The Boatmen have been a staple of the Beckley music scene for quite some time, even before they were The Boatmen. After previous endeavors, Every Other Tuesday and Old School Abbey came to an end, a last minute booking found this crew in Fayetteville WV ready to perform at the whitewater rafting destination Adventures On The Gorge. When asked the name of the new line-up, lead singer Matt Mullins looked around for a sign – and found it in on the wall behind him. That sign still hangs today as a reminder of the birth of the Boatmen. The band carries on to this day as well; well-traveled story slingers in a chaotic maelstrom of existential and universal perfection.
Mullins, alongside partners in crime, Nick Durm, Randy Gilkey, and Rob Gross, already had a large footprint in the scene before they found each other. Individually, each member is a unique master of his craft. These boys have played every venue in the region enough times to leave Matt shaped barefoot prints in the wood surface of every stage from Tallahassee to the tip of Maine.
We managed to herd these brilliant kittens into our humble studio to lay down a tune, and insisted on performing from the green couch (that was incidentally donated by Matt Mullins a year prior).
Sit back and enjoy one of our very first Prince Street Sessions: The Boatmen performing “All With You”, a veritable bucket-list of goals no musician will probably ever accomplish (except, perhaps, for robbing that Cleveland Bank).
