Echoes In The Iron: Bill Arnold

A peek behind the curtain at the "Who" and the "Why"

Exhausted, a new mother hums sweetly to her newborn baby.

A family gathers around the kitchen table, celebrating the passing of another year as the candles are blown out on the cake.

Alone on a dance floor, newlyweds whisper their favorite song to each other as they slowly spin, hand in hand.

Hymns fill the air as friends and family dressed in black come together to say goodbye one last time.

Music is the thread that weaves together some of the most important moments in our lives.

It is a part of us.

The history of music is the history of humanity.

In the larger history of things, music as a commodity is a relatively new phenomenon.

Long before auto-tune, over-mixing, and algorithm-driven songwriting, music was passed from generation to generation around a campfire.

Music calmed. Music celebrated. It taught, it inspired, and music saved.

The limitless range of human emotion and experiences is perhaps only matched in its breadth and range by the infinite mixture of notes, rhythms, lyrics, and collective noises that is music.

My first experience with the music of Bill Arnold came in 2020.

That 2020.

I experienced the music before meeting the man.

And man, did it resonate with me.

"Don't Tell Me" was the first song of Bill's I heard.

It was the first thing that popped up on YouTube when I searched for him—a recording from the Green Room at 20 Front Street.

In a time when no one was right, no one was safe, no one knew what to do, and frankly, no one knew anything, Bill's words spoke to me.

Turns out, that's the thing with local, original music. It's a “for us, by us” sort of thing.

This isn't a studio A/B testing different sets of lyrics with a test group to see if the coveted 30–40 age group likes them.

This is showing up on your neighbor’s back porch with a six-pack and a guitar and saying, “Hey, what do you think about this?”

It's this music experience that drives Bill Arnold.

Bill has been playing music since his teen years. As the frontman for the band One Ton Trolley, he has graced stages around the country, bringing the unique “roots from the rustbelt” sound to eager audiences.

I've written about his accolades before. For magazines, for websites, for social media, and for shows.

There's no shortage of musical accomplishments, industry achievements, or people lining up to share their Bill Arnold stories.

What I haven't written about before is why Bill took a meeting with me last March and together we launched Echoes In The Iron.

To hear Bill tell it, there are three distinct experiences that shaped his evolution into the musician he is today.

The first, a bit of happenstance—out for the night in Ann Arbor, MI, he and his wife stumbled upon a show at The Ark, forever altering his view of what a concert could be.

It was the first time he realized that, hidden amongst the stadium shows, the sold-out tours, and the Ticketmaster millionaires, were places where songwriters could sing their own songs to appreciative audiences.

The second experience took place at a cabin in Northern Michigan.

Opening weekend of trout season, Bill reached out to the band Chasin’ Steel to see if he could get them to play a house concert.

Long story short, they did.

And it pulled back the curtain on the amazing connection musicians can have with their audience in the right setting and the life-changing experience that can be for everyone involved.

The newest—for now—was what brought Bill and me together years ago.

It was the emergence of a pop-up listening room just half a mile away from his home.

No fancy marketing, no neon signs, not even a stage. Just some of Michigan's finest songwriters on a stool in the corner of a coworking space and 40–50 people jammed into a 400-square-foot room.

On its own, it's really not all that remarkable.

What made it worthy of inclusion for Bill was the fact that this was happening right down the street from him in a town that wasn't known for live, local, original music.

Over the last few years, it has changed his relationship not only with music but with his community.

No longer was driving an hour or more to be able to put on an original show the only option. These shows he could walk to (or perhaps more importantly, for others… not Bill, walk home from).

The small room provided unique opportunities.

It was a place of intersections.

It provided a place where people could meet who might have no other overlaps or chances to meet in their lives outside of that room.

There are a few things that stick with me about Bill.

Not just as a musician, but as a person.

He is incredibly genuine. He is passionate. He is hardworking and exceptionally talented.

What might stand out the most to me, though, is that beneath the beard, the boots, and the general badassness—he is approachable.

It goes further than that, though—he actually wants to know his fans.

He wants to leave a show of 100 people with 100 new friends.

He wants to know your name. He wants to know your story. He wants to know why you came out to the show.

He wants to build a community.

He doesn't care how much money you make, what kind of car you drive, or who you voted for.

But that doesn't mean he doesn't care.

He's a man with a vision, with opinions, and he's a man with a mission.

He cares about using his talents and his platform to build people up, to comfort, and to inspire.

To shine a spotlight on untold stories and to be a part of building a society that is a little more “for us, by us” rather than “for them, by us.”

It's my hope that a few years from now, when Bill is interviewed about the experiences that shaped his music career, there is a fourth item mentioned: Echoes In The Iron.

Not because the project had some profound impact on his personal success as a musician.

But because through Echoes In The Iron, he got to see the profound impact that live, local, original music—his music—has on people and on communities and on society.

It's a project that has a lot of layers.

It's about history. It's about the future. It's about economics. And it's about revitalization. It's about travel and discovering new places.

But really, at its heart, when everything else is stripped away, Echoes In The Iron is a group of people sitting around the campfire and using the transformative power of music to inspire, to teach, to celebrate, to calm, and to save.

Behind the YouTube channels, the Instagram posts, the hashtags, and the Spotify playlists; when the platforms are banned and the content is scrubbed, the music will remain.

The story will continue.

And Bill, and the others he inspires along the way, will be there for all of us.

Just as they always have been, and, hopefully, always will be.