Ep 28: A Conversation with Trenton Wagler

In this episode, John sits down with Trenton Wagler of The Steel Wheels to talk about what it really takes to build a sustainable career in music over the long haul.

Over the past two decades, Trent has helped grow The Steel Wheels from a regional act into one of the most respected independent bands on the scene. Along the way, he's navigated the realities of touring, songwriting, recording, band dynamics, creative evolution, and the challenge of staying inspired year after year.

John and Trent discuss the business of being an independent artist, balancing artistic vision with financial realities, family, evolving as a band, the crossover of solo and band work, building community through music, and what it means to create meaningful work that lasts. 

Whether you're a musician, songwriter, solo artist, or in a band, this conversation offers an honest look at longevity, resilience, and carving out a life in the arts on your own terms.

Three songs are used in this podcast. You can hear them in their entirety here: Banjos for Everyone; Go Back; and Easy.

The Steel Wheels Website

Red Wings Roots Festival

We Made You a Song Podcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

You are listening to the Gig to Live Podcast. Welcome everyone. I'm John Foles and I'm a full-time working musician. This podcast is about building a music life that holds up over time. It's practical, enjoyable, sometimes uncomfortable, but it's always about helping you stay in the game and actually enjoy the life that you're building. We'll meet some wonderful working musicians from time to time. So whether you're just getting started or you've been doing this for years, you're in the right spot. This podcast is for you. Hey everybody, welcome to the podcast. I have a special guest with me today. I'm very excited about this. I have uh Trent Waggler with us today, or as his mama named him, Trenton. Uh Trent Waggler is a singer-songwriter, uh, he's a banjo player, guitarist, a multi-instrumentalist. He's the founding frontman of the Steel Wheels, uh, based in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, a beautiful place we got to visit recently. He started the band in 2005, and he spent the last couple of decades helping shape its sound. It's Americano slash folk, slash folk rock, slash bluegrass, slash roots music. Uh, they started touring full-time as a band in 2010, and that's a significant year uh for me too, because I I believe that's the year that I was first introduced to the steel wheels. The first time I saw them play, we had our good friends Kim and Neil staying at our home in Jackson, Michigan. And Kim says one morning, you know, I think my brother Trent is playing somewhere near here soon. So we hit the internet, we found out that the steel wheels were playing a show, a short drive from us that night, and we all hopped into our Class A R V that we had at the time we took a drive with our entire families, and we got to get to the show. And when we got there, Kim said, By the way, it's my brother's birthday, so you should go up to the stage and uh say, Hey, Trent, I'm here with your sister, and she wants to say happy birthday. So it was a great moment. Then, since that time, 16 years ago, I have seen the steel wheels play uh about 10, 12 times, multiple states as I've moved around, seeing them in California, Michigan, Portland, uh, Indiana. So I'm a fan. In 2012, when my family was living in Jackson, Michigan, I put on a festival called Folk Glore, and that was held in multiple venues across the city over multiple days, and the steel wheels for the headliners, the city still talks about it. Uh, so that's our little connection. Steel wheels have grown from a regional act into a national touring band uh with a loyal following. They have a reputation for uh dynamic live performances. People love seeing them live. Their releases include, oh, they're multiple, so I'll name a few: Red Wing, Leave Some Things Behind, Lay Down, Lay Low, Wild As We Came Here, Over the Trees, Sideways, a self-titled album released, I think, in 2025. Uh, listen to all of those. During the pandemic, uh, Trent launched the band's A Distance Together songwriting project, creating custom songs that were inspired by the stories of fans. Uh, and that became the uh We Made You a Song podcast and Everyone a Song Albums, volume one and two. Trent has multiple solo albums as well. And beyond the band itself, uh, he founded the Red Wings Roots Music Festival in the Shenandoah Valley. Uh, it's the premier Roots music gathering there. I've always thought of Trent as someone who's committed to building community and telling meaningful stories and being consistent with his uh music, his craft, and proving that an independent path can still lead to a lasting career. So, Trent, welcome today.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

Thank you. Thanks for the intro. That covers it all.

SPEAKER_05 4:14

So well, it's impressive. People need to hear it.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

Banjos aren't for everyone, we've got different scenes. I grew up in Indiana, you from New Orleans aren't for everyone. I know what you mean. I am not an evangelist. Little pictures in the mind dream do it all the time.

SPEAKER_05 5:14

So you have built a life both as a a solo performer and as a member of the Steel Wheels. So uh what's different about those two worlds and maybe making a living in those two worlds, or just talk about the dynamics of that.

SPEAKER_03 5:30

Yeah, um I really the the main focus, I would say, of my musical work has been with the Steel Wheels for most of the last 20 years. Uh early on, I released things under the name Trent Wagler. I just recently released my first solo album in, man, I mean, probably almost 20 years. And some of that was, I think, a response to well, some of it was I had a whole bunch of songs that I hadn't found a home for, and I kind of wanted that creative outlet. Um, and some of it I think is recognizing the different uh landscapes that are out there. And as a band, we have sort of when we first started, we were uh very happy to be booked in smaller house concerts and little series, backyard shows. I mean, honestly, that was like bread and butter for making uh a living. And and I love those kinds of shows. Um the connection, the intimacy, all of that is what I love about performance. And as the band has grown, it's been harder to find a place or find those shows to to make make the money we need to make on the road as a you know, just a touring act, and also uh yeah, it just hasn't been the right fit. Certain stages are so tiny, and we're you know, we're a five-piece now with drums and everything. So things just don't feel like it's a good fit. And so there was an element of like, hey, I could also when we're off the road, there are a few of these shows that I could pick up as a solo thing and still do a house concert and really enjoy the kind of stretching out and stretching myself as a performer. Um, and so that was part of the I think the reason to release a new album after many years of not really doing that, like having a chance and having material that I can say, hey, here's what I'm doing when I do solo stuff, just so it doesn't feel like, oh, it's kind of the steel wheels material, but not. And or or like the steel wheels light, you know. I I wanted it to also feel like I can I can do something that is a little different, maybe something that's more personal uh when I show up and play a solo show. So yeah, and I see it again kind of like fitting into a different ecosystem. I can do openers if there's local shows that you know I I would love to support. Um, I also I was hosting a local series for a while where I would open the show and then we did kind of an onstage interview with an artist. And so again, it was like, well, I want there to be something I can point to as a solo artist that feels current. Um and yeah, I I guess that's that's one of the main differences. It's also I I think there's also a time and a place for for me at least after 20 years of working with the band, there's a there was a good, it was good for me to stretch out, be in a studio where I am answering all the questions and having to make all the decisions, and there's freedom in that, but also it makes me happy to go back to the band and be like, oh man, it's so comfortable to have a bass player in the room who's gonna take care of the bass. You know, like I was playing bass on the solo record, and I was like, I haven't done this for years, and I've got a lot of things I've got to figure out if I want to make this sound right. And again, good challenges, fun uh growth that comes through that, but it makes me respect the band and what we've created and the tight sort of musical unit that we have there, so much more, so that I can feel excited and happy to uh run down the road with those guys.

SPEAKER_05 9:19

Yeah, that's a good word. And that's fun to hear. Uh so maybe Trent Waggler opens up for the steel wheels someday.

SPEAKER_03 9:27

Yeah, and I mean, again, it speaks it speaks to the sort of mutual respect that we have as a band. Because I I, you know, I got that question like sort of internally from people that know the band of like, aren't you afraid that, you know, what's it mean that you're doing a solo release when the band is also doing their next release? Like some people love to read into that, or you know, what does that communicate about where the band's going? Is this like the beginning of the end, or any of that stuff? And it seems so silly to me, but but partly it seemed silly to me because the guys in the band are like, that's great, man. Like you have time off the road where you want to jump into the studio and do that, go for it. It didn't feel like there was you know anything that threatened what we had together, partly because I mean, again, it it says a lot about the confidence they have in their music and musicianship, and they should. Like, I think the some of the special nature of what the steel wheels do is you know, harmony and uh this yeah, this this sound that we've developed over time that like I'm not gonna undercut because I can't do it. So it wasn't a threat, but it was something for me to kind of do. And I and I don't I don't know yet if I'll if I'll release another solo record in the next three years, maybe. Um, or maybe it's a little one-off. But either way, it was a real good chance to kind of feel that and be in that space. And yeah, I just I just went out with actually with Eric, our fiddle player. We got asked to do a little bluegrass festival down in North Carolina last weekend, and the band's off the road. Okay. And so we did a little duo thing, you know. Trenton Wagler and Eric Brewbaker of the Steel Wheels were on the bill, and it was fantastic. And again, it's like really nice to be able to do that and not feel like you know, it was the kind of festival where the band, full band, wasn't gonna be able to be booked, but really, really fun to be able to pick up something like that on the side.

SPEAKER_05 11:32

Now, do any of the other members in the band hold a job outside of the band or maybe even do their own solo work? Does is anybody doing something different?

SPEAKER_03 11:42

Yeah, I mean, everybody's situations a little different, and it all, you know, I mean, just like all of us out there, I think some of it depends on what's going on in family life, uh, where you're at with, you know, everybody in the band except for our drummer Kevin is a parent. Um, and so there's, you know, family stuff at home. So some people um spend some of their time at home when they're off the road just being home and being able to support and be around the uh but yeah, for the most part, over the course of our band's touring life, most of us have not really had a regular second job. Um Jeremy's our bass player these days, and he's he joined the band since the pandemic, I guess in 2021. And he lives in Nashville. So Jeremy, being a Nashville musician that's been there for a lot of years, you know, when he's home, he's taking studio gigs as they come at him. He might play some local gigs in town. Uh, he's always around kind of doing that. I have done some teaching on the side when I'm at home. I've always been very open with anybody who I've never really during the pandemic. I think I reached out and was a little bit more like, hey, there's not much to do. I'll teach lessons. And I was soliciting for that. But for the most part, I've been, you know, teaching two students or so here and there when you know people come to me and they want to learn the banjo or learn guitar, do some songwriting. And I always am like, hey, I'll do this. Uh, you got to understand my schedule is really irregular. It's not going to be a weekly lesson because I'm in and out of town. And so it's with that understanding, I'll do that, but it's never really been a regular job per se. Um, I have taught a like as an adjunct professor, taught some songwriting at a local university. Um, so it's been fun to have those chances to kind of do a few things, but I wouldn't say there's really been a regular job. Um the the touring in the band has been the main thing for pretty much all of us. I I should say our drummer, Kevin, also, who is it's we're in kind of a transition. Kevin is is planning on leaving the band uh to because he has some other things going in his life. Um and he has for the duration of the band and before he joined the band, has always had a standing job in New York City, lives in Brooklyn of uh an accompanist for dance departments at a few different universities. And so wow he's a live live percussion and drum uh accompanist for dancers, and that's something that's a great gig for drum and percussion folks in places where there is a program. Um but uh so that that is something that he does when he's off the road and always has, uh, and he's got a huge list of subs that he taps when he goes out on the road. So it works pretty well for him.

SPEAKER_05 14:49

So I hear you saying you want me to join the Steel Wheels as a beatboxer or or a drummer. My gosh, that would be awful. That would be horrid. Well, okay, so talk to me about your recording process then, because yeah, families, multiple things going on. Um my goodness, you guys put out so much material, and I know how long it takes to be in the studio, and you're all in different places. And I mean, my goodness, how do you balance your writing, your recording, your releasing music? Uh, and then your tour schedule and a festival. Yeah, yeah. Come on, wow.

SPEAKER_03 15:32

Well, yeah, I mean, there is no one way to do or talk about recording process because we've done I mean, we've done it in so many different ways. Early days of the band, we were scrappy. And I mean, if you're talking like advice for younger musicians, it's always so hard. That's always a hard one, uh, anyway, because again, when we got started, it was about 20 years ago now. So, like, throw all the advice you want to. Whatever we were doing 20 years ago, it feels so antiquated compared to what's what's going on now. You know, it's sort of a pre-social media age. There was a lot you could make CDs and actually sell them at your shows, things like that. Um but uh we were very scrappy. That's uh like the first few records uh that we recorded, it was self-recording. It was, you know, turning Jay's house into our studio and kind of living there for 10 days, and and pretty much, you know, maybe we got another buddy to to hit the space bar so that Jay didn't have to be, you know, like right in front of the computer. But it was it was as scrappy as we could, keeping all the costs down. Um, and we did that with Red Wing, we did that with Lay Down Lay Low. Um, there was an album called No More Rain that was we did use somebody else's studio, but it was pretty that was a very live, like our goal was to go in and have the songs ready. The performances was what it was more of like live in studio kind of record, so that was a different process. Uh leave some things behind. We did a again, we used a local studio. We actually had an engineer come from Nashville, so we're kind of stepping up the game a little bit, but again, it was all self-produced and a lot of live playing. The with we then spent three albums up in a recording studio in Maine. Wild as We Came Here Over the Trees and Sideways were all recorded with a producer named Sam Kasirer, and that was the first time we really had a producer on board. Um Sam has been really uh I credit him with really helping facilitate a lot of the sort of sonic exploration that we wanted to do. Uh Sam is a keyboard player, comes from more of like a jazz background initially, and so was not, you know, was not coming at this string band from Virginia with that language and vernacular, and instead was really hearing it just as a musician, and uh kind of had a beautiful sort of innocence to his like, why don't we add drums to this, or why don't we throw uh a B3 in there, or I have a piano part that could really go well with that banjo part. Uh, just things that like I think we wouldn't have ever had the imagination to hear uh ahead of that. And so um he he was as a producer, it was kind of the ideal experience for me of like he kind of became another band member as well as sort of being the final, like if we were really struggling in the studio, he could be like, guys, we need to make a call, let's go this direction. But it never felt like that heavy-handed, like, I'm a producer and this is my sound, you know, get out of the way, I have a vision. None of that sort of vibe. And instead, it was really still very collaborative, and he's just an amazing guy. We've brought him down uh for Red Wing. In fact, this year we're gonna have him guest uh with us again on the main stage um to play with us just as a keyboard player because it's really fun to get that chance to play live. Uh so anyway, we did three records that way, and that was very uh we did a lot of pre-production in that case. Like we would, you know, I had a bunch of demos that I created solo in my writing process with just garage band and overlaying like harmonies and things like that. Um, and at least for a couple of the records, we met ahead of time and spent two or three days just kind of playing through and having ideas, and then we could reference that time so that when we hit the studio, we had a pretty good sense of what we wanted to do. Then um, and I'm I'm intentionally sort of like setting aside all of the pandemic recording that we did, which of course was its own like beast of everybody recording at home and then sending in parts, which we did a lot of, and uh, but it just really didn't feel like a recording process that we were it was it was out of necessity. Uh and and it we got some really cool results, but that everyone a song series uh and and we recorded like hundreds of songs that way. Uh, we really became like a little song factory over those years. Um of which, yeah, like it all went through Kevin, uh, who has his own studio in Brooklyn, and he was kind of our mixing guy. So uh I actually I won't, I I said I'm gonna set that aside, but I'll talk about it. The uh the that process was like so unique because not only were we the the origin of a lot of the songs we were writing, as you mentioned in the intro, we were writing a lot of songs kind of as commissions and uh like writing to a prompt, uh very truly. So, you know, my parents have an anniversary and it's their 50th, and we were gonna have a big party. We can't have a big party, we want to have a song from the steel wheels. So they write me all the stories that they think are really cute about their parents, and I try to write it into a song. Um uh and just literally we did hundreds of those. And so, in that case, I would write the song, get a sense for how I'm gonna do it. I would record uh to a click and solo, like just in my studio where you see me right now, pretty much, and uh record my main instrument, my voice, send it to Kevin. Kevin from that click would create a drum track, uh, whatever was in percussion land. I mean, not everything had drums, but for the most part, and then he would send out uh what he called the guide track for everybody of like my basic, you know, instrumentation and vocal and his drums, and then everybody would lay down their parts. And so it was a little bit of a game of telephone. Uh, sometimes it worked better than others. Uh, literally, there were times where. Like Eric would take and play his fiddle, and J Jay would play mandolin or guitar parts, and we'd get them back, and they'd be like, Oh, they both took that solo. Like they can't hear each other or they miscommunicated. Um, right. But so it was a very fascinating process, um, but one that we became very efficient at. And so I think, in a way, like we all became better studio musicians through that time, and it gave us something to stay creative and busy with. And so that pivot was really uh developed a lot of skills. That, you know, that led into the sideways album, that third album we did in Maine, which was the sort of the first studio record we did after the pandemic. And I said, I mean, that was our first record with Jeremy and in the bass uh playing bass for us. But we I felt like we were the tightest band we've ever been at that point, where it was just like the ability to kind of lock in in the studio, and I I credit the that pandemic time with giving us that ability. And then we just recorded our self-titled album, and that was a very uh, of course, it's the freshest album for me, so I feel still so impacted by it. But we did that recording here in the Shenandoah Valley, a new studio, um, and a buddy of ours who moved down from Woodstock, uh, New York, and and kind of relocated his studio. And so he was freshly uh in love with the Shenandoah Valley, and he was super pumped to do a record with us. He had mixed a record of ours previously, and we had just never worked together in the studio. But he had kind of a radical, he has a his studio, beautiful place, amazing setup, and he's I mean, he just won a Grammy for his work on the I'm with her record. Um recently.

SPEAKER_05 23:47

Oh, I love them. I I saw them last year, Tony and I saw them.

SPEAKER_03 23:50

I mean, he's he's kind of in that world of mixing and mastering, especially and engineering Bonnie Light Horseman, uh Watch House. I mean, it's there's a it's a who's who of kind of folk and Americana that and he's also been really involved in the the band Goose, um, a jam band that is really not geese, uh, there's you know not geese, but another great band. Yeah, exactly. Uh but yeah, he's produced some albums for Goose as well. And and so anyway, he's right here in our backyard, and his his uh studio setup is the control room is in the room. There is no wall, there is no, like, if you're recording live, he's right there. And he really believes kind of philosophically in this idea of like, if you're you know, if I'm playing there with my guitar and my vocal, and the other guys are sitting there behind him at the desk, he doesn't want that experience of separation where like I get through with a take and I look up and I look through the control room window and everybody's laughing because somebody said a funny joke, you know, and nobody was actually paying attention. Like, if we're gonna make music, let's make music and let's stay connected. And because of that, we also recorded a lot live in the same room. We did always have drums separated just for microphone um bleed reasons, but we were able to record and get a lot of the newest album all in one take together and just decide on the best. And so, yeah, trying to really dig into that human element and um make it as real. And I feel again, like really lucky to have a group of musicians that we've played together for so long that we can kind of sit in that pocket together. There's ways that you become tight that you don't even recognize yourself, and it's you know, it's in that playing and that repetition and just the hours and hours that you start to hear each other as a part of what you do, and you truly become an organism uh that we call a band.

SPEAKER_05 25:56

Yeah. Right, right, right. I would love to have you talk a little bit about your evolving sound. Uh, you know, you've talked about other members coming in, and I know you've had guest musicians in the band before, and you know, then adding bass and drums and a producer. And uh to me, it's like uh for those of uh for those who are listening who haven't heard you yet and they need to go listen to you, um, it's the difference to me of being a Led Zeppelin fan and hearing going to California and then jumping forward a few years and hearing Fool in the Ring. You know, it's there's uh it's the same band, but the textures are different. Eve maybe even the same uh instrumentation, but it feels different. So if you could talk about that, uh how you've adapted, what drives those changes, how people are responding, any of that would be great.

SPEAKER_03 26:58

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of reasons for those evolutions. I think so. Just to walk through like the nuts and bolts of it, when we started, we were a four-piece acoustic band. And um I guess Eric, so the the the original four-piece was Eric, Jay, and I, who are still in the band. We're still the three that have been there the whole time. Uh, our bass player Brian uh was a founding member, and in that four-piece, we were very much uh, you know, it was it was the mid-2000s, and there was Oh Brother Where Art Thou had come out. There was, you know, we live in I live in Harrisonburg, which is boasts the hometown of Catch Secor and Critter Fuqua from Old Crow Medicine Show, and that sort of sound was kind of around us, and I was really enamored by Clawhammer Banjo, and I grew up around a lot of bluegrass and old time and gospel music. So the original sound of the band was sort of our original take on uh harmony-laden folk and old-timey, like neo-bluegrass stuff. Uh, we never were good at being truly traditional, like even in that vein. And I mean, some people would hear us in those early days and say, What do you mean? That's a bluegrass band. If that's your take, that's fine. But if you really talk to like true traditional players and people from that music, they would hear us and say, Oh, that's not that's not bluegrass, you know what I mean? Um, and it some of it is yeah, some of that's just the I mean it's just the dogmatic kind of there are people who are really attached to the way you're supposed to do it. We were always, I think, more driven by the song. And while while I would say, like you go back to Red Wing, which was kind of our first full band album, I would say, um, you have some very, very traditional inspired tracks there. Like Red Wing itself is inspired by an old traditional song. It's played very simply and traditionally. You'd have uh an instrumental like Dragon Your Heels, which is like a fast fiddle tune that Eric wrote. But then there's songs on there that still, if you were to change up the uh like the way we recorded it, like uh walk this way for a while, or long way to go, uh, or nothing you can't lose. Those songs could all be on a blues band's album or a rock album if they were just in a different setting. And so we were never searching for like we want to sound like some old, old band from the 20s start to finish. We were still being influenced by Pearl Jam and and and and Red Zeppelin and all these other bands that were our true influences, as well as the Mennonite hymnal, you know. Uh, and so that has always been in the mix and in the in the milieu of the band, so to speak. And Eric is a great fiddle player, so he's bringing, you know, he's writing or he's writing instrumentals that we sometimes perform and sometimes record. Once we got through Leave Some Things Behind was our last album, I would say, that sort of was the core four of us, and that's really all. Um, and we were the only ones bringing in all of the like, how are we going to do this album? And at the end of that, I was very proud of that album. I still am. I love that that album and some of the songs on there, some of the sounds we got, but it was sort of like it felt to me like we had rung out, like we could keep going back to that well, and we could keep bringing songs that we love into that mix, but I didn't feel like we were coming up with new ideas in the studio for like how we would do it. It was just a matter of like, okay, for this song, we're gonna go make this move with our arrangement, and this song we're gonna make this move. But we didn't, we weren't using new tools, we weren't really like coming up with brand new ideas. It was just it, I was starting to feel like we were coming to the end of that uh creatively, and so that's where you know we started working with a producer that brought in drums. Um, and at that time, you know, Jay preceding this band used to play a lot of electric guitar. Uh Brian was starting to play some electric bass. And so we were just sort of like, what if we what if we stop? Like, there is so I I love limitations as a musician, and I think those limitations of the acoustic instruments, ironically, you know, give a lot. And that's partly why I think our band, when we're playing a song like nothing you can't lose, and it feels like a real blues banger, but you're only playing with an acoustic guitar, a mandolin, an upright bass, and a fiddle, in some ways that worked better. Like that's one of those songs that I still maintain with our current setup. We don't play it that often. And it's not because it doesn't sound okay, but to me, it sounds more like a lawn party and somebody's like dad's blues band trying to just do the blues when you actually have electric bass and a drum kit. Whereas when you didn't have the vehicle that you stand like the standard vehicle for blues, it almost felt like you were fighting against something that felt that much more gritty, uh, if that makes sense. Oh, interesting. And so anyway, some of those limitations really serve you, but then being able to expand, and all of a sudden with Wild as We Came Here, we brought uh there were a lot of a lot of electric instruments, a lot of layers in the studio. We had the keyboards as well as uh some drums, and that's when we brought Kevin Garcia in uh for our touring um on tour full-time as a member. And from that point on, we've had drums on stage and in the studio, and that element of sort of like taking the percussive uh responsibilities away from the mandolin, the guitar, and suddenly having this amazing musician behind us who has not only just a real tight uh ability to play the drum kit, but also, you know, I mean, he's a master's level uh percussionist, he's a keyboard player, and he he has a lot of world percussion background. So there was just a lot of cool influences to play around with. It enabled me to kind of continue to explore the banjo, and I feel, I mean, the banjo I've always seen as a real funky instrument, a really like truly soulful instrument, and I think that gets lost in a lot of bluegrass. And so using the banjo with drums really I think brings out more of the percussive elements of what the banjo takes, and I love that interplay. And so in the next few records, we really uh I feel like you know, over the trees, that album got a little bit tucked away in our collection because it was released in the summer of 2019, and so just as we were kind of getting it out there into the world, 2020 happened and everything sort of, you know, reset in the world for the for years, yeah. And so, but if people go back to that over the trees record, I mean it starts with a track called Rains Come that's like truly like a lot of drum sounds and the banjo are driving it initially. We used horns, we used a lot of keyboards. I mean, that that song throws everything at the wall, and so that's our most expansive Sonic album. I think we really wanted to just see what we could do and explore how far we can go. Uh, and that album has a lot of that experimentation that was just really, really fun. Um, so yeah, some of it is inspiring me as a songwriter then to be able to think like, there aren't boundaries here, let me just write. And uh, you know, I'm a big Jeff Tweety fan. Um as a songwriter, I have I haven't found a better book than How to Write One Song by Jeff Tweety. It's what I use if I'm teaching songwriting. It's uh I think his approach is something I really relate to that just feels like keep writing, keep writing. Don't ever uh don't be afraid to like, don't be afraid if you don't have an idea, just keep writing. And um and his some of his exercises that he has in that book have been really generative for me, but I also find him to just be a um don't worry about the final product, just create kind of uh person. And I think that I really have always related to that. There have been people who've told me, like, oh, that that sounds like a really good steel wheels song. Like if I'm trying out new material, and I don't even know what that means. Like, I I don't everything I write, I think is worth sending over to the guys because I'm like, I don't know. I like if I like this song, we should try to figure out how to make it work in our vernacular. I'm not I know there are people who do this, like there are writers who are like, no, no, no, that I'm writing this song for that project. You know, I have this swing band, and I'm writing this song for this bluegrass vehicle, and this is a country song, this is a rock song. Awesome. If that's your thing, for me, I write, and then I'm like, hey guys, I don't know. Like, I've been wrong before. Um, why not play something that's got this weird six eight kind of thing? Or I mean, like, and so on on Sideways, we actually had there's this song called Baby Gone, and it's uh like the the A section. I wrote it on the banjo, and I never even like paid attention to how wacky it was. But then we got in the studio and Kevin's like, you know, the instrumental part you're playing is in 7-8, and then you're going into the verse and you go to regular four, and then you're going back to 7-8, and then we're going, you know, and I was like, no, it just this is the way it sounds on the banjo, so like you got to follow that. Um, and luckily, again, working with musicians that could make that work, uh I think it's a really cool achievement, and it's very rhythmic. It's certainly not the sound of a traditional string band. Um, and so anyway, that process of exploring has been so exciting. Then I would say, like, this last record, part of the reason I I love it so much is uh it felt like a real coming back, like we were able to sort of in one recording session do all of it. Like it felt like we did have a few moments on this latest record where we literally were sitting around one mic in the studio on couches and just playing a simple song with just acoustic instruments. I think Kevin was tapping on like a little tambourine, you know. I mean, it was super pared down and as much of that like improvisational energy of a string band around a mic that you could actually get on recording. And then we had big blown-out rock sound uh in other places on the record. And so it feels like the most complete of all of the sound. And uh I'm really proud of that. I I hope it translates to the listener and doesn't feel like you're being sort of you know pulled side to side. We we did work with sequencing and and all of that to also think about telling a story with how the songs fit on an album, which of course what percentage of people really listen to an album start to finish anymore? Not as many as I would hope, but uh we still find that to be meaningful from the the production standpoint.

SPEAKER_05 38:36

Yeah. I'm gonna have to go back and listen again. Uh and I I love listening to an album start to finish with my headphones, especially uh my big clunky 70s era over-the-ear headphones. That's what I like.

SPEAKER_03 38:54

It's meaningful. It really is meaningful. It's a different depth to it for sure.

SPEAKER_05 39:00

It's a 7-8, too. I mean, that's that's a little Pink Floyd. How many how many albums do you hear that do those kind of time signatures? That's awesome. Uh thanks for sharing all that. Let's switch gears for for just a second. Uh, because you know, this podcast is designed for gigging musicians. Why don't you tell us the hardest part from your perspective, the hardest part of being a full-time musician that people don't see, maybe people don't know, maybe the uh people who are just starting to gig, they're like, I I got this, you know, and then they they're gonna get faced with, you know, something along the way. What do you think is the hardest part?

SPEAKER_03 39:44

I mean, it from my perspective at this point, the hardest part is the fact that you can't lean on uh what worked in the past. Like it, you know, like it's a it's in such a rapidly changing landscape. And so just when you think you've got a foothold somehow and you're starting to like build something, everything shifts again, and you can't depend on it. That that series that loves you, and they said, We're gonna get you back next year and and we're gonna pay you even more, and then it goes away because some funding got cut, or or the venues. I mean, right now we have a crisis of venues, especially in the small to medium size. So many communities. I mean, uh, we've we're seeing it like venues we've depended on, or just you know, like we just played Ithaca, New York uh not too long ago, and uh and a guy there was like, Man, when I moved here like 25, 30 years ago, there were nine venues in Ithaca, and now we're down to one music venue. And uh and he's like, it's just folding in on itself. And so anyway, that I not to not to like present a real depressing view of what where live music is going, but yeah, I mean, sure, we could talk about AI and we can talk about uh what does the future look like? But what does the now look like when we have just so many things competing for attention? And I think the small and medium size, the middle class musician is really getting squeezed right now. Um, there's a lot of huge tours, there's a lot of people that are saving their money and spending their $250 or $300 on some crazy like bucket list show, and then they're not supporting or going out to a smaller 45, 50 person little intimate venue. Maybe it's a little less Instagrammable or a little less whatever. It doesn't feel as epic or something, but I think whatever it is in culture, we're just struggling, I think, to find true support out there for something that bubbles up from the grassroots. It'll come and it is happening. I mean, there's still some really cool DIY shows around here that I see, but we've had in in my local, you know, community, we've had struggles with venues that we uh kind of took for granted for a long time of like these this is this is the local bar where you're gonna play a gig. And all of a sudden it's like if somebody asks me, where do I play in Harrisonburg? I'm kind of like, uh we're having a hard time right now. And so all of that is to say it's it is a part of the challenge and excitement, if you like, is there's you're never gonna need you're never gonna stop needing to learn how to do it. And that's what we joke about in the band is like every release is kind of a new, we're doing something different, right? So, like in the early days, like I said, I mean, we recorded because we had been playing gigs, and people were like, I would buy that song if you had it on CD. So we're like, well, hell, we'll go record this on CD. And sure enough, we could sell, we could make more money at the CD table because that was the only thing we had of merch, uh, than we did in the gig. And that was a model that we still lived in, not knowing it was a you know rapidly gonna sort of be a reduction for years to come. But then, yeah, then we moved to vinyl because vinyl was is has always been a cool medium, but it was like there was a growing audience of people who had that sort of respect and wanted to sit with the music, but still that's never quite lived up to the CD boom. Um, and and then, you know, now now you're trying to figure out how do I how do I release on streaming in a way that continues to build and get get people to actually listen to the music. How do we get it there? And so then you've got social media that comes in. I mean, every single release, I could go down and and talk about the different methodology for like how do we release now? But it truly that is the that's where you start the question. It's not like let's plug it into this release schedule that we did last time. It's like what's the What's the way to do it now? You know, and literally in 20 whatever it was that we released sideways 2023, maybe we were releasing in a way that when we started releasing this self-title record in 2025, we did it differently. Like it was not a plug and play. Um, you know, the way we approached singles, the way we approached how we were doing it on social media, all of that changed. And and we we've put a lot more effort into things like Patreon. Um, because again, when you when you lose the ability through all the algorithms and all the sort of like uh the money-based way of getting your own followers to actually see your content. Patreon is is one of the places where you do truly feel like, okay, if somebody says they want this, they're gonna get it when I deliver it, versus you know, Instagram, where you're like, well, we have all these followers, but you know, a bunch of people after we leave St. Louis and we just played a gig are saying, When are you coming to St. Louis? And you're like, you didn't see all of the, you know, all the times we said we're coming to St. Louis, and that sort of, you know, the chronology of it, it comes out several days later. I mean, we all see this. It's you know, somebody's like, come on down tonight, we're playing. And it's like from three days ago, because that's the way the algorithms spit it to you. And so, yeah, so now again, it's kind of a retraction, but you're going towards like get on the email list, join Patreon. If you really want to know, then you're gonna have to select us specifically because these larger companies are in it for how to keep eyeballs on their platform and not actually about communities being developed.

SPEAKER_05 45:41

Yeah, such wise words. Thanks for that.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

I found a new route home. Yeah, it's all my own. It doesn't have straight lines, but it suits me fine. I can change you, see. New hair, new friends, new me. Open the bathtub drain, it's a shallow claim. Don't wanna go back. Don't wanna go back. Don't wanna go back to my life living with the people.

SPEAKER_05 46:53

Do you ever want to just sit on the porch and you know, yuck it up with the brothers and play some music, you know, sell women's shoes to put food on the table?

SPEAKER_03 47:03

Um I I'm I'm not very good at women's shoes. And I I don't feel the drive to quit as much as I feel the fear of will there, you know, will it be viable? Like I definitely feel that pressure that it's mostly self-imposed, I think. Although, yeah, my family and my wife also depend on some of this to work out. Yeah. Uh, but I I don't I don't usually so far I've been I've been glad that I haven't felt like just throwing my hands up in the air and saying, well, this just isn't gonna work. Um but yeah, it's it's lonely out there sometimes. And having, you know, I feel like we we joke as a band that usually every tour there's gonna be some show where you're just you that night you're like, what are we doing? What are we? I'm I'm a thousand miles from home and I don't, you know, and we've been we've been trying to hit this same market this many times. And again, it's the same whatever, like 70 people who came out and we were trying to fill a 300-person room, you know, and it's we just feel like we're spinning our wheels. Uh so there, there's some discouragement that that's that comes and goes. I think that's where having the band and having relationships within uh and trying to keep your head on straight about what success means when you're doing art art as an endeavor. And I think it's hard. It's hard because we all uh ascribe a certain amount of success according to numbers, something you can quantify. And it's not enough to say, well, I wrote 45 songs in the last year, that's the number that matters. It's about like how many people care, how many people are connecting, how many uh and yeah, at to some degree at some point it's about a bottom line of how much money are you bringing home. But I I do think again, it's always important for us in the band to be um believing that the the work and creating something that we feel uh excited about is in and of itself. That's that's where the success is. Um we are succeeding when we're creating art. And yes, you need to find viable models that work so that it the business side is there. And I'm yeah, like that, but you're trying to keep that separate in terms of what is of value and what you're doing in the world, because if you're completely focused on the success of how many people show up in all the ways that the things that are not in under your control, you're you know, you don't have any agency in whether or not you succeed.

SPEAKER_05 49:56

That's that's helpful. Thank you for that. You mentioned kind of the the brotherhood of the band there, so I I kind of want to take this a different way for for a minute. Um I think that bands go through different kinds of loss and tragedy and setbacks and seasons that you can't control. Uh, you guys certainly are no stranger uh to this. Uh and I I think people can read a lot about what you guys have gone through, but uh how does a group survive when you know life threatens the thing that uh you're putting together?

SPEAKER_03 50:38

Yeah, yeah. That's I mean, I think it's there's so much about having a band that I mean you gotta be careful to not overcompare it to being in a marriage, especially if you also are trying to keep a marriage together. But it's uh but it it is, it's a family, it's a unit. You're it's so I and I do, I talk about it with my wife all the time. She works in healthcare and she talks about we talk about the differences in our workplace, put that in quotes, because you know, my workplace is the van and it's the hotel room, and it's the stage, and it's the studio, um, and it's a bunch of Zoom calls, right? Like it's such a different thing than going to work every day, uh, and what you need to do, what what boundaries look like, and what um what professional and personal looks like when you're living together for days on end, and there really is very little chance to see separation, uh you you just you get to know each other, you have to, uh even if you don't want to, at least in the the size that we are in. I mean, I guess we've never been on a huge, we don't each have our own tour bus, you know, and uh and so for us, for better or for worse, we're just gonna be in each other's lives. And so when things go down, when um when we have needed support from each other, when we are losing it inside, um, or when we're s truly feeling um like we're not sure how things are gonna move forward, and that has come in the form of you know, one of our one of our band members lost their daughter in a horrible um yeah, uh an illness that that turned into sepsis and and just had the worst end that any parent can imagine. Um you know, when that happens in someone's life, you don't take for granted that he's gonna want to be back in the band. You don't know what's next. Um but it was also like, hey man, I I I guess part of what being in a band means is like we're there for you every night. Like when there's only 12 people out in this venue and we pushed everything we could and and we're taking out uh like a second mortgage on our house because we believe in this band or this record, like we are saying we're there for you and we're you're there for us. Even just playing music together, like knowing you're gonna hit that downbeat together, we're there for you. There's there's a million ways that you at your best, you are reinforcing that idea, we're here for you. Um but then when something like that hits, it's like I you know, nobody has the playbook of like how to how to how to be there. Um so you just keep showing up and you you bake you bake banana bread and you you uh you write notes and you you say, you know, do you want to have coffee? Do you want to hang out? Do you you know, off the road you you you try to make sure that there's because it's easy to it's easy to feel isolated on the road uh being a touring musician, I probably in any community, but I think when you're not living in a Nashville or living in an LA or you know somewhere where there might be a community of other touring artists, for us, we're in Harrisonburg, Virginia. There's there's a few other bands that are doing what we're doing, but it's not a huge community. And so it's pretty easy for most of your people around you to kind of always expect you're on the road because that often is what happens. They don't expect you to show up. Um, but that also means that if you're not really intentional about reaching out, you can start to feel pretty isolated, like nobody expects you to show up anywhere. And so either you're on the road and you're pretty like isolated with your friends, or you're back home. And if you don't want to leave the house, you don't have to. Nobody's checking in. And so yeah, I I think uh that was one of our biggest obvious um sort of losses. And I know that Eric, you know, in the band, he's he I mean, it it's it's been a very public thing, but I think it's also one of those things where he needed a good amount of time uh of like, for example, not going out to the merch table afterwards, and that sort of like we have such a caring audience, and fans really do care about us as people, and we've cultivated that, I guess, but it's also just something I feel lucky that like the people attracted to our music also seem to be pretty good people generally. But that's a tough one, too, with a bunch of people you don't really know constantly wanting to give you that feedback of I'm so sorry for your loss. And it's sort of like, oh, right, thank you, but also that's just you know, then he's kind of in the in the job of having to make other people feel okay. And so that that stuff really is tough. Um so I think it's just walking through those times. I mean, I my family had its own, you know, we we've gone through uh I mean there's there's in any given life, right? Any given family goes through some stuff. Uh I think there's a lot of a lot of couples don't stand up to a touring life. And that I'm that's I say that with zero judgment. It is a lot of pressure and difficulty on leaving a partner at home, especially if there's kids involved. And so we've all, I think, in the band had ups and downs with that. Um you know, Lord knows the early days, especially when things were pretty tight and difficult and our kids were young. Uh, you know, those were some of the hardest times in my marriage, and I feel fortunate that we came through it on the side that we did, but it was, yeah. And so, yeah, having people you can walk through that with that understand you is so important. Um, but just like those relationships could go badly, I see how bands could break up over just not really seeing each other, not really understanding when you need space, or you need someone to really get in your face and say, you know, you need you need some help, or you, you know, I want to be there with you. Like uh, those are things that I I feel lucky to have sensitive musicians on stage, but I feel even more lucky to have real true uh engaged and intuitive friends in the van. Uh, you know, you spend so much more of your time as a band off stage, uh and it's the load-in and loadout, it's the drive to the next gig, it's it's the planning. Um, all of those things are the ones that keep a band together or don't in the long run.

SPEAKER_05 58:08

Thanks, Trent. I could talk to you all day. I want to be respectful of our time. So I'm gonna ask you uh one more question. Um what's the the most important advice uh that you can give musicians from somebody who's a seasoned musician who uh for somebody who genuinely wants to make a living doing this, um what would you like to teach them?

SPEAKER_03 58:39

It's I I don't I don't know how to articulate this the best, but I guess um what I would say it's almost like there's the advice I want to give is on two separate edges of of of the endeavors of of music. Like on one hand, uh especially if you want to make a living and you want to gig and you're starting out, um my advice is play anywhere you can. Always say yes. Like do it all. And at least and I do think that that's probably advice that does live through the eras uh from when we were young musicians to where we are today. But in those early days for our band, we we financed our earliest albums by playing the same little uh it was called Fairways Cafe at Mass and Nutton Resort, and it was a TV right above our heads behind us, and uh playing like Lakers games and whatever, and it was a bunch of people watching the game and we're playing right under it. You bring your own PA, you play for three hours, you get 300 bucks, and we did that gig uh however many times we had to to be able to afford putting an album together, right? Like we played that. We also played a bunch of benefit concerts for exposure. You know, we were just trying to get seasoned by playing anywhere, and we were working other jobs, and we didn't know where it would go, uh, but it was key to us eventually becoming a tight unit, and it was also uh, I think an important ethic that nothing was beneath us, and also a lot of those benefits were really meaningful, and without realizing it, they did lead to something else. Um so I guess in one sense, that's my advice is there is nothing beneath you. Uh don't like don't cow at the like what you want me to play at your at what? This is like a you know, whatever, like birthday party, bar mitzvah, uh little, you know, little segment of some salvation army fundraiser, like just just get out there and play. And you never know what's gonna become of it. But uh playing to two or three people, especially in those early days, those two or three people might have somebody in their life who's gonna pay you a bunch to play the wedding uh that's next summer or whatever. So that's where you start. Uh on the other side of the endeavor, when you're creating your art and you're making the music, um, I think that's where it's important not to compromise the reasons you're in this, you know. Uh, I really shudder when I feel like you can hear the algorithmic or the AI mimicry almost of like music that is um influencing itself. Like, I I want to hear you uh create something that is from you. I want to hear you coming from your quietest place in the basement by yourself. I don't want to hear something that you think sounds really close to what Olivia Rodrigo just released or what Taylor Swift's last album. Like, I'm not looking for your mimicry of that. And we all have influences, and maybe again, like people might hear my music and think it's derivative of something that it sort of hears for them. So, so I I'm not put passing judgment on any music that's out there per se, but I I just think and I know for myself the biggest thing that I'm proud of, and again, like I'm not here to say if we had if Rounder Records came to us and said, we want to put out your music on this big, big uh you know, platform, and this is our vision for it, and we want to get millions of people to listen to what you guys are doing. I mean, I'm not here to say I would always be fiercely independent if the right partnership landed in our lap. But what I am really proud of and glad about is that I haven't had to answer to anybody else in what I'm creating and the vision of the music, the messages behind it. I've been able to go from creating in my small studio to playing on big stages without really any other intermediary. And I think those are things that we stand to lose in these times and in with the drive of certain tech companies and the way things are coming into our uh attention, it's important we continue to stay independent with art. And that is your like that's the heart of what you're doing. And so if you find yourself kind of steering towards like, well, I want to play this song because maybe it'll get heard by these people, and all of a sudden I'll be in that same camp or whatever. If it's not coming from a true place within you, you've already kind of lost, in my view, uh the the whole thing. And so, so yeah, that's why I would say it's like on two separate fronts. It's like on one front, do anything and everything, like get out there and play the the farmer's market for 150 bucks. If that, play for tips, busk, do it all. That's to me not selling out at all, but keep the art here and from here. I mean, that's that's where Chapel Roan was, right? Like when we see those videos of her like pounding on the keyboard to nobody, when we see Billy Strings just picking away, like the reason those artists have taken off is because they started from who they were as unique artists. We're not all gonna ever get there or be there. I don't even know that we need to be like, I'm not the I'm not the person who's gonna say, like, manifest it and it's gonna happen per se. I think it's just stay in that lane. Whatever you find, there's something in your voice, something from your artistic self that is gonna be special and unique if you just keep cultivating that, keep watering that soil. Um, that's that's what you have. That's the special sauce that you have to offer. So don't dilute it.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:30

Love takes a twin, reach for the tree, everything, more than a dance, you fly in the trees, been looking for answers, it's everything, everything, everything, everything is easy, everything is easy. Working for funny college degree I find in money that joke is on me. I want some friction, room of confusion, no one's chosen, that's everything, everything, everything, everything is easy, uh-huh. Everything is easy, uh-huh, everything is easy, uh-huh, everything is easy, uh-huh, uh want the friction, room of confusion. No one is chosen, that's what we'll be. I want the friction, choose my confusion. Where to be chosen, that's everything.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:39

Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

unknown 1:07:47

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:51

Uh-huh, yeah, everything is easy. Uh-huh, yeah, everything is easy. Uh-huh. Everything is easy. Uh-huh. Everything is easy. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:16

Wow. Master's class today. Thank you, Trenton Waggler. Thank you for joining us. I really appreciate you. What is the best place people can go to to find out about you, The Steel Wheels?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:31

The Steel Wheels is our handle on all the socials. ThoseFeelWheels.com has all of our tour dates. We're on Patreon. Uh, people can sign up on the email list. Red Wing Redwingroots.com is the festival, and it happens in June every year in the Shenandoah Valley. The lineup for this year is really great. Um and yeah, there's still some tickets left. So maybe we'll see you down there, John. It would be it would be great to have you.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:00

Oh man, that would be so phenomenal. We gotta get Kim. We gotta get my sister.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:07

We gotta get my sister to come to your house and then you guys just drive down.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:12

You know, keep keep the tradition going. That sounds good. I thanks, brother. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:19

John, thank you very much. It was a really fun conversation.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:27

Stay creative, stay after it, stay hired.