Kindred Valley – Indie Folk from West Virginia
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When Blake Lacy and Noah Freeman talk about the symbiotic nature of creating music as a six-piece band, there's a palpable sense of purpose to their words. One person's creative drought becomes another's catalyst. In a landscape increasingly dominated by lean, efficient projects and solo artists operating from bedrooms, Kindred Valley represents something increasingly rare in 2024: a proper band, built on genuine relationships and shared vision, making indie folk that refuses to be confined by genre.
Based out of Huntington, West Virginia, Kindred Valley emerged from the kind of organic connections that modern music industry wouldn't necessarily predict or encourage. Three friends—Blake, Noah, and drummer Brett McCoy—met at Marshall University in 2020 and began writing together under the name Back Row Baptists. That incarnation released early singles as a trio, but the band found its true voice in 2021 when three additional members joined the fold: married couple Rachael and Jadon Hayes, alongside Kaden Salmons. What could have been an unwieldy arrangement became, unexpectedly, a creative strength.
Americana allows us to feel a little more free to do whatever we want—we can dip into one genre or another but it's all indie folk at heart.
— Kindred Valley
"It's kind of like traveling with a big family," Blake explains during our conversation, and there's honesty in that statement that cuts through typical band mythology. Yes, there are logistical nightmares—fitting six people into hotel rooms, renting larger vehicles, managing the sheer complexity of moving a fully-fledged ensemble from gig to gig. But there's also something profoundly generative about it. Noah describes how creative blocks dissolve when you're constantly immersed in collaboration, how Blake's prolific writing periods can lift Noah out of creative dry spells through the simple act of proximity and shared purpose.
This is music that emerges from real community rather than algorithmic curation. Three of the members met through their church. The band lives together for extended periods. They're not just collaborators—they're genuinely enmeshed in each other's lives in a way that feels increasingly countercultural in an era of remote recording and digital collaboration.
Through a big web of fate and mishaps, we all came together and got to meet each other.
— Kindred Valley
As for the sound itself, Kindred Valley describes themselves as rooted in Americana, but that's really just a starting point. The band uses the label specifically because it grants them permission to wander. In one moment they might explore bluegrass textures, in another they'll venture into indie folk sensibilities or tap into blues-influenced grooves. With three vocalists in the lineup, their arrangements offer harmonic richness that most contemporary roots acts can't touch. That diversity of voices isn't a novelty—it's fundamental to who they are.
The name itself carries weight. "Kindred Valley" speaks to kinship and landscape, to finding your people in a particular place. West Virginia has birthed generations of musicians and songwriters, but Kindred Valley doesn't feel bound to tradition in a museum-piece way. Instead, they operate within a lineage while remaining resolutely contemporary, bringing that indie sensibility to music that could otherwise feel historicized.
What emerges from their conversation with host TJ Cost is a picture of a band genuinely invested in their craft and their community. These aren't musicians chasing streaming numbers or TikTok trends. They're concerned with the fundamentals: strong songwriting, tight arrangements, the almost forgotten art of playing together in a room, night after night, learning each other's instincts.
The broader UK independent roots music community has clearly embraced them—they've become fixtures on The Rugged Revival's platform, which itself speaks to their authenticity. British audiences have always had a particular appreciation for American roots music that doesn't apologize for complexity or genre-blending, and Kindred Valley fits that bill perfectly.
If you've been curious about what contemporary Americana actually sounds like beyond nostalgia or pastiche, or if you simply want to hear from a genuinely collaborative band that's making music the way bands used to—and arguably the way they should—the full episode is absolutely worth your time. Kindred Valley represents something worth preserving: six people, one vision, and the willingness to figure it out together.
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