Artist Spotlight: The Montvales

Photo by Suzi Kern.

Lifelong friends Sally Buice and Molly Rochelson bonded as children over a shared passion for music and the land, and now create music from a “place based” perspective. 

“Both of us grew up in pretty musical families. Everybody in my family plays music. My mom played dulcimer and then later learned the fiddle and banjo. And my older brother is a musician too, so there was a lot of singing together and learning to sing harmony with family. Then that was a big part of our friendship and our communities as we got older too,” Sally said, “Knoxville, where we're from, is very musical in general.”

The inspiration behind the duo’s name has an origin story based in the whimsy and sense of home that inspires their music. “I grew up on Montvale Road in Maryville. There's also a Camp Montvale, and it's one of many summer camps in the area. It doesn't exist anymore, actually, but it was part of this group of old timey summer camps in the Smoky Mountains from close to where we're from, that all have these sort of mysterious fake French names, like Elkmont and Montvale, and Tremont,” Molly laughed, “You know, I just thought that was kind of like, kind of like this fun little made up language.”

The duo released their sophomore album, Born Strangers, earlier this month, delving into themes of change, both good and bad, and the sense of home that sticks with someone no matter how far they roam. 

Before rejoining in 2019 to make music, Molly and Sally went their separate ways to find their paths in life. “I've been working in the abortion care and reproductive rights world, after college up until I quit to try to play music full time,” Molly said on her time before the duo reconnected. 

As for Sally, her life took her out West. “I quit my job. I was working, I was doing nonprofit work in the agriculture world, and I quit my job to move to Colorado and work as a wrangler for a little bit,” She explained. This drastic change, though, is partially to thank for the band’s current sound. “That transition also inspired some of this. That's actually where I met our producer, Mike Eli LoPinto.”

When Molly and Sally came back together, it wasn’t long before 2020’s lockdown hit. 

“There's a lot of inspiration that came out of being in a tiny house together during quarantine. And, like, writing our way out of that,” Sally explained, “A lot of the songs turned out sounding really, like, big and powerful and hopeful and transformed into brighter things than they started.”

While the COVID lockdown made a major impact on their sound, Molly was able to find a little humor in the timing of it all. “Trying to figure out how to play music for full time was at the top of our minds during lockdown, which is, you know, inconvenient.”

“We moved to Cincinnati, like, right after lockdown, too,” Molly said, “It's a very place based record in that some of it's really informed by our Knoxville time, and some of it's really informed by first impressions of Cincinnati.” 

Sally went on to explain further inspiration behind their new album, “it contains a lot of our push pull relationship with home,” she said, “A lot of it was us struggling with the ways that Knoxville changed and feeling the need to get out and see more of the world.” But at the same time, while the duo pushed outward, Tennessee continually pulls them back in. “The record sounds just like Tennessee, because in the end that is home, and that's the place that produces so much of the music that we're inspired by.”

The Montvales just released their sophomore album, Born Strangers, on all platforms. Give them a visit on their website, or listen to them on Spotify!

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