Slide guitarist and State College native Jason Tutwiler does it all. He plays in four bands, gives guitar lessons to interested musicians in the area, and writes and records music. Tutwiler makes it look easy, but he takes his work to heart and has a passion for music and performing.
Tutwiler began playing guitar at 16; he grew up being influenced by music, specifically Alley Cat music in State College. His parents always had records playing in their house, from Muddy Waters to the Rolling Stones. It was not until Tutwiler saw one of his friends play guitar at a talent show that he realized that is what he wanted to do.
“I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do or who I wanted to be. I picked up the guitar and it felt like the most natural thing,” says Tutwiler.
Tutwiler took lessons from ages 16-19 from Jason Zarecky in State College. During high school, he had the opportunity to play at a few bars in downtown State College, even though he wasn’t of age yet. “I was about 17 and I started playing in bars. I would sit in with Mark Ross and his band. He waited until the place was packed and then he threw me into the wildness. It was really fun,” says Tutwiler.
After high school, Tutwiler attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, but he stayed only for a short time. As Tutwiler put it, there was “something about putting music in a school context, it lost its appeal and didn’t really jive. Playing in clubs around the country is where I found myself getting better as a musician. I think that’s the best way to improve as a musician.”
After living in Boston, Tutwiler came back to State College to reassess his goals in music. He then met Jason McIntyre and started the Rustlanders. Tutwiler spent five years touring all over the country with the Rustlanders and those years hold some of his fondest memories in his music career.
Currently, Tutwiler plays in four bands: Lemont, Pure Cane Sugar, Raven and the Wren, and Chris Rattie and the Brush Valley Rumblers. For the most part, Pure Cane Sugar is the steadiest performing band at the moment, playing every Saturday night in downtown State College.
Pure Cane Sugar writes and performs a lot of original music, but still plays cover songs when performing downtown. While Tutwiler agrees that some bands have to continuously play cover songs to survive in State College, he never pictured himself in a cover band.
“It’s just not what I want to do. It would be more like a job that I wouldn’t get any satisfaction out of,” says Tutwiler. “The songs that we cover with Pure Cane Sugar, we put our own arrangements and twists on those songs.”
When asked how the local music scene in State College has changed over the years, Tutwiler replies with, “It has changed. Whenever we started out, I feel like there was a push for original music and I feel like whenever I started playing, it was on the cusp. Now it’s more about cover bands and DJs. You can see it; everywhere you go on a Friday night around town, there’s a cover band.”
Tutwiler sees a bright future for the State College music scene, even though there will probably still be a high interest in cover bands. “There will always be those people writing original music; I think there will always be an outlet for people to perform their original music. I personally see the cover bands outweighing the interest in original music, but I feel like original music will always be present around here,” says Tutwiler.
Recently, Tutwiler has been trying to focus on writing his own music. He has written music in the past, but never lyrics, so he has been experimenting with that realm of music and writing. “All the best stuff I’ve ever done has been whenever I get up in the morning and pick up my guitar. It’s the first thing I do. You don’t have a bad day yet, you don’t have a good day yet; it’s as authentic as you can get to what’s really coming through. If you write at the end of the day and you have a bad day, you’re going to write something negative, so I always try to do it with a blank canvas.”
Tutwiler’s passion for music and playing the guitar doesn’t stop there. He sees the whole process of performing as a therapy that he cannot get enough of. “Just being able to express myself while playing. I look at it as exhaling; performing or writing, it’s just a way to exhale. It’s almost like a therapy to relieve stress before life comes back at you. Then you continue to play and exhale over and over again.”
Tutwiler will be playing at Karoondinha Music & Arts Festival at Penn’s Cave and Wildlife Park from July 21-23. You can also find Tutwiler playing in his favorite local venues, Elk Creek in Milheim and Zeno’s downtown.
