Mattie Schell and Allie Vogler of l ocal folk duo River Kittens aren’t big NASCAR fans.
“I did live in Charlotte, so I’ve been to a few races, and I have a few friends that are really into it,” explains Schell. “But honestly, I’m not really into any sports, so it’s definitely not a dig on NASCAR.”
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She lets out a laugh, perhaps at the coincidence that she and her bandmate will, in fact, find themselves performing on the same stage as some of the biggest names in stock car racing during this weekend’s Enjoy Illinois 300 NASCAR Cup Series Race at World Wide Technology Raceway.
The River Kittens themselves are scheduled to play the highly anticipated Confluence Music Festival, a three-day extravaganza featuring everything from esports to food vendors to Nelly.
“That’s who we are really looking forward to seeing,” says Vogler, of the fellow St. Louis-standout. “Nelly is so dang cool.”
“It’s an honor to play alongside these large names that we are actually fans of ourselves,” adds Schell. The lineup includes big time acts such as country music hitmakers Old Dominion, alt-rockers The Steve Ewing band, and the previously mentioned rap superstar, Nelly. “It was really exciting to see the poster for the festival, because sometimes you play festivals, and you don’t even make it to the poster. Or your font is really small,” Schell laughs. “So that’s really exciting to see our name right underneath Nelly.”
The women of the River Kittens see this upcoming performance as one of many that will hopefully expose them to more and more music lovers, especially as the duo finds themselves soon going into the studio to work on new music.
“The more we share, the more people seem to hop on the bandwagon,” says Schell, who first met her River Kittens bandmate at a metal bar in 2014. “Our numbers on Spotify, for example, are really blowing our minds right now.”
And this new music may just do the same thing to the minds of their loyal and longtime fans.
“We’re going to be looking towards featuring more musicians on our upcoming recordings,” says Vogler, who says the duo hopes to have a new single out later this month. “We’re definitely expanding and looking forward to experimenting with different instruments and electric guitar and a drummer, all of whom will be with us at this festival.”
But don’t despair.
“Some of the songs that we put out in the future could very well just be the two of us,” adds Vogler. “That’s the solid River Kittens right there. We are an acoustic duo at our very core.”
