Today we’d like to introduce you to Dani Stone of South for Winter.
Hi Dani, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Nick is from New Zealand and I’m from Colorado, so our origin story is a little out-there. We met as volunteers building greenhouses in South America and with both of us being songwriters, we’d brought our traveler’s guitars with us. We spent a few afternoons playing and writing music together on a rooftop in Peru and noticed pretty immediately that something clicked when it came to songwriting. It took a minute for us to leave our solo projects and form a band, though. We spent a few years flying back and forth between the U.S. and New Zealand before we settled down in Christchurch NZ and officially formed South for Winter. A year later, we moved the project to Nashville and soon met our third member Alex, an insanely talented cellist and multi-instrumentalist. Just like Nick and I had clicked with songwriting, Alex and Nick clicked when it came to composing music.
As a trio, we hit the ground running, playing as many shows across the U.S. and Canada as we could for our first two years between working full-time day jobs. Just before Covid hit, we received an amazing opportunity to work with a GRAMMY award-winning producer here in Nashville on our debut album Luxumbra. We then raised enough funds through a Kickstarter to fully fund the album’s independent release. Although Covid has been pretty hard on us as a band (like so many others in the music industry) we were able to release Luxumbra and receive enough press to start making a name for ourselves in the Americana/Folk world. It’s pretty crazy looking back at how far we’ve come and how many team members we’ve gained along the way (special shoutouts to our producer Matt Leigh, percussionist Chris Kearney, publicist/manager Nichole Peters-Good, and booking agency Baker Booking), but every member has been vital in how far we’ve come as a band.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
We’d be surprised if anyone in Nashville said it was a smooth road! There have definitely been challenges along the way, especially in a city as full of talented musicians as Nashville. The first challenge was trying to get gigs booked, especially since we don’t play commercial country or pop music: we write bluesy murder ballads and folky duets. Trying to convince venues and agencies to take a chance on us was tough at first. But we did everything by ourselves for the first few years (booking, graphic design, recording, management, etc) and once we’d slogged through our first couple tours, we started creating a genuine fanbase and receiving press write-ups that have earned us more opportunities. Now, the biggest hurdle has been trying to survive Covid as a band. We released our debut album during the first shutdown, and have barely been able to tour it since then, but it’s now been two years and it’s time to record the next one. It’s hard to find the funds to do so without much in the way of live shows. Therefore, we’ve kept working day jobs throughout the past four years as a band, and just keep hoping the live music industry will be able to safely return soon. Until then, we’ll keep doing our side gigs and writing songs!
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
We’re an indie-folk band specializing in dark storytelling songs, cello/guitar instrumentals, and airy acoustic duets. Our music has often been described as “happy folk and murder ballads”, and our biggest influences include artists like Civil Wars, The Paper Kites, Delta Rae, and Ben Howard. We’re most proud of our debut album Luxumbra, which was released during the first shutdown. The album’s name is Latin for “light” and “shadow” and we spent over two years working with a lot of incredible folks on every aspect of the project: from graphic design, to production, to the instrumentation, to the songs themselves. The album artwork, for example, is a combination of the six single artworks we released leading up to the album. The tree on the album cover represents the tree of life, but it’s also an actual tree from New Zealand called “the Wanaka tree,” which was also featured in the single artwork for our song “Always You.” Graphic designer Derik Hobbs worked with us to take our concept turn it into something even better than we could have imagined. The same goes for the rest of the album, and every person who was a part of it.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
We think indie-folk and Americana music is starting to have a resurgence, and that it will continue to do so in the next 5-10 years. More and more, we’re finding that it’s not just older generations that are listening to folk music like ours; younger audiences are starting to find it, too. Events like Americanafest and Folk Alliance International are bringing more attention to the genre, as well as artists like The Lumineers, Jason Isabel, and Gregory Alan Isakov. Even the fact that Miley Cyrus asked Brandi Carlile to join her at this year’s New Year’s Eve celebration tells us that the genre is gaining more traction again. Overall in the music industry, though, we have absolutely no idea: Covid seems to be changing things daily! Years ago we would have said that independent artists were on the rise and labels were fading out, but now it’s a lot harder to afford being an independent artist and fund albums with restrictions on touring. Only time will tell.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://www.southforwintermusic.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southforwintermusic/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/southforwintermusic
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/southforwintermusic
Image Credits
Stephen Houseworth Photography
Chase Lyons Videography
Kira Hooks Photography
