Scattered Trees

“If you can hang out for a bit, Alissa will be here soon and so everyone can get in the pictures.”

That’s pretty much the first thing Nate Eiesland of Scattered Trees said to me, and the catalyst for how I thoroughly embarrassed myself not once, but twice, with two of the biggest faux pas one can make, and within five minutes of meeting him: mistaking a woman for a man and not getting the band lineup right.

Not entirely without reason–Alissa Eiesland, normally on vocals and keys, had been delayed in traffic and didn’t make it to the performance at Smith’s Old Bar in Atlanta on 12 August. I had up until then only seen pictures of the band on my iPhone, and without my reading glasses, while stealing quick glances during red lights. So when the curtains opened and I saw Jason Harper in the approximate spot I had seen Alissa, I just thought, “Damn, I have GOT to put a pair of specs in my car.”

Worse than thinking it though, is blurting it out: “Ohhhh, I thought that guy in front TOTALLY didn’t look like his picture.” As the saying goes, hilarity ensued. After the group laugh (in which I wasn’t exactly joining in—being too mortified to do anything except apologize profusely) is when I learned that Alissa and Jason are not, in fact, anything close to resembling twins. With that out of the way, Nate and I talked a little about the music and life on the road while waiting for Alissa to get there.

Scattered Trees hails from Chicago and while lots of bands have a couple of members who are related (Van Halen, Wings, the White Stripes) , or whose members are all related (Jackson 5, the Osmonds), few have two separate sets of related pairs. Nate and Alissa Eiseland are married and Jason and Baron Harper are brothers. Joining them as solo bass player is Ryne Estwing, who if nothing else must be glad he never has to take sides out of familial loyalty.

The band’s first album in 2006, Songs For My Grandfather, was born as a way of Nate dealing with the death of the titular family member, and their latest, Sympathy (released on Roll Call/EMI), from the passing of his father. The band, in fact, had almost split up since their second release (EP Heart of Glass in 2007), but the result of Nate coping with his grief through music brought them back together. Its nine tracks are tributes to someone who is gone backed by clean guitar, mandolin, and keys, with heartfelt at-times almost bare vocals that are personal to the writer and yet feel personal to the listener. Comparisons to Wilco and Elliott Smith are well earned but Scattered Trees is its own. The mournful album opener “Bury the Floors” might lead you to believe this is going to be 33 minutes of being depressed but there are enough upbeat moments in songs like “Four Days Straight” and “Love and Leave” and to balance Sympathy into a fairly well-rounded collection of contemplative, if slightly leaning into sadness, listening.

I mentioned to Nate that the people sitting behind me were talking about how they hadn’t known what to expect when coming out that night. They were at the show because one of their group was a fan but they themselves didn’t know the band at all and basically went because they had nothing else to do and Smith’s in particular is a nice venue to relax and really listen to music, and they were more than pleasantly surprised to discover they enjoyed it so much. Nate broke into a smile and said, “That’s one of the nicest things about touring sometimes in smaller venues, even in the ones that might only get 50 people are in the place: we get to play for people who don’t really like to go see live music and never would go out to a big show. It’s a way to reach people that is more important than is sometimes realized.”

Scattered Trees starts touring again on September 22 at the Pygmalion Music Festival in Champaign, IL, and finishes on November 5 in San Diego. Schedule and tickets on sale now at http://scatteredtreesmusic.com/tour/.

Free download of Four Days Straight.

Sympathy physical album/digital download/bonus tracks/video $14.95; download only/video/bonus tracks $9.99.

Sympathy on iTunes: digital download + bonus remix tracks.

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Outtake: I converted these B&W shots using Topaz Labs new plug-in. It does a pretty nice job so far. I usually use Nik for B&W conversions but Topaz is only $30 until 9/18 (normally $59.99) so I wanted to try it out.