Few people find putting jam on burnt toast to be all that palatable.
Put it on a stage and add some instruments and lyrics, though, and it’s not only digestible, but even a little bit of fun.
Burnt Toast and Jam is a Leopolis-based band that doesn’t quite fit into any of the traditional genres like country or pop. The closest band members have come to define it is “dewgrass,” a humorous label that stuck after one member’s daughter, then age 4, couldn’t say “bluegrass” correctly.
“We’ve got our own way. We don’t quite niche into the traditional bluegrass, but there’s a lot of room there,” said Kurby Hoffman, the band’s banjo player. “We conjure the image of dew on the grass early in the morning. It’s nice that way.”
How the band got its interesting name is a little fuzzy, as libations were allegedly a factor.
“It was a campfire and a lot of beer,” Hoffman said.
Patrick Rades, one of the band’s acoustic guitar players, remembered how he and other band members created an initial logo for the band with a piece of toast surrounded by guitars. The logo did not continue to the present, but it was a creation Rades remembers fondly.
Burnt Toast and Jam has been playing organized gigs since 1989, but members have been playing together around campfires and in other formal settings since at least 1982.
“At that point, it was more of a campfire band with a lot of different people, and anyone that could sing or play an instrument would be around the party,” Rades said. “We played at a graduation party … in 1989 up in Bowler, and somebody asked, ‘Do you guys want to play next weekend?’ and I believe we’ve been playing ever since.”
The men in the group today — Hoffman, Rades, Timothy Balke and Tod Pubanz — have been playing together since the beginning. Sarah Ludemann came on board in 2006. Former band members are Jay Schultz and Dave Habeck.
The band has three albums to its name. Besides the self-titled 1995 album, Burnt Toast and Jam came out with “Dewgrass” in 1999 and “Lost in the Woods” in 2005.
“The main focus was doing something original. We try to be as original as can be,” Hoffman said.
Burnt Toast and Jam has been the only band that Balke has played in, and he said he has no intention of playing with any other band. He hasn’t ruled out ever going solo, though.
“For me, it’s once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Balke said. “That’s why the longevity is there. Too many years of good times. Nothing can replicate that.”
An unending passion for music is what has keep Burnt Toast and Jam playing on for the past quarter-century while other bands in the area have come and gone. In recent years, the band has tried to play concerts closer to home, usually within a 90-minute drive from Shawano, in order to keep expenses down so members can continue to do what they love.
“We never really went on a tour or anything, so we don’t really hate each other. We never had to live close and share each other’s stinky socks,” Hoffman said. “We all have day jobs and wives and careers and what not. It’s a love of the music that keeps it together.”
“Being together 26 years, and seeing other bands come and go, it’s just been awesome,” Rades said. “In some ways, though, it feels like we just started.”
