The Accidentals kicked off another tour last night with a sold-out show in Leland.The Traverse City band had a unique request for the 150 people in attendance — help pick the songs for their next album.
The Accidentals broke out 16 new songs at the Old Art Building last night, but that isn't the ideal number to put on an album. So, they turned to their fans for help.
“We’ve had this idea for awhile now,” says Sav Buist, one of the band’s original members. “Especially since we’ve always kind of been advocates for getting out the vote and rocking the vote. And we’re coming up on the primary so we were like, ‘Well, we’ll just give people a practice round.”
Here’s how the voting works: each audience member gets a ballot, with the setlist.They rank each song on a scale of one to five.The top 11 songs will go on their upcoming album “Vessel” which comes out this fall.
If that sounds vulnerable, The Accidentals say it is — but it’s also helpful.
“People could really surprise us and pick one that we weren’t quite looking at as much,” says Drummer Michael Dause. “And that’s really, really good information in this day and age, to kind of know what your fans like and have that honest feedback.”
Katie Larson, the group's other founding member, says the band has always valued what their fans think, and that’s part of the reason they tour so much — up to 200 shows a year.
Larson says they rely on live shows like this one for feedback all the time, the difference here is people are actually voting.
“That’s how most of our albums have been for the past six years,” Larson says, “is we really test songs out on the road and care about what will make a good show.”
Larson and Buist recently moved to Nashville where they’ve been playing studio sessions and co-writing with other artists. They say the co-writing is new for them — before moving south, they’d write their music alone.They both say the collaboration has been eye-opening.
“I learned a lot just by being in a couple different writing sessions with different people and you know, everybody is doing something different,” Buist says. “But at the end of the day, it’s all telling a story that millions of people can relate to once they hear it, that’s the important — that’s what makes a good song.”
That storytelling really struck a chord with April Vannest, who was at the concert.She’s from Traverse City and says voting for her top songs is actually pretty challenging.
“Well, all of their songs I feel like I always say it’s like a gut punch with their lyrics,” Vannest says. “There’s always something in one of their songs that just hits home about something in my life and I love that about their writing.”
The Accidentals have a two more shows where they’ll ask for the audience’s vote, and then they’ll tally up the winning songs.
Then, later this month it’s on to Austin, Texas, where they’ll play at the music festival South by Southwest.
