Banjo Dave on Steamboat Springs, sunburns and stage fright
02/26/2025 01:35PM ● By Haley Watkins
Trampled by Turtles plays at a snowy WinterWonderGrass. Photo courtesy of WWG/Tobin Voggesser.
Steamboat Magazine chatted with Banjo Dave Carroll of Trampled by Turtles, a band well-acquainted with both WinterWonderGrass and Steamboat Springs. Hailing from Duluth, Minnesota, Trampled by Turtles has a long history of performing in Steamboat, and in our conversation, we covered everything from Steamboat’s charm to sunburns and stage fright.
Steamboat Magazine: You all have played WinterWonderGrass before, what keeps bringing you back?
Dave Carroll: Thankfully they keep bringing us back. We’ve done many different types of festivals over the years and there is really nothing like being in the mountains, skiing with your friends, and getting to play in the elements. We love the mountains and are so happy to be a part of this.
SM: Tell us about your ties to Steamboat.
DC: I moved to Steamboat in 2014 and just moved back to Minnesota in April of last year, so I had been here for about 10 years. I always wanted to move to the mountains. Living here, I was able to become friends with rad skiers, learned how to mountain bike, got a raft and went on a ton of river trips. The lifestyle here is just so good. I moved back to Minnesota to be closer to family and work on more projects with the band. I have my best friends here in Steamboat, and will be couch surfing – can’t get rid of me yet. I’m actually here right now, and just went and skinned with one of my buddies. I’m a little sunburnt, I wasn't expecting that.
SM: Do you have any favorite Steamboat memories from past shows?
DC: We’ve played in Steamboat many times, many WinterWonderGrasses and shows in town. One that sticks out is one of our Free Summer Concert Series shows. We were setting up for our show, and the rodeo is, you know – right next door. This cowboy comes up on a horse, and he asks us what we’re doing, and we tell him that we’re setting up for a show, and he tells us he is getting ready for the rodeo. He says, ‘you know if you get done, come check it out,’ and we go our separate ways and he rides off into the sunset. After the show he comes back, and asks us how our show went. Turns out he did really well in the rodeo, ended up winning, and he asks me if I want to ride his horse. Obviously the answer is yes – how do you say no to that? So I hop on and am riding around Howelsen Hill on a horse after an absolutely awesome show. It was during that show that I realized how special this place is. The crowd was wonderful, getting to chat with the cowboy, and I fell in love with this place and moved maybe two years after that.
SM: Do you have a song that you never get tired of playing?
DC: It’s been out for a long time, but one of my absolute favorite songs to play is New Orleans. It has always been my favorite, we usually have our set list taped to the floor or behind us, and I get excited when I see that it's coming up, it makes me have an instant smile on my face. It’s a song we can start and I just kind of close my eyes and transport myself, that one is a lot of fun for me. Another one I really love is New Son/Burnt Iron; our mandolin player wrote a long time ago. I think he named it after his son was born and was trying to cook and care for his kid and burnt something in his cast iron. He was looking at two things in his life and that’s how the name came to be. It starts really slow and soft and then goes off the rails pretty fast, so we get the best of both worlds with that song.
SM: Do you have a pre-show ritual or do you just roll with it when you get there?
DC: I don’t know how ritualistic it is, but I usually like to have a beer and to go watch the opener for a little before I warm up with whoever is there, then I talk myself off the cliff that is stage fright.
SM: You get stage fright?
DC: Oh, every show. Sometimes I think about it a little too hard, but it has gotten so much better over the years. It used to be really bad. People take time out of their lives and spend money to see us, when they could be doing other things. We’re really honored and grateful that they come and I just want it to be the best show that it can be.
SM: What's inspiring the band these days? Anything new in the works?
DC: We made a record with our good friend Alan Sparhawk, of the band Low. His wife was sick and passed away a few years ago, which was awful. He came on the road with us a few summers ago on tour, and then this idea happened where he was singing these songs and we were backing him instrumentally. We recorded that last year and I think our first track gets released next month and the album around May. We’re really looking forward to that.
We’ve also recently been doing this with a lot of other artists we’re fans of. We’ve had them come in and record a song they want to do and we back them. So similar to what we did with Alan, we’ve done with Taylor Meier from Caamp and Josiah Leming from Josiah and the Bonnevilles – that was a cover of Rocky Mountain High – which was really fun. It’s really wonderful not having a lot of pressure and being able to create what we want to create.
Steamboat Magazine chatted with Banjo Dave Carroll of Trampled by Turtles, a band well-acquainted with both WinterWonderGrass and Steamboat Springs. Hailing from Duluth, Minnesota, Trampled by Turtles has a long history of performing in Steamboat, and in our conversation, we covered everything from Steamboat’s charm to sunburns and stage fright.
Steamboat Magazine: You all have played WinterWonderGrass before, what keeps bringing you back?
Dave Carroll: Thankfully they keep bringing us back. We’ve done many different types of festivals over the years and there is really nothing like being in the mountains, skiing with your friends, and getting to play in the elements. We love the mountains and are so happy to be a part of this.
SM: Tell us about your ties to Steamboat.
DC: I moved to Steamboat in 2014 and just moved back to Minnesota in April of last year, so I had been here for about 10 years. I always wanted to move to the mountains. Living here, I was able to become friends with rad skiers, learned how to mountain bike, got a raft and went on a ton of river trips. The lifestyle here is just so good. I moved back to Minnesota to be closer to family and work on more projects with the band. I have my best friends here in Steamboat, and will be couch surfing – can’t get rid of me yet. I’m actually here right now, and just went and skinned with one of my buddies. I’m a little sunburnt, I wasn't expecting that.
SM: Do you have any favorite Steamboat memories from past shows?
DC: We’ve played in Steamboat many times, many WinterWonderGrasses and shows in town. One that sticks out is one of our Free Summer Concert Series shows. We were setting up for our show, and the rodeo is, you know – right next door. This cowboy comes up on a horse, and he asks us what we’re doing, and we tell him that we’re setting up for a show, and he tells us he is getting ready for the rodeo. He says, ‘you know if you get done, come check it out,’ and we go our separate ways and he rides off into the sunset. After the show he comes back, and asks us how our show went. Turns out he did really well in the rodeo, ended up winning, and he asks me if I want to ride his horse. Obviously the answer is yes – how do you say no to that? So I hop on and am riding around Howelsen Hill on a horse after an absolutely awesome show. It was during that show that I realized how special this place is. The crowd was wonderful, getting to chat with the cowboy, and I fell in love with this place and moved maybe two years after that.
SM: Do you have a song that you never get tired of playing?
DC: It’s been out for a long time, but one of my absolute favorite songs to play is New Orleans. It has always been my favorite, we usually have our set list taped to the floor or behind us, and I get excited when I see that it's coming up, it makes me have an instant smile on my face. It’s a song we can start and I just kind of close my eyes and transport myself, that one is a lot of fun for me. Another one I really love is New Son/Burnt Iron; our mandolin player wrote a long time ago. I think he named it after his son was born and was trying to cook and care for his kid and burnt something in his cast iron. He was looking at two things in his life and that’s how the name came to be. It starts really slow and soft and then goes off the rails pretty fast, so we get the best of both worlds with that song.
SM: Do you have a pre-show ritual or do you just roll with it when you get there?
DC: I don’t know how ritualistic it is, but I usually like to have a beer and to go watch the opener for a little before I warm up with whoever is there, then I talk myself off the cliff that is stage fright.
SM: You get stage fright?
DC: Oh, every show. Sometimes I think about it a little too hard, but it has gotten so much better over the years. It used to be really bad. People take time out of their lives and spend money to see us, when they could be doing other things. We’re really honored and grateful that they come and I just want it to be the best show that it can be.
SM: What's inspiring the band these days? Anything new in the works?
DC: We made a record with our good friend Alan Sparhawk, of the band Low. His wife was sick and passed away a few years ago, which was awful. He came on the road with us a few summers ago on tour, and then this idea happened where he was singing these songs and we were backing him instrumentally. We recorded that last year and I think our first track gets released next month and the album around May. We’re really looking forward to that.
We’ve also recently been doing this with a lot of other artists we’re fans of. We’ve had them come in and record a song they want to do and we back them. So similar to what we did with Alan, we’ve done with Taylor Meier from Caamp and Josiah Leming from Josiah and the Bonnevilles – that was a cover of Rocky Mountain High – which was really fun. It’s really wonderful not having a lot of pressure and being able to create what we want to create.