EPISODE 50 Interview with March to May

When is the right time to take a chance?  Who are the right people?  What are the right conditions?  March to May was born under unusual circumstances.  Neither Darren nor Beth realized the musical potential they shared when they first met in December 2012.  It took several chance encounters -- passing vocal harmonies on a trip to the coast with friends, tentative instrumental work one cold winter evening, comments here and there on lyrics and melody -- before the spark hit.  But when it did, it didn't take long for them to catch fire.  By March 2013 they had co-written their first two songs, by April they had a paid gig under their belts, and by May they had a name and shows booked out into the months ahead.  

Both halves of the duo are passionate about the music they write and play, and view March to May as a constant evolution; from pursuing collaborations with other artists (with styles ranging from classical to hip hop and electronica) and keeping an ear attuned to the myriad ways they can expand the range and expression of their own music, their primary interest is to keep the music fresh and personal.  And, above all, to keep love - love for the music, love for each other, love for the world they live in - at their core.

Darren Guyaz (guitar, vocals, keyboard)

Darren roamed the northern Appalachians through his childhood, plinking & plunking the classical keys until he ventured West to his birth-state of Montana, settling in Missoula to finish a degree in Geography. One evening on an old, historic homestead in the hills north of town, he picked up a friend’s guitar and began strumming, teaching himself how to play a few chords, finger-picking his way through the frets, and forever changing his musical expression.

Soon after, he headed south on an open-ended ticket to South America, criss-crossing the Andes until finally resting for a month on a small goat farm in Patagonia. Here, on long rainy nights straight out of Márquez’s 100 Years of Solitude, he borrowed an old guitar from Matias, the owner of the little farm, and began writing songs in a small, dilapidated cabin over many glasses of cheap, Chilean red wine.

His vagabond days came to a close after falling in love with Seattle and the Pacific Northwest, where he now spends his days wandering the mountains, and his nights playing music with the newfound collaboration March to May.

Beth spent her formative years wandering through the Andes and across a smattering of U.S. states.  The daughter of a U.S. Foreign Service Officer, she stayed in each place just long enough to fall in love with it before moving on to the next adventure.  Music wove its way through her life from an early age - she sang in choirs from elementary school to college, beginning classical voice training and starting to sing a cappella as she grew older.  While living in Ashland, Oregon, she picked up the Celtic folk harp and found herself captivated by the sound.  However, a few short years after beginning to play, she moved to the East Coast, leaving her harp silent in her family’s living room for five years and largely convincing herself that music would have to take a back seat in her life.

In December 2012, though, things changed:  she moved back to the West Coast, settling a few short blocks from the little acoustic instrument store in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood where her harp was created many years before. Perhaps she should have taken it as a sign. Within a few short weeks, music surged back into the forefront of her life when she found another musician with whom she shared an unmistakable musical chemistry, and she began to question how she had ever left it behind to begin with.  And thus, March to May was born.