Doors: 6 p.m.
Show: 7 p.m.
All Ages Welcome
No Refunds or Exchanges
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About Fruition:
Three songwriters. Five bandmates. More than 15 years together, building a grassroots audience with a combination of stacked vocal harmonies and collaborative, song-driven Americana. Fruition is proof that there's strength in numbers.
How To Make Mistakes, the band's first studio album in four years, showcases a reinvigorated group at the peak of its powers. This is American roots music at its broadest and boldest — a melting pot of rock, soul, folk, and pop. What began as a busking string band has evolved into something more eclectic, rooted not only in the unique delivery of three different singers, but also the cohesion of five friends who prefer their music to be homegrown and honest… mistakes and all.
"This is the first studio album that we've recorded entirely live," says Jay Cobb Anderson, who shares frontperson duties with fellow multi-instrumentalists Mimi Naja and Kellen Asebroek. "We recorded 17 songs in 7 days, with everybody playing together in real time, and we didn't overdub anything. The songs sound honest and real. They sound like us."
Co-produced by the bandmates themselves, How To Make Mistakes restores the momentum that Fruition nearly lost in 2020, back when Covid-19 forced them off the road and into quarantine. At the time, they'd been playing some of the biggest shows of their lives, crisscrossing the country in support of their most recent release, Broken At The Break Of Day. The album's lead single, "Dawn," had even become a hit on Americana radio. Years of relentless work had taken a toll on Fruition's mental health, though, and cracks were starting to show in the band's foundation. "We were so deep into the tour hustle that a lot of our cohesive vision might've gotten lost," Naja admits. "Like anybody in any work force, we'd all learned to put our heads down and keep moving forward, even if that wasn't the best thing for us."
When they reunited one year later for a long-overdue band practice, they took stock of everything that had changed during those 12 months apart. Some members had started families. Others had gotten sober. All of them had made the conscious decision to return to music. Fruition funneled that growth and maturity back into their new songs, which doubled as rallying cries for a band eager to chase down success once again. "We all had the time to ask ourselves some big questions like 'Do we want to keep doing this?'" Naja adds. "The fact that we reunited in such a reinforced way after all that time apart… I think it says a lot about who this band truly is."
And who, exactly, is Fruition? On songs like "Lonely Work," they're a folk-rock band powered by pedal steel and lovely, loping tempos. On "Scars," they're a group caught halfway between the earthy textures of Americana and the spacey sweep of something far more ethereal. On "Get Lost," they're a group of adventure seekers looking to leave the big city behind, stacking their electric guitars into harmonized solos along the way. Fruition's acoustic roots are evident throughout How To Make Mistakes, too, from "Can You Tell Me" — a rough 'n' rowdy folk song laced with resonator guitar, mandolin, and upright bass — to the campfire ballad "Never Change." How To Make Mistakes embraces the full spread of the band's past and present, mixing unplugged instruments with electrified arrangements, creating a sound suitable for arenas one minute and front-porch picking parties the next. It's the widest net Fruition has ever cast, and it's also the truest representation of the band's wide, all-encompassing sound.
"When I think about this record, the word that comes to mind is 'trust,'" says Asebroek. "We trust each other. We trust the strength of our songs. We've come to really know ourselves as individuals and as partners, and instead of trying to prove something to the outside world, we're trying to show the world that we are who we are, and we love ourselves."
When Fruition formed in Portland in 2008, the band's three songwriters earned their first fans by busking together on Oregon's street corners. Those informal gigs were raw and real, filled with all the honest imperfections of a live performance. Hundreds of shows later, How To Make Mistakes revisits that flaws-and-all approach, using it as the foundation for the most definitive album of the band's career. Tracked live at eTown Hall's recording studio in Colorado and engineered/mixed by the band's own drummer, Tyler Thompson, it's an album that embraces not only the in-the-moment immediacy of a live band, but also the love, longing, loss, and sheer life lived during the band's 15+ years together.
"If you listen closely," Anderson points out, "you can hear tempos fluctuate. Maybe you'll have somebody finger-picking slightly out of time. But that's part of the whole idea of learning to embrace your true identity. We're a band that would rather lean into a mistake than use studio tricks to erase it. With How To Make Mistakes, we wanted to say, 'This is us, with all of our flaws and all of our strengths.'"
All of their strengths, indeed. Collaborative, consistent, and musically cohesive, How To Make Mistakes is the sound of a band rededicating itself to the long haul.
About Madeline Hawthorne:
The miles we travel make up the stories we tell.
The soles of your favorite boots or the tread on your prized car’s tires soak up the experiences and wisdom of the road under your feet. Born in New England, based in Bozeman Montana, singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Madeline Hawthorne pens the kind of tunes you listen to on a cross-country trek to start anew or in the dead of night when you just need a reminder that somebody’s listening.
In this respect, her 2024 independent album, Tales From Late Nights & Long Drives, serves as a fitting soundtrack to life’s trip.
“It’s the perfect road trip record,” she affirms. “It was mostly written while I was on tour. If the songs were written at home in Montana, I took inspiration from journal entries and memories of my travels. This is me stepping onto the stage with more miles under my boots. I’m giving into the moment and the melody to tell a story. It’s like eleven different versions of me—a woman I could have been, a woman I perhaps thought I was, and a woman I hope to be someday.”
Obsessed with music since her childhood on the East Coast, Madeline planted roots in Bozeman, MT during college and never turned back. She honed her talents through countless backup and band gigs before going solo amid the Global Pandemic. Balancing Americana, roots, folk, and rock, she introduced herself on the 2021 LP, Boots, co-produced by Brad Parsons and Tyler Thompson in Pittsburgh. In between, she shared the stage with everyone from Jason Isbell, Lukas Nelson, Josh Turner, and Kip Moore to Sierra Hull, John Craigie, and Nathaniel Rateliff. Plus, she wowed audiences at festivals such as Treefort Music Festival (ID), Americanafest (TN), WinterWonderGrass (CO), Pak City Song Summit (UT), Roseberry Music Festival, (ID), and more. Earning acclaim for tracks like 2023’s “Neon Wasteland,” Relix applauded her “vibrant and buzzing.” Hawthorne has also caught the eye of CMT, who featured her “Neon Wasteland” video at CMT.com and she has received praise from tastemakers such as No Depression who says, “She’s been crushing rootsy tunes.”
Eventually, she decamped to Bear Creek Studios for ten days to record Tales From Late Nights & Long Drives alongside producer Ryan Hadlock [Zach Bryan, The Lumineers].
“I was fully immersed in the experience,” she recalls. “I went for a walk every day, wrote in my journal, and spent a nice amount of time with the spirits of artists who have worked there before me. I appreciate that Ryan put my acoustic guitar first in the arrangement. He felt it was important for listeners to hear the songs with the instruments of origin driving the vibe and feel of the music.”
You can hear this energy loud and clear on the first single “Chasing The Moon.” Bright acoustic guitar underlines pensive lyrics uplifted by piano and a steady beat. Her words resound with excitement as she observes, “That lonesome highway is my Hollywood Boulevard.” On the hook, she exhales, “You can’t change the way things are, but I’ll try again. I’ve got nothing left to lose chasing the moon.”
“I wrote “Chasing the Moon” about my many late nights driving through Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado,” she notes. “It was born driving down Highway 191, going from Big Sky to West Yellowstone. Sometimes, I’ll pull over, get out of my car, and look up at the night sky. It’s powerful to stand in the quiet of the night and listen with your heart.”
Loose slide guitar mirrors the sway of her vocals on “Where Did I Go Wrong.” Her reflections ripple with raw emotion, “Pushed you away for the sake of a song, I need a drink, a moment to think, where did I go wrong?”
“The words you hear are the first words that came out of my mouth,” she goes on. “There are no edits. Although I’m happily married, I’d be lying if I told you this career path doesn’t challenge even the strongest of relationships. I never want to be that woman sitting alone at a bar wondering where she went wrong. It’s a good reminder to nurture a loving relationship.”
On the other end of the spectrum, “Night Ride” instantly intoxicates as she urges, “Roll me up like a joint and smoke me.” She remembers, “It’s about the time I had with my husband during the pandemic. It’s rare we get that much time together without a million things to do. It was a silver lining to an incredibly challenging period.”
The opener “Cold Shoulder” culminates on a wild guitar solo laced with organ. “The record starts off hot and heavy,” she goes on. “It’s a sequel to Boots, which ends with my songwriter character leaving her old self behind to step into a new form. It’s a sassy statement about where I am and how I feel as an artist and a woman.”
The LP concludes with the pensive and poetic “Long Drive To Bozeman,” which traces a map of her life so far. “It’s about my journey to Montana from New Hampshire when I was 18-years-old,” she notes. “I met a boy. We both had aspirations to move to Montana for school, so I drove him to college. Driving into Bozeman still stops my breath to this day. I wound up marrying that man and now we have a house in Bozeman with two cats, two dogs, and a garden. I followed my heart and it brought me home.”
In the end, Madeline is here for you on your journey.
“I’d suggest playing this in your car this summer on a long drive,” she smiles. “Sip your favorite beverage and spin the vinyl in your listening room—or turn it up to 11 and dance wildly around your kitchen. Wherever you are, I hope it gives you what you need. This is an album for the lovers, the wild children, and the ones who refuse to grow up too much. Adventure is always out there. Go on and take the leap.”
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