BELFAST, Maine — When Chris Henderson was growing up, he used to spend a lot of time listening to the old, bronze-colored radio in his father’s Belfast art studio.
“It was through that radio and listening to music with my dad that I learned a lot about folk music and Americana and blues music,” the musician said recently.
The memory of that radio and the music it played holds so much significance for Henderson that the 30-year-old named his band Bronze Radio Return.
During the last couple of years, the group made up of fellow alumni from Hartford, Connecticut’s Hartt School of Music started to make a name for itself well beyond New England. This summer, the band performed at big-name festivals, such as Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza, and this fall, the group’s song “Further On” is featured in the Bill Murray film “St. Vincent.”
“In the last couple of years, we’ve seen that momentum build,” Henderson, lead singer and guitarist of the group, said. “It was kind of a slow burn. We pounded a lot of pavement and spent a lot of time in a van. It’s nice to see that traction catch.”
Denis Howard, music director for WERU-FM, said last week that Bronze Radio Return’s songs are often played on the station’s morning drive and nighttime rock shows.
“Teenagers to 30-somethings have played them,” he said. “I don’t know that everybody realized the local connection, and that makes it all the better.”
Midcoast music fans with long memories have likely heard Henderson play years ago. He started his first band with other local kids when he was still in elementary school and continued to be active in the area throughout high school. With Ben Block’s Big Bad Blues Band, he made music for rollicking dances at the Blue Goose in Northport and opened for Boston-based blues rockers Johnny Hoy and the Bluefish. Henderson’s first official instrument, though, was pretty humble.
“I wanted to play the drum set so bad, but in the system you start in fourth grade with the bell kit,” Henderson said. “You have to work your way up to the drum set.”
But he persevered, tackling the snare drum and then the drum set. By the time he was in high school, he knew he wanted to keep going with music — though not with music performance.
“I had a real interest in recording music,” Henderson said.
Although he needed to play an instrument to get into the Hartt School, once accepted to the program, his concentration was music production.
“I never, ever thought I would ever play in a band,” he said. “That’s the last thing I ever thought I’d be doing.”
During in his junior year of college, though, he was in a blues band and they were short a singer.
“I gave it a shot,” Henderson said.
The rest, as they say, is history. The six-man Bronze Radio Return formed in 2008 and produced its first self-titled extended play recording the same year. The band’s sound is both old-fashioned and very modern, thanks to the popularity of groups like Mumford & Sons.
“We picture it as rock infused with Americana with some roots music as a backbone, with folk and indie-rock textures,” Henderson said. “It’s a refreshing thing in mainstream music. People accepting these tunes that have harmonies and people strumming banjos and other fun stuff like that.”
The group had a slow beginning, with gigs so sparsely-attended they were playing some nights “literally to the bar staff,” Henderson said, but Bronze Radio Return eventually started to catch on.
“It’s been this awesomely slow-moving creature that’s been growing all the time,” he said. “Some bands have a song that takes off, and they almost become famous over night. Part of you thinks that’s incredible and you want that, but I would rather have the slow-going approach.”
More people started coming to their live shows. Then the band began to have success placing songs in commercials, TV shows and movies, with “Shake, Shake, Shake” featured in the international campaign for the Nissan Leaf.
“They’re definitely nice rent payers, that’s for sure,” Henderson said.
For about two years, band members have been able to live off their music and have not needed to hold down day jobs.
“It’s been a goal,” he said. “You can set a lot of goals to mark your achievements along the way.”
Bronze Radio Return’s next major goal will be the big push for its new album, which the group recently recorded at the Sonic Ranch Studio in Tornillo, Texas. It will be mastered in early 2015.
Another goal for Henderson and the band is to come back to midcoast Maine and play music here.
“The guys in the band fell in love with midcoast Maine,” he said.
And even though he has called Hartford home for more than a decade, Maine — and Belfast — will always be special to him.
“Maine plays a huge role in the path I’ve led, the life I’ve lived,” Henderson said. “Growing up in Belfast was amazing. I don’t think I realized how amazing until I left. Our town was a wonderfully supportive community. We had this cool, funky, artsy town with nobody saying you can’t do anything. And from that, I wanted to be a musician.”