Growing Destinations
Your go-to source for insightful discussions on destination development. The Growing Destinations podcast delves into the strategies, challenges, and successes that drive community growth. Each episode features in-depth conversations with local and national experts, uncovering universal themes and innovative practices that can be applied to any city or region.
Growing Destinations
Finding Her Voice: Gina Marcucci of My Grandma’s Cardigan
Rochester, Minnesota is home to a growing live music scene, and one of the voices helping shape its sound is Gina Marcucci. She's a founder and lead singer of the folk-rock band My Grandma's Cardigan. Known for their heartfelt lyrics, rich harmonies and a sound that's equal parts nostalgic and fresh, the band has become a standout in the local music community. In this episode, Gina shares how the band came together, how Rochester's creative energy has influenced their journey and what continues to inspire her to write, perform, and connect through music.
The Growing Destinations podcast is brought to you by Experience Rochester. Learn more about Minnesota's third largest city, which is home to Mayo Clinic and features wonderful recreational and entertainment opportunities, by visiting experiencerochestermncom.
Speaker 2:You go to a lot of other cities and people go out to see the cover bands. They go out to see the people that are playing the old music that they know and they like. And here people come out to see original music and they want that and they crave that and we have so many amazing musicians providing that.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Growing Destinations podcast, where we take a deep dive into destination development and focus on a wide range of topics, from tourism and entertainment to economic development and entrepreneurism and much more. I'm your host, bill Von Bank. Rochester, minnesota, is home to a growing live music scene, and one of the voices helping shape its sound is Gina Marcucci. She's a founder and lead singer of the folk rock band my Grandma's Cardigan. Known for their heartfelt lyrics, rich harmonies and a sound that's equal parts nostalgic and fresh, the band has become a standout in the local music community. In this episode, gina shares how the band came together, how Rochester's creative energy has influenced their journey and what continues to inspire her to write, perform and connect through music. Gina Marcucci, welcome to the Growing Destinations podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me Happy to be here.
Speaker 1:Let's start at the beginning. How did my Grandma's Cardigan come together?
Speaker 2:My friend Rennell and I were playing music together in Winona.
Speaker 1:Winona Minnesota.
Speaker 2:Winona, minnesota. I was at school at Winona State at the time. Winona, I was in school, winona Minnesota, winona, minnesota. I was at school at Winona State at the time and I was not a performer, singer by any means. But I had a lot of friends that I met my first year of college that were very musical, constantly playing music and singing all the time, and I kind of started playing along with them but had no real interest in being on stage or being in front of people. I was the kid that blacked out in speech class. Going up in front of people that would get tunnel vision and pass out. Um, so being on stage was never a thing I thought I would do. But I actually took the history of beatles class, winona State, which was new and awesome, and the final was having to write and record a song and that was kind of my first taste of oh, I actually enjoy singing and I might be okay at it. I still don't really want to do it in front of other people, but it was nice.
Speaker 2:But my friend Ronell had found out that I kind of had a voice and she pulled me aside at a bar and was like you're going to sing with me, you are playing music with me, you're going to sing with me and it's going to be great.
Speaker 2:And I was like, okay, sure, why not? So her and I started playing together in her living room and she kind of taught me the this and that of of singing and playing guitar and I've been playing guitar for 10-plus years, but yeah, it was just for fun. She was kind of getting me out of my shell to find my voice. And then a local band, beat Root Stew in Winona, approached us. I'm like we need somebody to play in between our sets at Popcorn Tavern tonight. And we said yes, with the help of a little wine, we went out and played our first set and before we got on stage we had been chatting with some people and and joking around about. You know, her and I were both wearing cardigans and we were both, in that moment, realized we're wearing rings that our grandmas had given us and and this guy asked what our name was and Ronell just said my grandma's cardigan.
Speaker 3:It just slipped out.
Speaker 2:And then the guy got on stage and was like my grandfather's cardigan is coming up and we're like, yeah, close enough, but it was a terrible show. But the name stuck after that. So her and I kind of kept rolling and when you have a really interesting experience on stage it makes you want to figure out how to make it better.
Speaker 1:So you were forced on stage by a friend and you had been playing the guitar. Did you sing as a kid? No, no no. So you found your voice in college.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. I mean, I was in choir, but in, you know, middle school, when you were. I was in choir. But in middle school, when you were forced to be in choir, but I was never in the choir people group, I just did it because I had to and no. But I didn't really grow up in a musical family. We listened to a lot of music, but my brother was in a screamo band, but that doesn't count. So no, I definitely found my voice in college and with a lot of influence of people around me.
Speaker 1:So you started in Winona, minnesota, through college. What were the early days like with the band?
Speaker 2:It started just for Nell and I. We played a lot of coffee shops Blooming Grounds, acoustic Cafe we played wherever we could. We made friends with a lot of musicians and kind of just tagged along with them. We started going to music festivals. Driftless Music Gardens was a big launching point for us. People Brothers Band started People Fest and we met a lot of really great people out there and playing at campsites kind of got attention. So people started asking us to play randomly on little stages and um. And then our friend Weston Hawley, who was our guitar player, joined us on banjo at the time. Um, because we were playing I think Ronell was playing mandolin, I was playing guitar and we'd throw in random percussion instruments like a guero whenever we felt like it. And then, yeah, weston joined us and we became a trio, started playing around anywhere we possibly could, at little coffee shops and stuff.
Speaker 1:So what's the current lineup then, with your band?
Speaker 2:Our current group.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:We are seven now, so we've got Jake Allen on drums, joey Martin on keys, alan Palmer on bass, evan Hocus on fiddle mandolin, weston Hawley on guitar and myself on acoustic and vocals.
Speaker 1:When did you move to Rochester?
Speaker 2:I moved here five years ago, maybe six now in 2018.
Speaker 1:Is that when the band really took shape?
Speaker 2:We had a pretty decent following and we had A lot of stuff going on Kind of later years, college and post, when we had a pretty decent group where it was myself, Ronell Weston, our friend Steve was on bass and we had a pretty good following. Then I think we kind of split up. When we all graduated and moved to different states, a lot of us kept playing music and kept performing, but it was when I I actually when I moved to the cities, we kind of rejoined yes, a little bit.
Speaker 2:um, ronell and I started playing again and our friend Keegan joined us on bass and Weston would would travel to come, come play, and but it was when I, when I moved back to Rochester Weston also moved back to Rochester around the same time and it was when we decided to to Rochester, weston also moved back to Rochester around the same time, and it was when we decided to really get the Cardigan, as we call it rolling again.
Speaker 3:I love that name, cardigan yeah.
Speaker 2:And we've been through a few different forms since then. Jake Allen has always kind of been in our circle and plays drums with us and he lives in Winona so he's probably our farthest member. But our friend Keegan joined on bass when we started going again. We played Big Turn his first year in Red Wing.
Speaker 1:A big music festival in Red Wing, Minnesota.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So that was kind of our jump back in, was one of our first festivals back playing, again as my grandma's cardigan, and yeah, through the years you know. And again as my grandma's cardigan, and yeah, through the years you know. Ronelle left and Carly Hornstein joined as my co-singer a few years back and you'll know her as the lady singer in Clay Fulton in the last 40.
Speaker 2:And Alan Palmer was an amazing bass player we knew in town already and asked him to join in and then he actually knew Evan from school in St Cloud. They went to university together and he we needed a fiddle player. We were playing boats and bluegrass for the first time and we're like we gotta have a fiddle, we need something that shows that we're bluegrass-ish and not just folk or whatever we are. And so he called him down and he was only supposed to play that one show but then he ended up sticking around and yeah. And then Joey Martin, we've known since college. He was our roommate and a fellow musician and he joined in on keys and you know, people just kind of kept asking if they could play with us and we never said no.
Speaker 2:So he grew, we grew to be a pretty, pretty big band compared to the duo we used to be, and I love our current setup, our current group. Everyone is so kind and so talented and so creative. We have so many voices and different styles that have come together to create this band. And we did Lewis Carley about a year or so ago. She has a lot going on. She was in a musical and Lost 40 really took off, so she was dedicating a lot of her time there and so I kind of stepped into my first time being the lead singer since we formed the band.
Speaker 1:I'd always had a co-singer and you're doing a fantastic job. So you've been part of the Rochester music scene for a while now. How would you describe the current vibe here in Rochester to the?
Speaker 2:Rochester music scene for a while now. How would you describe the current vibe here in Rochester? I'd say it's growing and it's family. Everyone here you know, we all know each other, we all play together, we all find ways to create music together in some way or another. And I've played music in a lot of different communities and Rochester has been growing since I moved here with the addition of a lot of different communities, and Rochester has been growing since I moved here with the addition of a lot of great venues like Thesis and Forager and Little Thistle. Everyone is nice, everyone is kind, everyone is happy to play together and to invite everyone and everyone to play on bills together.
Speaker 2:And the addition of Thaw Music Festival, thanks to Nick Novotny, has made it another great music destination for bands from the cities and Minnesota area. So yeah, I'd say the vibe is growth and comfort. And one big thing I love about Rochester is not only do we have a very big music scene, but we have a creative music scene full of original music. You go to a lot of other cities and people go out to see the cover bands. They go out to see the people that are playing the old music that they know and they like. And here people come out to see original music and they want that and they crave that and we have so many amazing musicians providing that.
Speaker 1:What would help to get Rochester to the next level?
Speaker 2:I think we've been taking good strides with all of the new festivals and musical opportunities. You know Riverside, the Forward Concert Series.
Speaker 1:Thursdays Downtown.
Speaker 2:Thursdays Downtown. Yes, to grow all our scene in general. One thing I've seen happening a lot more is purposely inviting musicians from outside communities to play alongside local Rochester bands and I think that growing that focus would be ideal and help grow the Rochester scene incredibly and keeping kind of that connection. I think bringing in big bands is great but tying them into the local Rochester scene every time and local Rochester musicians is what will help keep everything flowing in an upward direction.
Speaker 1:What has helped fuel your creativity?
Speaker 2:One thing actually one thing a lot of people don't know is I am not the writer for our band. Weston Hawley is our writer. He has written most of our music. A lot of our early stuff were collaborations with Ranelle and I, but most of the stuff you hear now was written by Weston. He has an amazing mind, super creative, and this is what he does. He sits and he hears things and he writes music and he writes lyrics and we collaborate a bit. You know he'll, he'll write and he'll send me ideas and stuff and I'll give input.
Speaker 2:But, um, he is our creative power and um all of our boys write, all of our men sorry, let them know, I said boys, they all write, they all have amazing ideas and we all come from very different musical backgrounds. I grew up with folk and my musical upbringing was Ronell showing me folk music, so that was kind of how my style formed. Weston grew up with classic rock and everything around it and he's been growing his musical abilities every day since I met him. Alan is our jazz guy, so he brings all that vibe in. Joey can and will play anything and he's our hype guy. He's our creative push of like let's get louder, let's get better.
Speaker 2:And then there's jake, who is just a musical mastermind in himself and he plays in so many different bands, like texas, toast and with a lot of amazing musicians. So he is our let's get scary, let's try new things, let's not not be scared to try playing anything out of our range, which anyone that's been following us since we started our musical range is kind of undefined at this point because we've brought in a lot of different creative minds to see what we can make. So that's why when people ask, are you a folk band like? We're a folk band that plays rock and jazz and classic and whatever we feel like doing that week.
Speaker 1:What's been one of your most memorable moments on stage.
Speaker 2:I keep coming back to this in my head because there's been so many, we have so much fun and our little group is just fun to have on stage and to play with. And I think one of the first times I saw people in the crowd singing our song, it was Good For you, which we released, however, many years ago, and it was a person I didn't know who came up afterwards and said they've been following us forever and loved it. But I had spotted them in the crowd singing along to the song and I want to say we were at thesis, but it all blends together. But that sticks out in my head as like cool, somebody appreciates the music we've been doing and you know, sometimes you kind of feel like you're just doing it for yourself, because it's just you just kind of keep going and and and you never really know if if you're impacting or hitting people the way you want to and and seeing that was one of the coolest experiences I've had.
Speaker 1:How do you balance the emotional and creative demands of music with everything else in life?
Speaker 2:It's a lot when you want to be creating constantly and you want to be writing music, performing music, playing music, but you also have a thousand other things going on. It takes a lot to carve out that time, to be in a space where you can be creative and you can reflect and make new and exciting things, and I know I struggle with this particularly. I have too many obligations, too many things on my plate within the marathon and my full-time job and life.
Speaker 1:You mentioned marathon because you are co-director of the MedCity Marathon, correct?
Speaker 2:Yes, myself and our fiddle player, evan, own the MedCity Marathon going on four years now, so that's a big undertaking. Yeah, yes, and we do try to loop it in. We have music at the marathon now and Evan got up on stage and played with Megan and the birdwatcher this year and we had salty dog out and stuff. So there's, there are fun ways to overlap your creative and musical life with the rest that you have going on, and so, yeah, it's just it's carving out the time and making space in your life.
Speaker 1:What's next for my grandma's cardigan? Any new music shows or projects on the horizon?
Speaker 2:All of the above, yes.
Speaker 3:Okay, always.
Speaker 2:So we've got. We're playing Thursdays downtown. We've been slowing down our booking this year so that we can focus on getting some new stuff out. I think we're all very, very busy people. We're all in other bands. We all have. I think we're all very, very busy people. We're all in other bands. We all have full-time jobs and Joey's got two kids and so it's a lot. But we've got a number of songs that are written and on their way. We have been working with Alex Ortberg to get some recordings done. I'm sure he's mad at us right now because we haven't been able to get back in the studio for a while, but yeah, we have a number of songs on the way. I'm not sure if we're planning on it being an album or if we're just going to release them as they come, because that's kind of our style. But yeah, we've got. We've got some some good new stuff coming and some different styles we've been, we've been playing around with where do you perform outside of Rochester?
Speaker 1:are you around around Minnesota? Are you around the Midwest?
Speaker 2:I'd say we've been sticking mostly around Minnesota. We play up in the cities a bit. We just played Brookside and Marine on St Croix Super cool place that they are vamping up to be a great music spot. We play around Winona quite a bit. We head out to Wisconsin the Yuba area for festivals and stuff pretty often but I'd say we stick around here for the most part. What advice would you give to young musicians trying to find their voice? Get out there, go play.
Speaker 2:You know, one of my favorite people I've been watching lately is Eleanor Seavers, and I watched her as she started getting on stage at Forager for open mic nights and then was, you know, playing every opportunity she got it seemed like, and I just saw her at Thursdays Downtown when she played and she's amazing, and so I think she's a good example of just keep practicing, keep playing, do stuff that scares you, you know. It's only only reason I did it was someone forced me to do something that was scary and turned out I liked it and yeah, just keep playing. Go to open mic nights, meet people, talk to everybody. Everyone wants to see you succeed is one thing that people don't tend to understand is there's no rivalry here. Everybody wants to see you be your best self and be your best musician and succeed in whatever way you're trying to. So make friends.
Speaker 1:Gina Marcucci, it's been great to learn more about your musical journey and your band's success. Thank you for being our guest on the Growing Destinations podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:As we close out this interview, here's a sampling of my Grandma's Cardigan.
Speaker 3:All the world is the same before you, but you're the one who took my hand. Everything has changed. Look around you. It was all part of the plan.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in to the Growing Destinations podcast and don't forget to subscribe. This podcast is brought to you by Experience Rochester. Find out more about Rochester, Minnesota, and its growing arts and culture scene, its international culinary flavors and award-winning craft beer by visiting experiencerochestermncom.
Speaker 3:You're in a crowd at a show. Somehow You've always wanted to be in a band Standing on top of the world. I think I've got it all. I think I've got it all.
