Photo by Shervin Lainez
The Lone Bellow
The Lone Bellow
When the Lone Bellow were preparing to hit the road back in February 2020 to promote the trio’s fourth studio album Half Moon Light, the plan for the Americana stalwarts was to hit the road for the traditional kind of extensive tour that founding member Zach Williams was looking forward to sharing with bandmates Kanene Donehey Pipkin and Brian Elmquist and their families.
“We were really excited to get the gang back together and get back on the bus and have fun hanging out,” Williams recalled in a recent interview. “It’s just a fun family environment. These people have become like aunts and uncles to my kids.”
But then COVID-19 hit and the Lone Bellow, not unlike the rest of the world, ground to a halt amid social distancing mandates, mask wearing and the suspension of all nonessential activities, particularly those that involve large groups of people gathering in public. For the band, it meant postponing, canceling and finally booking a handful of outdoor dates for last fall where fans were placed in a socially distanced arrangement.
Busy During the Pandemic
Before that brief outing, the three musicians, who all reside in Nashville, kept up their chops during 2020 as a unit by playing four, half-hour Zoom sessions to groups of 10 fans on Wednesday and Thursday nights during part of the pandemic. It was a suggestion Williams’ musical buddy Joe Pug gave them, who described the experience as being really lifegiving. It’s a sentiment with which Williams readily agrees.
“We meet up in my basement after Brian and Kanene put their kids down and the three of us sing for 10 people on a Zoom call,” he said. “It’s been really cool, man. We’ve got to meet and talk to some die-hard fans that we probably wouldn’t have been able to talk to. I feel like we’ve taken an opportunity to get to know our fans a little better and it’s been a lot of fun.”
During the time of the pandemic lockdown, The Lone Bellow’s creative flow continued unabated. Elmquist released music through a side project dubbed The Joy Club. Williams rented a car and headed down to Fort Worth, TX to work with the White Denim Boys and Robert Ellis. On the non-musical side, the Georgia native indulged in some design-type work with American-made work clothes through a collaboration with an old factory in Bristol, TN called LC King. He’s also spent time with his four kids, aged five to 12, while his wife has been able to start a company, a development he’s excited about.
“I’ve finally had the chance to champion my wife,” he said. “My wife has always been holding down the fort with the kids. Now, I’m home with the kids and she started a company. So it’s been really fun how she took a big risk and she’s having a great time and working with people she loves. We’re very fortunate to be where we’re at.”
‘Walk into a Storm’
The three members of the Lone Bellow had not had many opportunities for extensive family time since releasing their self-titled debut album in 2013, which landed on a healthy number of year-end best album lists that year. A second album, Fake Roses, followed in 2015. It was produced by Aaron Dessner of The National, who also produced Half Moon Light. Sandwiched between those two albums was a third album, 2017’s Walk Into a Storm, on which the trio worked with the very in-demand Grammy-winning producer Dave Cobb.
The downtime caused by the pandemic not only led to quite a bit of creative itch-scratching for Williams (“We’re having some creative juices really flowing right now”), but led to quite a bit of introspection for the father of four.
“I learned a lot about my own anxiety during all of this in a really beautiful way,” he said. “I think I’d gotten pretty wound up. I’d been grinding out shows for close to a decade—trying to get everybody paid and keep the ball rolling. Something like this happens and it’s out of our control and you kind of get your head out of the sand a little bit. You look around and I realized that I’m really grateful for the work I get to do.”
The Lone Bellow perform Nov. 6 at Shank Hall.
