The Accidentals are an American band, formed in Traverse City, Michigan in 2012 by singer-songwriters and multi-instrumentalists Sav Buist (now Sav Madigan) and Katie Larson. The group has featured an eclectic blend of indie folk, pop, bluegrass, rock, classical, and other genres. They have released eight full-length albums, four EPs, and two live albums.
Buist and Larson grew up in musical families, released their first two albums while in high school, hired percussionist Michael Dause in 2014, and began touring nationally. Dause departed in March 2023 and was replaced by Katelynn Corll. The band signed with major label Sony Masterworks by the time the members were around age 21, but they returned to releasing their recordings independently. Now based in Nashville, they tour and lead music workshops across the US.
History 2011–2012: Beginnings and Tangled Red and Blue Larson and Buist met as young musicians in 2011 at their public high school, Traverse City West in Traverse City, Michigan. Larson, then 15, was a freshman cello player, and Buist was a 16-year-old sophomore who played violin; they teamed up for a class orchestra project. Larson recalled that a key encounter that inspired her and Buist to pursue a professional music career was when they attended a school workshop by the Moxie Strings, which was the first time they had seen a female duo playing electrified orchestral instruments in a popular style. In 2012, they auditioned and won a spot in the first-ever singer-songwriter major at the renowned Interlochen Center for the Arts high school, where they formally created The Accidentals.
In an interview with Post Independent, Larson described the formation of the band:
Larson had visited Buist's house to discuss their impending project, during which time Larson had played a song on Buist's guitar that she hadn't played for anyone prior to their meeting. From that moment on, they were in a band.
Of the band's name origins, the band said in radio interviews that they had decided on "The Accidentals" because of the accidental note in music, which is denoted by a pitch that is not a member of the scale or mode that is specified by the most recently applied key signature, and the coincidental qualities behind its relation to their meeting each other by chance.
On May 21, 2012, the Accidentals released their self-produced debut full-length album, Tangled Red and Blue. The album features 13 tracks ranging across a spectrum of contemporary folk sounds and was met with strong local reception upon its release. Their eclectic use of instruments, such as the kazoo on "The Band-Aid Song", and the tackling of potent themes such as sexism, female stereotypes, and feminism on "Jargon" and "Enlightened Sexism" (inspired by a book of the same name by Susan J. Douglas analyzing sexism in modern pop culture), had garnered Larson and Buist local acclaim.
Prior to their meeting, Larson and Buist were budding singer-songwriters and instrumentalists. Larson had developed a music video for a demo of her original song "The Temptation of St. Anthony" as her senior year stop-motion animation project. The song is based on the Salvador Dalí painting of the same name and was available to be viewed on her Facebook and YouTube pages. Many of Buist's pre-Accidentals works can be heard on her SoundCloud page.
2013–2015: Bittersweet and national reception On April 9, 2013, the Accidentals opened a Kickstarter campaign in an attempt to fund their sophomore album, Bittersweet, offering signed versions of the album, behind-the-scenes footage, backstage meet-and-greets, and an exclusive song titled "Family Tree" for backers of various pledge levels. Less than one month later, on May 6, 2013, the Accidentals successfully funded the album.
Released on June 17, 2013, Bittersweet was co-produced by Buist, Larson, and a slew of producers from across Michigan, Nashville, and Bloomington, Indiana. Most notably, war-themed closing track "Blessed" was produced and mixed in Bloomington by Zero Boys' Paul Mahern, who previously worked with artists such as Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp.
Increased production values and stronger songwriting developments brought the band a broader acclaim than their previous, fully self-produced work in Bittersweet, garnering the attention of multiple publications. Yahoo! Voices journalist Jonathan Frahm was among the first to note the band as genre-benders, saying, "They're the best folk/jazz/bluegrass/classical/alternative band out there today", and "one of the most ground-breaking musical experiences one might just have in a lifetime".
During that period of time, the Accidentals collaborated with multiple local artists on the development of their own releases, including engineering, production, and performance credits on Olivia Mainville's Full Steam Ahead and string section and harmony credits on the Way Down Wanderers' single, "Dead Birds". They contributed music to independent films One Simple Question and Please Wait To Be Seated in 2013 and 2015 respectively. They also contributed five songs from Tangled Red and Blue to Right Brain Brewery mini-documentary Hops. The song "The Silence" was used in a television advertisement for Shanty Creek Resorts.
Throughout 2013 and 2014, the duo kept busy gaining renown by opening for artists such as Brandi Carlile, Andrew Bird, Dar Williams, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Sixto Rodriguez (Sugar Man), The Duhks, Aunt Martha, Rosco Bandana, and Lauren Mann. Music videos for the songs "Lemons in Chamomile" and "City of Cardboard" from Bittersweet were released on the band's official YouTube page. Their most viewed music video during this time was an acoustic rendition of Buist's folk-pop song "Epitaphs".
Taking advantage of the steam garnering behind their latest effort, the band pushed single "The Silence" onto ReverbNation after a slew of shows across Michigan and the east coast between 2013 and 2014, eventually garnering the attention of musician Marshall Crenshaw and record producer Stewart Lerman in 2015. In 2014, the band hired Novi, Michigan-hailing new wave multi-instrumentalist and Treeskin artist Michael Dause as their full-time percussionist.
In early 2015, the Accidentals used Indiegogo to fund their first-ever national tour, the "MAKING IT HAPPEN!" U.S. tour, which was successfully funded on March 20, 2015. The band toured through cities including Chicago, Cave Creek, Arizona, San Diego, California, and Salt Lake City, Utah with notable tour dates at South by Southwest (SXSW) 2015 and with the Traverse Symphony Orchestra in March and April, respectively.
During the "MAKING IT HAPPEN!" tour, the band was popularly received as one of SXSW's seven breakout acts out of some 2,200 acts, according to Billboard. During the tour, the Accidentals performed alongside Ben Sollee at Chicago's City Winery and with The Wailers at the Orbit Room in Grand Rapids, Michigan. They had their first headlining show at renowned folk music venue The Ark on June 7, 2015, after the tour, as well as at Electric Forest and Blissfest's respective 2015 iterations.
On August 25, 2015, Marshall Crenshaw joined the Accidentals for their first-ever live joint performance during the final Tuesday Evening Music Club show of the summer at Meijer Gardens. Post-show, Crenshaw praised a "precocious" Accidentals for their engaging live technique, saying in a statement to the Michigan music publication Local Spins, "They're killer. They go out there with the instinct of a killer. It was really something."
2016: Parking Lot EP The band announced that they had opted to continue independently releasing their music after renegotiating their contract with Crenshaw and Lerman, a contract that Buist later described as "a situation that wasn't healthy". The band released two new singles, "Parking Lot" and "Michigan and Again" for a "name your price" option via their official Bandcamp page. Each release was accompanied by a music video, with the "Michigan and Again" video becoming their most popular to date: it had over a quarter million views on Facebook and YouTube within 10 days of its release and reached No. 2 on Reddit's Indie Folk chart. The Accidentals later spoke with NPR on its Weekend Edition, during which Buist detailed the developmental process of "Michigan and Again", which began after a recommendation from a friend of the band to write a song about their home state. During that time, the band had their song "Bittersweet" featured on the second season of Netflix series Bloodline, on Episode 2.06.
The Accidentals independently released the Parking Lot EP on NoiseTrade for free download on June 1, 2016. The EP includes the titular "Parking Lot", as well as a remixed version of the song featuring rapper Rick Chyme that they call "FRAP", or "folk-rap". Reviews for the EP were generally positive, often citing the band's "genre-bending" evolution since Bittersweet. John Sinkevics of Local Spins called it "another entertaining step forward on a magical indie-folk journey". Jonathan Frahm of For Folk's Sake said, "We're catching them at a compelling—and even inspirational—transitional portion of their careers."
They were named one of the Huffington Post'''s Sweet 16 of 2016 by entertainment and sports journalist Michael Blalas on December 21, 2016. Blalas said of the band, "Ah, the beauty of youthful exuberance. It's a wonderful thing, to be sure, but when you have brains, musical talent, enthusiasm and the ability to connect with a growing fan base through the monster method of social media and viral videos, there's no telling how far you can go", and that "The Accidentals certainly didn't happen by accident."
2017–2018: Sony Masterworks and Odyssey On January 9, 2017, the band announced that they were signed to Sony Masterworks via a feature in Local Spins, and they said they were looking forward to releasing the album internationally sometime during the spring of the same year. The band announced that the album would feature multiple guest performers, including Jack White bassist Dominic John Davis, Jenny Conlee of The Decemberists, Keller Williams, Kaki King, Lily & Madeleine, and Carbon Leaf. Buist described Masterworks as "a family of like-minded music nerds that gets us and our music, and wants to support that authentically"; Larson added, "We feel like we can be truly who we are and they appreciate the honesty." Masterworks is primarily a classical and jazz label, having previously signed artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Sonny Rollins, and Yanni, although the label expanded its reach with its signing of indie folk duo Tall Heights and acknowledgement of bluegrass on The Goat Rodeo Sessions. Leo Sacks, a Grammy-winning producer and A&R consultant to Masterworks, was responsible for bringing the band to the label; Sacks had also brought Tall Heights to the label.
Sony Masterworks announced the title of the band's upcoming third album, Odyssey, on March 10, 2017 and announced that it would be released sometime during the summer of that same year. The Accidentals released their lead single, "KW" (feat. Keller Williams), from the impending record on that same day. In March 2018, Texas Lifestyle Magazine named The Accidentals their "must-see" band of SXSW 2018. Masterworks released the second single from Odyssey, "Memorial Day" (written and sung by Larson), on May 19, 2017. The titular third single, "Odyssey", was released on July 24, 2017.