Sixteen years of Switchback

Sept. 13, 2009

Sixteen Years of
Switchback
By Kristi Kates 9/14/09

In spite of their youthful appearances to the contrary, Marty McCormack and Brian FitzGerald met over 23 years ago in Illinois, where McCormack was playing in a band with his siblings, and FitzGerald was part of an Irish quartet performing at the same venue. It wasn’t long before the two musicians teamed up to work on some originals, “and knew that we wished to make music a full-time venture,” McCormack says.
Switchback was officially formed in 1993, and was a DIY band long before do-it-yourself was considered “cool.”
“We felt that we were going to do this as an independent band, and we started out as grass roots as you could get, recording and making cassettes at Brian’s apartment and selling them at shows for $5,” McCormack explains. “We also felt strongly that we would keep Switchback a duo and create a full band sound. So, we had stomp boards made and relied on our Irish musical upbringing of my having a percussive bass and Brian creating a style on the guitar and mandolin that carries both chords and melody simultaneously.”
“We are both able to sing and harmonize with each other easily; so the result is very much a full band sound,” McCormack continues, “that doesn’t mean that we don’t enjoy having other musicians play with us, though; when we do bring together our full band, it’s an extremely rich sounding experience.”
The talented friends write their songs together, and lucked onto yet another pivotal collaborator early on.
“Our first brush with greatness in a producer was Lloyd Maines, working on the Fire That Burns project back in 2002,”
Brian FitzGerald recollects. “But our process of recording is always changing. This last album saw us more focused on each element being added, changing the sequence in which they were added and the overall sound production. It was much more time-consuming as well, but I think we have a more radio ready album than our previous albums.”

FROM LEON TO LINCOLN
Switchback just keeps accumulating various honors, as well, from opening spots for such artists as Leon Russell and the Moody Blues, to the poignant inclusion of their song, “The Death of William Henry,” in a portion of Kay Shelton’s 2009 bicentennial birthday celebration of Abraham Lincoln.
“That song is from our last album, Falling Water River,” McCormack explains. “The album is a song-cycle that centers around a soldier who goes to war, is killed and returned to his family. The emotions of Henry, his wife, his comrades, his community are of course what we were examining, putting a face to the countless people who have died not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in all wars.”
“The melody itself is Midwestern folk, with a bit of a bluegrass feel to it; we wanted to create musically the moment of William Henry’s death and so, wrote this slow waltz that is his daydreaming about dancing with his wife,” he continues. “The title tells you that he is dying at the same time. It was the simplicity that we were after, that a regular man was having thoughts of love at the moment that an act of violence ends his life. That fits well with the Lincoln site, especially when one ponders the suffering that Lincoln went through with sending men off to death; I like the fact that Kay felt that this song would put a face on those men who sacrificed, and ultimately on the leader that reluctantly committed them to battle.”

NEW SONG SURPRISES
From that look back at history, to Switchback’s future, the duo continues to work on new songs that they’ll be adding to their roster of fan favorites, among them “Apple of My Eye,” “Bamboozled,” and “Connemara Man.”
“We are always working on new recordings,” says McCormack. “When we started the Ghosts of the River Folk album, we cut about 22 tracks and decided to move some of them to our next album called Kanoka, which we intend to bring Lloyd in on. Our fans can expect the Ghosts album to be out in September; and, additionally, we have several live albums of concerts we have given in Ireland, Holland and Canada that we are planning to release as well that are being produced by Jim Sundberg in Michigan.”
“We don’t have any favorite songs of our own,” FitzGerald continues, “but different regions bring out a whole other round of songs - if we’re playing a Celtic festival in Iowa or a concert in France for example. The Irish and Dutch fans have more of an interest in our Americana sound, while at our Canadian concerts, the fans there seem to delve a bit deeper into some of our other material, which allows us to play material we don’t normally play. We always want to keep bringing out all our songs to our fans.”
Those fans can expect to hear plenty of selections from the new album, as well as some older material from previous recordings - and perhaps a few surprises - at Switchback’s upcoming Michigan shows.
“We are constantly working on new material, and we enjoy the risk of throwing an unfinished song out there and seeing how a live situation shapes it,” McCormack says, “in that way, the audience participation and reaction is part of the creative process; we look forward to the sharing of energy with our fans.”

Switchback will perform as part of the Black Cat Concert series in Charlevoix on Thursday, September 17 at 7 p.m.; more info on that show can be found at www.blackcatconcerts.com, or by telephoning 231-547-6945. Switchback’s website may be found at www.waygoodmusic.com, and more about the Lincoln bicentennial celebration with Switchback’s song may be found at http://illinoislincolnhighway.tripod.com/lincolnread/civilwarsoldiers.html.