Local band navigates business realities, cutting out white noise

IOWA CITY - On a cold night in the middle of December, four members of the Iowa City band The Feralings stationed themselves in Patrick Brickel's living room, feet tapping on the hardwood floor during their regular Wednesday night rehearsal.

In the dining room, Brickel's dog laid quietly on a pillow. His wife and daughter have taken a trip to a local taqueria during the band's two-hour takeover of Brickel's home.

The Feralings was started by Stacy Webster, 49. and Brickel, 47. The two had played together in the Mayflies, a popular Iowa City band that performed a lot of Americana but also delved into roots rock, country, bluegrass and punk phases.

The Feralings formed in 2012 after the Mayflies disbanded. Brickel and Webster brought in Benj Upchurch, 36, a former Mayflies member, and Nicole Upchurch, 35, member in the all-female Eastern Iowa band Awful Purdies.

During the Dec. 14 rehearsal, the group practiced for their New Year's Eve show at Gabe's, a bar on East Washington Street in Iowa City.

They only needed the light of the Christmas tree and a lamp to see the strings on their instruments. While Webster strummed his acoustic guitar and Benj played the mandolin, Brickel stood, playing his upright bass, which he believes was made in the 1940s.

On a chair in the corner, Nicole plucked her banjo, an instrument made in 1902 that she lovingly calls 'the White Lady.”

She sang 'Lila,” a tune the Mayflies first played as a rock song. The Feralings have adapted it to a more Americana sound.

Nicole's voice is slightly breathless, warm and uncontrived enough to draw in her audience after only a few lines.

CHANGING TUNES

The Feralings are a band in their second incarnation.

In 2012, the group rehearsed multiple times a week and began to produce their first album in Brickel's basement recording studio. But in 2013, personal lives became more demanding and Brickel moved away for a job.

Last year, he returned to Iowa City, and the group wants to have their first album out within the next few months.

'Everything sat on ice for a while,” Brickel said 'At this point we just want to get done because it's way overdue. I feel like we're all ready to just pound out the next one.”

They're developing their brand and publicizing themselves in a community where the memory of the Mayflies is prominent. Though the majority of the Feralings played in the Mayflies at one time or another, they broke out from the Mayflies' shadow, picking a new band name.

It was a dicey move for a band seeking to get back to the Americana, country and rock-inspired music the Mayflies first played, Brickel admitted.

On New Year's Eve, Webster is playing in one of his other bands, Winterland, a Grateful Dead tribute group. The Feralings also are playing that same night at Gabe's, performing a few originals mixed in with adapted songs from the Mayflies.

'I thought it would be a nice way to get some Feralings songs in front of a Winterland crowd,” Webster said. 'That's going to put our music hopefully in the ears of a lot of people who might not have stumbled upon us.

'You have to be kind of crafty about opportunities. Other musicians, they tend to help each other out, breaking into new markets, introducing them to fans. If musicians do that for each other, then everybody benefits.”

And now that the group is putting a new stamp on the Iowa City music scene, they believe they're ready for the next step.

'We're getting our groove back with everything, but we're hitting this point where we realize we're doing this album,” Brickel said. 'We need to figure out what we can accomplish together as a team.”

THE BUSINESS IS THE BAND

As a start-up business, the Feralings are still in the working phase, Brickel said.

Their sound will change after they bring a former Mayflies drummer into their string band. They're working to produce a new album, and they're working to professionalize their business model.

'If the band's playing, it really helps for the band to function as a business so there's a real income,” Brickel said.

'There's all these different aspects of the band, just like any business,” Webster said. 'There's the booking, the back and forth with clubs and negotiating, publicity for shows, website maintenance, poster design.”

Right now, the group doesn't have a goal for their annual income. Brickel said that, 'We'll drain the pot, fill it back up.”

In the past year, Webster and Nicole Upchurch drafted a contract for shows, a solid basis on which to negotiate the price of performances, they said. The Feralings are a certified limited liability company, allowing them to open a bank account in the band's name.

But instead of a tour bus, their instruments, music stands, electrical equipment and other gear are packed into Webster's Jetta. And the group needs to find how to best publicize themselves online so they land venues that bring them notoriety, something they haven't talked much about, Nicole Upchurch said.

'We haven't actually sat down and put down a whiteboard and organized who's doing what,” Brickel said. 'It happened so organically at first. When we first started playing, we were spending so much time on it and just naturally booking shows before life caught up on us.”

They've known other bands with members who started in their 20s and were able to make music their top priority. That doesn't work for Brickel, a natural grocer who used to have a recording studio, Benj, a pottery professor at the University of Iowa, and Nicole, a teacher at Prarie Green School.

'The way our lives are set up, we can't just hop on a bus,” Brickel said. 'We have kids. We have different forms of income, and then this gets wedged in there with all the life responsibilities.”

Webster's only income comes from his music. He plays in several bands and teaches guitar.

'I'm trying to make a go of music full time,” Webster said. 'I have to really think of it as business at this point.

'When I had a regular day job, there was always a lot of dissonance in my life. I had to be at this place 40 hours a week. I was often frazzled. I finally made the leap.

'I realized I was turning down gigs because of work. If I could take every gig that came my way, then maybe I could make money.”

And though the Feralings play across Iowa and have traveled as far as Eastern Wisconsin to play in the Kickapoo Country Fair, Webster said they need to have clear goals.

The album is one of those goals that will bring the band to the next level, Brickel said. Nicole Upchurch said the Feralings knew when they started that they wanted to put out an album.

'It didn't feel like just a project where you would play and be happy with that,” she said.

Webster agreed. 'It seems like when you're putting in the effort to make original music, you really want to craft something that's permanent,” he said.

The Mayflies produced three albums, which helped them secure a spot at South by Southwest, an annual melding of music, film and technology festivals and conferences in Austin, Texas.

Once the Feralings album is finished, it could be used as a promotional tool to draw fans into their shows, Brickel said.

'We have a CD that gets us radio play,” he said. 'That gets us a fan base, and that's where the money would come eventually. As we play appropriate venues, we'll have an income and we'll be able to sell CDs as a promotional tool.”

HUMMING MACHINES

And the album, they hope, will ground the group, providing a point of reference as they expand their reach and sound.

It's titled 'Humming Machines” after the main track of the same name.

Nicole Upchurch came up with the song 'Humming Machines” while in the bathtub.

'I went underwater, and I could hear the hum of my whole house,” she said. 'You know how you can hear things differently under water? I'm just taking this moment to relax and I realized everything still is really humming. I thought, ‘I just need to get away from these humming machines.'”

The eight or nine songs on the CD are mainly acoustic.

'It's the antithesis of the noisy modern world,” Webster said.

Not only is the work of playing in the band and producing an album fulfilling, but Upchurch said it's provided a touchstone around which to orient her life. She said she hopes the Feralings audience finds the same in the album.

'I work with children. We have three children. I play in this band,” she said. 'I do get overwhelmed. That's why I write songs like ‘Humming Machines.' I'm writing songs that people can relate to because it's that shared experience of working really hard and trying to also be true to your creative self. People are happier if they're in touch with their creative selves.

'I find it very fulfilling to hopefully inspire people through playing but also in my work with children. I hope the fact that I am a musician is showing them they can be many things, as well.”

l Comments: (319) 368-8516; makayla.tendall@thegazette.com