Bridge Over Troubled Water | Andrew Scotchie and the Music of Pain

Andrew Scotchie is one of Asheville’s homegrown musical successes. He was an active busker, he played in local clubs long before he was old enough to legally get in the door and even started his own successful knockoff of the popular Bonaroo Festival, called Barnaroo. A few months ago, Scotchie released his fifth album of eclectic Appalachian music, called “Love is Enough.”

Scotchie talks here about his early life in music, recounts the classic years of his Barnaroo Festival in Weaverville and the influence of his father, both when he was alive and after his murder.

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Transcript

Matt Peiken: were you raised with any sort of artistic foundation? 

Andrew Scotchie: Oh yeah, my, my dad never played, but he was very musically inclined. He would turn a song up and go, Ooh, listen to this drum fill right here. Listen to this part. Oh, this melody is so beautiful, right? I love this part.

He would talk about music in a way where you would think that he was a musician. And a few of his siblings were , creative as well growing up. They ended up being writers. Or sculptors. And so there was always a little of that floating around, in our family.

But as far as picking up an instrument me and my oldest brother were the first ones to do that. And my dad would took us, he took us to concerts all the time. And growing up here in Asheville, 

Matt Peiken: your dad took you to concerts. What kind of music did you have in your bones? 

Andrew Scotchie: Oh, man.

I remember he took me to see Woody Wood when I was, you know, probably like, I couldn't even get into Jack Wood, you know? yeah. I had to stand in that little area right there and I had to watch through the glass. Every now and then he'd turn around and give me a thumbs up like, you good? So 

Matt Peiken: he'd go in and have a good time and you'd be standing outside?

Andrew Scotchie: Just a couple times, yeah. It wasn't like a common thing, okay. But no, he'd take us to Belcher, and I was that kid on his shoulders, we get to see all the bands and the festivals nearby like Flat Rock Music Festival was one that we go to that's no longer around.

Yeah. But, we saw Stanley Family Band there, so we saw everything from bluegrass to hard rock and roll to funk to, pop, everything, and he was all inclusive in that way. You said your brother 

Matt Peiken: played too. Did you play 

Andrew Scotchie: in bands with him? So he was the first one we got back from a concert in 2003.

It was 38 Special, Mother's Finest, and Lynyrd Skynyrd. And we got back from that show, my brother was like, we're gonna play guitar. I'm like, okay, cool. And we started taking guitar lessons, and... And surely enough, he started hanging out and finding friends in school that, played and everything. And I would go and hang out with him after school some days and his friends and I'd sit in the corner and listen to them play, the current, pop punk songs that were like taking over the airwaves at that time.

And so he was the first one to get a band and gig around a little bit. And then I got addicted to it as well. And my first band was middle school. You mentioned 

Matt Peiken: how you had a lot of styles infused in you, you know from funk, hard rock, R& B, soul if you listen to your music now, you seem sort of agnostic in that way. , some people say, I want to be in a blue 12 bar blues band, right? I wanna play in a metal band. Did you have any of that?

Andrew Scotchie: I think it was more so just as long as it had good energy, it was exciting. It was something you could sink your teeth into as far as, something you enjoyed playing. I think that was always the focus. It didn't really matter what kind of genre it was. Of course I firmly believe that, rock and roll is a very unifying genre and one that will last forever.

But. Yeah, there, there's elements of blues, there's elements of punk, there's elements of funk, there's there's a lot of Appalachian roots in what I do. That's clear, very, yeah. Yeah, I think that it was important, from a young age to get exposed to all that stuff and go into it, and luckily I did have...

People that I played with and I had you know some mentor figures that never really shooed anything away from me They were more so like they would point things out and show me things. Was 

Matt Peiken: it always clear that you were going to Channel your direction as an adult into music when you were young.

Was that something was that never in question? I 

Andrew Scotchie: it was pretty clear that I was gonna be an entertainer in some way, I Definitely to make people laugh. I like to Tell me 

Matt Peiken: about what other kinds of entertainment you think or were you 

Andrew Scotchie: dabbling in so before it was music It was skateboarding and dirt bike racing I was convinced that I was gonna be in Hollywood and I was gonna be a stuntman.

Really? 

Matt Peiken: Yes, okay So I could see that with dirt biking and skateboarding Did you try that for a while? Did you look into avenues to do that? 

Andrew Scotchie: I was just like we're talking 10 years old to 13, 14. , the first like, I think like creative thing that I put my stamp on was actually a series of home videos.

Because these were the days of Jackass and MTV and that was everything. Because it had the full package, had the exciting, like crazy, breaking the rules, doing whatever the hell you want. And it had the music in it as well. So we had our own series of jackass that we would do and we would shoot And we'd edit and we'd film Did this get 

Matt Peiken: on youtube 

Andrew Scotchie: or this was like before, you know that time before youtube.

Yeah, this was before that and The only copy, and I hate to say it, but like the only copy I think I have is on like a DVD disc in my mom's house somewhere, and it probably skips to high heaven, it probably doesn't even come out that clear, 

but we would do these insane stunts and jump over things and, I remember, taking our little toy houses that we had from when we were, like, toddlers and lining them up in a driveway, Evel Knievel style, and jumping over them, and we played a lot of gasoline, 

Matt Peiken: what's gasoline?

That doesn't sound like a game that I've ever played. 

Andrew Scotchie: What's gasoline? We would set a lot of things on fire. We would set a lot of things on fire. We like to see things explode. Have you, 

Matt Peiken: did you ever channel that in your music? Did you ever put explosions on stage? 

Andrew Scotchie: We haven't yet. I've taken a pretty large sparkler and attached it to the end of my guitar.

That's about the DIY pyrotechnics that we've done so far. 

Matt Peiken: So obviously you didn't go down the path of Stuntman. When did you get validation as a musician that, Oh, this is something I can 

Andrew Scotchie: do. Man, I would have to say probably around age 13. So my band was called Rightful Intentions, and we were I think we classified ourselves as Southern Grunge.

Okay. Yeah, because we loved classic rock and roll, Southern rock, and we also loved 90s stuff, but anyway, we got the opportunity to play with I want to say it was Velvet Truck Stop, a long standing band here in the area, and we got invited to play with them at Leaf Festival at one of the stages, like the indoor lake stage.

And Artemis Pyle, the second drummer from Lynyrd Skynyrd, he was behind the drums. I remember my dad, being like, dude, you're playing with, one of these guys that we grew up listening to and seeing in concert and everything. This is a big deal. That I think was a very yeah, that, that had a lot of affirmation to it, that show, and then...

And you were only 13? 13. Yeah, and 

Matt Peiken: you're playing guitar. Were you fronting 

Andrew Scotchie: the band? So my role in the band We had two guitar players. I sing backup and play rhythm at the time I was very like i'm a rhythm guitar player. I don't want to be like You know and play all the leads and everything necessarily.

I wanted to have a very malcolm young I was just gonna 

Matt Peiken: say did you malcolm young? 

Andrew Scotchie: Okay, that was absolutely my role and I was proud of it, too we had bass and we had a drummer And the lead guitar player would sing, and me and him, of course, would butt heads and, as teenage boys would, 

Matt Peiken: but you already had a strong sense of self as a musician at 13. Like you knew you were going to be Malcolm Young for your band, but you were butting heads. So you obviously had a certain, aesthetic that you wanted in your music. When did you begin writing your own songs and stepping out that way?

Andrew Scotchie: I remember writing the first thing probably around a couple years before that, around 11 or 12. And it was it was just based on a few power chords that I knew. I had this idea for a song called House of Fire or everything. It was just, crazy and chaotic in a sweet kind of romantic Americana kind of way, if that makes sense.

And Anyway, yeah, so as early as that, I was playing around with ideas and just listening to things around me and trying to put it to words. 

Matt Peiken: Andrew Scotchie and the River Rats, I think your first record, that didn't come out until what, 2015? 

Andrew Scotchie: 2015, yeah, we all stay hungry. Yeah, and 

Matt Peiken: you've had a lot of music since then.

Had you ever recorded your own band, your own music before then? 

Andrew Scotchie: Yeah, so we actually, there's 12 tracks that never... streaming services that got put out in 2012. So whenever we started as a band, it was me, Eliza Hill, and Jordan Miller was like really the original lineup. We were hand making our CDs because we didn't even know that you could Go online and print them all out and do all this stuff.

It was very DIY. Yeah, and we were selling them at shows and I was making them, I was living at home. I was 18, 17, 18. Did you go to school with them with Eliza? Yeah, so me and Eliza met through a mutual friend and she ended up going to middle college. I was in early college at AB Tech. So we were like one floor apart.

And Jordan Miller was my buddy in high school. He went to early college as well. Yeah, we all met in high school and that was really the foundation of the band. And me and another classmate, Andrew Adams, we would go and busk on the streets in between classes or on the weekends. And, just with the goal of having fun and, you know, maybe scrounging up to get, you know, some beer.

Matt Peiken: What's interesting about that a little bit is that I think a lot of people think of buskers today as people who've come into town, who've moved here and want to try to find a way to make it. I don't think of buskers typically as being people who've grown up here, who then busk. Was there a lifestyle and a social base for you around the busking community at that time as a teenager?

Andrew Scotchie: 100%, so I learned a lot. Of guitar moves so to speak and chords and scales and stuff like that just being on the streets and it was definitely a very community based thing, there was of course a little Competition and clickiness, you know some people Or, people would be very protective of their space, if they had a spot that people were tipping in and they were, like yeah, I'll be done when I feel like I'm done, that kind of thing, and I was young, I was, by far one of the youngest, out there trying to do the thing, and So there was a little bit of that getting treated like a kid and not getting taken seriously.

I was just going to say, 

Matt Peiken: were you, did you take it seriously? Of course you did. Even then. So how did that sort of, I imagine it was a hard scrabble fight for your turf, have to entertain people from the get go to keep their attention. How do you think your days busking stamped you as the 

Andrew Scotchie: artist you have become?

I think the urgency, I think that, starting to do it on that level and to have to grab people's attention like that. That shaped songwriting in a way to where maybe if I didn't have that experience, of having to keep people's attention as they're walking by, maybe I wouldn't have thought of songwriting and in, in a way of Hey, I've gotta grab people's attention and keep it.

So yeah, I think it was definitely influential in that way. Were 

Matt Peiken: you always busting with your own material or were you doing covers? It's easy to get people's attention with covers. It's a lot harder with your originals. When did you get serious about your originals? 

Andrew Scotchie: I would say 17 was around the time that I started to really...

have some originals come out and get written almost spontaneously. It was, the dream scenario where you become the vehicle and you're not necessarily thinking, what is the A, B and C way to go about this song? You're just inspired and your feelings that you're channeling something and you're almost overtaken by a divine spirit, I think that Was experienced around the age of 17 for the first time and that's when I really knew that I needed to record I needed to travel and that's around the same time We started to get some recognition from the actual music community as well and some solid feedback and support and some press and everything And that was all 

Matt Peiken: affirming.

You were 17 when you took your music seriously, or you said you started to, when did you start hitting the road? Because from what I understand, you travel, you've traveled quite a bit with your music. So talk about that, your life on the road when you started that and how did that 

Andrew Scotchie: start?

We were the teenagers playing bars, and we also had our own space. So we had Barnaroo, which was in my mom's backyard, and that was a festival that I put on for from 2009 to 2018. And I will be bringing it back as soon as I'm able. Wait, Barn a roo? Yeah, Barn a roo. Not Bon a roo. No, Barn a roo.

Barn a roo. 

Matt Peiken: Okay, I don't know, I had not heard of Barn a roo. 

Andrew Scotchie: This was 2009 we started this kind of collective of teenagers that needed a place to play, and we didn't know how to book any shows on our own, so we took my dad's old barn, That was in Weaverville, still is in Weaverville, and we plopped down a stage, and we, we actually had somebody come in, build a stage, that, knew how to do it, and I had a PA system that my dad had gotten me like two years prior, and we were just like, oh, you're in a band, come on, come play, and then we'd So, yeah.

Become friends with people on Facebook and be like, Hey, I've got a band in Athens, Georgia. Cool. Come on down and play. And then we'll come up to Athens or we'll go to Athens and play in Greenville. Same thing, Atlanta, Charlotte. And before we knew it, we had a scene being built and a little network being built.

And that was inspiring itself because that was one of the first tastes of being like, hey, this is a business and we are creating solid contacts and we're going out. We're not only Going out and playing different cities, but we're bringing in different bands and artists and we want to give them a good representation of what we have.

What a 

Matt Peiken: cool thing that you developed very organically this network of other bands you could go play in their cities Obviously then you had a place to crash. Yeah, they would come here and play that festival Yeah, why did you stop Barnaroo? 

Andrew Scotchie: So in 2013? It had reached the point to where the secret was out.

We ran out of parties my mom's backyard I mean cars would be everywhere and in Weaverville. Yeah, and the cops knew about it, and they would love to show up and, basically do like a whole dazed and confused, kind of like, scatter, you know, that kind of thing and we weren't doing anything wrong at all.

We were just playing very loud music at, late at night. Before there were noise ordinances. There was probably one in place. Actually, I know there was one in place because I had a neighbor Hit me with a noise violation and I had to go to court. I was 19

As the 

Matt Peiken: producer of this festival you had to go 

Andrew Scotchie: to court for that I was the guy I was it was on Me and my mom, it wasn't like she was like, yeah, you got to go, take care of this It was more so I wanted to take responsibility and it ended up as being a whole thing where he wanted to just show me that he had the power to take me to court and it was in that same summer that I met Frances Tacey of Franny's Farm and she now has Franny's Pharmacy here and all over the place really.

She's like the Hemptress, I think is what they call her. Okay. And anyway, she had just planted seeds at Franny's Farm in Leicester, North Carolina, about 15 minutes from downtown Asheville. And she hired us to come and play something called Farm Fest. This was her introduction to the community.

This was her inviting people into her farm. And it was a very organic, kindest, fun backyard party. There were sheep and, goats and a donkey and everything. And plenty of places to camp. And it was just this beautiful, almost euphoric experience. And I remember me and Francis hit it off. And I think a month later...

We got together, me. Her and one of her assistants got together and she was like, what if you take Barnaroo and you move it here? And that's what we got planning and we did it that fall. Wow. So 

Matt Peiken: did you start thinking your career was going to be, you're going to be a musician, you're going to do your music, but you're also going to be an event producer.

And the combination of the two and you're going to just make your home here and in this region and that's going to stamp your economic and creative future? Yeah. I 

Andrew Scotchie: knew that doing, or producing a festival and creating a tight knit community where, love was an essential ingredient and respect and good music was at the helm.

I knew if we were doing that, and if I was doing that with people I loved, then... I was creating a family and creating something that could never be destroyed. I, I had a sense of that early on and it kept getting demonstrated to me as the years went on at Franny's because it got better and better.

And, you know, there were hard lessons to learn. There were good moments or low moments. And I had pride in the fact that I was not just on one side of the curtain, so to speak, I was out there performing and traveling with my band and putting out. music, but I was also bringing in bands and I was, finding sponsorships and everything.

And I noticed that people didn't necessarily just treat me like a, a guitar player or a singer. They treated me like an equal. They treated me like a businessman. And I really appreciated that because that's the kind of respect that I wanted. 

Matt Peiken: Did that extend to when you were also playing?

Trying to propagate your own band and your own music. 

Andrew Scotchie: Yeah, there are some there, there are many times where Barnaroo would, help us get booked in other places because people would, hear about it and everything. And especially we would just get to play with some of our favorite bands.

Like we'd have Southern Culture on the Skids come and play. We'd have Eric Gales. We'd have Yarn come and play and... How 

Matt Peiken: awesome, just from their, the reputation. 

Andrew Scotchie: Yeah, I would just reach out. I didn't really think too much about it. I would just message them and be like, hey. 

Matt Peiken: You would reach out to Eric Gales okay, wow.

Artist to artist, or did you know their 

Andrew Scotchie: booking agent? I would either message their page, or I would find a booking contact and I believed in very clear communication and everything like that. I never tried to oversell it, for what it was. I was like, this is a grassroots music festival, we're not a giant, multi stage festival yet, maybe one day. But this is a very... A unique thing that the community has grown to love and if you want to be part of it, we'd love to have you. When did 

Matt Peiken: Barnaroo end for 

Andrew Scotchie: you? The last one was in September of 2018 and that was debatably the best year.

As far as lineup and production, we had Danny from the Savage Station, he brought out one of his stages, and one thing to note with Barnaroo is we always had a portion of the proceeds benefit the Asheville Music School and that was something that I think Francis might have suggested it, early on, and that kind of formed an idea in my head, you gotta go out there, you gotta play, you gotta be an artist and everything, but you gotta give back too you gotta try to influence, you The next generation you got to try to be good to people the way that music was good to you If that makes sense, 

Matt Peiken: You we hadn't hit the pandemic yet 2018 You had what you said arguably your best festival.

Why did it discontinue? 

Andrew Scotchie: I was too busy Touring like I was too busy traveling with the band So later a couple months after that we were about like we were on the heels of a tour going out to Colorado, Utah Idaho for a month and that in itself is, massive planning, but it's also just so much mental space and emotional space.

And I had only planned to take 2019, just take a hiatus and just take a little break because we were touring. All over the place that year. Of course 2020 hit, and I was like, definitely not. 2021, definitely not. 22, I was like, maybe, but it's still not really there, and like some people had moved, some people had moved away. The kind of crew had changed a little bit, 

Matt Peiken: you know? 

Andrew Scotchie: You're talking 

Matt Peiken: about a little bit ago about as long as you stay unique as an artist, how do you think you have evolved as an, as a songwriter? Your first proper album is as the river rats came out in 2015 You've had now your new record. Is that is this your sixth 

Andrew Scotchie: the record or the fifth studio album? 

Matt Peiken: That's a lot of output in eight years. 

Lyrically, what are you inspired to write about now that maybe you wouldn't have thought about writing about seven, eight years ago? 

Andrew Scotchie: I would say maybe a sense of peace, trying to be okay with where you are. Trying to have appreciation. For the longest time, my source of writing was, and it still is, it's out of a source of pain, it's out of a source of suffering, and it's out of a place of not being completely okay with the way that things worked out, my dad was shot when I was 15, he died the... Day before my 15th birthday. He was shot and killed. He was murdered in West Asheville. Yeah. What happened? So there's a company called mountain Valley spring water, his parents and the I guess I think like late eighties they bought the. It's a franchise. So they bought the West Asheville location and Fast forward to 2008.

My dad is, his face is on, on, on all the trucks. You see he's holding a bottle on his shoulder and he's like the face of the company. He... He was going around town and getting venues and restaurants, their own personalized bottles, you see the orange peel with their own, water bottles and everything.

That was all his idea. And he was a people's person. He had great relationships with people, except for one person that he had to fire because the guy was stealing he was stealing from the company. And he was... He was battling addiction. And so my dad was like, you gotta figure your stuff out, man.

I gotta let you go. And the guy came back and shot him, and I actually met the guy that did it. I met him about a year prior and it's fucking crazy because I remember my dad introduced me to him and was like, hey, this is one of my main guys right here. Wow. So he got he got stabbed in the back.

And my life, the whole family, everything got turned upside down. It's one of the main reasons I am the way that I am. And I, and why I write about the things I write about. Your 

Matt Peiken: father was really instrumental in terms of you even having an introduction to music and 

Andrew Scotchie: it's hard not to talk about him Yeah.

Matt Peiken: Yeah, and He didn't get to see The musician or hear the musician you have become do you still in your mind and in your heart? Do you have conversations with him through 

Andrew Scotchie: your music? Oh, yeah, he guides me all the time. Yeah. Yeah, we have a very Beyond this plane kind of relationship. We do you know, I still talk to him and he's still represented every time I see a red tailed hawk he's right there.

There's been times I've been playing and I feel like he, I could see his face in the crowd. I don't feel that kind of black hole that I felt whenever I was a teenager or whenever I was in my early twenties and a lot of what I did in my early twenties with Barnaroo and with touring and how.

Vigorous I was with it and how busy I was partially a way to silence that stuff, and to have an outlet and to keep moving because I felt like if I, if I stopped moving, if I stopped doing something, the pain would come back and everything. 

Matt Peiken: It seems like from what you're saying, you spent a lot of years trying to run from it.

Yeah. And then you have learned to not only not run from it, but to face it and really embrace 

Andrew Scotchie: it. I think that. I hope, I hope that whenever people pass, there's a sense of energy that can never be destroyed. And I've always had that at the forefront of my music, try to put out a good energy, try to surround yourself with people that you love and trust.

And that kind of... Force, it can never be destroyed. 

Matt Peiken: I've just thought to ask you this and you mentioned about pain and I don't know if this is a source of your pain, but if you're comfortable, can you talk about your left eye?

Yeah, sure. Yeah. I know, what's, is there a condition or did something happen? Yeah, I 

Andrew Scotchie: actually I've, I got the name of it recently because somebody messaged me on Instagram and was like, hey man I have blah la blah too, and I just wanted to say that following your page. Has given me a lot of confidence as a musician.

And but anyway, it's just lazy eye. I guess it's the most common form of it. When I was younger, they started to notice that it was wandering and then they did surgery to correct it like a muscle or something. And then I was supposed to wear glasses. And they should have duct taped them to my head or something like that because I didn't, I didn't keep them on, man.

Matt Peiken: Oh, really? It didn't bother you. You weren't, yourself, you've never, you weren't bothered by the effect of what, of your vision or that? 

Andrew Scotchie: It's not as, it's not as great in the, but it's, no, I have, I have no problem passing vision tests or anything like that. If anything, it's more so just been a A thing to overcome as far as self-confidence, that's 

Matt Peiken: what I was gonna ask you.

Yeah. Is that also not to be presumptive about this, but has that been a source of your pain and angst that you've also tried to work through creatively? 

Andrew Scotchie: I think if anything it's it, yeah. I remember as a kid, I mean I was really shy, like outside of school. I was a different person in school.

I was very shy and Very nervous and didn't have a lot of self confidence and luckily though, you know My dad and getting into music and everything gave me more confidence and showed me it didn't matter You know if you're having a good time and doing what you love it didn't matter at all 

Matt Peiken: You played AVL Fest.

What'd you think of how everything with this festival new? It's not Barnaroo. It's its own new thing what do you think of 

Andrew Scotchie: it? It's what Asheville. It's what Asheville needed I didn't want the weekend to end Sunday night We went to a staff volunteer artist appreciation party and the general vibe and I'm gonna Goosebumps thinking about it right now because everyone was so happy and you had this feeling of like we're in the renaissance of Asheville like we are in a part that's going to be written about Talked about for generations to come And jeff whitworth and brian metheny.

I think they did a great job They were presented with a lot of hurdles and a lot of Logistical nightmares. What they did, what, 15 venues, 200 plus artists uh, over four days. 

I was just helping out a little bit and it was just like a sense of hey we're on the we're at the beginning of something very exciting and a new chapter. 

Matt Peiken: Is there anything we haven't talked about that you want to talk about or want people to know?

Andrew Scotchie: Yeah. I'm gonna save it for the book, though. All right. I'm writing a book. You are? Yeah. Okay. But, yeah, there's some stuff with the

Scotchie name and how it's associated with Mountain Valley, water, because, of my dad's passing there and everything, that's something I've wanted to set the record straight with but then again, whatever this may sound, you know, whenever people hear Scotchie in this, in this area, they don't think water, they think music. And to me, that's enough.