The Rustbelt Road Show
The Rustbelt Road Show around the region
By Christina Clark
The Rustbelt Road Show has local roots in the Mishawaka area’s rock scene. Together since 2012, formerly known as The Kentucky Barn Cats, the band works to create meaningful, original music to bring to its audience.
rustbeltroadshow.bandcamp.com facebook.com/rustbeltroadshow rustbeltroadshow.com/epk
Singing together, playing off one another’s energy, the pair brings a high energy show to the stage. The way the pair bounce off one another is sure to capture a crowd and make people want to dance.
The duo at the group’s core, Katie and Kyle Craft, bring the Road Show to life. In performances where Katie is not holding an instrument, she can be seen keeping time or adding percussion on whatever is available. In one of the pair’s performances streamed on Facebook, Katie slaps the wooden chair she sits upon as Kyle plays guitar. The both sing verses solo and rejoin together seamlessly and organically.
The pair draws inspiration from their earliest days of playing music. The Rustbelt Road Show has distilled its music into something new through the years.
Straying away from playing many covers, they hope to take their music once again on the road this summer along Michigan’s coastal cities and to their new favorite scene: breweries.
“We had some really cool shows booked,” Kyle said, pre-COVID-19’s arrival, which put all live performances on hold. “We are expanding our circle.”
Playing locally, the band has found a few venues, nestled into the hearts of downtown Mishawaka and South Bend, that support original music over cover bands. Playing those venues and branching further out is in their planners for when venues begin booking once again.
The pair met in their early twenties at a local bar where Katie was a bartender, and Kyle was playing open mics.
In the meantime, the band played live streams on Facebook and saw their viewer counts grow into the thousands.
The duo, who play what they refer to an Americana, alternative country style. The music is heavily influenced by both folk and rock music.
“I’ve always enjoyed music that has a message to it,” Kyle said. “That’s what drew me to punk in the first place: having a message.”
The two have kept the element of messaging in their music. With Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie influencing the story-telling nature of lyrics in recent works, Katie and Kyle are still finding ways to make sure their words have meaning.
“When I write, I am sick of the everyday grind,” Katie said. As the band’s name says, they love being on the road.
“When you write your own music, you say what you want to say, and say what you want other people to hear,” she said.
The couple has brought on other musicians to join them through the years, but at the end of the day, they are always the last two standing.
While Kyle lends vocals, mandolin and guitar to the duo’s sound, Katie brings her powerful vocals, percussion, and rhythm guitar to the experience.
They both have a unique road to the point they are at today.
“I guess I’ve always been one of those people who has a song in his head constantly,” Kyle said. “Always just tapping my feet, pounding on the table from way back. Way before I even picked up an instrument, my mom tells me I was always tapping on something, singing something.”
When Katie was younger, she also would find inspiration with her headphones on.
“I would sit at the kitchen table with headphones on listening to The Monkees,” Katie said. “I would sing my heart out at the kitchen table. My parents would have to holler at me to quiet down.”
Katie credits artists like Debbie Gibson and Tiffany as some of her earliest influences.
“I was in choir for several years all the way through high school,” Katie said. “I was told more than once that I was the loudest singer in the room.”
Kyle agreed, saying “you are powerful.”
The love for percussion came about in Katie’s life from the drums that her Uncle Tom kept in his basement.
“He always had a drum set set up in his basement and I would go down and play around for hours when I was a kid,” Katie said.
Kyle’s arrival to their music style started when he played trumpet in middle and high school, making first chair of the sections.
“In the early high school days for me, a bunch of my friends started picking up guitars. One of them picked up drums, so I said, ‘I’ll play bass,’” Kyle said. “I got myself a bass and taught myself out to play it.”
The bass was the ticket for Kyle into the area’s punk scene.
“It’s where I cut my teeth in local music,” he said.
As he worked to later develop his singing voice, he found it to be a tricky skill while playing bass. So, he picked up another instrument: the acoustic guitar.
“I taught myself all the cowboy chords on it,” he said. “I just wanted to sing and play music. As time went on, I got a little better and a little better.”
Once he felt comfortable, he decided that they should take the leap into making music together. Today, Kyle also plays mandolin and is learning the lap steel guitar. He is also working with a looper pedal, to be able to bring in more dynamic layers to the music the duo plays.
The duo hopes to begin playing to live audiences again soon. Keep an eye on their Facebook page to catch the next installment of the Rustbelt Road Show.