MEET the BAND

About

Rooted in campfire songs and stories, High Water Mark is blazing a trail of their own for a new style of Americana Music, one that speaks to the soulful roots of the human experience. No strangers to jamming around a campfire, playing shows on the tops of wandering adventure busses or loading a slew of musical instruments on boats for weeks to float down a river, this group thrives on the soulful sounds of adventure and companionship and the musical threads that combine the two. Their songs weave stories about the places they've been and it's apparent, through their raw sound and poetic lyrics, that these experiences together have shaped not only the trajectory of their lives, but their way of life. It was a natural progression to move from campfire jams and porch plays to performing on the big stage.

Rustic, raw and real. High Water Mark's music will get you up and out of your seat and make you dream about setting off on the open road to find the roots of your own soul.

It all started around the riverside campfires of the Sierra Nevada mountains while working summers as whitewater raft guides outside of Yosemite National Park. One friend brings a soulful new song to the crew. The song is played on repeat all summer long. This song inspires one person, then another, then another and becomes the anthem of the season. It's the perfect recipe for the beginnings of a band.

With no service on the river and only the means of our own minds to keep us entertained, we often turned to music and fun after long days on the river. What started out with repeat playings of the song Trucker Speed turned to multiple guitars picking and drums playing as the days waned on. We became a rag-tag mix of guides and friends meshing in to what became known as the Merced River Truck Stop Band, a mix of whoever was around that night, playing songs we knew best. As we played on and realized that a core group of us were actually pretty good at this together, what was just jamming around the campfire quickly morphed in to what is now High Water Mark, booking music festivals and local bars by the end of that first summer. It took a trip to Baja to solidify the band, come up with the official band name (an homage to our river roots) and set our sights on the next steps—booking shows, recording an album and sharing our music and lives with you.

The rivers and the mountains brought us together and we share with you the threads of our lives; of adventures lived, of heartache and heartbreak, of life on the road. We hope you'll join us one of these days, at a small bar in some back-end outlaw town, dancing in the front row while we play on the stage of some music festival or around the campfire on a river close to home.