The Brothers Comatose

The Brothers Comatose didn’t set out to coin a new genre. To be honest, it was a bit of an accident.

“My brother and I have a lot of respect for bluegrass,” explains guitarist/singer Ben Morrison, “but it was never in our blood. We were raised on California rock and folk and country music, so when we got our hands on some traditional acoustic instruments growing up, that’s just the energy and the attitude we naturally channeled. A fan started calling our sound Golden Grass, and the phrase just felt right.”

The band named their new album Golden Grass after that moniker. Recorded in the Bay Area with co-producers Greg Holden and Tim Bluhm, Golden Grass fuses old-school string band instrumentation with singer/songwriter craftsmanship and rock and roll exuberance, with a deeply rooted sense of place. The performances are propelled by rich vocal harmonies and driving fiddle (Phil Brezina), banjo (Alex Morrison), mandolin (Addie Levy), and upright bass (Steve Height). This is the group’s first release with Levy in the lineup.

“The Golden Grass sound is a little more laidback than high and lonesome,” Morrison explains. “It’s more relaxed than it is refined. It’s got all sorts of natural imagery, from the desert to the ocean to the redwood forests, but at its heart, it’s a campfire jam on the beach where anyone can strum a few chords and join in. The more the merrier.”

Founded by Ben and his brother Alex in 2008, the San Francisco–based quintet first emerged with their 2010 debut, Songs From The Stoop. In the years since they’ve released five more full-length LPs (plus singles and cover EPs), racked up nearly 50 million streams, played festivals like Outside Lands, High Sierra, and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, and toured with Lake Street Dive, The Devil Makes Three, and Yonder Mountain String Band. They built a devoted following with raucous live shows and a relentless schedule.

Life on the road took its toll, and in 2024 longtime mandolinist Greg Fleischut departed. Morrison invited Addie Levy to join; at 23, she brought new energy as an accomplished mandolin and fiddle player, singer, and songwriter. With Levy onboard, the band finished recording Golden Grass during breaks from tour, bridging the lineup change while staying true to their genre-bending sound.

“This album came together over a long period of time, and it bridges the lineup change,” Morrison says. “Alex and Addie and Phil all wrote tunes for it, as well, so there’s a lot of variety, but there’s a throughline of live performance that ties the whole thing together.”

Golden Grass opens with the title track: “Way out west we do it differently / Untraditionally,” Morrison sings in airtight harmony. The song celebrates home and family, with both sincerity and sly humor, and includes shout-outs to a range of California artists. Other highlights on the album include:
- “Hills of San Francisco,” which turns the city’s slanted streets into a metaphor for life’s ups and downs.
- “IPA Song,” a playful look at the band’s love/hate relationship with a ubiquitous local beer.
- “Home Again,” featuring Lindsay Lou on vocals, which reckons with loss and resilience in the face of recent devastating wildfires in the West.

“We had really good friends lose their house up in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and we’ve been heartbroken watching it happen to so many others all over California,” Morrison explains. “Rather than let it just be a sad song, though, we wanted to capture the beauty that comes with seeing people rebuild and rise from the ashes. We wanted to celebrate the hope that keeps people going through hard times.”

Elsewhere on the record, “Huckleberry Wine” (written by Alex) revels in memories of youth, “Blue Mountain” (written by Levy) embraces returning to your roots, and “My Friend” (written by Brezina) celebrates long-lasting bonds.

“Music has always been rooted in friendship and community for us,” Morrison reflects. “Growing up, our parents used to host parties where all these local musicians would sit around the living room singing and playing together. Somebody left their banjo behind one night, and that’s how Alex and I got started. The rest is history.”

Call it an accident. Call it fate. These days, The Brothers Comatose just call it Golden Grass.