The inaugural Seward Salmon and Song Festival kicked off last weekend at Miller’s Landing, just south of Seward. It’s a spinoff of Ninilchik’s annual Salmonfest, which advocates for the preservation of Alaska’s Bristol Bay salmon.
The new environmentally-focused music festival brought in both local and national acts, like The Brothers Comatose. That’s a San Francisco-based bluegrass band formed by brothers Ben and Alex Morrison.
Hunter Morrison: Tell me about your musical career? Your musical background?
Ben Morrison: Oh, man, I guess Alex and I, like, it all kind of started like us playing, mostly like classic rock and rock and roll songs and stuff like that. He was playing banjo, I was playing guitar in the living room, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Sublime, just like stuff that, you know, was happening when we were teenagers in California. I mean, I guess Led Zeppelin and Rolling Stones happened way before, but we were into, like, the classic rock stuff at the time.
Hunter: And you mentioned that you all have sort of toured the world. Is that right?
Ben: Oh, yeah, we've been to a lot of cool places. We went to China. Did a tour in China. The State Department has a program called American Music Abroad, and they send bands abroad to teach and perform and get to experience all kinds of stuff. So we did China. We did Latvia and Lithuania. We're going to the Netherlands in a couple months. We're going to Jamaica next, early next year. Mexico we’ve been to a bunch of times.
Hunter: And I'm curious about that China experience, you know, can you tell me about that a little bit more?
Ben: It was the most shocking cultural experience I've ever had in my life. What they call like a big town is like a mega city. You know, it's like 10 million people or something. It's like New York City size. It was mind blowing being in the big cities. And then we'd go out to the super rural villages and, like, play music for them in their little church or whatever, and then we'd get bused to a six story mall and like, play on a stage with a jumbotron behind us. It was all of these things happening in the same day. It was just, like, the most shocking thing that I've ever experienced. It was really cool.
Hunter: And you mentioned that you played at Salmonfest several years ago, over in Ninilchik, is that right?
Ben: Yeah, 2016. Yeah, we showed up. Our first set was the late night set, and it was the 2 a.m. the 4am slot. I was like “This is, it's pretty late night.” But people were still down. And I just remember it rained. It was cold and rained all weekend, but nobody cared at all. They're just like, wearing their boots and their jackets, and they were good to go.
Hunter: Was that like, your band's first time performing in Alaska?
Ben: Yeah, first time.
Hunter: So one thing about this festival and Salmonfest is they both have environmental themes, protecting salmon here in Alaska. What would you say is the importance of playing a show with an environmental theme?
Ben: I mean, we're all super into the environment and keeping it as clean and healthy as possible.
Hunter: I don't really have any other questions. Anything else you'd like to share about being up here or performing?
Ben: It's always nice talking to a fellow Morrison.
