The nonprofit organization House of Songs takes a page from the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups playbook: two great things are better than one. Area cycling groups lead cross-country treks with invited songwriters tagging along. Those musicians then write a new song based on the experience, and all the songs written from five different rides will premiere at a special event at the Rail Yard in downtown Rogers on Saturday, May 12. The third season of Songrider is underway under the direction of Peter Stephenson and sponsored by House of Songs. Troy Campbell is founder and executive director of House of Songs.
Campbell: That's how I saw it when I first got here. I saw that rise and grow, and I live right in the middle of it all. And I kept thinking to myself, these people are coming from all over the world — they need to experience the music. But I also thought, this is a great way to write, possibly write songs, because when you're in the zone, you start thinking about things differently. And I just wanted to hear what could be inspired by the landscape, people's conversations. Some of these groups are dedicated, and I thought, let's pull the two passions together. So we had to find songwriters that are interested and that can ride bikes. But also we put a lot of times two riders that have not written, because I like that — and then they have to write a piece inspired by whatever. I have no say. So we've done everything from, in the second year, we surprised FreshGrass and we had electronic music samples of the wheels of everything, and that was being mixed while a guitar player was playing. And then I had Stephanie Smittle, who's also a trained opera singer. Bonnie Montgomery and I were talking, and she couldn't make it, but I wanted someone to walk out on the encore during that weaving of music during an Americana festival and sing opera about whatever they felt. And we did it, and it was just fabulous. So each year, we always try to think of what's a really good finale that pulls all of those elements together.
Kellams: Let's say I'm on one of these rides. What will I experience as I'm going along?
Campbell: Well, first we film it — we're part of it too. We've got this great director this year, Brad Helms, who's a Fayetteville cinematographer. I wanted it to be more cinematic. So the first thing you engage is you listen to the leaders of the group. You check your bike out, you're talking to people. You see people that have been waiting weeks to do this. And then the musicians are sort of introduced — that we're going to do a concert or a couple songs after this. What happens sometimes on the bigger rides is that the musicians will do about half the ride and then come back to get set up and prepare and just rest for a minute, and then everyone comes back. And usually there's this great gathering of anywhere from 100 people to many hundreds of people. And each one is very different, but you feel the same thing, which is, this is how I want my friends to be engaged in this, or how I want others to feel like I feel.
Kellams: May 2 is square to square. You've got two rides that day.
Campbell: Yes, we backed them up — that was the only way to do that, because Women of OZ are one of our favorite groups. We really wanted to make sure that happened no matter what, but then we had the opportunity to do the Bentonville Square ride. One of the rides on May 2 is the Bentonville Square ride. Dominic DeRoy, whom I love, and Mayor Llorona will be the artists for that one. He's an interesting artist. I met him with the three sisters — the mariachi sisters that are so fabulous, the Alvarez sisters. He was totally into doing this. Dominic is one of those musicians we love because he's willing to just take a chance, and so I suspect that'll be a fun ride. And then Lacy Hampton and Willa Thomason are also very great local favorites. We're big fans of Lacy. She's been a part of different projects with us for years — part of half of Common Roots. And then her previous band was Dandelion Heart.
Kellams: They formed at the House of Songs?
Campbell: They wrote a song there. A lot of songs with different artists from town, they've created and then forged other things, which is a delight to me.
Kellams: So both of those rides are on May 2? How are you doing that — they're not simultaneous, are they?
Campbell: No, one stops and then the other starts to get ready. We may even have to have a second cinematographer. But then they've got to write songs. They have this short window to come up with these pieces, because we have to perform them on May 12 as a set, like a band.
Kellams: Let's talk about the May 12 final concert. It's going to be at the Rail Yard in downtown Rogers.
Campbell: Yes, and that's also where the CNU 34 group will have their opening day — sort of a party for them as well, with 1,500 people. With every bike group this year and FreshGrass before, we could get a few tickets for the groups, but it was very difficult to get everyone in. They all want to hear their songs. So we would do what was called a secret show the night before to rehearse everything. We don't have the luxury of that this year, but we do have the luxury of everyone being able to come. The public — but we want the groups there to hear their song. And that, I think, is a great moment for me. And then we announce that we're going to do programming for the rest of the year everywhere that people gather. We have generators, we have PA — we're hiring the same musicians to do performances everywhere that we know people meet, where people are feeding people. We just provide music. And the bikers tend to come to all those events, which I think shows they've adopted the musicians, because maybe for the first time some of the folks have actually got to engage or meet a musician.
Kellams: And our musicians are getting healthier.
Campbell: Yes, because they've been riding. I think several of them have gone on to keep riding. So by the time this is over, you've touched at least thousands.
Kellams: If not more. And the videos will reach quite a few people too. You're talking writers, musicians, members of the public who come to the final show who weren't on the rides — people coming from out of town, out of state for this conference.
Campbell: Yeah. I want to pull Northwest Arkansas together and make people feel more welcome, but also meet new friends, right? We have some fabulous people here. And sometimes something like this — it's an anomaly. I'd like to think it could be done anywhere, but it's the art of wondering. So when you see something like this happen, you just come out because you kind of got to see if we'll pull it off. And then when you see everybody happy and you're hearing songs that were written about the landscape, written about the people — that was the history of the Ozarks, right? The songs were written that way. And I feel like we should be contributing to that somehow. We love connecting Bella Vista and Bentonville. So we're working with tourism at both places, saying we're all sharing it, but we're all along for the ride. And to see everybody come together — for me, as a House of Songs guy, that's everything I want in a house.
Kellams: And at May 12, you'll announce the schedule for the summer?
Campbell: Yes. We usually know where we're going to go, but we want new places. We want new friends in Fayetteville to say, "Hey, we should be doing this here at our special this." And we can curate something that we think the bikers will want to come to, as well as the public seeing it as accessible. And it'll certainly be free.
Troy Campbell is founder and executive director of House of Songs. There are two more Songrider excursions taking place this Saturday. One is the annual Square to Square community ride that starts at the Bentonville Square and ends at the Fayetteville Square. The other, also on Saturday, will be led by the Women of OZ ride group. The final concert is May 12 at the Rail Yard in downtown Rogers.
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