Then there’s this dude Dock Boggs, he’s like two-finger-style picking, but his playing is just completely rhythmic and different. ![]() Grandpa Jones has funny banjo songs, too, but they’re both clawhammer style. Stringbean has these long suspenders that are way down by his ankles and a long shirt, so he just looks super weird, but it’s on purpose. Stringbean from Hee Haw is really big to me. Who have been some of your other influences? Everything was there, I just put new strings on it.Ī post shared by □Dirty Laundry□ / Marcus mentioned Flatt & Scruggs and Rail Yard Ghosts. They had it as a wall hanging decoration. I went on the letgo app and found one in a town over. I got one and saw what happened, right away started trying clawhammer style and just didn’t take a break from it for like a year. There’s a band called Rail Yard Ghosts, and I got into them and their lead singer-Riley Coyote-the way he plays banjo made me think you didn’t have to just pick, you could do something new with it. They’d play Flatt & Scruggs and other stuff. ![]() I had a best friend whose dad was a big influence. Veliz: There’s a lot of different things. ![]() In a conversation from the backseat of his car, Veliz expands on what drew him to the instrument, his DIY approach, and what’s next for his music career.īGS: What was it that made you pick up the banjo? While many artists begrudgingly use social media to do the obligatory promotion of their music and upcoming shows, Veliz has wholeheartedly wrapped his arms around it and is using it to carve out a place for himself before ever even releasing a record. “I probably only had one day off that whole first year. So, when I picked it up, I expected it to take a while, but it kind of just loved me back,” he says. ![]() A musician since childhood, Veliz says the banjo is the latest in a long line of instruments after trumpet, autoharp, fiddle, accordion, spoons, and guitar, and it’s the one that has really stuck.Ī post shared by □Dirty Laundry□ / Marcus tell most people, with the banjo, I already knew how much effort you would need to put into something that’s new. His Dirty Laundry project (which sometimes includes other musicians) has drawn nearly 24,000 followers to his Instagram page since he picked up the banjo around three years ago. Life has become more transient these days as he roams freely, a skateboard and banjo in tow, meeting and collaborating with fellow musicians all along the West Coast. The 26-year-old banjo phenom was born in Portland, Oregon, but grew up outside Sacramento in Orangevale, California, where he still lives…sometimes. “That’s just meditation, chill vibes,” he says. Veliz likes to go out exploring with his instrument-an RK-OT25-BR, to be exact-when he’s camping or visiting a new city, find a spot that inspires him, and start riffing. This video, like so many on Veliz’s feed, was taken on one of his “banjo walks” near Reno, Nevada. “Ever try tuning to the river?” reads the caption to this picturesque reel on his Instagram profile “It might give you a new tune.” A crystalline river flows lazily over rocks, a green hillside rising just beyond it to meet the bluest sky, and Marcus Veliz is clawhammering a hypnotic lick on his banjo in the foreground.
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