Dusk Brothers
Dusk Brothers are a ‘dark swamp blues’ two-man-band from Bristol, UK.
The gritty dark swamp blues sound of Dusk Brothers (Gray and ‘E’ Moncrieff) draws heavily on their unconventional arsenal of self-built instruments. Guitars fashioned from old metal boxes, “Frankenstein” foot drums created by ripping down 55 gallon oil drums and bolting them onto sawn-off bass drum shells and custom valve guitar amplifiers built from scratch in their own workshop provide a raw, bluesy backdrop for growling vocal harmonies and blues harp.
These “cowboy-hatted shamans'” visceral live shows continue to astound audiences and accrue a dedicated fanbase at venues and festivals across the UK including the acclaimed Buckle & Boots Country Festival and coveted main stage appearances at Tenby Blues Festival and Carlisle Blues Rock Festival.
Dusk Brothers featured in award winning director Virginia Heath’s documentary ‘Cigar Box Blues – The Makers Of A Revolution’, broadcast on BBC One and BBC Four.
During the 2020 lockdown the brothers transformed the ramshackle garage they use as a rehearsal room into a pallet-wood-clad private rum bar and live-streaming and recording studio. They continue to stream “The Dusk Brothers Show LIVE” on Friday nights from their infamous Rum Shack.
The debut EP “Storms, Rum, Liars and Guns” was released in 2019 with a release party in the brothers’ home town of Bristol.
Their first and eagerly anticipated full studio album is now under construction.
We haven’t always rocked cowboy hats and played dark swamp blues music. We cut our teeth in rock bands and were once part of a four piece called Halo with which we got signed by a major label. We had some amazing times touring and honing our craft. That was a long time ago now. Twenty years ago in fact.
Let’s fast forward to the point at which everything changed for us, paving the way for Dusk Brothers to slide into existence. That happened in 2015 when we discovered the cigar box guitar movement and we saw folks building and playing simple guitars and making cool, raw sounds with them. We had some tools and the two of us figured we’d have a go at building our own using bits of wood we had lying around. We built a couple of makeshift instruments, strung them up, plugged them in and our musical world was turned on its head.
These were three and four string instruments that we didn’t know how to play so there were no rules, no expectations. The slide guitar riffs we were making sounded cool and bluesy to us and the songs started to pour out. I built a stomp box to get a beat going and started learning harmonica. E added a foot tambourine and cymbals to the mix, our sound was taking shape and we’d now become addicted to building unusual instruments.
I built a guitar with an additional pickup under the lowest string on a separate circuit which goes through a sub-octave pedal and makes that low string sound like a bass guitar. It added that big, chunky low end weight to our sound.
We kept building and we now have a van-full of custom built instruments including foot drums made from ripped-down 55 gallon oil drums and our arrays of foot-operated cymbals, percussion and custom amps to carry around with us. It’s a blessing and a curse.
It’s not just the instruments which have changed though, I’ve also altered my vocal style to become far more gritty and raw to get the most out of our songs. It wasn’t easy, but it’s been incredibly rewarding.
With our debut EP, “Storms, Rum, Liars and Guns”, under our belts, we took to live streaming during the lockdown, converting our garage into our own pallet-wood-clad streaming and home recording studio, complete with rum bar. We’ve streamed over 50 shows so far and we’ve begun recording our first full album in there which we plan to release that in 2022.
We haven’t always rocked cowboy hats and played dark swamp blues music. We cut our teeth in rock bands and were once part of a four piece called Halo with which we got signed by a major label. We had some amazing times touring and honing our craft. That was a long time ago now. Twenty years ago in fact.
Let’s fast forward to the point at which everything changed for us, paving the way for Dusk Brothers to slide into existence. That happened in 2015 when we discovered the cigar box guitar movement and we saw folks building and playing simple guitars and making cool, raw sounds with them. We had some tools and the two of us figured we’d have a go at building our own using bits of wood we had lying around. We built a couple of makeshift instruments, strung them up, plugged them in and our musical world was turned on its head.
These were three and four string instruments that we didn’t know how to play so there were no rules, no expectations. The slide guitar riffs we were making sounded cool and bluesy to us and the songs started to pour out. I built a stomp box to get a beat going and started learning harmonica. E added a foot tambourine and cymbals to the mix, our sound was taking shape and we’d now become addicted to building unusual instruments.
I built a guitar with an additional pickup under the lowest string on a separate circuit which goes through a sub-octave pedal and makes that low string sound like a bass guitar. It added that big, chunky low end weight to our sound.
We kept building and we now have a van-full of custom built instruments including foot drums made from ripped-down 55 gallon oil drums and our arrays of foot-operated cymbals, percussion and custom amps to carry around with us. It’s a blessing and a curse.
It’s not just the instruments which have changed though, I’ve also altered my vocal style to become far more gritty and raw to get the most out of our songs. It wasn’t easy, but it’s been incredibly rewarding.
We’ll keep on building more instruments, we’ll keep on writing our dark swamp blues music, and we’ll get this album finished and out there for you to stomp your feet to.
