Artist Profile: ‘We’re Somerville,’ Says Fortuna 500 on Community, Local Music, and Baseball References

A sunny April afternoon provided Somerville-based band Fortuna 500 with the perfect pre-show ritual in the backyard of the band’s home. Based out of one house, Fortuna 500 roars with self-proclaimed “Somerville Garage Country” tunes and an effervescent camaraderie between bandmates.

In an interview with The Crimson, before their opening set at Warehouse XI, band members Ryan DiLello, David Levine, Jono Quinn, and Cole Triedman discussed their band’s trajectory before their sound check.

Critical to the band’s energy and production process is their shared house — home to one of Somerville PorchFest’s very own porches — where the band often hosts their shows. On this afternoon, the band floats in and out of rooms peppered with guitar cases as they load up their several Subarus to transport their instruments to the venue.

“I was making music out where I was living in Colorado, sort of by myself, yearning for a music scene — knowing the tactile nature of the music that lives within these walls in this house, and knowing how integrated Ryan, and Jono here, and one of our other band mates, Julian, were in the Somerville and greater Boston music scene,” Triedman said. “So when a room opened up, I decided to make a shift, I moved in here.”

The band’s home base is incredibly unique, packing members of several bands into its rooms and laying the foundation for creation.

“The goal was always just like, ‘hey, we love music, we love each other, and this thing that we’re doing, so we’re gonna move in and keep it going,’” Quinn said.

Lead singer and banjoist, Triedman, and guitarist and backup vocalist, DiLello, are childhood friends, despite never playing music together as kids. When Triedman moved away and DiLello started playing in another band, Otis Shanty, the two became closer.

“We developed this friendship over a lot of the time we were apart and developed this musical camaraderie,” said Triedman.

“It started with me and Ryan’s master plan, and just cascaded.”

Now, in their home, surrounded by their other bandmates, the friendship clearly blossoms in this creativity, as the pair riff off of each other. Once, in response to Triedman mentioning his vocal warm-ups, DiLello began to sing operatically.

As for the band’s music, their songs allow for reflection and rumination on their collective experiences and current events. With a country twang and biting lyrics, the band navigates the in-between space of the garage-country genre they find themselves in.

“I like the meditative aspect of country, not as flashy, not as over the top, but it’s a nice box to hang out in, at least from a bassist’s perspective. Yeah, it becomes meditative,” said Levine.

The band’s space between the genres fits their connection to their local music community and their collaborative creation process.

“They’re both very communal sorts of genres,” said Levine.

For Triedman, the music allows him to express his grievances with society, in a way that blends criticism with art.

“We’ve never sat down and been like ‘we’re a political band’ or whatever, but I think, yeah, music’s inherently political, and we’re in this nice time where we’re young, and what we’re saying is getting recorded, and it’ll always be there, and it’s nice to put your best foot forward,” said Triedman.

Last fall, the band released three singles: “Sara Lee,” “Romantic Civilians,” and “Swamp In My Hand.” The songs allowed the band to establish their general sound and start leaving their mark on the greater Boston music scene and beyond.

“After we did those singles, we stopped having to be so proactive about booking gigs. A lot more gigs started coming to us because people sort of understood where we stood and where we fit in. If we fit in at all. This bill tonight, we actually fit perfectly into but that’s a rarity. I think mostly we’re weird,” Triedman said.

The Somerville music scene is incredibly central to Fortuna 500’s sense of community. Home to PorchFest, a spring festival where musicians play around on various porches throughout Somerville neighborhoods, the homeyness of this music scene shines through. Additionally, Triedman and DiLello host the Someday Fest, another free, local music festival in the area.

“This is a very fruitful area for music. I mean, there’s a lot of venues. PorchFest is well known. There’s just a lot of creative overflow from Boston into Somerville and the other side of the scene, it’s kind of the Allston/Brighton crowd who are cool too, but, we’re Somerville,” Triedman said.

The band’s gigs are just as entrenched in the community as the musicians are, with their local shows attracting both familiar and new crowds. For this night’s gig, the band opens for Spirit Ghost, who Triedman classifies as “scene exports.”

“It’s also really fun to play a show down the hill from where you live, and then a bunch of your buds show up, and then you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m just playing music for my buddies, and then we’re gonna hang out afterwards.’ So that part’s pretty nice,” said Quinn.

This gig also serves as Quinn’s first time drumming in the band, so their set will stick to their released singles and more traditional renditions.

“These are like drivey, mostly 4/4, like doable, lovable, fastball down the middle tunes, except we, we have adapted one of them —” Triedman said.

“Into more of a knuckleball,” DiLello interjected.

Triedman, for his part, also plays in a solo project titled Mozz. For him, Mozz represents a more acoustic and poetic approach to his thoughts.

“And then Cole pulls out the acoustic and says, ‘I am a man with feelings and heart and vulnerabilities,’ and he starts writing some beautiful, beautiful tunes for himself. And that’s when he becomes Mozz,” said Quinn, describing the project.

Balancing on the line between indie folk and garage-country, both Triedman and Fortuna 500 want to keep moving forward with their creative outlets.

Fortuna 500 will release their first studio album later this summer, named “Two for Flinching.” Although the cover art is undecided, Triedman did call back to their earlier baseball reference and suggest “something Little League related.”

With no set timeline of release, as the band will have a transient near future with Quinn moving to New Jersey and the band navigating other changes, more music still awaits.

“Yeah, the art will kinda move itself,” said DiLello.