The Milk Carton Kids Spill Details About First Full Band Tour

AP Photo / Mark Zaleski – The Milk Carton Kids
“Americana Music Association Honors & Awards Show,” Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, Tenn.

The first full-band tour by The Milk Carton Kids launches in October.  With special guest The Barr Brothers on the ticket, markets include Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia, New York, Toronto, Montreal and Chicago before concluding in Berkeley, Calif.

The fourth studio album from Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan – All The Things That I Did And All The Things That I Didn’t Do – arrives June 29 via Anti-. Recorded in October at the Sun Room at House Of Blues Studio in Nashville, the LP was produced by Joe Henry (Solomon Burke, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott) and engineered by Ryan Freeland (Ray LaMontagne, Bonnie Raitt).

The new disc is the first Milk Carton Kids album to feature backing musicians.  Credits include Russ Pahl (Kacey Musgraves, Blake Shelton) on pedal steel as well as other guitars; bassists Paul Kowert (Punch Brothers) and Dennis Crouch (Gregg Allman, Johnny Cash); Wilco’s Pat Sansone on keyboards; drummer Jay Bellerose (Robert Plant & Allison Krauss, Elton John, Willie Nelson); cellist Nathaniel Smith (Sarah Jarosz, Abigail Washburn); Levon Henry (Blake Mills, Nico Muhly) on clarinet and saxophone; and fiddler / mandolinist Brittany Haas (Crooked Still, Dave Rawlings Machine).  Lindsay Lou and Logan Ledger provided additional vocals.

You may already be familiar with a couple of tracks from the new album.  “One More For The Road”  was released in April, and inspired NPR’s BobBoilen to write, “If this 10-minute-plus song is any indication, The Milk Carton Kids are about to release a truly epic album.”

Released only last week via Rolling Stone, “Big Time” is the latest song released from the new album.

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The Milk Carton Kids’ touring history includes plenty of sold-out shows and near0-capacity crowds.  According to data submitted to Pollstar, the group’s October gig at Franklin Theatre in Franklin, Tenn., sold all 303 tickets and grossed $13,578.  The group’s May 2016 appearance at the State Theatre in Portland, Maine, was a different story with fans purchasing 330 out of 947 tickets available, resulting in the night’s gross hitting $10,460.

The new dates go on sale May 18.  Word is that there will be additional dates.  So keep checking Pollstar’s Milk Carton Kids page for updates.