Led by actor and comedian Ed Helms, the bluegrass outfit Lonesome Trio originated well before his rise to prominence on screen. Helms joined forces with Ian Riggs and Jacob Tilove during their student days at Oberlin College in Ohio, where Helms handled guitar, Riggs took up bass, and Tilove played mandolin, the three trading vocal duties under the name Weedkiller. They performed regularly while still enrolled and, after finishing their degrees, each relocated to New York City. The musicians resumed playing together there as well, sustaining the project amid the shifting demands of their professional lives, among them Helms’s ascent during the latter half of the 2000s. By 2013 the Lonesome Trio had become a more focused endeavor, beginning with an appearance at that summer’s Bonnaroo festival, an event that prompted the band to cut a record. Over the following two years they maintained a steady schedule of live shows, among them multiple returns to Bonnaroo and a slot at the Newport Folk Festival, before their self-titled debut album emerged on Sugar Hill Records in June 2015.
