Eclectic folk music

Left to right: Erik Friend, Andrew Emlen, Wren Hendriks, and Kyleen Austin

Meet the Band

Andrew Emlen: cello, banjo, guitar, mandocello, and voice

Andrew received classical training, starting on the cello at age nine. He won multiple awards as a teenager and earned a cello scholarship to Whitman College in Washington. Since then he has learned to play several other instruments and played in multiple classical, jazz, and folk ensembles. He founded Skamokawa Swamp Opera in 2013.

Wren Hendriks: voice, guitar, and melodica

Andrew Emlen: cello, banjo, guitar, mandocello, and voice

Wren joined SSO in 2022 - we recruited her for her beautiful, expressive voice, as well as her ability to step in with guitar and melodica. Wren's background is in musical theater. She and Kyleen hit it off immediately when they discovered that they both had played Fantine in stage productions of Les Miserables.

Kyleen Austin: voice, guitar, and banjo

Erik Friend: percussion, mandolin, and voice

Kyleen studied opera at Notre Dame de Namur University in California. She has since studied guitar and become a singer-songwriter, producing two solo albums.

Erik Friend: percussion, mandolin, and voice

Erik is a skilled percussionist. He was formerly the drummer for Giants in the Trees, a rock band founded by Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic. He learned mandolin just because SSO needed one. A computer genius, Erik also recorded and mixed SSO's first two albums.

Video

Wahkiakum County Sheriff's Report

It took Andrew over two years to write this song - because that's how long it took to collect choice entries from the Sheriff's Report in the Wahkiakum Eagle newspaper. When you hear someone singing solo, that's verbatim from the newspaper. When you hear the backup singers, well, that's our Greek chorus making commentary.

Sweet Emotion

Here's one written by Erik and Jillian that we had fun with.

Wahkiakum County Sheriff's Report, Volume 2

After the first Sheriff's Report song, the Wahkiakum Eagle kept printing new material which we couldn't resist. We have dramatized Volume 2 here.

Celeste Brown

Erik was at a church garage sale in Cathlamet when he found a tambourine - no ordinary tambourine, but one with streaming ribbons and feathers, and gold lamé fabric loosely affixed over the drum. On the inside of the drum, the name Celeste Brown was written in black Sharpie -so that's what we call her. She was played on every song on our first album, so we decided she needed her own song. This song began as an informal jam session, then Andrew took it home and gave it a chorus and a bass line,.

Skamokawa Swamp Opera

Skamokawa Swamp Opera

Eclectic folk music