Maygen Lacey and Noah Neumann were playing in different bands when they met each other not long before the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down. Each musician was looking to do something different, so they availed themselves of the downtime during the early part of the pandemic to write songs and put together a band.

That band — Maygen and the Birdwatcher — is the result. Their debut album, Moonshine, released in 2021, almost instantly earning the band accolades from the Midwest Country Music Awards for Album of the Year and Americana Artist of the Year).

Last October, Maygen and the Birdwatcher released the follow-up album, Bootleggin’ At The Flower Shoppe. The band visited The Current studio to play three songs for Radio Heartland, after which time Maygen and Noah chatted with host Mike Pengra about the band’s plans for future releases, their evolving sound … and about who in the band is the amateur ornithologist.

You can watch or listen to the full session above, and read a transcript of the complete interview below.

Interview Transcript

Mike Pengra: I'm in the studio today with Maygen and the Birdwatcher, and just the two of you actually, not the whole band right now, but it's really nice to finally meet you guys and have you in the studio.

Noah Neumann: Good to be here. 

Maygen Lacey: Thank you. Yes.

Mike Pengra: Congratulations on the release of your first two records. Many more to come, I assume, yes? 

Noah Neumann: That's the idea.

Mike Pengra: Yeah.

Noah Neumann:  We've got lots in the hopper.

Mike Pengra: Maygen and the Birdwatcher are a local band. And you formed back in 2020, just before the pandemic started. Tell me that story about how that began and how you managed to avoid that crisis.

Noah Neumann:  Yeah, well, we didn't avoid it. But Maygen and I had been playing for what? Two years before that? Yeah, we came up with an EP in 2018.  It was kind of like a timeout, then, really; you could take a timeout and plan your whole career. Just the two of us doing some kind of folk stuff. And then we kind of wanted to reshape things, we were getting kind of bored with that idea, so we were like, you know, let's get a whole band, we knew some players that we wanted to have kind of come up with us, change the sound a little bit. And that was, I think December was when, like, right before COVID shut down things, we started getting things together. But what was great about I mean, not great about COVID, but was good about that time is then all of a sudden, we had all this time to try to like format, what we wanted to be and write all this music and stuff like that. So you know, we try to kind of take the best of the bad situation and use stuff there. So it obviously, though, it took a while for us to even rehearse with anybody because no one wanted to be around for a while. Sure. So we did a couple outside things and some online things, you know, but we made it work. 

Maygen Lacey: Basically.

Noah Neumann:  It felt like that, yeah. 

Maygen Lacey: Lots of songwriting, time to come up with, because the guys that we added came from bluegrass backgrounds. And so it was just like a whole new world of discovering kind of like what we're going to sound like for our record, Moonshine, which is what we were working on.

Mike Pengra: Let's back up a little bit. You guys said you were already playing together before the band started. So how did you meet? How do you start playing together?

Noah Neumann:  Yeah, we were doing some gigs. Maygen was doing backup vocals for a church and I came in and did some guitar work. And you were in a different band at that point. 

Maygen Lacey: I was in a band called Sparrows Rising, and we were doing like a benefit gig, which was opening up for Indigo Girls, which was like super cool. So we're like, all right, we can't just be a duo for that. So I asked him to join us on guitar, and we played in that band for a little while. 

Noah Neumann:  For a little bit. Yep. And then we were thinking, oh, you know, Maygen was like "I kinda want to do my own thing." And I was like, Yeah, "I'd like to get into more writing and stuff like that." It just branched off from there.

Mike Pengra: And you had a sound in mind already; kind of a bluegrassy, folky...

Noah Neumann:  Well, then it was more just kind of folk.

Maygen Lacey: It was pretty just folky.

Noah Neumann:  More singer songwriter. And then we're like, "You know what? We should try to maybe just add a little more grit in here." And that's kind of where we went from there.

Maygen Lacey: More instruments.

Noah Neumann:  And I wasn't really singing at all. And Maygen wasn't playing any guitar at that point. But when we started kind of, when that that connection happened over COVID with the band members, that we started to blend that more and Maygen did more guitar and more singing

Mike Pengra: So Maygen and the Birdwatcher. I know where Maygen comes from. Birdwatcher?

Noah Neumann:  Yeah, well...

Maygen Lacey: It's true!

Noah Neumann:  We had to find something to call ourselves! And we weighed a couple of things, but I am a bird nerd, I'm a self described bird nerd. And the rest of us were like, I guess that's a good name, good as any name. So yeah.

Mike Pengra: So the first album came out then and 2021, right? Somewhere before that happened, you came up with the band, how did you meet the rest of the guys in the band?

Noah Neumann:  So I knew... So Ethan [Moravec] was our kind of first connection

Maygen Lacey: Upright bass.

Noah Neumann:  Upright bass. He, again, just at a random random church thing that I found him, I was playing guitar for somebody, and he happened to be on bass. And we're like, "Oh, you play stand up. Are you interested?" He's like, "Yeah, I used to play in bluegrass bands and stuff like that." So we added him. And he said, "Yeah, my brother also happens to play fiddle and mandolin, Jesse." So we're like, "Great. Jesse, come on down." And they're both from, both lived in Wabasha, but they were happy to make the drive.

Maygen Lacey: Yeah, like every week, pretty much.

Noah Neumann:  And Nik [Pellinen], Nik's on banjo, and he's kind of, kind of a wild guy. No, he's not really that wild.

Maygen Lacey: Nik we saw, we were playing like some little singer songwriter gig, and he was a solo guy. And we were like, "Nik is so cool!"

Noah Neumann: We thought he was cool. And he was looking for more opportunities to play some more banjo. He plays in all sorts of different bands. But yeah, that was how. And then most recently was Peter [Anderson]. But we were looking for somewhere to record, and someone had suggested Peter's studio, Flowers Studio in Minneapolis.

Mike Pengra: When that first record, when it came out, you were recognized by the Midwest Country Music Association. That's a huge honor! For your first record, right?

Maygen Lacey: Yes! It was really quite a surprise. We were super excited to be nominated. But then when we actually won for Album of the Year, and then Americana Artists of the Year, it was like, just it started a big whirlwind of just a great year for us last year. And yeah, it was really, really exciting stuff.

Noah Neumann:  Did not expect to win, but it was cool to do.

Maygen Lacey: Yeah.

Mike Pengra: You guys have an interesting sound that, when I heard you first live, at once I thought, you know, Noah, you've got this kind of a gravelly voice thing going on. Maygen your voice is something far apart. Have you ever heard of continental drift?

Maygen Lacey: Yes.

Mike Pengra: Plate tectonics?

Noah Neumann:  Yes!

Mike Pengra: It's like when, you know, they come together, and they sort of meet and formed this unique sound and you guys, you're a new continent.

Noah Neumann:  Thank you, Mike.

Mike Pengra: Yeah. I mean, was that planned? Did you think about that at all?

Maygen Lacey: I mean, not really, because our first EP was all me singing. And I did the harmonies on that EP, too, you know, kind of in that way. And then got him singing more and just, he's just kind of grown into his own vibe. And it's just been so fun for both of us to be able to kind of bring whatever our soul is telling us, you know, to the music.

Mike Pengra: How about the writing of the songs? These come from both of you, I assume. Do you write together? Or do you write it by yourself and bring it to the band?

Noah Neumann:  Yeah, primarily separately. You know, I'll send some guitar ideas to Maygen for her to like, do some lyrical stuff over sometimes, but she also write her own stuff. A lot of it is separate, though; we'll kind of come together towards the end, but we kind of build the house, and then separately, and then together, we pick out like the drapes and the couch and stuff like that. So we do kind of fine tuning together. But yeah, it's mostly our own thing.

Maygen Lacey: Yeah. And then we'll come together and swap out lyrics and like different ideas. So like, I'll bring something to Noah and he'll have suggestions and then vice versa. So it takes both of us to finish a song. But yeah, the beginning parts are just kind of from ourselves. 

Mike Pengra: So Bootleggin' At The Flower Shoppe is your latest? That came out last summer?

Maygen Lacey: October actually, yeah.

Mike Pengra: What's next?

Maygen Lacey: Oh, my goodness. So this year, we're going to just really play out a lot with Bootleggin' At The Flower Shoppe, we have a tour, you know, planned around the country, because there's so many places we haven't been. So there's, I mean, having Moonshine and Bootleggin' At The Flower Shoppe, there's so many places that just need to hear those songs. But we did start writing more this past winter, too, because we just can't help ourselves.

Noah Neumann:  Moonshine, we recorded it all in two days, and Bootleggin' we recorded everything in one day. So now we're thinking like we should take like 10 months and record stuff.

Maygen Lacey: Yes, we're literally gonna just...

Noah Neumann:  Space it out.

Mike Pengra: I think I'm seeing an apartment in San Francisco or something where you could live in, in like Haight-Ashbury, and just...

Noah Neumann:  Exactly, yeah.

Maygen Lacey: So it's gonna be a whole different process for us this coming record, but we're not even going to worry about it really, like, too much until fall probably.

Mike Pengra: How about the sound, will it stay the same?

Noah Neumann: No.

Maygen Lacey: No, no.

Noah Neumann:  I think we both get bored pretty quickly, and not like bored in a bad way. But just like we're always looking for what is the next thing? How do we keep pushing this? How do we discover new things to do? You know, we both played in a lot of different like, types of bands and configurations.

Maygen Lacey: And we love all different kinds of music, too. So there's just so much we want to do that hasn't fit on these two records but we have an idea of where we want to go.

Noah Neumann:  Right, but like just to be like tied down to bluegrass or Americana or country would not be something that would feel good to us.

Mike Pengra: Are you gonna give us a clue what the next sound will be?

Noah Neumann:  It's not polka.

Mike Pengra: OK, all right.

Noah Neumann:  Maybe, I don't know.

Mike Pengra: Horn section?

Noah Neumann:  You'll have to wait to find out.

Mike Pengra: OK, I do see a horn section then, maybe. It's been a real pleasure to have you guys in the studio. Thank you so much for coming in.

Maygen Lacey: There's maybe one or two songs with horns possibly. Just — we still kind of want to stick with like, our Instagram says "Americana soul." We're probably going to lean more into the soul side of that. Thank you. It's been great. 

Mike Pengra: It's Maygen and the Birdwatcher, here on Radio Heartland.

Maygen and the Birdwatcher in studio

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Video Segments

00:00:00 “Take It To The Garden”
00:03:36 “He Ain’t Me”
00:07:45 “Gunflint Lake”
00:12:07 Interview with host Mike Pengra

Songs 1 and 2 are from Maygen and the Birdwatcher’s 2022 album, Bootleggin’ At The Flower Shoppe; song 3 is from their 2021 album, Moonshine.

Credits

Guests – Maygen and the Birdwatcher
Host and Producer – Mike Pengra
Video Director – Derek Ramirez
Camera Operators – Derek Ramirez, Guillermo Bonilla
Audio – Evan Clark
Graphics – Natalia Toledo
Digital Producer – Luke Taylor

External Link

Maygen and the Birdwatcher – official site