The Minnesota blues-rock Americana artist talks about his recently formed supergroup and their upcoming 7th Street Entry show that’s a personal milestone for him.

Ty Pow and the Holy North. Photo Credit: Greta Schliesman.

I first saw Ty Pow and the Holy North live at the Uptown VFW in Minneapolis in April 2022. They played like a well-seasoned band, delivering a high-voltage set of Americana that blended country, classic rock, blues and soul. I’d never heard of them before, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a band is new; I frequently make new-to-me discoveries in the Twin Cities no matter how well I think I know the scene.

I’ve seen the act a few more times since then—most recently at the soft open of the new Uptown venue Green Room—and they never fail to impress me with their cohesion, talent and energy. So when I saw they were going to play the storied 7th Street Entry (the small Minneapolis venue attached to the side of First Avenue) on Feb. 17, I wanted to learn more about them. I sat down with bandleader Tyler Pautsch to get the scoop.

Carol Roth: I saw on your band website that you guys have been playing together for about 10 years, yet your debut album Rhubarb ’93 just came out last June. What’s the story there?

Tyler Pautsch: So, before we released that album in June, Ty Pow and the Holy North didn't exist. We all knew each other and had played together in different bands. About a year ago, we went into a studio called the Swamp owned by Colin Loynachan. It was a long process, including mastering with Eric Martin, Jillian Rae's husband, and then we finally released it in June.

CR: What made you decide to form this band?

TP: Some of us had been playing together in a classic country tribute band called Jesse Becker and the Neon Revival, doing mostly covers. Our drummer, Jeremy Harvey, and Jesse knew each other and the other guitarist knew me, and he brought me in. Then that guitarist didn’t work out and we brought in Kai. That’s the Minneapolis scene: Everybody is connected with one another. It was a fun time, and that's how we really got into the country and Americana scene.

At that time I was also leaning toward blues rock, soul and classic rock, and we thought we should form something new for a project and get in the studio. Then COVID happened and we pushed it off for a little while, but finally it came back together. The Neon Revival group disbanded, but we were like, let's keep going!

CR: Tell me more about your band’s music background and roots.

TP: Jeremy and I used to be in a band called the Rum Runners, and we did classic rock, blues rock and soul stuff. Jeremy also does indie rock; he was in Cloud Cult. Kai Brewster, who plays guitar and bass for us, plays in a bunch of groups and has his own rock band called General B & the Wiz. Our keyboardist, Kevin Gamble, plays in various jazz, gospel and funk bands.

Christian Wheeler is in a ton of rock and country bands too, and he’s the best guitarist I've ever seen. It's kind of astonishing. You see really good guitarists who can play licks, or ones who play cool ad hoc stuff, but he does both. I go to shows of other bands he's in just to watch him play because I enjoy it so much.

There’s always been some classic rock in our roots. I grew up playing a lot of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Steely Dan, the Eagles, the Doobie Brothers and the Allman Brothers. It's really ingrained in me from a writing perspective. But there's a lot of influence from newer acts like Ondara, Saint Paul & the Broken Bones, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats; stuff like that really gets us moving.

CR: Talk about the album, Rhubarb ’93. What's the story behind that interesting name?

TP: When I was a kid we used to go camping at this place in Cleveland, Minnesota, called Wise-Stop. We always had a blast there. Anyway, we have a video of my dad trying to pull out a hideabed while he was drunk on rhubarb wine. I didn't know that as a kid, it was just a really funny video. I was running around having fun, and we were all making fun of him, and he was lying on the floor drunk, mumbling something from under the bed, and when he came out he was like, “rhubarb 93.”

It's kind of a fucked-up story, but it's also a fun childhood memory. My dad died five years ago—he had terrible brain cancer—so the album’s also kind of a dedication to him. He comes up in songs, as does alcoholism and partying and rambling. All that made me who I am today.

CR: Did you write all the songs recently, or had you been accumulating them over the years?

TP: Essentially, from 2019 to 2020, I got the architecture for the songs, so it was about half written. Some songs had the music but not all the words; others had words and no music. I wrote them all except one. “Our Spell” was written by a friend of mine, Karl Heiner, like 20 years ago when we were in high school. It's one of my favorite songs, and he doesn't do music anymore, so he was like, of course you can use it. And then Kai and Jeremy helped me with some of the finesse on the songs, so they have some writing credit on the album as well.

CR: I want to talk about the 7th Street Entry show, which I’m really looking forward to. What’s special about this show for you?

TP: It's kind of like the birthplace to a lot of music. I've seen so many shows there and in the First Ave mainroom, but I've never played there before. It's such a historical monument to Twin Cities music and just music in general. It's like a legit venue where really good bands play, so it means a great deal to me. It’s exciting to feel like we're at that caliber, that we're producing a really cool and unique sound, and it's polished enough and liked enough to be able to play there.

Oh, and we have a sub that night on bass, Lee Payne. He’s the bassist for the 4onthefloor.

CR: What else do you have planned after that?

TP: We have a pretty good stretch coming up. There’s the Aster Cafe, and then we'll play Thesis in Rochester, DayBlock Brewing and kj's Hideaway. We're going to play as much as the Twin Cities will allow to gain exposure!

One thing that’s really helped us with booking: Kyle Shelstad (of Barbaro) and Mae Simpson have spun up a new local talent agency called Reverie Artists. I'm under that with bands like John Wayne and the Pain, the Get Together (who's playing with us at 7th Street Entry) and Mae and a couple of other groups. It’s a way for them to help other artists and make additional income while still making music, so it’s really cool. They’re just getting their feet wet, but they continue to build their book of business.

Right now we're in a place of growth and starting to get exposure and build this brand; like, hopefully people that saw us at the Green Room are now going to come to First Ave. This summer we’re hoping to get on the festival circuit around the greater Midwest to get some more traction. We also plan on releasing more music in the next year or so. I have a lot of the framework built for a second album, and it's a fun one!

7th Street Entry tickets

artist's website

Carol Roth is a full-time marketing copywriter and the primary music journalist and social media publicist for Adventures in Americana. In addition to studying the guitar and songwriting, Carol’s additional creative side hustle is writing self-proclaimed “trashy” novels under the pseudonym T.A. Berkeley!

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