The Barr Brothers band is Andrew Barr, Brad Barr (middle), and Sara Page.
...
The Barr Brothers band is Andrew Barr, Brad Barr (middle), and Sara Page.
Canadian Brad Barr is a folk-rock explorer always seeking creative ways to conjure fresh sounds from traditional sources, and much can be learned from his many discoveries. He and his drummer/multi-instrumentalist brother Andrew are the core of the Barr Brothers with harpist Sara Page, as well as The Slip with bassist Marc Friedman, and Surprise Me Mr. Davis with keyboardist Marco Benevento.
But the Barr Brothers has been the focus, since its debut album in 2011 led to high-profile television and radio appearances including The Late Show and KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic, concerts with the likes of My Morning Jacket and Emmylou Harris, and headlining the Montreal International Jazz Festival. In 2014, the breakthrough release, Sleeping Operator, racked up tens of millions of combined streams, and the Barr Brothers are back with Queens of the Breakers [Secret City], weaving a tapestry made of classic folk, psychedelia, and garage rock.
The video of your recent TEDx Talk is insightful because it’s just you and your acoustic gear—other than the solidbody Danelectro used for your signature “Vibration Transference” trick at the start. How does that work?
I learned that from watching a movie called Latcho Drome, which has no dialogue, but it’s worth checking out, because it chronicles the path of gypsy music from its Indian origins to France where it becomes hot jazz, and down to Spain where it becomes flamenco. There’s a scene where a Romanian violinist Nicolae Neacsu from the group Taraf de Haïdouks attaches a single horsehair taken from his bow to a violin string via a little knot. As he pulls his fingers down the horsehair, the frictional vibration transfers to his violin string,