“I see songwriting as literature,” Armstrong said. Viva La Muerte’s debut record, All The Birds, opens with a song that’s built around the wonderfully self-reflexive line “I feel like I feel like feeling again,” which almost sounds like a gag, but it’s really about the ways we open ourselves up to feeling, to being receptive to other people’s emotions. It can be heard as a statement about the active role we have to play in being able to sense and feel and respond to what’s
around us, both to be aware of what’s happening in the world and also to be fully alive and engaged with others. It’s a rallying cry against the easy comforts of numbness. The song reflects Armstrong’s interest in balancing seriousness with the important business of pleasure and fun. One without the other is no good, in the long run. Musically, Viva La Muerte mix a lot of elements: brooding singer-songwriter troubadour folk, some Americana, sturdy bar-band blues rock, and a hint of jam-
band openness, with horns, pedal steel, keys, banjo, harmonica and other touches added as needed. Armstrong said the band was grappling with its identity about a year ago, trying to decide whether to stick with the well-traveled paths of guitar-rock or to push out elsewhere. They settled on elsewhere, into points less clearly mapped out, as a big band with lots of moving parts and a built-in place for musical exploration. The possibilities within the music are what give Armstrong the energy to keep working on so many different fronts. “When you try to build improvisational spaces within your music, and you can really get into a trance with musicians you like — there’s something about playing where you realize, ‘Holy shit, I just stole some fire!’” Armstrong said. “The tradition we’re working, it’s magical.” The band now includes, in addition to Armstrong, Ranford Almond on guitar, Jared Zehmer on bass, Wes Allen on drums, Alan Hedrick on trumpet, multi-instrumentalist John Crocker, Tayler Coldiron on fiddle, and Nikki Taylor on sax. It’s a large-scale project with a lot of musical perspectives, which fits the ambition and scope of the songs. Armstrong said that getting plugged into a supportive network in Greensboro has energized the band.
In addition to his bandmates, he credits Greensboro event-organizers Charles “Bones” Frank and Amanda Loflin with fostering a scene that is warm, open and creatively fruitful. Getting the nod from the community is a bonus for Armstrong and crew. “We’ve been toiling in obscurity — and rather happily — for a long time,” he said. “To get noticed, as Jerry Garcia would say, is ‘gravy.’” Viva La Muerte is working on material for a new record. Armstrong said some of the songs are already complete, a few of which, like one called “The Ballad of Reality Winner” (about the famous whistleblower) and another about climate change and storms, are being played out at the band’s shows now. You can catch Viva La Muerte this summer at Center City Park in Greensboro, on Sat., July 13 at 7 p.m. and at Little Brother Brewing, in Greensboro, on Sat. July 20, at 9:30 p.m. Keep an eye on www.vivalamuerteband.com for further live show updates. ! JOHN ADAMIAN lives in Winston-Salem, and his writing has appeared in Wired, The Believer, Relix, Arthur, Modern Farmer, the Hartford Courant and numerous other publications.
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