The Dead South Bio
They wear white shirts and black suspenders, black pants and travellers hats, sing about murderous estranged spouses to runaway lover cousins, in a boot-stomping acoustic configuration that includes banjo, mandolin, cello and guitar, and some whistles, hoots and hollerin’ and finger snappin’. Sometimes their fans dress up like them too and dance and sing the night away. But that’s not mandatory.
The Dead South — Nate Hills (lead vocals, guitar, mandolin), Scott Pringle (guitar, mandolin, vocals), Colton Crawford (banjo, kick drum) and Danny Kenyon (cello, vocals) — are fun, modern hillbillies from Regina, Saskatchewan (that’s in Canada btw), who can make you forget your troubles and even what century you’re in. “It’s a tongue in cheek thing. We dress like Old West pioneers,” says Nate.
But the band isn’t just about style and good looks. Their full-length album, Good Company (released on Curve/eOne), is full of rousing bluegrass kickers that challenge you not to smile or do a little jig, or, heck, even head-bang. They’ve played them all over Europe and the U.K. multiple times, as well as Canada and into the U.S., enthralling fans who just can’t get enough.
Co-produced by Orion Paradis (Rah Rah, Library Voices), Good Company includes songs about such timeless subjects as lovin’, cheatin’, killin’ and drinkin’.
“Travellin’ Man,” written by Scott about Scott, addresses his love of the outdoors and a double whiskey no ice. “In Hell I’ll Be In Good Company,” written by Danny not about Danny, is just cello and banjo, some whistling and finger-snaps, about a guy who suspects his wife of sleeping around and if he kills her knows he’ll see her down in Hell too. The band performed it on a German TV show in front of several million people.
On a more serious note, “Honey You” is a passionate love song that is helping some people get through rough times, The Dead South has learned from fan messages they’ve received. And on a far less serious note, the bonus track, “Banjo Odyssey,” taken from their 2013 debut EP, The Ocean Went Mad and We Were To Blame, is a silly homage to the genre “about two cousins who love each other and their parents aren’t down with it so they try to run away as fast as they can,” laughs Nate.
The idea for a rockin’ stompin’ bluegrass band came to Nate and Danny 2012; they had played together before back in high school in a short-lived alternative grunge band. Nate had been listening to Trampled By Turtles and Old Crow Medicine Show and older bluegrass acts and the two wanted to put their own spin on tradition. This also marked Nate’s very first go at singing. They wrote some originals and tested them out at open mics.
Shortly after, Colton, who was into metal, and Scott, more in the singer-songwriter vein, added more bodies to The Dead South. Colton learned banjo and Scott switched from guitar to mandolin. Their first attempts at bluegrass were more just “riffs on a banjo,” Nate laughs, and Scott had to figure out how to play mandolin “with chops” and different time patterns but they knew they wanted it to be fun, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, with serious musicianship.
After releasing The Ocean Went Mad and We Were To Blame, they plowed ahead with a full album, Good Company, and signed a record deal with Jorg Tresp of Devil Duck Records in Hamburg, Germany after showcasing at 2014 Canadian Music Week in Toronto. “One thing that people kept saying was, ‘Don’t expect to get a record label out of it.’ Sure enough that’s the only thing we got out of it,” Nate says.
The Devil Duck deal allowed The Dead South to head overseas to tour a couple of times each year. But now they have a Canadian manager and label after Brian Hetherman of Curve in Toronto flew all the way to Germany to catch the band on its first tour. Then at a showcase at BreakOut West in Winnipeg in 2015, the band landed a booking agent at Paquin. Now with their team in place, Good Company is getting remastered with the bonus track and will be distributed by eOne.
It seems that everywhere The Dead South plays, their good company expands.

For more information, contact: thedeadsouth4@gmail.com