With Trampled by Turtles

No one can help you build something beautiful quite like those who know you best. Alan Sparhawk knows this well. In his years in Low, he built decades of stirring music with his wife and lifelong creative partner Mimi Parker. In recent years, he has performed around Minnesota with his son Cyrus in DERECHO Rhythm Section, a funk band that also frequently features his daughter Hollis on vocals. There’s an irreplaceable naturalism that comes with this kind of dynamic. Those who know you understand you. They love you. They want to help you bring your greatest passions to fruition.

And so, it only made sense that Sparhawk would turn to fellow Duluth musicians Trampled by Turtles to realize his latest record. As friends and mentees of Low’s, taken under Sparhawk and Parker’s wing from their earliest days as a bar band—Trampled by Turtles have performed with Sparhawk countless times over the years. The Duluth ties run deep: “There’s a certain vibe that has to do with underdog syndrome, coming from a small town,” Sparhawk muses. “Some of it is the weird grind and slackness that being at the mercy of Mother Nature puts in you. It humbles you.”

The two artists hold the kind of ironclad, lifelong bond where they stand by one another as artists and people. Following Parker’s passing in 2022, Trampled by Turtles invited Sparhawk to join them on tour to give him a space to be surrounded by friends. Occasionally, he would join them onstage. The outpouring of love was palpable every time they played together, a surge of warmth. Nurturance was in every note.

When playing together is that powerful an embrace, why stop there?

Cut to: Cannon Falls, Minnesota. Winter 2024. Trampled by Turtles had time booked at Pachyderm Studios recording a record, when Alan Sparhawk came in towards the end with several songs in development. Some had never worked in Low; others were just fresh and waiting for the right setting. For years, the two parties had talked about making something together, but the talk was never more than hypothetical. When Sparhawk needed it most, the promise reemerged, sharper than ever. “When the opportunity seems right,” Sparhawk says, “you jump.”

With Trampled by Turtles is a record exactly as its name implies: Collective. Communal.

Fraternal. Empathetic. There is never a moment of complete solitude. With Trampled by Turtles is a vessel for comfort, a reminder of the harmony that can be brought when surrounded by those closest to you.

In complete trust, both artists let the overflow of human emotion drive their collaboration.

“Nothing is real until everybody is in the room,” as Trampled by Turtles vocalist and guitarist Dave Simonett puts it. “I can practice the songs myself as much as I want, but it’s almost like starting over when everybody’s there.” There were no group practices prior to recording; all the players let whatever surfaced at the moment guide the way.

Almost everything you hear was recorded in a day, with minimal overdubs done with producer Nat Harvie later. “I like seeing artists in a situation where they can be quickened,” Sparhawk says. “You really see their gifts.” Those gifts emerge at their most emphatic in moments completely spontaneous: the wails of fiddle and cello on “Screaming Song” and “Don’t Take Your Light,” the swells of banjo and mandolin on “Torn & in Ashes.” What you hear is honest emotion, the thrums of several hearts spilling out together in real-time, as only a band in complete instinctual unity can.

For Simonett, “Screaming Song” was the emotional cornerstone of the session. He recalls tears welling in his eyes from Sparhawk’s first line: “When you flew out the window and into the sunset, I thought I would never stop screaming / I thought I would never stop screaming your name.” Simonett still chokes up thinking about recording it: “You’re almost letting the feeling out of yourself. It was one of the most emotional experiences of playing music that I ever had.”

Simonett also sees With Trampled by Turtles as another side to the same coin as White Roses, My God, Sparhawk’s last record—not least of which because Nat Harvie produced that record as well. Where White Roses plunged headfirst into electronica and radical vocal modulation, With Trampled by Turtles leans into the folk and bluegrass stylings of its backing band, Sparhawk’s voice now completely unvarnished. The records also share two common tracks—“Heaven” and “Get Still,” both initially written in the sessions for White Roses and now reworked with lush accompaniment by Trampled by Turtles. On “Heaven,” the band conjures a rich overture of acoustic guitars and mandolin, setting the scene before Sparhawk's voice enters. “Get Still,” once an abstract lyrical improvisation, is now rendered clear as day. For Sparhawk, revisiting the track meant trying to better understand where it came from emotionally: “You want to be true to what you’re singing.” He is no stranger to sonic shapeshifting—see the aforementioned funk stylings of DERECHO Rhythm Section, or the buzzsaw-sharp electric blues of the Black-Eyed Snakes, or Low’s own evolution from soft-spoken slowcore to billowing noise walls. “Always making yourself feel a little uncomfortable with the forward step you’re taking is the only way to go,” he says. “You have to make yourself afraid.”

With Trampled by Turtles is far more than just Alan Sparhawk and Trampled by Turtles. It’s Nat Harvie, who—in addition to producing Sparhawk’s records—has been collaborating and performing with Sparhawk for years. It’s Sparhawk’s daughter Hollis, who takes vocal lead on the chorus of “Not Broken,” dueting with her father. It’s an affirmation of all the people who have been vital in Alan Sparhawk’s life and music, and an opportunity to hold each of their gifts into the light.

And it’s Mimi Parker, too—“Too High,” “Princess Road Surgery,” and “Not Broken” were all tracks she and Sparhawk had conceptualized and had been working on in the last few years. With the assistance of Trampled by Turtles, these songs finally found a setting that stirringly commemorates them, bolstered by a full ensemble making every note so vibrantly sing. Their presence is a kind of eternal connection to Parker, a way her musical grace will keep flourishing.

The greatest poignance of all is that With Trampled by Turtles is never truly a “solo record.” The words may be Sparhawk’s, but the sentiments are never his alone, not when his friends and loved ones are always there beside him. The voices are abundant—a full chorus harmonizing on “Stranger,” collective hums and bellows on “Too High” and “Get Still,” the combined force of a Gregorian chant on “Don’t Take Your Light.” In Sparhawk’s own words: “That singing together is love—the feeling of support. It means years of friendship.”