Of the many qualities that define Alaska, transience and adventure are two that the Blackwater Railroad Company hopes to capture in its music.
The Seward-based band will return to Juneau for a two-night run at the Crystal Saloon on Dec. 30 and 31, joined by local bands Steady Going and the The Rain Dogs. The shows will feature unreleased songs and serve as a live recording session for their upcoming album.
“It won’t be the first time that we’re recording a little bit at the Crystal Saloon,” said Kyle Comeau, the band’s piano player and vocalist.
Two songs from their last album, “A Lovely Place to Die,” including “Raging Bull in the Barroom” and “Happy Tune,” incorporated crowd vocals recorded during past Crystal shows.
The Blackwater Railroad Company is made up of Tyson Davis on acoustic guitar and lead vocals, Comeau on piano and vocals, Braden Rollins on saxophone and vocals, Miguel Reina on bass guitar and Ben Rogers on drums. Together, they make music that’s difficult to pin to a single genre.
They rattled off several easily: roots rock, indie folk rock, y’allternative.
“It’s to say we make Alaska music,” Rollins said. “I don’t think anyone wonders about that.”
“Like your best Alaskan summer memory,” Davis added, a sound that’s rooted in memory and place, whether that’s Hatcher Pass, Juneau, Ketchikan or Gustavus.
Davis first came to Alaska from North Carolina in 2007 on a whim, he said, taking a summer job. But he fell in love with Seward and decided to stay.
The band officially formed in 2012, originally as a loose, community group. In its early days, Blackwater Railroad was built out of Seward’s open mic scene, with musicians flowing in and out of town.
For years and years, Davis said, the band was made up of whoever showed up with their instrument. Davis sees that turnover as emblematic of Alaska itself.
“It just kind of embodies the transient spirit of Alaska,” he said. “People moving in and out of these towns.”
More consistency arrived when Rollins and Comeau came to Seward, helping solidify the band’s lineup and direction. Alaska’s adventurous spirit seeps into their lyrics as well as logistics.
“We have a really intense road schedule,” Rollins said. “And we go to all these places that are, like, on the end of a dirt road in the middle of nowhere or on the top of a mountain.”
Touring in Alaska often means 11-hour drives, flights to Southeast, boat trips to remote communities and working within a state that has little formal music infrastructure. Still, the band says the benefits outweigh the downsides.
There’s more freedom in how venues operate and how communities show up for artists, Davis explained. That freedom has also shaped how they function as musicians. In most of the country, Davis said, access to the music industry often feels distant and hierarchical.
“An artist below a certain rung — which is like 95% of artists out there — they’re doing it themselves,” Davis said. “You could be standing outside of a venue in the Lower 48 and still be a million miles from booking or talking to anybody that will give you the time of day.”
In Alaska, those barriers are often lower.
“We can talk to venues or just someone who has a field and say, ‘Do you want to be a venue for a day?’” Comeau said.
The band said that sense of community support helped make one of their biggest milestones possible: a tour across the Pacific. In October, the Blackwater Railroad Company toured in Japan, performing in underground rock clubs in Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. Even thousands of miles from home, they saw some hometown faces.
“We played nine shows all over Japan, and at every single show, there was at least one group of Alaskans there,” Comeau said.
At their final show in Shimokitazawa, Japan, the audience included two people from Anchorage, two from McCarthy and two from Fairbanks, none of whom knew each other before that night.
Looking ahead, the band plans to continue building connections within Alaska’s music scene, including bringing Southeast bands to the road system. Earlier this year, they brought the Rain Dogs to Hatcher Romp at Hatcher Pass. At Winter Romp at the Palmer Train Depot, Steady Going will be featured, and at Summerfest, they’ll play alongside Getting Strangers.
Even as they’ve grown, the band says they see Alaska as their home base.
“As Alaskan artists — and especially people that grow up here — we hear from those folks in our community that the goal was to get out,” Davis said. “It’s been our experience, and I feel like it could be an experience of a lot of other Alaska artists, that this shouldn’t be that ‘hurry to get out of here.’ We already have what they all down there want.”
The Seward-based band Blackwater Railroad Company poses amongst fireweed. (photo courtesy Blackwater Railroad Company)
