If you’ve been around Orono for a few years now, you should be well aware of the vibrant and bustling music scene on and around campus. From concerts on the freshman quad to packed sets in Paddy Murphy’s, there is an abundance of talented musicians to be seen on any given weekend in Orono.
Among the ranks of burgeoning acts like Fishscale and Bad Flipping Kid, there stand a few veteran acts whose names herald a degree of reverence among those in the know. If you’ve been around in the last four years you may have seen bands like Sizzle, Tease or Peachbelly. From the legacy of these groups came forth one of Orono’s most successful recent bands, performing concert venues, bluegrass competitions and touring all throughout New England: the folk phenomenon Stillwater. The current iteration of the band is composed of group members George Horvat, Kiera Luu, Trip Nickel, Jack Pasternack and Yoni Musher.
I remember seeing Stillwater during my first year. After a series of performances of the same 20 or so songs you might hear at any party, Stillwater took the stage and at the first pluck of the mandolin I was captivated. There is an energetic pulse to the music Stillwater performs, and I was very lucky to sit down with the entire band, with the exception of Musher, and learn a little about how their time in Orono has shaped them.
Something that makes Stillwater so special is the longevity and strength of the bond they’ve managed to form even after finishing undergrad and moving across Maine. Nickel has this to say on what’s given them that glue:
“Music is great and obviously that’s the whole point of the band, but at its core, we are friends and we are good friends. And at this rate, it’s now been three years, [so] we’re essentially a family. The music is the reason we’re all together, but the friendship itself and the growing as people—we came together in our late teens. We were starting to figure out who we are, and now we’re coming into our own as actual people all together over the topic of music. That’s the big core.”
Beyond being the location where the members met, Orono and the Stillwater River have provided the band with much of their identity and inspiration, beyond just the name. When asked about how they came to claim the river as their name, Nickel’s story seemed to encapsulate their humble bluegrass beginnings, and the debt they owe to the Stillwater River.
“Oh, man, we didn’t have to be plugged into anything, and you can just walk down to the river. We were just picking down there, and boy, we were not so good at that yet. We just had so much fun with our feet in the water, playing this new kind of music that’s so old and traditional, and making it work. So it was so important that the Stillwater be a part of it.”
Just this month after the collapse of the Old Town bridge, Luu wrote and released a truly spectacular folk ballad in remembrance of ye olde’ mighty bridge. The song is available on their Instagram @official_stillwater, pending release to their website. It is well worth a listen and in many ways encapsulates the years they’ve collectively spent in Stillwater. In Nickel’s mildly macabre reflections he reflects on the importance of the river.
“I graduated [in] December 2023 and I still live here, and some wonderful things have happened. But I just sit here, and all of my friends move away, except for George. So it feels very confronting, like, am I like building a life, or am I avoiding the responsibility of building a life? And the bridge falling down kind of felt like a very key statement of that purgatorial feeling of like, wow, that’s the temporary bridge, or I’ve been using the temporary bridge here for about five years, and everything that was building crumbled down, and it’s a thinker.”
When asked about her process and inspiration for the song, Luu said she was inspired by many folk ballads, but specifically by Marty Robbins’ western tales such as El Paso.
“The river is timeless. It’s been here, and it will always be here. The things that humans build are very finite and sometimes feel futile, and it was kind of a feeling of exasperation. I’m only semi-local; I’m coming here sometimes for practice, or sometimes I’m in the area now,” said Luu. “But now I’m down east-based, and even just the few times a month that I was in Old Town, driving over that temporary bridge. I was like, when is this going to be finished? This is crazy! Yeah, like, wow, man, really, even after all these years that temporary bridge fell down.”
If you haven’t had the chance to listen to Stillwater live, they will be in Orono Sept. 25 at OBC. I strongly recommend attending, but if you can’t make that show, their music is available on their website, stillwaterband.com, or on any streaming service other than Spotify.
