Mink’s Miracle Medicine

Formed in 2013 by songwriters Daniel Zezeski and Melissa Wright, Mink's Miracle Medicine was named after a craft-fair drawing of a snake-oil-sales-wagon.

After a decade in existence, Mink’s has expanded from a poem-proselytizing duo to an Americana collective caravan featuring the region’s strongest wingmen.

Mink’s continues to woo audiences, snake-oiling what a fans describe as “songs that feel like paintings” at venues like NPR’s Mountain Stage and Nashville’s legendary Bluebird Cafe.

For Mink’s, 2023 brings an expected LP release via WarHen Records, produced by Grammy Award-Winning Americana artist Chance McCoy.

PresS

“A shimmery work of melancholy modern country.” — Bandcamp

“...Lead singer Melissa Elizabeth Wright seems to draw from a deep, soulful reservoir as she sings...” — NPR Music

“...establishes Wright and Zezeski not just as talented and articulate, but smart enough to be willingly vulnerable in a genre that doesn't tend to reward legitimate emotions.”
— Noisey/VICE

"… fittingly trippy…” — American Songwriter

“These are definitely some of the most memorable songs I've heard in ages.” — No Depression

“Mink’s Miracle Medicine conjures thematic stanzas that hit on first listen with an explosive strength and vocal gallop that is Irresistible.” — Glide Magazine

“…hooky and uplifting, a tonic in these times.”
— Americana UK

WATCH

“Spots on the Sun”
live from the Shenandoah River

“At the fair”
by altamira film co.

“SPOTS ON THE SUN”
live from MOUNTAIN STAGE

“Break my body’s speed”
live from the bluff

Discography

Thumbs Up Angel
released October 2020 with WarHen Records

Fear--it can grab us by our fingernails and keep us in its vice grips. It can keep us from singing the song, from making the call. It can keep us from buying the motorcycle. Or releasing the album.

Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia duo Mink’s Miracle medicine navigated trepidation and wanderlust before deciding to release their latest sonic roadtrip, Thumbs Up Angel, out Friday, October 16 on WarHen Records.

Both Melissa Wright and Daniel Zezeski, who met seven years ago in the green room of a Hackensaw Boys show, have deep musical roots. After spending her high school years performing on the regional bluegrass circuit, Wright studied vocal performance at Berklee College of Music in Boston before moving back to West Virginia, where she now teaches guitar, piano, and voice lessons. Furniture maker Zezeski cut his teeth in punk and ska bands as a teenager in Scranton, PA, eventually leaving home to hop trains and ride the rails with his Epiphone Hummingbird guitar in tow.

After years on the highways of the South and Mid-Atlantic, three self-released records, and a recent connection with WarHen Records, the pair found themselves road worn, laid off, and broken down, humbled by the onset of a global pandemic, ongoing political unrest, and uncertainty of life as musicians. They settled in for the summer in their A-frame cabin in the woods of West Virginia, wondering whether their already-recorded album, Thumbs Up Angel, had a valid place in the current landscape.

Turns out that for these two, wondering is best accomplished while wandering. They took to the seats of their rumbling motorcycles, spinning through the trees of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the haunting battlefields of Antietam and Gettysburg to ruminate on their role as writers, creators, and musicians. “Ultimately, it’s not our job to decide whether or not our music is important,” says Wright. “It’s our job as writers to make music and put as much of ourselves into our art as humanly possible. It’s out for others to enjoy, and to hopefully inspire others to create their own works of art. That’s what’s important now.” Mink charged ahead with their October 16 release of a collection of songs that reflects back, looks forward, and recognizes the occasional value of getting sidetracked.

Support from fans in an early pre-order campaign helped to drive home the production of Thumbs Up Angel, their most collaborative album to date. Those who preordered have their names in the liner notes of the album alongside the musicians and artists who contributed to this effort: Pat Brier (drums), Matt Schimelfenig (bass, mixing and engineering), Lucy Cochran (fiddle), Rob Evans (mastering), Kelley Wills (artwork and design), and Rich Tarbell (photography). 

Thumbs Up Angel has been described by BandCamp as “...a shimmery work of melancholy modern country.” Mink’s Miracle Medicine is an evolving pursuit--a concept, a duo, a collaboration, a two-wheeled vehicle of musical expression that sparkles with intensity and fuels their sense of identity whether rolling down the open highway or pulled up for the winter.

— Anna Small Billman

Pyramid Theories, 2018

House of Candles, 2017

Countrypolitan the ep, 2015

Also featured on... The Bluegrass Situation, Twangville, AXS, Chunky Glasses, Destroy/Exist, Adobe and Teardrops, Im Music Mag, Dread Music Review, The Alternate Root.