Sarah and Austin McCombie, the musical couple behind the North Carolina Americana band Chatham Rabbits, are taking off on a new tour for their upcoming third album, and making a stop at Vienna’s musical institution, Jammin’ Java, on March 27.
Their music is rooted in the North Carolina tradition of bluegrass music, the acoustic, off-beat ballads that have long defined the musical culture of the Appalachian region. Their performance is personal and improvisational, both in the way they perform the songs themselves (like jazz, bluegrass values improvisation and adaptation to the energy of the crowd), and in their on-stage banter, where the character of the band can shine and the audience can connect with them.
“We really let the audience in on the song, what we wrote it about, what our takeaway is from the story. That is so improvisational and different from show to show, so what people see at Jammin’ Java is like its own show. It’s not going to be replicated again another night,” Sarah McCombie says.
The new album, to be released this June, will stand out from their previous albums All I Want From You (2019) and The Yoke is Easy, the Burden is Full (2020), in that the new songs were written more collaboratively. While their method early on had been to have Austin write some and Sarah write others, they’re now creating songs that they wrote together.
On the topic of being business partners and bandmates with your life partner, McCombie says she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“It’s a challenge for sure, but I also think it’s made us really, really strong and resilient and able to tackle anything together. And because Austin and I are very different people, we bring different skill sets to the table,” McCombie says.
This is not the first time they’ll be playing for a NoVA audience; they’ve established a following in Alexandria, playing at Episcopal High School and Christ the King Anglican Church. It is, however, their first time at Jammin’ Java, something McCombie says they’re excited to take on.
“It’s certainly an iconic venue in our eyes, and one of those places that we feel like, as a roots musician, we have to play. It’s kind of one of those resume-building, bucket-list venues, that we feel like – it’s one of those places that you have to play if you’re going to be a musician on the East Coast,” she says.
This tour follows a series of unexpected changes and unconventional shows for the couple. When their 2020 tour, like many other bands’, was suddenly overturned by the pandemic, the pair found themselves across the country with a brand new van and nowhere to play.
Instead of packing up their instruments and waiting it out, they got creative. The duo used solar panels to alter their van so they could use it as a travelling stage, and they made a new type of tour – one where the venue was on wheels and nobody had to stand in a crowd.
The couple would get invited to a neighborhood, arrive in their van, and play a show where their audience stayed safely in their driveways, porches, and lawns. Throughout 2020 and the first half of 2021, Chatham Rabbits played a total of 194 at-home shows throughout North Carolina and Southern Virginia in what they dubbed their “Stay at Home Tour.”
With that unconventional setup, and having formed connections with communities through shows at churches, schools, and other “out of the box” venues, they hope that those fans they’ve made along the way will continue to support them.
“The concert and live music and touring world is still shaky, still not back to normal – much like most industries aren’t back to normal yet,” McCombie says. “But we’re really hoping that when things are safer, when it’s truly safer to return and somewhat back to normal, that those concerts will pay off in ticket sales, and [in] the connections we made with people on the road.”
The tour begins on March 1 in Decatur, Georgia, and will entail over 20 shows throughout the East Coast. Fans of the band can also look forward to their upcoming PBS documentary, On the Road with Chatham Rabbits, which is expected to premiere this spring.
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