Header image credit: The Digital Butler
Genre(s): Celtic punk, folk, bluegrass
Location: Snow Camp, NC
Links: Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram | Website
If you know anything about me, you’re likely aware of my punk roots and sensibilities. That would probably surprise folks who haven’t met me in person because I come off as fairly unassuming. But get me in an active crowd for a chaotic act like Jeff Rosenstock, and I’ll be screaming along in the mosh pit.
That background made Tan and Sober Gentlemen an easy sell when the band’s bassist, Ben Noblit, reached out in February 2025. The group, which feels like an Appalachian cousin of Dropkick Murphys, is infectious. I highlighted their new live album last month for a good reason: it’s a fantastic local example of how to capture and mix the live setting for the home listeners.
It was only a matter of time before Ben and I sat down for a call. Our chat covered the live record, their release show at Haw River Ballroom, and the busy 2025 the band has planned. To his credit, Ben was eager to fill the gaps in my musical knowledge, particularly around old-time music and the semantics of “covers vs standards.” Hopefully, you learn a thing or two you didn’t know as well.
What have you been listening to lately?
Ben: This is not relevant to what is going on in the world right now but there is a bluegrass band called The Mashville Brigade, who were a thing in the 90s. Somebody turned me on to the record they made. It’s called Bluegrass Smash Hits, Volume 1. And it’s nothing original, it’s just a bunch of the old standards, they’re just a really tight band.
I’ve been playing that album a lot. That and Bluegrass Rules! by Ricky Skaggs.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, what was the first musician you remember discovering on your own or just being obsessed with?
I got into music because I come from a musical family. My dad plays and so on and so forth. He plays something called old-time music. It’s like the first American music, the traditional fiddle tunes and whatnot. It’s what happened when Irish fiddle players got to drinking with African banjo players in the 1700s and stuck around in the rural south and the mountains.
Old time is what bluegrass came out of. Bluegrass happened when electricity happened. So suddenly, you could have a touring band that wasn’t playing dances, you could play shows, and you could hear them singing. But old time is the older stuff. It’s like square dance music a lot of the time. It’s mostly instrumental, occasionally some yelling, fiddle, banjo, guitar, bass.
I grew up with people playing all the time in the house. Dad would go all over the place. He’d go to Eastern Kentucky to play and take me with them. One guy we met who really stood out to me is this banjo player named Lee Sexton. He was a really, really rowdy old-time banjo player. I met those folks when I was too small to even remember meeting them. But that’s what got me into music.
When did you pick up an instrument and start playing with folks?
My daddy plays bass, so I picked it up too. In old-time and bluegrass music, we have fiddlers conventions, where a whole bunch of people get together and camp in a field for a week and play music. And they have these little band contests. I put together little bands for them, which would last about three days. You’d get up on stage and play a tune a day. But those are just contest bands that weren’t like a “real” band, so to speak.
I got to high school and for some reason, I never put together in my head that you could perform traditional music on a stage. It’s really embarrassing that it took until college to figure out that that’s a thing you could do. Like, I always thought that it was something you did after work on a Wednesday, you know?
I had my little punk rock band in high school with some friends. We were called the Eight Balls, completely ignorant of the drug connotation until somebody pointed it out. We were just like, “It’s the coolest pool ball, man!” [laughs]
I went to UNC in Chapel Hill. That was right about the “stomp clap” coffee shop folk thing going on in 2011. I saw people doing that and was like, “Huh, that’s interesting. This is terrible. But I guess you can play a banjo on stage and get away with it.”
If they can do it, then why can’t I?
Yes! That was the general idea. Maybe not better, but at least faster. So I just started going around joining whatever band I could get in. I was a bass player, so it’s easy to find jobs playing music.
At what point did Tan and Sober Gentlemen start up?
There used to be a pub in Raleigh on Moore Square called the Tír na nÓg. That was the hub of traditional music in the area, and it was run by a woman from the north of Ireland who had left during the war. I went up there just to play tunes, and then I played with this fiddler. It went well, and she asked us if we wanted a Friday night gig, and we said sure.
That started a precursor band called Barley, Corn, and Rye, which went on for 2-3 years and then fell apart. But I’d been there learning Irish songs from all the northern Irish folks, and I got to thinking that they’re the same thing as old-time songs. It’s just 300 years of separation. A lot of our North Carolina music comes from Ireland, it’s just been gone a long time.
I wanted to have a band that did both. So when my old band fell apart, I started calling a bunch of my friends from growing up playing music and put together Tan and Sober Gentlemen.
How did the lineup that you have now come together?
It was kind of piecemeal. It started off with two of my childhood friends, Alan Best and William Maltbie. Around the same time, we added the banjo player, Tucker Galloway. Our families are from the same spot, so we’ve been around each other for a while. After that, we brought on our fiddler, Eli Howells, and drummer, Jake Waits. They both went to UNC too. About a year later, our guitar player, Courtney, got connected with us via a mutual friend and joined.
Eventually, William ended up leaving because he had a baby. But the lineup has been steady ever since 2017.
When did you all start performing live?
Immediately. We didn’t even have a rehearsal when Eli, Jake, and Tucker joined. We just threw them right in the fire.
What was your process of choosing songs?
Forgive me for being pedantic; we think in terms of standards in the traditional Irish or mountain music realm. We’re playing songs that have been around for centuries. Even if you don’t know a particular one, you might have a good idea of how to at least go about playing it.
So we started doing that and eventually added a couple of songs that we wrote here and there. But I’d say more than half of our set is traditional music.
Everyone in the band has their own unique musical ancestry and history that brings them into it. From your point of view, how do you feel that comes out in the music, whether you’re playing the standards or your originals?
It’s the key point of what we do in a lot of ways. I don’t think anything is truly unique, but we’re a little different than a lot of bands in the traditional realm and I think that’s why. I grew up playing old-time music. Tucker, the banjo player, comes from a straight bluegrass background. Eli, the fiddle player, is big into Irish music.
Alan, who’s a multi-instrumentalist, comes from a family in the contra dance and folk dance world. So he plays a lot of that music, which includes Irish and old-time, but it’s in the specific context of playing for dances. Our drummer, Jake, is a straight-up rock and roller. Courtney comes from more of a country side of things on guitar.
All those things are complementary, but they’re different approaches. If you take a tune that we’ve never played together before, everyone will approach it in their own way. Having all of those influences together helps us stick out a little bit. We’re not doing paint-by-numbers exactly by the book in one of those little subgenres; it’s kind of a blend.
I definitely feel that listening to the live album. It’s got what I’d call a “rich tapestry of sound” where you can pick out certain influences, but it’s better than the sum of its parts.
Thank you. That’s really what we’re going for.
What was the process of putting that together, from deciding that you wanted to do it and booking the show to the recording and engineering behind it?
We are a live band, through and through. Especially with Jake’s influence, it’s a punk rock approach to many of those things. We’re playing really fast, jumping up and down, and doing our best to deliver a show. And that doesn’t translate super well in the studio. We’ve been struggling with that and capturing who we are across on a recording. So we figured we’d do a live record instead.
We got a guy named Steven Raets, a Belgian venture capitalist who now has a recording studio called Sonark Media in Orange County, to record it. And then we got a boy named Bruce Marshall, who is just an exceptional engineer, to try and take all the craziness we put on tape and turn it into a record.
In terms of timing, we released it almost exactly a year later. We had the master a couple of months ahead of time, so it didn’t take that long. But we wanted to release it in the winter to have something to promote and tour on for the next year.
How was the release show at the Haw River Ballroom?
Oh, it was the best thing ever. Just the best music venue in the state, as far as I’m concerned. We play there pretty much every winter, and it’s the highlight of our year.
We’re from out that way. The banjo player’s family used to work in the mill before it shut down and turned into the Ballroom. I grew up a couple of miles southwest. All our friends are there, all the people supporting us ever since we started doing this.
What’s the rest of the year looking like for y’all?
We’re about to ramp up in March, all the St. Patrick’s Day weekend shows in Asheboro and Winston-Salem. Then we’re going to Charleston for the Charleston Bluegrass Festival right after that. We’re going on a tour with a band called Driftwood in April. Going into the summer, we’re playing Mountain Music Festival in West Virginia and FloydFest in Virginia. And then we’re going to Ireland for a few weeks to play at their big national traditional music festival.
That sounds like a packed summer! To wrap up, who are some of your favorite North Carolina artists, bands, and musicians?
Rhiannon Giddens just put together a new old-time band, Rhiannon Giddens & The Old-Time Revue, with one of the Carolina Chocolate Drops members, Justin Robinson. She’s got Dirk Powell on the fiddle, who’s a ripper. Jason Sypher, who’s as good an old-time bass player as there is, and some other folks. I think they’re starting up something pretty soon. We’re huge fans of them.
Mason Via. He’s more in the bluegrass realm, but we grew up picking with him. He’s putting out singles and generally kicking ass. Town Mountain, we’re big fans of them, Steep Canyon Rangers, and all that Asheville bluegrass stuff. Kirk Sutphin, Riley Baugus, Slate Mountain Ramblers for old-time music.
Hard Drive out of Durham is a good old-time music band too. Nikki Morgan, great country singer. John Howie Jr. and the Rosewood Bluff is some honky-tonking country rock music. David Childers is one of our state’s best songwriters. Sheila Kay Adams, Donna Ray Norton. There’s an Irish singer from south of Dublin who lives in Black Mountain now; his name is Dylan Walshe. He’s a balladeer beyond excellence, just incredible.
Anything else you want to add?
We’re playing at Cat’s Cradle on April 11th with Driftwood. Come on out if you can!
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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