Pygmalion Music Festival has been instrumental in introducing fresh faces amongst the indie rock crowd to Champaign-Urbana over the last eight years. As a festival attendee at almost all of those events, there have been some sets that have really stuck with me—Purling Hiss in 2012, Titus Andronicus in 2008, and Maserati in 2009. The show that pretty much cemented my love of the festival, however, was way back in 2006 at the Canopy Club. Margot and the Nuclear So & So’s headlined while Murder By Death and Shipwreck were the openers. Coincidentally, and maybe somewhat ironically, Murder By Death will once again be opening up for the headlining act at the Canopy Club on Thursday and a few of the members from Shipwreck will be there as well, albeit performing in the Dirty Feathers.
The gravelly-voiced frontman for Murder By Death, Adam Turla, spoke with me over the phone while the band was in the Pacific Northwest a few weeks ago and the band generally seemed excited to come back for their third stint at the festival.
Part of that excitement comes from building a fan base in Champaign-Urbana when Murder By Death first started as a band in 2000. “Our first show outside of Bloomington was in Champaign,” Turla says with a laugh. “I think we got 50 bucks or something and a few people were there and we thought we made it.” That preceded the band’s first record, Like The Exorcist, But More Breakdancing, which was released on Eyeball Records in 2002.
After touring some more, Murder By Death recorded a second album on Eyeball, Who Will Survive, and What Will Be Left of Them? The sophomore release featured guest spots from post-hardcore and more mainstream friends Gerard Way (My Chemical Romance) and Geoff Rickly (Thursday).
Both of those records featured dark lyrics, strained vocals from Turla, crunching guitars and cello. A combination that’s been hard to describe by music critics and fans since.
“It’s funny, man. We’ve been called literally everything,” Turla tells me. “In the last year or so I’ve read us described as ‘hard rockers,’ ‘alt-country,’ and my favorite, ‘indie darlings’.”
The songwriter loves that the band can’t exactly be pinned down, and chuckles at the fact that someone referred to them as darlings, “We’ve been around more than ten years and have had no radio play. We’re not darlings by anyone’s standard. But I like it that way.”
While critics struggled to categorize the first two records, Murder By Death would make a leap in an slightly different direction on 2006’s In Boca al Luppo. This record saw Turla drop the post-hardcore vibe in his voice and go in a Johnny Cash-esque direction. It suited the band’s midwestern gothic vibes and has stuck since then. The tour in support of In Boca al Luppo saw the band arrive for the previously mentioned show at the Canopy Club, Murder By Death’s first trip to Pygmalion Music Festival.
“You know, it was cool to get on to that big stage,” Turla recalls. “I think our last shows at the Courtyard coffee place were getting out of hand and too many people were there. It was obscene really.”
Despite the smaller shows being quite crowded, it didn’t bother the band much that they weren’t headlining their own show for Pygmalion in 2006, nor are the veterans complaining about not headlining a show in 2013.
“I almost prefer opening for bands,” he says while the cellphone service fades in and out. “Probably 90% of our first 4 or 500 shows were opening for people.”
It’s hard to believe that a band that’s been around this long and has had the successes Murder By Death has had is totally fine with just being the opening act. But Turla really means it.
“It’s nice playing for a bunch of people that adore you,” he assures me. “But we gained a lot of our fans by just picking up a few here and a few there. We really had to work early on and I still feel that way.”
After releasing their sixth album, Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon in September 2012, Murder By Death toured heavily to promote it. In fact, the tour that brings the Hoosiers to Urbana on Thursday night is still technically touring in support of it. It would make sense that at some point they’d get tired of playing the same songs over and over.
Turla confesses, that’s true, to a certain extent, “We try to play something different every night. We’ll go on tour and realize we haven’t played 8 songs in a few years and now we try and play five of those a night. Things like that keep it interesting for us and the fans.”
Speaking of the fans, Murder By Death actually funded the last album with Kickstarter donations from fans around the world. It was a weird experience, Turla explained, because “we wanted to make sure the perks were good. We didn’t want to look like we’re just money grabbing.”
The band made themselves ultra-accessible to their fans for the Kickstarter. One bidder donated enough to earn a trip to Ohio to ride roller coasters with the band at Cedar Point. The whole crew faced a midday rain delay that drove them to wait out the storms in the amusement park’s bar.
“I didn’t even know they had bars,” Turla laughs. “After it cleared up, though, a few pints in, riding the fastest roller coaster in the country is really an experience.”
Speaking of booze, it’s a pretty important part of their lyrical content as evidenced by the country-influenced “As Long as There Is Whiskey In the World” from 2010’s Good Morning, Magpie.
The boozy nature of the show should fit in quite nicely after a loud and similarly liquored up set from the Dirty Feathers for the band’s third appearance at Pygmalion. Turla recalls the first two appearances with fondness and is excited about round three.
“It’s fun to see something like this grow,” he says. “Seeing the fest expand and evolve along with our careers is cool. And seeing Seth [Fein] make this his life just awesome, we’re looking forward to it.”
While you can expect a raucous set from Murder By Death on Thursday, the band appreciates when the crowd reciprocates the energy.
“We always play better when the crowd brings it.”