Shovels & Rope hopes audience digs its sound

May 31, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

Shovels & Rope’s Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent admittedly have no idea how their unique brand of South Carolina folk rock ’n’ roll will be accepted in the Midwest. Especially at their Youngstown debut Friday at Cedars.

To be fair, the duo wasn’t necessarily welcomed with arms wide open in its hometown, which probably is why the act logged more than 60,000 miles playing roughly 170 shows last year alone with the likes of Hayes Carll, Justin Townes Earle, Jason Isbell, the Felice Brothers and Butch Walker.

“Every time we come to Ohio, we have a great time,” said Hearst, calling from Huntington, Va. “We’re quite smitten with the genteel laid-back nature of the run-of-the-mill Ohioan. Lucky for us, our kind of folky, rocky sound is appealing to a nice cross section of Americans no matter where they are. We have more pressure on us in the South to be either more traditional Southern rock or more traditional country music, and I don’t think that pressure exists outside.”

Added Trent, “We don’t really consider ourselves like a country act or even like alt-country. Americana I guess is fair, but we’re kind of a rock band. If you come expecting to hear country music, it’s not really going to be that.”

What audiences can expect to hear is material from the duo’s recently released CD “O’ Be Joyful,” which was recorded last year in their house, van and backyard.

The album doesn’t mark any wholesale changes. Instead, it contains the heart of Shovels & Rope — harmony-driven performances showcasing the band’s song-writing depth.

Trent said the act originally tried to record it live and in a short amount of time, but that plan went to the wayside once it was obvious the outfit was better suited taking its time to let its material breathe.

The result paints Shovels & Rope as an underdog player in the folk zeitgeist that includes the likes of The Avett Brothers, Mumford & Sons and more.

“I feel bands like that have done great things for kind of bringing acoustic instruments back to pop and rock radio,” Hearst said. “These are all different bands with different sounds — and we certainly don’t sound like those bands — that definitely opened up an audience. Those kinds of music fans will like us and know where we’re coming from.”

Basically, if you want a definitive style to describe Shovels & Rope, the outfit’s self-coined sloppy tonk style seemingly fits its studio work as well as its concert stage approach.

“That’s us,” Trent said, laughing. “I think a lot of our tunes swing a little bit, so that’s where the tonk part comes in. We are good singers, and as far as instruments go, we’re pretty good, but we’re pretty rough around the edges. We’re not sitting in our vans practicing our scales. We just kind of go with it, and if it’s loose, then we don’t mind.”