by Amanda Slater

Matt Milia is a man obsessed.

Frontier Ruckus just got off an eight month tour, and frontman and songwri

ter Milia has wasted no time gettingback to writing. In fact, he says that he can’t help but write.

“I’ve just become this nocturnal beast that stays up all night. I’ve seen the sun rise the past five days,” he said.

“I’ve been home for maybe a week now, and I’ve been filling up notebooks with the minutia, the smallest detail of the experience that I’ve known my entire life up to this point—whether it’s a gas station that I’ve passed a million times or a liquor store or a piece of my landscape that I feel a physical extension out of. It really has to do with an obsession with the land, an obsession with the suburban landscape that I know.”

This obsession is what has fueled most of Frontier Ruckus’ music, and consequentially their recent widespread success. In fact, the band’s unique blend of bluegrass-infused folk evolved out of Milia’s insatiable appetite for this kind of expression through writing.

“When we started the band, we didn’t foresee where we would be today. We didn’t have any sort of long term plans. We really just started off with these songs that I had,” Milia said.

Sometimes called into question for their band name, Milia said the very reason, to some, their name doesn’t seem to quite match up with their music is due to the fact that Frontier Ruckus was a name that Milia and band co-founder, Davey Jones, thought up back when they were “just two kids playing bluegrass.”

“[The name] really has no application to modern day Frontier Ruckus. It was just a name we called ourselves,” he said.

But now gone are the days when Frontier Ruckus just consisted of two kids playing bluegrass or when they were among the first in a string of opening bands playing at the very first Mittenfest, five years ago. Now, Frontier Ruckus has received attention from publications across the country—even earning a mention in Rolling Stone. And, at this year’s Mittenfest, they will be headlining on New Year’s Eve.

However, to Milia and the rest of Frontier Ruckus, playing at Mittenfest doesn’t feel like just another gig. It feels more like going home, because that’s exactly what it is.

“There’s no show like playing at home,” Milia said. “It all constantly overwhelms us and amazes us every time we come back to the Blind Pig or some place in Michigan like Mac’s bar and we remember what it’s like to play for these people who have known about us since our start and are really behind us. It’s like nothing else. You start a song, and you can just feel it. You don’t feel that anywhere else you play around the country or in Europe.”

Milia said that Frontier Ruckus is actually friends with most of the artists that will be playing at Mittenfest—Chris Bathgate, Mat Jones, Drunken Barn Dance, Misty Lyn and the Photographers (which, upon mentioning, he paused and added, “They’re great photographers as well”).
If there’s something that Milia and the band take pride in, it’s their Michigan roots and the area’s music scene that has cultivated artists like those featured at Mittenfest. Milia said he is often asked during interviews for out-of-state publications to explain how a sound like that of Frontier Ruckus can come out of Michigan.

“In every interview, I say the same thing,” he said. “Michigan is a very robust folk scene with rich instrumentation and very prominent, talented, folky bands making really good music that no one really knows about. It’s a very rich music scene where everyone cares about everyone else’s music.”
It is partly this comradery that makes the Mittenfest so special to Frontier Ruckus.

“When we first played at the Mittenfest, we were one of the lower bands in the totem pole. We were super excited just to be a part of this Michigan scene that was just starting to welcome us in. We could already sense how magical this whole scene was, how tight knit it was, how everyone supported each other’s music. We’re extremely proud to have been nurtured by the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti scene. […] It’s kind of a badge of honor,” Milia said.

“[The Mittenfest] is like a beast of enjoyment—maybe too much enjoyment sometimes. Everyone’s having a great time. It’s for a good cause, and, at the end of the day, it’s one of our favorite parts about every year of life.”