Kristina Murray Interview

Georgia-born artist Kristina Murray has been a leading light in the underground East Nashville traditional country music scene for over a decade. From performing at the legendary dive joint downtown, Santas Bar, or being one of the earliest artists to perform at, and put Honky Tonk Tuesdays at The American Legion on the map, she has remained steadfastly true to country music. LITTLE BLUE is her third full album and will be released on the Normaltown/New West label on May 9th. Kristina worked with two producers on the record, Rachael Moore (Robert Plant, Hayes Carl, Alison Kraus, Bob Dylan) and Misa Arriaga (Kasey Musgraves, Lillie Mae, Joshua Hedley), and the album features many of her close friends from the East Nashville community. The saying ‘the cream always rises to the top’ comes to mind on multiple spins of our review copy of the album, which should result in a hugely wider profile and audience for one of the most authentic country vocalists and songwriters of the past decade.

You had the new album completed last year and were patiently waiting for the correct time to release it. Since then, Normaltown / New West have signed you, and it's due for release on May 9th.

A lot of patience, a lot of 'long time coming' stuff but I'm so glad to be with New West and Normaltown now. They're great folks and have an incredible artist roster and legacy, and I'm very happy to be a part of that family now.

What does getting signed mean to you having been an independent artist up to this point?

I don't come from money or have mommy and daddy wealth, which often has a lot to do with being able to pay for people to hear your music. Up to this point, I've been a DIY musician, basically doing everything myself. Previously, I would have had to pay out of my pocket for publicity, social marketing, help with digital streaming and radio promotion. That is all being done inhouse now by the label and with their reach, reputation, stamp of approval and history of excellent artists, hopefully that will get me beyond where previously I have been able to on my own.

You worked with two producers, Misa Arriaga and Rachael Moore, on the new record LITTLE BLUE. Was that by design or logistically?

Logistically. Misa had worked on the two cover tracks I did in 2021, and I had been chatting with him in 2022 about working with me on this record. I met Rachael through my boyfriend Cory, who, like Rachael, was working with T Bone Burnett. She came and saw me play with my band and said she'd love to do some tracks with me, had some studio time available in Muscle Shoals and asked if me and the band wanted to come and see what we could work out. So, I ended up having this group of songs I did with Rachel in Muscle Shoals that I thought were album-worthy, and I already had the tracks from the project with Misa. The two groups of songs just came together and were sonically cohesive and were able to become an album rather than two EPs. I had a little bit of luck as well as a little bit of calculation.

Where in Muscle Shoals did you record?

We recorded at a historic studio there called East Avalon Recorders; it's an old 1970s house studio. It was early February 2023, in the middle of winter, and my whole road band was free at the time, it was cool to get out of Nashville and do some recording there. We went down for two days and recorded for seven or eight hours each day, packed up and returned home.

The playing on the album is top-notch, and the musicians who contributed were a collection of your band members and close friends.

For my last full album, SOUTHERN AMBROSIA, I had amazing session musicians like Fred Eltringham, Kris Donegan, Rob McNelly and Michael Finne. I'm glad to have experienced that. I've been in Nashville for a long time now, and many of my friends played on this record, including Frank Rische, who sang on my last record; he plays guitar and sings on the new record. Eddy Dunlap plays pedal steel and my road band members James Mitchell is on guitar and Jonathan Beam on bass. Dominic Billet, who I first started playing with when I moved to Nashville, plays drums.

Given your history of playing downtown at Santas Bar and being one of the earlier artists to play at Honky Tonk Tuesdays and helping it become an institution, have you felt any resentment that other artists were signed to labels while you remained independent?

The short answer is yes, but a huge lesson for me is understanding that it is not all about the artist and the music; it is about the business. The business creates competition, there is no inherent competition in art. Making a career out of your art is a business and if you are not business minded, which I'm finding out that I have not been for the past twelve or fifteen years. Success is defined differently from person to person, and many deserving artists have incredible careers. I also see other artists and wonder why their music is so popular, maybe they have an incredible booking agent or just get signed to a label. I can't do anything about that except put my head down, keep writing, making good music and connections in my community and learning to be a better musician and writer in my own right and hope that the wonderful people who have championed me all these years continue to do so and continue to spread that gospel.

Were there times you felt like packing your bags and moving out of Nashville?

Living in Nashville as a musician is great, being able to go out and listen to live music and make connections with other artists is a huge bonus of living here, though I'm not sure if I would live in Nashville if I wasn't a musician. Like anyone who dedicated their life to this very difficult art form, you sometimes think about quitting. It's such a mountain of a thing to deal with, the tic-toking, the algorithms, Spotify; it's very heavy when all you want to do is continue writing and making good music, country music in my case. Wouldn't it be great if I could have a mortgage with that? That's not the case right now. It might sound corny, but I didn't come this far to only come this far; that is how I've been feeling for the last few years.

You stuck to your guns, playing and recording 'real' country music, as is the case with the new album LITTLE BLUE. Were you ever tempted to dumb it down and go in a more mainstream direction?

I'm never going to be a commercial country artist and I'm fine with that. What I hear on country radio is not for me at all, it's so far from the country music that I love and is almost indistinguishable from pop music. That's fine for people who like that music, but being a commercial country artist was never on the radar.

Your patience has paid off as classic country music is gaining popularity year on year.

There is a hunger for the country right now. For me, classic country is the 50s and 60s, true writing and that sonic sound of the fiddle, pedal steel or dobro. It's funny, when I think of 90s country these days, often being described as a classic country. Now people see Trisha Yearwood, Alan Jackson and Mark Chestnutt as classic country, whereas, for me, that was 90s country with its own sound. That sound is now in a renaissance with some of the newer acts like Zack Top, which I love because it means people are hungry for a more traditional sound and authenticity. Country music is having its moment now with even Beyonce and Post Malone bringing out country albums, but when that moment passes, and it will, I'll still be here making country music.

Over what period were the songs on LITLE BLUE written?

The oldest song on the record is the co-write with Logan Ledger, Get Down To It, which we wrote just before the pandemic. For my first two records, it was a case of recording the ten songs that I had at that time; luckily, they felt cohesive as a collection of songs. For this record, I could choose from a large collection of songs I had written over a five-year period. I was able to pick nine songs that are thematic and work well together, and it feels good right now because I have a head start on album number four, with a number of songs that were passed over for this record.

Is the album's title a reflection of your mindset at the time of writing?

Yes, you're spot on. There is a through line throughout the record of deep sadness like in the track Fool's Gold, when the music business was making me crazy and also Has Been, and Watchin' The World Pass Me By. You Got Me is a love song, and also sprinkled across other songs is a fight to find the light even though you might be experiencing a low-level depression, which I can honestly say happened.

Watchin' The World Pass Me By is obviously also autobiographical. It's not difficult to pick up the frustration in the song's lyrics.

I wrote that one as an exercise to myself to get things out of my system. I was trying to write a Waylon-type outlaw song, and it moved more toward the Texas songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker's direction. It ended up being very autobiographical; I was writing out of frustration and whoever I was mad with at the time, which seems so silly now.

Fool's Gold would have been a completely different song had it ended at three and a half minutes. The additional minute and the arrangement in that space are exceptional.

You're right; I'm so glad you said that because that, to me, is the standout track on the record, and I hope it gets recognised as that. The guitar playing, pedal steel, and piano on that track are great examples of how the melodic musical component complements the lyrical component. It was a magical moment when we heard how the track's ending all came together.

I also love Just A Little While Longer; it's classic country through and through.

Yes, Frank (Rische) sings on that one. That one with Frank and Fool's Gold with Erin Rae singing have some of my favourite vocal combinations. For me, the second verse of that song has some of my best vocal work. It is way down on the track listing, but for people who love listening to full albums, it's a hidden gem.

How difficult was the sequencing on the record?

Sequencing can be really tough; it's really an art form. We knew we wanted You Got Me and After Midnight Special near the top of the album. I also love the idea that the song You Got Me starts the record with the word 'and.' I love starting a whole album by bringing you in mid-sentence to the story I'm about to tell.

Phenix City tells a weighty story; is it based on fact or fiction?

It's a story song, not necessarily based on anyone I know. I was in this small town in Alabama when I got the idea and the hook line for the song. Although I wrote it about this small town in Alabama, it's very applicable to many small struggling towns in America right now. It's a sister song to Slow Kill from my last album, about desperation, hopelessness, and pervasive drug use, which is a huge part of American culture right now.

Your album launch show at Skinny Dennis in East Nashville takes place on the actual day that the album is released.

Why did I do that to myself? It's going to be a big blow-up party.

Will you get to Europe in the near future?

I had such a blast when I got over there last year and would love to get to Europe every year. I have been getting good traction with the singles from the album over there, and I hope that gets to the point where I can get back there.

Interview by Declan Culliton

Pug Johnson Interview

When we spoke with the Beaumont, Texas-born artist Pug Johnson in 2023, he had just released his debut album, THROWED OFF AND GLAD. That record found him checking in on his past with brutal honesty as he navigated himself through some personal adversity and prepared to move on. That moving on included Johnson and his wife Mindy selling their house, purchasing a motorhome and relocating to San Antonio. His new album, EL CABRON, released on the Break Maiden label and distributed by Thirty Tigers, plays out like an update on Johnson’s affairs and finds him abandoning some of the Southern Rock edges of his debut album in favour of a more country approach. The album straddles both the music Johnson was introduced to growing up alongside the influences of his current place of residence. The playful sensibility that featured heavily in his debut album has not been abandoned, and the album more than lives up to the promise of his earlier work.

It's been two years since we last spoke. You were moving to Hill County close to San Antonio at the time and buying a motorhome. Did that all happen?

Yes, we are north of Canyon Lake, about an hour further west than the last time when we spoke, and we're in the motorhome right now.

I presume your wife Mindy is still managing you.

Yes, she is sitting right here making sure I don't say anything stupid.

You have a record deal with Thirty Tigers now, which must be very helpful in advancing your career.

We reached out to a lady named M.J.McDonald, who has a boutique label that is aimed at young artists who are trying to get their first album out, which I  really didn't qualify for. She liked what I did with the first album, and she distributes through Thirty Tigers, who have taken a personal interest in me.

How helpful has that been? Has it raised your profile?

I'm getting much more press, and because of the record deal, I'm now with the international talent agency, UTA; one of their offices is in Nashville. That's how I've been getting these runs with Midland, Clint Black and Steve Earle. Everything has been just going up and up.

Your debut album, THROWED OFF AND GLAD, was credited to Pug Johnson and The Hounds. Your new album, EL CABRON, is simply Pug Johnson.

There was a bit of confusion, including the band name. People thought that The Hounds was a specific group of guys, whereas my band, although still called The Hounds, is a revolving group of characters when I'm playing with a band.

El Cabron translates into English as badass, dude or bastard. Is there something autobiographical in that title?

It is a little bit autobiographical; I've been called a bastard many times, but the title is also a blend of different characters that I admire. There is a nod to Hunter Thompson and Gus McCrea from the novel Lonesome Dove. Terry Allen's album, JUAREZ, was also a big inspiration. I had just found that album when I was starting to put my track list together for the album, and I realised I needed some more songs. Mindy and I were in South West Texas, where I am from, and we were moving further west, where you get a lot more Mexican and German culture and where a lot of the border music was born. The album mirrors the life moves that Mindy and I were making at that time; it's a continuation of where we are now, wrapped up in a kind of bullshit narrative since THROWED OFF AND GLAD.

There is less Southern Rock on this album than the last album.

Yes, it's more country and more based on the border music vibe. You also have a South Texas root thing where we dip into a little bit of Cajun music and a Swamp-poppy vibe with the song Believer.

I'm getting a real Memphis sound from that song Believer. Given that it's a romantic song, did you feel that the introduction of horns and a big production on the song suited that sentiment?

Yes, I write that song with the horn arrangement in mind. The song was going to have a lot of space in it, and I wanted to fill that space with some good horn parts. My guitarist and co-producer, Paul ‘Sweet P’ Walker, what he is playing on that track is wonderful.

How many sessions did you spend recording the album in the studios?

We tracked the bulk of the record in four days, and I had four or five other sessions where it was just me and my co-producers Ryan Johnson and sometimes (Paul) Sweet P (Walker) to touch up some guitar parts or lay a backing vocal. Ryan has worked with me on everything I have put out, and I found Sweet P over here after we had moved to the hill country area where we are now; he came to one of my gigs and sat in and played lead guitar with me. He can play almost anything and was able to find top-notch Austin musicians to play on the album. We also added some ancillary instruments by guys who couldn't make the sessions, but for the most part, it was tracked in that four-day window.

It plays out like a confessional lifestyle update for me. Songs like Last Call and Change Myself Today suggest moving away from an edgier lifestyle and settling into a more relaxed lifestyle.

That is true, but I'm personally actually less relaxed now than when I was putting out THROWED OFF AND GLAD because my career has got a bit of momentum to it now, whereas when we put the last album out, I didn't have very much going on. I haven't yet had a huge amount of success, but the demands are going higher.

The 'tears in your beer' Hole In Me is a regular honky tonker, and you include a cover of Moon Mullican's Pipeliner Blues.

You have to have at least one honky tonker on a country album, and that is Hole In Me on this album. I learned Pipeliner Blues from Johnny Bush's album GREEN SNAKES. My dad had that album when I was a kid, and when he would come home from work and wanted to dip into the whiskey a little bit, he would put that album on. Dad has a certain dance that he does with a whiskey glass in his left hand, and his right-hand points a pistol finger out. That is a memory from my childhood, and I always want to tip my hat in the direction of people who are not that well known or maybe are forgotten about. Pipeliner Blues has a driving, smoking-hot rockabilly beat. That was done live in the studio with everybody in the same room, Caleb Melo, who played the pedal steel, just tore it in the studio.

Are you nervous about the album's release and how it will be received?

Absolutely, the album might take off or do nothing whatsoever, and I don't know which one scares me more.

You are returning to Nashville later in the month for shows at The Basement and 3rd and Lindsley. Are some of your friends still down there, or, like you, have they moved?

Most of the guys I hooked up with when I was there are still in Nashville. One of my buddies is a tech for Kane Brown and has been working with Travis Tritt for a while, and another buddy is playing bass for Hailey Whitters. I'm the fool that came back home and didn't want to stick around (laughs).

Interview by Declan Culliton. Photograph by Lyza Renee.

Dean Owens Interview

Since we last spoke with him almost three years ago, Edinburgh-born Dean Owens has not let the grass grow under his feet. At that time, he had released SINNER’S SHRINE, a collaboration with Joey Burns and John Convertino of Calexico. His latest album, SPIRIT RIDGE, was also born out of Owen’s love of travel and experimentation. Having encountered the desert sands and burning skies of Tucson, Arizona, for SINNER’S SHRINE, he ventured to the hills of Emilia Romagna in Italy, the land of his ancestors, where he worked with producer and band leader Sacri Couri, Don Antonio, to record SPIRIT RIDGE. It was an inspired chapter in Owens’ globetrotting career, as he explained to us when we recently chatted with him.

How did you end up recording your latest album, SPIRIT RIDGE, in Italy?

I had been introduced to the producer Don Antonio by John Convertino from Calexico. One night John and I had been talking about Italian heritage and I remembered this Italian band that Calexico had done some work with called Sacri Couri. I had one of their albums and was asking John about those guys, he knew Don Antonio, made the introduction and the next thing was I was invited out to the studio in Italy where Antonio works. When I went out there on my first trip, I discovered that it was the area that my ancestors had come from. Antonio had recently lost his mother and my mother was poorly at the time and it got me thinking about my own life now that I’m in my fifties, not necessarily consciously but a lot of SPIRIT RIDGE reflects the move from the city to the country for me and my wife. I was born and bred in Edinburgh and we moved out to the Scottish border a few years ago where there is a lot more nature, wild life and solitude. For me it is a very spiritual record without being in any way religious.

There are parallels to be drawn between your work with Don Antonio and previously with Calexico.

I think so, we are all probably digging in the same hole. I got a connection listening to Don Antonio’s band Sacre Couri’s instrumental records there is a strong cinematic landscape to them similar to Calexico. I have been drawn to that sound for many years and was lucky enough to work with Calexico, one of my all-time favourite bands. To then find Antonio and discover that we had strong musical connections was a real added bonus. He is seeped in and has such knowledge of American music and has worked with a lot of American artists.

Your great-great- grandfather was a lion tamer in that part of Italy which reads like something out of a John Irving novel. Were you aware of this prior to going to Italy?

Yes. There is an album of mine called INTO THE SEA where I sing about my grandmother who came from a circus family. The circus was called Salvona Circus started by my great-great-grandfather; a lion tamer named Ambrose Salvona. There has been a similar thread of family on all my records since INTO THE SEA. In my early days doing music and in interviews when I started to get a little bit of success people would ask if any of my family were in the arts. I would have to say no, I knew my granny liked to sing but that was as far as the arts went in my family as far as I knew. It wasn’t until I made that album that I started to research the family tree that I discovered that I come from all these freaks and circus acts, it’s hilarious. One of my ancestors was a clown, one was a lion tamer, I think I fall somewhere in the middle.

You followed the same pattern with SPIRIT RIDGE as your previous record SINNER’S SHRINE by releasing a trilogy of EPs prior to launching the album. Was this simply a case of having recorded so much material for both albums?

It’s simply that. THE DESERT TRILOGY seemed to go down so well, I just had so much material. When you’re making a record, it is really hard, I usually start off with about thirty songs and then whittle it down to the ones that we are going to record, which is usually fifteen or sixteen. For SPIRIT RIDGE, myself and Antonio picked the ones that we felt sat nicely together. But then there were the other songs that I loved and felt that since THE DESERT TRILOGY worked why not try the trilogy option again. People seem to like it; it includes stuff that’s not going to be on the album plus a little taster of what is to come. There is always a big wait between recording and putting the album out and it’s like little flares that you put up to let people know that I’m still here and it works well as a model for me. I’ve noticed that quite a few other artists are doing the same nowadays.

Travel and displacement appear to be a regular feature in your writing and recording.

Yes, its probably in my DNA, the traveller and the troubadour, I love travelling. When I meet people and they say ‘you must come and visit me or work with me,’ I always warn them that I will actually come. That’s how I ended up working with Will Kimbrough, the guys from The Mavericks and Calexico.  I try to say ‘yes’ to most opportunities and I also like being displaced. It helps to keep me focused. When I’m working on an album I tend to go away for three or four days at some point and be in a cabin or somewhere like that and write songs. I could easily do that here at home but there are distractions, everyday things. Whereas if you go and isolate yourself its easier to stay focused.

Had you written and finished the songs for SPIRIT RIDGE prior to going to Italy for the recordings or was the writing influenced by your time spent there?

The simplest things can inspire me. When I knew I was going over to Italy the first time just to look at the place, Antonio sent me a link to Cranile Studio, which is a six-hundred-year-old farmhouse that sits up on a hill. Crinale means ridge in Italian and I was looking at its website and there was a beautiful photograph on the website. Within in a few minutes I had this song written called On The Ridge, which ended up on one of the trilogy EPs. Antonio is very much rooted to that area, Emilia Romagna, and when I went out to Italy on the recognisance trip and one of his friends said something to me that really stuck. I was trying to arrange a meeting with a mutual friend in Bologna and his friend said ‘I don’t think you will be able to get Antonio away from his beloved hills.’ Bingo, I had another song title, My Beloved Hills. Things just seemed to be falling into my lap. I got a line from graffiti on a wall outside Bologna, it may be from a poem, it just said ‘free the spirit, let it go.’ I jotted it down in my notebook and it found its way in the song My Beloved Hills. Its amazing, the tiniest things that can inspire a song. You just have to keep your antenna up all the time.

Lyrics aside, did Antonio inspire the musical content for the album.

Yes. Antonio runs the show in that studio, it is full of his Italian analog instruments and recording gear. When I was going to work with Calexico in Tucson, I knew exactly what sound I was going for, that’s why I was there. Working with Antonio there were a lot more colours to choose from, it was endless, I would not have been able to do it without him. I generally credit myself with the production on my records but with this one it was very much a co-production; Antonio carried a lot of the weight.

You ended up with Antonio’s players on the album, was that intended?

No, when I went on my first trip there, to my surprise, Antonio had a couple of his musician friends there, who ended up playing on the album. They just happened to be there working in the studio and Antonio suggested we just have a little jam. I’m not really a jamming kind of guy but we went into the studio room and the drummer Piero Perelli and the guitar player Luca Giovacchini was there. We started to jam and it felt really good instantly and I knew after a few songs that it was exactly where I needed to make a record.

Given the location, music aside, I can visualise evenings outdoors feasting on wild boar, rabbit and local cheeses accompanied by generous amounts of red wine.

Antonio’s family have a vineyard and I was only there about twenty minutes when red wine and cheeses appeared. Even during the recording sessions Antonio would say ‘Do you mind if a few friends come around this evening, we’ll still be recording. ‘It ended up that there was about thirty people around, there was a long table and everybody brought food. There was all this cooking and a great family gathering atmosphere created just outside the studio. Antonio and I were still recording and slipping out for some wine, it really felt as if I was been welcomed into a family. It was certainly a different experience to any other recording experience that I have had.

My favourite song on the album, My Beloved Hills, which you previously referred to, has a noticeable family theme running through it.

Yes, and it has taken on a different meaning and dimension for me now. There is a line in it ‘I can hear my mother, her voice in the wind,’ which I had written thinking of Antonio’s family. Since I recorded it, my mother passed away last September so when I sing it now, it has a completely different meaning for me.

Tame The Lion is obviously directed towards your great-great-grandfather.

My father worked up in the highlands for many years, he was a civil engineer and the company he worked for built one of the main roads through Scotland, the A9. He was up in the Inverness area for three or four years and we used to visit him when he was working there. I used to roam the hills when I was there and it turned out that Ambrose Savona spent the days of his last years there and that is where he is buried. Whether you are walking in the highlands of Scotland or in the hills of Emilia Romagna, you may be walking with the ghosts of your ancestors, without even knowing it.

You went all funky on Burn It All. That caught me on the hop, it wasn’t what I had expected.

It wasn’t what I had expected either. That one was contentious as to whether or not it would make the album because it felt like such a curve ball. When we started working on that song and playing it that is just how the guys fell in, I think the recording is the first time we played it and for me it had a little bit of The Stones’ Miss You in it. Since it has come out a number of people have mentioned The Average White Band and that Scottish connection, so it is the ‘very’ Average White Band. It’s quite nice to throw a little grenade into an album to mix it up a wee bit.

I actually got a Scottish vibe with Light This World. For some reason, for me, it sounded that it would not be out of place on the Trainspotting soundtrack.

That’s really funny, I’ll make sure I send that to Irving Welsh, we’re good pals and he has been very supportive of me and my music. That song was inspired by a lot of my favourite records when I was younger. Albums like The Waterboys’ THIS IS THE SEA which for me was very spiritual and I was trying to get across that ethereal quality with that song like The Waterboys and Talk Talk, on their later albums. Another connection with Antonio and me is that we are huge Mark Hollis fans, and other points that we connected on were Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen and Tom Waits.

Interview by Declan Culliton

Blake Brown (of Blake Brown and the American Dust Choir) Interview

SHOW ME THE LIGHT, the second full-length album by Blake Brown and The American Dust Choir, was, in the main, written during the pandemic when Brown, his wife and their young daughter were holed up in Nashville, having moved to that city just before the arrival of Covid to start a new life there. The uncertainty of those times is reflected in the guitar-driven material on the album. Produced by Grammy-nominated Chris Frenchie Smith (Meat Puppets, The Toadies, Lost Bayou Ramblers), it embraces the 80s and 90s music that stimulated Brown as a music lover and set him on his professional artistic career. Currently living in his home state of Texas, Blake recently spoke with us about his early career, the move to Nashville and the factors that brought about his latest project.

Early musical influences?

The Beatles are, to this day, my favourite band. I love The Beach Boys and music like that out of California. I'm a child of the late '80s and '90s, so Nirvana would be very much up there, and The Cure would be one of my favourite bands of all time, Elliott Smith and The Clash, too. I also really love big and heavy productions, and I have really come to appreciate the art in that. Every month, I try to decide on my five favourite records of all time, and it always seems to shift, but U2's JOSHUA TREE is always in there.

What was your artistic background prior to starting your current band?

I grew up in West Texas and moved two States north to Colorado. I was learning to play the guitar, and with that came forming my early bands. There were a lot of punk rock influences and teen angst in those early days but as my palate started to open up, I became more interested in the softer side of things and more indie-oriented bands more so than straight forward punk rock. In the early 2000s, bands like The Strokes, Spoon, and Queens of The Stone Age influenced me. I was living in New York City at the time and writing these stripped-down and pretty intimate songs, but I always had a larger vision of putting a guitar part or a drum pattern to them.

When reviewing your latest album, SHOW ME THE LIGHT, I made a comparison to early Son Volt.

I actually played with Son Volt about five years ago. We did a Christmas Eve show with them. I also recorded with Ken Coomer, who was in Uncle Tupelo with Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy.

Was your band name was influenced by Son Volt's album AMERICAN CENTRAL DUST?

No, this is how it came about. I was in a band called Bare Bones. That band intended to be very stripped-down, acoustically oriented music. I was the primary songwriter but didn't want to put the band under my name. There was a band called Horse Feathers around that time, and our very first show was with them. We did a nice run of shows with them, and then our drummer bowed out and moved away, so I thought that if I'm going to have a project where I am the primary songwriter for better or worse, I'm going to have my name attached to it. If I show up with one guitar and myself or five other people, the songs are the same, whether stripped down or full band setting. I had run the gamut with the musical spectrum, been there and done that, and I wanted to pay homage to some of my influences. There is that tie back to the Son Volt record or that kind of music, and I wanted to name the band Blake Brown and The American Dust, blank. My bass player suggested 'choir', and I always loved the word 'choir' and thought it was a little misleading in a way. I thought it sounded cool and a little bit mysterious.

When writing material, are you conscious that the songs will be performed live, both solo and with a band?

It is important to me, but I don't hang my hat on it. On some of my early recordings like my second EP, TURNING TIDES, there is a song, Hanging On A Wire, that is very bass and drums-driven but was written on acoustic guitar. I do perform a lot solo and with my wife, but I love the full band setting; it goes back to my punk rock roots and that sense of comradery. So, I often write with a band in mind, but I am also aware that I will usually have to pull it off solo.

I'm very fortunate to have a strong relationship with some great players for my band, guys who know the songs. There is a different chemistry between your hired guns and buddies that you've grown up with.

You are back living in Austin, Texas, after spending time in Nashville. What drew you to Music City?

I was there for two years. My wife and I owned a home in Colorado, and right before the pandemic we had sold our house with the intention of moving to Nashville, we had toured through there plenty of times and had friends out there. I signed a new management deal with a team there during Covid and when things started to calm down, they facilitated the relationship with Ken Coomer. The South was slightly different from other parts of the country when it came to Covid. We have a daughter who is five years old now, and at that time, the little ones were the last to get vaccines, so we were playing it very safe, not doing shows and staying under the radar to keep her safe and healthy. The world has moved on since then but it was such a dark time then, we were in Nashville, a new management team' working with Ken Coomer on a new record. We should have been blossoming, but it didn't feel like that at all. There weren't many answers around the Covid pandemic at that time. Nashville is quaint, easy to get around and has cute neighbourhoods; it's a great town. In hindsight, being a parent and adhering to my career aspirations as a musician during our time there was challenging. There weren't a lot of parents in the music scene with whom I was directly involved. I was my daughter's primary caretaker, a forty-something-year-old man hanging out with a little baby, writing sad bastard songs (laughs); it does not get any darker than that. I made the record x there and did other music business stuff but I still have family in Austin and it made sense to move back here.

What comparisons do you draw between 2018's LONG WAY HOME and your latest album, SHOW ME THE LIGHT?

I think my songwriting has grown, I tend to integrate a lot of my own experiences more in my writing and the new record is the most experimental one that I have done, I call it a headphones record. A gentleman named Joe Richmond helped me produce LONG WAY HOME, and Chris Frenchie Smith. Produced SHOW ME THE LIGHT. With due respect to both parties, that was more of a relationship for me with Frenchie. I felt more at home, and we were able to take our time with the recording and as a songwriter, the gift of time is huge. Even when I recorded with Ken Coomer in Nashville, we started at 10 am on Monday and finished at midnight on Sunday; that was it. Everything on the new album was recorded in the studio, there was no remote work. We laid down all the scratch tracks on acoustic guitar, dissected and analysed them as we went along from there. There was never a full band environment, but I did play along with the drummer on certain takes.

Light is a recurring theme in the new album. It's referenced in the title track, Turn On The Lights, Darkest Hollows, and North Star. Was this intentional?

I'm not sure if it is coincidental; I was living in Nashville when I wrote a lot of this record. I still remember writing the song Darkest Hollows on my back porch outside. There was a lot of darkness surrounding the songwriting process. A thematic element or thread comes out in the songwriting. A woman, who was a palm reader, came up to me after a show and said to me that almost all of my songs in the set had mentioned hands. I didn't realise that theme in my songs. It was a very dark time when I was writing these songs, and I had no idea what the record would be called when I was working on it, but I eventually felt that SHOW ME THE LIGHT was the right title as it was created at a time of darkness.

Will you be performing at the SXSW Festival in Austin this year?

Hopefully, I'm working on it; we'll see how that goes.   I've played the festival officially and unofficially over the years. There are lots of festivals all over the country, but being from Texas, there is a sense of pride and validation being booked for the festival.

What advice would you give to a younger artist starting their career?

I've been doing this for a long time, and the main thing is finding the right management partnerships on the business side. Write, write, write, exercise that muscle, and develop your voice, but essentially, you have to do it for the love of it and do what your heart is telling you.

And your own survival kit?

For me, it's a box full of my favourite records/record player, a guitar and notebook, and, of course, my family. Maybe some good food and drink too!

Interview by Declan Culliton

Liv Greene Interview

The greatest pleasure for us at Lonesome Highway is discovering new artists, previously unknown to us, who are creating outstanding art. The find of 2024, for this writer, is Liv Greene, a young Nashville-based artist. On her recently released sophomore album, DEEP FEELER, recorded at Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ Woodland Studios in East Nashville, Greene tackles personal emotional wreckage head-on across several strikingly evocative songs. Self-produced and with Gillian and David’s ‘go-to’ man Matt Andrews as engineer, Greene’s vocals perfectly reflect the songs’ theme, supported by understated instrumentation that complements and enhances the songs rather than dominating them. Making music that blends folk and country elements, DEEP FEELER is likely to enhance Greene’s already lofty reputation as one of the standout emerging artists in the burgeoning East Nashville music community.

You're living in Nashville now, having been raised in Washington, D.C.

Yes, I grew up in Washington, D.C., moved to Boston for college, and found my way to Nashville about three years ago.

Why Nashville?

Growing up, a lot of my New England folk scene was either in Boston or Brooklyn, and a lot of my mentors had moved to Nashville. I knew Nashville was the place to go for me from a young age; it's relatively affordable and a beautiful place to be, a great community and the chance to collaborate with people in that community.

Did you get a grounding in roots music growing up?

Neither of my parents are musicians, but they were huge music lovers and Americana fans. They would go to shows and bring home the CDs of the headline acts and the support acts, so there was lots of great Americana music from the late 1990s and early 2000s, which was the soundtrack of my childhood. As a pre-teen, I think I rebelled against my parent's music, but I was quick to circle back to those roots, and some of the first songs I learned on the guitar were Patty Griffin songs because the strumming patterns were so distinct and easy to pick up rheumatically.

Was songwriting a means of expressing yourself at an early age?

Yes, I think when I was younger, it was a way to express myself, but more recently, it has become more confessional and more of a processing tool. I started writing songs when I was ten, and when I started playing the guitar at eleven or twelve, it really took off from there.

You attended Catholic schools prior to boarding in an arts school in Northern Michigan. Was that switch from a conservative education to a more liberal one a factor in your decision to pursue a career in music?

Totally. I went to a catholic elementary school for most of my childhood and for high school, an all-girls catholic school. I then ended up going to an art school for my senior year in Michigan; that was such a formative time, the first time being around 'out' queer people, which was important for my development to be in a place that was accepting and supportive. It was a big culture shock because I could only play guitar at my catholic school through music ministry, basically the mass parts and the songs for communion. That year at art school was liberating and formative, and it helped me decide that music was something I wanted to pursue as a career.

Getting signed to Free Dirt Records at an early age must have been fulfilling for you.

It was. I just started working with them on the DEEP FEELER record. I had been a fan of the label since high school; I remember finding Rachel Baiman's debut record on Free Dirt. They were on my radar because of the many great projects that they were putting out. They reached out to me two years ago and asked if I had anything that I was sitting on. It worked out from there; it's really cool that they are a hometown record label from Washington, D.C., where I grew up, and one of their slogans is 'making a living, not a killing.'

You released your debut album, EVERY BRIGHT PENNY, just as Covid changed the world.

Yes, early May 2020. Not the best time. I had just graduated from college, and that record was like a time capsule of my New England folk scene and coming of age as a musician. It didn't get out as widely as I had hoped, but I'm grateful for how things have worked out. I took the next few years out to incubate more as a writer. During the lockdown, my restaurant job was shuttered, and with a pandemic unemployment payment, I had more money than ever, and I just sat and wrote songs. Not everybody had the same experience during Covid, but for me, it was an incubator for personal growth and self-discovery and resulted in this record.

You hired the legendary Matt Andrews to engineer the new album, DEEP FEELER. What drew you to him?

I grew up listening to Gillian Welch and the O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? soundtrack. Matt Andrews, one of the engineers on that record, was Gillian and David Rawlings' main guy. I had been a fan of how intimate those recordings feel, and that was the main draw to Andrew; he's brilliant; he's like a filmmaker in the way that he can create an intimate picture; you feel that you are in the room with the artist. I learned a lot about performing from those Gillian Welch and David Rawlings recordings when I was in high school and college; it feels like a master class listening to them, and so much of that comes down to the engineering. He's a two-time Grammy winner, and I never dreamed I would get to work with someone like that.

The icing on the cake was recording the album at Woodland Studios, which few people get to do these days.

It is really just Matt, Gillian and Dave's space. I got really lucky; my friend Jack Schneider introduced me to Matt Andrews. When the roof was blown off Woodland Studios during the tornado, Studio A was the part that was affected. Matt's room, off to the side of Studio A, became a storage area filled with organs, amps and different gear from the main studio while they were fixing the roof. Because of that, the studio wasn't technically operational, and there was this long period of time when Matt wasn't too busy because the roof was being repaired. We tracked the record surrounded by all of the gear from Studio A, and that downtime during the construction work made the recording possible.

The production, which you took on yourself, is superb, very understated and anything but overcooked.

I credit a lot of it to watching Isa Burke from the band Lula Wiles; she now plays with Aoife O Donovan and The Mountain Goats. She produced my first record, EVERY BRIGHT PENNY. She is a few years older than me and was like a big sister and mentor to me in the New England folk scene. Watching her produce my first record was like watching your sister jump off a diving board; you feel you can do it too. She invited me into her process of producing that record, hiring the right people to work with and letting the songs lead the production. On this new record, when I would get weary, Matt helped co-produce a couple of the songs, helped me get objectivity back, and was patient with me when things did not land as I expected. The sparseness on the record can be blamed on the tape (laughs); it wasn't like we could record a bunch of stuff and comp it; the recordings were happening live, so it was a pretty intense and hyper-focused practice to add an instrument to a track because the person would have to pretty much nail it. It was really a practice in restraint recording to tape, and all those things together led to being voice forward, and Matt is great with having voice and guitar at the centre of everything.

You had a host of household names in the studio, including Dominic Billett, Sarah Jarosz, Mike Robinson, Jack Schneider, Elise Leavy, Emily Leavy, Christian Sedelmyer, Sean Szoch, Hazel Royer and Jordan Tice. Were they your choices?

They were ninety-nine per cent of my choices, but I went to Matt for his thoughts. My friend Jack Sneider was co-executive producer and he wrapped my head around the logistics and budgeting for the recording, I get overwhelmed and scared and become paralysed and he was the train that helped to keep me on track.   

Over what period were the songs recorded?

The project did go on and on. We started in May 2022 and wrapped up in August 2023. It was done in little bursts because I had to save up to afford to get back into the studio and get the musicians on board.

Does the album title, DEEP FEELER, accurately describe Liv Greene?

Definitely, it's a little anthem of sensitivity.

There is a lot of hardship and break up on the record. Is it all autobiographical?

For the most part, there are one or two songs that I borrowed from other people, but otherwise, it is about my own life from age twenty-one to twenty-four. I'm glad to have written a breakup album. They get a lot of flak, but they are some of my absolute favourite records of recent years, like Courtney Marie Andrews' OLD FLOWERS.

Is it easier for you to write about those issues than discuss them?

Totally, when I'm in a good writing place, it is easier to write about my emotions, but If I'm not keeping the pen moving, I can be over-critical of myself to be productive therapeutically. The songs on this record came from a season when I was writing so much and had a lot of time with myself, which led to a lot of self-growth. I'm hoping to get back to a season again soon where writing becomes more like muscle memory and therapy; I'm really interested to see what that yields.

'I've got a dream that's too damn big, I'm got my work to do,' is a line from the song, I've Got My Work To Do. What is the dream?

The dream is just to have a life where my art can support me financially, keep making records, and hopefully, it will get easier and easier. It seems impossible these days, with streaming being so unjust and touring being so difficult financially.

Tell me the background of Wild Geese, one of my favourite songs on the record.

That was one of the first songs I wrote when I got to Nashville. It was springtime, and I was really enamoured by the Mary Oliver poem of the same name about self-compassion and allowing yourself to make mistakes, be flawed, and not always have to be perfect. I was holding that sentiment, struggling with bad habits, and investing my love in the wrong places with people who were wrong for me. So, it's just a little self-compassion song written at a moment of being really fed up with myself.

You sign off with the song I Can Be Grateful. Is that a happy or sad ending to the album?

I think it's a bit of both. I wrote that song in about twenty minutes; it just poured out of me. It's a bit of a mantra when I'm downplaying any of my emotions. You can be really angry at how something played out but also happy that it happened at all.

You had your album launch recently in Nashville.

Yes, on Friday 22nd November at The Eastside Bowl. It was awesome; a lot of the music community in Nashville came out, and there were some new faces that I hadn't seen in a while. My band sounded great, and I'm so grateful that it went so well. Having worked on this record for so long it was great to celebrate it in my musical home at the moment. East Nashville is particularly magical in terms of being a respite for the arts and also for protecting the arts from industry in a sense, with people doing more experimental music.

How do you follow that album?

I'm curious to see where my next project takes me regarding the subject matter. I've already written about half of the next record, and I'm hitting subject matter aside from breakups. Hopefully, it will live up to this one.

In the meantime, you must get these songs out on the road and into people's hearts. What have you got lined up?

I'm hitting the road soon, touring with another queer artist from Nashville, Olive Klug; we're going to be in Texas and Oklahoma. In January, I will be out with Alexa Rose, and during the spring, I'm lining up shows in the North East with an incredible folk songwriter, Elise Leavy, who played accordion on my record.

Interview by Declan Culliton

West Of Texas Interview

Jerry Zinn, the man who heads up West Of Texas, was born in California, grew up the son of a military family, and subsequently saw the world throughout his childhood. But he found his home in country music by diving deep into his grandfather’s vintage record collection as a teenager. From that moment on, he knew he wanted to add his mark to the long history of country music. First started in 2003 West of Texas released a three-song EP in 2010 and began working on a full-length album, which was released in 2021. This was after he struggled with a nearly decade-long fight for his health and voice. That album went on to earn the band an Ameripolitan nomination in 2023. Zinn and West of Texas are back with a new album, Hot Motel Nights, that will surely rate with those who create real country music and with the fans of such endeavours alike.

Tell me a little about the inspiration of naming your band West Of Texas had for you when you started out?

I was sitting around with my drummer and we were throwing out ideas. We wrote a handful down, but I honestly didn’t like them. I wish I could remember some of those names now. I mean once you pick a name I feel like you’re stuck with it, so it had to be something that was going to stand the test of time. I’m always writing song titles and ideas down, and days before I had written down West of Texas. My thought about it was bridging the country music gap, but also the family gap between California and Texas. I also wanted it to say we were out west, without saying California.

In your wall of memories when did your love of the music you now play start for you?

Oh I see what you did there… My parents and grandparents listened to traditional country music and my grandad played guitar. His brothers used to come visit from Texas and they have these all night jam sessions. When I was 12 my grandad showed me my first chords on the guitar, though I wasn’t very interested at the time. When I was 18 my grandad passed away. We were living in Berlin Germany at the time, because my dad was in the military. A couple years later we moved back to California. Watching TV one day my sister and I saw these commercials for Time Life rock compilations of the 60’s & 70’s. We asked our parents to get them for us and my parents also ordered the country music compilations for themselves. Around this time, I found my grandad’s record collection and I fell in love with it. Then I started listening to the Time Life country compilations. I was hooked! I still have these CD’s and records and the Time Life compilations are on my phone now and I still listen to them.

Was it going against popular opinion about country that many had back then or did you arrive at the genre from other influences?

For a guy that was getting together with friends and playing indie rock, alternative and metal, I felt like I had to keep my love for country music locked in a closet. At the time, I was walking around the house singing Jim Reeves at the top of my lungs. I do consider him the person that taught me how to sing country music. Though I wasn’t about to let my friends know that. Garth Brooks was king at the time, so saying country music, meant Garth Brooks. I did not like Garth Brooks at the time, but I do appreciate some of his music now. At some point I did have my friends listen to things like Uncle Tupelo, the Jayhawks, the Palace Brothers, etc. Most weren’t into it, but I had a drummer friend that was. Now it would take me 8 years to start the band, because I couldn’t find anyone that could play in the country style I was going for.

When did you decide to start writing your own songs?

I was 17 or 18. This was right after my grandad passed away. I was in Berlin riding a bus and a guy that I went to school with was sitting a couple of seats from me. I knew he had a metal band and we started talking about music. He asked me, do you sing? I said, yes. Though, at the time, I didn’t. This was at least 2 years before I would move back to California and find my grandad’s record collection. He let me borrow a bunch of records and told me to learn some songs. So I sat down and had the lyrics in front of me and just started learning these songs. Pretty quickly I started understanding the patterns and formulas of song writing.

Was the intention always to be part of a band or had you considered going under your own name?

I always wanted it to be a band. I feel like I don’t have all the answers and I like to bounce ideas off of the band, or ask things like, do you like this or that? I’ve always felt if I can impress my band, I’m doing pretty good. Now I never thought of using my name, because Jerry Zinn doesn’t sound very country. For a time, I did consider using my grandad’s name Duke Henderson as a pseudo name. Maybe one day I’ll do something under that name.

This is album number two, how difficult a process has it been to get them to a released stage? I notice the recording dates for the new album run from 2022 to 2024 for instance.

Yeah I was really hoping to have it out before the end of 2022. I didn’t have much money to do this album. I was asking my band for favours to play on the album, but they were very busy. Right before Covid I put together a really good band. So once things started opening up we were ready to get out and impress everyone. Apparently, we impressed every singer/songwriter in LA, because all of a sudden, my band members were in high demand. They were each playing with a different band every night and going on tours for weeks at a time. After about 15 months of this, I couldn’t wait any longer and all the basic tracks (acoustic guitar, bass and drums) were sent to my brother in-law Jeremy Long in Nashville. He had played 90% of all the lead instruments on the first record and this new one is no different. But he was always busy playing every night and touring. I also wanted my friends Caleb Melo and Muskrat Jones to play some pedal steel on the record, so that took a little time. While my brother in-law started adding lead instruments, I got together with Ted Russell Kamp to help record my parts and produce the album. Ted is also very busy and since I work a full-time job, it wasn’t easy to schedule time to record.   

Do you consider the physical product of CDs and vinyl to be an essential part of touring revenue?

Absolutely! Along with any other merch items (t-shirts, hats, keychains, koozies and so on). It all helps to recover cost for recording, manufacturing and to keep the band going.

Singles these days are largely digital releases, but that still requires producing graphics to accompany each release. How involved have you been with that side of making music?

Just about everything you see is coming from me in one way or the other. I’m always making notes on this stuff. The concepts for the album cover and singles all came from me. I take pictures of old records, so I can explain it to my graphic designer’s Taylor Hungerford, Dave Hofmann and Liza Orozco.

For the music video, I Can Almost Taste the Whiskey, I created a mock-up video, so they could see the look and feel I was going for. Using bits of Urban Cowboy, Drugstore Cowboy, Every Which Way But Loose, etc. I wrote the story and a list of the shots I wanted. I also co-directed the video with my friend Taylor Hungerford. My mind is almost always in creative mode.

You co-produced with Ted Russell Kamp, do you love that side of the process or is the live performance your favourite?

Oh that’s a tough one. I like creating something out of nothing. So to go from some scribbles on a piece of paper, to some guitar chords, to having a complete structure of a song, then layering on top of that, I absolutely love it. I have all these things in my head, but I can’t play all the instruments. So I’ll play a demo I did or a rough mix of a song and I either pick a melody I hear or I hum over the top of it and give the players notes. The lead guitar should start it off and it will do something like this … I also will have everyone listen to some songs I like. I explain the feel of the song, tempo, I show the band examples of styles in playing I’m going for.

I do love the energy of playing live with 4 or 5 other people. I love the crowd’s reaction to songs, having them dance, and to hear the whooping and hollering, it certainly helps to see and feel that energy.

You write solo and with co-writers do you have a preference?

I mostly write solo. There are a couple of co-writes on this record and those songs wouldn’t be as great as they are without those co-writes. Sometimes you stare at lyrics for so long, even though you don’t like them, you can’t come up with anything else. Now the co-writes, we didn’t sit down together and write these songs. I don’t think my brain really works like that, just sitting down with someone and trying to hammer out a song. I had all the songs written and was unhappy with a few lines here and there. Ted helped with two lines on 15% More of Your Love and a line or two on Tell Me. Teri Joyce helped with a few lines on Wall of Memories and rewrote about half of Whiskey, Wine & Empty Bottles. I gave David Serby a song called She’s In His Arms and told him, the first two lines have to stay. He rewrote just about all the song and went with my clock reference in those first lines. He also changed the title to Doin’ Time. These three are great song writers and I’ve learned a lot from them.

In the live situation do you have a regular touring band or do you have to seek out new players on a regular basis?

Since I need a day job to make ends meet, I don’t get out of town as much as I’d like. I have been to Nashville a few times. I can’t take off of work to tour all the way to Nashville, so I fly in and have my brother in-law Jeremy Long help put together a band. He knows all the songs from helping out with the recording and he knows all the best players. We’re hoping to get on some festivals this summer and we’re hoping there’s enough money to fly in and bring my LA band. In the new year, I’m hoping to get to Texas and I’m unsure how I’m pulling that off. I’m not sure it makes sense to rent a van for 5 guys, drive 6 hours to Phoenix to play, but then it’s another 14 hours to Austin. So I might just fly in and hire some friends to play with me.

Tell me a little of your song writing process. Is it done as you go or do you need a specific place to write ideas?

I have so much stuff in my phone. My Note Pad is packed with song ideas. Some are just titles, some are just one liners, some are almost complete songs. So it usually starts there. Sometimes I might have some chords that I’ve been messing with and I’ll look at my notes and just start singing a few lines of whatever I have. Sometimes I mumble over the chords and things just come to me. Sometimes a song can come in 10 minuets and some might take 10 months. I also will jump around to different songs. I could be writing a song today for a few hours and not finish it. Then I don’t get to pick up my guitar for several days and now I have a new song idea or title and will work on that.

These days there seems to be several other similarly minded traditionally-based acts out there who are slowly gaining support and even breaking into the bigger venues and festivals if not onto mainstream radio. Is that your experience?

I haven’t listened to mainstream radio for a lot of years, so I don’t know who those acts would be. In the last couple years I feel like I’ve lost track of what’s going on around me. I used to know who was the new happening band is or who’s putting out a new record. I’m curious of the bands you’re talking about. I guess the only few I can think of is maybe Silverda, Colter Wall, Charley Crocket…

You have a day job so is that difficult to balance with your life in music?

Yes I need the day job. If I was a gambling man, maybe I’d be living out of a van touring. At the same time, I’ve got two boys and I need to be around for them. I do like my job and I do work in the music industry. I work for Stoughton Printing, which is the oldest printing company making record jackets and media packaging in the world started in 1965. So I’m talking to record labels, artist and vinyl pressing plants all day. I’m a nerd about packaging, so if you buy one of my vinyl records, you’ll notice a difference in the packaging, especially the limited edition versions of the new album.

Now it is hard to balance work and music, because I want to play until 2am, but I’ve got to get up around 4:45am to go to work. There’s been lots of days where during breaks or lunches I lay on the floor of my office to take a nap. I call music my drug of choice. I’m willing to sacrifice some sleep to play music or go see other bands play.

What do you hold up as success against the need to survive financially in music today?

I’ve talked to a lot of bands over the last few years about challenges we face. For the most part, we’re all in the same boat. We’re all struggling to keep our head above water and pay our bills at the end of the day. We can all get onto social media and smile and say, look at me I’m playing music at this venue tonight. But I guarantee when that phones turn off, they’re hoping fans will come buy a ticket to a show and spend a few dollars buying merch. Because that band just spent $10,000-$15,000 if not more recording an album. Vinyl is around $4,000-5,000 and I’m talking to do 500 records. CD’s are $500-$800 maybe. $1,000 for other merch like shirts and hats. You can also add graphic design, press/radio promotion, and social media ads to that. Most of those musicians in your favorite bands, didn’t come from money. Before they joined this band they were bartenders, pizza delivery drivers, work in record stores, vintage shops, restaurants or a coffee shops. Most of them come off the road and go right back to doing these jobs until the next tour. So to answer your question, I’m surviving, but for how long, I don’t know.

How important has the country music on the West Coast been to you. I image that Dwight Yoakam through to Buck Owens and Merle Haggard were touchstones?

Those three are definitely at the top of the list. Years ago someone gave me a book called the Workin’ Man Blues. It was about the California country scene. They talked about bands and honky tonks that started in the 1930’s up to I believe the 1990’s. With the Bakersfield country music community being so small in the 1950’s and 1960’s, where you have band members playing in different bands each night, has really become the small LA country music community.

Now I know that LA or California is not the first place you’d think of country music. People have questioned me from different states, what does California know about country music? If you’re not convinced after you see me play, I’ve got a long list of artist/bands that have come out of the state that helped shape country music. There’s also the Fender Telecaster that started right here in California and I’d say that about 90% of country bands have a Telecaster in the band. That guitar has certainly shaped country music forever. So the West Coast country music scene is very important to me and I can preach all day about it.

How easy is it for an independent act like yourself to put together a tour either in the States or overseas?

It’s not easy. Trying to convince someone booking the Midwest to give you a date when they’ve never heard of you, isn’t easy. Mentioning I play country music from California is not opening many doors. I send songs, videos, album reviews and they don’t respond or they tell me everything is booked. It’s frustrating when you see bands that you’ve played with, that play your genre of music, get booked, but, the bar won’t book you.

I haven’t tried to book overseas, but a few people have contacted me recently from Europe and we’ll see what we can make happen.

Can you survive by staying in a particular area in the way that some Texas acts can?

California is not like Texas in that way. Bars don’t have very much money to pay. I think in the new year I’m going to have to cut back my playing in LA, because I can’t be out of pocket to pay my band. If we were to go out of town, you have to rent a van and have motel rooms and again, I can’t be out of pocket. I realise social media can make a band look nice and glossy, but honestly, there’s a lot of musicians struggling out there.

What do you think will be the future for West Of Texas?

So what’s in store for the future of West of Texas, right now besides a handful of dates booked, I don’t know. I really don’t know if there will be another album, because I don’t know if I can afford it. I can try to cut cost by going into a studio and recording the drums and overdubs will be added at home. I’m going to have get a hell of a lot better at home recording software though or the production could suffer.

We do have a few more shows this year. We have some summer festivals interested in having us play. We’ll be going up the West Coast in June. We’ve got a Nashville date scheduled the week of AmericanaFest in September and going to try to build a small tour out of that. I’m hoping to get to Texas in the new year, but we’ll have to see how that goes.   

Does what’s happening in the USA now politically affect your opinion in any way?

I write country songs, not Rage Against the Machine songs. I do have beliefs and those are discussed with family and friends. I don’t express my beliefs on social media or make any political comments from the stage. There have been big artist express their beliefs and get cancelled over them, when they have every right to express themselves. I make music based on universal themes, because regardless of who you vote for, people still hurt, still love, and sometimes want to hear a little toe-tapper.

Interview by Stephen Rapid

Sophie Gault Interview

While Music Row in Nashville primarily remains the hub for mainstream pop/country music, head across the Cumberland River to East Nashville, where you'll find an eclectic and diverse music scene. It's not all Americana either; other genres that have not yet been sucked into that snowballing classification are very much alive and kicking. One such strain is simply what used to be called 'rock and roll', and many artists and bands in East Nashville still fly that flag. Music bars like the 5 Spot, Dee's Cocktail Lounge, The Vinyl Tap and The Underground regularly host 'rock' acts like Tim Carroll, Brian Wright, Jon Latham, David Newbould, Buck n Stuff and many more that you're unlikely to find playing the bars in Downtown Broadway. It's not all the boys either; Sophie Gault's heart and soul are in a similar musical cosmos. Her sophomore album, BALTIC STREET HOTEL, is a gritty treasure chest of songs with hard-hitting and unguarded lyrics that address her journey over the past decade. Not afraid to lay bare her mental vulnerabilities, Sophie addresses the issue on an album that is often directed towards self-examination. Calling on five-time Grammy Award winner Ray Kennedy to produce the record and with Joshua Grange (guitar), Steve Mackey (bass) and Lynn Williams (drums) joining her in the studio, the end result is a dazzling body of work that unreservedly combines anguish and fulfilment.

You are not originally from Nashville?

No, I'm originally from Washington, D.C. I spent half my childhood there, and we then moved to the country to the eastern shore of Maryland. It's quite rural. There is a city called Ocean City, and we lived about twenty minutes outside of it.

You took up the guitar at an early age before writing songs.

My first draw was the guitar. My dad, my uncles, and my cousins played the guitar, and at family parties, it was a way to hang out with my relatives, have fun, and share an experience. I was mostly playing twelve-bar blues, and whatever else was easy to play with a bunch of people. We'd play some old Neil Young, Beatles, and Stones songs, but it was really taking the twelve-bar blues all the way around.

Was your move to Nashville primarily to pursue a music career?

Yes, but I had no solid plans and didn't have enough songs to search for a producer. I had a loose idea about learning how to write songs, hang out with songwriters, and eventually develop enough material to record albums.

Did the move meet your expectations?

It was what I expected it to be. Nashville is a funny place because there is so much commercial and pop country going on, but I found a little community that is more eclectic and draws influences from different music genres. But this battle is going on in Nashville between more commercial-sounding music and more rootsy music with different influences. Nashville also surprised me in a lot of ways, especially in how strong the East Nashville community is with a lot of rock music going on. It is really a mecca for musicians and songwriters.

You had an interesting encounter with Julie Miller at Bobby's Idle Hour in Music Row, leading to your first band's name.

Bobby's Idle Hour was the only bar on Music Row for some time. They have a new location now, but it is still on Music Row. I met Julie Miller there one night some years ago. I had been a fan for a while, and it was one of those surreal experiences you have in Nashville, running into people whose music you know. She's the type of person who takes the time to listen to you, and I also like her music. At that time, I was trying to form a band and looking for a name, and I thought The Broken Things, the title of one of her albums, was a cool name.

On the subject of bars, was the song Churches and Bars on your debut album, DELUSIONS OF GRANDUER, written about Nashville?

No, it's a reference to a small town in Upstate New York called Oneonta, where I went to college. It could also be very well about Nashville. Oneonta is very similar, with a lot of churches, a lot of bars, and a lot of going out at night drinking. It's so cold up there, and everybody drinks a lot.

The new album BALTIC STREET HOTEL contains some very brave writing. Our review described it as 'beauty born out of chaos.'

I needed to get some things out of my system with the album; the most personal song was Christmas in the Psych Ward. When I gave Ray Kennedy, my producer, a song demo, he really liked the song's concept but thought I should write more. I only had a couple of verses and what I considered the chorus, but it had less detail than I have in the song now. I'm glad Ray pushed for that because I ended up digging a lot deeper about that time and that topic.

Is it easier to write about mental illness than to discuss it?

It is a lot easier to write it down because there is so much that can get misconstrued and misunderstandings about mental illness. It's not something that you can solve in one conversation; that's why I wrote the song to put a shared experience out there to do my part. There has been a lot of that in recent culture, like TV shows, and that has also been really helpful. One small vignette at a time to show what mental illness can be, I think that is important.

The album's sequencing is impressive; it follows your road from acceptance to healing and rehabilitation.

The sequencing is important, and it's interesting because I started out with an entirely different sequence with Ray Kennedy, and we thought we had nailed it. I had a new manager, Alex Torrez, come on board who wanted to do his own sequence and came up with the final one, which I think makes a lot more sense. He's going to be thrilled that you said that (laughs).

Where did the album title BALTIC STREET HOTEL come from?

I started thinking about the songs I would write for this album when I was promoting my first album, DELUSIONS OF GRANDUER. I was in New York promoting that album and staying in this little hotel in Brooklyn. I was messing around on the guitar in the hotel and came up with the song Lately, which is on the new album. It was the first song that I wrote for this album, and the album's title is taken from a line in that song.

Why that particular line?

I had spent a lot of time in Brooklyn because one of my old band mates and boyfriend grew up in New York. I had a whole friend group in New York, and when I underwent all my problems with bipolar mania, I lost a lot of those friends, some of them I haven't spoken with for eleven years; there has been no communication. I've come to understand that there is a lot of hurt involved in mental illness on both sides. People surrounding you might not understand and get really hurt when your behaviour and personality changes, which alienates people, which has happened to me. I hope it doesn't happen again because now I'm on top of it. Going back to New York after so many years brought back a lot of those old memories, and that is what the song Lately is about, as well as a lot of the album.

That track was a duet with Gabe Lee, and you also included a duet, Trouble, with Logan Ledger on your previous album. Was Lately written with a duet in mind?

Pretty early on, while writing that song, I decided I wanted it to be a duet, which made writing it a lot more difficult. With Trouble, I had been singing that song by myself for years, and then I decided later on to make it a duet for that album. Gabe had me on the road playing guitar in his band for a couple of shows, and I also opened for him a few times, so we spent a lot of hours in a van together and became good friends.

Are duets something that appeals to you?

Yes, I love the community building of duets; it's fun to sing songs with people you don't know well. It's also a great way to get to know people and make your album more fun having guests on. I'd love to do a full duets album.

You brought Ray Kennedy on board to produce the new album.

Yes. When I got my record deal, John Sopkia, who owns the label, said that I should link up with Ray Kennedy, whom I didn't know at the time. We got him on board to mix the first album, and he was really excited about my music and eventually asked me to do an album with him.

The album has gone down a grungier road than your debut record. Was that a Sophie decision or a Ray decision?

The sound is a departure from the first album. We were both on the same page about that, rocking it up a little bit. There's this thing in Nashville where everybody thinks that when you move here, you want to be a country singer, and that automatically gets projected onto you by a lot of people. The band we used also made a difference. Joshua Grange can play all different styles on guitar, and he is a really rocky guy.

You also had Steve Mackey on bass and Lynn Williams on drums. Were they players that Ray brought in?

They are on Ray's top list of people that he calls. I had never had somebody else call all the musicians before, and I had not met these musicians until the first day of recording, which freaked me out. I like to have rehearsals, but with Ray, it was all one fluid motion. I had anxiety leading up to it, but once we got started at Ray's Studio, Room and Board in South Nashville, it was a beautiful experience, and some of the songs were first takes.

What's next for Sophie Gault?

I don't want to dwell on this record for too long, and I want to get started on the next one.

Interview by Declan Culliton

Bronwyn Keith-Hynes Interview

Grammy winner and IBMA Fiddle Player of the Year on two occasions, Bronwyn Keith-Hynes’ sophomore album I BUILD A WORLD finds the Charlottesville native taking the lead vocal alongside her stunning fiddle playing. It’s a first for Bronwyn, whose debut album, FIDDLER’S PASTIME from 2020, featured several guests adding their vocals to that record. Household names on the bluegrass circuit, Wes Corbett, Scott Vestal, Jerry Douglas, Dominick Leslie, Bryan Sutton, Jeff Picker and Bronwyn’s husband, Jason Carter, add instrumentation to the new album. Jason also contributes backing vocals, as do Molly Tuttle, Dierks Bentley, Sam Bush, Dudley Connell, Brit Taylor and Darrell Scott. Despite the presence of the bluegrass royalty that lent a hand, the album strays from traditional bluegrass into country on a number of the well-selected songs. Bronwyn follows in the footsteps of her peers Alison Krauss, Molly Tuttle, Billy Strings and Sturgill Simpson in breaking down traditional boundaries. In doing so, she has created a stunning eleven-track album that not only identifies her as a superb vocalist and bandleader but also marks a significant evolution in her musical progression, alongside her parallel career as a member of Molly Tuttle’s band, Golden Highway.

Firstly, congratulations on your recent marriage to Jason Carter. Does having two fiddle players in the house lead to competition or support?

Support for sure, but it does mean that I have not seen him since the honeymoon; he’s been on tour since then.

You have secured the Monday residency at Dee’s Cocktail Lounge in Madison, Nashville. How did that come about?

East Nash Grass started that residency and had been doing it for about six years. At the beginning of this year, they got to the point that they were doing a lot more touring and also playing bigger shows in Nashville. I was asked if I would be willing to do the residency and was super excited to do so; I’ve always loved going to see their shows. With putting out my new record this year, I wanted to play more around town and do my own music, and it is great to have a weekly gig somewhere.

I really enjoyed your show there in September during AmericanaFest week. I recognised Frank Rische from seeing him play with his sister Lillie Mae and Jim Lauderdale numerous times. Who are the other players, and do you rotate band members?

It mostly rotates because everybody has so much going on. Frank has been there every week except for one and has been the steadiest band member. Often, it is Vickie Vaughn, who plays with Della Mae on bass, Wes Corbett on banjo, or Frank Evans, sometimes, and a couple of different mandolin players, Tristan Scroggins, Reed Stutz, and Thomas Cassell. Doing it every week, I also like to rotate it and keep it fresh for everybody.

What drew you musically to the fiddle?

The first traditional fiddle music I played was actually Irish music. All my dad’s side are Irish, my grandparents emigrated to here. I picked up the violin very early and started off with classical music. My classical teacher would then teach me a few random fiddle tunes, which I liked, and when I started really getting into fiddling, my parents got me a fiddle teacher. I ended up going to Ireland a lot for family events, and I’d hear the music there. I did that until I was a late teenager, and when my family moved to Virginia, I began hearing bluegrass music and loving it.

You studied music at Berklee College. Was that a positive experience for you?

For me, it was a really positive experience. I started there in 2009 when they started the American Roots Music Programme, the first year you could officially study that music at Berklee. That year and after that year, the college attracted a lot more kids who played bluegrass and old-time music than before. That was the glory years, I was in school with Sierra Hull, Molly Tuttle, John Mailander, Alex Hargraves, Courtney Hartman, Dominick Leslie, all my Golden Highway bandmates. We would have jam parties where you would learn so much; Sarah Jarosz, who was at school in New England Conservatory just down the street, would come over to your house for your birthday party; it was a crazy time.  

You have taken the lead vocalist role on your new album, I BUILT A WORLD, having used guest vocalists on your debut album, FIDDLER’S PASTIME.

Yes, this was the first time that I recorded lead vocals, I had been working on my singing for a couple of years leading up to that. It was definitely scary doing something new like that, but each time I make an album, I learn so much from the process, and by the time I’m done with it, I am a lot more confident. It’s a really good way to learn.

You are essentially the band leader rather than a band member in your parallel career playing with Molly Tuttle’s band, Golden Highway. Has that experience been rewarding?

It’s cool and it’s a different thing than being part of a band. It’s a good way to experience the music; when you are a singer, you experience the song differently than when you are the fiddler. It has taken a while to get used to, and that is where the shows at Dee’s have been coming in handy; it gives me the opportunity to practice that, which is fun.

Your stage performance is also quite animated, which is not always the case with bluegrass performances, though there is also quite a bit of country on I BUILT A WORLD.

I’m definitely influenced by a lot of country music, as well as bluegrass. By playing with Molly Tuttle in Golden Highway for the past couple of years, I’ve become more comfortable moving around on stage, and playing in a plugged-in set-up allows me to move around more. What I like is being able to connect with the other musicians on stage more; you can walk over and jam or trade solos with someone, facing them rather than facing the audience. That feels like a more interactive experience and hopefully more exciting to the audience.

In recent years, artists like Billy Strings, Sturgill Simpson, and Molly Tuttle have been pushing the boundaries of bluegrass and drawing more people into the genre.

Yes, and I do feel that these days, all the genres are blending together in a beautiful way. People like Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle know so much about bluegrass and are bringing other influences into it and connecting to a broader audience. Sturgill Simpson grew up with bluegrass but has been better known as a country artist. He has brought a lot of his fanbase into bluegrass.

This has made the industry take notice, even if they primarily tend to promote more mainstream crossover pop/country.

Once you are mixing it up because you genuinely like the different genres and not just to sell more tickets, I do think the artists that I like are doing it for the right reasons and, by doing so, are connecting with more people. I do think that there is a roots revival happening, and more mainstream people are accepting of roots music, country, and bluegrass as they get more of an opportunity to hear it.

The credits on I BUILT A WORLD are like a ‘who’s who’ of household names in the bluegrass world, with Wes Corbett, Scott Vestal, Dominick Leslie, Bryan Sutton, Jeff Picker and Jerry Douglas all noted together with several others who added harmony vocals. Were you able to get them all into the studio to play together?

It was recorded live for the most part, and all of the musicians were in the studio at the same time. Jerry Douglas came in for a day to play on all the songs he was on, and the other guys were in for three days of song tracking. I get very picky, so I sang rough vocals in the studio, went back and added my vocals afterwards, and redid some fiddle; it gave me more time to hone in on what I wanted to do without other people having to wait around. Once I got to a point with the tracks I liked and my work on them and the core band was good, that was the icing on the cake. I then got to the point that I had to pick out who I wanted to sing harmony with.

You chose Brent Truitt to co-produce the record with you.

Yes. Wes Corbett produced my last album, FIDDLER’S PASTIME, and had a big hand in selecting the material. I co-produced this album with Brent Truitt. I had a good idea of what I wanted for the album, but I also wanted another voice and someone I could bounce ideas off. I selected all the material myself, had a lot of it arranged, and had a clear idea of what I wanted before we came into the studio.  

The majority of the songs selected to record are not well known, even if several of the writers are.

Half of the songs on the album had yet to be recorded before, which was what I was looking for, as I wanted the first cuts of a number of the songs. I had been sitting on a couple of the songs for a few years, but the majority came about in the six months leading up to the recordings.

The title track is a Matthew Parsons written song.

It is and hasn’t been recorded before. I heard him sing that song live on the radio when I was driving through Kentucky. I went home and googled the lyrics and whatever else I could remember. I hadn’t heard of him, but I found him. He is a Kentucky singer-songwriter, and I emailed him out of the blue and asked him if he would be okay if I recorded it. He couldn’t understand how I had come across it but was very generous to let me record it.

Why did you select that song as the album’s title?

There are a couple of different ways to read those lyrics. I grew up as a home-schooled hippy-like kid who was pretty independent. That’s what I’m thinking about when I’m singing that song, being a wild kid in the woods, thinking that I’m going to grow my own world. It also could be a metaphor as to how I’ve structured my life; I’ve lived my life outside a lot of convention; I never went to school, did a music degree and have never had a job outside music, and I’ve had to figure that out and make it work.

Jamie Hartford, son of John Hartford, wrote Can’t Live Without Love, which is a standout song for me.

My husband, Jason Carter, has been friends with Jamie since the 1990s when Jamie had a residency in Downtown Nashville. He had a country band that would play all his original songs Downtown. Jason really liked that song, and when I was fishing around for material, he brought it up. It had originally been recorded by Jamie with a rock band and hadn’t been done in bluegrass, as it’s from a different genre.

The Peter Rowan written Angel Island could relate to any decade.

I knew that song for a long time. My grandparents being immigrants had me interested in immigration stories, and this song just seemed very interesting and particularly compelling.

I must also congratulate you on the album’s artwork.

Thank You. I put a lot of work into the music, and I wanted the presentation of the music to match that. The photographer was Alexa King Stone. I found her on Instagram and love her work. We did a two-hour photoshoot on a farm outside Nashville.

Is the album available on vinyl as well as CD and download formats?

I do have vinyl out now. I did my first pressing on blue translucent vinyl, which is just about sold out. I’m trying to figure out the next pressing, which might be a light translucent pink with blue starburst.

Having now added vocals to your skillset, will you consider songwriting going forward?

That is the next step that I want to focus on. I have a few months off from touring at the beginning of 2025, and I’d like to get a bit more serious about songwriting and see if I can write the next record.

You’re back on the road next year after a few months at home.

Yes. Next year is going to be busy. I’ll be on the road with Golden Highway and doing my own touring. There will be no free weekends.

Interview by Declan Culliton

Mindy Smith Interview

There may be twelve years between the release of Mindy Smith’s self-titled album and her new album QUIET TOWN, but the Long Island-reared singer-songwriter, currently living in Nashville, has packed a lot into those last dozen years. She wrote and co-wrote a number of songs for the television series Nashville, helped raise funds for the non-profit organisation Captain Planet Foundation and recorded songs for the animal rescue benefit compilation album SONGS FOR SHELTER ME. Her most significant experience was in 2014 when she connected with her biological family in Southwest Virginia in the Blue Ridge Mountains and learned of their musical leanings. Much of the material on QUIET TOWN was written after discovering her birth family. After releasing her song Little Wings in 2023, she decided to forge ahead and record the eleven songs on the album. Mindy recently spoke frankly and passionately with Lonesome Highway about the songs on the record and her team of close friends, which helped bring to life one of our favourite recordings of 2024.

You grew up in a religious household on Long Island, New York State. Did you embrace that or rebel against it?

I didn't rebel against it. It wasn't an iron fist situation in our household, even though my dad is a Minister. My parents wanted us to believe, but it wasn't 'you must do things this way.' They encouraged us to try and figure out how to cope with life ourselves and make good decisions. It was just something they instilled in us, and they hoped we would take what we needed from it. Ministry to my parents was exactly that. So, I didn't have a lot to rebel against. I don't go to church now; music actually makes me feel closer to honing in on that side of things. I'm also too easily distracted, focusing on lots of other things.  

Was there a country music scene in New York when you were young?

No, it's so different now. Country music is a big deal in New York now, but when I was growing up, I recalled that there weren't any country music radio stations; if there were, they were A.M. stations, which I spent little time tracking down. I did listen to John Denver, and Kenny Rogers was someone that my mom and dad played, and I loved him. The artists that crossed over from country to mainstream, like Dolly Parton, were popular in New York but less with traditional country music, though I occasionally listened to Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, and Willie Nelson.

What was your 'go-to' music back then?

As a kid, I didn't have disposable cash; it wasn't like now when you have Apps that your parents can dump some money into. So, when I ventured out into my own music world, and in the era of cassette tapes, I had to wait for my favourite songs to come on the radio and then press record on my cassette player and build my own catalogue of mixed tapes that way. I loved The Police, Sting, Prince, and Cyndi Lauper. Then I crept my way into discovering the gateway into alternative music by listening to Depeche Mode, The Cure, The Sundays, and U2, music that was a little darker and sonically drew me into those progressive bands. Every step in my musical journey would take me to the next step.

When did those steps lead you to country music?

When I moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, I discovered John Prine, Nanci Griffith, Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, and Gillian Welch. All those steps created the monster that I am. 

Was that move to Knoxville to pursue a music career?

I always wanted to do music, but as a child, I was not encouraged by my music teachers at that time and almost gave up on the idea. My mother, who had studied music, was a choir director, and another gentleman was very encouraging, but other than that, no one else. When I found myself in Knoxville, I had a neighbour who was into going to open mics and took me along. My eyes were opened, and I started singing again, mostly a capella. Eventually, I wrote a song in the middle of the night, and then I picked up the guitar. From there, I just went out and threw it out to see what would stick. 

Discovering your biological family in Appalachia and their musical backgrounds must have given you a rationale for being drawn to country music.

Yes, that's what is interesting. I've always loved traditional Irish music, which is a huge part of the Appalachian and Blue Ridge Mountains style of music; it is so much a part of all the other styles of music that grew up in that area. I found myself being drawn to their music and bluegrass, Americana and folk music. I then found out that I'm a 'Long Island Hillbilly.' I say that with love and the utmost pride because there are many beautiful things about the Appalachian people, their history and their music. I was really excited to find that all my biological family were musical.

At what point did you decide to seek out your biological family?

I knew I was adopted from a very young age, and as I got older, I got to know the story about my biological mother. I heard what I needed to hear to allow me to process it; that was my journey, anyway. I had a song that I did with a little-known artist, Dolly Parton, called Jolene. Dolly graciously agreed to participate in the video for that song which was for an album that Bob Ferguson produced celebrating Dolly's songs called JUST BECAUSE I'M A WOMAN. That video was played on CMT and some of the other bigger stations that played videos back then. That is when my biological mother pointed out to my biological sister that it was her sister in that video. I was contacted through My Space by her back in 2006, and I would talk to my sister and mother, but it took me a while, until 2014, to have the courage to go there and actually meet them. It does take time and courage because I'm very thankful to my adoptive family, my mother, father and siblings, and I just had to be ready to make that move. My adoptive Dad was amazing and offered to go with me; my adoptive mother had passed away when I was nineteen, so she couldn't join in. I'm sure she would have loved to.

Your new album, QUIET TOWN, is such a great listen. Before we discuss the songs, tell me about the connection with Neilson Hubbard, who produced the record. 

I've known Neilson for years. I did a couple of songs on a project for public television called SHELTER ME, which is an animal activist programme and a beautiful concept. One of them I did with my good friend Matthew Perryman Jones and was a duet called Who Saved Who. We pitched it to Neilson to produce, which he did, and a couple of years ago, I ran into his wife, Audrey Spillman, who is also an amazing songwriter and vocalist, and we both spoke about me working with Neilson again. He is a tremendous person; my understanding of his philosophy is to allow artists to be who they are musically. 

Great players, including Megan McCormick, Will Kimbrough and Lex Price, joined you in the studio. Were they your selections, or did Neilson bring them on board? 

We talked about who we wanted to play on the album, and Neilson brought them in to participate; it was a team effort in terms of building the band.  I had worked with many of these people previously; they are all artists in their own right, and I trusted them to bring their own brushes and paint to our painting party in the studio. I adore Megan McCormick and love her presence, music, and spirit. I also love Will Kimbrough; he has played on my records before, and Lex Price, who I've worked with for many years. He has done so many wonderful albums and is one of Nashville's 'first call' bass players. 

Was your single Little Wings from last year the springboard for writing and recording the album?

Yes, it was. The cool thing about that song was that it told me, as an artist and writer, that I had to make a record. I was getting further and further into this not-so-happy cocoon, and I had to figure out a way to get out of it. That song was the scissors that cut me free.

Yet, you did not include that song on the album. 

The way that fell apart was weird. We had twelve songs done for the album, including that song. When it came to the process of putting the songs in synch and getting them to flow together, I kept moving that song around. The record is a journey, and I couldn't find a place for it, so I rang Neilson and asked him how he felt about not putting Little Wings on the record; as producer, I wanted to know how he felt about leaving it out. We agreed to leave it on the back burner, and we may find a place in the world for it someday. 

You include a number of co-writes on the albums, although the stories are most definitely your own.

When you get to sit in a room with some of the writers that I've been fortunate to spend time with and be creative with, I do try to indulge in giving in to their strengths, but it's not always hunky dory. You can have a great friendship with someone but not be a good co-writing team or relationship. I got really fortunate with my co-writers on this album. Some of the songs were written shortly after I met my biological family and were based on how I was feeling and the sounds that were coming out of me. Some of the songs were cold starts where you have an agenda and have a conversation before the writing, like the song Jericho, written with the iconic artist and songwriter Matraca Berg.

I love that song, Jericho; it is so full musically and has a classic Bobby Gentry feel.

It was fun to track that song. It could have gone further and wilder, but we had to pull the reins in. We had Danny Mitchell in the studio, a tremendous keyboard player who plays in Miranda Lambert's band. He also plays flugelhorn and played beautiful, heart-wrenching, and intense horn notes over that song. It was as intense as it was supposed to be.  

Quiet Town became the record title and opening track.

Neilson, Heather Moody, who is also part of this project, and I had a conversation about how that song encompassed what we were doing; walking through life or walking through a changing town. We had the album mastered with the sequencing that I had done, but something was not working. I sat with it for months before calling Neilson and agreeing to change it. Quiet Town, as well as the album title track, became the first song on the record.

The hymn-like Hour Of My Departure, written with Daniel Tashian, who also contributes his vocals, sounds like it has been around forever.

I love writing with Daniel. He is one of a number of artists with whom we get really self-indulgent when we are in a room writing. We wrote that song several years ago, and I always felt drawn to it. At that time, Daniel was a relatively new dad, and his daughters were young, and he was writing from a father's perspective. For me, it became about the interaction that I had as a child with my parents. 

Is the song Peace Eludes Me a statement of your past or present frame of mind?

It's always present. I'm always trying to figure out how to have some sense of calm with the things I personally deal with on a daily basis and the struggles that everybody has. There is always a constant push forward to find peace, and I tend to gravitate towards people who have a peaceful outlook on life. The problem is that if I ever figure this all out, I don't know what I'd write about. 

The industry is presently different from when you released your self-titled album twelve years ago.

The new approach is so different even in the twelve years since my first independent record. Even with STUPID LOVE, my last album with Vanguard in 2009, it had started to change. Keeping up with the pace of how much music comes out and how rapid and fleeting it is, is difficult, and attention spans, including my own, are so short.

Country music has enjoyed a resurgence in recent years, and female artists are leading the charge.

Absolutely. I have some really close friends in the country music scene who have been at it for a long time and are now getting their dues. There was a long time when we ladies were going, 'Hello, we're still here, writing songs with these people.' It is cool, and I hope it continues to swing a little more, embrace more women, and be more inclusive of people's lifestyles, African American people, and the gay community.  

Interview by Declan Culliton 

Lindi Ortega Interview

Canadian-born artist Lindi Ortega's latest and eighth full-length album, FROM THE ETHER, follows a traumatic number of years. An enforced break from performing as a result of damaged vocal cords, the death of her father, and a breakup in her marriage all left her in a distressed state both physically and emotionally. Reflecting on those issues and restarting her career, her new album is a change in Lindi's musical direction. Never one to be pigeon-holed in any specific genre, FROM THE ETHER is a collection of 'ghostly' themed songs produced by Grammy-nominated producer Mike Meadows. The album was selected as the first release on Truly Handmade Records, the label recently formed in honour of Texan legend Guy Clark. Lindi spoke openly with Lonesome Highway recently about emerging from that difficult period and embracing the opportunity to return to her lifelong passion for creating and performing her art.

Welcome back to performing and recording. Experiencing damage to your vocal cords must have been devastating for you.

It was distressing and very difficult to have that issue with my voice, and consequentially, I had to give up music for a number of years. I felt that I lost my whole identity as a musician. I was getting panic attacks before shows, feeling that I couldn’t sing properly. I just did not feel right having people come to see me and not being able to perform what I felt they deserved. It was a very difficult decision to step away, but I felt I needed to do that. I had to start figuring out who I was outside of music.  

Despite what we punters and observers might think, many artists experience struggles with confidence at various stages of their careers. 

A lot of artists struggle with confidence issues, and you can also find artists who are great stage performers but are introverted off-stage and struggle with being in the limelight. I had never had stage fright before I had my vocal issues, and I felt like I was unable to perform, which gave me a lot of anxiety and made every show stressful. I thought that it was not what music was supposed to be like, feeling horrible after every performance. I had to step away.

How did your recovery start and progress?

I really had to work at it and I had a few setbacks. At one point, I tried to sing some harmonies for a friend in my town who was playing a show, and I felt very defeated because I knew I wasn’t there yet. I’m very stubborn and just kept working at it; I didn’t like being taken out of the game. I just knew there had to be a way to figure it out, even if it meant finding a new way to sing. What was really inspiring to me was Joni Mitchell; she had a beautiful soprano voice when she began her career and then did the BOTH SIDES NOW record, where her voice had changed quite significantly, but it was still beautiful and amazing to listen to. I’ve noticed that with a lot of singers who had to adapt, and I started to understand that for myself, maybe it was just a thing where I had to adapt myself. It took quite a lot of time. I started out doing a children’s concert in my town with another local musician. We did a few shows for some very cute young kids, and it was lovely to have fun with that and not have so much stress; it was a way for me to ease into starting to perform again. I was working on my vocals all the time. Every day, I would get up and pick up my guitar, and if there was a note that was not coming out correctly, I would sing it over and over to get it right, which it would eventually do. My voice has come a long way from where it was back then; I know there are still things that I have to work on, but I’m so pleased that I can play a show and have fun without being full of nerves and anxiety.

From there, you have progressed to playing live showcases again.

I played some shows at AmericanaFest recently, and just before that, we were doing some practice runs at some small bars. I remember one bar where we played that was really noisy, and everyone was chatting, which would have really annoyed me before. Instead, I liked it because it reminded me of when I first started, and I was just so happy to be on a stage and get my songs out and sing them. 

Can you identify any positives from that break from the music industry?

Absolutely, some of the positives were feeling that sense of being rooted that I hadn’t had for a very long time. I had missed so many special occasions, such as people’s birthdays because I was out on the road. It was hard to create strong friendships with people because I was never around, so I was able to find a friendship group and feel that sense of community, which was nice. The other thing I found was simply discovering who I was outside of music because I had at the time been living in Nashville for a number of years. When you live in a music city, and all you do is music, you get caught up in work; people don’t always understand that music is work; it’s a job. Like every job, it has its struggles, ups and downs, and it was very hard to disassociate my identity from who I was as an artist and musician for many years. It is sad to lose what you love and are passionate about, which gives you confidence. It was good for me to rediscover things that I could do outside of that world and learn that I could survive outside music and not fall apart. Coming back to music after having that experience makes me appreciate things so much more because I didn’t realise that I would be back here and able to put out music and tour again. I feel very grateful and humbled by that experience and everything that I get to do. I have no agenda whatsoever it just comes down to dealing with hardships and channelling those hardships through my music. Having my outlet and passion and being able to do what I do through my music is enough for me. 

Your new album FROM THE ETHER is the first release on Truly Handmade Records, the label formed to continue the legacy of Guy Clark. That’s quite an honour. How did that come about?

Yes, the label name came from a line in a Guy Clark song. The manager I worked with was good friends with Tamara Saviano, the person running the label. She was curious about the fact that I was coming back to music and asked me if I wanted to be the launch artist for the label. I thought at first that it was a joke and wasn’t looking for a label, thinking that I would release my records independently. It’s truly an amazing thing, I met them all in Nashville when I was there for AmericanaFest and I’m so lucky to have crossed paths with such genuinely honest and lovely people. You don’t often find that in the music industry, sometimes people will sell you the sun, moon and stars, especially when they are signing you, but I believe that Handmade were happy to have me, and I’m certainly happy to be there. 

It’s refreshing that they were prepared to run with a somewhat experimental album. 

Tamara’s response to me was that Guy Clark was a fan of storytellers and original songs. She believed that it would be a good legacy for what he was trying to support: artists doing their own thing. I don’t think she was trying to sign a bunch of John Prine clones; she was just trying to find interesting and unique music.

The 'spirits' theme that prevails on the album was stimulated by a visit to the Oakwood Cemetery in Austin, Texas. Were any of the songs written prior to that?

I had a few songs written, like the one about my dad. Cemeteries have always been inspiring to see. I love reading old headstones and wondering about those who came before us, and there are few places that I have gone to where I haven't visited a cemetery. What was interesting about that one is that we originally went there to get some sound samples for some of the songs. We were researching the cemetery and found out that John and Alan Lomax, pioneers of field-recorded music, were buried there. I love old blues music, much of which is just vocals, and they recorded a lot of that type of music, including Vera Hall, who I really love. We came up with the idea when we were there because we were at the graveside of the people who had done the early field recordings. Maybe we should do recordings at their grave to pay tribute to them. It was an on-the-fly thing, but as I hadn't got a song written, why don't we take lines from different epitaphs, rhyme them and create a song out of the different lines? It was all done in about twenty minutes.

Did the experience of the death of your father and a marriage breakup lead to you writing songs by way of coping with grief?

To be honest, it was a little bit of both. The marriage was not meant to be part of this album, but it crept in there with the addition of metaphorical ghosts on the record. I was thinking about all the ghosts I could write about. The idea was to have a concept record about ghosts. People can be haunted by things from their past, and I ended up putting a little allusion to that on the record.

You engaged Mike Meadows as producer. Was that decision driven by your intention to record a more unconventional album than your previous records and musically head in a more experimental direction?

I've known Mike online for many years and was a big fan of his percussion work. While living in Nashville, I went to see him play in Hayes Carll's band and was very impressed with him as a drummer and percussionist. I followed him on Facebook and Instagram and watched videos that he would post when he would go and visit India or Africa and would be playing some wild instruments that I had never seen before. I always thought that I would love to work with him at some level, whether that would be him playing percussion or whatever. Before I made this comeback to music, I had been painting people's houses for a number of years and didn't know where to start getting back into artist mode, I was so out of that world. I was initially going to go to England to record because I had nothing against Nashville, but I had recorded a number of albums there, been there and done that. I wanted to do something completely different; for me, it was 'What do I have to lose? I've already lost my voice and my career.' I decided to pick Mike's brain and messaged him, telling him I was thinking of going to England and would ne be able to send me remotely recorded percussion if he were to be on the record. He responded, saying that he could but that he had a home studio and why not come there to record. He also mentioned that it was warm in Texas in December, and with that and the understanding that he had a home studio, it made sense. It was a risk because I wasn't familiar with much of his recorded work, but I liked him as a person and player and decided to go for it. 

The end product sounds like that risk was well worth taking.

Yes. Our working relationship, understanding of each other, and rapport worked so well; we always seemed to be on the same page and making suggestions that one of us had already thought of. Our common remark was, 'Yes, we are on the same pages again.' Mike was a magician and had spent time touring the country, which was also interesting. The whole recording process was magical and fun; I felt like a kid in a candy store, except that I was making a record.

The interludes, titled Dial No.1 to Dial No.6, which lead to several songs, giving them a séance like feel. 

I wanted it to feel like when people go ghost hunting and record voices, turning a dial and trying to tune into the paranormal. 

The videos for some of the songs, particularly The Ghost In You, add to the atmosphere and are positively frightening at times.

That is exactly as it is meant to be (laughs). 

The song, The Spiritual Advisor, written about your dad, is particularly moving. Its presentation is almost childlike.

I have such great memories as a kid when I was with my dad, and those are the memories that come through the clearest when I recall him. I have his ashes in my house, and I had a listening party for the record at my house. I brought his ashes out and put them on the table as part of the listening party. The song just came out, wishing he could come and hang out with me again. 

The Ghost is hugely passionate and another stand-out song for me. At what stage of your marriage breakup is it written? 

It was written at Mike Meadow's house sometime after the breakup. He was away touring and playing shows with Hayes Carll, and Mike has his childhood piano, which he played when he was young. I love pianos and am always drawn to them. I went downstairs in the dark one night, sat down and started to play the piano, and that song literally just came out without even really thinking about it. I recorded it on my iPhone and sent it to Mike, and he said that we should put it on the record.

Another highlight is The Ancestors. I get a strong PJ Harvey vibe on that song and its presentation.

That is the most amazing compliment you could give me because I love PJ Harvey, and I can see how that influence could pop out on that song. I went to see her play in Toronto at The Pheonix Concert Theatre many moons ago, and I thought and still think that she is the coolest person. I love her and also Tori Amos. I loved those 90s feminist icons and musicians. 

It's hardly a coincidence that the album was released approaching Halloween.

No. That made sense since it is a ghost album. I am a huge Halloween fan. I dressed up in three different costumes this year, and I host a witch walk in the town I live in, so I'm all about Halloween.

Is it a pointer towards the new Lindi Ortega or a one-off venture?

I don't want to put myself in one box; I want to have the freedom to do all sorts of things, and I'm just going to continue to explore music and my influences. Every record I have made has been different; there may have been country leanings in some of the records as a common thread, but I've made records that have been more soulful, bluesy, and maybe a little jazzy. However, my content does veer slightly on the dark side, even if it is 'tongue-in-cheek and will never change.

You have also recently recorded two Tom Waits covers with the young roots artist Jack Barksdale. How did that come about?

Jack is amazing; he is young, but he has an old soul with a wealth of knowledge of music history. He's a very talented friend of Mike Meadows, who produced a few of his records. Jack and his family were rolling through Austin when I was there, and we happened to meet. This young guy was sixteen then, and I was astounded that he was into Leonard Cohen and knew obscure Leonard Cohen songs that I didn't even know. I found out he was also into Tom Waits, which I am also into, and, like me, had a penchant for the macabre. He picked Yesterday Is Here, the shortest Tom Waits song, and I picked How’s It Gonna End, the longest Tom Waits song, and we recorded them.  

Interview by Declan Culliton

Emily Haden Lee Interview

Emily Haden Lee is a creative artist and a singer-songwriter of great perception and sensitivity. She grew up in a small town in Missouri before moving to the city of Chicago, where she currently lives with her musician husband Alex Lee. Her debut album The Woman I Would Be was released in September 2024 and is a work of real insight, impressive depth, and hard-earned wisdom. Tackling issues such as self-doubt, depression, addiction, grief and self-realisation, it is a work of lasting quality and wrapped in timeless observations of all that it takes to be human. On the verge becoming a mother for the first time, with the birth of her daughter imminent, Emily sat down to reflect upon her life journey thus far and gives valued insight into the process behind what is without doubt one of the albums of the year.

Congratulations on the release of your debut album. Have you been pleased with the media response so far?

Thank you! I have been pleased – I honestly didn’t know what to expect and tried to go into it without any expectations. It’s been great to see people understand the music and relate to it.

The songs were written over a number of years. Can you let us into the thought process in choosing the final twelve tracks that made the cut?

Like the songs, the recording the album was also drawn out over a number of years. I would write a new song that I liked and then go into the studio with Steve to record it – so it came about in a very organic way. Around January/February of this year was when I decided to put it all into an album and release it – I also got pregnant around that time and figured I needed to get this out there before the baby comes!

Has your writing process changed over the years?

I have a notes list on my phone where I write lyrics as they come to me. Then when I sit down to write a song, I will just play and sing whatever comes out and when I get stuck on words I refer to my notes and gain inspiration from that. I don’t think that process has changed a whole lot over the years actually. My writing spots have changed – these days my favourite place to write is sitting by our bedroom window and looking out at the street, watching people walk by. Usually with our little corgi Gus sitting next to me.

You come from a very musical family. Did you start playing guitar from a young age?

I didn’t actually – my dad and brothers played guitar, but I started with the piano. I started piano lessons when I was six and then (against my mom’s wishes!) quit in early high school. I am so thankful to have had that musical foundation, along with singing in different choirs along the way (church, school, etc). I didn’t really learn how to play the guitar until I was in college – the first song I learned was “You were meant for me” by Jewel. It’s a finger picking song, which I think is why I tend to always pick my guitar songs rather than strum them – it’s how I learned and how I’m most comfortable playing guitar. My last year of college was when I wrote a song on the guitar for the first time.

The new album is co-produced by your husband, Alex Lee, and also music legend Steve Dawson. How did you come to meet Steve and collaborate with him?

I met Steve when I took his song writing class at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago – such a wonderful place and Steve is such a great teacher. That class really opened up song writing for me – I loved meeting people from all walks of life and seeing the different ways they interpreted the world through their music. Writing songs just for the catharsis of it, in such a supportive environment, and not viewing it as a way of competition (which I had with music my whole life doing singing competitions, etc) has been really revolutionary for me. Everyone has something to contribute.

The album was recorded at Chicago’s Kernel Sound Emporium which is run by Steve. What was the experience like and how long did the recording process take?

It’s a great experience recording with Steve – I would go in and record my guitar part and vocals, and then he would usually pick it up from there -  adding in whatever he felt was right, whether that be bass, guitar, percussion, lap steel, etc. Then I’d usually take it home and listen to it with my husband and we’d decide if we felt anything needed to be added or taken away. He makes it very easy and I’ve grown so comfortable there.

The playing on the album is beautifully restrained and in perfect synergy with the lyrical content of the songs. How did you discuss the overall approach to the song arrangements and did you have the final say on what was kept in the final mix?

I can honestly say that we didn’t discuss it much – I think Steve understood the songs and my taste, and a lot of times we would add in a few instruments on top of my vocals and guitar and decide that it didn’t need much else. And I did have a say in the final mixing – what I usually had the most opinions about were my vocals – I would decide to take out or add in harmonies here and there, etc.

You used very few musicians on the album. Was this a deliberate decision when working out the delicate song structures?

I can’t say that it was deliberate! Like most else on this album it just happened that way – I was lucky to have Steve who can play anything and my husband who plays guitar, drums and basically anything else you throw at him, so I didn’t feel the need to have any more musicians. Other than Bill Evans – who is a wonderful musician and close family friend – he was very close with my dad and I grew up going on camping trips with his family and many others. On the trips he would play guitar and sing by the fire - it just felt right to have him contribute to the album too.

The album content strikes me as deeply personal and I know that you lost both your brother and father during the writing of the songs for the album. Was it difficult to bare your inner feelings with such a vulnerable approach to the project?

It is extremely personal. I have to say, the day the music was released I had a real feeling of “oh no, what have I done…” But when I’m writing the songs and playing them for people, for some reason I never feel self-conscious about them being so vulnerable. I think being that vulnerable is how you get the best and most honest songs. It would be hard for me to write in a different way.

Do you always write from personal experience or do you consider writing in character occasionally?

See answer above – it’s definitely harder for me to write in character! I have tried, but it never feels genuine. I would love to be able to build that skill more.

Your vocal tone and delivery is very emotive and nuanced. Did you have voice training over the years?

Thank you! I did have voice training – when I was in middle and high school I took voice lessons and I went to Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute in Lenox Massachusetts the summer after my junior year in high school. It was an opera program, and I quickly realized through being there that opera wasn’t my passion. But I have such an appreciation for it. Folk music and the music that I grew up listening to is what really feeds my soul.

You are also an accomplished artist and your drawings and paintings are very evocative. Do musical ideas and melody come to you in the same way that artistic creations translate to paper for you?

They are very different to me – art is calming and music is how I really feel my emotions. When I sit to write a song, I think that’s when I give myself permission to let it all out and express myself.

The album cover has a beautiful drawing of a moth. Is there any significance to the image in terms of the music?

Yes – moths represent death, rebirth and new beginnings. It felt like the perfect cover to me, given the content of the album. The vines around the moth also represent growth and new beginnings – the white flowers start as buds at the bottom and blossom as you get to the top.

Songs like Sugar and Dirt suggest the dichotomy in being human; the good and the bad in trying to balance personal feelings. What lay behind the original instinct in writing this song?

I wrote that song in 2023, which was a tough year for me. Alex and I had been trying to have a baby and it took a bit longer than expected. I think that brought out a part of me that I wasn’t always proud of – so I was just reflecting on myself and all of my contradictions. The line “I am everything I have always been, for whatever that is worth” is just saying – I am who I am, take me or leave me! And then it felt right in the second verse to relate that to life, how it’s all sugar and dirt as well, and that will never change.

On Time Is A Thief you question the relevance of memory; whether it can be trusted over time. Do we hold on to memories like a crutch, in a way to reconcile mistakes of the past?

I am a very nostalgic person, probably not a surprise. After my dad died, I made a list of everything he would say to me and all of my favourite memories of him because I was so afraid of forgetting. And then I think I realized that you can try all you want, but time always makes those memories fade. And I’m sure as they fade, we do distort them somehow to make them less painful - our minds try to protect us in that way.

The song Wraith seems to deal with the price we pay for supressed emotions and feelings. Is the ghost in the song a metaphor for depression?

It is – the wraith is a metaphor for alcoholism and depression, both of which run in my family. I was speaking with my aunt on the phone one day, and she was talking about someone in our family who struggled with alcoholism and said she viewed it as their “wraith”. I immediately wrote it down and thought it was a good idea for a song. I wrote that song towards the end of the pandemic. It was a time when everyone had an excuse to be isolated, which is a tough thing for people with addiction and mental health struggles. I was having my own struggles and was worried that the “wraith” that is so strong in my family was coming for me too.

New beginnings is a theme and a thread that runs through the album. In moving to a big city like Chicago do you enjoy the anonymity of being a small part of a greater whole?

It is! I think sometimes, all you can do is just begin again. I realized after the album was done how many times I reference starting over. In Anyway “I will rise again and start my day, and I’ll think about you anyway”. In On a String “each morning start again, with myself make amends” and obviously the song Begin Again is all about the same thing.

Yes – I love the anonymity of living in a city where most people don’t know me. I’m from a town in Missouri that isn’t super small, but I know a lot of people there. I think living out my twenties in a place where I was mostly ‘anonymous me’ has been so good for my growth. I was able to go to open mics and it didn’t matter if I messed up, because I didn’t know anyone who would remember it. And a big city is so inspiring when it comes to song writing – so many different kinds of people with so many different stories to tell.

Have you toured much in support of the new album?

I had a release show at the end of September, but I haven’t toured. I am due with our daughter any day now, so after the album release I have been mostly preparing for that big change in our lives. That has made it hard for me to do any sort of touring, but I would like to in the future.

Do you have plans to play outside of the United States in the near future?

That would be an amazing experience, I am definitely open to it.

In our opinion you have produced one of the albums of the year. How does it feel to receive external recognition after all the internal battles to hone these songs into their final delivery?

Wow, thank you for saying that – I can’t tell you how much it means to me. It definitely feels good – I feel really proud that I was able to make art out of a period of my life that was so difficult. Releasing this album feels like I am now able to release that time in my life and move forward.

What are the next steps for you in building a career?

My goal was to get this music out there before our baby is born and after she is born I hope to slowly get back into playing shows and writing more music. Maybe some lullabies ☺

Is there anything else that you would like to leave us with in conclusion?

Your thoughtful album review and wonderful questions mean so much. Thank you for really listening to the album and appreciating it like you have.

Interview by Paul McGee

Peter Bruntnell Interview

Three decades into a career that has yielded fifteen albums, Peter Bruntnell remains one of the standout U.K. songwriters. Coupled with that writing flair is his ability to transform those words into exquisitely hook-filled and melodic pieces of music that bring to mind the classic sounds of The Beatles, REM and The Byrds. His latest album, and arguably a career-best, HOUDINI AND THE SUCKER PUNCH, is a testament to his capacity to combine, side by side, breezy and upbeat anthems alongside painful and mournful ballads. Backed by some exceptionally talented players, contributors include Son Volt members Jay Farrar and Mark Spencer, pedal steel supremo Eric Heywood, James Walbourne of The Pretenders, composer, multi-instrumentalist Peter Linnane and regular members of Peter's band, Peter Noone, Mick Clews and David Little. We spoke recently with the ever-engaging artist about the album's origins and the exciting journey of its creation.

You are regularly placed in the Americana genre, which, for me, does not necessarily fit your profile. Does that bother you?

No. It did about twelve years ago, but I did a tour with a band on the Loose label who weren't considered Americana, and I saw how difficult it was to tour in the U.K. if you're not in the Americana bracket. So, I suddenly realised that the Americana label and tag, even though everything is now called Americana, is not all that bad. Richard Thompson is called Americana today; they would call Planxty Americana these days. I really don't mind; I just want to sell more records.

Tell me the background to your recently released album HOUDINI AND THE SUCKER PUNCH? 

The biggest influence on the writing for the record was me having a bouzouki. I wrote The Flying Monk, Yellow Gold, Houdini and The Sucker Punch and Sharks on the bouzouki. Those songs are initially slightly folky but ended up differently. Houdini and The Sucker Punch is more of a jangly pop song, and adding the pedal steel on it was a really good addition even though it's not a country song. To have Eric Heywood play pedal steel on it was a joy; he can play any music genre and is one of the most talented musicians I have ever come across.

Your relationship with Eric Heywood goes back over twenty-five years when he played on your album NORMAL FOR BRIDGEWATER. 

He did, I had met him when he was playing with Son Volt. For this album, I asked Eric if he was up to putting pedal steel on a few songs from his home. He was up for it, and I had to decide how many songs to send him and which songs to send. I got him to play on three songs. Because I don't have a pedal steel player in London that I can use, I wanted pedal steel on only some of the tracks because I could never replicate that, and I needed to be careful not to overegg it. 

That Son Volt connection also resulted in Jay Farrar and Mark Spencer contributing to the new record.

Yes. To get Jay Farrar on the album was great, especially because he doesn't do much of that. And, of course, Mark Spencer from Son Volt also plays on the album.

Peter Linnane, who mastered the new album, also worked on NORMAL FOR BRIDGEWATER.

Yes, he was the engineer on NORMAL FOR BRIDGEWATER. When I realised Peter had mastering skills and the facilities to master albums; I started using him on my records. On my last record, JOURNEY TO THE SUN, I was home on my own during lockdown and had recorded some songs. I wanted to send them to someone whose ears I trusted and who could tell me whether I had over-compressed the songs. I sent one of the songs to him, and he was happy with it. I mastered it and added some keyboards, which sounded great. That became the pattern for that album. I sent him all the songs, and he added some Mellotron, pump organ and organic-sounding instruments.

That continuity with artists and your band members suggests a relationship much more than just professional 

Yes, I have mostly had the same people around me; they are great and more like family to me.

That also includes your writing partner Bill Ritchie. Is he a sounding board for you?

Yes. Sometimes I've got an idea or a title for a song, like Houdini and The Sucker Punch, which I thought of as a title. I sent him that tune, which originally was a different tune than the one I ended up with. At times, I may not have any lyrical idea and might send him something where I'm basically mumbling over the tune, and we go back and forth with ideas and eventually will get on the phone to fine-tune the song. He is great and often comes up with lyrics I couldn't possibly think of. 

The recording process for HOUDINI AND THE SUCKER PUNCH was a combination of studio sessions and remote recordings, which is standard procedure these days. Do you miss the dynamic of having everyone in the studio to record? 

You can't beat the band being all together and capturing those performances, which is quite magical. Still, it can also work remotely when you have people like Peter Linnane, Jay Farrar, Eric Heywood, Mark Spencer, and James Walbourne, who can all work from their studios.

Are the lyrics to the title track autobiographical in any way or simply a Houdini tale?

It's all metaphoric and not necessarily just about someone punching Houdini in the stomach. There is also random stuff in there that isn't self-explanatory to create an atmosphere. It's not necessarily autobiographical. We also had this notion or idea that a sucker punch didn't kill Houdini but might have died of a broken heart which seemed more romantic, and we liked the idea that a woman's rejection slew the great Houdini. 

For me, the absolute standout track on the record is the breakup song, Stamps Of The World. 

That song was actually on an album I recorded on my own in my house about ten or twelve years ago. I played drums on it, and it was called RINGO WAS HERE. It was a bunch of misfit songs which was never officially released, I just made some copies at home and sold them. Stamps Of The World was on that record and the last song chosen for the new album. I needed one more song and didn't have one written at the time; I was thinking of including a cover version of That Lucky Old Son, which I had recorded with a guitar player called Robbie McIntosh, who is absolutely amazing.  I didn't include that song on the record because I didn't want to get into copyright complications. A couple of songs from the RINGO WAS HERE album were possible options to use, but once I heard back from Eric Heywood that he would play on the record, I knew that Stamps Of The World would work. When I was recording and mixing the album, I nearly left that song off, and since then, a couple of people have said that they love it, and I'm like…Really?' 

If that song is a heartbreaker, the love song Sharks is the other end of the scale.

It is a love song; I don't do many. I did a tour about ten years ago with Jay Farrar and Garry Hunt, who was playing with Jay, and we played in Rocky Mountain, Virginia. We were driving in Jay's Mercedes van and played in Rocky Mount, Virginia, and Tennessee Johnson City. I wrote down the names of those two towns when I was on that tour, and I managed to get them into the lyrics of Sharks without sounding too cliched. Because I had played in both of those towns, it was okay for me as an English person to namecheck those towns without sounding like I was singing about trucks and whiskey.  I was so pleased about that.

 I gather that the song Yellow Gold was also born in The States.

After I finished the tour with Son Volt in September 2022, I drove up to Montana with my girlfriend. We drove through Wyoming, where I had never seen a landscape in America like that before. There is literally nothing for a hundred miles, no farms or settlements, and absolutely nothing but the Rocky Mountains on your left; it was very atmospheric. When I got to Montana, I bought a book about that part of the West in a bookshop. I read the book, and when I got back to the U.K. I also listened to some podcasts about the West, and that song almost wrote itself after that. It's the perfect song for James Walbourne to play on with his fast, ripping guitar style.

I'm hearing a lot of psychedelic era The Beatles and The Byrds in the song, Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump.

That was completely my intention. I basically thought that I wanted to rewrite The Beatles' song Rain. I had that in my head, sat in the studio, got a drum beat going, and wrote the bass lines.

And is Out Of The Pines mirror gazing by Peter Bruntnell, warts and all?

Yes, I was terrible at getting up and going to work when I was young and left school; work can be antisocial anyway. I really like Ron Sexsmith and wanted to write a song that sounded like his work. It probably doesn't sound at all like him, but that was as close as I could get. It is slightly different from all the other songs. 

Where did the idea for the album's cover artwork come from?

It's very simple. We were playing the last show of the 2022 tour in Colorado and were in a pub called Lulu's Downtown in Colorado Springs, and that picture of the cock was on the wall in the dressing room. I saw the photo, liked it and thought it would be the album cover. Mark Spencer actually took a picture of it on his phone and sent it to me. I just thought it was a beautiful image. 

Interview by Declan Culliton

Nathan Jacques Interview

‘Old Westerns and Western music are some of my favourite works of storytelling for their luscious sounds and vistas, emotionally driven narratives and their sweeping dramatic sequence. All of those things I sought to capture with this album’ explains Nathan Jacques in the press release for his latest album, DARK WANDERER and the BOUNTY HEART. In many ways, paying homage to the classic singing cowboys of yesteryear and with a previous career in the film industry, Jacques’ music exploring the cowboy concept is a thing he feels truly drawn to rather than market-driven. The album arrives when other like-minded artists like Charley Crockett, Kaitlin Butts and Orville Peck have also cleverly used videos to promote and breathe new life into their recordings. Jacques’ passion and love for his work was palpable when we recently spoke with him.

You are currently living in Los Angeles but from Massachusetts?

I'm originally from Massachusetts in the New England area and moved to Los Angeles to work in the film industry. That didn't stick, and I've always been doing music and loved it a lot, so I got back to it and haven't looked back.  

What was your earliest introduction to country music?

I grew up hearing a lot of my parent's music around the house and in the car when I was young. Country and folk music, which I didn't necessarily gravitate to right away, but when I got to the point that I was making music, it just naturally came back to me. It's nice playing music that you grew up being exposed to. There is power in finding music you like, but it also feels very true and wholesome to return to music that you remember hearing so much as a child, which was very impressionable.

What was your 'go-to' music at that time?

Varying forms and degrees of intensity of rock and roll. The classic rock genre of AC/DC and distorted guitar sounds of the 70s, from there, I moved into punk stuff and the pop-punk scene. I also had an interest in the heavier metal scene that was prominent in New England. I was playing in pop/rock bands at that time. I could never really sing high enough to fit that genre, and when I started making my own music, I found that my voice was more suited to folk and country styles. 

Where did your love of Western-themed music come from?

That came from my deep love of film. I've been exposed to movies and television, literature and narrative storytelling all my life. My family was very much into all that, and I quickly latched on to it. I grew up watching Western movies with my father a lot and became very familiar with that form of storytelling and the heroes' journeys in those movies. I love how connected music and movies are and always had a deep interest in writing cinematically. Hollywood westerns and the music industry are a wonderful collision, and I've always wanted to play in that space. I'm running with it and making it my own now.

Your new record, DARK WANDERER and the BOUNTY HEART, follows a similar theme to LOUD MIND from 2021.

It's technically a sequel to LOUD MIND with the same characters and a continuation of that story. They're both concept records; now it's one bigger story if you dive into it. I don't know how to write not in concept, and I wanted to take that story and expand it, breathe new life into it, and give it a conclusion. Make the world a bit bigger and put a bookend on the story. I rallied with many of my film friends to help make it more visual, and that turned out to be a very exciting and rewarding experience, which was the initial goal.  

Tell me about the recording process for the new album.

This record took a long time; I started writing it around the time that LOUD MIND came out in 2021.  The full band foundational recordings happened in February 2023, so it all took a couple of years. We actually started making the record and scrapped it halfway through the process. It just wasn't working, and we had to go back to the drawing board and start again. We had made LOUD MIND in a 'paint by numbers' way, writing the songs, recording the scratch tracks, bringing in the drummer on top of that, and building everything piece by piece. We started doing the same thing with the new record, but it felt very inorganic, and it wasn't exciting and wasn't working. I realised that I had this amazing band as I was staring a gift horse in the mouth because I wasn't putting us all in a room and just playing the songs, which was foolish. So, I took about six months building the record as a group rather than trying to do it all on my own. I just brought the songs to the band and asked them to make an epic western record together as a band. 

The interludes that precede each song are both exciting and timeless.

My producer, Ed Donnelly, should take most of the credit for them. I wrote the baselines and guitar parts and got the foundation going for them. Ed took that and ran with it, arranging the orchestral parts that were very purposely heavy-handed and homages to Morricone and John Williams. We wanted the listener to feel that even though they were not looking at visuals, they felt that they were listening to the soundtrack to a movie. We worked with the wonderful mixer Jordan Koop to make them sound like they were heavily aged recordings from the 1950s.

Your vocal style suits the country and Western genre.

That's my natural voice. I haven't had much training. Growing up, I tried to sing in bands but didn't start singing seriously until I started these projects. I've been developing my vocals over the past number of years for these records, and I've tried to have character and personality in my voice, and it's not 'put on.' That's my natural voice.

Is the album title a pointer toward Nathan Jacques' alter ego?

Definitely, I play an alternative historical version of myself. I'm playing off what Elvis, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers used to do. Especially Elvis, who would make those often-silly movies that would have the companion record, 'Get GI Blues, the soundtrack, six more songs than are in the movie.' I always loved the marketing and imagery that went with that, it was fun. Nathan Jacques is the fictional, unsuccessful, weird and convoluted singing cowboy movie star who is not very well received. From the start, I wanted to make the record like the counterpart and a reverse marketing thing for this big movie that you will never see. I find that concept fun even though the concept of the record is dark, really sad and heartbreaking. I wanted to pair that with a lighter visual world concept that could be more approachable for people consuming it and also for me. It's also a love letter to a part of Western history, Hollywood and filmmaking. 

You have created a number of videos to support the album, which is a natural addition to the project.

Yes, that was important for me. Fortunately, I have a wonderful core group of friends with whom I've made some videos for the album. I could do more, but we had pretty clear visions from the start of what we wanted to do and have achieved that.

Can you recreate the album's sound at your live shows? 

It would be difficult to recreate the album's sound without such a kickass band. I play with the best musicians I've come across in my life; they are wild and make my job so easy. Not all artists have the privilege of recreating what they do on records, and we don't try to play exactly like the records, but we have a hell of a time expressing what we do in the studio in the live setting. 

How are audiences responding to the shows, and does a particular age profile attend?

A healthy mix; it all depends on where we are playing. My matrix is across the board age profile-wise. There has been an explosion of country music in the last two years in Los Angeles, you can pretty much go to see live country music every night of the week here. The resurgence of country and Western music is hitting all demographics, including a younger audience. The pop and radio country music probably also helps a lot, which I'm not too partial to, but it can also eventually bring people into country and western.

The profile of country music has been expanding in recent years, which is refreshing.

Yes, I think about it in two categories; there is that pop/country that is cultured to hip/hop often, and the more traditional side like Charley Crockett, Sierra Ferrell and Tyler Childers. They are the two zones, and then there is this middle zone where I fondly put Sturgill Simpson, who, for me, is one of the biggest keys to this resurgence. He lives in that middle point which dances between genres, not necessarily going to the pop side and yet not entirely traditional country. Sturgill's A SAILORS'S GUIDE TO EARTH is one of my favourite records, it's like a funk/soul record and is very inspiring, and I intend to try and live in that space. I find that space very liberating, where you can swim between the aspects of a funky country sound.

Interview by Declan Culliton. Photograph by Alexander Karavay

Hannah Juanita Interview

Intrigued by the traditional music scene happening on Honky Tonk Tuesday Nights at The American Legion in Nashville, Chattanooga-born Hannah Juanita decided to check it out for herself in 2018. Her first visit there was as a punter and two-stepper, but a few years later, she was fronting bands in Nashville and working on her debut album, HARDLINER. That album was released in 2021, and since then, Juanita has gone from strength to strength as a performer and recording artist. Supporting like-minded artists Kaitlin Butts and Jesse Daniel has brought her to the attention of a wider audience outside Nashville. After touring over the past two years, she booked recording time at The Bomb Shelter in Nashville, where she, her producer Mose Wilson, and a host of big hitter session players recorded her second album, TENNESSEE SONGBIRD. It’s a full-on and joy-filled collection of traditional country songs that cements Juanita’s growing reputation as another strong-willed woman making music on her terms and having a blast doing so. ‘That’s the beauty of Nashville; you have the best of the best players here, and I think I was a good enough singer to pull it off,’ she told Lonesome Highway when we recently spoke with her.  

Growing up in Chattanooga, was Nashville on your radar music-wise?

I wasn’t close to the Nashville music scene growing up at all. Nashville was very different back then, and I never thought I would ever live there, even though it was only two hours away from where I lived in Chattanooga. More people are doing real country music in Nashville now than when I was growing up. 

I understand that you sang in church as a child. Had you ambitions of a music career then?

I was raised Southern Baptist and was a harmony singer in a youth band, and a music career didn’t seem like an option back then. I was raised to go to college and get a job. My dad wanted me to be a pharmacist, and I used to say, ‘Dad, can you really see me working at Walgreens?’ Things have changed so much since then, with social media and so many independent and DIY artists. It is so much more accessible now.

When did you develop an interest in songwriting?

I remember when I was younger than ten, I wrote a song with the lyrics ‘I love you like a hurricane’ or something like that (laughs). I was writing songs when I was young, but not seriously.

Your debut album, HARDLINER, was written while you were living in Washington State. Several songs on the album depict an angry or frustrated person.

That period was a time when I was trying to figure out what I wanted in life. I had bought land with my ex and a couple of friends in Washington State and my ex was away a lot on tour, working with a circus for weeks at a time, and I would be alone in a cabin, miserable and lonely. That is when I started writing a lot. I was by myself at night by candlelight; we didn’t have electricity, and I was sad and angry and would sit by the fire and write. So, many of the songs on HARDLINER are inspired by that period.

Was the move to Nashville a calculated one to follow a professional music career, and what part did Honky Tonk Tuesday Nights at The American Legion have in that regard?

It was not a calculated move at all. When I went back to the South, it was to Ashville, North Carolina; I then went back out West to work a harvest season. Nothing was tying me down to Ashville, so on the way back South in late 2018; I just thought I should stop in Nashville on a Tuesday night to go to Honky Tonk Tuesday at the American Legion. I sought out The Legion because I had been a fan of old-time country music for years and was singing it on Instagram. I knew that people were playing this music live and two-stepping at The Legion, and it sounded like fun. I wanted to go and hang out there. I met a friend of a friend there who introduced me to a whole bunch of people; we hung out all night and went to Santa’s Pub after The Legion. I probably made more friends that one night than I had living in Ashville for six months.  I went back to Chattanooga for two weeks at Christmas and moved to Nashville on New Year’s Eve. It just felt right, everything seemed to fall into place, and I’ve stayed here since then.

Having seen you perform a number of times, I’m struck by how much you have progressed in a relatively short time, both in your live shows and recordings.

I feel really great at the moment. I had toured for a year and a half with my first record, HARDLINER and performed in different situations, I play with Mose Wilson as a duo sometimes and also with a full band. I had only been performing for six months, mostly as a fireside singer, up to the time I came to Nashville. I had no experience fronting a band, so I have grown a lot in the past five years. That’s the beauty of Nashville; you have the best of the best players here, and I think I was a good enough singer to pull it off. I’ve also really dug in in terms of my songwriting, I wanted to write songs that I was proud of. It’s been a journey, and I feel good about it.

HARDLINER was the title of your debut album. It’s also featured in the name of your band and the opening track, Hardliner Blues, on your new album, TENNESSEE SONGBIRD. Is ‘hardliner’ an accurate description of yourself?

I reckon it is. Mose Wilson actually wrote that song, Hardliner Blues. It’s one of the songs I didn’t write on the record. I like the nod to my first record with that song, and the moniker, hardliner, is sticking.

TENNESSEE SONGBIRD is very much a ‘happy’ record, upbeat and lots of fun. The duet with Riley Downing of The Deslondes, Granny’s Cutlass Supreme, is a case in point. His whisky-soaked voice works so well with your sweet, high-pitched vocal.

I can’t tell you why, but I heard Riley on that song right from the beginning. He’s a buddy of mine, and The Deslondes were in Nashville working on a record at The Bomb Shelter, where I recorded the new album.  Everything was finished on my record, and that song was already recorded. I sent it to him to add his vocal; it was the last thing we did on the recording.

Your grandmother inspired that song.

I was writing for a project I was hired to do with others that aligned with Open Table, an organisational resource for homeless people in Nashville. We were making a record that could sell in the street, similar to selling newspapers. The producer for the record gave us a list of hooks and prompts for the songs; one was Grandma’s Cutlass Supreme. I started writing Granny’s Cutlass Supreme from that prompt and brought it to the other guys, and we finished writing the song that night. My grandmother drove a lavender Lincoln town car with a white leather interior and was always dolled up. I love how the song turned out about an empowered older woman who, some might say, is past her prime. She knows what life is about and has it all figured out, and I liked that image of a strong older woman doing her own thing. It’s a fun and groovy song.

Would you consider recording a duets album in the future?

Mose Wilson and I talk about that all the time. We have a studio date coming up, and we may work on that, but Mose is also working on his own second record now, so he’ll want to finish that first. We tour a lot together, so it would be something worth doing together.

The title track, Tennessee Songbird, is autobiographical but also has a deeper meaning.

It has. It’s about me but also about how I feel about the music industry, country living, and how country music is in some people’s blood, and it’s what they have to do.

The players on the album read like ‘who’s who’ of Nashville, big hitters with Chris Scruggs, Dennis Crouch, Bruce Bouton, Micah Hulscher, Billy Contreras, and Fred Eltringham, all credited, alongside Mose Wilson, who also produced the album. How was the recording structured at The Bomb Shelter Studio in Nashville?

We cut the record live with the band, the rhythm section, bass and drums, acoustic guitar, keys, pedal steel, and accordion; all of that was cut live in one day. There was a scheduling conflict; we had two days to do the bones of everything, but we ended up doing it all in one long day. Mose and I had done a lot of prep work and knew what we wanted. We had already met with the players, and they knew what we wanted. So, we got the foundation of every song laid that day and went from there.

You’ve already been busy touring this year. What plans do you have to tour the new album?

I was out for two and a half months last year straight. We are just back from a month-long tour, and I’m about to go to Minnesota and then to New York for Honky Tonkin’ in Queens and I have several shows in Nashville during AmericanaFest, including my album debut show at Cannery Row.

You’ve joined the elite company of women who have recorded great country albums this year alongside Wonder Women of Country, Sierra Ferrell, Emily Nenni, Sarah Gayle Meech, Kiely Connell, Kelsey Waldon, Kayla Ray, Eliza Thorn, Kaitlin Butts, and India Ramey. It seems like a concerted movement by a bunch of talented artists leading a charge. 

More and more women are coming out and playing and recording this music. I find that the community of women here is super supportive, though I’m not sure that I’d call it a movement. The audiences are calling out for more women, and the industry certainly is taking notice. It’s a case of ‘women are here too.’

Interview by Declan Culliton. Photograph by Starla Little

Bob Sumner Interview

What may often be bleak themes are handled delicately and tellingly in the songwriting of Vancouver-born artist Bob Sumner. His 2019 album WASTED LOVE SONGS and SOME PLACE TO REST EASY, which will be released this week, delve into troubled relationships and alcohol abuse by an artist unafraid to lay bare his vulnerabilities. If the former record could be filed under singer-songwriter/ Americana, the latter is more ‘country’ influenced, blending the classic Countrypolitan sound of the 60s alongside some more modern country. Signed to the Fluff & Gravy label, SOME PLACE TO REST EASY should herald a well-deserved industry breakthrough for Sumner. We spoke with him recently as he prepared to bring the new album on the road with shows that include three appearances at AmericanaFest in Nashville later this month.

You developed your love of music from your brother Brian. 

Yes, my brother Brian, who is two years older than me, has always been my hero since I was a toddler, and whatever he was doing, I wanted to be doing too. We both picked up guitars fairly late; he was sixteen, and I did the same a few years later. When I was in my early twenties and going to college, I started playing open mics, and he had already been playing in bands. We started playing in the garage at home; we were being turned on to the late Johnny Cash recordings by Rick Ruben, and that music had a huge impact on us. I could barely play a few chords, and 'three chords and the truth' made a lot of sense to me.

What were you listening to growing up in Vancouver?

Growing up, I discovered my folk's old records, Zeppelin, The Doors, The Band and other early 70s rock, but also, growing up in the suburbs, I was exposed to hip hop and gangsta rap, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, that what all my buddies were listening to. My brother Brian was and still is pushing boundaries musically, which is also important to me, and that got embedded in my psyche playing music with him. He was always adamant that we didn't make anything that he called 'museum piece music' by mimicking things that others were doing; we probably weren't good enough to do that very well anyway. All the songs we were playing were written as folk songs on acoustic guitar, and we would have called what we were doing back then indie-folk or indie-rock.  

Your 2019 album, WASTED LOVE SONGS, ticks the singer-songwriter box. Your new record, SOME PLACE TO REST EASY, has more of a 'country' flavour. Was that your intention? 

It's so interesting to hear people's perspectives on my music and the albums because, for me, they both fit together really well, but they are being received quite differently. WASTED LOVE SONGS was born out of this need, and I felt it should be listened to from front to back without any real change in the vibe. It is a subdued singer-songwriter record, and that was something that my brother would never be interested in doing. With SOME PLACE TO REST EASY, I want to bring it up and have some fun. I wanted people to tap their feet a bit more, and that's where it ended up being more country.

Given the dark theme of many of the songs on the new album, were they more suited to a country theme?

You are right, but it actually happened organically. Alcohol had a lot to play in the writing of this record; I lost three people to alcoholism and mental illness, and the first three singles, Bridges, Motel Room, and Is It Really Any Wonder, are all written for loved ones who were alive at the time and have since passed. Also, my own relationship with alcohol and how that was affecting romantic relationships and otherwise. For better or for worse, that is a very country trope. The life that I was leading at the time and what surrounded me, as well as listening to a lot of country music at the time, seemed to point me in that direction. 

I was particularly impressed with the strings, credited to Trent Freeman, on several of the tracks. They give them a rich mid-60s Countrypolitan sound.

You're dead on; I love the Countrypolitan sound, and I don't know if you come across this, but people often bemoan that production. It's a sweet spot with rich country music that sounds good to me. That's exactly what we were going for on some of these tunes. We couldn't afford a full string section, so Trent Freeman created layers to build that sound, which my producer, Erik Neilson, loved hearing in the studio. It's a little different because it lacks the low-end sound because it doesn't have a cello, but it worked, and I'm really proud of it. 

I get a sense of Lee Hazlewood on the track Lonesome Sound.

My producer and friend Erik will love that comparison, as do I. That song actually almost did not make the record, but Erik loved it, and it became his baby. Actually, a lot of what we were listening to and referencing were old Gordon Lightfoot records. I hadn't realised until Erik pointed out just how interesting Lightfoot's production was. All these weird little synths are nearly hidden in his work and he used some interesting guitar work, Lonesome Sound came from those ideas.  

Your fellow Canadian, Kendall Carson, adds vocals to one of the tracks. 

Yes, Carson is a dear friend and an absolute wonder; she is a fiddle player mainly but also does her own solo work. She sang on Didn't We Dream, the next single from the record, and she added such beautiful power to that song, which would be completely lacking without her input. I always love to tell people – because this is a big deal to me – if you Google Kendal Carson, you can find her singing duets with John Prine. She did a bunch of touring with John Prine and sang In Spite of Ourselves and others with him.

Tell me about the recording process for SOME PLACE TO REST EASY.

We started at Christmas in 2022 at a studio in Vancouver called Afterlife Studios with my producer, bass player and best friend Erik Neilson, who had also produced WASTED LOVE SONGS. It's not a very 'live' record; it's layered and one we worked on piecemeal. The drums and bass were done, with all of us in the room working on the scratch tracks for the vocals and guitars. Once the rhythm, drums, and bass were done, my favourite days were working on the strings and synths. The synths are something that we do a bit different, and we brought in this friend of ours and local player in town called Chris Gestrin, who is an enigma and an absolute robot of a player. His face should be on the album cover; he is so important to the music on it. He brought all his collection of vintage synths to the studio, and what he added to the record and my last album, WASTED LOVE SONGS,became paramount to the songs with the hooks and tones he comes up with. I have a complex guilt around him because when he comes in, he is so important to the end result of the music. 

The synth work is particularly striking in the opening track on the album Bridges.

Yes, that song has a pulsating synth because I wanted the sound of that song to be epic in that way, and he brought that song to life.

You are scheduled to play a number of shows at AmericanaFest in Nashville in a few weeks.

I'm doing three shows in Nashville when I'm there. The show at Dee's Cocktail Lounge will be one with the full band, and we'll try to bring the new record to life with a band that includes keys, pedal steel, and fiddle. The night before, we're doing The Bluebird Café, which will be a paired-down set with three of us, and then for the record label Fluff and Gravy showcase on the following Saturday, we are going to do a string band-style show with mandolin, dobro and fiddle.

You signed to the Fluff & Gravy label. How did that come about?

I feel so fortunate to be on the Fluff and Gravy label. I've known the owner, John Shepski, and Tommy Alexander, a wonderful songwriter, is on that label and has been a good friend and champion of my music. Jeffrey Martin, another wonderful lyricist, has also been very helpful. It's a small but mighty label, and I have to pinch myself because it makes all the difference in the world, calling a place like that home and having so much trust and faith in the person running the label and so much love for the other artists on the label.  

There is government support for the arts in Canada. Was that available to you?

There is grant money available, and they supported this record; with their support, I was able to make it and acquire the publicist for the record. Unfortunately, what we don't have in Canada is opportunity, especially on the West Coast, but we do have Government support. I love my country, and Vancouver is beautiful. All my family is here where I live. What I really need to do with the music I play is bring it to Nashville, try to spend time down there, and tour from there.

Interview by Declan Culliton

Jessica Lynn Interview

Singer-songwriter Jessica Lynn’s backstory reads like a movie script and one that is most likely to have a very happy ending at that.  Starting her first band at thirteen years of age, she encountered the cruel downside of the music industry as a teenager. Pursuing academic qualifications while still performing and writing, Lynn disregarded the standard music career path and instead, with the help of her father, self-managed her occupation and, in doing so, became the only woman and female artist to reach the Top 5 on Amazon Music with her debut full-length album LONE RIDER in 2022.  Obstacles such as being financially defrauded by a promotion company in 2020 and undergoing major surgery earlier this year were further issues that Lynn has overcome. Going against industry norms seldom leads to long-term survival in the cutthroat music industry, but Jessica Lynn is living proof that with talent, coupled with dogged determination, astuteness, and a strong work ethic, that model can be challenged and overcome. 

Given your qualifications, did the idea of an academic career rather than one in the arts ever appeal to you? 

No, I've always been playing music as long as I can remember. I started my first band when I was thirteen. I quickly found out how horrible the music industry can be. I was close to a record deal when I was a teenager, which fell apart because of other people. I studied because I wanted to have something else to do if I ever decided to leave this crazy life that I'm in. So, I decided to study Maths and Adolescent Education and have a Masters in both. When I was recording my first television special, I was recording and teaching school every day.

Did those specific qualifications help you in your music career in any way?

Yes, particularly working with children with special needs, which teaches you so much, including compassion and patience, and you learn to be a better person. The people with special needs I have worked with are such beautiful people with pure hearts and spirits, which I've really taken with me. 

You have had to undergo serious sinus surgery earlier this year. How has that affected your plans for 2024, and, more importantly, has the surgery been a success?

This has been a very difficult year for me. It's been one of the busiest touring years I've ever had. We started touring in mid-May, and we go to Christmas. I had major surgery in January that I'm still healing from; I basically had every single thing that you can have to your sinuses done. I have been chronically ill for years; every tour that I've done, I've been ill at some point, and it has been not easy. I had been on so many antibiotics, and it is a big risk having sinus surgery as a singer, but it was taking such a toll on both my physical and mental health that I had to do it. It has been a success; they reconstructed the inside of my nose so I could function better.

Your band includes both your father and your husband. Is that a blessing, and who calls the shots? 

It's hard in this business to have people around you who genuinely love and care for you, so I'm very lucky. My family and all my crew have been with me for a long time, so I have a very solid support group. It is an interesting dynamic, okay, because I'm the boss. My parents and husband are employed by me, which is funny, but everybody knows their role and works together.

You remain self-managed.

Yes. My dad took that role on for many years while I was still learning the business, but I've self-managed for the past three years. I'm type A, organised to a fault almost, and enjoy being in charge and ensuring everything is as it should be. I'm a Capricorn, and anyone else who is also a Capricorn will understand.

How does that pan out, given the obstacles that women still encounter in the music industry?

That's true about the many obstacles, but I'm not a quitter or one to give up even in the face of adversity. I'm an entrepreneur running my own business. It's funny the number of times I have gone to meetings, and people would totally ignore me and start speaking to my husband or my father. I've gone into music stores with my husband to buy something, and they would start immediately talking to him rather than me. It's interesting, but it also fuels my fire.

Your album LONE RIDER, written during the pandemic in a desperate time, catapulted your career in many ways.

I didn't have any publicity engaged for that record. I had all of my money stolen from me before that record came out by a company that was supposed to be promoting it. It made that time even more difficult for me during the pandemic. I had my biggest tour booked for that time, with a hundred dates in fifteen countries, and all of them fell apart. So, I started streaming online; it was the only thing I could do. I went to work and did six live streams a week, and my numbers started to fly through the roof. I was honoured that I was one of the top forty live streamers in 2020 and a top twenty live streamer in 2021 up there with Stevie Nicks and the Zack Bryan Band, and it was just little old me in my living room with my piano. It felt like I had a hundred thousand people sitting in my living room with me, and I made lifelong fans and friends after having that severe personal loss with I had with the record. On the day of the release of LONE RIDER, I didn't expect a lot because I didn't have anyone promoting it except my own social media; it went to No.1 in so many countries, making for a very special time in my life.

Did the live streams and where your fans were streaming from give you ammunition to plan where best to tour when the world opened up again? 

Yes, it did. I built my social media from nothing and worked very hard to do that religiously using my insight. That helped us decide where to tour and where to target, both in the U.S. and in Europe, where I've been touring for eight years now. We've built up a big fan base in Europe, especially Germany, France, and Switzerland.

Given the hectic touring schedule and administration responsibilities, when did you get time to write?

Not when we are on the road; we are too busy then. Normally, I will spend a month of the year writing before we go on the road; our touring season tends to be May through to December, and we do a huge Christmas tour in November and December. Those months are usually downtime for a lot of artists, but they are the busiest time of the year for us. This year, as I've had the surgeries, I wrote from the end of March up until May, and we also recorded a new record in those two months. It's been a difficult year for creating; everything has been so rushed, but I'm so excited about the new record; we literally sent the album to the mastering guy to prepare for distribution at 3 a.m. on the day we left for the U.S. tour.   

You have already released three singles from the new album, including Shame, which was co-written by another artist and academic, Rachel Walker Mason. How did that connection come about?

We initially connected on Instagram sometime during the pandemic. She's an amazing songwriter and musician; connecting with her was great. That's the amazing thing about the internet: You can connect with people you would have never met otherwise.

Where did you record the new album, and when will it be released?

I have a home studio, and I co-produced the record, so I was there for every single session. Everyone came over to the house, and we recorded the tracks one at a time in the small but mighty home studio. We released a few of the singles last year and then recorded six songs in two months, which was a race against the clock, but I am so excited that we got it all done. It's coming out on January 17th next year. We decided not to do a fall release because we have a lot going on with the Christmas tour. It's our biggest one yet, and I wanted to focus on that. We've been playing the songs on the road for a few months now, so it's funny; they sound like old songs already. 

You have opened for household names like ZZ Top, Keith Urban and Joe Dee Messina as well as Loretta Lynn. What highlights do you draw from those experiences, and how does it increase your fan base compared to your own headline shows?

It's very different. Opening for artists like the ones you mentioned is like a pinch dream moment, artists that I've listened to since I was a little kid a lot of times. To be introduced to their audiences, who then can become my audience, is exciting. I also love watching from the administrative and logistic point of view how they operate, how many crew members they have, and their roles. I'm always watching and learning. We do a lot of festivals here and around Europe as headliners, which consistently increases our fanbase.

Despite your busy schedule, you also find time to support worthy causes like Animal Shelters, the military and various charities.  

That is very important for me; music is one of the most powerful mediums that can make a difference in the world. Ever since I was a kid and started my first band, I have always played at nursing homes, animal shelter benefits, and children's hospitals. I have continued that into my career. We have done a ton of work with the military, veterans, and charities. I have a disabled rescue dog myself who is missing two back legs; she has prosthetic legs.

You are an extremely structured person. Do you set yourself short-term or long-term goals?

My goals are never hard set, and there is a reason for that. I've learned throughout my career that if you are too focused on a particular door, you're going to miss other doors. Those other doors can often lead you to the most amazing things in life. If I had been told years ago that I would be doing country music and touring in Lithuania, Latvia or Mexico, I would have thought that was crazy. My goal is to love life, wake up every day, be happy with what I am doing with the people I love most, and be a little bit better than I was the day before. As long as I am progressing in some way mentally and physically, that's an achievement. I think I have been able to keep building my career by always keeping an open mind.

For anyone unfamiliar with Jessica Lynn's music, how would you describe it?

A magazine described it perfectly a few years ago as 'country arena rock.' You couldn't say it better: high-energy country mixed with rock 'n' roll.

Interview by Declan Culliton

Ordinary Elephant Interview

Ordinary Elephant is the performing name of husband and wife duo Pete Damone and Crystal Hariu-Damone. They have been active on the music circuit since their formation back in 2013 and their albums bear testament to their growing reputation that has drawn much praise. In 2017, they were honoured with the International Folk Music Award for Artist of the Year for their album, BEFORE I GO. The duo create insightful songs and beautifully honed harmony vocals. Their sound is coloured around Folk/Roots influences and the pair have been praised for the authenticity and honesty in their performance. Their superb songs are reflections on life, love and the vagaries of human nature, in addition to celebrating the gifts of mother earth and nature. They spent five years on the road in a RV, continuously travelling across the United States, building a fan-base and experiencing life in a unique way. Now settled down in Louisiana and with the challenges of Covid lockdown behind them, Lonesome Highway wanted to catch up with Crystal and Peter and enquire into new album and their future plans.

Congratulations on the launch of the new album. Have you been pleased with the response from the media so far?

(Pete and Crystal) Yes, although it can be hard to gauge how much any one thing moves the needle. But then there are people that you meet at the shows who say they saw the album review somewhere, and that's what got them to the show. And that's really the ultimate goal: to connect with people directly; so that feels like a success. It’s really encouraging to have journalists who listen to a lot of music, and have well informed opinions, say kind things about your work. We certainly are very thankful for the reviews that we have received so far.

Why did you decide to name this album eponymously? It would normally happen on a debut but on your fourth release I wondered what led to the naming decision?

(Crystal) It took us a while to decide that. We were circling around some things, but nothing was feeling quite right. Then that idea came to us since it's just us on the album, and was recorded with us performing the way we do live. Self-titling felt like the most sure-footed move since this album so accurately captured what we were at that moment in time.

The previous album, HONEST (2019) used stellar musicians like Will Kimbrough and Neilson Hubbard, who also produced the album. Post-Covid did it just feel right to get back to the source of your song writing and play as a duo?

(Pete) We worked with Dirk Powell to produce the new album. We just assumed that he would bring his instrumental talents to the songs since he is such a legendary fiddle and banjo player. After laying down our tracks, and some initial mixing, he said that while he certainly could add things, he didn’t feel like he needed to. We were a little scared at first honestly, but to have someone like that endorse the songs as they were, said a lot, and was really special.

How did you come across Dirk Powell in the first place?

(Crystal) It was at AmericanaFest in 2019 in Nashville actually. We had performed at the Station Inn, and after the show he said how much he enjoyed our set. I was waiting in line for water and didn’t think that he was talking to me. Later on as we left the gig, Dirk was playing fiddle outside with Rhiannon Giddens, and we stopped to listen. After they finished the song they were playing he saw us and said again, “hey, that was a really beautiful set,” making clear he was actually talking to us. We thanked him, and then emailed him once we got back home to say how much we appreciated him listening to our set, and taking the time to share that with us. He responded and offered to show us his studio which is in Breaux Bridge, just a 40-minute drive away, which we visited in early 2020. So that started the connection that later led to recording with him.

How does it feel now to put your roots down after so many years of travelling the USA?

(Crystal) It was the end of 2019 when we bought this place, after 5 years of living on the road full-time. We were changing the way we were travelling, wanting to put down some roots and have a consistent place to come back between touring…which of course abruptly ended very shortly after that. But we felt very fortunate to have a place to be during Covid. Especially since my parents were just 30 minutes down the road, and so we were able to be with them during that time. At the end of 2021 we started picking up again on touring, moving to what we were aiming for back in 2019. It feels good to have a rooted place to keep returning to.

What do you miss when you look back at all those years of travelling constantly on the road using camper vans as your home?

(Pete) We have gone through a few different road situations. When we started it was so much different, as we weren’t doing music as a full-time thing. Travelling was more of a lifestyle choice. We could play concerts around the country at our own pace, while I was still working 40-hour weeks remotely as a computer programmer. That gave Crystal time to delve back into songwriting.

(Crystal) Yeah, I have always been a writer since I was a kid. That was my way to get things out. At the end of high school it turned into writing songs, which I continued doing during college. After graduating, I moved on to a lot more schooling for something totally unrelated to writing or music, which did not allow me much time to spend on the creative side of things. So backing away from that part of my life when we started traveling allowed me to revisit my creativity, and realize that maybe it's what I was really supposed to be doing.

Did you get to visit every State during your regular travels?

(Pete) We just checked off two more this last year, Delaware and North Dakota. We are missing only South Dakota and Hawaii.

Did you notice a perceptible change with political divisions in city and rural areas of America as you travelled around?

(Pete and Crystal) I feel like it’s hard because it’s been almost 10 years since we took off, and in 2014, that was starting to come to a boil. I think that it’s gotten worse since then. Being who we are, I don’t think that we get any crazy sideways looks. Everyone is super friendly to us, and being in the folk world, our lens is also skewed. We are not doing bar gigs and things like that anymore, so people are coming to see us with intention, and many of them tend to have a similar mindset as ours. There are probably pockets of people who are outside of that bubble, and we may not realize that they come to our shows since we are not overtly political. There are definitely things that you could say that would rile people up, but if you can say it in a different way, then maybe it doesn’t trigger that reaction from them, and there's a better chance of them being open to hearing you. We do try to be conscious of that. There are certain songs and certain things that we touch upon that we could introduce in a way that would close people off, but we try to not have that happen. We want people to be open to listening to our music, to let it in, and if people change the way they’re thinking, it's on their own accord. Which, to us, feels like a more resilient change.

Has your writing process changed much over the years?

(Crystal) Just doing it more consistently, finding our writing voices, and being inspired by different things that we come across. In the beginning, Pete wasn’t really a lyrics listener even, but we've been doing these writing exercises every morning for several years now, and it has been really wonderful to see him grow over time to appreciate lyrics, and then start writing them himself.

(Pete) I grew up in Austin and listened to bands in the Seattle grunge scene, angsty and cryptic, but The Beatles were my first musical love. Their experimentation, their harmonies and melody in their music is just incredible.  Then the appreciation of the Texas songwriters came along, with writers like Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt. The simplicity in their songs was so accessible to me and allowed me to focus on their lyrical brilliance. It just blew me away. That was the first time that lyrics made me feel in the way that melody and harmony had before. That started maybe 15 years ago.

Crystal, you were really into poetry, and I know that you both met at an open mic night. How did that come about?

(Crystal) I didn’t get a guitar until after I had graduated high school and I didn’t get on a stage until 2008, the year before Pete and I met. After high school I decided I wanted my poems to be songs and got a guitar to be a vehicle for songwriting. Ten years later, in 2008, I was living in Florida and found an open mic night there. I knew I'd only be living there for a short time, so I promised myself that I would play that open mic before I left. It was terrifying, but something about it made me want to keep doing it. When I moved to Texas, I found another one there, and we both happened to go to that open mic for the first time on the same night.

Now that Crystal is back home in Louisiana, has there been many childhood memories showing up and influencing the songs that were written for this new album?

It’s been great being near my family again, and being able to see them so often. The combination of being near where I grew up, and having a permanent home base, has me feeling more rooted and has definitely informed a lot of the writing on this album. We are finding our space, and how to best take up that space.

Crystal, your maiden name Hariu. Is this Eastern European?

It's Finnish, and I keep it because the name won't go on. At least in the parts of our family that we know about, it ends with me. Also, in all the schooling and certifications I had in my previous career (veterinary cardiologist), I was Doctor Hariu. I was still practicing full-time when we married, so I also wanted to keep that as part of my married name to maintain that link.

A lot of the songs seem deeply personal. Is there a concern that showing your vulnerability will lead to feeling very exposed?

It feels like we have always done that. It’s a goal to be open and vulnerable, and it doesn’t feel like a new thing…maybe we're just pushing more into it? That’s what people connect with. At shows we often have people thank us for being so open and vulnerable. And so it feels like it’s wanted, and that it's what people need, and that’s what makes it not quite as scary…that maybe it’s helping someone.

Songs like Pigeons and Birdie Was An Oak Tree are celebrations of nature, the circle of life, and our place in the grand scheme of things. That sense of acceptance balanced with the songs that show inner vulnerability, give a nice dichotomy.

Thank you. It doesn’t always feel like we are aging gracefully! But, we like to think it is the case.

Are there any plans for a European tour in the months ahead?

We’re talking at the moment about when it is best to come back over. Nothing firm yet but we do have a booking agent in the Netherlands who is eager to get us back. We are working on it, but it will be at least another year.

We certainly want to try and have you visit Ireland and to play a few shows here. Hopefully that will eventually happen?

Yes, we would really love to do that, so much! We definitely want to come back over and visit places that we haven’t been before.

Is there anything that you do as a discipline now as a daily process?

(Pete) I think when we are home it allows us to establish routines like practicing our instruments or writing separately from one another. When we were on the road full-time, we were sharing a small space, and it didn't allow us time to carve out room for ourselves to develop lyrics and instrumentation separately before working on it together.

(Crystal) It’s definitely harder when we're on tour, but one thing that we do every day is a practice called object writing. A lot of my poetry and different song ideas come from that. We started it back in 2017. You pick a random object/word, and use that as a jumping off point, trying to touch on the senses as much as you can, in a sensory, stream of consciousness way. Not thinking too much, just letting things flow for 10 minutes, being open to whatever comes up for you. It often strays from the original object. It is a door to let you access things you may not have otherwise.

(Crystal and Pete) Our other unique practice is a songwriting technique called The Translitic Process. You take a poem that is in a foreign language that you don’t speak, and you "translate" it. You are not trying to write what you actually think the words mean, but rather let the way the word looks or the way that you think it may sound like lead you. It's like word association, and you just write down what comes into your brain. You work on the first draft (which is usually gobbledygook), and keep rewriting the drafts in that same manner, until the song reveals itself to you, and what your subconscious was trying to get out. There are several songs on the new album that came about through this process.

Songs on the album like Walk With You and Relic Of the Rain are love songs that reveal your deep bond. All those years of travelling in a camper van on the road, living in such close quarters. Many couples would not survive that close proximity together on a daily basis. How do you make it work for you?

(Crystal) I guess that before we ever started travelling, after we first met, we just did everything together. It felt natural, and we didn’t feel that pull to have much time away from each other. It works for us, and we realize it wouldn't work for everyone. We often joke that between the two of us, we are one musician!

Interview by Paul McGee Photograph by Olivia Perillo

Teddy Thompson Interview

Teddy Thompson took to the stage in the small marquee at the back of Colfer’s pub, Carrig-on-Bannow, Co Wexford to the slight bemusement of some of the mainly local audience, who were there for the annual Phil Murphy Trad Weekend and were expecting Irish traditional and folk music. However, John and Pip Murphy, the two musician brothers who run the venue in the small village near the sea, have put it on the map for Americana music too and there was a hard core of fans who had come from all over the Sunny South East to hear Teddy. They weren’t disappointed either, and he treated them to a set list of songs ranging from his first solo album in 2000 through to his latest in 2023, a collaboration, with Jenni Muldaur, of classic country duets. Favourites like I Should Get Up, In Your Arms and I Wish It Was Over were interspersed with covers of classics like Felice & Boudleaux Bryant’s Change Of Heart. Thompson’s intense performance was interspersed with his usual wry observations and self-deprecating sense of humour. Just before the gig, Lonesome Highway got the chance to catch up with him and get a little insight into his world.

You’ve been doing a little road trip around the countryside during this tour but do you have any Irish family connections?

We do but we haven’t followed it up, unfortunately. Most of my family is Scottish, especially on my mother’s side and her surname is Pettifer, but it’s too far back and we haven’t researched it.

What are the origins of your well-known love of country music?

I listened to a lot of that stuff when I was a kid and then when I was getting into music the first thing I heard was the Everly Brothers, who are not really country but it leans that way for our ears now. Then later on I would be in the car with my dad (Richard Thompson) on road trips and he was the one that had the tapes, he would play the Everly Brothers and country stuff and I’ve realised that it’s from him that I got this love of country music. This was in England when I was growing up, until the age of eighteen when I moved to the States.

How do you feel about touring - do you enjoy it or it is just something you do because you have to?

Well, it depends … (laughs ruefully) I feel like I have to do it now to make a living. I don’t feel like I have to do it creatively. I like playing but if I didn’t have to do it to make some money I don’t know how much I’d do. It makes you wonder, you know, if you didn’t need the money would you still do it when you’ve done it a million times? I mean, most of the time I like the gig, but it’s the other 23 hours, the travelling, that can get you down. And it depends on how you’re doing it, like most things in life, what kind of style are you doing it in. It’s a tougher job the lower down the totem pole you go. It gets tough for me, but even down from me it’s even tougher, you have to drive yourself around, you have to sell your own CDs. The further up you go, doing a gig is still some effort but it’s not as much effort if you’ve got someone driving you there, if you can travel business class etc. So for the working musician it can be a slog, but the gig is usually ok. But then if you have a bad gig, you’re thinking ‘ugh ..and I’m staying in this horrible hotel somewhere and I’ve just driven seven hours and I’m exhausted’ .. so it’s all the stuff that comes with it.

What are your thoughts about digital music compared with physical and what effect has it had on your life generally?

Like most of us, devastating is the word I would use. Approx 75% of my income has disappeared and that’s true for everybody and it’s been very difficult. So what has happened is that a lot of people have just stopped doing it - the industry is just a fraction of what it used to be and it’s just a numbers game. It went from being something like a £10 billion industry and now it’s a £1 billion industry, so at least 50% of people just got out of it, and that’s artists, managers and agents. It was bound to happen, I guess, and there are good things about it but unfortunately there wasn’t a strong enough lobby or union at the time when the laws needed to be adjusted for the new technology to ensure revenue streams. The big companies made sure it didn’t happen and that chance is gone, so it’s all over (laughs). It bothers me as a music consumer too, it bothers me that music is such an undervalued thing now, because once you make something free it then, in society, holds very little value for most people.

It follows that you probably can’t afford to bring a band over now? It’s quite a few years since we saw you with a band over here. You’re based in NY - do you tour over there with a band?

Sometimes, yes, if it’s in a small enough geographical radius but it’s tough to pay to fly people around these days. We can do it if it’s drivable and we can do a few shows close together. But I don’t really play in America any more than I do here. Like most touring musicians, it doesn’t really matter where you live. It would be the same if I lived in London, just because you live there doesn’t mean you could play there every week or every month. It’s the same cycle - you can only play a certain amount of times in any place.

As regards songwriting, are you a disciplined person, do you set aside time every day to write? 

I wish I was, but no, not at all! I don’t have that sort of mindset, the creative urges to do it just for the sake of it. I like it as being a job, and it’s become a lot more difficult now because there are fewer people wanting you to do it, with the demise of record companies etc. Basically, I usually just have some songs on the go, and every couple of years I get a sense that it’s probably time to do another one. Then I’ll sit down and try to finish things that aren’t finished. I like to have time to let things percolate. 

You’ve done some producing - you’ve worked with Dori Freeman and Roseanne Reid, as well as with your mother (Linda Thompson) and other Thompson family projects - would you like to do more of that?

Well, I’m not really a proper producer - I don’t think of myself as being that and, again, I’m a bit of a ‘man out of time’. Producing for me is old fashioned producing, having a good set of ears and just telling people what to do and making decisions and there’s not much call for that anymore. The business is so small now that if people really want to pay a producer, they want someone who can do the engineering as well, which I don’t do. I like it, doing bits and pieces, but I think if it was thirty years ago I’d probably be doing more of it, because there would be more opportunities. But it’s nice, being a producer is like making music without the heartache, and you can sleep at night!

You always play a Lowden acoustic guitar exclusively when you’re touring. Do you know George Lowden, have you worked with him on anything?

I’ve met him, but I really only play a Lowden because my Dad does and the guitars were around and I liked that sound. I can’t, of course, do what he does on a guitar - nobody can - but I gravitated towards that sound, and I’ve had a couple of them. They’re really good for playing solo, because you can do a lot, and they’re very versatile. 

What’s next in the works for you?

I’ve almost finished an album, with producer David Mansfield, who also did the last two country albums. It’s my own songs again and it’s not particularly country.

So you’ll be back touring again soon

Probably, when will it ever end?! That’s the other thing - in the old days I always had this thing in the back of my head ‘maybe someone will cover a song or it will be in a movie’, those things that would have happened in the days before streaming. They were retirement plans for musicians, bits of luck you might get along the way, other people doing your songs, and it only takes one and it doesn’t even need to be a hit, it could be on an album that does well. Lots of people I know and admire had this happen to them and I used to think, ‘I’ll get good at the songwriting’ and now that’s gone too. So now when you’re touring you’re thinking ‘am I going to be doing this until I die? I’m already tired!’

Interview and Live photo by Eilís Boland

David Newbould Interview

One of the many highlights at the Static Roots Festival in Oberhausen, Germany, last month was a blistering set from David Newbould and his band. The Toronto, Canada-born artist honed his skills in New York and Austin before moving to Nashville, where he currently lives. His signature sound is very much 70s-driven guitar rock, and for those unfamiliar with his music, a listen to his latest album, LIVE IN GERMANY, is the perfect starting place. We recently caught up with David in Nashville via Zoom, where he spoke of, among other things, his early influences and how the pandemic shaped the direction of his gilt-edged 2022 album POWER UP.

Can you recall the song, band or show that set you off on your musical career?

There were a few stages to that, but my ‘Beatles on Ed Sullivan moment’ was when I heard Dexys Midnight Runners song Come On Eileen on the Top 40 when I was young. That opened the door for me. I’m not quite sure why it was that song, but it was probably the first one that appealed to me. It definitely set something in motion. I knew that this was what I wanted to do right away. I started as a drummer and then switched to playing guitar, but in terms of putting it all together in line with what I’ve been doing ever since, I watched the Neil Young LIVE RUST video that a friend loaned me. That hit me like nothing had ever hit me before, and from there playing guitar, writing songs and being able to sing equally meant everything to me. That was in my later adolescence, and there was no turning back from there.

You moved from your hometown of Toronto to New York and Austin before settling in Nashville.

Yes. I finished High School and didn’t want to stay in Toronto; all my heroes had gone to New York City. L.A. was far away, and I didn’t know anything about the scene there, and England, where some of my favourite bands came from, was not an option. New York was only a bus ride away, and I had a cousin there. I loved it there, but things evolved, and I felt I had spent enough time there. Austin, Texas, seemed really appealing to me, so I moved there. That gave me a whole new set of musical parameters. I stayed there for a while and then ended up in Nashville.

What drew you to Nashville?

Two specific things drew me to Nashville. One was the touring aspect, as Nashville is a place where you can cover more territory being based here. I loved Austin with all my heart, but I had been touring around Texas for a few years. I had a good booking situation in Nashville, which was good, and I could hit so many more markets from here. I was also interested in songwriting and publishing. 

You are regularly pigeonholed in the Americana genre. How does that sit with you?

I’m okay with that; I guess I’ll throw the term into my bios. I certainly don’t make music thinking about parameters. I don’t have anything against these terms, so whatever Americana is, I’m closer to it than hip-hop or jazz. Firstly, it was country rock in the 1970s, roots rock in the 1980s, and alt-country in the 1990s. Now, there is Americana from all different countries, which is weird.

When did you record your latest album LIVE IN GERMANY? 

That was recorded on tour in the fall of 2023. It was completely random; our sound engineer asked us if we’d mind if he multi-tracked a recording of the show. So, we set up a few iPhones to see if we’d get a decent YouTube video. He sent me the tracks, and I went to work mixing them. I really liked the way they came out. I put them on YouTube, and a few people asked if I’d put it on Spotify. So, I listened to them without the video and felt that it held up pretty well. I wanted to have something to sell when I went over to Europe on tour again this year, and Blackbird, the label I had been working with, were all for it, and we put it out. I had played there a couple of times before Static Roots last month. I have an agent in Belgium, and his territory consists of Germany, Belgium, and Holland. That is where most of my playing overseas has been in the last few years.

Your last studio album, POWER UP from 2022, was recorded during the pandemic with Scot Sax producing. It ended up somewhat different than you had initially intended.

Yes. I had the songs mostly in the can, though a few of them came about during the early days of the pandemic. We started recording simply for something to do at that time. Scot and I have sons around the same age, and I would bring my son over to hang out at his place. One day, we just came up with the song Power Up, which Scot produced. It came out differently from anything else I had done before. I had been figuring out who I would make my next record with and how that was going to happen, and I thought working with Scot would be great. We didn’t know how long the pandemic would last. We worked safely, turning his garage into a studio and doing most of the playing ourselves. The album came out entirely differently than it would have without the pandemic. Still, I was grateful because it was a different recording experience and inspired me to build my own studio, which I had been putting off. I have had the studio room in my house for a few years. As I said, I started as a drummer as a kid, so I began relearning instruments and recording my own stuff; up to that, I had only been demoing vocals and guitar on GarageBand. I’ve been doing a lot of that since then.

Given that you play both with a band and solo, do you intentionally write songs that can be performed in both settings? 

I usually start the songs as a laid-back acoustic ballad because I write with an acoustic guitar, which is just the natural way for me. Once the song is done, I start thinking about whether it will work well with a band. There’s a song called Last Letter on POWER UP which I wrote years ago as a finger-picking acoustic, but at some point, I thought it would be cool to turn it into a rock and roll song; I just changed the key and figured out an arrangement, and now it’s definitely a ‘big song’ with the band, even though it didn’t start that way.  In most of the songs I write, I have in mind that they will eventually get there.

You have also co-written with Roger Cook, who has written chart-topping hits in the U.K. and U.S. for over five decades. How did that connection come about?

Roger lives in Franklin, south of Nashville, and there is a club there called Kimbro’s, where I play fairly regularly. We played there once before John Prine’s brother, Billy. Roger, who was great friends with John Prine, was there. I knew who he was because I had a job at The Bluebird Café when I first moved here, and Roger would play there. He came up to me after the show and said, ‘Man, that was great. What have you got going on? Anyway, I can help. Let me know; maybe we can write together.’ About six years ago, I started writing songs with him, and we’ve written a couple of dozen songs together; he’s a fun guy.

You’re just back from touring in Europe. Have you shows lined up in the near future?

I’m heading up to Illinois this weekend for a couple of shows and some sporadic stuff playing around town. We have a couple of semi-residencies, and we play Acme & Seed downtown a fair bit. I’m working on returning to Europe next year; I’d love to do an Irish tour when I’m over this time.

Interview by Declan Culliton. Photograph by Ryan Knaack

Kiely Connell Interview

Raised in Hammond, Indiana, but residing in Nashville for over a decade, Kiely Connell’s sophomore album, MY OWN COMPANY,explores emotionally raw terrain.  A relationship falling apart, the suicide of a close friend, unwelcome lewd advances and alcohol and substance abuse are candidly addressed. With lyrics drawn from often bitter personal experiences, Connell’s powerful vocals, combined with a hand-picked supporting cast of musicians, the album shows remarkable growth from her impressive debut 2021 album, CALUMET QUEEN. ‘I feel that we really did something special with this record,’ she expressed to Lonesome Highway when we recently spoke. We couldn’t agree more.

What was the music scene closer to home for you before moving to Nashville?

You had a lot of blues happening in Chicago, but I wish that it had a better music scene because I may not have felt the need to come to Nashville. I’m glad I did though, because moving somewhere like this encourages you to be the best writer, singer and performer you can be. When you’re in an environment where music is all around you and there is a lot of competition, it forces you to sink or swim.  

However, you are proud of your home scene, having titled your debut album CALUMET QUEEN.

I am. It’s funny being from North West Indiana; when I play elsewhere in Indiana, people will come up and say, ‘You’re not really from Indiana,’ because you are that close to Chicago. Even when I attended University in Indiana, people would say, ‘Well, you’re from the region,’ and call you a ‘region rat,’ which I was proud of because it means that we are scrappy and resilient people who keep going no matter what.

Your songwriting is very personal, dealing with matters of the heart and real-life issues. I don’t expect that came from attending songwriting classes and writing with strangers. 

I never did songwriting classes. I’ve never been a person who thrives in a writing room. I want to write with people who inspire and deeply understand each other.  I think that is how you come up with the most authentic and truly heartfelt material. When I first moved here, there was a small publishing group that I started co-writing with, having never written a song with another person before. By doing that, I met other writers who would become some of my best friends, and over the years, it became common for us to call one other up and share ideas, come over for coffee, talk about it and maybe something really cool would come out of it.

When we recently posted a review of your new album, MY OWN COMPANY, we also featured two other albums released by Nashville-based women that were similarly confessional. Is it a coincidence, or is there a movement developing?

I think that is probably coincidental. I remember something you wrote about in your review, wondering if it was brought about by the pandemic, where people seek emotional comradery to feel that they are not alone in what they are experiencing. That is certainly true for me, and that is what I try to do as a songwriter by speaking from a place of struggles that I have gone through or awakenings that I have had, hoping that that might help someone else.

You name-check the author Neil Gaiman and also John Prine as inspiring your writing.

I have read more of Neil Gaiman’s work than any other author. He has this wonderful way of weaving reality into a fantasy world I can relate to. There is so much metaphor in his work. His book NEVERWHERE is an incredible read, classic Gaiman. He talks about this whole class of people who live in a society called London Below, a place that exists below the surface. All of these people have slipped through the cracks, and the whole book is not only entertaining but also poignant and really touching. I have always been drawn to the heavy issues that he addresses; I love his word choices and phrasing, which get my brain working thinking about how I can express certain things differently in my writing. How could you not be influenced by John Prine? Back in April, I was touring with John Prine’s son, Tommy. He’s also a great storyteller, and I recently listened to a bunch of John Prine’s records again, which are classic songwriting that teaches you everything you need to learn.

Tell me about the song Restless Bones on the album, which deals with the suicide of a close friend of yours many years ago. Was that a song you always intended to write but needed to wait until the correct time?

I had the realisation a long time ago that the event influenced how I viewed my life and how I navigate things. My friend Jake Anderson, who wrote that song with me, we realised that we had lost friends in the same way. Sometimes, when you are writing songs, you will just reel off titles for songs, and strangely, it was Jake who had the title Restless Bones.  I immediately said, ‘ Do you know that makes me think of my friend who I lost in high school.’ From there, we just talked about the type of people that they were, and there was a strange overlap of this shared trauma. It was such a painful thing.

Through To You is a reality check of wasted lives in an industry that can quickly draw artists down a dark road and one that not everyone recovers from.

Originally, that song was written with one person in mind, but over time, it evolved into the realisation of the many people I know who are that way, especially in this town. People begin to get some success, and all of a sudden become used to drinking their lives away, and there is not a drug at the club that they are not going to do. It’s extremely unfortunate; I have watched a lot of people lose themselves. Truth be told, it’s even hard for me. You’re bonding with the listeners and want to bring people together; I truly feel that is my calling. People may come up to you and wax poetic about a specific moment in your set and want to buy you a beer. Suddenly, you’ve had a lot of beers, and if you have a gig the next day and may have a six- or eight-hour drive, you have to learn how to say no. Otherwise, there is no longevity in it. Personally, with all of my anxious and depressive tendencies, drugs are something that I have very much stayed away from. I know alcohol is technically a drug and depressant, but the other things make me really uneasy, and that’s probably why I am not exposed to it. maybe I give something off, and people know that.

The song Damn Hands comes bursting out of the speakers and finds you spitting fire in the direction of persons that show zero respect towards women. Does that phenomenon still regularly occur from your experience?

Unfortunately, it does still happen. It’s not just the music scene but just in general. If I need to decompress and have a bite and a beer after a show, I want to sit there and be left alone. Sometimes, people come over to you, and just because they talk to you for five minutes, they think you’re going to want to go home with them. It’s an assumption with no respect for boundaries. 

The track listing on the album is most impressive. Bookending the album with On The Mend and the title track My Own Company, are well-placed and honest statements of where you are at presently.

Thank you. Honestly, I spent hours going through the track listing to put all the songs strategically in order so that the story made sense. You’re quite right because the first three tracks and those last two tracks relate perfectly to each other. I wrote On The Mend last winter when I was on the road touring alone through a lot of the Midwest. It was my first holiday alone, which the song Anaesthesia is about.   I was trying to put a lot of things behind me, sort through all of my thoughts and, hopefully, heal myself. To me, there was no other way that I could end the album but with My Own Company, and it also needed to be the album title. 

Tucker Martine came on board for the production. How did that come about?

I wanted to work with Tucker for over a decade. When I first moved to this town and was going through many changes trying to meet friends and trying to prove myself, I heard the record THE WORSE THINGS GET THE HARDER I FIGHT by Neko Case, whom I am a huge fan of. That record was so heavy and relatable; she had gone through all of these big moments in her life at that time and was horribly depressed, and I related to that. Not only that, but the way that the whole album was put together, there’s a song on the album called Nearly Midnight in Honolulu, and she practically chants the whole song, and the way that song was put together was incredibly impressive to me. I love all her albums, but I thought there was something special about that album. It stuck with me to the extent that if you knew me at all, you would probably be forced to listen to that record, so when I was thinking about producers, even for my first record, I wondered if I could ever afford to get Tucker to produce. I had looked up the work that he had done, and I thought that he would never be in my budget; he had done all of The Decemberists’ albums, whom I love, Sufjan Stevens and Madison Cunningham, who I had toured with. Over the years, I would joke with people that Tucker Martine was going to make my next record. When I met up with Thirty Tigers, we talked about producers, and they said they were thinking of something not traditionally Nashville for you and asked me how I felt about Tucker Martine.

That must have come as a pleasant surprise.

My jaw dropped, and I asked, ‘Are you kidding me? Is that an option? They sent him some demos, and he immediately responded. We had a phone call, which was probably meant to last about thirty minutes but ended up lasting about two hours, talking about all the things that we loved sonically and TV shows. I knew then that we would get on as we had similar musical tastes and a sense of humour. The whole recording was magical. I ended up having Nate Query from one of my favourite bands, The Decemberist’ on bass. I had been crammed into a room in Chicago watching The Decembrists about a decade ago in Chicago and never thought that I would be playing music with him. Andy Borger, who has toured and played records with Tom Waits and Norah Jones, played drums; it was an amazing experience. We recorded in Portland in the spring, although it was raining, andeverything was growing, lush, and alive. You feel so inspired, and I feel that we really did something special with this record.

Did Tucker bring the players on board?

Yes, he brought Andy and Nate, and I brought my longtime musical collaborator and friend, Drew Kohl, who also played on my first record and comes on tour with me. He plays everything, any guitar, organ or piano you hear on the record, he played. What I love about him is that there are a million guitar players in the world that can come in and play something nice but may not be quite right for the song. Drew is incredibly thoughtful; he will listen to a melody that you sing and all of a sudden, he will be playing a lead guitar part that sounds like he was there when I wrote the song; he’s very gifted that way.

How did the connection with Thirty Tigers come about?

They got on board because Trigger, at Saving Country Music, sent David Macias at Thirty Tigers, my name. He listened to my music, and within a few days, I had an email from David saying that we needed to talk about working together. I thought, ‘Do they really mean me.’ They are the largest independent record label with so many acts that I love from every genre. I learned that my project manager at the label was also the project manager for Mary Chapin Carpenter and Dwight Yoakam. The whole thing was magical.

Interview by Declan Culliton Photography by Alysse Gafkjen