December 4, 2025, Seward Folly by John Fraser

There are easier places to build a music career than tiny Seward, Alaska. In other towns, guitar strings arrive in days, not weeks, and gigs don’t require hundreds of miles in vans or planes. But Seward is home to Blackwater Railroad Co., and the band continues to create new music while they’re home. Locals may see them as a hometown act, yet they’ve built a global following, exporting Seward’s spirit far and wide.

I sat down with Tyson Davis, Braden Astorga-Rollins, and Kyle Comeau, who perform with Anchorage colleagues Miguel Reina and Ben Rogers, to learn why such a successful international act still centers its work here. To them, Seward isn’t just home; it’s their muse, their emotional support fjord, and the reason they return even after receiving praise around the world.

For the band, Seward lives in their hearts.

As Davis put it, “Seward’s where everything just seems to be on time. When I truly need something, it has a funny way of showing up here in ways maybe it didn’t in other places. I don’t know if that’s because of the people or there’s a magic about the place, but that’s been my experience. Seward has been very good to me.” 

The love for Seward is clearly shared across the band.

Keyboardist, singer, painter, and self-described city-slicker Kyle Comeau put it this way: “After weeks on the road from the Pacific Northwest straight into a Japan tour, when we came home it was awe-inspiring again. Such a beautiful, magical place. Even when you’re sad, it still looks amazing, even when it’s rainy and foggy. You can’t resist it even if you wanted to.”

In short, the three locals all found different ways to say that Seward has the perfect weather for writing songs about questionable decisions.

Davis, the band’s remaining founder, came to Seward from North Carolina at 22 to work as a cook at the Windsong Lodge, but was determined to play his guitar anywhere they’d let him.

“I came here as a very young and not very smart man, and have grown into a slightly less dumb one.”

Davis described the start as a group of musicians who accidentally became a band. He said, “There was a lot of luck and just being in the right place at the right time.”

He said that Blackwater found its foothold when Americana roots rock was happening. But today, they’re known for their live show, music that gets people going. A sound with wide appeal for the really young and old folks like this interviewer.

Astorga-Rollins, who plays all sorts of instruments and sings too, once tried to quit music before Seward pulled him back like a friendly undertow. But he also said the quiet part out loud: “I am from Seward, but I left when I was very young. Coming back to Seward with my wife, during a rough time in my life, and being with family helped me grow into a happier person.”

He added, “I just ended up finding these guys in Palmer and then got more involved over at the Seward Ale House. Over the course of two years, I got more connected, and then became a full member about 2 1/2 years ago.”

Davis’ bandmates attribute a lot of their success to Tyson’s tenacity as both an artist and a businessperson. As recording sales have collapsed with free-streaming, revenue streams for working musicians are now all about touring. And this band says that it’s the business model of treating people right, creating a sound that gets audiences going and feeds their creative spirit. They describe their performance as “really accessible, everybody feels like they’re part of the party and part of the experience. They saw something that they can’t just play on a CD or watch a video; they feel like they’re part of a unique experience.”

Davis said the band started as a punk-bluegrass experiment, but as members came and went, the crowds got bigger and the sound evolved. Today, they’re one of Alaska’s most unlikely exports. In this interview, they floated “roots-rock” as their style, but this reporter wasn’t convinced. Roots-rock leans on country, blues, and folk, like Creedence Clearwater Revival or Bob Dylan, steady rhythms, grounded storytelling, and an earnest grit. That’s closer to Davis’ quiet side trio, Bug in a Rug, than to anything happening at a Blackwater event. Their live shows are a rollicking, shape-shifting ride, jumping between beats, moods, switching instruments, and stringing together a series of songs in one go. The result feels less like a genre and more like a communal celebration of heartache, human frailty, and the joy of surviving.

Seward, therapist or creative incubator

Most pop musicians find inspiration in heartbreak, political protest, or maybe a few dogs and a truck. Blackwater describes Seward as their inspiration, a place where half the town knows your grocery list and the other half is related to you. In our interview, they suggested it’s hard not to write honest music in an environment where anonymity is optional, but character development is mandatory.

Some townsfolk may have noticed Resurrection Lutheran Church at Third and Jefferson glowing late into the night for more than a week in early November. That bustle was the band recording an authentic sound with their engineer, Justin Smith of Gustavus, Alaska. They asked that we note their gratitude to Pastor Ben Bohart, his family, and the congregation for allowing them to use the church. They described the church’s acoustics as “amazing,” allowing them to record the live energy of the full band experience, rather than individual tracks for each instrument. The songs from this upcoming release reflect their usual blend of reverence and mischief: two are set in downtown Seward, others draw from nights at the Yukon, and one channels the emotional landscape of a town where every mountain nudges you toward becoming a better person. They may play about the bar scene in Seward, but it’s important to note that Davis is also committed to his sobriety and telling the stories about the path through the risks that trouble so many in Alaska. As they put it, it’s good to record where “all our stuff is, our families are, our loved ones,” though they haven’t yet finalized titles or the track list.

Here’s the thing about Blackwater: they’re good, musically, professionally, and, if Anchorage’s music leaders and several statewide arts advocates are to be believed, unusually good at being decent human beings in an industry where that trait is optional. The band has earned a reputation for supporting working musicians who rely on travel gigs to survive, sharing stages and building bridges wherever they go. Advocates for Alaska’s road-warrior performers consistently describe them as “compassionate,” “generous,” and “extraordinarily helpful to the working musicians traipsing across Alaska’s vast landscape,” even if none were willing to go on the record. The consensus is that Blackwater Railroad Co. shares audiences freely and trades contacts with New York-level efficiency, Los Angeles business sense, and unmistakably Alaskan kindness.

Seward teaches humility, touring teaches survival

To them, Seward is full of quiet, persistent makers, painters who return to the same spot for decades to capture the light, musicians slipping inspiration out of the darkest corners of Alaska, and neighbors whose creativity shows up in unexpected ways. That landscape of everyday artistry, they say, is what each of them found here and still fuels their desire to contribute something that will outlast them.

Even as their international audience expands, the band feels a responsibility to keep Seward’s creative culture thriving. They dedicate themselves to supporting new musicians, whether at open mics, all-ages jams, loosely structured community arts programs, or inviting someone to join the band for a gig or two. 

Before the pandemic, they poured time into local music education through collaborative studios, helping young performers find their voice and an instrument to play. Even when those programs ended, the commitment remained: helping Seward’s kids and adults discover joy through music.

As the band continues to gain momentum, they’re leaning more heavily into event production as a way to strengthen Alaska’s arts network. Their shows now bring other musicians into our town, or touring with them, or even without them, to other towns. Before the interview, we even heard about them lending their van to a visiting band from the Lower 48 so they could make ends meet on an Alaskan tour. 

Blackwater Railroad Co. is known for connecting visiting artists with local businesses and widening opportunities for creative work in a state that has little formal infrastructure to support working and traveling musicians. Their festivals, whether the Mermaid Festival or Hatcher Romp, are designed to entertain and give emerging artists real stages, real audiences, and a sense that the musical life they dream about is possible.

For the members of Blackwater Railroad Co., giving back is their career. They credit their own opportunities to mentors who opened doors, and the spark of inspiration they felt watching musicians when they were young. Now, they aim to offer that same support to others. Whether they are hosting new bands, connecting artists across Alaska, or encouraging a shy songwriter to step up to the mic, they say their work is grounded in gratitude, to Seward, to its people, and to the creative energy that helped them become who they are.

Blackwater Railroad Co. is playing Friday, December 5, 2025, at 9 p.m., at the Yukon. Tickets are $10 at the door.