New Earth Farmers

The band aims to avoid confining their music to a single genre. "The song drives the treatment and genre of each track," Knowles explained. “In an era where lyrics often take a back seat to style, fashion, materialism, and hipness, we prioritize lyrics. Our songs ask questions, praise empathy and love, acknowledge inequity, inequality, and tribalism, and seek peace of mind in confusing times. We've expanded our influences. While there are Americana elements on the record, we also embraced British influences like The Clash, The Who, and The Beatles.”

The Sky From The Underground has 8 original tunes and two covers; “Behind That Locked Door” by George Harrison, and “Have Love Will Travel” by Tom Petty.

"Big Questions" takes a light-hearted approach to exploring profound topics, incorporating some Beatle-influenced chord changes. “We’d had a lot of family, friends, and respected people that passed away in the last few years. Sometime’s life is a cruel joke, and we wanted to speak to whoever’s in charge with this particular song lyric. That was the first verse, then we went on to make some subtle observations about Artificial Intelligence and Authoritarianism in a light hearted and jovial tone.”

“In the Sunlight” was in part inspired by an event that Knowles shared with his father. “We don’t get out in the sunlight and dance enough these days, literally and figuratively” he states. “Most of our connections are artificial or filtered through our devices.” His father joined him in Golden Gate Park for The. Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival one year. “He had come into my world to listen to music and we connected through that experience in the sunlight. He was a Southern Baptist preacher from Virginia and he was laying on the grass listening, just like a professional hippie.”

Inspired by The Clash, "War Inside Our Hearts" addresses the rampant tribalism plaguing the country and the world, and pleads for people to come together. 

 The title track, “The Sky From The Underground” is probably the most optimistic on the record. “It’s a song of escape, about getting away from all of the darkness, division, greed and negativity in the world right now towards a more peaceful, higher place. 

While addressing some pretty heavy subjects including gun violence (“Frequency”) and the exploitation of our environment (“Windfall”), the spirit of optimism is in the songs. “There is optimism,” Knowles declares. “Consider a seed. You can bury it underground, under a bit of earth, water it and it grows toward the sky. Likewise, there is optimism buried within the spirit of this batch of songs. We are trying to plant good seeds. Optimistic seeds.”