Neil Young and Bob Dylan Combine in Boulder's Rolling Harvest

With a healthy crop of roots-inspired acts playing original material on the Front Range, it's intriguing to see a group of accomplished local musicians channel some of their artistry through the work of legendary folky songwriters Bob Dylan and Neil Young. Boulder-based Rolling Harvest finds the sweet spot between nostalgia and originality, putting its own touch on classic material from the Dylan and Young songbooks. You can catch the band at Gold Hill Inn on Friday, September 13.

We recently caught up with Rolling Harvest's drummer, Adam Perry, who also sometimes contributes his own writing to Westword, to discover how the talent-laden ensemble maintains its passion for its ongoing tribute project.
Westword: How long has Rolling Harvest been together?

Adam Perry: Our first show was in Jamestown on the Fourth of July in 2022. So it's been a little over two years. The band came together around the same time I started my team in the Boulder Softball League. I think there are some similarities between being in a band and playing on a baseball team. Rosters change, and you find out a lot about yourself and the way you work with people. Sometimes you hit home runs and sometimes you strike out.

You appear to have a deep bench of talent...

We definitely have a great pool of players. Alexandra [Schwan] and Hunter [Stone] are the lead singers, and Hunter is also the lead guitarist. They're basically the starters who we can't play without. Alexandra and I have a history going back to when we were both in the Gasoline Lollipops, and Hunter also plays on my softball team and is my kid's guitar teacher. We have counted Gabriel Cwern and Madalyn McCoy as part of the band, too. They're both members of the band River Mann, which is a great group that's making its way up. We now have Jonah Wisneski from the Denver band King Cardinal and Fred Reisen who played in DYNOHUNTER, which was a cool electro jam band. Fred is great. I would call him the main bass player now, since our other bassist, Cole Sexton, recently moved back to St. Louis. We have a few other excellent musicians who rotate in as well, including Kevin Johnson who is a multi-instrumentalist who has played for Calexico; and Jason Paton, who is a huge Neil Young and Bob Dylan fan. He really gets into the details of the sound and the songs.

Do you change up what tunes you play from time to time?

Well, we've brought back some stuff that we had wanted to do early on but that we never got to. And sometimes you forget about a song that you used to do, and then you go, "Hey, we haven't played that in a while." But we try to keep it interesting and fresh. I've kinda got a rule that if we're gonna do obscure tunes, you don't do really slow ones and you don't do two obscure tunes in a row. We do a faster version of  Neil Young's "On the Beach," which is a cool song that only hardcore fans of Neil Young would know. We tried playing Dylan's "Señor," which is great song, but it didn't go over. I guess it was too slow. But we'll do a song like "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" and put a "Roadhouse Blues"/Doors feel to it.

How have things changed and/or evolved over the past couple of years in terms of your crowds and how you approach the material?

In fall of 2022, I just wanted to play as many shows possible and get our name out there. So we went out and got around in Colorado a bit. Now that our name is out and people recognize it, we like to play once or twice a month. I think we've gotten more jammy. We'll spontaneously go into tunes like "Exodus," by Bob Marley. Stuff like that is possible with the lineup that we have now. We're extending things more. Jonah, me, Kevin and Fred are music geeks. We might be in the middle of a song and then there's something that sounds like another tune that we recognize, and all of a sudden we're playing another song. All of a sudden we hear something like "I Know You Rider" and we'll decide to play it. It's a group thing, where we react to each other. Magic happens from that. We're a tribute band, but we like to make it our own. Some of the songs are our own arrangements entirely. Our version of "One More Cup of Coffee" is an example of that, as well as our version of "On the Beach." RollingHarvest.bandcamp.com gives a good sampling of what we do, and our Facebook site has some vids, too. It's about having fun. If the band and the crowd are both having fun, it's great.

What do you want to share about your upcoming show in Gold Hill?

Places such as Jamestown and Gold Hill feel like home to me because of all the years I played in the foothills near Boulder with the Gasoline Lollipops. Those people have become the fans of Rolling Harvest. We played in Jamestown recently, and the audience wouldn't let us stop. The Gold Hill Inn is awesome. The owner cultivates a family atmosphere and he takes care of the bands. It doesn't really matter who's playing there, because the owner curates great music and you know it's going to be great. The place itself, with all its history, helps to make the event.

Rolling Harvest plays Gold Hill Inn, 401 Main Street, Boulder, 8 p.m. Friday, September 13. Tickets are $15.