An Apple a Day
Wiseapple returns to Boone for back-to-back concerts April 18-19

By Frank Ruggiero

Established in 1998, area bluegrass outfit Wiseapple has seen bushels of change in its hometown of Boone.

Like Boone, however, the band has remained fundamentally the same – the gang’s all here, but with a more developed sense of self; in this case, sound.

After a couple years of laying low, the Wiseapple bunch is back in Boone for a two-concert series April 18 and 19, at the Boone Saloon and DragonFly Theater and Pub, respectively.

“It’s going to be great, like a homecoming,” bassist Ben McPherron said. “It’ll be real exciting to see some old friends who haven’t seen us in a few years, and pick up right where we left off.”

The band left off in 2007, when guitarist Tim Marsh, banjo player Brian Swenk, mandolin player Jon Hill and McPherron went their separate ways to pursue other projects.

McPherron plays for reggae band Hope Massive, also from the High Country, and Marsh with Get Lost, an Asheville-based jam band. Hill moved to Chapel Hill, where he and his wife play the local bluegrass circuit, while Swenk is pursuing a different career.

“But most of us have stayed real busy with music and other projects,” McPherron said. “Last year, we played only one gig, and the year before that three or four. The year before that was more like 10. But we’ve never been completely away from it; we’ve always had something in the works.”

The band’s first inception was in 1998, founded in Boone by Marsh and Swenk. It wasn’t until 2001 that McPherron became involved, which he attributes to Boone’s local “pickin’ circles.” At the time, Swenk had a regular Thursday night gig at the Caribbean Café on King Street, now the Boone Saloon.

“The first night he didn’t have a bass player, he knew I had an upright bass and asked if I wanted to do it,” McPherron said. “I’d never played bluegrass before, but I was like, ‘Sure, what the heck.’ I just learned how to play bluegrass on stage at Caribbean on Thursdays.”

Since Swenk and Marsh had already established Wiseapple, they brought McPherron and Hill into the mix and started hitting the local concert scene, playing every Friday at Black Cat Burrito.

“We built that up, and it got really big,” McPherron said. “Then we’d play gigs all over the southeast.”

Their popularity and musicianship even earned a chance to play with Mark Schimick, mandolin player for Larry Keel and Natural Bridge.

While Wiseapple’s obvious bluegrass influences the usual suspects – Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, Doc Watson and Jimmy Martin – McPherron said they’re also heavily influenced by the talents of jazz pioneers like John Coltrane, Charlie Parker and Chick Corea. Rock and improvisation also plays a role, with tones of the Grateful Dead, Neil Young and Bob Dylan jamming their way into the music.

“We’ve tried to bring the improvisational aesthetic of jazz and the extended Grateful Dead theme, where you just let it go where it goes,” McPherron said. “We’ve been playing together for so long that we’ve developed that telepathy on stage, where you hear where each other’s going to go, and we don’t have to talk about it.”

This offers a fresh, organic aspect to Wiseapple’s live performances, where the musicians can break out melodies on stage that weren’t planned in advance.

“Just the fusion of our instrumentation, and all the different styles of music we try to fit in; we’ve found a nice way that works with us to do that,” McPherron said. “Relax, listen to each other, hear what’s happening and make things happen. That’s when we realized it was something special we shouldn’t let fall by the wayside.”

Last year, Wiseapple’s only gig was held at Banner Elk Park, as part of the town’s concert series, and the band members were glad to see that connection was still there.

“It was the kind of situation where we got on stage, there was a song list, and we really hadn’t played any of those songs together in a year,” McPherron said. “It was just amazing how well those songs came off, and it was much tighter than if we’d rehearsed our butts off. We just had so much fun that we decided we really had to do more of it. We’re at the point now where it’s just a ton of fun for all of us.”

Wiseapple is planning more “mini-tours” for the year, consisting of four to five concerts per tour every month or two.

“As long as we can do that, we’re going to keep doing it,” McPherron said.

And the group’s also doing it for a good cause. The April 19 concert at DragonFly will benefit the area’s Community Based Doula Program. Doulas are women who assist women during labor and after childbirth, and the local program strives to raise awareness about doulas and make their services accessible to the community.

Wiseapple plays the Boone Saloon Saturday, April 18, at 10:30 p.m. The DragonFly concert on Sunday, April 19, starts at 6:30 p.m.

The Boone Saloon (www.boonesaloon.com) is located at 489 W. King St. in downtown Boone, and the DragonFly (www.dragonflytheater.com) is located at 215 Boone Heights Drive, near the Boone Bowling Center.

For more information on Wiseapple, visit www.wiseappletree.com.