Chattanooga Times Free Press music reporter Casey Phillips talked to Hugh DeNeal, guitarist and vocalist with the punkgrass (or Trashcan Americana) band, The Woodbox Gang, about how audiences respond to their unusual genre straddling and playing at the Kennedy Center.

CP: I’ve heard people say that your music is the only bluegrass music that punk rock fans will listen to. Is that broad, cross-genre appeal something you strove for or merely incidental?

HD: I was always more a fan of a punk rock even more so than roots or Americana or bluegrass music, but I always appreciated those styles. We just wanted to stand out. I’m not saying anything against more traditional bluegrass bands because we really appreciate that music a lot, but sometimes, you just want to have that aggression to push it out there and have a raw intensity more so than traditional bluegrass music typically offers. We also like that music as well. My heroes are the Sex Pistols and Steve Earle at the same time or Hank Williams Senior and the Dead Kennedys. It’s a dual sort of thing.

Additionally, in punk rock they’re not using banjos or mandolins to achieve their intensity, and there’s even more intensity doing that sort of stuff acoustically. We like to be able to stand out that way as well. There’s only so much pumping the amplifier up to 11 will do for you and there’s only so much distortion you can add to your electric guitar. When you add the percussive element of acoustic instruments, it makes a sound that punk fans or bluegrass fans or rock or even folk aficionados can appreciate.

We appreciate being able to have that wide-ranging appeal. We can play a bluegrass festival one night and go to a rock’n’roll dive bar the next night, and everyone can be happy. That opens up a lot of doors and makes our booking agent’s life a little bit easier in that sense. It makes us feel really good. We’ve been together for about eight years, and you don’t know what’s going to happen when you first start out, what’s going to appeal to who. You just play music that appeals to you, and a lot of it sticks when we play it live.

CP: Blending punk and bluegrass sounds like it would be a risky business proposition in terms of rubbing audiences and owners the wrong way. What made you decide to risk that?

HD: Initially, we weren’t thinking of it in a strategic sort of way that we were combining the heavier elements of rock’n’roll with traditional Americana roots music. It was just what we did. There have been times when we’ve found ourselves at a straight-ahead bluegrass festival, we walk on stage, they see the instrumentation and the traditional folks think, “Oh boy, more bluegrass”... then we start playing our stuff. Sometimes, it’s perceived that we’re not as good as people who can really rip on the banjo, but at the same time, that music is really sacred to that g roup of people. There’s been a sense some time that we’re not doing it justice from the people who are trying to keep that tradition alive and pure. The r e ar e people who are doing that, but we’re not the ones who are trying to keep traditional bluegrass pure.

We’re doing essentially what Bill Monroe did 60-70 years ago, which is taking the elements of traditional Appalachian mountain music and combining it with elements of blues, country and almost vaudeville and making something close to bluegrass. If there hadn’t been pioneers to do that originally, there wouldn’t be bluegrass now. We’re doing our part to make something else. There are many bands out there that do traditional music so well, but that’s not what we’re trying to do. Overall, that’s understood fairly well, and we haven’t, to our face, had much backlash. Sometimes, we’ll be in a place that’s more of a rock club, and people will see our banjos and mandolins, and it’s almost like a big, goofy act with people yelling out “Play ‘Dueling Banjos.’” There are basically people who don’t like that sort of stuff because they think it’s rooted in dumb, hillbilly shtick. It all comes down to people having different tastes, and that’s good overall for the world of music. Overall, we usually find ourselves fairly well accepted in the venues we get into.

CP: Listening to your lyrics, they can be pretty raunchy, but your music can also sound awfully close to traditional. Do you often encounter bluegrass crowds that are rubbed the wrong way by songs like “Born With a Tail?”

HD: There has been a little bit of that. We used to have a message board on our web site, and occasionally, people would say some nasty things like that we’re playing evil stuff. There are red-flagged words that people hear out of context sometimes. In “Born With a Tail,” there are some people who will talk about it at length and identify with it because you feel different, and everybody knows it. It’s a paranoid feeling that everyone knows the truth but you. In that sense, the people who can identify with that sensation really take to that song. The lyrics are intended to be fun and wild, but people can identify with it in a metaphorical sort of way that sticks. It’s not set up to be there for shock value. I like it when people get it and aren’t latching on to it being about “Being the son of the devil and yay for that.”

I like hearing that people can see beyond the words themselves and find real meaning in it. They make it a part of the soundtrack of their lives and that’s the point of any song. Those are the songs that people call out for at shows and listen to over and over on their iPods. That makes us feel really, really good. We’ve heard, at certain festivals we’ve tried to play at that, bookers have told our agent that they would be fired if they put us on the bill. It’s not people individually being afraid of anything — it’s being afraid of other people being offended. That’s a common theme we hear, “I’d like it but I’m afraid nobody else would.”

We don’t hear that as much anymore because we’ve become established in the right circles, but early on, there was this perception that other people are going to be offended but you can get it as an individual. For the most part, you might be afraid people are going to take it the wrong way, but music fans are pretty down on new things and don’t get hung up on the little elements. We have faith in music fans out there that they’re not going to be offended but are going to laugh, — that a phrase is going to strike them the right way. You can’t assume people are dumb, because they aren’t. Music fans love music, and the best you can do is to try and make the best music you possibly can.

CP: Of all the interesting venues you’ve played in, is there one in particular that stands out as being noteworthy?

HD: I have to say the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., was it. When our agent got us that show booked, we were like “Are you kidding? Us? At the Kennedy Center?” When we went there, we knew it was going to be broadcast over the Internet. We had a lot of people crowded around laptops at home to watch the live stream, but we didn’t realize that there would be hundreds and hundreds of people there at the actual venue. We didn’t know what to expect because I always thought of the Kennedy Center as being for symphonies and ballets, not the Woodbox Gang. It was an incredible surprise to see all those people there. We were wondering what we should play, and we decided we would just give them our very best show, no matter what it is, so we gave them everything we could play for an hour. There were people there in tuxedos who were really responding well, even to some of our harder edged stuff. That was a surprise and an incredible feeling. The place is massive, and we were all struck by how it was laid and that we were playing there but also by the people who came and how they were responding to our onstage wackiness. That’s an incredible feeling and something you never forget.