Conversations with Adam Carpenter

Today we’d like to introduce you to Adam Carpenter.

Hi Adam, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My journey started in Cincinnati, Ohio and I just seemed to keep moving north. I graduated high school from Lapeer East High and decided to attend Northern Michigan University after that. I met my first wife at NMU in 1990 and eventually got married and had (3) daughters.  I ended up owning a sporting goods store in Marquette and then broadcasting on a local radio station. But I needed more singer-songwriter-type creativity. My music consumption continued while my creative endeavors I explored back in college went dormant.

Fast forward to 2002… I was on the board for our local Fred Waara Chapter of Trout Unlimited. A fellow board member told me about this kid who played the banjo “pretty damn good.” He was a part of the student chapter at NMU. Well one day after a joint TU event, I met the Kuhlman brothers. Jake could definitely rip on a banjo and Jonah was the smoothest yet most aggressive bluegrass rhythm guitar player I had ever played with. We started playing open mics as a trio, even winning a local competition. Eventually, they talked their eldest brother Jason into picking up an acoustic bass and he sang high harmony. Chasin’ Steel (a slang term for steelhead fishing) was born and it took off pretty quick with trips as far south as the Caribbean and as far west as the panhandle of Idaho. It was an amazing experience and it enlightened me to the satisfaction of creating original music with a band. The boys brought my original songs to life and we wrote a few together as well along with some crazy fun bluegrass covers of AC/DC, Snoop Dogg, and The Eagles.

So, I spent the last 20+ years with Chasin’ Steel picking our fly fishing flavored hard-driving slackergrass, writing many of our fan favorited songs along the way. I’ve always been a singer-songwriter first and foremost. But there was another side… the arrangement and recording of original songs in a studio opened my mind’s eye to another creative outlet. I had a strong aptitude for the process and I craved it. Producing or co-producing all three of Chasin’ Steel’s albums, I gleaned invaluable experience. Experience that not only changed the vision and path of my overall journey but has also paid immeasurable dividends with my new project, ACUH.

Changing waters prompted an opportunity for me to pivot one foot into a new project while continuing to perform a handful of shows each year with Chasin’ Steel. We had slowly dwindled down from our high mark of (98) shows in a year down to sometimes as few as (7). I augmented the lessening shows with solo shows and even moonlighted as a karaoke DJ. But it wasn’t enough. I was compelled to pursue my recording artist career independently.

I had a vision… and saw an opportunity to join forces with other key musicians who wanted to share in the journey. Adam Carpenter & the Upper Hand (ACUH) was spawned in 2019 out of a compelling need to arrange, perform and penultimately record a backlog of new material I had been continually composing. I love the writing process. But the strongest juice comes (for me) when you flush out a song with other musicians, arrange it, and take it to the studio. There is no blueprint. And I rarely direct another band member specifically what to play. It is more often than not, a nudge toward a sonic style, texture, or technique. When it comes to creating music, I try to keep an open mind and listen to the ethers of the universe. Why would I not extend the same to my fellow studio musicians. This approach allows their influence and interpretation of my songs to bring them to life. More like a “troubadorian shäman”. To me, it feels like a high-wire act without a net. But when it all comes together… wow what a rush! I also think this is a key to our sound. I haven’t found another way to label it other than, “Frostbitten, Northwoods Country Music.” It’s a bit different in a good way. I liken it to that Southern Rock sound but with a North of the 45th parallel flavoring.  Resolve from hard winters slightly warps you over time and it manifests itself in many ways.  I can hear it in my music and other musicians around me.

This first, and appropriately named ACUH album, “FAITH and FUMES”, has persevered through some significant setbacks with the pandemic, changes in band members, and a lack of budget due to dried-up revenue streams. But somehow, we kept adapting and endured to get to this point. I was compelled to not give up. And with the help of many people, especially my wife and biz partner, Allison, nine out of eleven songs are either mastered or waiting to be. The last two songs need only one or two other tracks laid down and mixed.

Allison has been the key enabler and champion of this project and my vision of making music in a studio again and sharing a little bit of our lifestyle in the U.P. as a result. Having her full support and matching effort has put this project on a much higher track for success… whatever that ends up meaning. But I reckon my music makes her happy. And when she’s happy… it feels like the world is possible to me.

We have three of the newest tracks set to release across all download and streaming platforms in consecutive months starting January 26th, 2023 with “Trailers & Tornados”. Followed by “Gonna Be Alright” on February 24th. And finally, “Walkin’ With Bigfoot” will drop on March 31st. It is our intent at that point to schedule the release of the rest of the album sometime in May. Those six songs include, “About To Shine”, “Copper Queen”, “Moving Waters”, “Answers”, “Own Two Feet”, and “Burn”. The album will also include previously released singles, “Waiting For The Thaw” and “U.P. Life” as a bonus track.

A little more back story on the recording process and how it has evolved mid-stream due to, in most part, the ripple effect of the pandemic on the entire music industry.

When this process was in its infancy, I was encouraged and thankfully obliged the advice to seek out David Mosher to help record, engineer, and co-produce this new project. I knew I wanted a heavy dose of bluegrass instrumentation combined with other styles and instruments and David Mosher is a legit string wizard. He is probably best known as a dynamite fiddle player. As well as mandolin, banjo, bass, keys, acoustic guitar (and probably a bunch more I don’t even know about) all at a pro-grade level.  He created a searing electric guitar lead part on “Waiting For The Thaw” that is indescribably perfect to me. It still gives me goosebumps when I hear it. That’s the real magic.

But even more than David’s monstrous multi-instrumental talent, he has a wonderful producer’s ear and vision. His fingerprints are all over this album like magic sonic pixie dust. We completed recording tracks to two songs just before the pandemic hit. Eventually, we worked a bit back and forth 300 plus miles apart and found a way to get “Waiting For The Thaw” (August 2020) and “U.P. Life” (Oct 2021) mixed, mastered, and released.

Looking back now, it’s a wonder the whole thing didn’t nose-dive into oblivion. The project hit several other stumbles and stalls until fellow troubadour, Matt Sayles, of Philville Records told me about this legit audio producer dude that was born and raised in Marquette, moved away 20 years ago after graduation, and came back to raise a family. His name was Ryan Staples, and he was responsible for producing Mike Waite’s first and second albums, which I love! Although Ryan jokes at the raw simplistic manner in which his first album was captured versus the second. When I first met him, Ryan was approximately half completed with a pro-level custom built  recording studio with multiple rooms all soundproofed, baffled, and tuned. In early summer 2021, I reached out to Ryan and he gave the band a tour of the half-finished rooms and told us about his vision. He also let us know he wouldn’t be ready to start recording any projects there until late winter 2022. So, we waited… until late March 2022 when Ryan said it was finally go time. ACUH was to be the first legit project at the newly constructed, yet still unfinished, Dead River Sound in Marquette, Michigan. If we were cool with some rough edges, the live room and control room were set to record.

We soon found out how “legit” Ryan was, having worked at THE ONION as the audio producer and multiple studios around the Chicagoland area. He spends his daytime work hours as the audio producer on many TV shows and even a feature-length film once in a while. Ryan also records many of the largest music festivals and stages around the country in a mobile recording truck. Coachella, Lollapalooza, Stage Coach, Austin City Limits, Newport. So yeah… the real friggin’ deal… now in Marquette, MI.

We recorded the rhythm section altogether and later did final vocals and other instrument tracks. Trevor Rosten (drums) Alex Polkinghorne (bass) and I (acoustic guitar and tele) plus my scratch vocals. It was as if the universe sent a conduit for the creative ethers right into that studio. Song after song, it only got better and better as we laid down 9 new tracks over a period of several months. The drums sounded amazing in the live room and Ryan tweaked here and there with baffling and multiple microphone experiments. He also has some great amps and preamps that are perfect for our needs.

After some quick mixes (which were dynamite) we brought in Jake Kuhlman for some banjo, baritone banjo, and baritone guitar parts. David Mosher became lightly available again and came through (remotely) for some excellent fiddle work including magnificent twin fiddle parts on “Own Two Feet”. The pipeline of creativity flowed and I ended up contacting an old musician friend, Kyle Bledsoe. We met almost a decade ago when he was playing Bluesfest in Marquette with Biscuit Miller Band. I ran sound for them and saw immediately, Kyle was a killer lead guitar player. I sent him the latest mix I had of “Moving Waters” and the only direction given was, “put some Warren Haynes-type stank all over it”. Boy did Kyle deliver… and then some. I have also been obsessed with having a Hammond B-3 with a Leslie sound on this record. What I didn’t know was there was a charter fisherman in Marquette that was a great keys player. And man was I visibly excited to hear that “cougar scream” when Captain Tom Tarkelson laid down some amazing B-3, Klav, and piano on two-thirds of these tracks. I also was pleased to get killer pedal steel parts from Gerry Kippola and Larry Labeck on several songs respectively. Alex’s sister Kelly (Bucholtz) sang multiple, rich female vocals parts as the two siblings surgically carved up my songs with different harmonies.  I am especially fond of their “countrypolitan” harmony work on “Own Two Feet”.

There may be a guest musician, or two, yet to appear on this album with only two tracks to complete still. But I would be remiss if I didn’t save a gigantically important paragraph (or two) for my musical and piscatorial brother, William Arnold. Many of these songs were co-written with Bill. And he has been an honorary member in both Chasin’ Steel and now ACUH with incredible dobro and lap steel chops on many of these songs, including tracks Bill did not co-write with me. Bill has been a pillar of support and creative energy as we both navigate the music industry in this new era of digital streaming consumerism. We spend many hours on the phone consulting daily with each other about song ideas, ASCAP and music distribution, and content bullshit to feed algorithms the best we can with limited time and resources. We both literally are completing and releasing our independent recording projects within a few months of each other. Interestingly, Bill’s version of “Trailers & Tornados” is a more “roadhouse”, George Thoroughgood style. I mean… it rocks! Look up One Ton Trolley. And… you’re welcome!

Our friendship was forged more than a decade ago in boats and on the banks of various trout streams across Michigan. Our shared appreciation of fly-fishing, bourbon (fine or otherwise), culinary grilling arts, and music mostly from a songwriters perspective, put our collaboration on a fast track to a rare creatively connected ride. Even at a great distance most of the time, Bill and I completed a good amount of our favorite original material. And I don’t see it slowing down. We already have a handful of new songs and working concepts in progress. So… who knows. Maybe our best collaborations are still yet to come. Regardless, it’s been a crazy ride watching these songs evolve from cradle, to digital, and (hopefully) vinyl. Think about the irony in that sequence.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I think I should start with the challenge of managing limited time and limited resources. Moving the career needle of a musician in a significant way takes ample amounts of both and effort can only make up for so much of the lack of resources.

The pandemic withstanding with it’s own set of major challenges, this has been a tumultuous time for musicians. Starting this new album just before it and deciding to release two of the completed tracks during it was less than ideal. But we decided we had to at least try to get some momentum for more work to be done.

Now, our main challenges stem from a shift in the paradigm to digital music consumption. It is content driven and the more you can feed all these algorithms, the more traction you can get and, in theory, get your music into the ears of the right people who will enjoy and appreciate it. But the payoff (financially) isn’t there until the numbers seem almost unattainable. Which is a great segue to plug the best way to help artists is to actually download the songs, buy physical media and of course any other merch that appeals to you. We have our music ready to download on our website at www.acuh906.com. Buying anything off our online store, or in person at a show, significantly helps. But even if you’re a streaming consumer only, please share links to our music on your social media channels. That helps us too and it’s free. Oh yeah… use our songs for your Reels and Tik Toks too… eh!

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I spend my daytime hours splitting efforts between my music career and creating The Outdoor Show on a local station, 103.3 FM WFXD from 3-7pm with a “Best Of” on Saturday mornings from 8am – 10am. You can tune in online at wfxd.com.

I started broadcasting in 2008 and I fell in love with it. I feel like it helps connect both my music and outdoor communities. Radio is a great media for “on the go” people in the outdoors. The Outdoor Show is a mix of music and interviews with local DNR folks, bait shops and guides. I also like to share stories from women and children in their outdoor endeavors and achievements.

The music on my show is a cornerstone. I take it very personally and I tend to walk a fine line with management on the amount of new pop country releases that are played on my show. I hand program about 8 songs an hour interspersed with two outdoor reports. It is a combination of some new country, some old country, bluegrass and lots of alternative country artists most of which are not on major labels.

My evenings lately are split between the studio at Dead River Sound and performing either solo or with ACUH. Making time for more writing has been a challenge with the recording process and all the back-end business that goes along with it.

I call all of this “work.” And I treat it as such with as much discipline as I can muster. Most of my weekdays are filled with “work” hours between 8am and 11pm. And I could use more.

I also have plans for a really cool video podcast called OUTDOOR JOURNEYS that is set up in my fifth wheel… so it’s mobile.

But I’ll need to be able to afford a full-time producer at that point.

What were you like growing up?
I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and I spent my time around southern Ohio catching fish, frogs and crawdads when I wasn’t playing hockey or swimming or just playing kick the can with the neighborhood kids. Much of my early love of the woods and water was because of my grandpa taking me to Rocky Fork Lake and Winton Woods to fish and feed ducks. I also was exposed at a young age to many forms of music. My parents have a rather diverse taste in music that most definitely rubbed off on me. We listened to classical music one night a week at family dinner and I became a bass player in the 4th grade Orchestra. But my parents were also into bluegrass music and bluegrass festivals actually creating one in our neighborhood. This manifested deeply in my long-standing romance with bluegrass music. I also vividly remember hearing soundtracks to movies like Rocky and Saturday Night Fever. Plus, records and 8 tracks of Crosby Stills and Nash to the Doobie Brothers and America were right next to Glen Campbell, Flatt and Scruggs, Handel’s Water Music and Queen.

Dan and Barb chose to move us to Lapeer, Michigan when I was 12 and this is where my love of the outdoors took an affirming leap forward. The tracts of contiguous public land and lakes more than quadrupled from what was available to me in Southern Ohio. My mother was a teacher and my dad worked in the automotive manufacturing supply chain. I worked at several of these manufacturing plants as a part timer and met some really cool people. But I knew for me, that type of work would rob my soul. I needed more creativity in my daily grind.

But for a teenager working part time, I had some scratch to spend. And my expendable income priorities were: gas, music, fishing and skiing. And boy did I have a music collection. First it started on cassettes and then CD’s.

After high school, I decided to apply to Northern Michigan University in Marquette, MI. Once my admission was a go, I visited the campus in Marquette and it was all over but the permanent address switch at the Secretary of State. I remember the day I was leaving for NMU and my dad looked at my bronco packed to the gills and asked the rhetorical question, “Son are you going to college or camp?” Rods, reels, waders, tackle, skis, snow shoes, shotguns, rifles, an old beater guitar, camping gear… you get the idea. To say I felt like I was finally home would be cliché yet literal. The rugged forested mountains that received more than 200+ inches of snow from the largest freshwater lake in the world, captivated me. The soul cleansing power of Mother Superior was undeniable. I have had the privilege to see much of this country and a few more places around the globe. And the 906 is where I was always supposed to lay down roots.

Eventually, I graduated NMU with a degree in Public Relations on the six-year plan [sarcasm] and it was no wonder why.

My U.P. adventures were always accompanied by music and I began to experiment with acoustic guitars eventually buying my first new one, an Epiphone dreadnought six string. I heard others perform original songs and I began to experiment. These were the seeds of my own songwriting journey. I even joined a country cover band with some old miners up in Ishpeming because I began to crave performing. But I wasn’t good at it yet. I learned a lot, but it wouldn’t be until after a half a decade without performing, or even playing much, that an opportunity would arise that would certainly alter my musical path and state of mind.

So yeah… I’m a Northwoods, hopeless romantic, fly-fishing, singer songwriter, producer, and broadcaster. I’m for anybody… but I know I’m not for everybody. Maybe I should have just started and ended with that and spared you all the in between…

Contact Info:

• Website: www.acuh906.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/acuh906
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/acuh906
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCh1iGHDm3Kt7Yv8DSYb2i4A
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0ddWKv5K0gsAcgf3MDZUCr?si=AAAJcWIHQSmooIbiStDiJA 

Image Credits
Sam Williams Photography