“Kami was visiting colleges, stopped in this cool coffeehouse, spent the whole afternoon there, and got us a gig. She ended up deferring school another year, but the coffeehouse liked us and had us back. Then the place turned into more of a club. We were one of the first bands they asked to be a weekly houseband, on Sundays. I don’t think they thought we’d actually do it. They were being polite mostly. Good friends, you know?”
But we all know how hard it is to say no to a steady gig. So now it’s a once-a-week, 200-mile commute for the New Settlers. A few tangential perks like a courier job have made it more worthwhile, but the passion for the trip was already there.
“If we really minded, we wouldn’t do it. We can’t all make every show so we’ve basically developed a second band—New Settlers West, or the New West Settlers—with counterparts for every one of us. They’re not substitutes, they’re full members.
But no matter what, at least two of us are there every week, and we’re all there once a month. That’s our pact, our band standard. The club says they’re cool with us missing a week here or there, but we’re not. It’s our country house, our home away from home.”