Interview mit den Cherryholmes, Shooting Stars der Bluegrass Szene

© Februar 2007 / Bruno Michel

It’s rather unusual – especially in the well respected Bluegrass music community – that a band reaches highest levels of appreciation after only four years of professional performance. It’s even more unusual that such a band originates from California. The family band Cherryholmes did just that. They started playing Bluegrass in 1999, had their first professional appearance in 2002 and were awarded Entertainer of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) in 2006. I took the chance to talk to the parents of the family, Jere (JC) and Sandy Lee (SC) Cherryholmes during their second stay in Switzerland.

bm: You only got in touch with Bluegrass in 1999 after a personal tragedy. Today you’re honored Entertainer of the Year. Coming from L.A. and going to Bluegrass Stardom – how does that fit together?
JC: Well, it doesn’t. The area where I grew up in L.A. was one hundred percent hispanic. We were pretty much living on an island in our house. We had to search for Bluegrass music. You find it in California but not as easy as you would in other states such as Kentucky or Tennessee. First we were looking for tapes and started to play along. As we homeschooled our kids, we integrated music lessons in the schedule. We had to make real efforts to feel it and play it right. None of the kids read music, Sandy taught them all how to play by ear.

bm: Jere, you were part of a gang in L.A., but you also were in the Navy, both were homeschooling your children. These are a lot of different lifestyles you were mixing. How did you keep discipline in the house?
JC: We had a pretty disciplined house already. I brought my Navy training into the house (laughs). If you want your kids to go on well in life – whatever they do – discipline plays a big part. Children sometimes have a hard time to see value in being self-disciplined, so you have to teach them. Especially when you do homeschooling, you have to have a tight schedule that everyone follows, right? (looks to Sandy). Say something so I don’t have to do all the talk (laughs).
SC: Well, Jere rightly mentioned that you need to have slots for each class you want to teach and make sure, things are being followed. Already before starting the band, we were dancing with the kids just as a recreational thing. But once we got the band started, we had to include dancing lessons in that schedule – on top of all other things. I did also individually teach each of the kids in music for, say twenty minutes, and then we brought them all together to practice jointly what they’ve learned. Sometimes they had to learn a fiddle or guitar part to a song of which they did not know how it sounded until we brought all together.

bm: I heard that none of you has a personal email account. How do you rate today’s thinking of most people who believe they need to be reachable at any point and any time?
JC: Well, it’s another discipline thing. We do have cell phones and we figure we can handle things over that. We felt that email and it’s related efforts might become cumbersome. Some bands have a manager, an agent or even a fan club, where people could address questions to and they would get answered. We are doing most of these things ourselves. And with our touring schedule of currently some 300 gigs per year, we simply do not want to neglect anybody by not answering their request. Crucial things such as signing papers or similar can always be done via a fax machine on the road.

bm: Four children and their parents equals to six individuals and therefore it might be six opinions. Who decides in case you’re once not in agreement?
SC: Well, the bottomline decision – as it should be in a family – lies with the father or maybe the father and mother together. But we’re also very much open to the kid’s ideas. However, you have to have a head that takes final decisions out of wisdom and life experience, the kids naturally can’t do that well. It’s however very important that you don’t make decisions based on your feelings but on experience. Take the musical styles as an example. One might come up with a neat song that they play for us. We have to decide if that would fit in what we currently do and what the people like. And it may not be the appropriate time now for such a song.

bm: At an age between 14 and 23, most young folks have other things in mind than playing Bluegrass with their parents. What – except family roots – keeps them hangin’ on?
JC: It’s already grown past that. When we first started it was of course the family. Now it’s a career. Each one of them are getting noticed for their skills and value in the band. We were up for eleven awards recently. The guitar player was nominated in his category as was the banjo player and one of the fiddlers. I was up for bass player. So everybody gets some sort of recognition and they’re even asked to play on other artist’s projects. So they look at it as part of their career to go that extra mile to reach the next level.

bm: If an alien would land his spaceship at a bluegrass festival where you are performing, what would be the first thing you’d warn him about?
SC: (laughs) Watch where you step. A lot of these festivals are in the cow pasture.
JC: It depends on where the festival is. In Kentucky they drink a lot of moonshiner during festivals, in Wisconsin it would be beer. So, overall I might just warn him that not everybody living on this planet is like this (laughs).

bm: Jere, you once said that you all were “survivalists in life” trying to achieve things on your own. If people look back on your lifes in 50 years, what would you like them to say about you?
SC: I hope they would have respect for what we did at the time we lived in. We try to do something different, trying to hold on to the old family tradition. Also, on our forty acres out in Arizona, we try do to that. We don’t have electricity out there, as an example. Also the fact that we live on the road and have almost not seen our home in four years is not the usual way. Sometimes I think people lost that vision that you can be together and do things the simple way. There’s more things to a satisfied live then measure luck by what you can buy.

bm: You’ve achieved a lot in just a few years. If you’d find the lamp of Alladin, what would your 3 wishes be to the Genie?
SC: (laughs) Jere and I might armwrestle over these because we might not have the same opinion. I take the first wish of which I know we agree on, then he can take the other two. My wish would be that as a family we always remain close and that our kids values will always be the ones we raised them on.
JC: I’d wish we’d stay healthy, focused and not get blinded by ambition. I feel we have something to offer to the people, not just the music, but also from a family point of view. As to the third wish, I don’t really know. We’re not wishing for material things, never did.

bm: If you were to interview the Cherryholmes, which question would you ask them that I did not ask?
JC: I’d ask myself: Do you still have a brain (laughs). Because all my hair has gone does that mean my brain’s gone, too. Or, I’d ask if we still love what we’re doing….stupid question…
SC: (laughs) I don’t know. It’s too hard to ask myself a question and answer it at the same time…

bm: Fair enough. Thanks a lot for the interview and good luck for your shows.