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Hometown: Champaign, IL
Website: www.rebeccaregoandthetrainmen.com
Sounds Like: Aimee Mann, The Avett Brothers
Genre: Americana
After six years, most of Rebecca Rego's band mates started getting too busy with life - graduate school, making babies, etc. - to devote time to music. So after four records, including 2012's "Seconds", Rego was ready for a change. The 30-year-old Champaign, Ill., resident started to seek out other musicians and began working on filling out her solo performance with new songs.
Eventually she met drummer Matt Yeates (who also spends time drumming for indie-folk darlings Ivan & Alyosha and Twin Forks), bass and mandolin player Eric Fitts, who along with guitar and banjo player Cory Ponton now make up Rebecca Rego & The Trainmen. All three are lifelong friends who grew up in blue collar Kankakee County, Illinois.
After raising $2,700 via Kickstarter to help them get started, Rego left her full-time job as a bartender and hit the road with her new band. The first leg of the tour started last October and Rego and The Trainmen. have been going strong ever since with their beloved touring van named Russell.
In the summer of 2013 they embarked to Earth Analog Studios in Tolono, IL and recorded their debut record on beautiful analog tape, engineered by Matt Talbott (of Hum fame).
They have been lucky to share the stage with amazing musicians like Rodney Crowell, John Hiatt, Cory Chisel and The Wandering Sons, Whitehorse, Sarah Jarosz, The Greencards, and many many more.
Their debut record 'Tolono' was released in Spring 2014.
"When I conjure up an idea of what modern Americana is in my mind, what I hear is something very close to what Rebecca Rego and the Trainmen have created with Tolono. Musically, the album is sparse, in the best sense, but not lacking in impressive instrumentation. From the omnipresent acoustic guitar to the mandolin, slide guitar, harmonica, violin: it has all the hallmarks of what Americana should be."
Smile Politely
"This is a band that doesn’t just write and play the old tell-tale songs of standard folk but instead create something deeper and more personal. Rego has prided herself on creating songs that touch on Midwestern ideals, small town luxuries, and family make up while still keeping true to Chicago and the city life she has known very well. Tolono is start to finish an amazing album (started listening a few days ago and haven’t stopped) and will sell you from the start."
Midwest Action
"[Tolono is] an album worth celebrating, from Rego's smart, attentive songwriting, to her earthy and appealing Edie Brickell-like voice, to the rustic warmth of the band that chugs along behind her"
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"Rego is searching for her sound, but she has found her groove."
Jessica Hopper - Chicago Tribune
“Rego's voice has been described as "sultry" ..... Rego even sounds reminiscent of singers like Jolie Holland. But make no mistake: no matter the similarities, Rebecca and her band, like the bands we mention above, make the music their own.”
Marcus Gilmer - Chicagoist
“[Rego's] songs are passionate, memorable slices of folksy Pop/Rock music and her voice has that singular, soulful quality that the only the best, most instantly-identifiable vocalists have. The band's debut LP, Learning to Be Lonely, shows Rego to be a Folk/Rock juggernaut with a good chance of crossing over to the Pop/mainstream realm.”
City Beat Cincinnati
“There is no doubt that Rebecca Rego is a poetess, given the strength of these ten fine songs. The focus is certainly her voice, by way of her lyrical nature, itself in no way ambiguous”
Derek Beres - Mindful Metropolis
