Steel-driving band

When a couple of Nashville songwriters with a stash of unheard bluegrass tunes decided to try them out with some in-demand veteran session and studio musicians, there was no looking back.

“It’s wonderful, said Mike Fleming, bassist and vocalist for the SteelDrivers. “It struck a chord the first time we all actually got in a room together.”

Chris Stapleton and Mike Henderson, friends and songwriters linked by a shared love of bluegrass, had been writing tunes together for a couple of years in the country music capital when they could no longer resist the urge to play them as full-out bluegrass songs.

“We tried a couple of covers, and then Chris and Mike started shelling out all this stuff they wrote,” Fleming said.

Local fans can get a taste of the resulting sound - bluegrass with a strong sense of melody and contemporary approaches to harmony and lyrics - on Saturday when the SteelDrivers take the stage at the Graves’ Mountain Festival of Music.

The band will be performing at 2:30 and 7:55 p.m. at Graves’ Mountain Lodge.

Stapleton brings his guitar and distinctive vocals to the group, while henderson adds vocals and mandolin.

Fleming plays bass and sings. Fiddler Tammy Rogers, herself a songwriter, also sings, and Richard Bailey brings his Grammy Award-nominated banjo prowess.

“Everybody had a track record of some sort - songwriting, or playing with other artists,” Fleming said. “Our expectations - we thought people would notice us because of the sound.”

“The SteelDrivers,” the band’s debut CD, was released in January 2008 and quickly picked up a Grammy nomination, three International Bluegrass Music Association Award nods and some serious listeners.

Strong writing helps the music stand out, Fleming said.

“They tell stories from different perspectives,” Fleming said of the band’s songs. For instance, he said, one song’s lyrics come from the point of a mute witness to a Civil War battle - an oak tree.

But although the musicians are savoring the chance to play energetic new music and bring listeners along for the ride, it’s clear that they’re bringing something else to the table - good old-fashioned realism. No one’s hogging the spotlight, or taking a single beam of it for granted.

“Everybody had been backup musicians and did some studio work and realized that the song is what’s important, not stepping on the vocals,” Fleming said. “It’s just as important the notes you don’t play as the notes you play.”

Band members are committed to serving the song, paying attention to each other’s work and relying on years of experience to know when to step back and when to chime in.

Although the band has been together only about three years, the unified sound and sense of ensemble makes it seem as if they’d been toiling in rehearsal spaces for ages.

The musicians aren’t far away from the days when they practiced in an oldVFW hall in Franklin, Tenn., getting everything hammered down before they started playing out around Nashville.

“We’ve been, all in all, hitting it pretty hard since January of last year,” Fleming said. “We’ve had a great year.”

Today’s lineup at the Graves’ Mountain Festival of Music includes Next Best Thing at noon and 6:40 p.m.; the U.S. Navy Band’s bluegrass group, Country Current, at 12:50 and 5:50 p.m.; Mark Templeton and Pocket Change at 1:40 and 7:30 p.m.; the James King Band at 2:30 and 8:20 p.m.; the Lonesome River Band at 3:20 and 9:10 p.m.; and Russell Moore and IIIrd Tyme Out at 4:10 and 10 p.m.

At 5 this afternoon, look for a Heights of Grass reunion that will bring Donny Grubb, Bill Lux, Vernon Hughes, Richard Ward and guests to the stage.

Saturday’s entertainment includes the Bluegrass Brothers at noon and 5:15 p.m., the Mark Newton Band at 12:50 p.m., Carrie Hassler and Hard Rain at 1:40 and 6:05 p.m., the SteelDrivers at 2:30 and 7:55 p.m., the Seldom Scene at 3:25 and 8:50 p.m. and Rhonda Vincent and the Rage at 4:20 and 9:45 p.m.

Plan your outing at http://www.gravesmountain.org.