Brothers bring ‘musical family’ home to Midway with range of rock styles

Two Mishawaka-raised brothers, Vince and Jimmy DeWald, are coming home to The Midway Tavern with two bands on Jan. 21 — one based in San Francisco, the other in Nashville, Tenn.

They reflect the interwoven story of the brothers’ geographic journeys, their music communities and their evolution in rock-based music.

You’ll see some of the same performers in both bands. But their sounds will be noticeably different.

“A lot of this homecoming is bringing our musical family together,” Vince DeWald says from his home in Nashville.

Vince describes Brand New Trash, which he and Jimmy created, as “garage folk that is not as polished as Nashville.” By contrast, The Stone Foxes, which Vince also became part of in recent years, is “in-your-face blues rock.”

Brand New Trash’s songs can be moody, even contemplative at times like Vince’s guitar playing and breathy lead vocals in “Back to That Place,” or spirited. You can hear each vocalist, each instrument distinctly. Vince says they aim for lyrics that are “slightly askew from what you hear on the radio.”

By contrast, Stone Foxes comes at you with a mashed-up sound that’s full energy throughout each song. Be prepared to keep moving. It’s a five-piece band where, at some points, all five musicians are singing. The lead, Shannon Koehler, writes lyrics that often stem from the trials that the 35-year-old has faced through multiple heart surgeries.

Brand New Trash will open the show at the Midway, which they booked for Jan. 21 because The Stone Foxes will be playing Jan. 20 at the Tomorrow Never Knows indie music festival in Chicago.

Growing up in Mishawaka

The brothers had played at the Midway twice just more than 10 years ago, a “no-brainer” choice for their homecoming concerts because it’s a long-standing and “legendary club” for the blues in Mishawaka. They’d grown up listening to blues.

March 2021:Albertina Wassenhove, owner of Midway Tavern and 'true lover' of the blues, dies at 93

Both are Marian High School alumni — Vince, 40, graduated in 2001 and Jimmy, 44, in 1996.

Vince studied jazz guitar with Bill Boris at Columbia College in Chicago for two years and then finished his bachelor’s degree in jazz and world music at San Francisco State University. He soon settled in San Francisco along with Jimmy, who’d started playing bass while studying at the University of Notre Dame.

In 2006, they formed Buxter Hoot’n with a few other band mates, blending blues, rock ’n’ roll and Americana as they toured and recorded four albums.

They’d started with the influences of Dylan, Springsteen and Mellencamp, then picked up vibes from the Bay Area’s outsider folk scene. They liked Michael Hurley, a key folk singer-songwriter of the Greenwich Village scene of the 1960s and 1970s. Jimmy was a fan of Lou Reed, known for the song “Walk on the Wild Side.”

To this day, Vince says, they aim to be “more raw and cinematic than a polished Americana radio show.”

First time at the Midway:Brothers bring Buxter Hoot’n back home to their native Mishawaka

After they released their fourth album, in 2012, Buxter Hoot’n “fizzled out.” But, there in San Francisco, Vince found The Stone Foxes and filled empty slots in the band in 2013. Vince joined some of the lead vocals and helped with songwriting. Along with him came Ben Andrews, the violin player from Buxter Hoot’n.

Time to move

Meanwhile, the DeWald brothers started Brand New Trash as a “side project,” but it didn’t produce much until 2020. Pulling on friends like violinist Andrews, the new little band developed its first album in early 2020: “Right In Front of You.” Then the pandemic hit. Gigs shut down everywhere. The timing was right for new albums and at-home music.

Also leading up to the pandemic, the musical community that the DeWalds had found so “formative” in San Francisco was fizzling out. It had grown harder to find gigs. Vince explains that “musicians were pushed out with big dot-com money,” though Stone Foxes kept plenty busy.

It was time to recalibrate. To move. Vince quickly learned more about and fell in love with Nashville, Tenn., where a friend was living who’d co-produced and co-engineered two of their Buxter Hoot’n albums.

From 2012:Buxter Hoot’n to play new album in entirety at Midway Tavern in Mishawaka

“It didn’t take long to feel the buzz of the (music) community,” Vince says.

The brothers moved there in 2021. Vince was solo. Jimmy took his wife and young daughter. They met a handful of other musical transplants who came for the same reason, who, like them, had already gained wisdom from their early, teeth-cutting years in the business. Vince found “quite a lot” of opportunities to co-write songs and back up other musicians.

Through Zoom, Vince kept up (and still does) a job teaching music to all ages in San Francisco.

Now, Brand New Trash is working on a new album that it hopes to release this year.

At the Midway, Vince and violinist Andrews and drummer Brian Bakalian will do double duty performing in both bands — showing their range of skills. Piano player Emilie Raines of Brand New Trash will sit in for one song with Stone Foxes, while Koehler will reciprocate for a song, too.

They’ll play some of the songs from the album that Stone Foxes released at the end of 2022: “On the Other Side.” Vince helped with some co-writing, though he doesn’t perform on that album.

Brand New Trash, Vince says, “is my core artistry.” He had to work at assimilating into Stone Foxes, but with Koehler’s help, he did.

“It took a bit more effort to find my voice there as a songwriter,” Vince reflects. “It’s always fun to throw yourself into new contexts.”

In concert

∎ Who: Brand New Trash and The Stone Foxes

∎ Where: The Midway Tavern, 810 W. Fourth St., Mishawaka

∎ When: 8 p.m. Jan. 21

∎ Cost: $15. Buy tickets at the door or in advance at www.thestonefoxes.com/wix-merch.

∎ For more information: Call 574-255-0458 or visit themidwaytavern.com.

South Bend Tribune reporter Joseph Dits can be reached at 574-235-6158 or jdits@sbtinfo.com.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: The Stone Foxes and DeWald brothers band play Midway Tavern Mishawaka