Frontier Ruckus

Frontier Ruckus
Frontier Ruckus performing at the 2010 Bonnaroo Music Festival
Background information
Origin	Metro Detroit, Michigan
Genres	Folk, folk rock, bluegrass, alt-country, Americana, jangle pop
Years active	2003-Present
Labels	Quite Scientific Records, Loose Music (Europe), Ramseur Records
Website	Official website
Members	Matthew Milia David Jones Zachary Nichols Anna Burch
Past members	Ryan Etzcorn Eli Eisman

Frontier Ruckus is an American band from Michigan. The group's catalog can be most consistently classified as folk rock with a strong verbal emphasis. The project is centered on the lyrically intensive songs of Matthew Milia, and was formed by Milia and banjo player David Winston Jones while growing up in Metro Detroit. In 2008, the band released its debut full-length record, The Orion Songbook. Though formed in a folk tradition, Frontier Ruckus has shown an eclecticism across their catalog, incorporating aspects of baroque and jangle pop, alt-country, bluegrass, and lo-fi.

Milia and Jones formed the band while both attending Brother Rice High School in Metro Detroit. They began by playing a mixture of Milia's early compositions and traditional bluegrass songs that Jones had collected. Around this time they also recruited Eli Eisman as a bassist. While Milia attended Michigan State University—where he studied poetry under Diane Wakoski—and Jones attended the University of Michigan, Frontier Ruckus expanded into a six-piece. The new formation included Zachary Nichols playing trumpet, musical saw, and melodica; Ryan Etzcorn playing drums; and Anna Burch singing harmony vocals—all of whom Milia met while in East Lansing.

In the beginning of 2007, shortly after the release of I Am The Water You Are Pumping, Frontier Ruckus began to receive attention in Michigan, with Metro Times considering the band "already one of the very best sounds to come out of Michigan this entire decade," and Real Detroit Weekly stating: "This is the best band you haven't heard and Milia is the most impressive wordsmith I've listened to in a really long time. I'm not sure If I can recall a voice as untreated and honest as Milia's ... ever. His is a voice whose timbre carries as much meaning as the words that come through it."