Beloved local legends Banshee Tree defy genre conventions. They combine a jammy sort of swing-grass with indie songwriting sensibilities to create this sound that feels like dancing barefoot next to a slowly flowing creek with people you love. It’s music akin to the wind blowing through forest trees at night, the stars winking mischievously overhead. Their music seems to exist somewhere outside of time and those who hear it share a secret whispered by falling moonlight, a truth known by ancient hills that is told only to those who open themselves up enough to listen. These are songs that haunt and cling to the listener like ancestral ghosts that threaten to possess so that they may dance once again upon this mortal plane.
On 12/28, Banshee Tree will bring their stories, ghosts and friends — such as Bloomurian and David Satori from Beats Antique — to the Fox Theatre for a show that’s sure to be as rowdy as it is soul-rattling.
Ahead of the show, 303 Magazine recently spoke with Banshee Tree drummer, manager, and vocalist Michelle Pietrafitta about her musical origins, how communication is necessary for a band’s longevity, Banshee Tree’s creative philosophy and much more.
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Pietrafitta has immersed herself in music for as long as she can remember. The house she grew up in had a playset in the backyard. She recalled that when she was about eight, “[she] would climb on top of it and sing songs to [her] neighbors all day, every day. Probably the same song over and over.” Her mother inevitably took notice of this and enrolled Pietrafitta in voice lessons. As Pietrafitta grew, she found herself growing more and more interested in rock music. This led her to begin attending her local School of Rock, a chain of music schools that exists across America.
At School of Rock, Pietrafitta witnessed an instructor named Eddie Everett play the drums. “I was amazed,” Pietrafitta said. “I thought, ‘That’s what I want to do.'” She began taking lessons with Everett and said drumming “immediately became an obsession.”
It bears mentioning that Pietrafitta isn’t simply a drummer. In addition to singing with Banshee Tree, she uses rhythm to create poetry, polyrhythmic stories written in syncopation. She can understand the trajectory of a song and accentuate its message through her playing. Take a song like “Indigo,” the first song off Banshee Tree’s self-titled debut album released in 2021. The song has a laconic propulsion, starting relatively simple with a slow ascension into intricacy. As the song and its message become more complicated as it progresses, so too does Pietrafitta’s playing. The choruses and the last minute or so of the tune feature her rolling into these complex flams and hi-hat and snare rolls that require incredible consistency and attention to detail to maintain. This all then accentuates the song’s message, which pertains to the flow of time and the inherent evolution. It’s indicative of the aforementioned “obsession” and speaks to Pietrafitta’s intentionality towards her craft.
When deciding to pursue music as a full-time career, Pietrafitta said she “never gave herself another option.” Since she first sat behind a kit, she was all in. She mentioned the power that drumming has had in her life, saying, “[The drums] were the thing that taught me what the feeling is to have something pulling you through life, a drive, something to live for, basically. That’s what the drums are for me.”
Pietrafitta’s long musical journey eventually led her to Banshee Tree seven years ago. The band began in New York, started by lead singer and main songwriter Thom LaFond as a “bit of a ‘busker’ band.” They eventually moved to Boulder, where they truly began to develop their sound. After gaining a bit of a reputation amongst the town’s local jam fandom by playing house parties and the like, they started to play gigs at License No.1 — the venue underneath the Hotel Boulderado — which Pietrafitta described as “swing nights.” This was right around when Pietrafitta joined the band and the sound began to evolve. As Pietrafitta and LaFond “both have jam band roots,” they really leaned into pushing their sound into a more improvisational space and all the weirdness that can beget. Soon, they noticed the swing night crowds getting younger with a bit more of a hippy vibe or, as Pietrafitta put it, “party people just looking to get down.” She also referred to this period as “total experimentation.”
The experiment paid off as word about Banshee Tree spread, their name growing into something akin to mythic in those beautiful old Boulder days (if you were there, you know), a time when Boulder’s music scene was shining in all its radiance. Banshee Tree grew into Boulder royalty, standing alongside long-loved local bands such as Tenth Mountain Division and Flash Mountain Flood as town legends. They went from playing rowdy, shitty-beer-soaked house parties to shows at the Fox and Boulder Theater and subsequently touring the country many times over.
Unfortunately, many bands around during that heyday of Boulder’s music scene aren’t together anymore for various reasons, but Banshee Tree seems stronger than ever. Pietrafitta attributes the band’s longevity to their ability to communicate. She said, “The very first thing that is the most important [to longevity] is conflict resolution and not being afraid of working through that stuff because that’s the only way you’re going to last.” She said that she believes there are two real reasons why bands don’t last, saying, “I feel like the number one way that bands break up is because they just can’t get along, or they have, like, babies.” She went on to say, “Put your ego aside and be on the side of resolving the conflict rather than being right. If there are things that need to be talked about, talk about them instead of burying them because they will come out eventually. If you guys can get to a good place of being able to work out conflict that’s inevitably going to come up, you’ll be able to make it longer than most bands.”
Fortunately for Banshee Tree, the band has learned to get along, largely, Pietrafitta mentioned, due to their shared creative philosophies. Pietrafitta said, “My philosophy with creating is that you have to show up to the page, whether you feel like it or not, and consistently so. Instead of waiting for the whim of inspiration, you get in the habit of creating every day, whether or not the inspiration is there. Then, when inspiration shows up, you’re in a much stronger position because you’ve been working and you know what to do. If you just wait for the inspiration, you’re going to write way less and life is just going to take over. You have to make sure you’re really carving out the time and showing up even when you’re not feeling it. That in itself will help bring more inspiration because you’re generating that comfort level with making something out of nothing.”
Banshee Tree as a whole is a collaboration. That being said, LaFond is the main songwriter behind them. Pietrafitta says that LaFond writes the songs and brings them to the band to interpret how they will, playing around with ideas until everyone is happy. She said this is how they’ve always worked and will continue in this way as they move forward.
As beautiful as the past has been for Banshee Tree, the future looks even brighter. On 12/28, they’ll be playing a very special show at the Fox Theatre. The band has played the venue countless times, but it has been a while and they couldn’t be more excited to return to Boulder, where the journey the band has been on truly began. In addition to bringing along Bloomurian and David Satori of Beats Antique, Pietrafitta has promised that the band will play “songs that [they’ve] never played at the Fox before.” It’ll be a great show to wrap up the year, so don’t sleep on tickets.
Banshee Tree is the kind of band that makes a place better by existing within it. They have the distinct ability to conjure the ghosts of a town and have them dancing like they still drew breath. This ability makes those still making their way through the mortal plane revel in their aliveness, each passing note a reminder to savor every breath. One day, we may all become ghosts so let us dance while we can and let bands like Banshee Tree remind us how to live.
Get tickets to Banshee Tree’s 12/28 show at the Fox Theatre here!