With their shimmering harmonies, gently propulsive acoustic instrumentation, and disarmingly honest songwriting, the Farewell Drifters have arrived at an engaging, inventive musical hybrid all their own – pure, but not so simple; accessible and welcoming, yet highly personal. Since first setting out over four years ago, the young quintet have casually but clearly defied any preconceptions based on their lineup (two acoustic guitars, mandolin, fiddle, upright bass), delighting audiences from all walks with a sound that suspends classic elements in fresh new surroundings. “This music reaches the traditional fans,” says co-founding lead vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter Zach Bevill, “but it also reaches the folk and singer/songwriter fans. We’ll even play at rock clubs and people go nuts over the energy that is coming off the stage with the acoustic instruments.”

Yellow Tag Mondays, available June 8th via Heart Squeeze Records/Thirty Tigers, is the Farewell Drifters’ national debut. Recorded over two years, the album is a beguiling collection that welds acoustic resonance and warmth to smart, modern songs, arranged with rich harmonies. It is equally inspired by roots music and the likes of Brian Wilson, the Beatles, John Hartford, and the cosmic American music of Gram Parsons and the Byrds, and such contemporary fellow travelers as M. Ward and the Fleet Foxes.

Bevill, mandolinist Joshua Britt, lead guitarist Clayton Britt (Joshua’s younger brother), bassist Dean Marold, and fiddler Christian Sedelmyer all sing, and Bevill considers the Farewell Drifters’ harmonies to be their defining element. “Rather than model our vocals on existing sources,” he explains, “we sing harmony how we feel it and how we hear it.” Instead of flying out of the gate with their fastest or most intense number, the Farewell Drifters open Yellow Tag Mondays with “Love We Left Behind” – a breezy, carefully-arranged performance with telepathic three-part harmony throughout.

The exploratory zeal of the Farewell Drifters was born out of an open-minded upbringing, with neither Zach nor Josh immersed in traditional music (and its often stringent, inflexible practices) from an early age. Growing up in Peoria, Illinois, Zach was fascinated by music from an early age, embarking on piano lessons from age seven, picking up guitar at thirteen, and singing in youth choirs. “During my formative years,” Zach recalls, “my dad always put Beach Boys records on. When I was 13, I started listening to the Beatles, which really did change my life…”

“I come from a musical family in Franklin, Kentucky, so I was always around it,” Josh explains. “My father was in a band inspired by California country music, and my mother’s whole family, going back four generations, sang southern gospel. I can listen to my great-grandmother, my grandmother, my mom – all on vinyl.” In high school, Josh and his brother – future Farewell Drifter Clayton – formed a rock band, with Clayton on electric guitar and Josh on bass and vocals. “We were really into Oasis,” he says, laughing. “Probably because they were two brothers who fought a lot – just like us.”

Both Zach and Josh slowly gravitated towards acoustic music as they entered college. “At the end of high school, I started writing a lot more songs,” Zach says. “I had an acoustic guitar, and found that I really enjoyed writing on it.” Zach left for Nashville, where he entered Belmont University, and Josh went to Western Kentucky University; they both pursued music in their spare time. “At the time,” Zach continues, “I was getting a little jaded with the singer/songwriter thing. When I found roots music, there was an honesty that drew me in.”

“I started a band in my dorm,” Josh recalls. “I just said, whatever you had, come over and play it. We had bells, washboards, electric guitars, drums. We got in so much trouble for being loud that we moved out.” While his kid brother Clayton would contribute electric guitar when he could, Josh decided to head to Nashville to find a full-time guitarist. “I met Zach carrying a guitar around campus,” Josh explains. “We immediately bonded over our love of acoustic music and folk pop of the ‘60s.”

The Farewell Drifters emerged soon after that meeting, in embryonic form, with Josh (who had only just started playing mandolin), Zach, and Clayton, who applied his ferocious electric guitar chops to an acoustic instrument with stunning results. Bassist Dean Marold joined in early 2008, after telling Zach and Josh that, while he had played a lot of jazz and a little country music, he had never played in an acoustic ensemble like the Farewell Drifters. “We knew he was the one,” Zach said.

They began by mostly playing covers, and then slowly began replacing them with original songs written by Josh and Zach (separately and together, occasionally in collaboration with Clayton, as well). Word started to spread about the Farewell Drifters, and they became an underground acoustic sensation, landing coveted spots at festivals like Grey Fox and MerleFest and dazzling audiences in listening rooms, coffeehouses, rock clubs, and anywhere else they could continue to hone their craft. Versatile and eclectic fiddler and vocalist Christian Sedelmyer came aboard in the summer of 2009, after Josh heard him play at a jam session in East Nashville.

While the Farewell Drifters’ escalating instrumental prowess has elevated their shows and enhanced their overall presentation, the core of the band remains their strong vocal presence and their songs, which are plain-spoken yet subtly sophisticated, both musically and lyrically. Aside from an evocative take on the Beatles’ “For No One,” Yellow Tag Mondays consists of entirely original material. To Bevill, “All We Need,” with it’s striking, surprising a capella coda, encapsulates much of what the band has tried to achieve. “It has the Beach Boys-style harmonies,” he says, “backed by a really careful acoustic instrumentation. It has so much of what we aspire to: it’s fun sounding, but the lyric is meaningful, there’s an awesome bass solo, a guitar solo, it’s hooky…it encompasses our vision.”

While Yellow Tag Mondays is the culmination of what the Farewell Drifters have been working diligently on for years, it is only the first step in what promises to be a compelling, rewarding journey. “When we first came to Nashville,” Josh reflects, “we barely knew how to play. We were just a bunch of kids…but with this record, we spent a lot of time picking the right songs, rehearsing, developing the arrangements, and actually writing for the album. This was very thought out and thematic in terms of what we were trying to say – a feeling we were trying to put across. It’s just our point of view, and our feelings about life…”