When two brothers were left with a banjo after one of their parents' many musical gatherings while growing up in Petaluma, California, they didn’t know how fateful that moment would become.
Ben Morrison and his younger sibling Alex were already playing together on guitar, but the banjo was something totally different.
As kids, the Morrison brothers were used to the sounds of string music swimming throughout their childhood home. Their parents were musicians who often played together and with friends, much to the delight of the young boys.
“We spent a lot of our early days as little kids just sitting there watching them practice,” Ben Morrison tells Caribou Current on a video call ahead of the band’s upcoming Feb. 28 performance at the Caribou Room in Nederland. “It was so cool to sit there and watch them rehearse and harmonize. That was just magic.”
Although their parents were the brothers’ first and biggest influences when it came to making music, Ben and Alex Morrison were going to unlock a sound all their own.
“We listened to a ton of Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, The Kinks and Beatles, all kinds of stuff like that — and especially with Zeppelin and The Stones, they played in a lot of open tunings,” he says. “A lot of those songs were in open G, which is exactly what the banjo is tuned to.”
“When [Alex] picked up the banjo, he tried to apply what he had learned because he was doing a lot of finger picking on the guitar when he first started,” Ben continues. “That kind of led itself to the banjo really well.”
Blending the sound of the banjo with the chord progressions of classic rock, these two brothers created something that was all theirs. By 2008, The Brothers Comatose was born. With their name coming from the “musical coma” his brother Alex will enter when tumbling his fingers over the neck of the banjo, the chemistry between this brotherly duo is palpable.
“He’s got such a swagger to his playing style and his singing style and I love trying to integrate with that,” Ben says with a big smile on his face. “We’ve got the blood harmony thing. It’s in our DNA, and it’s so cool to be able to lock in with him and create a bigger sound with our voices.”
From the core of Ben and Alex, the band grew to a larger ensemble with current members Steve Height on bass and Philip Brezina on violin. The newest addition to their band came in 2024, when they took in mandolinist Addie Levy.
“It’s been such a boys club for so long, and to have some female energy in there is so great,” he says. “She’s also just really well versed in more traditional bluegrass. She grew up in Virginia playing real bluegrass, so that’s been cool. She brings that to the table and we bring the more untraditional stuff to the table.”
You’ll hear that dynamic at play on Golden Grass, the band’s latest full-length LP released last September via Swamp Jam Records. The album’s fusion of classic and contemporary genres rooted in bluegrass offers a road map for what to expect from their live show, summed up by a line from the title track: “Way out West, we do it differently. Untraditionally.”
Considering that Colorado is very familiar with untraditional bluegrass, The Brothers Comatose completing a well-rounded mountain tour from Telluride to Crested Butte with their last stop in Nederland makes perfect sense.
“It’s always the rowdy show,” he says of the Caribou Room. “Mountain people are just the best.”
“We’re gonna bring some new tunes to the table. We’re gonna bring some new covers to the table,” he continues. “We’ve all been so well rested, we’re just ready to let it rip.”
Although the music is ever evolving, Morrison gets reflective when asked what has changed or stayed the same over the band’s 18-year career.
“It ebbs and flows in different ways. It bobs and weaves. I don’t think about it too much, I guess. You just roll with your gut and who you’re surrounded with,” he says. “I think we’ve stayed true to who we are at the core. We’re still trying to bring energy and love to our tunes, and I don’t think that’s changed at all.”
ON THE BILL: The Brothers Comatose with Slay and Stinson. 7 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 28, The Caribou Room, 55 Indian Peaks Drive, Nederland. $30
