HOW TO SOUND LIKE A 4-PIECE WHEN YOU’RE JUST ONE PERSON AND HAVE NO MONEY: SCAVENGE, BUILD, & WRITE GREAT SONGS

THE SUITCASE JUNKET USES FOUND OBJECTS AS INSTRUMENTS

 

MUSICIAN ALSO A BOOTLEGGER & VISUAL ARTIST

 

When you put on ‘Pile Driver’ (April 21 / Signature Sounds), the new record by The Suitcase Junket, you would think that the band has four members, and yet there’s only one and few overdubs were made. Yes, the Suitcase Junket is a one-man band and a damn good one, with catchy melodies, imagistic lyrics that stick in your consciousness, and enough energy to impress the festival crowds for whom he’s played at Mountain Jam, Joshua Tree, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, and Green River. He calls his sound and ingenuity required to construct it “Swamp Yankee.” However, ‘Pile Driver’s’ constant is the Suitcase Junket’s remarkable songwriting, with rousing choruses underpinned with gritty, distorted guitar and imagistic, evocative verses.

 

It all started with a guitar in a dumpster. “Every spring when the students graduate, a lot of them get rid of stuff. They call it hippie Christmas. I’ve fixed up a dozen bikes and then sold them.” He spied a vintage, Japanese made, acoustic guitar but it was filled with mold. So naturally, Lorenz grabbed it and bought some white vinegar. It resonated best in an open C tuning and he found that his songwriting voice was more focused with the limitations that the guitar provided. It’s also more versatile than he expected, with open chords with a powerful bottom end or slide sounds or he can capo it high on the neck for fingerpicking. Since then, he’s added a chunk of washboard and a pickup to it. The songs that came out of writing on that guitar had a grit and honesty and heart to them and Lorenz began to realize that this was a new project, separate from his former band Rusty Belle. “I’m attracted to music as another aspect of life, not as a fine art, something that you do to survive because you have to.”

 

Though the instruments have developed and several have broke, it began to solidify when he found a double-wide suitcase at a tag sale which is now both the bass drum and throne. “How much noise can I make as 1 person without looping?” Both out of financial necessity and out of aesthetic choice, he began to assemble other found items for percussion. “I’d much rather find a thing that’s more or less itself and beat the hell out of it. Plus, it forces you to be on the edge of your skills. I would add a new thing and then learn a new skill and, in the process, make some interesting mistakes.”

 

He explains the rest of the kit, “My right toe plays high hat. It’s the most nuanced thing about the drum set. On the right toe, is a box filled with silverware, a bottom cymbal which is an old wooden cheese box, and a top cymbal which an eight millimeter film reel. If I stomp the pedal, I get a dark, crunchy sound. My left foot plays a baby shoe [his own] hitting a gas can. I’ve got some galvanized heating duct material that I hammered flat. This one might be the end of the baby shoe. On my left heel is a stainless steel cook pot. I built that on tour down in WV and it’s got a nice pop to it. I built it onto old chair parts. Just a pot. The last thing on my left heel is a circular saw blade, which I use like a crash.”

 

Add to that his technique of Indian-inspired throat singing, which allows him to “solo” by singing two tones at once, and a keyboard that he plays while playing his guitar. Four amplifiers fill out the sound. He has two vocal mics, one a Shure bullet-style mic going into a Vox amp. Two mid-50s Gibson amps, a GA-20 and a Skylark, for both a clean and distorted sound at the same time plus occasional tremolo. He doesn’t use effects pedals, though. He found a two-octave Yamaha keyboard and ran a quarter inch jack off the speaker as there’s no output. It goes into a small, radio solid state amp.

 

For the Suitcase Junket, aka Matt Lorenz, building and fixing and making stuff is just part of life. “I was making my own freaking alcohol. Part of it was this ideal of using what you find. We throw away too much in this society. Why consume more when we already have more than enough?” He pauses and grins, saying,“Aside from all of the sonic ideals and idealistic thoughts, it was fun. I like making shit.”

“BEST OF 2016” (SPOTIFY) ACT SUITCASE JUNKET OFFERS NEW ALBUM ‘PILE DRIVER’ APRIL 21, 2017 ON SIGNATURE SOUNDS

GRITTY 1-MAN BAND PLAYS “SWAMP YANKEE” WITH FOUND INSTRUMENTS AND HARMONIC THROAT SINGING

Suitcase Junket – the remarkable act using mainly found instruments who was named to Spotify’s Best of 2016 Folk & Americana playlist – will release his new album ‘Pile Driver’ April 21 on Signature Sounds. He’s also been named as one of “public radio’s favorite sessions.” The Suitcase Junket’s stellar songwriting with earworm choruses and muscular, gritty verses puts him in a company of shining lights of Americana and rock & roll like Shovels & Rope, M. Ward, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes, Sam Amidon, Flat Duo Jets, and The Record Company (for whom he has opened shows).

The one-man band – aka Matt Lorenz – calls his music “swamp Yankee,” with a muddy, southern aesthetic joining with pioneer ingenuity. The Suitcase Junket originated after he found a Japanese-made guitar in a dumpster and cleaned out the mold with white vinegar. It sounded best in an open tuning (he’s now settled on open C), which reminded him of early 20^th century field recordings and focused his songwriting for the project. He now plays the guitar simultaneously with  a kick attached to a double-wide suitcase on which he sits; a high hat that features a box of silverware and an 8 millimeter film reel; a baby shoe hitting a gas can; a cooking pot; and a circular saw blade. The upcoming ‘Pile Driver’ tour will see him add a keyboard as well.

While singing verses and choruses with a powerful voice, he has also taught himself South Indian throat singing, a technique by which one can sing a low droning note and get a high harmonic. After five years of practice in the car and shower, it sounds absolutely otherworldly. Onstage, he sings this through a bullet-style microphone that hides the drone note amidst the guitar’s amplification but lets through the overtone glide atop the mix. This is shown at its apex with the intro to the “Beta Star” or the break in “Ten Rivers.”

However, ‘Pile Driver’s’ constant is the Suitcase Junket’s remarkable songwriting, with rousing choruses underpinned with gritty, distorted guitar and imagistic, evocative verses. The album kicks off with the modal “The Next Act” and rides the high peaks of the garage rocker “Jackie,” the punk-blues tale of an affair gone wrong “Evangeline” and back-against-the-wall narrative of “Why So Brief,” the anthemic “What Was I Gonna Say,” and the inspiring “Seed Your Dreams, ” with its carpe diem message. “Mountain of Mind,” perhaps the album’s most affecting song, a portrait of overcoming an abusive relationship and one’s own self-destructive tendencies. “Beta Star” tackles the first pangs of love and featuring an alternating keyboard and guitar part played simultaneously. He shows himself a master fingerpicking guitarist on “Busted Gut” and “Ten Rivers.” The album then closes with the great campfire song “Red Flannel Rose,” finding the Suitcase Junket singing of perseverance.

Suitcase Junket is an artist to watch in 2017. Boston's NPR station WBUR has said, "It's an astonishing thing to watch Matt Lorenz perform... What’s impressive is not merely the complexity of the endeavor—Lorenz sings, strums and plays up to four instruments with his feet at once—but how utterly he is able to transcend the mechanical minutiae." Already, The Suitcase Junket has opened tour dates for Lake Street Dive, The Record Company, Jackie Greene, the Suffers, and Los Lobos and played Mountain Jam, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Joshua Tree, and Green River festivals.

Suitcase Junket Winter Tour Dates

January 12 - Abilene Bar & Lounge - Rochester, NY                                  

January 13  Rusty Rail Brewing Company - Mifflinburg, PA                   

January 14 - Club Cafe - Pittsburgh, PA                     

January 15 - House Show - Buckhannon, WV                

January 18 - The Purple Fiddle - Thomas, WV                         

January 19 - The Burl - Lexington, KY                       

January 20  Bar None - Springfield, IL                       

January 21 - Private Show - Johnston, IA                         

January 22 - The Warming House - Minneapolis, MN                

January 24 - Off Broadway - St Louis, MO                        

January 26  - Cafe Carpe - Fort Atkinson, WI                            

January 27 - SPACE - Evanston, IL

January 28 - Tanners Grill & Bar    Kimberly, WI                        

February 01 - Atwood's Tavern - Cambridge, MA                    

February 08 Atwood's Tavern - Cambridge, MA                    

February 15 Atwood's Tavern- Cambridge, MA                        

February 22 Atwood's Tavern- Cambridge, MA