Arizona has its fair share of folk and bluegrass bands, but none can hold a candle to the spicy flare of the Haymarket Squares.
The Phoenix favorite has been revving up audiences for the last 10 years with their catchy tunes and sometimes incendiary lyrics. They do not shy away from politics or calling out the wrongs they see — and they always do it with their signature biting humor.
Their sound is something in between bluegrass roots and punk rebellion. They call it "punkgrass" and they played some of it for the latest Tiny Desert Concert.
The Show sat down with two of the band’s vocalists — Marc Oxborrow and Mark Sunman — to talk more about their sound.
Full conversation
MARK SUNMAN: I started writing acoustic punk songs on the mandolin, and it sounded kind of bluegrassy, so I just went with it and then started calling it punkgrass. I’m sure somebody else called it punkgrass before I did.
But I think we’re the true innovators, pioneers, developers of the sound.
GILGER: Define it for us. So I mean, I get the punk and the bluegrass thing, but what exactly does that mean to you?
SUNMAN : Well, having written many booking emails, the way we usually describe it is a marriage of the kind of harmonies and acoustic instruments of bluegrass with the kind of anger, politics and humor of punk.
GILGER: Humor especially. But there’s a lot of politics in what you write.
SUNMAN: Oh, absolutely.
GILGER: How has that shifted over the years? And what does the current kind of political climate do for what you’re writing?
MARC OXBORROW: A lot. We could make a whole album based on what’s happened, you know, yesterday, probably. But…
SUNMAN: I mean, I think obviously there’s no there’s never been a shortage of subject matter. It was a little more interesting, maybe, or we were doing something perhaps a little more different when we started, because we became a band right as Obama became president. And so there was, at least in some quarters, a great deal of hope and kind of encouragement by political developments.
And part of what we were doing was still saying, like, “There’s still a lot that’s really wrong and really deserves your notice and gets us worked up, and maybe you should be too.” It’s almost felt like in the last couple of years that part of our job is done for us, because it’s hard to avoid politics, and it’s hard not for almost any thinking person to be affected and, we would hope, angered by the turn that the country has taken.
GILGER: So you were protesting things even when a lot of other people weren’t. But now a lot of people are protesting, do you think that you’re just kind of adding to the flames?
OXBORROW: It’s weird. We’ve already written about every issue there is. It’s exhausting.
GILGER: Is this still what is pushing you forward and driving those lyrics?
SUNMAN: For example, one of the songs that we’re going to do today, — one of my more recent compositions — I called it like a post-apocalyptic romance. And it sort of just looks at a slightly grim view of where this all may end up 30 years from now.
So in some ways, we’re kind of — at least personally, I’m kind of finding other ways of addressing concerns and also maybe sort of shrugging a little bit and saying the point of no return may have been passed. What are things going to look like when the consequences of our actions, or the actions last, you know, 20 years come home to roost?
GILGER: All right, so we’re going to have you play a song. Which one are you going to play for us?
OXBORROW: This is a little number called “The Water’s on Fire.”
(The Haymarket Squares play “The Water’s on Fire”)
GILGER: And you guys have played over 500 shows I’ve read — which is probably more now — and that’s just a ton over a decade. And you’ve toured, you’ve traveled, you play everything in town. I wonder how you keep that energy, how you keep that fire and that great time in those performances?
SUNMAN: I think some of it is just the nature of the music itself. It’s not a — I mean, I suppose it can be — but our brand of bluegrass is not a kind of a reflective, slow, mournful brand. It’s kind of just by definition, energetic and fast.
OXBORROW: And it helps it’s got elements of punk rock in it too. You know, it kind of just adds that fire and energy to it.
GILGER: Yeah, definitely.
OXBORROW: We’re not really singing about willow trees and whiskey. Usually.
GILGER: So you guys have said that getting huge on a national scale has never been the goal of the band, right? So I wonder, what is the goal when you’re looking forward and looking at what’s next and continuing to play so often, what do you want to get out of this?
SUNMAN: Wait, did we say that? We would not object to getting national recognition or having somehow great sums of money come our way for our efforts.
OXBORROW: I think the only way a band could stick around for this long is if the actual process of making music and the actual act of making music was fun, was pleasurable. I mean, I still get a thrill when we nail a harmony for the first time in practice. … My colleague here, Mr. Sunman, writes four-part harmonies for us. And when we nail one, there’s something actually physical about it that feels good.
And so the kind of endorphin high from playing shows, and the sort of both intellectual and physical and emotional satisfaction of putting together a song that fits and sounds good — I think the actual act of music creation and performing is still fun. So it hasn’t become — I mean, occasionally feels that way — but it almost overwhelmingly, it still doesn’t feel rote.
GILGER: And you’re gonna take us out on a song. Which song is this?
SUNMAN: This one’s called “Dance on the Ash.”
(The Haymarket Squares play “Dance on the Ash”)
GILGER: That is Phoenix’s own punkgrass band, the Haymarket Squares. You can see our video of them playing at The Farm on our website, and you can see them at Last Exit Live on May 10, where they will be recording a live album.
