Buckets, bottles and blues: Sweet Jessup and the Dirty Buckets releases emotional new EP, ‘muddy water’

Carbondale-based band Sweet Jessup and the Dirty Buckets has made quite a splash in the Roaring Fork Valley since the group’s inception in 2022. 

The band’s eclectic instruments — including a 30 gallon plastic trash can for a drum, a singing saw and wine bottles — vocal talents and original tunes create a unique, “trashy jam” sound that’s a little folksy, a little bluesy and very groovy. 

The six-piece band, includes Morgan Williams, Brad Swart, Deborah Colley, Ashton Taufer, Alex Reginelli and Brian Colley. It was formed by Williams, who had a vision for a group that would drum on buckets and trash cans to create a “junkier” sound with a modern, upbeat twist. 

The group’s name was inspired by the Sweet Jessup Canal that diverts water from the Crystal River.

“I always thought that was a cool name and would be a cool name for a band,” Williams said. “That’s where I got that inspiration. It was one of the first ditches in the valley to be built and I’m not a huge advocate of taking water out of rivers for agriculture, but I like the name, I like aspects of history and that’s part of the American West development. We are kind of old timey and it’s an old timey homage to the ancestors that came here.”

The “dirty buckets” part of the name was a group idea. “My initial idea was the ‘bucket brigade’ and for ‘dirty buckets,’ literally the 30 gallon (trash can) we play was not only found in my backyard, but it actually, for probably a year and a half, left dirt on my living room floor when we were practicing,” Williams said. “Then not only that, wherever (the trash can) came from before, it had dirty poetry written on it. It was really dirty, literally and figuratively.”

Since its dirt-covered beginnings, the imaginative local group has been busy building its credentials with gigs like Mountain Fair and the FoCoMX festival in Fort Collins. This month, the band released the EP “muddy water,” its first music drop since its debut album, “Dirty Demo,” in July 2024. 

Although “muddy water” is just two songs — “Queen of Spades” and “i’ll be around” — both are rich with the band’s signature sound and layered with emotion. 

A few band members write songs for the group and everyone helps shape the final sound, but “muddy water” came straight from Williams’ heart.

“Queen of Spades” is about Williams’ climate depression. 

“In some card games, (the queen of spades) is bad luck — in old school taro, if you draw the queen of spades, it’s not a very good, positive card to draw,” he said. “Sometimes I feel a little climate depression, when we’re not getting snow and things are drying out and (stuff) is burning out here, that song’s about that, dealing with climate depression.”

While there are notes of positivity in references to the freedom and beauty of the Crystal River, “it’s just a little darker, about where we are at right now as humans with our relationship with this earth,” Williams said. 

The second song, “i’ll be around,” carries a more melancholy tone. It’s a love letter inspired by the death of Williams’ friend Casey Piscura, and he hopes it brings solace to others who knew Casey.

“The way I make music is really emotively, so when I get sad or happy I’m generally writing a song. That song came from the deep sadness of a friend’s death and processing that,” Williams said. “I just started singing the song, it wasn’t even about Casey.

“Eventually, after a couple of times of messing around with this melody and this chord progression, the lyrics came and it became clear that the song was going to be for Casey,” he added.

At their core, both songs explore life — the giving and the taking. 

“The album cover is a train bridge that has fallen,” Williams said. “Muddy water is a thing that destroys, but it’s also a thing that brings us life. It’s this cycle of death and beauty that we’re all engaged in.”

Want to hear the band’s buckets, bottles and trash cans in action? Catch them live from 6-8 p.m. on Friday, April 25 at the Library Lover’s Party at the Basalt Library and again on Saturday, April 26 at the Carbondale Recreation Center during the 5Point Film Festival.