Every Labor Day weekend, I travel from West Virginia to Chapel Hill, North Carolina for the ProgDay festival. ProgDay is a two-day festival with 8 bands and a very small, but loyal audience. It is held at a farm called Storybrook, which is essentially an open field where people gather to hear mind bending music and hang out with friends you don’t see very often. This year, one of my very favorite bands headlined, Bent Knee. I reasoned at one point, prior to the performance, that they are in my top five all-time bands, up there with Frank Zappa and Jethro Tull, much to the surprise and bizarre looks from fellow festival goers.

Bent Knee are nearly impossible to describe. People try and fail all the time. Their music is probably art rock, but that’s a useless term. Yes, we know what rock music is, but what is ‘art rock’? Silly, silly, silly. The lead vocalist and pianist, Courtney Swain can go from whispers to shrieks – she can lull you to a sense of security, she can put your teeth on edge. It’s all based on the drama presented by the material.

Guitarist Ben Levin is an irresistible bundle of energy, both on and off stage, and his playing can go from the most delicate ambiance to crushing near-death metal blackness. Gavin Wallace Ailsworth, drummer, hits hard but precisely – he is tastefully busy, but also shows incredible restraint. There’s one song, “Good Girl” where he doesn’t play at all. Bassist Jessica Kion (rhymes with ‘lion’) can growl expressively while Chris Baum, violinist, adds an occasionally classical, occasionally folk, and occasionally unrecognizable feel to the texture. Vince Welch, the band’s sound designer and engineer is a proper member of the band whose instruments are a laptop, headphones and tiny synthesizers. His job is to manipulate what the others do and to warp your perception.

Together, they form the most dangerous, exciting and beautifully heart wrenching band you’ve never heard. Even the lyrics are important, dealing with subjects such as mental illness, cellphone addiction and other social problems. ProgDay is the second time I saw them – the first was at Orion Sound in Baltimore, Maryland and this time, they not only strengthened my belief in their supreme ownership of all things creative rock music, they had me on my feet – jumping and screaming with tears in my eyes. Or, if you like – as I said on my Facebook page following their triumphant gig – “Bent Knee were beautiful, terrifying. I screamed, I flailed my arms, I twitched my body in weird ways. I cried. My goosebumps had goosebumps.”

At the end, my pal Mike started a chant “Bent-Knee! Bent-Knee! Bent-Knee!” that spread across the farm. The band, visually pleased and beaming at the warm reception took to the stage once more and began chanting in return “friend-ship! Friend-ship! Friend-ship!” It was incredibly sweet.

I’d met the band before and had a few of them on my radio program, namely Gavin who is a consummate expert on all thing’s music and pop culture. When guitarist Ben finished hugging me (they are a delightfully huggy bunch), he asked me to interview them. What else could I say but yes?

Now my style of interviewing is different than most people. There was a time when my idea of an interview was akin to the Spanish Inquisition – 10 questions, stick to the list, never make eye contact and assure everyone is as uncomfortable as possible! Those all changed when I had a musician by the name of Mattias Olsson on the program who insisted we flip a coin and decide who asks who questions. We ended up throwing away the coin after awhile and it turned into a conversation. The people who listened to that show said it was like eavesdropping on a private conversation between friends.

Half of Bent Knee arrived at my room that night – Ben, Jessica and Gavin (the other three were exhausted) – at about 11:30 p.m. I invited them in where I was sharing the room for the weekend with my radio cohost Mike and his girlfriend Stephanie. We offered the group wine and homemade cookies and began to relax, laugh and chat.

I nearly forgot to press record.

When I finally remembered that this was supposed to be an ‘interview,’ I had to actually interrupt the friendship and joy to deliver the opening monologue so the recording could be played on my show. The resulting 90 minutes and change were filled with bad puns, laughter, serious music discussion and occasionally serious life discussions that had little at all to do with music and offbeat cultural references and jokes. If you listen to the recording, which I made very unprofessionally on my iPhone – you can just feel the fun in the room. It’s wonderful and is available to listen to on my Mixcloud profile.

We wrapped up the interview shortly after 1 a.m. and the discussions continued. We posed for a photo for social media, hugged (I told you they are huggy!), and said goodnight, see-ya next time. As much as I love their music, I think I like them even more as people – and that’s saying a lot.

I can’t possibly think of a better way to spend my Labor Day weekend.