The Black Iron Gathering

The Black Iron Gathering

The Columbia, South Carolina based group has earned a reputation since 2011 as a dynamic live band, pulling its style from bluegrass, punk, Celtic, and old age country music to form an exciting, energetic hybrid that showcases strong vocal harmonies, driving banjo, and some classic chicken pickin’ (telecaster) guitar licks. The Black Iron Gathering are first cousins to Americana, combining John Prine and Dropkick Murphys, Langhorne Slim, the Pogues, and Yonder Mountain String Band for a uniquely collective sound and style, wrinkles and all, that can’t be pressed into some genre-specific mold.

The members of The Black Iron Gathering are as diverse as the band’s sound, with singer-songwriter and guitarist Billy Ray, raised on punk and hardcore, lead guitarist Charles Funk a veteran rock and alt-country player, bassist Chris Paget a solid jazz, rock and country oriented player, and banjo player Charlie McLinden the bluegrass and old-time expert. Drummer Eric Maddox is the key to the band’s solid sound, a steady underpinning that keeps all of these disparate players together in a group that has finally found itself right where it wanted to be all along.