Bio

Live at Seattle's Bagley Wright Theater, Folklife 2011

Renegade Stringband is a hard driving bluegrass quintet based in Portland, Oregon. The band formed in 2010, meeting through the Portland music scene and Lewis & Clark College. Mandolin, banjo, bass, guitar, and three-part harmony fuse to form the band’s soulful, exuberant sound. Their repertoire runs the gamut from finely-honed originals to covers of songs by the Black Keys, Woody Guthrie, Tom Waits, and Ella Fitzgerald.

In 2010, the band toured the West Coast, delighting audiences everywhere from the NW Folklife Festival in Seattle to the Soho in Santa Barbara, CA. They kicked off 2011 with a sold out show at Portland’s Laurelthirst, and followed it up with a performance at the High Dive that the Seattle Observer reviewed, saying that the band “trades instrumental solos like a jazz sextet.” The band is headed into the studio in March to record their original songs. They are headed to the ROMP Festival in Kentucky this summer, and will soon release their new EP, “One Thing After Another.”

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Singer Jessica Jarris grew up in Seattle, Washington. Her voice was first nurtured by her instructor at the Bush School, and she studied voice in the music program at Lewis & Clark College. The Seattle Observer called her voice “bold” and “rootsy,” and she was once told she has “a voice like a freight train.”

Mandolinist Ben Larsen shares singing duties with Jess, and also contributes his original songs to Renegade Stringband. Ben grew up in both Massachusetts and Indonesia, and studied mandolin performance at Lewis & Clark College. Ben leads another band in Portland called the Giraffe Dodgers.

Banjo frailer Joe Seamons grew up in the woods of Oregon, where he developed a deep love of Northwest folk and blues music. Like his bandmates, Joe studied music at Lewis & Clark College, but he majored in English. This focus still informs his work as a songwriter for Renegade Stringband. He also studied ballet from ages 7 – 10, and nurtures a lifelong love of the Portland Trailblazers.

Austin Moore‘s guitar playing is the mortar that holds together the sound of Renegade Stringband. Austin grew up in Santa Barbara, California, where he learned the art of cuisine from his mother, and the art of surfing from numerous “bras” in the region. Though he still loves to cook, Austin spends most of his time studying American traditional music and composing instrumental tunes for Renegade Stringband.

Bassist Max Kutzman was born and bred in Montana. Recently, he returned from an extensive tour of Europe. He is currently studying jazz bass and music education at Portland State University.

Fiddler Ben Hunter hails from Phoenix, Arizona. His nonprofit, Community Arts Create, is dedicated to building community in southeast Seattle through self-discovery and shared experiences. Ben has performed live with Roger Waters on multiple occasions, and is a talented cook.

Like Austin and Ben Hunter, Gavin Duffy is a practitioner of the culinary arts. While he generally plays dobro with the Stringband, he is also an accomplished pianist and guitarist. He is currently polishing off his master’s degree in composition from Indiana University, where he studied for three years.