Forlorn Strangers, fronted by two BAHS grads, to perform Sept. 30 at Bel Air Armory

The band Forlorn Strangers, a Nashville, Tenn.-based quintet that includes two sisters from Bel Air among its members, will perform at the Bel Air Armory Sept. 30 to celebrate the release of their most recent album.The show is also meant to promote awareness of drug addiction, as Harford County remains in the grip of a deadly heroin scourge.Band member Abigail Dempsey, 23, said heroin addiction &quot;is a very real thing, and for some reason Harford County has a very big problem with it.&quot;Her older sister, Hannah, 25, founded the band while at Palm Beach Atlantic University in South Florida with her now-husband, Ben Lusk and Chris Banke. Bass player Jesse Thompson and Dempsey joined later.The Dempsey sisters grew up in the Brentwood Park community.Hannah Lusk describes the band's style as &quot;Americana roots music,&quot; a blend of folk, country, rock, pop and blues.&quot;It all kind of meets in the middle,&quot; she said Tuesday, noting all five members are songwriters.The band released its first full album, a self-titled record, Aug. 5. The concert at the Armory is an album release party and homecoming celebration for the Dempseys.&quot;We've had such wonderful support from the Bel Air community and Harford County,&quot; Lusk said. &quot;It's just going to be great – we're excited to play the Armory.&quot;Their song &quot;Whittle & Pare,&quot; inspired by Ben Lusk's father's experience of using prescription drugs to battle pain from fibromyalgia, will be part of their Sept. 30 set.&quot;It's about supporting people who are going through those hard times... a lot of people I know start on painkillers and become addicted to them,&quot; Dempsey said.Hannah Lusk said the &quot;intense&quot; drugs her husband's father was using &quot;make you check out.&quot; She said the song is about &quot;how to get back to wholeness and wrestling with why people have ailments in the first place.&quot;&quot;You're not alone, and your friends and family love you and they want better for you, and they wish they could take the pain away,&quot; she said of the song's core message.Many heroin addicts started down their destructive path when they were prescribed opioid medications.Dempsey, a 2011 graduate of Bel Air High School, said she does not have close friends who use heroin, but she hears about people she knows overdosing.&quot;Through the grapevine, you just hear of these young people throwing their lives away; it's really sad,&quot; she said.Hannah Lusk, who graduated from Bel Air High in 2008, said she did not know of anyone who did heroin when she was in school.&quot;I definitely think that it's gotten worse,&quot; she said. &quot;The numbers are staggering.&quot;Lusk and her band have performed at Harford County venues in the past, and she noted she is shocked each time she sees the sign outside the Harford County Sheriff's Office on Main Street in Bel Air, with the climbing tally of overdoses and overdose deaths.Her father, Doug Dempsey, is a longtime Harford County Public Schools teacher who teaches technology at Bel Air High. He spent about eight years as a guidance counselor at the school.&quot;I definitely remember hearing from him that addiction problems were escalating in the schools,&quot; Lusk said.Band members will perform &quot;Whittle & Pare&quot; during their set at the Armory, and they will talk briefly about local efforts to fight heroin addiction.&quot;It's really to highlight the issue,&quot; said Craig Ward, a co-founder of Slate Ridge Entertainment, which has been promoting the show.Ward, who is also the board president of the Bel Air Downtown Alliance, formed Slate Ridge two years ago with fellow Bel Air area resident Bob Mumby to bring bands from around the country to Harford County.&quot;The band has a great story, because they are two local girls, and they are really going places,&quot; Mumby said of Forlorn Strangers.Ward said Slate Ridge is working to bring more live music to the Armory, which seats about 250 people.&quot;This is certainly consistent with the goals that they have, just to get more people to come downtown,&quot; he said of the Downtown Alliance and Bel Air town officials.Visit http://www.slateridgemusic.com to purchase tickets for the Forlorn Strangers show.

Forlorn Strangers, fronted by two BAHS grads, to perform Sept. 30 at Bel Air Armory

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