Nick Carpenter, Medium Build frontman (Courtesy Nick Carpenter)

Nick Carpenter, Medium Build frontman (Courtesy Nick Carpenter)

Soldotna free music series to debut Wednesday with band Medium Build

The band is the premiere main act of this summer’s free Levitt AMP Concert series

Anchorage-based project Medium Build hits the stage in Soldotna on Wednesday night as the premiere main act of this summer’s free Levitt AMP Concert series.

The event will also mark frontman Nick Carpenter’s first large performance on the central peninsula.

Medium Build’s music — which started taking off in Anchorage in 2016 — is a blend of ‘80s country, ’90s R&B and what the band describes as “grapefruit soda water.”

ADVERTISEMENT
0 seconds of 0 secondsVolume 0%
Press shift question mark to access a list of keyboard shortcuts
00:00
00:00
00:00
 

The band occasionally references and romanticizes life in Southcentral Alaska. In “Be Your Boy,” Carpenter asks a woman if she’ll love him if he moves back to the Valley — a nod, he said, to the Matanuska-Susitna area. In the song “Rabbit,” he comes to a relatively daunting realization at Flattop, one of the Glen Alps’ most visited peaks in Anchorage.

But Carpenter is actually a long way from home. The singer-songwriter is from Atlanta originally.

He moved to Anchorage for the first time in 2009 when he was 18 years old, following his older brother who took a fishing job in Alaska.

“Being from Georgia, I barely made it through the winter,” Carpenter said. “I think I made it to March; I didn’t know it was going to get way better.”

The pair lived in a hostel downtown, and walked to and from Moose’s Tooth to bus tables for work until they were able to get a car that winter. He left Alaska after about seven months, and headed back down south.

Five years of studying songwriting at a college in Nashville and finding his own sound later, Carpenter moved back to Anchorage permanently in 2016.

“Now my whole family’s here, which usually feeds into the myth that the Carpenters are from here,” he said. “But truly we are not.”

The frontman started singing and playing instruments in his church band and chorus, he said, and then dabbled in everything from Nashville-style pop country to indie. After moving back to Anchorage, he wasn’t sure how his music would be received.

“I didn’t really fit in in Anchorage,” Carpenter said. “All the kids were either like hardcore punk or folk bluegrass, so I showed up and started playing bummer indie. I guess my songs are just like folk songs, but I play with one electric guitar, so then people (were) kind of weirded out.”

But after finding a sound that worked — with inspiration from Radiohead, the Beatles, Kacey Musgraves, Billy Joel and others — his career really started to take hold, he said.

“It definitely didn’t work in Nashville but then here I was like, ‘Well no one’s going to like this,’” Carpenter said. “But then people did. They kept asking me to play again.”

He and his group performed as Medium Build for the first time in December 2016, a band name that actually started as an inside joke between Carpenter and a former girlfriend — who was a little offended after she asked how Carpenter would describe her and he first thought of her physical build.

Now Medium Build has played all over, from Alyeska’s Slush Cup Spring Carnival to NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert.

Carpenter will follow Nelson Kempf and Keeley Boyle at Soldotna Creek Park on Wednesday night. The free concerts will run 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. every Wednesday through Aug. 31.

A new Medium Build single is set to drop June 8, Carpenter’s first on a label, which can be found across listening platforms. Follow the band for more music and upcoming shows on Instagram and Spotify.

Reach reporter Camille Botello at camille.botello@peninsulaclarion.com.

More in News

Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Peter Micciche presents the findings of the Southcentral Mayors’ Energy Coalition during a luncheon hosted by the Kenai Chamber of Commerce in Kenai, Alaska, on Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (Jake Dye/Peninsula Clarion)
Micciche reports back on Southcentral Mayors’ Energy Coalition

The group calls importation of natural gas a necessity in the short-term.

Christine Cunningham, left, and Mary Bondurant, right, both members of the Kenai Bronze Bear Sculpture Working Group, stand for a photo with Kenai Mayor Brian Gabriel and a small model of the proposed sculpture during a luncheon hosted by the Kenai Chamber of Commerce in Kenai, Alaska, on Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (Jake Dye/Peninsula Clarion)
Model of bronze bears debuted as airport display project seeks continued funding

The sculpture, intended for the airport exterior, will feature a mother bear and two cubs.

The Kahtnuht’ana Duhdeldiht Campus on Thursday, Sept. 1, 2022, in Kenai, Alaska. (Jake Dye/Peninula Clarion)
State board approves Tułen Charter School

The Kenaitze Indian Tribe will be able to open their charter school this fall.

Alaska State Troopers logo.
Homer Middle School teacher arrested on charges of sexual assault and burglary

Charles Kent Rininger, 38, was arrested March 12 by Alaska State Troopers.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski raises her right hand to demonstrate the oath she took while answering a question about her responsibility to defend the U.S. Constitution during her annual address to the Alaska Legislature on March 18, 2025. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Empire)
Murkowski embraces many of Trump’s goals, but questions his methods

Senator addresses flood concerns, federal firings, Medicaid worries in annual speech to Legislature.

A researcher points out fragments of elodea found in the upper stretches of Crescent Creek caught on tree branches and down logs. (Emily Heale/Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association)
Homer conservation district feels impacts of federal funding freeze

Programs related to invasive species, habitat and trails, native plants and agriculture have all been negatively impacted.

Cemre Akgul of Turkey, center left, and Flokarta Hoxha of Kosovo, center right, stand for a photo with members of their host family, Casady and Patrick Herding, at the Kenai Chamber of Commerce and Visitor’s Center in Kenai, Alaska, on Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (Photo provided by Patrick Herding)
International students get the Alaska experience

Students to share their experiences visiting the Kenai Peninsula at a fundraiser dinner on Sunday.

Lisa Gabriel, left, watches as beach seine nets are pulled from the waters of Cook Inlet at a test site for the gear near Kenai, Alaska, on Tuesday, July 30, 2024. (Jake Dye/Peninsula Clarion)
Proposal to use beach seines in commercial fishery killed

The board amended the proposal to remove setnets from the east side setnet fishery before the motion failed 3-3.

An aerial photograph shows the area where the new Seward Cruise Ship Terminal will be constructed. (Screenshot/Seward Company image)
Work begins on new Seward cruise ship terminal

Work has begun at the site of the new cruise ship terminal… Continue reading

Most Read