It’s ten o’clock in the morning in Nashville when Sean accepts my invitation to talk. All just part of another media day that he spends being interviewed and answering questions about his new album, A HORRIBLE BEAUTIFUL DREAM.
It’s a self-produced project by Sean, at his home studio, Silent Desert, just outside of Nashville and distribution in the United States is being handled by Soundly Music, based in New York City.
Sean has been releasing top quality albums since 2000, in addition to writing for numerous other headline acts over many years and producing other artists albums from his home-based studio. We were delighted to have the chance to learn more about this new album and to reflect on the path taken by this superbly talented singer-songwriter;
You grew up in Boston, one of 4 siblings and your parents were both Folk musicians, active on the local circuit. You moved to Georgia, aged eleven, and that must have been a wrench at the time, leaving your known life behind?
It was a big shift. We have a very big family up in Massachusetts and we were really close to them, and all of our friends, so leaving was a little bit of whiplash, especially at that age. It definitely played a big role in what I was writing at that ripe age of eleven years old!
I believe that you wrote your first song aged ten years old so you were obviously influenced by your parents right out of the starting blocks. Your first album appeared when you were fifteen years old, what do you remember about it?
Yeah, the first record was called, FACES, (2000) when I was fifteen. My guitar teacher at the time had a home studio and he said why don’t you come and record some of your songs. I will always have gratitude towards him for the opportunity and even for the idea to record some of these songs. It came out and I had it on the internet, sold it at gigs and just bootstrapped it.
Would you say that this DIY ethic, which has continued through your career, was influenced by your parents and watching them going out and making music themselves?
It definitely was part of it, seeing my parents playing gigs and working hard to write songs and get their arrangements together. It was a big part of it in the beginning. And then as with anything that you do, you want it to grow and you keep spending more time at it, figuring out what you need to do, booking my shows for many years when I was younger and then how to get a booking agent, it just organically grows. I think my career has been a really slow build of one notch at a time. A lot of it is just putting in the hours, getting on the road, keeping your head down and playing your music.
Between the six years (2000 - 2006), you create and produce four albums, which is a huge work ethic for one so young. At this point you have moved to Nashville and attend college at Middle Tennessee State University.
Yeah, in Murfreesboro, just about thirty minutes outside of Nashville. I moved for college and I never went back home. I met my wife in my sophomore year and we got married really young so I stayed here. Nashville is a good place to be if you’re doing music, so it seemed like a good fit (laughing).
Your wife, Mary Susan, holds a doctorate in special education and is the host of the podcast, Mama Bear, which assists parents in challenging child-care situations. I also read about your incredible adoption story and your beautiful daughter, Abiella, that you brough home from Ghana. It’s a story of such bravery and love and I was very inspired when I read about your journey.
Well, thank you. Both my wife and my daughter are magical ladies. I’m a lucky man.
Were you starting to spend more time writing songs for other artists at this stage?
Yeah, so when that happened, I didn’t go looking for a publishing deal. Warner Chappell Music was the first publishing company that I worked with. Alisha Prewitt, who has become a dear friend, heard a demo and called me. She showed up at a show and really believed in what I did. I was new to what publishing was and whether I fit inside that world. I was with them for about eleven years or so and it was about writing songs everyday with different people or occasionally by myself. It started a whole other chapter of my career that was unexpected and really exciting.
You then moved to Rounder Records (2016). Was this a conscious decision to have a label do some heavy lifting for you regarding business issues while you got on with the creativity of writing?
Yeah, up to that point I didn’t have any experience with a record label. I always want to put my best foot forward and it felt like at the time it was a decision to try something different and reach a wider audience with some help from a label. I think that we accomplished that and I still have a special place in my heart for that self-titled record that we did in 2016.
The next year, again with Rounder, you released an acoustic version of that album, titled UNDONE. You decide to switch back to recording under your own name again and Silent Desert appears as your own publishing company and recording studio.
The early version of the studio was not what it is now. It was just a room or two upstairs in our home but it is now a separate building. Mary Susan is also a potter and a painter and she has her own studio, next to mine, with a kiln and a wheel. She is very talented.
You also have a farm with chickens and pigs I believe?
Yeah, it’s very grounding and we like being out on the land.
You were invited to perform at the Grand Ole Opry in 2016. How did you find that whole experience?
I can’t remember how that happened. But when I got the invitation, I was so thrilled. It’s something that you hope for and wait for. It was a big night. My Mom and my aunt flew out, my wife was there and it was the first time that my daughter got to see me in a venue. It was an absolutely magical memory.
In 2019 you released SECONDHAND SMOKE and you tour the album in Europe, appearing in Dublin on one of the tour dates. Was that your first time to visit?
It all runs together in my head but I had been there just one time before. I didn’t have a show but me and my tour manager flew over for the day. We had two days off after a show in London and it was at the very top of my list to visit. We were there for twenty-four hours, walked around and took everything in. It was amazing, one of my favourite memories.
SECONDHAND SMOKE was a huge record for you, certainly in Europe, and this new record carries on the momentum. I’m really impressed with it, thirteen songs and a very generous fifty minutes of real quality. I wanted to ask if this is a more personal album for you, opening yourself up and feeling more vulnerable?
Yeah, I feel like you’re right that this record is a little bit more of a peek inside my psyche, my heart, my family and my stories. The songs are very personal to me. It’s definitely a vulnerable record for sure.
What The Hell Is Wrong With Me, (daughter Abi plays rhythm sticks on it) has a lyric about “hiding from a storm and being frightened from the day I was born.” Is this something that you experienced or is it how you feel when thinking of Covid now?
It’s an early memory for me and it starts off the song. I remember being very little and being with my family on the front porch and terrified by a storm coming in. It’s very autobiographical.
I Built You Up, is a co-write and a song that could equally be about someone in the public arena or some personal connection. Is that how you wanted to portray the song?
Yeah, I think we wrote it to be both of those things or even more. It’s really the propensity we have to lay our own wishes and desires, or expectations onto somebody and how, for good or for bad, a lot of times people just can’t live up to that.
There is a sense of redemption on Waiting To Be Moved, with a lot of religious imagery in the song. Do you have a strong Christian faith or is it a more spiritual message that you are giving?
I would say both, I was raised Catholic and grew up with a mother to whom that was really important and she handed that to her children in a very special way. The older I get, my faith becomes my own and my ideas and my philosophies have expanded and morphed and changed, but are still holding onto some of those core beliefs that I was raised with. There is a lot of that in this record and a lot of the songs that talk about fighting with faith or doubt. It is a very universal theme and a lot of people can relate to that.
Leave A Light On is a standout track and very memorable. You refer to doubt and believing that there is something bigger out there. Is that a song to yourself or a to a friend?
I think that good music will fit different occasions, I originally wrote it for someone that was going through a difficult few years, but now when I sing it, sometimes I could be singing it to myself. A lot of people have responded to that song and thanked me for it and said that It speaks to them in a special way. I’m glad that it’s on the record and getting out into the world.
You have a very rich, soulful voice and one which connects deeply. Did you have an interest in this music growing up?
Yeah, I’ve always been really attracted to Gospel music and Soul singers and its definitely something that I listened to a lot growing up. Also, there is something that I was born with in my spirit that just wants to sing that way. There is definitely some of that on this record.
Another record, LIVE FROM BASEMENT EAST, was released on digital format in 2020, with Sean donating the proceeds towards rebuilding the destroyed music venue and helping Nashville recover from the terrible hurricane damage that was caused last year. It is typical of the humanity and generosity of spirit that Sean displays in everything that he does, whether reaching out to community or caring for his family.
I look forward to meeting Sean in person when he can make it back over to Europe and continue to build on the momentum that had seen him visit five or six times over the two years before Covid changed our world.
Check out the wonderful music of Sean McConnell on www.seanmcconnell.com or from your preferred media source.
Interview by Paul McGee