For Downing, a carpenter by day, the origins of his love of acoustic music are a little more tactile. “One day it just hit me that the music I was hearing on the big-time, commercial radio stations just sucked. And it had nothing to do with me,” he recalls. “So I figured I had to make the music I wanted to hear myself, not let them do it for me. And that’s what I’m doing. It’s what this band is doing.”
Like the wooden frames of the houses Downing works on in his other trade, the music of The Hunger Mountain Boys is made by hand. And built to last—just like the music that inspires it.
The Hunger Mountain Boys’ Live & Early Studio Duets is out now on Old-Fi Records. The website is www.hungermountainboys.com.
