JACKSON HOLE, WYO – Devils Makes Three exists on a primitive wavelength that is at once punky, raw and old-timey with a folk core. Since 2002, the Vermont/Austin trio—guitarist Pete Bernhard, upright bassist Lucia Turino, and guitarist and tenor banjo player Cooper McBean—have been rag-timing their way to the top tier of what has been a strong showing of roots music revivalists in the last decade. Opening the show is indie-rock/alt-country Indiana band Murder by Death. Score this one a sweet Tuesday bill for May.
While the well-rounded Devil Makes Three also dig into jug band, garage-y blues and bluegrass-influenced music, 2018 finds the band expanding into a five-piece with drums and a multi-instrumentalist on baritone guitar and fiddle.
“ We’ve been a band for a long time so we’ve evolved a ton. Now we’re all over the place,” Bernhard told axs.com this past January. “We play some stuff that’s based in old rock and roll, swing jazz, some more blues-based stuff. Everything we do is different. We’ve all evolved as players – doing what feels right. One of the great things about our band is that it’s kind of hard to define what we do. That means you can do whatever you want.”
Devil Makes Three is currently touring in a debut album for New West Records, I’m a Stranger Here, which was produced by Buddy Miller and recorded at Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound in Nashville. Not bad company, though it’s not a surprise since they’ve played some of the industry’s top stages like Newport Folk, Red Rocks, Austin City Limits Festival, Bonnaroo and Lallapalooza. Consider those multi-thousand seat venues versus the intimacy of the Pink Garter.
Devils Makes Three with Murder by Death, at 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Pink Garter Theatre. Tickets are $35.
