The Accidentals are an American female-fronted and multi-instrumental trio formed in Traverse City, Michigan in 2012 including Savannah Buist (lead vocals, violin, viola, ukulele, acoustic/electric guitar, bass, piano, mandolin, and musical saw ), Katie Larson ( lead vocals, accordion, acoustic/electric guitar, cello, ukulele, piano, glockenspiel, bass, and kazoo) and Michael Dause – (drums, percussion, vocals, guitar).

BAND MEMBERS

SAVANNAH BUIST

Savannah was born in Nashville, and she grew up with a father who was a multi-instrumentalist and a mother who was an R&B vocalist. She learned to play the violin at the age of 11 started to improvise with folk, jazz, funk, rock, and reggae, adding viola, mandolin, banjo, Fender basses, and Takamine guitars. By sixteen, she became a player, composer, and arranger and went from writing novels to penning songs, taking inspiration from artists like Neko Case and Andrew Bird.

KATIE LARSON

She grew up in Northern Michigan, and her musical family had a lot of influence on her. In 2006 she started playing the cello, and today she is a multi-instrumentalist that is playing guitar, cello, ukulele, piano, bass, kazoo, and glockenspiel, but also a songwriter and composer who is participating in art, design, film and culinary industry. She graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy in 2014.

MICHAEL DAUSE

He hails from the Detroit area of Michigan. Michael was unlike other kids that played around with videogames, folding drones or doing sports, he started to play drums at the age of two, and in middle school, he learned how to play guitar, and began writing his own songs in ninth grade. He released a couple of solo albums in 2014 and 2017 and joined The Accidentals in 2014.

The genre of the bend is a combination of indie-folk, pop, bluegrass, rock, and classical music, and in 2015 the band delved into blues, rock and roll, and hip-hop musicality, as can be heard in songs such as “Trouble” and “Parking Lot,” as well as in collaborations with artists such as Rick Chyme. The band described their sound as “folk-influenced pop-rock” and by now, they have released three full-length albums, one EP, and two live albums.

INDIE FOLK & INDIE POP

Indie folk is a music genre influenced by folk music with a melody of the acoustic guitar of traditional folk music with contemporary instrumentation, while folk-pop is characterized by the commercial sound of electric guitar and a catchy, harmonized, shorter and softer songs. Some of the popular indie-folk bands are Monsters of Folk, Boy & Bear, Great Lake Swimmers, She & Him, Modest Mouse, The Accidentals and many others.

STORY from the BEGINNING

Savannah Buist and Katie Larson met at their high school in Michigan in 2011, where they teamed up for a class orchestra project; Katie was a cello player and Savannah was sophomore who played the violin. The moment when the two of them made a band was when Larson had visited Buist s home to discuss their project, which was the first time Larson had played a song on a Buist s guitar. They called the band “The Accidentals” because of the accidental note in music, denoted by a pitch that s specified by the most recently applied key signature, but also because of the symbolic meeting of each other.

On May 21, 2012, they released their full – length album called Tangled Red and Blue, which features 13 tracks with folk sounds, with a theme of sexism and feminism.

In April 2013, they opened their campaign to fund their album “Bittersweet” which was a success. The album was released in on June 17, 2013, and was co-produced by Buist and Latson and producers across Michigan, Tennessee, Indiana, and Nashville. In the same period, they collaborated with multiple artists such as Brandi Carlile, Andrew Bird, Dar Williams, The Duhks, Lauren Mann, Ladysmith Bambazo and others.

In 2014 the bend had hired a new member, multi-instrumentalist Michael Dause, and In 2015 they took to Indiegogo to fund their first national tour, the “Making it happen”, that was also a success, as they toured through Chicago, Illinois, Arizona, San Diego, California, Utah, Cave Creek.

During that tour, the band received as one of SXSW’s seven breakout acts out of some 2,200 acts, according to Billboard. They performed alongside Ben Sollee at Chicago’s City Winery and The Wailers at Grand Rapids venue the Orbit Room and even had their first show at folk music venue The Ark on June 7, 2015, as well as at Electric Forest and Blissfest’s respective 2015 iterations. On August 25, 2015, Marshall Crenshaw joined the bend for their first-ever live joint performance during the final Tuesday Evening Music Club show of the summer at Meijer Gardens.

In 2016 The band released two new singles, “Parking Lot” and “Michigan and Again”, that also became their most popular video with over a quarter million views on Facebook and YouTube, reaching No.2 on Reddit s Indie Folk chart. On June 2016 they released the Parking Lot EP on Noise Trade for free download and the EP includes the titular “Parking Lot”, as well as a remixed version of the song featuring rapper Rick Chyme that they call “FRAP”-

On January 9, 2017, they were signed to Sony Masterworks via a feature in Local Spins and announced that the album would feature multiple guest performers, including Jack White bassist Dominic John Davis, Jenny Conlee of The Decemberists, Keller Williams, Kaki King, Lily & Madeleine, and Carbon Leaf. On August 18, 2017, the Accidentals released their third album “Odyssey “via Sony Masterworks and toured throughout the Us and Canada to promote the album that received positive reviews from critics, including PopMatters, All Music, and Local Spins, and in December 2017, ABC News named it one of the best albums of 2017.

In January 2018, they released the video for the song “Earthbound”, and Michigan Radio named them one of the Top West Michigan musicians of 2017. On January 3, 2019, they debuted their December 2018 Audiotree session as a digital release and also released a live EP featuring the songs performed during their session, and a live rendition of “Heavy Flag”. On April 28, 2019, they released a new live album “Live” that combines new songs with covers.

They made their first tour in May 2019, playing shows in Ireland and the UK. Here is just a little of the fantastic atmosphere from the tour, and it would be great to possibly make areal footage with the best drone under $500 of the outdoor concert.