Copper and Diamonds this weekend

From Walmart parking lots to tents on the side of the road, Copper Mountain Band has gone from a young, scattered number at a Polson showcase to a local necessity.

From the promising and daunting stretch of Nashville to the throes of a Grammy life, Diamond Rio has seen a life of growing success.

But how do both bands know that people really cared?

When the Copper Mountain Band opened for Night Ranger last year, band member Jacque Jolene said the headlining band came up to them and said, “So, you guys are the Copper Mountain Band. You’re a big deal here.” She was floored.

It was a phone call rather than a big-name band’s admiration that floored Diamond Rio band member Jimmy Olander. Olander walked out of a basketball camp for his son, he got “a million” calls. He thought someone was hurt. In reality, it was a call from his publicist saying that he’d gotten a Grammy and why wasn’t he answering the phone? He was overwhelmed.

Copper Mountain Band has seen local success, and Jolene said they wouldn’t want it another way. Diamond Rio’s fame is spread much further, but Olander said it’s still about the stories they tell — not the fame.

And now the Copper Mountain Band and Diamond Rio are playing together to join forces to show how honest writing and down-to-earth attitudes reflect in modern music. They will play at the Center for Asbestos Related Disease Foundation’s Big Sky Bash at 7 p.m. on Saturday at J. Neils Memorial Park. Doors open at 6 p.m.

You can find the Copper Mountain Band in a comfortable local bar that’s probably similar to what Diamond Rio played 25 years ago. And it’s that bar, and the area around it, that Jacque Jolene and the rest of the band love.

“That’s probably why we’re not famous now,” Jolene said. “We won’t leave Troy. We love it so much. People write songs about that stuff, that mountain life, because it’s true.”

Copper Mountain Band formed in 2007 after Jolene and her husband and fellow band mate Nate Norman had moved to Nashville, Tenn. They moved back to Montana to settle their family, and their old friend and musician Israel David convinced them to get back together. Their old outfit, De Borgia Troy, was long passed. They had no songs and no gear.

Now, Jolene manages Copper Mountain Coffee during the off time while the rest of the band members manage their music that has grown immensely more popular.

Diamond Rio may not be from Troy, but they love coming out to the big sky country.  Olander said there’s nothing like playing in the open space of the mountain. He said the dry heat beats the muggy South, too.

If you could go behind stage to talk to Jimmy Olander before his band Diamond Rio plays at Big Sky Bash this Saturday, he’ll be wearing his show clothes and clutching his Telecaster to get into the groove.

Two hours before he plays shows, Olander said he grabs his guitar, carries it around and plays it to get ready. Exactly an hour later, he’ll put the guitar down for a couple minutes to put on his show clothes and comb his hair into a country coiffure. And he’ll pick the guitar back up again after that.

He was born in Minneapolis, Minn., grew up in California and started playing the bluegrass banjo in Detroit, Mich. He attended Belmont University in Nashville, and the Diamond road started from there. The band slowly garnered esteem, and then the awards came. And the Grammy nominations. But never the Grammy itself. It didn’t matter though, Olander said. They were successful, and as they grew older and become more experienced, the youthful sheen of awards didn’t matter as much.

In 2011, Olander got a shock he hadn’t expected for a long time. He was at a basketball camp with his son in early February, and when he walked outside, he checked his phone. He looked at his phone and it was filled with unread messages.

“I didn’t get it,” Olander said, laughing. He had all of these phone calls and didn’t know why. “I thought someone in my family was hurt. ‘Has someone hurt themselves?’ I thought. But no — it was a Grammy.” 

He was overwhelmed in that moment, but not in the way a young, fresh-faced country band might be. To both Diamond Rio and the Copper Mountain Band, appreciation comes not from a shiny award from the shoe-scraped floors of a venue or a stranger that comes up and says, “Your music really hit me.” Olander and Jolene write songs about love, loss and life. It’s the connection to the listeners, not the fame, that matters.

Olander keeps his banjo-plucking sharp by listening to complex music from Gonzalo Berga to Bireli Lagrene. Even before this tour, he flipped on Ella Fitzgerald’s “Round Midnight” while doing his laundry.

For Jolene, it’s George Strait whom she goes to for some classic country and comfort. One of the most significant moments for Jolene was when the Copper Mountain Band was driving late at night during a tour, and they were talking about how many loved ones they had lost in car wrecks and cancer. They pulled over, and she wrote “Car Wrecks and Cancer” in 20 minutes. She said fans still come up to her about how the song touches them.

It’s hard to see through the bright stage lights that Jolene struggled (and succeeded) in learning to play her guitar and that Jimmy Olander loves the band Joy Kills Sorrow but listens to gypsy jazz at home.

The Copper Mountain Band is a local act that’s become a household name. Diamond Rio is an award-winning band that Jolene says she has looked up to. The Copper Mountain Band doesn’t expect to be under the spotlight like Diamond Rio, whose title is likely to irreversibly include the phrase “Grammy-winning.” But Diamond Rio probably didn’t expect it either. The show in Libby won’t be about awards or fame, but rather about playing a show where everyone, musicians and fans alike, will be appreciated.