Swampcandy is the aggressive stomping Mississippi blues and roots influenced duo that won the 2014 Floyd Festival ‘On The Rise’ competition, coming in first out of 37 bands performing at the event. This won’t be news to any of our festival fans who might have caught them here in 2014 — they were so good that we’re taking the very unusual step of having them back already this year.

Their third album, Midnight Creep/Noonday Stomp, was crowdfunded to remarkable success. “We did it in only two weeks,” says singer/ guitarist Ruben Dobbs with pride, “we had alloted eight.” Originally intended as two separate releases, Midnight Creep and Noonday Stomp ended up being combined into a 17-song document that combines studio and live recordings and has a familial vibe drawn from the original recording concept of Exile On Main St. From blues to ballads and just about every point in between, the album unfolds as a beautiful and complex document of modern acoustic music. Between Dobbs’ aggressive finger-picking and rhythmic style (which often adds up to sounding like more than one guitar) and the combination of Joey Mitchell’s bass playing, pounding kick drum and percussive bass throttling representing the presence of a full drum kit, Swampcandy easily fills up the sonic space normally created by a trio or even a four-piece band. Not only has the band played over 270 shows in 2014 alone at venues and festivals around the U.S. and U.K., they also received an award as “Best Opening Act 2014” at the #1 venue in the world under 500 seats, The Rams Head On Stage in Annapolis, MD.