Imagine the big one has finally hit. The second civil war has been fought and California has fallen off into the sea. All the things we have gotten used to; electricity, luxury cars, digital television, air-conditioning and food distribution are all myths of the past. The zombies are clawing at the windows and extinction is calling your name. In times like this, the tribes of humanity will still be able to take comfort in the basic pleasures of humanity, like good company and better music. Steel Wool Mill will probably be the band playing.

Steel Wool Mill is a new band on the local music scene, a band that raises itself above the herd of  70’s and 80’s cover bands by playing original, organic music that doesn’t sound like what the other bands are playing. The music doesn’t sound like four drunk middle-agers blasting out another crappy version of “Free Bird” or “Enter Sandman”. Instead what you get is honest, real music with a message and  beating heart.
The band is made of up of four men: on guitar and lead vocals is Todd Ward; the banjo is mastered by Jason Crabb; Jason Baines plays the congas and runs back up vocals; and Scott Cobb, on ghost percussion, plays the egg, the tambourine, washboard, and rocks out on the beard. Their one CD is wrapped in simple, environmentally friendly card board paper and is called Black Tooth  Bandwagon. It is five songs of soulful, meaningful music like Stomp Box, which gives us truths like “Well, I can’t see straight, there’s too many choices and no direction.”

Todd Ward gives us a peek at the origins of the band. “The thing that started us out was the friendship between Crabb and I,” Ward said. “We got started playing mandolins and we just started jamming. Then I learned to play guitar and he started with the banjo. We have been jamming together so long now, that when I write a song it is pretty immediate that Crabb picks it up. We have just been jamming for six years now, it seems to work.”

Scott Cobb muses on the different venue of music the band creates and gives it a name of its own. “Freak Folk…want to try something new?” Cobb asked. “Freak Folk is what I call it. it takes me over. it makes me want to move. I know that’s some cliché shit to say…but, it all seems new to me. I’ve never heard anything like it. and I like the way it makes me feel, what it makes me think about, and I like finding something new before others, maybe even telling them about it. So you can imagine my delight to be in the middle of this little whirlwind.”

Jason Baines believes there is a more ethereal reason the music appeals to people. “There is a subtle effect our music has, it is the mix of the percussions, the strings and the soul,”  Baines said.  “It sort of sneaks up on you and you don’t notice it until it has got you.”

Jason  Crabb feels that because their music is different, that is what makes it so necessary.  It is along the same reasons that he picked up the banjo. “I just love blue grass,” Crabb said. “Also, the fact that nobody seems to play a banjo here in town. If nothing else, it is different. I have played guitar and bass before, I wanted to try something different.”

Kyla Ward, junior at Missouri Western and wife of the lead singer, gives her own insight into the nature of what makes Steel Wool Mill a unique experience. “For them, playing music is a chance to get to hang with good friends, drink a few cold ones, and have a good time,” Ward said. “They aren’t too concerned with ‘trying to make it big’; they’re more concerned with developing a fan base of good people who like to have a good time. They don’t want to sound like a band from New York–they don’t want to sound like a band from Los Angeles: they want to create a sound that is timeless, placeless, and organic. I love all of the guys because they and their love for music is real and not based on some pipe dream of becoming the next big thing.”