Rockwell Brewery makes live music

BY COLIN MCGUIRE Special to The News-Post

Of all the breweries in and around the Frederick area, you’d be hard-pressed to find one more married to music than Rockwell Brewery. Just take a look at some of their beer names. There’s “Kolsch As Ice” (hello, Foreigner!) and Dropkick Red (who else loves Dropkick Murphys?!) and even B.I.G. Juicy (RIP Notorious B.I.G.).

Now, after the business opened a second location, Rockwell Brewery Riverside, a couple weeks ago, the brewery is looking to take the next step when it comes to hosting music.

As a result, we caught up with coowners Paul Tinney and Matt Thrasher to talk about their love for music, the way they hope to expand their musical slate as the new location grows and how they wish that one day their facility can play host to a concert from Maryland favorites Clutch.

Why did you guys decide to expand? What led to all this, and how did you get here?

Tinney: How much time do you have [laughs]? The short answer is there wasn’t any single one event that happened. We’ve been in business now for seven years at our current location [on North East Street in Frederick]. We’ve always had more demand than what we had the ability to either produce or entertain at our taproom. So, we’ve been shopping around for the right location and the right format and the right equipment to do an expansion. The whole process took two years. So, we finally just decided to pull the trigger with the idea that we wanted to have a larger place to serve as a bigger venue for events and music and get into distribution and have our products reach a broader customer base.

You guys have focused so much on music with the names of your beers and hosting live music — how did that come to be?

Tinney: I always give Matt credit for going along with this because I sort of started with this idea that it would be a mashup with my guitar building that I do on the side, which is all hand-crafted stuff, to craft beer. The similarities and artist work that goes into them go together, and it’s all for the enjoyment of people who make music or good beer. That worked into a mashup of music and beer, so we adapt some kind of lyric, artist or music tie to all of our beers.

With this new space, is there an incentive to have more live music? Do you have a plan for that?

Thrasher: That’s been the goal. We set aside an area for private events that allows us to do bigger music acts. Right now, we’re really in a tight space and we were contained in our taproom when it came to where we’d put our entertainment. It’s pretty much restricted — how many people we can get in there. So this is going to allow us to showcase more regional acts and not just a guy sitting up there with an acoustic guitar. That’s the plan.

So you’ll be able to have more electric bands and full bands?

Thrasher: Yep, that’s the goal. We’ll be able to have a portable stage we can take in and out. We’ll do noise abatement sooner than later. We know we have an issue right now with the concrete doors and metal roof, but we are getting things figured out, and that’s definitely on top of the list.

Tinney: We have some fine-tuning to do with the acoustic experience because it’s a little overpowering right now. But we’ll get that fixed.

Do you have a timeline of when you hope to get that ready to go?

Thrasher: Last weekend, we had bands Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It’s just a matter of their volume level right now. But it’s all in the works. We just need to do our research and make sure we do it right. As for a timeline, all I can say is it’s on top of the list.

Are either of you guys in bands?

Thrasher: No, I’m tone deaf.

Tinney: I abandoned it. No one wants to see me perform. That’ll drive people to other breweries [laughs]. Back to the music, we know that having music will be part of the experience of being there, and that’s a big plus for people who want to come out and be entertained and enjoy the brewery. But we have the option, top, to do ticketed events and bring in people who are not just there for background music but are there to perform for an audience who may want to see them. We want to explore that, too, but it’ll be down the road. There’s no place in Frederick that has this Ram’s Head feel. We still have some work to fine-tune the venue, but we want to look at that as well.

What’s the capacity for the space?

Thrasher: The entire space is roughly 350 capacity.

Frederick has needed a bigger music space like this. Not a small size, but not a big size. Was that something in mind when you thought to create this?

Thrasher: It wasn’t the sole goal. We have to turn down probably 80% of the private event requests we get because in those cases, we have to shut down the entire brewery to accommodate them. So we knew we wanted that to capitalize on the demand for events. On top of that, we were restricted to having to put the music acts in the taproom, which limits what we can offer. We knew we needed a bigger space, a bigger footprint, not just for production side, to keep up with demand for beer, but also the experience. We’re trying to raise the bar for ourselves and create an experience that you don’t normally get at a brewery.

Speaking of that, a lot of the other breweries host some form of music. Are there any places that you think are doing a good job so far?

Thrasher: I think Olde Mother is doing really great. They put a stage in there, and they have that back area that can hold a good bit of people. They have their pocket they like to showcase. They’re really paying attention to bringing in good music and good acts.

It’s interesting you say that because it seems like the best places