If the tunes of Stuart McLamb and Charles Crossingham strike the right chord, Fancy Gap may soon be known for a lot more than Frank Beamer and Sidna Allen.
The serene, picturesque Carroll County community nestled alongside the Blue Ridge Parkway, Fancy Gap is known as the home of legendary Virginia Tech football coach Frank Beamer and the unique homeplace of Allen, one of the key figures in the infamous Carroll County Courthouse Tragedy of 1912. But McLamb and Crossingham, a pair of Raleigh, N.C.-based musicians, hope the area soon becomes synonymous with their music, so much so they have named their band after the community — Fancy Gap.
Fancy Gap is set to release its debut album July 26, an album jam-packed with all-stars from the music industry. The band is the brainchild of McLamb (songwriter, producer with The Love Language) and Crossingham (songwriter, producer). What began as a Love Language album under Charles’s production slowly morphed into its own entity, revealing an undeniable chemistry between the two.
Nestled in the serene mountains of Fancy Gap, their collaborative magic brewed within Charles’s cabin, birthing a sound that pays homage to ’90s/early aughts radio rock icons like Wallflowers, Oasis, Band of Horses, and Wilco; tinged with a dash of country hues.
“We love Carroll County, we love Fancy Gap, and we just sort of had a transformative experience writing this album on the mountainside and we wanted to share the story,” said Crossingham.
To further demonstrate the duo’s love of local mountain life, one of the album’s tracks, “Little Heart Racer,” was inspired by the area and is loosely about leaving the hustle and bustle of the city for the country, gaining insight and inspiration there. A lyrical snippet from the song further illustrates that point:
“I’m on a back road, down in Carroll County
Just lightening my load and the summers are as slow as they should be
Out on the open road just hitting the cool breeze
There’s a big moon shining and I’m just writing
Down everything I never got in the city.”
Some of that inspiration may have come from the fact McLamb spent four years in Los Angeles working with The Love Language before returning to the East Coast while working on the band’s fifth album. For McLamb, it was an incredibly well-timed departure as he left L.A. in March of 2020 just before the COVID pandemic hit the U.S.
“I got out just in time,” he said.
Crossingham has been a lifelong fan of McLamb, who Pitchfork called one of the most underrated songwriters of the past decade. Also from the Raleigh area, Crossingham has family in Mount Airy, N.C. It was there one Christmas morning when his brother-in-law, Shep Brannock, drove him up and around the mountains of Fancy Gap.
“He drove me through all the back roads of Carroll County and just up and down the mountain from Mount Airy and I was like, ‘Man, this is amazing.’ And so that is what led me up here,” Crossingham said.
During an early conversation with Crossingham after moving back to North Carolina, McLamb said his fellow bandmate pleaded for him to come check out his cabin on the mountain place in Fancy Gap.
“He had this cabin for years and he was like, ‘It is just a special area. You have got to come see it,’” McLamb said. “Finally, I took him up on that and came up for a trip and yeah, I thought this was the perfect place to inspire and create and write an album. It is just a really inspiring place for us, so that is kind of how it started. This has been, I hate to admit it, but about a four-year journey. We put a lot time into it. And through that process we started writing together, that is when I think we felt the real magic happened. I was working on another band kind of on my own, but when we started working together and writing together, we sort of had a chemistry that was unexpected and was surprising and was just special.”
After a few brief discussions about this being a new project for McLamb, the two thought a bit about band names. After a while, Crossingham made the suggestion to call it Fancy Gap because of the love they had for the area.
“It was almost like this refuge, this special place to me,” McLamb said.
“At the time, the world felt so real and people weren’t responding to fake at all,” Crossingham added. “The world had been shut down and there was no illusion anymore. You were stuck at home and it was just a time to be real.”
The band’s Fancy Gap logo was designed by Daniel Murphy, who was just recently nominated for a Grammy for his graphic design on Neutral Milk Hotel’s new box set. That is just the beginning of the band’s all-star lineup for its debut album.
This album boasts luminaries like Sharon Van Etten and Taking Back Sunday’s Adam Lazzara. It’s embellished with Rami Jaffee’s masterful B3 organ (known for his work with Foo Fighters and Wallflowers) and Jon Graboff’s skilled pedal steel (recognized for collaborations with Willie Nelson, Ryan Adams & The Cardinals, and Noel Gallagher), showcasing the imprints of seasoned talents. Crafted mainly in a modest cabin, their music sessions expanded to the famed Muscle Shoals in Alabama to work with Album of the Year-Grammy-winning-mixer Craig Alvin (Kacey Musgraves’ “Golden Hour”).
All of those collaborations came through organic friendships the two had within the music industry. But the one that blew the duo away was when Jaffee, a member of The Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame, agreed to join the project.
“It was a turning point for the record. I was like, ‘Man, this needs organ.” And I was like, ‘I know the guy from The Foo Fighters. Let’s email him,’” Crossingham said. “He is one of the biggest players in the world, an incredible talent. And we sent it to him. At the time I didn’t get the best service, so we kind of held the phone over a cliff and held it toward Winston-Salem and we sent Rami our song ‘Diamond Cutter.’ I remember just sitting there talking to Stu about how nice of a night it was. Five minutes later, we get an email and it is Rami and he wrote, ‘I love this song!!!!!’ And from that point forward he played on every song on the album.”
McLamb said Jaffee’s presence helped bring Fancy Gap’s songs “to life.” The tale of how Crossingham made the connection with Jaffee is its own story. While working in a guitar shop in Raleigh around 2011, Jaffee stopped by while on tour with Wallflowers and members of Eric Clapton’s band.
“They all came to this little guitar shop in downtown Raleigh and I am sitting there holding this acoustic guitar and I am just like, ‘Man, we have to jam. There is no way. I am not asking. There is like 50 guitars around us,” Crossingham said. “So I just organized this jam and I would say we played for 45 minutes and it was just so much fun…And so I said to him if you give me your information, I would be honored to someday have a record with you playing on it. And I think it will happen someday. And I still remember his email address to this day just because I knew how important his contribution could be.”
Under their own label Ghost Choir Records, Fancy Gap will release their debut album on July 26. Stay tuned for a musical expedition that transcends the sum of its parts, painting sonic landscapes that linger in the heart and soul. Fancy Gap will appear live at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, N.C. on May 1 and at The Pour House in Raleigh on May 7.
The band’s upcoming single, “Strawberry Moon,” featuring the angelic voice of Sharon Van Etten, is set to be released May 6. Will McFarland (a guitarist for Bonnie Raitt) also played on the album, and Robert Sledge, a founding member of Ben Folds Five, is part of the live band, along with other influential musicians from the Chapel Hill area.
“It’s so important for us to tell this community how much we love them. There is a reason we named this band Fancy Gap,” Crossingham said.
Added McLamb, “We don’t want to seem like the city boys that pick some name and bought a website domain without a deep, deep respect for the people here. It is a rock record, but if you strip these songs down and play them more of with an acoustic guitar, which we have many times, there is a big bluegrass and Americana influence in those melodies. And that wasn’t conscious, but I think that is just something that comes through when you are in this area.”
More information about the band Fancy Gap and their upcoming album can be found at the following links:
http://fancygap.com/
https://www.instagram.com/fancygapofficial/
https://fancygap.bandcamp.com/track/how-to-dance
https://twitter.com/fancygapmusic
https://www.facebook.com/fancygapmusicofficial/
https://www.tiktok.com/@fancygap
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