‘Feeding Frenzy’ ends tour at Palmer show

PALMER — The usual coffeehouse din of Vagabond Blues was displaced last week by the Fairbanks band Feeding Frenzy.

The band — guitarist Daniel Firmin, banjoist Ryan Bateman, cellist Ephy Wheeler, drummer Chad File and multi-instrumentalist Rebecca File (formerly Menzia of Wasilla) — brought their folk-rooted music to the small stage in Palmer to close their summer tour.

Describing their sound as “Folk. Period,” Firmin listed popular bands such as Dark Dark Dark, and this year’s Alaska State Fair performer The Avett Brothers when describing Feeding Frenzy’s influences for their album “Positive Vandalism.”

The album, Bateman said, was recorded with all five members in one room playing and singing together to give the sound a looser feel, as opposed to single-tracking of instruments and vocals. The songs feature a full range of instruments beginning with cello, violin and European instrument melodic. The songs on the album therein are mostly love songs.

“Daniel likes to write love songs,” Bateman joked.

Firmin was quick to note that there’s also “some stories of cheat-and-steals and maybe some life lessons” to be found on the album.

The feeling and warmth of the music give way to a better show to witness live, where each instrument is joined by the entire band singing as loud and best as they can, rarely using a microphone, and lending an occasional foot stomp where needed.

This relaxed style of performing has given the band national attention in magazines Paste and The Atlantic, after many bloggers and journalists watched them perform on sidewalks instead of venues at popular Austin, Texas, music festival South By Southwest last spring.

A trip, Bateman said, was “mostly fun, wanting to expose a lot of people to fun, and maybe sell some CDs.”

After South By Southwest, Feeding Frenzy returned to Alaska to tour its home state for the summer, playing shows in Homer, Kodiak and Girdwood, and begin putting together a second album, still to be titled, but with 18 songs in the works.

Though taking a month off for now, Firmin says that, “Maybe for the rest of the year we’ll buy a party boat and tour on that, and whoever wants to see us play can come aboard.”

If party boats aren’t your thing, you can find the band returning to the Southcentral area when it plays the Taproot in Anchorage Sept. 28, or you can visit the group’s bandcamp page — feedingfrenzy.bandcamp.com — to listen or buy “Positive Vandalism.”