Minnesota born a capella country band Home Free have some time and music to catch up on before they head home.
Since the end of their Dive Bar Saints tour had to be cancelled due to covid, they have released four new albums.
“Some people have been holding on to their tickets for four years. We’ve had to cancel the show three times,” said founder, tenor and beatboxer Adam Rupp, who along with band mates Austin Brown, Rob Lundquist, Adam Rupp and Adam Chance will be playing their rescheduled Lethbridge date, April 29 at the Enmax Centre.
The band has been building their brand since the roots of the band, Chris and Adam Rupp started out singing together in 2000, which lead to tours, then a lot of cruise ship contracts, more touring and numerous hit singles and hit albums.
“Dive Bar Saints” debuted at number two on the Billboard country charts. But they really starting making some noise after appearing on the NBC TV show “Sing Off,” in 2013 which focused on vocal groups.
“After these shows, that’s it for Dive Bar Saints. We’re taking down the set and working on supporting the new music. So most of this show will be from Dive Bar Saints. Which isn’t to say we won’t be doing songs from the other albums. ‘Ring of Fire’ has never left our set in 10 years because people love it,” Adam Rupp said, adding he is enjoying being back on the road.
“It’s great to be back exclamation mark,” he exclaimed, adding they back in June they resumed their rigorous tour schedule of playing approximately 200 shows a year.
“It’s really exciting to perform in front of a lot of people again. There is such a positive energy exchange between us and the audience. We give them a lot of energy and they feed it back to us, so it is really exciting,” Rupp said.
“People have been waiting four years to see us (on this tour) . I hope they’re as excited to see us now as they were when they bought their tickets,”he continued.
The band doesn’t use any instruments in their shows, which makes them unique. A producer from Sing Off convinced them to focus on country music , though they can sing anything.
“There aren”t any a cappella a country bands. So we had to overcome a lot of barriers,” he said.
“ Every sound you hear comes from our bodies. Except I use a looping pedal,” he said adding the band features three tenors including Rupp, who also beatboxes, a baritone/ bass and a baritone voice.
“We start with a loop and build on it from there. We start stomping and clapping. We try to duplicate as much of what we do in the studio as we can,” he said.
“ When you see us live, you’ll get it,” he said recalling a time when they were looking for a manager.
“We talked to a lot of people and this one guy said, ‘have you ever considered using instruments?’ And it was like ‘this guy doesn’t get it,’” Rupp continued.
There wasn’t much downtime for the band during the pandemic. They maintained an active Youtube channel, featuring interviews with the band and new music. Since the Pandemic, they have released ‘Dive Bar Saints, a new Christmas album, and “Land of the Free, plus “Sounds of the Lockdown,” an album of music they recorded during the pandemic.
“As soon as everything shut down, we gave everyone recording equipment,” he said, noting the band members are scattered all over the U.S, . They’re based in Nashville, but the band members live in Minnesota, where they formed, Nashville, and Orange County, California.
“We do 20 new songs a year and put them on the youtube channel and our fans were asking for an album of some of those songs,” he said, adding even pre-pandemic, they still released 20 new songs a year.
One highlight was redoing Don McLean’s “American Pie” for their Cd “ Land of the Free.”
“We feel honoured to have been chosen to do that song, because he’s never re recorded it in 50 years,” Rupp enthused, adding that connection came from Lee Hazelwood, who appears on Home Free’s reworking of his song ‘God Bless The USA’ on the CD.
“ They have the same manager, so Lee suggested he reach out to us,” he enthused.
McLean sings on the track and appears in the video for the song.
“ We asked him what the lyrics mean, and of course he evaded the question like he always does. He wants everybody to interpret it in their own way,” Rupp said.
Being from Minnesota, it would seem like an obvious choice to cover a Prince song, but they haven’t done that yet.
“We haven’t covered Prince. I’d love to. We all have our favourites. I’d choose ‘ I Want to Be Your Lover,’ or ‘Kiss’ and I hate to say ‘Purple Rain’ because everyone says that,” he said.
While most of the members have music degrees or performing art degrees, Rupp noted they let their producer Darren Rust handle musical arrangements of the songs.
“ We all have training. I actually started out playing trumpet. But I’ve been singing since I was a kid, for over 20 years. But we let our producer Darren Rust arrange the songs,” he said.
“A capella music is extremely niche. People usually think barbershop quartets. But I’ve always like singing back when I was a kid, just because of it’s very uniqueness. Though everybody else in the band has their own reasons for liking it,” he continued.
He is excited to be touring, though couldn’t remember if the band had played Lethbridge before.
“It’s a big deal to us to perform again.
Home Free’s Dive bar Saints tour starts at 8 p.m., April 29 at the Enmax Centre.
Tickets range between $49-$69.
— by Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
