Greensky Bluegrass photo by Dylan Langille
Greensky Bluegrass on The Making of The Documentary Film Find Ourselves Lost: The Iceland Sessions
In April, the progressive bluegrass band Greensky Bluegrass took part in the release of the first documentary film capturing the band, which was filmed during the recording of 2024’s The Iceland Sessions EP, featuring Holly Bowling. The premiere of the documentary raised money for The Divided Sky Foundation, which provides resources for individuals affected by addiction. The choice of charity relates to some of the themes that surface in the film as band members speak for the first time publicly together about topics such as divorce, addiction, and recovery. While that would be meaningful in itself, the documentary itself is much broader, inviting audiences into an outstanding landscape and a remote studio. It thoughtfully presents the way that a group of people creatively collaborate, love, and support each other, and the ways in which fans can be part of an emotional support system for a band.
Find Ourselves Lost is the feature-length directorial debut from René Huemer, a music photographer and videographer who has worked with Phish, The Rolling Stones, and more. Huemer’s vision for the documentary helps brings out the human side of music, and of music fandom, as well as the intensity and charge that live performances bring to those who participate. Watching the film is an excellent way to prepare for seeing the band out on their current tour, celebrating their latest album, XXV, which signifies their 25th anniversary as a band. I spoke with Anders Beck (dobro), Michael Arlen Bont (banjo), and Mike Devol (upright bass) from Greensky Bluegrass about the making of the documentary and how they feel watching it now, a little further down the road from the time in which it was filmed.
Americana Highways: When the Iceland Sessions EP was announced, and that these were new tracks just written, but then recorded live in the studio, I remember thinking, “That’s a lot.” To travel to Iceland and be doing concerts, but to also go and write and record an EP quickly is intense. Then, much more recently, when the film was announced, I thought, “They did all that, and they were making a documentary at the same time!” How did you survive all of this?
Mike Devol: It was a bit different in this sense, because this was filmmaking rather than just documenting what we’re up to. We have a photographer and collaborator, Dylan, who’s part of our management team now. We’ve had him around for ten or more years taking videos of us, and filming a lot. Probably for each of us, we just think that’s part of it to have cameras on us. We’ve chosen a career in performance, as well as having crew documenting us. It’s easy to ignore the cameras, usually, but this felt different. A few of us didn’t know René very well beforehand, but I didn’t find that distracting, it just reminded me that this was extra-special, as if being in Iceland, and in the studio wasn’t enough.
Anders Beck: It was a while ago that we did this, so it’s a little retrospective to look back on this experience. For me, personally, we were so busy making the EP that it was helpful in some ways, because it wasn’t necessarily the focus. The focus was making the EP, the video was something else. That made it disarming. I was busy. I think that comes through in the film, we’re all just talking. We’re tired from traveling to Iceland, and we’re focused on making the record.
Michael Arlen Bont: I feel the same way as these guys. Cameras have been part of our existence for a long time now, and having a camera in front of you while you’re recording seems normal to us. And they seemed like nice people, so it was easy.
AH: I noticed that the camera work was subtle. It seemed like it was more from a distance some of the time, and then there were times where you were more facing into the camera. So there’s some space for you to work. There was sensitivity to the way they handled it.
Mike Devol: René is good at being there without being there. People who do this for their living have a way of being an observer and a documentarian without swaying anyone’s experience in the moment. They are there and not there, the silent observer. He captured things that were intense, vulnerable, and playful, and also just us doing what we do.
AH: The studio itself, and its location, and the scenery are a big part of the documentary, and I can see why people feel it has “art film” vibes. It’s a great combination to capture people working together in an isolated way.
Anders Beck: René really wanted to make Iceland the subject of the documentary, as well, because it’s so visually stunning. One of the things that I love about the documentary is that it’s so beautiful, from the inside of the studio, to the landscape. I think he really captures the emotion of the whole thing. I just love that they had that vision to make the film more than just “five guys and a gal go into a studio and make a record.” I liked that René wanted to make something unique.
AH: As a longtime fan of your work, I kind of associate your music with the outdoors, so it made sense to me that there was a landscape aspect to the film. Is that weird? What do you think of that?
Mike Devol: As a band, especially in our recording experiences, we have a tendency to put ourselves in isolation in order to work, and Iceland is an extreme example of that. But in terms of being around nature, we like to go, if we can, to go somewhere remote. If nothing else, we eliminate the distractions of our lives, which is a luxury, but a necessary luxury. Immersing in nature at the same time, I think that’s a way of just letting things flow in terms of creativity.
Anders Beck: I like the fact that you associate us with the outdoors.
Mike Devol: Do you think that’s a Greensky thing or a bluegrass thing?
AH: Maybe it’s a bluegrass thing. But you do play festivals and outdoor venues.
Anders Beck: I was taking all the credit ourselves.
Mike Devol: I think you’re right, Hannah.
AH: It sounds like you have experience with remote recording anyway, so this was not a shock to the system, to be in Iceland, just an escalation.
Mike Devol: The commute was more extreme than we are used to, but this whole thing of going somewhere together and working on an album, and only having contact with people on the project is typical. But the timeframe for this project was condensed. That intensified the experience. It was really something.
AH: When you played those shows in Iceland afterward the studio, like we see clips of in the documentary, how many of the brand-new songs did you play?
Mike Devol: We did play them, we played all of them. There were four songs that we recorded. We were really “in them.” They were so new to us, in that they’d only been on earth for eight days. When you spend that kind of time creating something, with a lot of effort, really digging in, we were ready to play them.
Anders Beck: There’s a pretty strong tradition in music to not play them until the record comes out. That’s what everyone tells you to do. But this felt different. All of our friends had travelled to Iceland, we’d just made this record. It was like, “Here’s a little gift we have for you guys, you who have travelled this far to see us in this cool environment.” People were psyched about it. In this case, it was a resounding “yes” from all of us about whether we should play those songs.
Mike Devol: It’s like if we hadn’t played them then, chances are we would never even get to play them in Iceland. They were born there, I think they deserved to be introduced to the world there. Like Anders said, the people who made it part of their life to pack their bags and come to Iceland to be with Greensky are the kind of fans that are clearly invested in us, and in this project.
Anders Beck: They earned it! [Laughs]
Mike Devol: They earned it. Of course we’re going to play those songs for those fans.
AH: I didn’t realize the documentary would have that last third of the film, all set in Reykjavik, and focusing on the fans and the shows, and I think it was a great idea for René to capture it. What better way to pick which fans to include in a documentary, then those with such a big commitment? Showing the live show in the film also presents the other half of your life, your live interactions and stage presence. Without that, the film would only be a partial picture.
Mike Devol: That’s one of my favorite things that he included, too. To hear our fans say some of those things, and to have them be interviewed by René, that was the part of the movie that I got to be surprised by. I was there, in the studio, and I knew what was up, to have those fan interviews was really moving for me. I appreciated that René found that angle and took the time to bring those people in. Our fans are such a huge part of who we are, and who we’ve become. What we mean to them means a lot to us. To hear that from them was powerful. I thought, “This matters! Sweet.”
AH: It was a really sweet portrait. Something that it reminded me of is that the fans are the morale support of the band. We might think of bands as being kind of bullet proof, and not needing emotional support. But the documentary, showing the fans, and the way that they interacted with you, showed clearly that there was something that they were giving to the band, too. They were there for you during an emotional time for you.
Anders Beck: I think you nailed it there. It is a reciprocal thing. I know that exists now, and in a weird way, as Devol says, it was like that part of the documentary was there for us. After seeing it, we thought, “Whoah! What we do is heavy.” We know the reciprocal energy is there, and we feel it, and someone may say, “Good show last night!”, but there’s another level to that. We get e-mails from people saying, “That song saved my life.” That stuff is heavy, and amazing, and a reminder of why we do what we do. It’s very easy to get caught up in the day-to-day- of writing a setlist, playing a show, being in tune, and forgetting the bigger picture of what it really is about, which is making people feel.
AH: These are very human lives going on and captured in the film, just like your own.
Mike Devol: Yes, and not to be forgotten.
AH: I saw a quote from René that he likes the way that this documentary stands sort of in contrast to social media, that he was looking for the human element in music, and that a lot of that can get lost in the photos, the posting, the headlines, the clips, which has to be part of music these days. This documentary digs deep, and I think it draws blood a little bit, but it does contrast with the really bloodless, cold, social media machine that can eclipse the humanity of bands. The film feels like a step in the right direction.
Mike Devol: That’s a good way to put it.
Anders Beck: I hadn’t heard that quote from René, that’s a great way to put it. I love it. Everybody’s life is fucking perfect on Instagram.
Mike Devol: You get all the hits, all the highs there.
Anders Beck: When we promote a show, Greensky’s the best, everything is awesome. And everyone looks handsome in press photos. But showing the other side of it is relatively brave of us, on some level. There was no plan to go in there and dig into the dark stuff. We were just disarmed by a friend and talking to a camera. There wasn’t supposed to be about addiction stuff, or any of that shit.
There was no plan, it was just comfortable, and it was real. I can speak for myself, that once we saw the first cuts, and realized that this was the way the documentary was turning, we thought, “Oh shit, this is about the serious stuff.” Especially for me, in some cases, I was asking, “Am I comfortable with this? Do I want people to see this other side?” As you were saying, I was wondering, “Do I want people to see this non-perfect, non-social media side?” The answer was “Yes,” obviously.
For me a lot of that comes from the recovery side of things where you share your experience, because maybe it will help someone. But also, I think what you’re saying is really important, which is “Share the real stuff so that people know that we’re humans.” We’re humans. Everyone is going through all their stuff together. I think the most important part was tying it together with, “These guys really are five brothers that deal with this stuff together.” The takeaway for me, often, is that the most important part of showing the grittier stuff is showing that us, as five humans, can get through stuff like that.
Mike Devol: To add to what Anders is saying, I think with social media, everyone is controlling the narrative a lot, saying, “What am I presenting? How can I control that narrative?” Greensky can do that, too. We’re saying that we’re excited, we’re playing shows, we’re recording a new project, and this is what we want you to know about it. With this film, the narrative was sort of taken out of our hands.
And for me, just as Anders said, that was vulnerable to watch the footage. It’s René telling the story, and it’s “the story,” not his narrative. It’s showing something that was very real, very vulnerable, and things that made me feel self-conscious. In some cases, it was being sensitive to what we perceive to be our weaknesses. It’s so real, it’s without filter, and we’re not selling anything. We’re kind of just sharing.
The fact that it was in René’s hands, and this movie was not a promotional venture is cool. We’re saying, “We went and did this thing. We had big feels. It’s not always easy. This is what you get in life. This is how we dealt with that.” I like that it wasn’t our narrative. We’re used to a world where we control the narrative, but this was more real than that, and I think that’s how it became such a beautiful thing.
Thanks very much for chatting with us, Greensky Bluegrass! You can find more information here on there website: https://greenskybluegrass.com/
Enjoy some of our previous coverage here: REVIEW: Greensky Bluegrass “XXV”