Longtime friends Mitch Cutts, Jakob Ervin and Nic Haughn performed at Austin City Limits on Sunday in their folk band Richy Mitch & the Coal Miners. The band’s popularity increased this past year: their wistful hit “Evergreen” racked up nearly 750 million streams on Spotify. Ahead of their performance, The Daily Texan spoke with singer/songwriter Cutts and drummer Ervin about how they kept the band alive during college, their first time at ACL and their upcoming “October Moon” tour. 

DT: How did you guys work around school when you started making music? 

Mitch Cutts: We started writing music and recorded our first album (in high school) and then went to college. We had already caught the bug at that point — we would have already been making music if we had been together. So, I kept writing. We kept sending stuff back and forth over Google Drive, and then we’d get together over breaks. There’s that time from college after finals, where you just hit the pillow really hard. We would do that for a couple days, and then we would just make an album. It was how we would stay in touch. 

DT: It’s your first year at ACL. Do you have any goals for the experience?

MC: It’s so nice that there’s the two-weekend set up, because I’m basically (in) observation mode the first weekend and then on the second weekend I’m (in) ‘go crazy’ mode. I’ve never been to a fest that has that set up. It’s also great because maybe we’ll make some friends with some artists, or find secret spots in Austin. … We can’t wait. 

DT: You guys are gearing up for a big tour. Is there anything you’re excited for this tour that you’re going to try differently from previous tours?

Jakob Ervin: Yeah, there’s a lot that’s different on this tour. We upped our level of production, and obviously we’re playing some new songs, “October Moon” being one of them. We’re adding different instrumentation into the mix and having some fun with it. Our last headline tour was very bare-bones. It was us getting out there and learning how to play our music for 90 minutes. (Now) I think we have our feet a little more settled, and I feel more confident in what we’re doing.

MC: Totally agreed. We’ve had a lot of time to bond. We’d always been a recording band, so last year, in May, we played our first show together. Now that we have 100 or 120 shows under our belt, we all have such a chemistry, and we have a lot of room for improv and fun jamming (on stage). We’re trying to make every night special, especially playing with these bands that we get to play with. We’re gonna tear it up.