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Boston's Sweet Petunia brings basement DIY to old time folk
Banjo-wielding Maddy Simpson and Mairead Guy may have met in the halls of the Berklee College of Music, but it was at an Allston basement show where they became a band.
The paths they walked to meet in a 2018 Berklee ensemble were different. Guy hailed from a Virginian family with several working musicians and knew they wanted to play American roots music. Simpson, on the other hand, was the first in her skeptical but supportive family to seek a career in music, and initially came to school to play jazz. The first time she touched a banjo was at Berklee.
In their first rehearsal, though, the instant similarity of their voices brought them together. It is a quality that continues to confound the duo today. “There have been times I've been listening to mixes and been like, ‘I sound really good,’ and then I realize it’s Maddy singing,” Guy said.
Their first rehearsal together was organized by a classmate who was enamored with the sound of their voices. But when he no-showed, Simpson and Guy got to talking and realized they shared more than just vocal timbre and pitch. “We had a lot in common,” Guy recalled. “Goals and moral values. So, we were like, ‘Okay, let’s just do it.’” They became Sweet Petunia, named after the term Guy’s great-grandfather used to call his grandchildren.
Their first gig came that summer when they stumbled onto a Facebook post looking for one more band on a bill in an Allston basement. It was the first house show Simpson had ever been to. The experience spurred an eight-year-long tour on the do-it-yourself circuit where their unplugged sound stood out in line-ups often characterized by being as loud as possible.
“All those shows definitely influenced us,” Guy said. “The way that we write and the way that we play, it’s kind of like bridging the gap between old time and punk in a way that’s not quite folk punk.”
Over the next couple of years, the duo recorded and published a few singles and EPs, simple projects that could be recorded live with a couple of microphones, but displaying the vocal harmonies, surgical banjo plucking and direct lyrics that would become their signature. In 2022, they set about recording their first album, “Foggy Mountain Mental Breakdown” (an homage to Earl Scruggs’ “Foggy Mountain Breakdown”), which was released on March 13.
It is the fascinating product of Sweet Petunia’s allegiance to both folk music and the various genres blowing out eardrums in Boston’s basements. Traditional-sounding banjo and fiddle tunes like “Grub” and “Kennedy Rag/Clementine” are placed seamlessly next to genre-melding rockers like “Good Part” and “Guise.” A tasteful touch of synth stands out from the warm orchestra on “In David’s Living Room,” and “Puke” starts as an acoustic guitar ballad before culminating in a shoegazey screaming session.
Their recording took place in bedrooms and on top of washing machines. “A lot of what we talked about is how we wanted a basement sound,” producer Leah Gutman said. She met Sweet Petunia at Berklee, where she became hooked by their sound.
“I have never seen two people's voices go so well together. It really does feel like a cohesive instrument,” Gutman explained. “When you see Sweet Petunia play live, it kind of forces you to be as present as they are onstage.”
“Foggy Mountain Mental Breakdown” reflects a communal approach to music, featuring collaborations with Sweet Petunia’s pool of friends in the DIY scene. There are contributions from Dino Gala’s drummer Christian Schmidt, Tiberius’ Brendan Wright, and Miles Chandler for Clifford.
On “Grub,” Guy details feelings of community from the viewpoints of a grub and a baby bird, contrasting human prejudice with the easy company small creatures have with their habitat and brethren. That feeling seems partly drawn from the DIY scene where fans, musicians, venues and engineers work together to sustain themselves.
Many tracks were written seven years ago through a period of early-20s growing pains, making the LP a bit of a time capsule. “Being 20 really sucks,” Guy cracked, dryly. “You’re broke and scared and dumb.” The duo details the dissolution of friendships and romances. On “Good Part,” dirty dishes and a skipping record reflect the neglect in a relationship. Prejudice and a lack of empathy characterize the interpersonal dynamics on “In David’s Living Room.” Other tracks are more focused on the darker parts of the self. “I think more about the cracks in my heels,” goes the repeated line detailing the cyclical thoughts of someone begging their mind for sleep on the song “Heels.” “Guise” details the mental turmoil of not knowing one’s self.
Its sentiment is no longer as personal to the writer. “I was a lesbian and I didn’t realize it,” Guy said. “That’s what ‘Guise’ is about retrospectively. I was like, ‘Why do I feel like s--- when I hook up with these men?’”
To Simpson, this is the unavoidable fate of material written years ago. “We were both really young when we were writing a lot of this stuff,” Simpson observed. “It’s funny to see what was so upsetting at the time, but now it’s kind of like, ‘How did you not see that?’”
The release of “Foggy Mountain Mental Breakdown” also marks the duo’s signing with label Righteous Babe, which was founded by Ani DiFranco, a folk punk musician who paved the way for acts like Sweet Petunia. They will open for DiFranco on a run of shows in the South before hunkering down to finish writing and begin recording new material. They’re looking forward to the next chapter.
“I feel like the stuff we're doing now is already better,” Simpson said. That doesn’t mean it’s any easier. “Because we’re a lot better at songwriting, it’s a lot harder.
