The roots of The Dead South, four friends who wanted to make music together, lie in grunge. Fortunately, the quartet thought better of it pretty quickly after forming, threw the drums and electronic instruments out the window and took the risk of forming a bluegrass band. The roughnecks have been proving how well that works for over a decade now. Just in August they were with us and brought their outstanding live qualities to our stages; no matter if it was their surprisingly punky and scratchy original compositions or their very own versions of country classics. Thus, the two EPs "Easy Listening for Jerks, Pt. 1 + 2" were released recently, on which The Dead South recorded their favorite songs in a new and different way. Whereby the first part is dedicated to the traditional side, while part two covers songs from System of a Down, The Doors or The Misfits on Bluegrass. "Keep On The Sunny Side," for example, is turned inside out on stage, and not just because a cheerful major becomes a deeper-tuned minor. Instead of the hopeful warbling that after dark times the sun may always shine again, the interpretation of the Canadians is clearly on the gloomy side of the soul. Not for nothing the band says about themselves, with them the Carter Family meets the Addams Family. Live, this is great and yet very serious fun. Singer and guitarist Nate Hilts, Scott Pringle with his mandolin, cellist and art whistler Danny Kenyon, and Colton Crawford on banjo have taken cues from the likes of Hank Williams III and turned an old and deeply traditional genre into an exciting piece of new music. Here, punks become cowboys, and the outlaws who are sung about here come from felt all over the ages. You can see for yourself that this has an incredibly fresh effect next June, when The Dead South come to us again - partly open air.Presented by Rolling Stone, kulturnews and laut.de. -