Erin and The Wildfire have been making a name for themselves on the Virginia scene since 2012, when they formed around singer/guitarist Erin Lunsford. The band, which also features guitarist Ryan Lipps, bassist Matt Wood and drummer Nick Quillen, got their biggest break yet at this summer’s Rockn’ to Lockn’, where they beat out numerous other artists for a chance to perform at Lockn’ 2014. The band ended up kicking off the festival’s final day, and their blend of soulful vocals and rocking grooves proved a perfect fit for the Virginia-based event. We caught up with Lunsford a few weeks ago to talk about the band’s new single, their Lockn’ experience and their plans for the future.
You guys released a new single yesterday, “Blame the Rain”, how do you feel about the tune? How’s the response been?
The response has been awesome. This is definitely the best recording we’ve had so far and we’re all super proud of it. People really like it. They like it. That and “Here I Go” are becoming the stand outs so far. But everyone has loved it.
Between this single and winning the Rockn’ to Lockn’ contest it seems like this summer’s been a pretty big one for you? How have things been going for you guys this year?
We’ve had a lot of momentum this year. We signed with Red Dust Management back in April and since then we’ve had a couple little what I like to call “Biggest Little Mini” tours. We went up from Charlottesville to New York and a couple of shows in between there. That’s been really great getting our name out there a little bit more, people are seeing us travel and then Rockn’ to Lockn’ was a huge deal. So that was kind of the peak of our momentum and we’re just keeping it going with the single. We’re about to go on tour on Friday as well. We also did have one other big festival play this year, which was The Festy.
The Infamous Stringdusters’ festival?
Yeah, we got to play that this year too. So we had like Rockn’ to Lockn’—several rounds of that. We got to play Lockn’ festival. And the other thing with Rockn’ to Lockn’ was it was at the Jefferson Theatre which is a pretty large theater in Charlottesville. It’s like an 800 person room. That was a big deal, just getting to play in that venue, even though it was for a competition. So we had two of those and then Lockn’ itself and a couple smaller festivals like little free fests and things around town. Then we did Festy and now we’re going on tour for a single so it’s just, it’s kind of like the third thing for this fall.
What preparations for you went into the Rockn’ to Lockn’ contest? What was that experience like?
I worked my butt off to win that show. We had a bunch of tickets to sell here in town and I sent out like 100 personal messages and just made all my friends and family come out and just really really hit the pavement trying to get people to show up and support us. And they really did. It was a really rewarding experience not only for our music careers but also it was just heartwarming having that much support from friends and family and then getting to take some of them with us to Lockn’ and stuff. It was a blast. It was also interesting playing against other local bands. We’ve never really done that before. It was kind of a good way to network with other people because other bands were fantastic as well. It was fun.
What was it like actually performing at the festival itself? Was that the biggest show you guys have had up to that point?
I would say so. It was so fantastic I just can’t even—I can’t believe we did that. Back stage Grace Potter was walking around and I got to meet her briefly. She’s one of my idols. I’ve been listening to her since high school and I’m just obsessed. I cried when I met her it was funny. And Willie Nelson’s tour bus was back there. Widespread Panic. I don’t know it was just amazing to see all the musicians backstage, and they were all just hanging out and being really friendly and obviously just so talented. I mean it was wild getting to watch side stage. Seeing how these people play. And the crowd was awesome too. I’ve never been on a stage where they’ve had kind of a megatron TV screen on both sides. So that was a new fun experience for us too.
The band is about to embark on a northeast tour. What can we expect from this run?
So this is our single release tour. So we’re going to be pushing the single a lot, trying to get people to buy in. It’s also kind of a New England tour so we’re going to Connecticut, Boston, Pennsylvania, New York, D.C, and then back down to Charlottesville for kind of a homecoming. We’re gonna hit Roanoke as well, and Richmond. It’s going to be, hopefully like you mentioned, adding onto the momentum of this past year and getting the single out there as well.
Is this the first time you guys are going to be hitting up a lot of these cities?
Yeah. I’ve never been to Boston before. Or Philly, or Manchester [laughs] I only went to New York for the first time back in February with the band so, it’s all new stuff for us.
You enlisted your friends to back you as The Wildfire. What made you want to start performing with this group of guys?
That’s a great question. We were in undergrad together at UVA and I kind of drafted them to be in my band, we’ve changed names since the first time we started playing together. But they’ve kind of been with me the whole way. We started the band coming out of college and had a really good response from the shows that we played. I was kind of the songwriter behind everything and now I write stuff and we work out arrangements with the group. We just mesh really well. We have great chemistry. These are the kind of guys that, if my car breaks down somewhere 100 miles away, they’ll come get me. So I trust them to not only be great bandmates but to be friends as well. We definitely click.
What’s the origin story the band?
So we met in undergrad in a student recording group called O Records. I was the president of it for a couple of years, so it was kind of a good position to be with because I could kind of hand select who I wanted to be in the label and I picked these guys to join the label and then picked them to be in my band. And yeah, we started playing together. I think the first show we ever played was this frat party called Surf & Turf. It was just ridiculous. My bandmates ended up taking their shirts off and like there was like a beer slip and slide. We had, it was just kind of like Animal House. It was, you know, really silly. But we’ve grown a lot since then. We’ve played some better shows since then.
What’s in store for the future for you guys? I know you’ve got the EP and a few singles, but is there a full album in the works?
Yeah absolutely. We’re hoping, within the next year, to release a full album. We’ve definitely got some material ready for that and I think we might pull one or two things from our previously recorded EP and single. But we are really anxious to get a full length out. We just weren’t quite ready material-wise. We had a lot of people pushing us for new recorded material, so we have this single, which we’re hopefully going to get some stuff out of. But a full length is definitely on the horizon, hopefully for 2015.
What else you have planned in the live arena? What’s the plan after this tour wraps up?
We play all the time locally. We’re big in Charlottesville, and we play shows in Richmond, Roanoke and all the surrounding areas pretty frequently. Two or three times a week. We’re going to be getting into Harrisonburg soon, which is where James Madison University is, so we’re excited about that in December. But our homecoming show at the end of our tour is going to be at The Southern which is in Charlottesville, and that’s a pretty established venue here that we have had the privilege of playing a couple times now. It’s like a 300 person room and it’s very intimate and that’s the kind of place where you have your core friends and family come out and it’s just a really good vibe in there. The sound is amazing also. So that’s one of the, that’s technically part of the tour still so we’re really looking forward to that one as well.
With all these shows, have you guys noticed an increase in the local turnout over the last couple of years?
Yes. We actually have fans now who come out independently of me begging them to [laughs]. We still have those people that are our close friends who come to every show because they love us, but yeah, we have people come out and see us here who really enjoy our music. They buy our CDs and they buy our merch at the shows and they’re doing it on their own accord, not because of me asking them to. So that’s pretty great.
