Three String Bale happened when John Prosser jumped in his pick-up and headed east to escape the thin veneer of humanity of southern California. His heart is heavy and his music carries that weight with grace.
Tom Studer had recently made his escape from the noxious display of money that is Las Vegas, Nevada. Tom had been cruelly imprisoned for two years by the lure of cash and only narrowly escaped- though not before serious damage had been done. Both had made their way to Albuquerque to find a taste of the salt that can only be found where generations have relied on their strong backs and keen minds to coax enough fruits from the earth to survive.
Bard Edrington was born in Tennessee in just before the Civil War. No one knows how he has been able to survive all this time- he looks like he's thirty years old and plays claw-hammer style banjo like a defiled preacher. The religious folk around Nashville speak in hushed tones when Bard passes by- yet they can't help but smile when they hear the sweet tones of his mandolin- yeah, the one made from an old desk out of a railroad station.
When John and Tom found their way to Bard's straw-bale shed, three very different cultural styles and sensibilities came together in a classic New Mexican way, disparate entities mixing and saving the best each has to offer. Three songwriters, three singers, three voices straining to be heard above the din. John's gorgeous rolling ballads, Bard's salty mandolin, banjo and guitar, and the bluesy slide guitar and harmonica that define Tom's midwestern rock combine together to create their own form of religious ecstacy to survive the harsh realities of the modern America.
