Very much a refreshing addition to the Americana and roots musical landscape, Sierra Ferrell’s debut album LONG TIME COMING, released last year on the Rounder Records label, has propelled the West Virginian from emerging artist status to one that has well and truly arrived. The album’s eclectic musical template embraces folk, gypsy jazz, country, old-time and ragtime. The possessor of a stunning smoky jazz vocal range and an artist that is evolving into one of the most captivating to surface in recent years, Ferrell opened her European and U.K. tour at The Button Factory in Dublin. We chatted with Sierra just before she took to the stage to enthrall a packed house with a dynamic ninety-minute set, accompanied by two crack players, Geoff Saunders and Oliver Bates Craven.
You've been practically catapulted into a major career advancement over the past twelve months with what seems to be endless touring dates. How have you been coping with that?
It's amazing but can also be terrible at times. It’s great that people are interested in me and they want to hear my music, because it's always been my life and my passion and always been something I knew I was going to be involved with. But I never really knew it was going to get this far with it. I'm very honoured but I also feel like I need to pay more attention to my mental health a little bit more. You know, we all have our internal battles, and a lot of times we don't even realise what the battles are because it's something that's imprinted on us at a younger age. Growing up, we don't really realise some things that mess with us until it's, like, until we're older. It's just life, you're always going to have a bad day, everyone does. So, I guess for me, on a personal level, I feel like I need to have a partner with me when I’m touring and right now, I don't really have one. So, I have to battle with this a lot. But the positives definitely outweigh the negatives.
Is Nashville home for you now?
Yeah, whenever I'm there (laughs).
The music community in East Nashville is a very tight-knit group and very supportive of each other.
There is great support in the music community in East Nashville. It can be a bit weird when you arrive at first but when you get over that little hump, you’re in. I just wing myself out there and hope for the best, sometimes there’s a crash and sometimes I get lucky. In Nashville, I got lucky.
Nashville is regarded as a ‘ten-year’ town for artists to make a breakthrough, but you’ve succeeded in less than four. What were your expectations when you moved there?
Well, when I went there, I definitely wanted to move in the direction of doing more stuff with my music. I started playing in this honky tonk cover band The Cowpokes for a while at the American Legion, I was just really hoping for the best and just putting myself out there. I wasn't making much money and I lived in my van. I didn't really know what the future held for me, it was very lonesome, tiresome and just weary at times because I didn't really know where my life was taking me. Then slowly but surely people started kind of coming around and people seemed to like my music and they wanted to lift me up and so now, here I am.
Getting that gig with The Cowpokes was some achievement, I would have thought that there would be any number of artists looking for that slot. How did that come about?
It’s kind of funny because like, you know, I like to dress a little differently every once in a while and just do my own thing. That’s definitely not a Nashville thing where a lot of singers like to wear rhinestones. Most people didn't really know who I was, they thought I was just a kind of just weird girl hanging out. You know, I was wearing platform shoes and berets and stuff, but when they heard me sing, I won them over. Kevin Martin, the lead guy who played fiddle in The Cowpokes, left the band for a bit and he moved to New York. I just so happened to be at the right place at the right time. I started crunch-running all these honky tonk songs and before I knew it, I was in their band.
And then Rounder Records stepped up to the mark overnight and signed you to their label?
There was a little bit more to it than that, it was about a year before I was signed to Rounder. The engineer and producer Stu Hubberd along with Gary Paczosa, who is the Rounder guy, just started coming to my shows a lot and I would do the honky tonk stuff with The Cowpokes but I was also playing my own stuff. They kept coming to the shows, loved my music and kept saying ‘you’re going to get signed to Rounder Records’. I was saying, ‘Ok, prove it’ and then within a year they signed me.
The musical direction on LONG TIME COMING has your numerous influences stamped all over it, from gypsy, Latin, jazz, bluegrass and country. Did you have to fight with Rounder to have control over the musical direction on the album?
They were very open-minded and welcoming of something different. Some people’s music is just one style, and while there is nothing at all wrong with that, I think Rounder liked that I was different. I wanted to reach and uplift other artists and people with different musical styles and they allowed me to do that. I particularly wanted to reach out to women. It’s hard to be a woman generally in the world let alone being in the music industry.
Your times spent in New Orleans simply oozes out of much of the album.
Absolutely, not only is New Orleans magical, it has such history, though it is sad that so many locals that have lived there all their lives and have family history are being pushed out as it becomes more and more gentrified.
You have some wonderful players on the album including Billy Strings, Chris Scruggs, Tim O’Brien and Jerry Douglas to name a few. Did Rounder have these players lined up for you?
I actually had a lot of names in the hat, Billy Strings being one of them. It was recorded at Southern Ground in downtown Nashville in January 2020 during the pandemic which was a really weird time, but those players were all available then.
You ended up with an album that includes everything from bluegrass to fiddle-induced jazz and old-time waltzes to Dixieland. Where did all those influences come from?
Being from West Virginia people automatically assume I’m all about old-time music and a banjo on the porch. I often shock people when I tell them that I grew up with mostly radio music around me and also a lot of Gospel music from going to church and joining in a lot of choirs. As I got older, I started travelling, hitch hiking and hopping trains. A lot of the train kids were listening to all this older music from the 20s, 30s and 40s. I just got really wrapped up in this old music, even listening to Haydn Quartet, who was a harmony group from the early 20th century. I was getting goosebumps from that music because it was so genuine and had so much feeling and purity in it. People are trying to smooth out the edges in today’s music, killing its soul.
So how do you possibly follow that album?
I don’t know, I’m going to have to think of something (laughs). I do have a handful of songs that I’ve been messing about with on the mandolin and the fiddle. I also have a lot of other songs in the style of Why’d Ya Do It from this album. I’m not sure how I’ll progress from the direction of LONG TIME COMING, because I had a lot of those songs for quite a while. I’m just working through this one at the moment. There are a number of people that want to do a record with me but right now I’m not even sure when I’m going to have the time to work on the next one.
I understand that we will also get to see you at Americana Fest in September?
Yes, I’m pretty sure it’s a Saturday show but I’m not sure what venue yet.
Interview by Declan Culliton