How Clusterpluck Built a National Following from the Metro East

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TYLER GUSTAFSON

Now a quartet, Clusterpuck is looking at a future that feels brighter than ever.

Justin Torres, the 43-year-old bassist for the Illinois-based Clusterpluck, cuts a cool figure on stage. He's lanky and expressive, breaking into broad smiles and dancy seesaws, an even split between jamgrass hippie and rock & roll bad boy. His fluid bass playing gives the band's eclectic roots-rock songs an elastic bounce and makes crowds gyrate.

When Torres is not cooking up tasty grooves on stage, he's helping cook meals in the kitchen at Reifschneider's Grill, the restaurant he has managed in Columbia, Illinois, for the last 13 years. That's home base for Clusterpluck, an eclectic band that has been lighting up stages in Missouri, Illinois and beyond for more than a decade.

Clusterpluck formed back in 2010 when Torres met guitarists Chris Rader and Derek Rutter, two childhood buddies who had been playing rock music in bars together since they were 15. Torres, originally from California, was playing solo electronic-looping shows in the Mount Vernon, Illinois, area when he started jamming with Rader and Rutter at afterparties once the local bars closed down.

"That's when the acoustic instruments would come out," Torres says, referring to the jam circles the three would form, sharing mutual influences in bluegrass-adjacent artists such as Nickel Creek and the Avett Brothers. "That's how we all came together with the idea of having an acoustic string band."

It's an idea that's stuck for a decade, as Rutter's guitar prowess and Rader's ability to switch from guitar to dobro to mandolin pairs with the rhythmic propulsion of Torres' bass. That formula, strengthened by the trio's songwriting, jam-ability, genre shifting and giant repertoire of covers made the band a festival favorite around the country, sent them on tours of Canada and both coasts and had them playing and partying with the top jamgrass bands in the country.

When asked about the band name, Torres laughs. "People either love it or hate it," he says. However, Clusterpluck is a perfect fit for the band's stylistic attack, one that suggests picking, country idioms and the unpredictability of its sprawling musical thrill-seeking.

Despite the band name's twangy connotation, Torres stresses that Clusterpluck doesn't play traditional bluegrass. Still, the band fits right in with the Colorado-style jamgrass scene and helped anchor this summer's Back Alley Grass Fest in Columbia, which featured a lineup of bluegrass in both traditional and progressive forms. "We can be jamgrass for sure," Torres says. "The early songs we wrote were on the grassy edge, and we still like to break out the dobro and mandolin."

The 'pluck got even twangier when they expanded to a quartet back in 2012, when Torres crossed paths with washboardist and singer Leah Osborne, now best-known to St. Louis audiences as a member of new-grassers One Way Traffic. Torres had met Osborne through culinary school and invited her to jam with Clusterpluck, leading to Osborne officially joining the band and giving Torres a percussion instrument to lock in with as a rhythm section.

Osborne's addition was just one of a few changes the band has seen in its 13 years. Clusterpluck grew again when violinist/mandolinist Matt Gadeken came on board, expanding to a five-piece lineup that allowed the band to experiment further, as Osborne added baritone ukulele to the mix and the band was booked to play hippie-friendly festivals from Wakarusa to Harvest Festival to Summer Camp.

Osborne left the band in 2015 to focus full-time on cooking, and the remaining quartet cut a full-length album, 2016's Thousand Miles to Go, a largely acoustic string-band album filled with banjos, dobros and fiddles. The album established the band as not only deft pickers but also received acclaim for its strong, distinctive songwriting.

However, Torres tells a familiar story common to so many bands of late: They were on a hot streak of writing and performing just when COVID-19 brought things to a screeching halt. "We were catching a lot of speed right before everything happened," Torres says. "We had a tour booked in Europe when the pandemic hit."

About that time, Gadeken left the band, and Clusterpluck was back to the original trio. Embracing their roots, in 2021 the band cut a new album, appropriately titled Clusterpluck, that represented a further maturation of their writing and musicianship. While still grassy in parts, the self-titled album also found the band plugging in their instruments and experimenting with more roots-rock and Americana styles.

All three original members of Clusterpluck write, and Torres feels honored to add his own contributions. "Chris and Derek have been writing songs forever," he says. "They are some of the best songwriters I know."

These days, Torres says he has never been more excited about all things Clusterpluck. First, the band welcomed drummer and mandolinist Britton Liefer, finally adding a full drum kit to the band, thereby giving them the rock wallop they'd long been missing. "I like to think [Britton] kind of saved us," Torres says. "He's given us a versatility because we can do acoustic sets with him on mandolin, and he's a fucking awesome drummer."

The result is a louder, more rocking, wilder Clusterpluck. "It's a little bit more electric, like the Bob Dylan thing," Torres jokes. "We've had some people who are, like, 'Eh, I don't know about this.'" But Torres is confident that Clusterpluck fans will come along with them on this new evolutionary ride.

Those fans will get to hear the evolution for themselves on the new Clusterpluck album, Hometown, their first record to be released on vinyl, which is due out next spring. "Overall, we have stepped up to a new level," he says. "I feel like now we're the best band we've ever been. We're playing better than ever. Our fans can expect some cool surprises."

Before the album comes out, fans will get a chance to hear the new material at the upcoming Pluckin' to Feed shows, which the band has been staging since 2016 as a benefit for the St. Louis Area Food Bank. The first Pluckin' to Feed show, held at Broadway Oyster Bar, collected 200 pounds of food for hunger relief. Last year's show at Vintage Wine Bar in Waterloo, Illinois, topped 1,100 pounds of food. "The community really comes together, and we're able to meet our goals every year," Torres says.

Clusterpluck now stages two Pluckin' to Feed shows around the holidays each year, one on each side of the river. This year's shows will be held November 18 at Broadway Oyster Bar and December 9 at Vintage Wine Bar. Attendees are encouraged to bring non-perishable food and hygiene products, and everyone will get free event posters in exchange for their donations.

So with a busy 2024 on the way, including a new album, what does Torres see as his goals for Clusterpluck's current era?

"To me success is being able to get together with the band, bounce ideas off each other, play music, whether it's in a garage or a theater, and be able to stay friends and be creative together," Torres says. "Ultimately, we love to be able to share our music and are grateful that people enjoy it as well. That's the ultimate success."