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Driftwood brings original music to Waterhole

Driftwood (Photo provided — Marc Safran)

If you go…

What: Driftwood concert

When: Doors open at 8 p.m., show at 9 p.m. Friday, Jan. 20

Where: Waterhole, 48 Main St., Saranac Lake

How much: $10

SARANAC LAKE — Folk rock band Driftwood will be returning to The Waterhole on Friday night to jam out with original music after releasing their fifth studio album “City Lights” in November.

The Binghamton-based band, which consists of banjo player and drummer Joe Kollar, guitarist Dan Forsyth, violinist Claire Byrne and upright bassist Joe Arcuri, has played shows at the venue for about the last four years, Forsyth said.

“Oh my god, it’s such a great crowd to play for up there,” he said. “When everybody comes out, it’s always such a good time and I’m always amazed at the energy people have and you know, it’s great to catch up with friends. It’s a beautiful place up there and we love going up, we don’t get up there as much as we want to but you know, we’ve been maybe once or twice a year and it’s always been a really good time.”

Forsyth said it’s hard to describe the band’s sound which blends folk, old-time, country, punk and rock elements together through three lead vocalists: Kollar, Forsyth and Byrne.

“A lot of people say it resembles bluegrass and old-time music but with a lot of modern elements,” Forsyth said. “There’s all kinds of different influences rolling around in this band. Some of it’s classical sounding, some of it’s very rock and roll, some of it’s got a little punk in it, so it’s kind of all over the place. I think the one thing that joins it together is we have three songwriters and three people that sing lead in the band.

“We have arrangements that have a lot of harmony to them,” he said. “It’s a lot of original songs with three different singers and that’s pretty much the heart of the band.”

The band is excited to return to Saranac Lake for the scenery and the people, Forsyth said.

“So many great experiences up there, we’ve done the winter carnival maybe like three times, and that was just beautiful,” he said. “I was just so amazed at the character of everybody up there. We’ll start at nine and maybe finish at one and everybody just stays out and has a great time. It’s always fun.

“Music is very important to a community and I think there is going to be a ton of people out there who are just going to want to celebrate in the wintertime, the joy of season,” he said. “Come out, say hello, we’d love to see you.”

He added that the band members are coming off of a week of rest, which is unusual for them, so they are certainly ready to perform.

“We’re really excited to get back into it and start playing,” Forsyth said. “I’m sure it’s going to be very high-energy.”

He said the band spends so much time on the road, that its road experiences become inspiration for its songs.

“We’re on the road a lot,” he said. “We play probably about 150 shows a year and then there’s travel to and from, so it really takes up a lot of our time. Especially on these last two albums, we have a lot of songs that deal with that and you can tell we’re inspired by that. I think just in general, everybody is really happy to have an outlet, something to write songs for, that’s just always a really exciting thing.”

When inspiration hits the band, Forsyth said the band members quickly try to work it into new material.

“We’re always trying to come up with new stuff,” he said. “We just released an album and we already got a bunch of new songs ready for the next one.”

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