I chatted with Dan from Scythian about the background of his awesome bands name and the crazy support they received during quarantine

When did you know you wanted to be a musician? 

I didn’t really have a choice. My mom was a musician. She graduated from Julliard when she married my dad. She decided she wanted all of her kids to play. My mom had ten kids. I’m number eight and my brother Alex is number six. When we were born she would look at our hands and decide which won would play the fiddle, which one would play the piano, etc. 

I started playing piano when I was three and so did my brother. We had a whole career as classical musicians before we were even in college. We picked up folk music before toward the end of college. 

What is it like being in a band with your brother? 

Aww it’s great. We compliment each other and read each other’s minds. It’s really uncanny how we work. 

Is there a story behind the band name? 

We were street performers for a while. Our parents both came from Ukraine and here we are playing Irish music. We read about the Scythian’s in National Geographic or something. The Scythians were unstoppable until they were conquered by the Celts. We started saying that us Ukrainians were conquered by Celtic music. So it just stuck. 

What is your favorite song to perform and why?

Oh jeez Louise. For me it’s “End Of The Street.” I love it because I usually play accordion or guitar on it depending on the ease of transition between songs is. Our drummer grew up in Louisiana so he has this great drum percussion. It has a great refrain as well. 

How hard for is it for you be on the road? 

For the first fifteen years on the road, we’ve probably spent a total of seven years not in our own beds. It’s enjoyable at times but sometimes we play late and then we have to get up and start driving really early the next morning. 

What was it like being in lockdown? 

Oh man. We started live streaming three days after lockdown. We had 60,000 viewers. We needed to finish raising money for our album. We had just gotten into studio nine days before lockdown and laid down our vocals. Our fans donated $14,000 for us to complete the mixing and everything. It was just crazy. 

We started Quaranstream after that. We did thirty five quaranstream in one year. We would tear my living room a part, set up seven cameras, lights, fog machines, and put on a full show. Those garnered over 620,000 views in a year. We released our album in November on Thanksgiving. During that time we also released five music videos. It’s been the hardest we’ve ever worked since the first years of the band. We’ve grown our fan base and just as a band we got much closer. 

What does it mean to you to have all of that support and all of those donations during such a crazy time? 

It’s humbling. We know our fans carry us. All of the news was very negative during this period. On the contrary, we started realizing the generosity of people’s hearts. Folks would tip us on Venmo and buy our T-shirts..that’s how we survived for a year.

Are you excited about getting back to Annapolis?

Oh yes. The Rams Head is such an intimate venue. We’re doing two shows there; half capacity for safety. We didn’t know when we booked the show if people would still be freaked out but I think people are more confident about going out now. It’s in an incredible and historic city. We hope it’ll be like at the end of a movie and the aliens leave and everyone comes out to party. 

Scythian headlines Rams Head Annapolis on June 26th at 4pm (Buy tix) and 8pm (Buy tix)

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