Red Birds

Maryland’s Red Birds take flight with new album

Things We Thought We Were Done With!

Elkton, Maryland: With influences that extend from Patsy Cline to Modest Mouse; Townes Van Zandt to Pedro the Lion, without ever actually sounding like any of them, Maryland/Delaware’s Red Birds long ago established themselves among the states (if not the entire time zone)’s most idiosyncratic - yet, simultaneously - effortlessly listenable bands.

Fronted by married duo Zoë (vocals, bass) and Dan August (guitar), plus drummer Sam Williamson, Red Birds came together in the crucible of lockdown, as the Augusts reacted to their confinement by sitting out on their porch, stockpiling songs and performing impromptu concerts to any wildlife that might be passing by.

By the time the duo, now augmented by Williamson, were ready (and, of course, able) to step out in public, they had amassed what Dan describes as “dozens of tunes,” and a heap of demos too, most recorded on their phones for fun. These rudimentary recordings, however, became the backbone of Red Birds’ first release, 2021’s Fanks EP.

Heralded by Goldmine magazine for “Zoë August’s blues-inflected vocals, bandmates Dan and Sam’s Basement Tapes approach to landscaping the arrangements, and the snatches of background noise and studio chatter that pop up between the songs,” Fanks was largely sold through live appearances and the trio’s Bandcamp page, a method that was also enacted for the follow-up Froggies.

Songs like the contrarily lullaby-esque “I Were Ded” and the insistent “Blue Ridge” became immediate crowd favorites, while the band labored through life towards their debut album Tell Me Lies. It finally appeared in July 2023, by which time Red Birds had shared the stage with Son Volt, Death By Indie, Delaware’s Wasted Arrows, Andrew Bryant, Jon Snodgrass, Maxwell Stern, Grace Vonderkuhn, Katy Pinke and many more.

On the heels of Red Birds’ latest single, “Pink To Black,” 2024 brought the band’s first tour, an east coast excursion with Nashville’s Nightingale Rodeo; their time in Nashville also saw them shoot their first videos at La Maison with Cybelle Elena, for the singles “Crickets” (2024) and “For Show” (2025), both recorded at Boy Sets Fire mainstay Chad Istvan’s Signal to Noise studio in their shared hometown of Elkton.

Like its predecessor, Things We Thought We Were Done With took longer than expected to be completed; Dan calls it “ the culmination of eighteen months of intermittent attention.” The wait, however, was worthwhile, as Dan makes clear.

“The songs on Things We Thought We Were Done With have a more refined feel than previous recordings while holding onto Red Birds unique alternative folk sound. Meshing 90s indie rock, and porch sitting, alt americana vibes, the songs deal intimately with feelings of regret, doubt, and anxiety while extending a hand of hopefulness and light at the end of the tunnel.”