About
Every setting has a resonance, an energy that vibrates through the streets and whistles in the trees. For Screen Door Porch—the musical project of Seadar Rose and Aaron Davis—the creative groundswell of “grooving electrified Porch music” began in the South before taking shape in Wyoming and Austin. Upon listening to their eponymous debut album in 2010, The Austin Chronicle heard these reverberations, noting that the duo “lends an easy Western flair to their more prominent native influences of North Carolina and Kentucky, a combination that goes down as smoothly as top-shelf bourbon.”
More textures began to permeate recording sessions, so the duo stretched into a six-piece ensemble before settling into a nationally touring act that split time between festival sets as a quartet (with bassist David Bundy and drummer/harmony vocalist Andy Peterson) and listening rooms as a duo.
This set the course towards an artful sound with lyrical purpose, nodding to alt-folk, roots rock, frayed country-blues, and soulful Americana. The sound is adorned with the soulful vocal pipes of Rose coupled Davis’ understated drawl, propped-up by gritty slide guitar, quirky banjo picking, and a range of alt sounds from resonator to mandolin, harmonica, kazoogle, and cigar box percussion. The songwriting pair evoke rustic vocal harmony with “a sort of Lennon/McCartney arrangement and get it right every time: heartfelt yes, earthy certainly, but never languid” (Americana UK).
Over the span of four studio albums and subsequent tours—Screen Door Porch (2010), The Fate & The Fruit (2012), Modern Settler (2015), and Pay it Forward (2017)—the band became a household name in the region while reaching an international audience via the Top 25 of the Europe’s Americana Radio Chart and numerous “Best Albums of the Year” lists from New York City to the United Kingdom. With a finger on the pulse of the SDP’s recording trajectory, Vanguard Records Executive Bill Bentley surmised that the band “transformed roots music into something much larger—a down home goodtime vibe. Sonic hypnosis has set in and Screen Door Porch seems like the only place to live."
Dozens of festivals contributed to the band’s development into an adventurous stage unit, including memorable sets at South by Southwest, Treefort Music Fest, Grand Targhee Bluegrass Fest, Magic City Blues Fest, Sawtooth Music Festival, JacksonHoleLive, and Beartrap Festival while sharing theater and club bills with some of their favorite artists—Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, Buddy Guy, Sam Bush, Steve Earle, Nicki Bluhm, Hayes Carll, Grace Potter, Malcolm Holcombe, and Justin Townes Earle among them. SDP was the first and is only Wyoming artist to record sessions (two) at Paste Magazine’s Daytrotter studio and subscription music service.
Never resting on their laurels and always trying to create a niche within an ever-changing music industry, Seadar and Aaron founded the annual WYOmericana Caravan Tour (2013-2017, 2020), a rotating collective of Wyoming-based acts showcasing original music and cross-band collaborations akin to an old-school musical revue.
Epic encore sets featuring a dozen musicians have become legendary. The pair launched the tour in an effort to raise awareness and build camaraderie within Wyoming’s under-appreciated scene while avoiding the feeling of corporate inundation that plagues many big-name events.
In a full-page article “Touring, the Wyoming Way,” The New York Times pointed out the duo’s “entrepreneurial gumption in founding the multi-act WYOmericana Caravan Tour, a traveling concert circus.” The tour inspired the documentary film WYOMERICANA, which earned 1st place at the 2014 Laramie Film Fest. The film exposes the rare format and colorful characters that propel the grassroots tour, which has featured fellow Wyomingites Jalan Crossland, Patti Fiasco, Canyon Kids, Sneaky Pete & the Secret Weapons, J Shogren Shandhai'D, and The Littlest Birds. WYOmericana tour will celebrate its 6th Anniversary in fall of 2020 featuring Sarah Sample, Jason Tyler Burton, Shawn Hess, The Two Tracks, and Aaron Davis & the Mystery Machine. (Aaron released his second solo album, The Meander, in 2019).
Wyoming’s state government later recognized Screen Door Porch’s contributions from both a musical perspective and as advocates for the greater Wyoming music community. A national ad campaign followed, which included a film component that has reached over half a million views on YouTube.
The decade-long push (2007-2017) as recording artists and performing songwriters came to a head in 2017 when the band announced a hiatus; no internal tension or breakup, but rather a perspective shift that would open more doors to life outside of music. It wasn’t until the recent pandemic that the duo reconvened for semi-public performances for the first time in nearly three years, live streaming from their log cabin in Hoback, Wyoming as well as from the Center Theater in Jackson Hole.
As always, you’re invited to step onto to the Porch and be washed away into the grain.
'BEST ALBUMS OF THE YEAR' lists: Wyoming Public Radio Album of the Year, American Roots UK Editor’s Top 25, NPR/WPR Best Albums of 2012 (voted #2), Tupelo Honey’s Top 20 Americana Releases, Twangville’s Top 100, Roots Music Reports Top 100 Folk Albums, Wyoming Public Radio Best of Wyoming 2010, Planet Jackson Hole's Best Original Album