An all-gay string quartet with a name that’s an ever-so-slightly naughty play on words, Well-Strung have won over an amazingly wide range of audiences. In fact, U.S. embassies have taken the group overseas as official cultural ambassadors on tours of Russia, Türkiye, Bulgaria and Kazakhstan.
Maybe they’re popular because their fusion of classical instrumentation with contemporary pop (think “Paparazzi” mashed up with Vivaldi’s “Winter”) cuts across many demographic divides. The way each of them can stroke a bow and sing at the same time takes real performing chops. But maybe their popularity is because the guys are a charming mix of handsome, goofy and polished, as well as talented. They’re certainly photogenic. Violist Trevor Wadleigh and second violinist Christopher Marchant were dating when they appeared on the reality competition TV show The Amazing Race in 2018, though Marchant recently got engaged to another hottie.
Wander+Lust caught up with first violinist Edmund Bagnell and cellist Daniel Shevlin during one of the rare times they were both at home, Bagnell in upstate New York and Shevlin in New York City. We asked them about their travel habits, good and bad.
The band formed in 2012 in Provincetown, so you’ve been travelling together as a group for more than a decade now. How do you manage to get along while spending all that time together?
Shevlin: Proper preparation beforehand. Knowing our schedule, knowing where we have to be, how much time we have on our own and how much time we need to get to the venues. Good communication. I feel lucky that we are all good at adapting to change and rolling with things. I have more trouble with family than I do with these guys.
Bagnell: Like any good travel group, you come to realize everybody’s skills—aside from performing. So let’s say a flight’s delayed. Chris might be the one booking a new flight while another one of us is arranging the car rental and somebody else is figuring out what restaurant we can get food from in the meantime. We divvy up these tasks, which makes it manageable. Travel is the easy part. We always have a good time no matter which city we’re in.
Trevor Wadleigh and Christopher Marchant were on The Amazing Race. Are they always hurry, hurry, hurry, go, go go? Did being on the show make them cocky?
Shevlin: I’m sure they picked up some skills from being on the show.
Bagnell: We’d been touring a good bit before they went on the show, so I think being in Well-Strung was good preparation for them.
Shevlin: Their time on Amazing Race was fun for all of us, because we all watched together and had a watch party and things, but I don’t think their egos grew any more because they were on the show.
What are some of your rituals for feeling at home when you arrive at a new place?
Bagnell: More often than not, there’s never a ton of extra time. When we first get to a place, we’re all very precious about just getting to the hotel room and taking time to collect ourselves, even if it’s only for a half hour before we regroup for a show.
Shevlin: If we get to go to the hotel first, that’s always a luxury. Sometimes we have to go right into a sound check. In that case, it’s about familiarizing yourself with where you are and how to get to the stage, and then taking care of our sound because, you know, we’re music-based. It’s important to us to make sure we sound good.
Bagnell: After a show, we usually have a nice dinner together. We pick, oh, I don’t want to say unusual restaurants, but there might be a steakhouse in the suburbs—we like places with a little more personality.
What do you like about going back to Provincetown, where Well-Strung was founded?
Bagnell: I did not know what P-Town was before we went. “Is that, like, a gay place?” But P-Town is much more than a gay place. It really taps into the idea of a summertime getaway in New England. You know, lobster rolls and riding your bike and beaches. My favourite thing is the natural beauty of the cape. It’s so gorgeous.
What are some of your favourite places to visit as a group?
Shevlin: New Orleans is one of those cities we really love going to together. The history of the French Quarter—and the spookiness of it. It’s such a coming together of so many different cultures like Caribbean and French, and it’s so different from the rest of the United States or the world.
Bagnell: New Orleans is definitely on my list as well. Now, this is not one place, but my favourite type of tour is when we work with the U.S. embassy doing foreign performances. We’ve gone to Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Russia, and Istanbul, Türkiye. We went to Bulgaria and Kazakhstan last summer, as kinda musical ambassadors for the United States. We’ll do workshops, have local food, go sightseeing. I love those tours because we’re spreading U.S. culture and also learning about their cultures in a really, really cool way.
Do audiences abroad get all the pop-culture references?
Bagnell: People literally sing along in perfect English. The music is so pervasive. But it was interesting last year in Kazakhstan, people did not immediately clock us as being American. They were like, “Are you guys Russian or something?”
Shevlin: The Kazakhstan audiences were so into what we were doing. Americans have a very skewed idea what Kazakhstan is because of a certain movie. But it’s an amazing culture and just an amazing place to visit. We went to the top of a mountain outside the capital, Almaty, for lunch.
What other places have surprised you most?
Bagnell: Oh, Iowa. I mean that in a positive way, because maybe you’d think Midwest people might not be into what we’re doing, these New York guys coming in. I hate saying this, but they love us.
What’s a travel adventure where you’ve had to rise to a challenge?
Bagnell: It was for our first cruise ship gig and a major storm hit the East Coast. We were supposed to fly down to Miami, but that was clearly not going to happen. So we rented a van and drove from New York to Miami to make the cruise.
Has anyone thrown underwear at you while you’ve been on stage?
Shevlin: We’ve definitely received some interesting gifts—framed pictures and things like that.
Bagnell: Whenever we go to San Francisco, there’s this really nice man who always gives us rum balls, which are so good.
If you were a boy band, who’s which type? Who’s the wild one, the serious one?
Bagnell: That was easier to say maybe 10 years ago. Not to say that we don’t have our individual personalities on stage, but it’s a little less dry than the twink, the bear.
There must be one of you who is sillier than the others?
Bagnell: Silly is not the right word, but I would say that Daniel is very funny on stage.
Shevlin: here’s a bit of sarcasm, humour in how we deliver our lines in different ways. I feel like Trevor has great comic timing and delivery. Very dry.
Bagnell: I’m the earnest one.
Daniel, your cello is the biggest instrument. Do you get a workout carrying it around?
I’ve really developed the muscles for carrying it that I require. When we’re flying I have to check it, so I have this special flight case that wraps around the whole thing like a sarcophagus. So far it’s always come back to me in one piece, although there was one time recently when it missed our flight, but it was on the next one.
What’s your next adventure?
Bagnell: Currently we’re in talks with the embassy, but I don’t want to reveal where we’re going yet. There are some exciting locations we haven’t been to before.
Edmund Bagnall is doing a solo tour this summer and next performs in Cathedral City, California, on May 23.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
