Grizfolk and Knox Hamilton hit The Broadberry on Valentine's Day

Lovers and friends spent their Valentine’s Day night at The Broadberry listening to alternative music performed by Grizfolk and Knox Hamilton.

Performing at the Broadberry for the second time, Knox Hamilton, from Little Rock, Ark., kicked off the night as Grizfolk’s opener with songs titled “Love”, “Back Porch”, “Barley Missed You at All”, “Call Me Up”, “Rightfully So”, “Work It Out” and more.

A self-described catchy pop/rock band, their music style is similar to that of Vance Joy, Sheppard, and Young the Giant. 

“We always try to keep a real positive vibe, a lot of major chords, a lot of uplifting feeling to kind of escape the beat down of life,” Boots, the band's lead singer, said. “Pretty much every song that I write is about my wife and my son.”

The band discovered their name via an old high school year book.

“We were volunteering at a thrift shop and we were looking through a 1972 high school year book and this really rad looking dude was in there,” Boots said. “And his name was Knox Hamilton.”

Boots plays the bass and guitar as well as vocals. His brother, Cobo, plays percussion and drums. Brad plays the keys and does vocals while Drew plays the guitar, roungding out the band's four-piece

Knox Hamilton is on their first tour and will release an album soon, Boots said.

One of the band's favorite performances came at Firefly Festival, where they were able to see Paul McCartney and The Killers, one of their favorite bands.

Touring, however, is never easy. “It was like we were in and out,” Boots said. “It’s so tough. Even when you have a day off, shows are really far away and you have to do some driving.”

Next up headliner Grizfolk really sparked an energy in the crowd.

“We have three guys from the United States and two from Sweden so we like to call our music style ‘North Meets South’,” Brendan James, who plays the guitar, said. “It’s got the Northern kind of beats and hooks from Sweden with the Southern vocals of Adam and Southern California where we all met, it kind of works that way.”

While James plays the guitar and does vocals, Adam Roth is lead vocalist and also plays the guitar. Bill Delia, an old bandmate of Roth, plays the drums.

The band played many songs from their new album, Waking Up The Giants, in addition to singles and songs from previous EPs. Their songs “The Struggle”, “Troublemaker”, “Bob Marley”, “The Ripple”, “Waking Up the Giants”and “Way Back When”were what really got the crowd going.

Their music has a Red Hot Chili Peppers, Avicii and Bastille feel to it.

“We just like to play,” Roth said. “It can just be a guitar, a beat, people that we meet, we travel a lot and see a part of a country, we’re all from different parts of the world, a lot of things come into play when inspiration hits.”

Band members Fredrik Eriksson and Sebastian Fritze are from Sweden. They are producers whose main interest is electronic pop, which when combined with Roth’s love of American folk music works really well

“It was a dream tour and dream team,” Roth said regarding what it was like to tour with Bastille. “They’re like our brothers now. The performances were all arenas and it was kind of a huge learning experience for us. It’s how we learned to play in the big leagues we were kind of in the minor leagues before.”

Contact news assistant Caroline McNamara at caroline.mcnamara@richmond.edu