this image was grabbed from the Wilders website wilderscountry.com. Give em a visit.

Pictures from the Wilders Show, taken after they just completed an interview with cub reporter, Schmidty
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The Wilders Interview - Part I

The Wilders at the Blue Moon on January 28th was a new experience for me. I had previously only seen the Wilders play at festival venues, a somewhat stiff and detached atmosphere. The Blue Moon was in contrast very intimate and it appeared to me the Wilders were free to be themselves and really play their best. I was blown away at the difference. It was Betse’s birthday and there was a foggy, bayou, magic in the air. The show that followed this interview was unbelievably hot. The local Cajuns seemed to really identify and revel in the music and I have to say that it is the first time I have seen every single person in the Blue Moon get out and cut a rug. In addition, I was lucky enough to hear some of the first live performances of several original tunes the Wilders composed and am here to tell you that you won’t be disappointed when the album comes out. All in all I have to say that the Wilders are just a real genuine bunch of good folks and I’m jealous you all have the opportunity to see them in Kansas so often. Lastly I have to say that Betse Ellis is the best damn old time fiddle player I have ever had the pleasure of seeing perform (with the possible exception of Dave Bass but that’s really apples and oranges) and the Wilders are certainly one of, if not the best old time music ensemble on the circuit. What follows is an interview I nailed them down for in their RV before the show. Although I’m getting better at transcribing I have to say that transcribing 5 people, some all talking at the same time is difficult to say the least. As always I tried to do my best but please forgive any mistakes.

Schmidty: All right, let’s get down to business, the new album, I’m ecstatic about it, I want some details, I heard rumors there’s a lot of new material on it, is this true?

Ike: Yeah!

Nate: It’s very true, man we’re really excited about it because we’re all like “let’s try to write some songs or something, try to do some original shit and everybody just started coming up with stuff man, I mean it just all exploded and all of sudden we had eleven original tunes to pick from besides all the stuff we were doing before so it’s like

Ike: It’s been like three months, man like three months, like shit . . .

Nate: It’s like wow we’re gonna have to wittle this one down man and see what happens

Betse: We still don’t even know, I mean we got into the studio and started to like laying tracks down and what do we have?

Ike: twenty tunes

Betse: Twenty tunes and that’s too many for an album so we’re like what are we gonna . . ..

Schmidty: How many of those twenty do you think are originals?

Ike: half

Betse: Yeah, half

Schmidty: Would most of the album be originals?

Ike: At least half and probably be a little more than half but we still, you know we don’t want to forget about the old stuff because that’s what we’ve always done, we love the old Hank Williams, we love the old traditional fiddle tunes so we don’t want to give up on that, we’re always gonna be doing that but we just wanted to add in a little something you know, We’re all four songwriters, we all write stuff and it’s just a blast, it’s really given us a new injection, a new hot beef injection of

Betse: Ha, ha ,hot boudin (Cajun sausage) injection

Phil has reached into the microwave and just pulled out a steaming link of boudin sausage to nibble on.

Ike: Boodan injection!

Betse: Boodan not Bowdan, we’re learning a lot about how to talk down here.

Nate: We figure whatever we don’t use or doesn’t make it here we’ll use it somewhere else or we’ll have it in the safe, so we’ll see what happens. Hopefully the originals are of good enough quality that we can put them all on and we’ll see what happens but it’s all going back and listening to the recording kinda gotta go back and check it all out, I’m sure you know all about that. It’s hard to do right after you record it.

Ike: And p.s. Dirk Powell is the bomb!

Schmidty: That was my next question, How cool was that?

Betse: Ohhhhh yeah!

Nate: Dirk is supercool, man he’s incredible

Ike: Those two (Nate and Betsie) are the first two people to meet him, they met him, tell him the story of how you all met him.

Betse: I mean, I’m an old time groupie so it’s like when I meet people that like I’ve listened too on recordings and I think are just really cool, of course making an idiot of myself all the time, but we were at this festival in New York state called Grey Fox festival last summer, really fun place and we were playing a set in the afternoon on the main stage and I look over on the side and there’s a place where there is all the people involved in the festival and everything which is kind of outside of the audience area right by the stage and I see Dirk Powell come over and sit down and I’m like “Oh shit!” ha ha “Dirk Powell is here…

Ike: We better be doing good

Betse: . . . I’m like Oh god we gotta play . . .” and we had a great show and I didn’t see him again until that night when Nate and I went out later on after a big old rain storm, we were having a fun time at the festival and we went down to the Cajun dance they were having and were hanging out there and then I saw Dirk Powell and he came up and introduced himself and he was like really cool and I’m like “I’m a big fan duh . .” and “Here do you want a beer?, Lets go get a beer and meet Nate” you know and Nate was hanging out there and so I put those two together and they were getting along great and I’m like wow, cool, this is a good time, but one of the first things that Dirk said to me after introducing himself saying “Hey you all played a killer set, it was great, he was like “You ought to come down to Louisiana and just hang out or record with me or whatever and I’m like “Oh, Okay, let me file that like not to far in the back vault!” So, I talked to the band about it and these guys listen to a lot of different kinds of music but you know like I said I’m probably like this old time groupie so I kind of knew what he was about, just his level of musicianship but then after talking to him and seeing what a cool guy he was and seeing how great he got along with Nate I knew that everybody would really, really like him and when they started looking into all the different projects he has done and everything everybody in this band had something they could relate to what Dirk has done and what he was doing and so luckily we made it happen, between our schedule and his schedule, our schedule is getting a lot busier, his is getting super busy.

Schmidty: Doesn’t he have like a grammy awards ceremony to go to or something?

Betse: I don’t know but he’s

Schmidty: He’s up for a grammy . . .

Betse: He probably is

Ike: He recorded with Sting man.

Betse: Yeah for the Cold Mountain . . .

Phil: He just recorded Levon Helmes from the Band

Ike: Oh my God wait tell you hear that shit!

Schmidty: I just have to say personally when I saw Cold Mountain I was a little disappointed because I thought they should have just taken his album . . .

Betse: That’s the thing Songs from the mountain that project with Tim O’Brien and John Herman and the book, they were so moved to make that project

Schmidty: So when I saw the movie I was just assuming they would just take his songs off the album and put it . . .

Betse: I don’t know why they didn’t, I don’t know why they didn’t

Schmidty: and it ended up they just took little . . .

Betse: Took little bits of that here and there you know and Dirk was definitely involved with the movie and of course Riley Bogus another great old time musician was involved as well and he’s not part of that original companion album but you know the thing is with Hollywood

Ike: They do whatever the hell they want.

Betse: Dirk has worked with Hollywood before he was in a movie that was filmed in Missouri not far from where we live it was . . .

Schmidty: Ride with the Devil

Betse: So he’s been around all that and he knows how it is, for public consumption especially in the movie world you’re not always going to be able to use everything that you would in an audio format but I feel the same way.

Schmidty: So are you a big Dewey Balfa fan?

Betse: Yeah!

Nate: Ah Christine!

Betse: I love the old Cajun music, that’s not something I spent much time listening to because I went nuts for all the, especially Ozark, you know old time fiddle stuff and everything but the Cajun music is something that has moved me for a long time and the first time I saw Balfa Toujours, I never got to see Dewey Balfa perform in person but I saw Balfa Toujors perform at Merlefest back in 1998 and loved it, had such a great time there and in fact, meeting Christine was a real trip because I loved that band so much and it was a treat to be able to be down here and here we are in a studio, but it’s really their home and we got to just hang out there for this week and she is so down to earth and we spent a little bit of time with the whole family and their kids. Their two girls are just so sweet and yeah I’ve always thought of Christine Balfa as kind of, part of the royal family almost of Cajun music and it’s just been a real trip to be here and spend time with them but really it just comes down to they’re good people. They’re good people and we were fortunate enough to get hooked up with them and to have this experience. Not only is this the most professional recording experience we’ve ever had, we’re doing that but we’re also doing this original material so it’s taking us to this new level.

Schmidty: Rural Grit records that’s your baby isn’t it.

Ike: It’s kind of a conglomerate of a bunch of us people in K.C. People think we’re crazy, we go play places and people are like the Wilders are totally nuts man you’re crazy and I’m like we’re the most normal people of all the people we play music with. It’s like you should hang out with those people they play far . . .

Schmidty: So will this album be a Rural Grit production?

Ike: We don’t know because it’s not a real record label in a way, it’s just a bunch of us who love stuff and we put out music and I don’t know what we’ll do . . .

Schmidty: So Dirk is the producer?

Ike, Betse, Nate: Yes

Ike: I’d like to say one thing man, when you guys met Dirk Powell nobody told me how old he was I thought he was some old fucker. Everybody’s like Dirk Powell he plays all this old time stuff and I’m like, I just imagined in my head some fifty year old guy who has been playing old time music and I met him and he’s a damn kid.

Phil: He’s younger than Betse . . .

Nate: I’m not gonna say his age . . .

Ike: He’s a damn kid

Phil: He’s between Nate and Betse’s age

Ike: No, I thought he was younger than that

Nate: I know exactly how old he is, he was born in 69

Betse: What’d you think Nate was older than me?

Phil: So he’s 36 . .

Schmidty: Well, how old are you?

Betse: I’m 36 today

Ike: TODAY! Happy Birthday to you, you live In a shoe . . .

Betse: Whatever . . .

Nate: You were born in 69?

Betse: Yes

Nate: Well, he was born in 69 too

Betse: Oh he was, you talked to him about it? Aw shit man, same age

Phil: Summer of 69 (singing the Bryan Adams anthem)

Schmidty: Christine’s older than him isn’t she?

Betse: Oh is she? I don’t know, she’s like, to me Christine has looked the same ever since

Ike: Dirk Powell got his first real six string . .(singing the Bryan Adams anthem)

Betse: the movie Big Easy. You know she’s in a little scene with Dewey Balfa, playing with her dad at a little party in that movie and she looks almost exactly the same, she looks ageless to me. Which is a beautiful thing. So I don’t know, now that I know Dirk is the same age as me I guess Christine is right around there.

Schmidty: Allright, Craziest thing about Louisiana?

Ike, Phil, Nate, Betse: FOOD!

Phil: The food is sooo good

Ike: Crazy good

Betse: Yeah

Nate: The people man

Ike: The people, everything

Nate: Wonderful people down here, man they’re all fucking nuts

Ike: But the food, I just couldn’t fucking believe it

Schmidty: Did y’all eat crawfish?

Ike: Yeah we ate crawfish, catfish

Nate: I ate like 50 of em

Ike: But here’s the craziest thing in Kansas City you can go to the supermarket and get some food you can go to HY-Vee and get some like roast beef sandwhich that tastes like shit, man you go here, in Breaux Bridge they got this grocery store called Abair’s and we went there and it was the best food I ever had in my life that’s just behind the counter like

Schmidty: Exactly, the plate lunches

Ike: They got like three different things behind the counter that you can make like plate lunches, they’re like you should go pick up a plate lunch and we go there and pick it up and I’m like this is the best food I’ve ever had in my life and it’s at the grocery store, I can’t imagine what the restaurants are like

Schmidty: You can’t imagine what real people cook like . . .

Ike: Oh Dude exactly

Nate: The ladies behind the counter man have so much character

Betse: They’re so nice

Nate: We’re just talking and shooting the crap you know and having a good old time talking to you it’s

Schmidty: People are definitely a lot more open in the south, it’s really strange

Ike: Yeah cuz we’re from the bible belt and people there are very nice there you know Missouri people are

Schmidty: Do you think it’s surface nice?

Ike: Well no, not even that, I can’t put them down , I’m a Missouri guy and they’re awesome but they’re tied up a little bit, They’re very nice people and they totally care about you but it’s the bible belt so they’re just a little tight and repressed, You come down here and people are like “Lets have a good time, you might die tomorrow you better eat good tonight!”

Schmidty: You know if you go to a bar in Kansas there will be a bunch of guys sitting around talking about cars. You go to a bar in Louisiana there will be a bunch of old men sitting around arguing about their etoufee recipe.

Ike: Ha, like I got the best one, no fuck you I got the best

Schmidty: and they go on for hours and hours about how they brown their roux and people take it real serious down here

Nate: Oh man yeah . . .

Ike: Like what do you put in there? And they say nah that’s terrible I got the best recipe, That’s cool man.

Tune in to part 2 to find out what the life on the road is like for the Wilders and just what they like to play on Betse’s Ipod in addition to other tantalizing tidbits!