Music

Laura and the Killed Men launch multistop Alaska tour

Laura and the Killed Men's debut album plays like a sweeping cross-country journey.

From Boston to Pocatello, Idaho, to the infamous World's Fair Hotel in Chicago, the song titles dot a musical map through territory and time.

The record, "Everchanging Trail," was the result of a 12,000-mile tour the Tuscon, Arizona-based band embarked on last summer.

"It's all originals," said singer-guitarist Laura Kepner-Adney. "We wrote a lot of the songs on the tour we did last summer. We got a lot of good material on the road. There are definitely a lot of place-based songs. It does unintentionally represent our journey across the country and draws on music throughout the country."

Kepner-Adney shares songwriting duties with guitarist Sam Golden, creating a sound that incorporates traditional country and western of the Southwest and Appalachian mountain music.

"The process wasn't ever really formalized," he said. "In some cases, I would have some germ of a melody or one chorus of lyrics. We would just spend a car ride, extending and developing that into a full-length song. (The songs) come from conversations we had about how people shaped the terrain and how, in turn, the land shaped the people. That's the bigger theme."

The touring band is rounded out by bassist Björgvin Benediktsson and drummer Seth Vietti, who lived in Anchorage for a handful of years as a youth.

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Most recently the duo was in an indie rock band, Sun Bones, where they met Kepner-Adney. For a tour, she filled in on synthesizer and guitar. Her band at the time, The Cordials, couldn't make the tour at the time so Sun Bones offered to back her while she performed. Soon Laura and the Killed Men formed officially.
Kepner-Adney has already gone through a number of musical transformations. She started out as a classically trained singer and played in jazz combos before diving into early American folk music. She says her training has translated more to songwriting than performance.

"It's nice to be able to write for your voice, write a song that's really good for your range," she said. "That's more how the songwriting is informed by your background — having the theoretical knowledge."

The band is making an extended tour through Alaska. It already has performed dates in Fairbanks and has shows scheduled in Anchorage, Seward, Seldovia and Homer.

The tour was initiated, in part, by members of Seward's Blackwater Railroad Company, who met Laura and company on their recent tour of the Lower 48.

"We've been on a few nationwide tours; one thing I noticed when we're traveling across the country: the best shows happen in the smallest towns," Kepner-Adney said. "You can do all this work and press and have a great venue but no one shows up because it's New York or Los Angeles. Some of your best shows are in a small town at a dive bar. We realized we could hit one giant underserved market in Alaska."

The band has already added a number of songs for the Alaska tour, aside from the usual touring fare and the songs from "Everchanging Trail," which was released in the spring.

"Most of those songs we honed on tour," Kepner-Adney said of the album's songs. "When you're playing every night and writing new songs, you can work out the kinks. We learned eight new songs the first day we were here. We've played them all in front of an audience."

The band members said they are still acclimating to the unique Alaska summers. The exception is Benediktsson, a native of Iceland.

"I came up and I'm used to it being light in midnight," he said. "It's funny to be done playing a show and the sun is still up."

 

Laura and the Killed Men Alaska tour

Friday at 49th State Brewing Co.

Saturday at Tap Root Public House

July 27 at The Pit in Seward

July 29-30 at The Yukon Bar in Seward

July 31 at Trail Lake Lodge in Moose Pass

Aug. 3 at The Pit in Seward

Aug. 5-6 at The Linwood Bar in Seldovia

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Aug. 7 at Alice's Champagne Palace in Homer

lauraandthekilledmen.com

Chris Bieri

Chris Bieri is the sports and entertainment editor at the Anchorage Daily News.

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