Today we’d like to introduce you to Andy Gallagher.
Founded in 2007, Trains Across the Sea combines the confessional honesty of Townes Van Zandt with the sly wit of The Magnetic Fields, laying simple and heartbreaking lyrics against the backdrop of Americana music. Primarily the work of Andy Gallagher along with a host of collaborators, Trains Across the Sea officially began in February 2007 when Andy started singing the songs he had previously been writing for other singers over the preceding six years.
Playing their first show on 07/07/07 at the legendary Larry’s Bar in Columbus, OH, they performed at numerous house shows and dive bars before slowly graduating up the ranks of venues in the midwest. July 2008 brought the simultaneous release of their first full-length record (“Trains Across the Sea”), along with a Woody Guthrie-based ep (“This Machine Used to Kill Fascists, Vol. 1”), following up the next year with the critically-acclaimed ep (“Greetings From the Peach District”), and the year after that with one more ep (“Thanks For Coming Out Tonight”).
At the same time, Andy co-founded the arts collective of the same name of the section of town they renamed: The Peach District. They put on dozens of local shows and raised more than $8000 for local organizations. Additionally, he started the highly-successful Taj Tuesdays open mic in the side room of an Indian Restaurant. From there, he gathered the finest musicians in town and soon had a loud five-piece rock and roll band.
In 2011, Andy co-founded The Dick & Jane Project, a vibrant arts-based non-profit in which middle school students are partnered with local musicians and whereby the students write the lyrics and the musicians take their songs to a studio, record them, and play them on the radio. To date, the project has run over 80 workshops and worked with hundreds of youth. The non-profit is still wildly active in Columbus, OH, and looking for opportunities to expand. After serving a year as the Program Director, Andy now sits on the Board of Directors.
In 2013, Trains Across the Sea released “What a Day, What a Time We Had” on vinyl, easily their most accomplished work to date. After the immediate dissolution of that version of the five-piece band for everybody else to pursue their own projects (Counterfeit Madison, The DewDroppers, The Whirlybirds, etc.), Andy spent the next two and a half years writing the world’s first trucker musical. “SEMI FAME: The Truck Route to Broadway” debuted to a sold-out, standing ovation run in Columbus, OH in November of 2015.
Since then, Andy moved to San Diego to put the finishing touches on Trains Across the Sea’s sixth album, “Before It Ends.” After releasing the album on Oct 6th, 2018, they’re looking forward to playing throughout the southern California region and finding new legions of fans of honest Americana.
Has it been a smooth road?
All things considered, the band has been successful beyond my wildest dreams. We’ve played huge festivals, toured, enjoyed a substantial recorded output, and experienced the raw joy of songwriting countless times. That being said, there has been only one major struggle along the way: the art of finding and keeping band members.Regarding band members, Trains Across the Sea has had six distinct iterations of the band, whose instrumentation has included over the years guitar, drums, bass, organ, piano, harmonica, fiddle, banjo, and trumpet.
In some respects, Trains has served as almost an incubator for excellent music in Columbus, OH, with ex-members now fronting very successful bands from New Orleans to Toronto to Seattle. This has allowed countless reinvention of the sound of Trains and has led to (for better or worse) a constantly evolving sonic palette.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Trains Across the Sea story. Tell us more about the business.
Trains Across the Sea is known mostly for captivating lyrics. Album reviews consistently point to the quality of penetrating and insightful lyrics. We are also known for raucous live performances with an engaged audience.How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
We make albums and press them on vinyl. We see less and less profitable potential over the coming years, but they’re not going away completely. The shifts are clearly all towards streaming and towards video.This is partly sad but also allows for the emergence of niche markets who still care about honest records made simply and directly. Vinyl won’t go away completely in my lifetime.
still at it