
With Turla on guitar and vocals, the band consists of Sarah Balliet, who is married to Turla, on cello; Emma Tiemann on violin; Dagan Thogerson on drums; Tyler Morse on bass; and David Fountain on piano, trumpet, mandolin and lap steel. Their sound traverses the dark space between energetic and uplifting to soft, somber and morose.
Yet each song is its own beautifully written narrative fitting inside a bigger concept album. Love, regret, the end of time, rest, rebirth and family are just some of the themes one might find on any given album. Dark humor cuts through the serious nature to let just enough light in on each album.
“Hope is a big theme,” Turla said. “I always joke that Murder By Death is like a very dystopian universe of lyrics, but there’s always a glimmer of hope. Our albums always present a world that is not ideal but — essentially — through striving, there’s a rallying cry for hope.”
Egg & Dart, named after the Greek style of architecture that represents the duality of life and death, cuts to the bone with songs of loss (“Searcher”), grief (“Wandering” and “If”) and the desire of redemption, like the upbeat “Lose You” with its New Wave synth. Turla admitted the collection of goodbyes is “basically an elegy,” and like any elegy it’s bittersweet.
Turla said their success outweighs anything they expected as college kids playing in Indiana. “We didn’t understand the potential this band had,” he said. “I never imagined we’d be successful to this degree.”
So, as the band winds down, we tip our hats and lower our heads. Everything must rest, and now it’s time for Murder By Death to close this chapter. But who knows? Maybe there will be an epilogue or even a few more chapters in the future, possibly under one of the names Turla is keeping safe.
Because, even after an album of long goodbyes, Egg & Dart still ends on a glimmer of hope with the final words: “Everything destroyed comes back again in the end / Everything destroyed will return again.”
