The LoneTones: Bio

The LoneTones

Steph Gunnoe: guitar, vocals
Sean McCollough: guitar, banjo, mandolin, vocals
Maria Williams: bass, vocals
Steve Corrigan: drums, glockenspiel
Lissa McLeod: accordion, keys
Phil Pollard: drummer emeritus

The LoneTone's new album, Nature Hatin' Blues is dedicated to hometowns and misfits everywhere, mountains and people who fight to save them, the soil we grew up in…. To a certain degree, the dedication sums up both the album and the band. The music is deeply rooted in the mountains of Appalachia, but is also subject to the ruminations of those who try to escape their steep mountain walls.

The band's instrumentation looks that of a bluegrass or old-time string band. But that's not exactly it. The songs at times sound ancient and worn. But there's more to it than a simple rehashing of the past. Influenced heavily by more modern sounds from rock, the folk revival, singer-songwriters, alternative country and even emo, the band plays their own kind of original mountain music.

The seeds for the band were planted back to 2001 when West Virginian Steph Gunnoe began performing informally with Knoxville singer-songwriter Sean McCollough. The duo’s sound fused Gunnoe’s mountain singing style and literate song-writing with McCollough’s rich vocal accompaniment and multi-instrumental arrangements. They began to perform publicly over the next couple of years. In 2003 they added bass and drums and started calling themselves the Lonetones.
 They released their debut album Useful that same year and their music began to take on new shape with the fuller instrumentation.

The sound of the band has evolved, but Gunnoe and McCollough continue to enjoy their musical compatability. In a recent interview, McCollough noted that from the beginning “it was one of those things where each brings the other a nice balance. Steph has a rawness about her music…. I was more pop-oriented." The synergy has not gone unnoticed by others.

Debra Dylan of knoxville520.com declared: “I am grateful for whatever divine force brought Steph Gunnoe and Sean McCollough together. In addition to their marriage and family, their union has also spawned incredibly beautiful original Americana music.” Wayne Bledsoe of the Knoxville News Sentinel wrote that “[t]he duo's congruous relationship comes out in the music. While their songs are written separately, a Gunnoe song will benefit from a McCollough guitar solo or mandolin riff, and a McCollough song will be finessed with a Gunnoe harmony.”

The band still performs some traditional music and likes to add some unusual covers such as ones by Magnetic Fields, Blondie or a Peruvian Waltz. They make their home in Knoxville, TN amidst a thriving music scene.

Accolades for Nature Hatin' Blues
• Album featured on NPRs All Songs Considered
• Top Ten Album of 2006, KDHX Uncontrollable Urge show with boBEE Sweet.

Accolades for Useful:
• Album featured on NPR’s All Songs Considered.
• DYI Top-12 Pick, Performing Songwriter Magazine.
• “Glad I Stayed” appeared on Shut-Eye Records’ Americana Sampler.
• “Little Thing” and other songs received radio play across the country.

Recent Performances (see calendar for more)
• Opening for Sam Bush
• Knoxville 4th of July Celebration
• Americana Crossroads
• The Atlantis Music Conference, Atlanta GA
• The Blue Bird Café in Nashville, TN
• WDVX Camperfest and Blue Plate Special Radio Show

Steph Gunnoe - guitar, vocals

Steph Gunnoe grew up in Charleston, West Virginia. Her mom sang opera and her dad played the banjo. In high school she listened to the Who and the Velvet Underground, rejecting much of the music from her own roots. But when she was 19, she moved to the North West where she discovered Hazel Dickens and other sounds from home. She learned to play the guitar and started writing songs in a style more akin to the music from the coalfields than to that of the thriving grunge scene that surrounded her. In 1998 Gunnoe moved back to Charleston where she continued to write and play. A Charleston compilation CD of local songwriters featured two of her songs including the title track, “Glad I Stayed.” In 1999 she moved to Knoxville, Tennessee where she still resides. (See the Maryville Daily Times article on our press/reviews page to read more about Steph.)

Sean McCollough - guitar, banjo, mandolin, vocals

Sean McCollough moved from Michigan to middle Tennessee when he was 12 years old. He was suddenly surrounded not only by the folk and rock of the back-to-the-land generation of his parents, but also by the old-time music of the Appalachian Mountains. He spent his high-school summers in Austin, TX where he picked up guitar and piano from his father and played in a Latin music band. He holds a M.M. degree in ethnomusicology, teaches college courses in the history of rock and Appalachian music at the University of Tennessee, plays his own music as a solo singer/songwriter and with his folk-rock band Evergreen Street, and performs regularly for children. He has recorded three CDs of his own.

Maria Williams - bass, vocals

Maria Williams is a native of East Tennessee. Family heirlooms such as "Barbara Allen" and "One Morning in May" sung by her mother and the spontaneous tunes that resonated from her father’s arch-top Silvertone guitar mark the beginning of her musical journey. Then came Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, the Carter Family, her mother’s autoharpe, the guitar, festivals, church basements, and high school gyms. She now most often plays the bass and sings, sitting in with many local bluegrass bands. She and her song "Banked Fire" appear on Lone Mountain Station's debut album.

Steve Corrigan - drums, glockenspiel

Steve Corrigan is a graduate from the jazz program at the University of Tennessee. He plays drums and vibraphone in a number of bands (and also glockenspiel now that he plays with us). You can often here him with the Talking Heads cover band Same As It Ever Was

Lissa McLeod - Accordion, Keys

Lissa graduated with a degree in piano from Maryville College, but seems to have found her true musical voice through the accordion.

Phil Pollard - drummer emeritus

Phil Pollard was the band's first drummer. He has moved to Virginia, but he still sits in from time to time, subbing on drums our adding some vibes.