Armistead Wellford
On Thursday, Oct. 30, the band Armistead’s Armi marches to Northside Grille, with a spooky-themed song or two up its sleeve just in time for Halloween. Helmed by Armistead Wellford, a longtime Richmond and Athens, Georgia, musician, the indie group consists of performers from both cities’ music scenes.
Wellford plays guitar in the Armi, but his instrument of choice is bass. His musical resume is extensive: He first performed with longstanding alternative band Love Tractor 45 years ago as the Athens scene was gaining momentum.
“We got together in the summer of 1980,” Wellford says. “R.E.M. had started earlier that year.” R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe introduced Wellford to Mark Cline (with whom Wellford and third member Mike Richmond would launch Love Tractor) while they were all attending art school at the University of Georgia. “[The music world] was incestuous down there, because it was just a few bands — the B-52s, R.E.M. and us,” Wellford says.
Love Tractor released five albums that decade, including a self-titled effort in 1982, “Around the Bend” in 1983 and “This Ain’t No Outer Space Ship” in 1987. Drummer Bill Berry spent time with both R.E.M. and Love Tractor, more recently producing and playing on the Armi’s 2024 single “Turbulence of Love.” Another Athens-based group, Widespread Panic, penned the song “Love Tractor” in 1991 as a nod to the band.
“[The albums] were always in the top 10 on the college charts,” Wellford says. “We toured with the B-52s on their Cosmic Thing Tour, which was great. When ‘Love Shack’ became a hit, we went from theaters to huge places. We got to open for them at Radio City Music Hall.
“We’ve toured with New Order and The Psychedelic Furs and have played with Violent Femmes and 10,000 Maniacs — we’ve opened for them, and they’ve opened for us.”
The interconnectedness of the Athens music community is similar to that of Richmond’s music scene, including how it pertains to Wellford.
“‘Turbulence of Love’ was recorded in Athens with my Athens family of musicians — there’s the Armi in Athens, too, when I do shows down there,” he says. “I pieced together my family of musicians down there, started playing my songs and recording, and then I decided to start playing it up here and put together a band up here.” Armistead’s Armi includes Love Tractor alums bassist (and Richmond native) Andrew Carter and keyboardist and guitarist Doug Stanley.
“We’ve been playing music together for years, so it was a real honor when they joined up,” Wellford says. “It’s a family affair that way, the blend of Richmond musicians.”
Additionally, the Armi includes longtime Richmond musicians Charles and Sara Arthur, as well as drummer Todd Woodson, each of whom Wellford has performed with in the Richmond-based group NrG Krysys.
The Arthurs were part of Piedmont Souprize; the band was a Sunday night staple at the former Cafe Diem in Richmond’s Devil’s Triangle, on Sheppard Street where Buddy’s Place is today. Accompanying them in the group were drummer Johnny Hott, of Gutterball and Richmond’s House of Freaks; guitarist Stephen McCarthy, also of Gutterball and The Long Ryders; saxophonist Roger Carroll, who also regularly plays shows at Northside Grille; and trumpeter Scott Frock, who appeared on “Saturday Night Live” in 2017 backing Sturgill Simpson. Hott’s bandmate in House of Freaks was the late Bryan Harvey, a Richmond native who also joined up with Gutterball for their albums in the 1990s.
Wellford also played in Gutterball, and he reunited with those bandmates for two nights in August at Chilton House in Richmond. Hott and McCarthy took the stage with Wellford, along with lead singer Steve Wynn.
“It was just like riding a bike,” Wellford says, noting they also locally recorded an as yet unreleased Gutterball record. “We wrote and recorded it at the same time, but we usually got what we wanted within a couple of takes. It was really fun. All those guys are wonderful to work with.”
Wynn has crafted a solo career, as well as performing with bands like The Dream Syndicate and The Baseball Project. In a cyclical way, the latter also involves R.E.M. alums Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Scott McCaughey, as well as Wynn’s wife, Linda Pitmon. During The Baseball Project’s September show at The Broadberry, Mills dedicated the performance to Wellford, who was in attendance.
Music isn’t Wellford’s only discipline; he’s painted, he acted in productions including Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” and the Bill O’Reilly-produced TV series “Legends & Lies,” and he even ran the carriage program for weddings and private rides at Maymont. He can be spotted as a carriage driver in HBO’s “The Gilded Age.”
Wellford, a Richmond-based actor and musician, plays a carriage driver on the HBO series “The Gilded Age.”
Additionally, he took on the character of Armistead Spottswood as the host of “Midnight Frights,” a late-night show highlighting horror movies on PBS that aired from 2012 to 2018.
As for Armistead’s Armi, more than half the band gets to take the mic. “I sing, and Charles and Sara both sing,” Wellford says. “They do background, and Sara has a tremendous voice, so we have a part of the set where she sings, part where Charles sings, and then we all sing together. It’s half vocal, half instrumental.”
Fans will hear some Love Tractor songs at Northside Grille, part of an overarching Athens-esque sound Wellford aims for. “The music is a descendant of what we were doing in Athens,” Wellford says. “I always consider myself an Athens musician, even though I’m from Richmond. It’s its own sound. In Athens, none of us wanted to sound like each other, but we were all influenced by each other just because we couldn’t help it. We try to sound original and different.
“The Athens sound was more art bands, and their music was audible art,” he adds. “The music, with all the pieces together, was complex and complicated. [R.E.M. co-founder] Peter Buck and Curt Kirkwood from the Meat Puppets used to describe Love Tractor as ‘modern chamber music.’ Our first album was all instrumental and really shows that.”
It’s not lost on Wellford that the Oct. 30 show at Northside Grille is coinciding with All Hallows’ Eve, and he’s planning a setlist reflective of the season.
“We’ve never done anything for Halloween, but we’re going to do a few covers in celebration of Halloween,” Wellford says. “We’ll do something special.”
Armistead’s Armi performs at Northside Grille at 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 30.
