AVIDIGI

Murder By Death is an American four-piece rock band from Bloomington, Indiana. Their name is derived from the 1976 Robert Moore film of the same name. The band plays a range of music including instrumentals, rock and alt-country. They use electric cello to create a southern American, gothic sound with occasional western references.
Many songs use themes such as zombies, whiskey and the Devil which are unified into concept albums. For example, the band's second album Who Will Survive, And What Will Be Left Of Them? describes a story in which the Devil wages war against a small village in Mexico.
Murder by Death was formed in 2000 in Bloomington, Indiana, by guitarist Adam Turla, cellist Sarah Balliet, percussionist Alexander Schrodt, keyboardist Vincent Edwards, and bassist Matt Armstrong. One of the group's first shows was at the Channing-Murray Foundation's cafe The Red Herring in Urbana, Illinois, with former American Football drummer Steve Lamos' solo project DMS. In attendance was the head of the TEAM AV record label with which Lamos was working, who approached Turla and his bandmates after the show and offered his assistance in securing additional shows. Around the same time the band met Thursday vocalist, Geoff Rickly, when the two bands played on the same bill at a gig in their hometown of Bloomington. Rickly introduced the band, known at the time as Little Joe Gould, to his friend Alex Saavedra (owner of Eyeball Records), who also took an interest in the band.
When pianist Vincent Edwards left the band in 2004 in order to return to academia cellist Sarah Balliet took up keyboard duties as well as her cello playing. More touring was followed by a stint back at school, during which time the band wrote third album In Bocca Al Lupo, which was released in May 2006 on their own label Tent Show Records, an imprint of East West Records. Vocalist/guitarist Adam Turla described the records's inspiration as coming from "a basic idea—sin, in the Dante/Divine Comedy sense—and doing 12 songs that were very unique and about different people."The title is an Italian good luck wish, literally translating as "in the mouth of the wolf" and therefore a likely nod to the language and subject matter of Dante's epic poem, which Turla was reading during the writing of the album. The resultant record also resembles the 1976 murder mystery from which the band takes its name - a pastiche of bad deeds and of good intentions, heroism and forgiveness. Like its predecessor, In Bocca Al Lupo is a concept album, which also builds on the band's previous experimentations with unusual musical styles to include waltzes, jigs and gospel music. The songs are presented in the same spaghetti western theme as previous works, but Turla's vocals are sung in a new baritone range, which has been likened by many to that of country singer Johnny Cash. The album was well received and touring continued through the summer of 2006, including headlining shows supported by Langhorne Slim.