Austin City Limits Music Festival 2018 is quickly approaching and we couldn’t be more excited to be back at Zilker Park with some of our favorite bands! In celebration of the impending two-weekend fest, we’re going to shine a spotlight on some of the acts we’re most excited to catch each week up until the party starts: October 5-7 and 12-14.
Steadily rising folk-rock band, Mt. Joy, has skyrocketed on their musical journey to the moon and don’t plan on coming down anytime soon. Beginning in Philadelphia, members Matt Quinn and Sam Cooper were hometown friends who played music together throughout their adolescent years. Putting music on the back burner, the two separately moved to Los Angeles to pursue their own careers and education away from music. However, inevitably the two ended up meeting up along the West Coast and began playing music with no specific intention. Band member and multi-instrumentalist, Michael Byrnes, met the pair through a Craigslist ad and introduced them to his roommate, producer Caleb Nelson. In September 2016, the group casually uploaded “Astrovan” online, gaining an almost immediate 5 million streams on Spotify.
Less than two years after releasing their first single, Mt. Joy has turned into a 5 piece band, adding Sotiris Eliopoulos on drums and Jackie Miclau on keyboard. Mt. Joy, named after a mountain near Cooper’s childhood home, constantly mentions their humble beginnings that started from a simple love and talent of songwriting. Since their take off, Mt. Joy has opened for bands such as The Shins and The Head and The Heart, performed on Conan, and taken stage at various music festivals.
What stands out about Mt. Joy is the emotional vulnerability they admit in their songs. Listeners can consistently find discussions of society, politics, and love in the Mt. Joy ballads. Paired with the dreamy guitar sounds and rustic vocals of Quinn, Mt. Joy, successfully released their self-titled debut album in May 2018. With crowd favorites of Silver Lining and Astrovan showcased on the album, the band is sure to continue climbing their way to the top in 2018 as they tour throughout the US and UK.
Mt. Joy will be performing at Austin City Limits Music Festival on Sunday, Oct. 7 and Sunday, Oct. 14. If you cannot make it to their shows in the park, Mt. Joy will also be playing an official ACL late show at Antone’s with Austin-native band, Duncan Fellows. The two bands will make for a great mixture of folk rock and easy listening in one of Austin’s favorite concert venues.
