Music Review: Steam Powered Airplane

Steam Powered Airplane is an excellent four-piece bluegrass band. They consist of four vocalists who play guitar, banjo, full upright bass and mandolin. What makes this bluegrass band a bit odd is the fact that they come from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which is not necessarily associated with bluegrass as much as Shenandoah cities, but their sound is pure and authentic.

The band members are Uriah Price with lead vocals and superb skills on the mandolin, along with Tucker Smith on the banjo. Cody Walters plays the full upright, and can really bang on those strings during solos, much to the pleasure of the crowd. “Tall” John Degrew plays guitar like a virtuoso and adds his instrument’s beautiful voice to this band to round out the quartet.

My wife and I were lucky enough to catch this band during a stopover on their East Coast tour, where they played at the Buffalo Wings House in Herndon, VA. For a band that is used to the larger crowds of music festivals, they maintained a professional demeanor with the very small crowd, and they played most of their original music along with a few requests.

The music was awesome. They had a clean performance with crisp notes, accurate rhythm, and a smooth blend of their instrumental voices, despite the 2nd tier microphones, mixing equipment and speakers of the venue.

This band can really work a crowd too with pleasant and humorous banter among the band members to weave a story around their music. They told a hilarious musical story about Ebaying a washing machine and how one of the band members missed the familiar, rhythmic drone of the washer while he was sleeping. They had the small crowd cheering and wishing for more.

I grabbed a copy of their current CD, which features a female ex-band member who played the fiddle and performed lead vocals. While the violin adds much to the current roster of musicians, I daresay that the Steam Powered Airplane has more stage presence without her. Their music is no longer marked by a feminine quality, but is now more akin to a bad-boy fraternity of young rogues. They make bluegrass fun again.

They are winding up their tour of the East Coast, but if you are near Wyoming, you can keep track of their appearances on their official website.