Mad Bread is Yummy in Tunes Jam

As I walked around Fall Fest on Sunday, I had the sudden, unusual sensation that a bit of Appalachia had fallen into my ear. Flat-picked banjo, sonorous country harmonies and peals of strummed mandolin echoed across Lake Park and drew me nearer. A group of listeners had eagerly flocked to the stage as a bevy of old-timey string band music poured from the fingers of local band, Mad Bread.

Although Chicago is not commonly known as a bastion for Southern bluegrass music, Mad Bread has been playing to packed houses for four years now.

"The thing about bluegrass is that a lot of people don't know they like it until they actually hear it. If we're playing to a room full of strangers, it's usually not long before people are bobbing their heads and dancing," said Adam Flint, banjo player and a founding member of the band.

There were plenty of heads bobbing and toes tapping in Des Plaines as the band ripped through a 90-minute set of originals and favorite cover songs, such as "Take Me Home, Country Roads" and "Wagon Wheel." It was one of several musical performances over the weekend at Fall Fest, sponsored by the Des Plaines Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the History Center and the Park District.

But Mad Bread isn't all bluegrass. While folk and bluegrass styles primarily influenced the group's inception, blues, indie rock and even heavy metal have all contributed in propelling the musicians of Mad Bread to their current incarnation. 

Adam, his brother Nate Flint (mandolin, guitar and vocals) and friend Joel Blumenfeld (guitar and vocals) were living and occasionally playing music together when Nate brought a co-worker home.

"I invited Mike [Slater] over and the result was an epic jam session. It started out as a kind of tryout for both parties. We knew we wanted him to play with us and just hoped that he liked our style," said Nate.

Not only is Slater another skilled multi-instrumentalist in this lineup (playing bass, keyboards, guitar and singing), he is an experienced recording engineer who has produced Mad Bread's two albums. Slater met the group's fifth member, Carl Broman, at an open-mic that Broman was hosting.

"I've been playing guitar longer than these guys have been alive," Broman chided.

This string band prefers to stay true to its musical roots, enjoying live shows rather than the seeming sterility of a studio environment. "I find the studio environment disorienting," explained Nate Flint. "Where we want to be coming from is live performance. We try to replicate that experience on the record."

Broman agrees that there is something about recording that tends to sap the energy from a song. "In a recording session, you don't really get the butterflies like you do on stage," he noted.

"With the last album [Tune Back In, due out in late 2010], we tried to capture how the band got started: four guys standing around in a living room, playing. We basically put microphones up and that's the album," said Adam Flint.

The group's style of music stays true to the bluegrass heritage. "The real musical tradition of this music, is coming from a time and place when music wasn't a product, it was a community activity," he added.

There's something about Mad Bread that strikes a distinctively authentic cadence. From the folk and roots backbone of their music, to their cornpone demeanor, to the home-grown production of their first album Southport & Eddy (the photography and artwork for the album was created by the band and Slater's wife Carin), the listener gets a sense that these guys are truly doing what they love.

When playing live, Mad Bread really sparkles when the audience is having as much fun listening as the band is having on stage.

"There's a lot of venues in Chicago that say, 'We'll give you 45 minutes on a Tuesday night and you have to bring in over 20 people or we're not going to have you back,'" said Adam Flint.

"For some bands, that's great, but that's not really the kind of gig that we like to play," he added. "We don't enjoy playing to an empty club that's just trying to have music seven nights a week. We like to play someplace that's a little more fun and where we can be the entertainment."

In case Des Plaines residents' appetites weren't fully appeased, Mad Bread's next show is Oct. 30 at the Celtic Knot in Evanston. Its 2009 release, Southport & Eddy, is available on iTunes and CD Baby or as a free download on the band's website.

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