With Plenty of Facial Hair and Great Fiddlin' Skills, Brothers Comatose Take the Country by Storm

Brothers Comatose just blew back into town after a three-week slog in a classic band van hitting small venue and brewery stages from Petaluma to Chicago and back.

This was perhaps the fifth tour for the band in three years. But none was as extensive or far flung as this schedule.

It was the first time Ian Benedetti participated on a band tour. 

“First thing I did when I got home was get a sandwich, then I drove to the Russian River and jumped in,” he said.

The band includes brothers Gio and Ian Benedetti, who grew up in Petaluma. Gio sings and plays stand up bass and Ian plays the mandolin.

An “adopted brother from another mother” Chris Lynch plays fiddle, filling in for regular fiddler, Philip Brezina who was on hiatus. A second set of brothers who both sing, Ben and Alex Morrison on guitar and banjo, respectively, comprise the quintet. The Morrisons, too, are local boys who attended St. Vincent de Paul High School.  

The band lit out for this summer's adventure in a 1988 red, shag-carpeted, Chevy G20 van, with a huge headlight-to-headlight brown mustache affixed to the nose-hitting spots that certainly must have been included on stage coach runs as the West was settled, including: Iowa City, Iowa, Lawrence, Kansas, Des Moines, Iowa, Omaha, Neb., Carbondale, Ill., and Telluride, Colo.

“People respect the van. It's like going from town to town in a rolling 1st class airline cabin... Except for that there's no AC. Or stewardesses. And it smells worse.  But it's the VAAAAN,” said Gio Benedetti.

“We really got to know each other and our musical tastes. We had many a van sing along sessions. And our van is really the best van ever. It may have no air conditioning and a crappy stereo, but it does have a mustache...and that gets you a long way in this world. It got us into Yosemite for free,” said Ben Morrison.

The Brothers Comatose drove in shifts through a spectacularly frightening Nebraska lightening storm, visited The Spam Museum and played one gig on the 14th floor of a Chicago high-rise.  They even kept a blog. 

Five hairy, sweaty musicians in a van for three weeks? Ian Benedetti said he thought he would never get the smell out of his nose.

But the road has its rewards.

“We played music every night for three hours. Seeing the country east of the Rockies. Playing in Telluride. What a flippin' gorgeous place… Rowdy crowds that dance on tables and bars and sing along,” said Gio Benedetti.

The foot-stomping, drink-along, front porch roots band cut their teeth on San Francisco street corners and have worked their way up through summer festivals and beer hall appearances including gigs at the Strawberry Music Festival, the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, the High Sierra Festival and San Francisco’s Bottom of the Hill, Slim’s and the Great American Music Hall.

You could say that they are on a musical mission.

“We want to remind people that music is collective," Benedetti said. "It’s for dancing, for sharing and for whatever else you might do with friends and family in your own living room."