The search for good music within today’s pop culture is clouded by fuzzy, unoriginal beats and lyrics endorsing partying or today's latest fads. It's easy to forget that music is a true art form — an expression of creativity, emblematic of the human experience. Finding music that is honest, poetic and timeless is refreshing and rare.
Tow’rs is that diamond in the rough. This indie-folk band, based in Flagstaff, Arizona, focuses on music as a platform for storytelling.
“We believe art becomes most beautiful and fully realized when it is centered on the human experience,” lead singer Kyle Miller said. “And so our hope is that in all its complexity and diversity, we can begin a conversation that speaks into the lives of fellow humans and brings us together through music."
The band is, in literal and figurative ways, a family of its own. Lead singers and guitarists / bassists Gretta and Kyle Miller are husband and wife, and Miller's younger brother, Kory, is the drummer. Kyle Keller, who plays a plethora of instruments including the electric guitar, trumpet and banjo, connected with the band through his brother, who worked at a wood shop with members of the group. The last member of the Tow'rs, Emma Crislip, the band’s cellist and back-up vocalist, joined the group through happenstance.
“One of our mutual cello friends put her on stage literally as a joke in the middle of a set of music we were playing,” Kyle Miller said. “We looked over and she was slaying the cello, and we were like, ‘who is this chick!’ ... She's been there ever since."
The band is heavily influenced by their community of family and friends, but also by old literature and poetry. The name Tow’rs is derived from old English writings they were looking into at the time. They kept the name with the apostrophe to preserve the old English feel. However, Tow’rs is more than a name — it is symbolic of their collective, group emphasis.
“Choosing a tower to represent our project seemed to reflect our shared value in the art that we would be constructing with one another," Kyle Miller said. "Like a tower, this project would represent something greater than the sum of our parts and would be something that could mean something unique to each of its architects and each onlooker."
They released their self-titled debut album in 2014, and their second album, “The Great Minimum,” was released this past June. The first album was highly experimental because they were getting a feel for the group dynamic and trying to find their sound. Similar in sound and style to the popular band Of Monsters and Men, Tow’rs is rich in harmonious vocals, acoustics and descriptive lyrics which resonate even on paper.
The band worked collectively to make “The Great Minimum” more versatile for multiple settings.
“The songs we wrote for 'The Great Minimum' can be full enough to fit a theater space or thin enough for a bedroom if need be,” Kyle Miller said. “We would all sit in a room together and work a song over and over until we felt like it was as good match with the story told lyrically."
Tow’rs takes great pride in its folksy, Arizonian roots. Some of the band's favorite performances took place within its own community. Kyle Miller reminisces about a show in their local bar / coffee shop Firecreek Coffee Company.
“It was the first time we were playing our new album for our friends and family," Kyle Miller said. "We had a sold-out show, and it was shoulder-to-shoulder and crazy hot … It was one of those days I’ll remember forever, having our community come out and being able to play the songs that were inspired by them, for them!”
Although the band pours all of its effort into each song that they create, the song “Helm” from their second album holds special significance for Kyle Miller. Inspiration struck as soon as his wife Gretta told him that she was pregnant with their firstborn son.
“The song is about processing becoming a dad and facing the fear of losing my life to something that, frankly, I was apprehensive of and frightened by," Kyle Miller said. "I came to the conclusion, though, that there was something beautiful and amazing in losing one’s life to a love that powerful. In the song, my son is a coming storm, and I am an observer."
Tow’rs plans to travel far beyond its Western comfort zone in 2016 and share its music with the East coast, in areas much closer to our Carolina home. As for the future, the band aims to climb to a point where its music can provide a living for the members exclusive of other jobs.
“We want to keep writing music we feel is genuine and allow the art to keep shaping us into people that love others better,” Kyle Miller said. “We feel like writing is who we are and what we were created to do. That is the lens we look at the future and goals through — not with hopes of money or fame."