“Laughing is just something that’s good,” says Treebillies’ off-the-wall guitarist Jonny Yocum. “We’re equally trying to entertain ourselves as other people.”
Yocum and his longhaired sidekick, Ryan Roemer, grew up playing music and cracking jokes in the tight-knit West Shore hamlet of Tahoma.
Watch Treebillies perform “The Chelette Song”
“I remember when I was a little guy. I’d go outside at night and hear music and it was The Roemers,” says Yocum. “I’d sneak over to their house to listen. We always hung out whenever we could. It feels like the world keeps pulling us back together to play.”
“We’re stay-at-home guys who write songs about the life of Tahoe … We’re telling the stories of this place. It gives people a glimpse of the lowlife, local lifestyle.”
–Jonny Yocum
As teens, they recorded freestyle raps on an old 8-track in Pocket Moss Crew. That project fused with hard-rocking Moondog Squad to form freak-wild, funk band Savage Patch Kids. When Yocum moved to Humboldt County to groove with gypsy jammers Liquid Kactus, Roemer joined the rootsy Tim High & The Mighty with his shredding lead guitar. In recent years, they’ve been regulars at local open mics hosted by West Shore Pizza in Tahoma and Rosie’s Café in Tahoe City.
“It’s so small and so interconnected,” says Roemer of the West Shore music scene. “Everyone who plays around town kind of knows each other. We have our own thing over here and we’re all kind of close in a certain way.”
To tell the truth, Treebillies might never have existed if it weren’t for their friend, Michael “Mandolin Mike” Jay, who unexpectedly died in June.
“It was his prolific lyricism and overall go-get-it, pop-up party attitude,” says Yocum. “He could make stuff happen out of nowhere. ‘Every gig is the biggest gig of our lives’ is my favorite Mikey quote. It didn’t matter if it was a parking lot or The Coliseum. When he left us, it kind of lit a fire under our asses to make Treebillies as good as we could.”
Friends and family held a musical memorial at Skylandia State Park in August.
“He was definitely the guy who got it started for me,” says Roemer, who played with Jay in zany folk humor collaborative Google Mountain Resort. “He’d just go for it. He was my confidant and leader. He had a fearless attitude toward getting up there and being funny.”
As Treebillies, Roemer and Yocum play an assortment of rollicking, roguish originals alongside rip-roaring covers of Grateful Dead music and outlaw country classics by Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson.
“It’s a stoner kids’ interpretation of bluegrass hillbilly music,” says Yocum. “Trees can have a double meaning after all.”
Treebillies’ compositions are born of real-life people and places from the Sierra Nevada. There’s “The Chelette Song” about a hard-ass, union-bleeding, mountain man who drinks whiskey from a jar with a dead snake in it. Another called “Down Town Tahoma” gives a humorous tip of the hat to comrade townie bands Chile Verde and Dead Winter Carpenters.
“We’re stay-at-home guys who write songs about the life of Tahoe,” says Yocum. “If you can name it, we probably wrote a song about it. This doesn’t have anything to do with the outside world, really. We’re telling the stories of this place. It gives people a glimpse of the lowlife, local lifestyle.”
To earn a living, Yocum and Roemer do tree work and construction, respectively.
“A lot of our songs are blue collar,” says Yocum. “We sing for the working man.”
Part of the Treebillies’ charm comes from a penchant for dressing in bizarre costumes including ghillies suits and taco hats. With their sidesplitting onstage antics and zany get-ups, the duo channels goof-rock masters such as Spinal Tap, Tenacious D, Cheech & Chong and G.W.A.R.
“We’ll do anything that adds some personality,” says Yocum. “We’re not what you would expect. People can’t not smile when we’re doing our thing because we’re cracking up at ourselves. We just have fun. It’s not too serious for us, but it’s always the biggest gig of our lives. We’re a monster machine of campfire party bluegrass kids.”
Since the pandemic put a damper on night life, Treebillies have been playing sit-down gigs at Alibi Ale Works in Incline Village, Nev., and Truckee. While it’s not as rowdy as their usual outings, the shows have given them a chance to dial in a one-of-a-kind music and comedy routine.
“Music is the most important thing on the face of the planet,” says Yocum. “I’ve been waiting my whole life to be quarantined with my guitars. I love it. I just don’t like why it’s happening. Music is medicine in my eyes.” | Treebillies music on Facebook
