A Conversation with Scythian: The Folk Band
By Johanna Duncan
Summer is around the corner and of all the exciting things it brings, music festivals are one of the highlights! Therefore, we want to share with you about a band you need to keep in the radar.
Scythian first came together as a street band composed of brothers who had left the seminary and were sharing their craft while making some cash. With time, Scythian has become much more than that. They have reminded everyone what folk truly is, by bringing back the instruments, informality, and joy, often felt at small-town-barn gatherings.
The band is composed by Alexander Fedoryka, Ethan Dean, Johnny Rees, and Danylo Fedoryka. Dan answered some questions for the YCW and we are stoked to share them below!
Johanna Duncan: I love history and therefore I happen to know that Scythian is a nomadic tribe known for being pioneers in mounted warfare. How did you and your bandmates choose Scythian as a band name?
Haha - that's not common for people to know. Well done! My brother and I started out as street performers in Old Town Alexandria and we started to have a following. One day someone asked what our band name was, and without consulting me, my brother Alex said - SCYTHIAN! I was like "What?! Why Scythian?!" And he said he had just read that the Scythians settled in the Black Sea region and were unconquerable until they met up with the Celts: he said that the Scythians were like us - Ukrainians who were conquered by Celtic music. So the name stuck! We get asked a lot who the Scythian were and we just usually tell them: "Barbarians who didn't use forks or phonics!"
JD: I know Scythian was started by you and your brother Alexander and you are first generation Ukrainian immigrants. How has the war impacted you and your family?
Both my parents escaped from the Communists as children and were granted asylum here in the US when they were about 9 years old. We grew up very proud of our Ukrainian heritage - keeping all the traditions, speaking only Ukrainian at home. When I found out about the invasion my heart sank and I realized just how closely I identified as Ukrainian even though I grew up here in the States. It was most shocking and troubling for my father who witnessed this happen as he was going through kidney failure. He couldn't believe that in his lifetime he'd witness the very thing that had happened to him. Our hearts and prayers go out to all the Ukrainian people. An entire generation of husbands and fathers have been wiped out.
We found ourselves asking early on if it was okay to "fiddle while Rome was burning" and we felt convicted that it was precisely at times like these that the culture needs to be highlighted and the positive, beautiful things about Ukraine demonstrated. To that end, we've been playing more Ukrainian music at our shows and we've partnered with Self Reliance Credit Union to help Ukrainian Refugees. Starting on March 2, 200% of all profits from ALL our digital downloads on THIS PAGE (all 16 albums) will go to help Ukrainian refugees with a 100% matching grant. (NOTE: Since December we were partnering with The Knights of Columbus Fund, but that transitions to this new Matching grant on March 2).
JD: iHeart Radio said “Scythian has reinvented folk rock in America.” How do you feel about that?
I have to say we were pretty pumped and flattered to have our host - Arroe Collins - say that about us. I remember listening to Arroe when I was a kid and he has interviewed some amazing musicians. So to have him hone in on what makes us different and praise that was pretty cool to hear. We just keep our heads down and do our thing, but every once in a while someone will say something about us where we're like - Really? You really think that? I think God allows these
type of occurrences to happen when we need to be encouraged and we certainly felt encouraged after that interview!
JD: It is said that the beauty of folk is that it helps us dance our cares away and cope with life's struggles. There is no question that folk has a very tight relationship with our mental health and spiritual life. On that note, how do you feel about your role helping people dance their cares away and cope with life's struggles?
Alex and I feel that a story my 92 year old grandmother shared with us directly shaped our mission with Scythian. Alex and I spent the summer with her in upstate New York helping her around her house and then recording her life story in the evenings. She shared that when she was a little girl in her village, there was no radio, no music except what you made. And she said that once or twice a year, there was a gypsy fiddler who would wander into town with a fiddled strapped to his back. As soon as he was sighted the women sent the children to run into the fields to find their fathers and everyone assembled in the biggest barn in town where they would all dance until the fiddler could play no more. This was their one time of the year to forget all their worries and cares and be refreshed. When we heard her recount this, we both felt in our hearts - "THAT'S IT! THAT'S WHAT I WANT TO DO." And that's what we seek to do at every show. Our time as street performers taught us how to read and connect with all types of crowds and we use this gift to help people lay aside their inhibitions and enter into the music - music which is meant to refresh and bring joy.
JD: Recently, Ed Sheeran shared that music has always been his passion, but now that it is also a job he has found other hobbies to help him cope with stress and push his creative boundaries. Have you experienced something similar? Have you tried new artistic hobbies?
Haha! I feel like Ed Sheeran and Scythian took two very different paths, so it will be a little like comparing Apple and Oranges. Ed is an amazing songwriter who is now a megastar and he chose to go the record label route with agents, managers, assistants who can take care of the day-to-day while he focuses on his art. When you're an independent artist, it's kind of like finding yourself swimming in the middle of the ocean - if you stop swimming for just a moment you start to sink. Everything from maintaining vehicles, managing the tour, fulfilling merchandise orders, promotion of shows falls on the independent artist's shoulders. We don't get the team major artists do, but because of that, we get to decide our own musical direction, choose our own shows and have the satisfaction of surviving thanks to our fans who have become our record label. We have to carve out times to be musical and it usually entails a "band camp" where we rent a house and get away so we can finally do what we're called to do and have space to write. Other than that, the writing happens in between tasks or while driving somewhere - short bursts of inspiration. (Thank God for Voice Memo feature on phones). Also, once we leave on tour, I find
a lot of the inspiration happens during sound checks and in the process of doing intense runs together.
JD: I once heard you talk about how during singlehood, we are still our own home and such a home should serve the Lord, just as we would expect it from marriage and other vocations. Could you expand on that? (If I am butchering what you said, please correct me!)
I thank God that I finally found my spouse Therese after many, many years of waiting. Touring life made it hard for me to truly discern, and it was something that my sister Sofia told me that started to move things in the right direction. I had subconsciously always viewed myself as a "not yet" since I wasn't married/priest and my sister called me out on that. She said - "you're not a - not yet, but you're a household of one. If you can embrace this, then you can finally welcome someone to join you in your house." This really struck me and the verse "as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" really hit me. I could decide at this moment to be my own house and serve the Lord. Once I made this realization I started to do things I had put off in hopes of doing it together with my future spouse. I bought a house, I went and bought a car I had desired and I started hosting in my home. I became a household of one. I met my wife about four weeks after I bought my house and now am happily married with a darling little 16 month old girl.
For those of you who are interested, my sister Sofia Cuddeback and her husband John are starting a Woman of the House/Man of the House challenge on March 1. Find out more here. My wife and I are going to do it together! (BTW - I think this would make for an awesome future interview for your publication!)
JD: Go Lovely Rose, is one of my absolute favorite covers. I especially admire how the band took a classic soprano song and turned it into a folk song. How was that process and why did you do it?
We have a long-time family friend - Ben-David Warner who loved poetry and Celtic music. While he was in college he stumbled upon this poem - Go, Lovely Rose - and was inspired to put it to song. He showed it to us and we spent one evening working out the arrangement and shortly afterwards Ben-David joined the band. I give Ben-David all the credit for this one. He brought the song to us mostly completed, and we put it through something we call "The Scythian Rock Tumbler" where we all start to brainstorm and cut away at a song until it comes out shiny and new.
JD: What is next for Scythian?
We have a lot of irons in the fire currently. We are rehearsing this week to get ready for our March to St. Patrick's Day Tour. We have a sold out show in Dayton, then Milwaukee, then fly to Annapolis, then back to Chicago for a March 5th show. Then a sold out show in Grand Rapids, on to Steubenville to play at Franciscan University (our alma mater) and then on to North Carolina for a sold out show in Elkin and then headlining the Lucknow festival in Dunn. Last but not least we play at an amazing theater in Columbus Ohio on March 16th before playing Nashville on March 17th and closing out the month at Ave Maria University (where my sister teaches Philosophy). (You can insert the poster as well).
In addition to this, we're planning the Roots Music camping festival we founded called Appaloosa Music Festival near Washington DC. It takes place every Labor Day, but we work on it starting in February and are super proud at how it's grown and how it showcases authentic joyful living. (See Video).
And of course we're working on getting the word out about our 200% for Ukraine Initiative. So lots, lots, lots going on aside from our primary focus - our families!
