MidWest Friends Fest: The One With Take The Reins

Pick up some Skyline Chili, make a few friendship bracelets and grab your buds as Midwest Friends Fest is returning to the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky area for its sophomore year. Midwest Friends Fest is once again taking over the Southgate House Revival in Newport, KY. 

The 2-day festival with multiple stages and amazing national and local acts like Signals Midwest, Cinema Stare, The 1984 Draft and Tooth Lures A Fang will take place from 30 & 31 May with tickets available here. 

Today Jeff (drums), Nate (bass) and Adam (guitar/vox), collectively known as National Barks has joined TGEFM to discuss this year’s festival for this installment of our MWFF interview series. Check it out below and we’ll see you at the bonfire in the woods!

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Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview! What should our readers know about Take The Reins; your history, your mission, your sound?

The current line up has been locked in since 2017 with our debut album Addiction by Subtraction. Our songs explore relationships, addiction and mental health. Our sophomore album I’m At Your Door came out in 2022, and we will be releasing new music later this year. We have toured all over the US and shared the stage with amazing friends and artists. We are just 5 fools playing loud rock n’ roll that burns a hole in your soul!

You are gearing up for Midwest Friends Fest in the coming months, what does the festival circuit mean to artists like yourselves?

 It’s an opportunity to be put in front of a diverse crowd of people and get to meet new bands and discovery music we might not have found on our own.  We get to network and make new relationships with bands, fans and different organizations.

What does Take the Reins have planned for us beyond MWFF?

We have some touring booked and just plan to play out as much as possible, of course. We also have new recorded material that we are excited to release, and we’re currently looking for collaborative support to get that music out in front of people later this year. We are really proud of this record!

What have been some of the most memorable moments or experiences with the band so far? What’s been the most unexpected? The weirdest?

Being able to play historic venues like the Metro and making multiple appearances at Fest in Gainesville, are a few of our favorite accomplishments. We love writing music and recording in the studio. We’ve also managed to make some unlikely friendships that have made this journey more fun and have led to some great opportunities. Matt and Courtney, for example, got to participate in the pressing of our second album at the plant where the record was made in London, England. We have also been surprised at some of the friendships we made with bands we wouldn’t necessarily think would dig our sound. It’s a little weird being the only punk rock band on an all death metal lineup, and yet that was probably one of our most fun shows!

Regarding live sets, what are you most excited to bring to the Midwest Friends Fest audience? What do you want the attendees to say about your set when they tell their friends about you?

Like any band, we love it when people dance, so we hope we can get people moving. We’ve had some people come to us after our shows and shared with us that they were currently going through a rough time and how our music spoke to them or made them feel better. That’s a really irreplaceable experience for a musician. We hope people party with us when we’re on stage, and be sure to come and talk with us and share their experience after the show.

We’ve all got a few, what is your biggest regret? A gig you turned down, advice you didn’t take, what one thing do you wish you handled differently as a musician?

We’ve been at this for a bit, and we’ve learned some pretty valuable lessons, whether it’s the best way to work out a song idea, or the do’s and don’t of touring (we’ve gotten better about not leaving stuff behind), or even just being more present when we’re on stage. There’s always lessons to learn, but we will never regret being given the opportunity to learn and get better.

The punk, ska and indie scenes have almost always been at the forefront of inclusion and diversity within the music scenes.   The flipside of course is that the gatekeeping in the scene is also very prevalent?  Why do you think the genre brings in such a welcoming community and is so happy to let everyone in and also seems to shut the doors so quickly behind themselves?

When people build something that’s special to them, they want to protect it. That’s just human nature. As a band we see ourselves as a cast of unusual characters and we love that about ourselves. That’s why we strive to be as welcoming and positive as we possibly can. We all have way more in common than we have differences, and music is one of the most important shared safe spaces there is or ever will be.

This festival is all about friendships and music. What do you value most in friendships amongst yourself and your stagemates?

The fact that we genuinely like each other and like hanging out helps our band stay together, I guess. Lol. Really good food on the road helps, too.

Take The Reins is from Chicago. The city has always been a home to some amazing artists. What happens in Chicago that leads to so much of an overabundance of great music In the scene lately (and always)? How does the area feed into the music you are writing, if at all?

We’ve been pretty fortunate to be so close to a diverse nexus of music and culture. Of course we all have our heroes from the local scene (AM Taxi, Alkaline Trio, 88 Fingers Louie). Maybe what you’re referring to is how a supportive local scene can help bands thrive, and that’s definitely the case with Chicago, but the truth is, we’re not really from Chicago (don’t tell anyone). We’re from the Chicago burbs. But whether it’s there Or downtown or the middle of nowhere, a supportive scene is always a joy to be a part of and always makes for better music.

I’ve got to be honest, I wasn’t very familiar with Take The Reins before you joined the MWFF roster.  Now that I’ve listened, I’m fairly obsessed the I’m At Your Door record. Tell me a little bit about the record?  What was going on at the time that helped kickstart the songwriting process?

The songs reflect on self discovery, growing as individuals and becoming more confident in knowing what you want out of life. Embracing the contrast, trusting in the journey and realizing that life is isn’t happening to you, you’re making it happen. Letting go of relationships that no longer work for you and being ok with that. Sometimes we hold onto things that are not good for us because they are comfortable or familiar, but that’s not always healthly for us. Ultimately, breaking free from our own restraints is the common thread of this record.

What album or band or significant singles made you go “Yeah, this is what I want to do”  Not just an influence but who or what was the catalyst?  On the flipside to that one… Who are some non-MWFF bands on your radar that TGEFM readers may not know about, but you think they should?

Courtney: I saw Joan Jett as a kid and I wanted to do what she was doing.
Erik: I saw The Bollweevils and 88 Fingers Louie at the Fireside Bowl and that made me wanna play music.
Matt: I went on tour with my friends’ band (Lucky Boys Confusion) and realized this is something that I could do and that I wanted to do.
Dave:  I saw my first local show at a shack in the middle of a field that stole electricity from a nearby factory. Seeing music played up close like that made me feel like I could do that too, and that I’d rather be on stage than in the crowd.
Dan: zzzzzzzzzz (Dan is passed out in the back of the van)
Amazing bands that would be quality MWFF acts: Petty Grievances, Guardrail, Glory Days, Vallencourt, and Bad Planning. These are all bands that really impress us and that you should know about.

I don’t know if you’ve heard about this newcomer by the name of Taylor Swift. Her growing fanbase trades friendship bracelets. If you made a bracelet for MWFF, what word or phrase word you put on it?

Tom was right👽

Post show jam session in a large, empty field. What song are you singing around the bonfire? (Pardon my playful biases, but everything I know about the Midwest comes from shitty movies and songs by the Kinsella Bros. so I assume everyone playing here has spent some time at bonfire parties in the fields off some lonely county road)?

Truthfully, part of our post-show decompression ritual is to listen to disco Eastern European Dance music. That’s not a joke. Dan, who is sleeping right now, has a diverse musical pallet and really enjoys sharing all the weird stuff he listens to with us. We have definitely spent time after shows terrorizing the neighbors of the people we stay with by doing impromptu dance parties to Gangnam Style in the front yard at 2AM. Again, this is not a joke.

Midwest Friends Fest is a smorgasbord of fantastic acts. Which bands are you most excited to see?

We just got off the road playing shows with Bandages from Dayton, Ohio. We are already going through some withdrawal, so it will be good to see them again. We definitely have to catch up on everyone who is playing, but we are excited about discovering new bands and new friends.

Was there anything I missed that you’d like to share or dive deeper into with our readers?

Quick shout out to Start Today Harm Reduction! We appreciate the work that work group does and we support their mission. We also want to give a thank you to Jared and the whole Midwest Friends Fest team! We can’t wait!