ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — Hundreds of musicians from Western North Carolina and beyond have contributed songs to “Caverns of Gold: A Benefit for WNC Hurricane Relief.” The compilation album will donate all of its proceeds back to the community much of its music came from.
“Caverns of Gold” will be released on Bandcamp this Friday, Nov. 1.
Joe Hooten, an organizer behind “Caverns of Gold,” is a musician himself. Hooten is the frontman of Tin Roof Echo, an Asheville-based singer-songwriter act, and a member of the band PINKEYE. His connections to the Asheville music scene were what gave him the idea for “Caverns of Gold.”
“I was just having some thought one night, like it would be great if we got the voice of Western North Carolina out there,” Hooten said. “The people that have been hurtin’ or affected by the hurricane, wouldn’t this be a great idea to have them have some relief by putting their music out that could maybe bring some peace to other people?”
Hooten and his team of fellow artists, Chad Nance of John Kirby Jr. & The New Seniors, Alex Deautich of Deathbots, Kelly Menace of Janx Spirit and Jason Bugg of in dog years, started to reach out to bands they knew in the community. Hooten put out a call for submissions to the project on Facebook and reached out to a few bigger record labels.
The group was soon flooded with responses, both from W.N.C. artists and from big name bands like R.E.M.
“When we started reaching out to all these national acts, they were like, ‘Hell yeah we wanna, yes, absolutely yes, we wanna help out,'” Hooten said. “So it’s been a pretty incredible response. I’m very, very floored with what the response has been from artists here and then from other places in the country.”
Hooten set the deadline for submissions for Monday, Oct. 28. Some of the songs were recorded on phones. Others, in professional recording studios. Still more tracks were deep-cuts from the archives of bands.
“One of the cool things that I found was that a lot of the national acts are donating live tracks from area venues, from either the Orange Peel or Salvage Station or something like that,” Hooten said.
R.E.M., for instance, contributed a live version of “Feeling Gravitys Pull” from a 1989 performance in Greensboro, N.C.
However, most of the artists are local musicians.
“Like two-thirds are Western North Carolina artists and the other third are national and regional artists,” Hooten said.
“Caverns of Gold” will be on sale for $10. The proceeds will be going in their entirety to Beloved Asheville, a community-centered nonprofit in Asheville.
For more information about “Caverns of Gold,” check out the project Facebook page.