Interview with Lera Lynn

Lonesome Highway’s last encounter with Lera Lynn was spending time with the Nashville based artist in 2016 before she performed at Whelans in Dublin, her first appearance in Ireland. That tour was on the back of her album Resistor, a body of work that followed her appearances in the TV crime drama True Detective and continued Lynn’s intentions to explore various musical directions. Her latest album Plays Well With Others (reviewed elsewhere on this site) was equally challenging and adventurous, searching out co-writers among the Nashville music community and finding the space to write and record, given the hectic work schedules of both herself and her collaborators. Lera took the time out to discuss the concept and creation of the album, having just come off a five date mini tour of the album which included performances at Athens Georgia, New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania and finally the official album launch in Nashville.

Where did the idea for a duets album come from?

The idea just came into my head one day and it wasn’t kind of a priority at that time. I just chipped away at it and eventually I had enough songs for the record.

How long did it take to write and record?

It was about a year of writing, whenever I was home and the other writers were home and we recorded it in just over a week.

The selection of artists includes talented emerging artist from the Nashville musical community together with some more established names. Andrew Combs and Dylan LeBlanc were particularly inspired choices. How did you handle the selection process?

I thought "who would I love to sing with, who would I love to write with." Everyone was a friend through music, playing together, touring together and people that I hit it off with personally and artistically. I have a lot of respect for Andrew and Dylan and had admired their work and wanted to work with them in some way. So we ended up collecting songs and it took shape from there.

And how did the connection with Rodney Crowell come about?

Well, I met Rodney back at a show he was playing with Sheryl Crow and he told me that my manager had sent him my CD’s and he had been driving around for months with them on rotation in his car and he said "you know you’re a poet (laughs)." I was floored by that but took it as an opportunity to ask him could we write together! He was very kind to me, In fact the song that we wrote together was the first duet that I’d ever written. He showed me the ropes and I carried that spirit through all the other co-writes.

Did you set down a common thread in the writing process for the others to follow?

No, and that was really important to me that the songs did not come across as songs for Lera written with some other person. It was important to me that the style of the other artists showed through.

The selection of collaborators really work as duet albums can go one way or the other. There is a consistency throughout in as far as it sounds like an album rather than nine individual tracks?

Well I’m really glad to hear that as it’s a challenge to make a record that feels connected when there are so many artists involved. The style does vary a lot from song to song but one method that I thought might help was to restrict the production to acoustic instrumentation. It was difficult for me to do that because I love electric guitars, keyboards and fun sounds but I felt that if we limit every song in this way they will connect. Though when I listen to the record it does not actually strike me as being an acoustic record which it obviously is!

How did the connection with John Paul White come about and the idea of co-producing with him?

Well, we toured together and I think I asked him to sing Almost Persuaded with me and that was how the relationship started. He’s a great singer and I really wanted to do a duet with him. He loves that song and when we were touring together I told him I was working on a duets record and that I’d love to come down to Florence, Alabama and write a duo with him. He said he’d love that and why not come down and we’ll make the record together at my place in Florence. 

And the album took only just over a week to record?

Yes, we had the band there for a few days and got a few singers down for a couple of days and then Ben Tanner mixed it.

Do you intend touring the album and what format would that take in terms of the musicians that would accompany you?

Well, we’ve just done a tour which was a challenge as most of the artists on the album also have their own records out or are writing records and it’s also incredibly expensive. We didn’t have everyone that appears on the album on all the tour dates. John Paul and Bradley Adams did some shows and we did meet up with Dylan and Andrew for some shows. John Paul stood up and took over the roles of some of the people who couldn’t be present at some shows and likewise Peter Bradley Adams. There are songs from the record that I can do without a duet partner but the album is not really meant to be toured, it’s not really possible.

You launched the album on June 22nd at 3rd & Lindsley in Nashville. How did that go?

It was amazing, surreal. It was a two hour long show which might not seem that long but it was one of the longer shows I’ve done. It was so much work, so much coordinating, rehearsals, the band, getting everyone on stage, the set list. The whole thing was filmed and we hope to release that soon as an archive. It was a lot of work but really fun and I wish we could do it all the time!

You included TV On The Radio’s Wolf Like Me, a song that you’ve been performing live for a long time on the album. A different dynamic that some of your previous versions of the song?

Exactly, that song has been lurking over my shoulder for years but I’ve resisted recording it for so long. Originally I made a quick video of it as a tribute to the bass player Gerard Smith’s passing and it felt wrong for me to record it at that time. Seven or eight years later people are still asking for that song so this seemed a good time to record it. Obviously I’ve grown a good bit as a musician and I wanted to do something a little different and I love the way that track came out its one of my favourites on the album. 

Talking about those eight years, is it easier or more difficult to make ends meet these days?

It’s easier in some ways and more challenging in others. When you’re young and naive everything is fun. Oh my God we’re on stage, Oh my God we’re on tour and then one day you wake up and it’s Oh my God I’ve to pay rent, can I pay this bill, will I ever be able to start a family, how can this sustain me. As you have a little success it can become a little confusing as to what direction artistically you want to go without alienating some of your fans. 

In hindsight how have your appearances in True Detective impacted on your career, has it been positive or negative?

Well I certainly saw a large jump in my profile right after True Detective and I still have fans coming to the shows saying ‘we discovered you through True Detective’ and that’s great. It’s been a few years since True Detective and life goes on, new things are happening. It was a challenge artistically following that project because I think a lot of people saw the show, heard the music and thought ‘oh this is who she is’, without realising that I was writing music for a particular character in a show, which is part of what I do anyway, that kind of dark stripped down theme. Though I did enjoy the challenge of making the Resistor record after that and creating something that satisfied myself, my old fans and new fans that discovered my music through the series.

The last time we spoke you expressed how much you enjoyed the acting role. Is that something you would consider exploring or one off?

Oh my God, I would love to do more acting and I have been approached about other acting opportunities that I hope will pan out. I expect it could be an all-consuming project for a while though and not just a side project.

Any plans to tour Europe in the near future?

Yes, we are going to be coming over in late November for about a month. Not officially announced yet and no date in Ireland unfortunately but we will be in England, Germany, Russia and Norway.

Scandinavia appears to be very much an emerging market for U.S. acts?

Yes. We will be over there touring with Thomas Dybdahl, a Norwegian artist. Funnily he and I also wrote a duet that will be on his record which will be out later this year. I wrote a couple of songs with him on the record that he made in L.A. and it was a really fun record to work on. I’ll be doing some shows with him and several of my own.

Next project. Are you thinking electric acoustic or have you any definite plans?

I have tried a lot of different tones and colour powers this year. The only thing I can promise you is that it will be different!

Interview by Declan Culliton   Photograph by Alysse Gafkjen

Interview with Dori Freeman

I have fond memories of a showcase gig performed by Dori Freeman at Cannery Row during Americana Fest in 2016. Allocated a graveyard slot, directly before Rodney Crowell and his band were due to perform, the then 24-year-old came on stage accompanied only by her acoustic guitar, a lone figure in the centre of what - excluding The Ryman – must be the largest podium at the festival. Challenged by an annoyingly talkative audience, many who only paused their conversations to clap when she finished each song, she finally silenced them mid set by bravely singing Ain’t Nobody a cappella, which took some nerve. I thought ‘thumbs ups and well done to you’. I wondered just how difficult she found it to engage audiences most particularly when she’s not the headline act. "Developing good stage presence is still very much an ongoing process for me. I find talking and engaging the audience in between songs infinitely harder than just performing. Playing and singing comes naturally to me; being the focus of a large crowd does not. I have a very dry and sometimes dark sense of humour which doesn’t always easily convey on stage."

It doesn’t get any more authentic country than Freeman. Born and reared in Galax Virginia (famous for its annual fiddling convention), she is very much a home bird and follows the musical traditions of both her grandfather and father, whose Front Porch Gallery and Frame Shop forms part of the Crooked Road music trail in Virginia. Even though she was surrounded by music from childhood it was not until 2014 that she plucked up the courage to send some music to Teddy Thompson – whom she had been a huge fan of - by way of a Facebook message, that has resulted in them working together on both her self-titled album released in 2016 and its successor Letters Never Read, which followed last year. The connection with Thompson was a meeting of minds by two people from families steeped in musical traditions and I enquired of Freeman what he brought to the recordings that particularly made an impression on her. "Teddy always has a clear idea of what things should sound like and is very frank and precise in his directions and suggestions without being pushy or mean. He knows how to get a good performance out of someone which is exactly what you want in a producer. And of course, any time Teddy sings on one of my tunes I’m thrilled. Having that calibre of singer on any song elevates the recording."

Powerful and soul bearing lyrics are a feature on both albums, giving the listener the impression of a writer using her art to deal with the often-difficult realities of modern day life. Cold Waves on Letters Never Sent is a typical example of her ‘bear it all’ style lyrics. ("And in the evenin' when I lay my baby down, I listen to her breathe the single sweetest sound, I pray she'll never lose the tenderness she's found, and that she'll never know the pain to which I'm bound")."Without song writing I don’t know how I’d cope with all the very human struggles of life. It’s the easiest way for me to communicate my feelings and the process that brings me the most resolution and perspective. There is something about putting words and melodies together that brings me great relief and joy."

Her vocals and song writing are timeless, self-assured and unbelievably natural. Life’s tales and struggles beautifully yet simply articulated without any gimmickry, as if a conscious decision that the material. "Yes, on both records we wanted to keep the instrumentation and production simple to feature the vocals and lyrics. This is something Teddy and I have always agreed on and I think it’s just a good rule of thumb for any recording session."

Light-hearted material also features in her anthology, with the hilarious Ern and Zorry’s Sneakin’ Bitin’ Dog, written by her grandfather Williard Gayheart back in the day and sung unaccompanied by Freeman on the current album.The imagery generated by the lyrics are so simple yet credible as the young country lover boy navigates, after an encounter with his female flame, every pot hole, ditch and fence, skipping his way home in the black of night, only to be attacked by a neighbours ‘rascal pup’!  "I’ve known the song since childhood, but only started performing it about 3 years ago. It’s a song that often gets the most attention and interest from the audience. I think people respond and connect in a deeper way to true stories, whether they are sad, dark, or in this case silly and sweet." Continuing on the nostalgic theme is the inclusion of Jim Reeves Yonder Comes A Sucker, a versionless faithful to the original, with a disciplined drum beat and vocals dominating, breathing new life into the song. "Yonder Comes A Sucker was a song I just happened to stumble upon when I was listening to some of my dad’s records at his house. My husband and I were just jamming one night in New Orleans when he still lived there and that’s (appropriately) where we came up with, the whole second-line kind of sound and beat."

The mention of her husband, fellow musician Nick Falk who plays drums and claw hammer banjo, brings to mind witnessing him play with her on stage at The City Winery in Nashville last year, a feature which presumably makesthe logistics of touring more feasible. "Performing and traveling with your spouse make things so much easier logistically and financially and just more fun. I’m so fortunate to be in that position."

Male artists combining marriage, parenting, song writing and touring is a difficult enough challenge but it must be considerably more stressful being an artist, mother and wife. I queried if she set aside dedicated periods to write and if attempting to keep all the balls in the air at once generated subject matter for material. "I just write when I can. Usually at night or when my daughter is a preschool or my husband is on the road. I’ve never been the kind of songwriter who can appoint a specific time to write. If I do that, nothing good will come. It will sound forced because it is. I just have to wait ‘til an idea comes along and then try and run with it."

Kacy (Anderson) and Clayton (Linthicum) are second cousins and a young musical duo from a rural landscape outside Saskatchewan and not unalike Freeman have been similarly recording a stripped back blend of country and folk music with both local and U.K. influences. It’s interesting that they feature on Freeman’s cover of Richard Thompson’s (Teddy’s father) I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight.The combined vocals between Freeman and Anderson are wonderful. It’s a noteworthy collaboration given their collective appreciation for Brit Folk, enriched with the introduction of an element of ‘country’ into the song. "I saw Kacy and Clayton perform at Folk Alliance a few years ago and they were by far my favourite performance of the whole conference. They don’t put on airs or try to be anything or anyone they’re not, which is something I’m always drawn to in performers. So many musicians now rely on gimmicks, wardrobe, theatrics, etc. so to see a duo like Kacy and Clayton who are downright amazing well-rounded musicians without all that is inspiring."

The quality of albums being recorded by female artists like Dori Freeman at present is at an all-time high, yet the opportunities for radio play and exposure for females seems to be a constant struggle. Two years and two albums into her career I asked if she found this a frustration and how positive is she going forward."It is definitely more difficult in most respects for female musicians. The struggle to be taken seriously as not just a musician, but a band leader/frontwoman/songwriter, and the general criticisms, mostly physical, that women are subject to that men aren’t. Fortunately, I have a lot of really supportive and uplifting men in my life from my husband, my manager, Teddy, my father, and I think times are changing given what we’ve seen with the Me Too movement and others like it. I feel like I’m in a good and positive place with my career and its growth over the last few years."

Freeman, both in her music and interviews is enormously proud - and rightly so - about the rural Appalachian environment she was raised in, together with its musical traditions and indeed those of her families. She’s certainly not one to uproot to Nashville or elsewhere, as others have done, to further your career."I’ve never seen moving to a big city as a necessary step to better my career. I know so many musicians who do live in cities all over and we all travel the same amount. Having my home here in the mountains to share with my family and raise my daughter is much more important to me, and honestly improves the quality of my songs and makes me a better performer."

Followers of this talented young lady will be heartened to learn that she is writing and gathering material for another album and as a final question I explored whether her tried and trusted formula, which worked spectacularly well on her two recent albums, would prevail to which she replied."Yes, and yes. Wink wink."

Interview by Declan Culliton

Interview with Jason James

Genuine young classic country artists are as difficult to uncover in recent years as hen’s teeth with ‘country’ music continuing its wretched decline into the dreaded pop crossover so much beloved by the music industry movers and shakers. Artists embracing the ‘outlaw’ country tag thankfully continue to emerge with young ones Colter Wall and Tyler Childers the latest pair to join that club that includes some wonderful ‘I’ll do it my own way’ acts such as Whitey Morgan, Dallas Moore and the commercially successful Chris Stapleton, all representing the male sex.

Not to suggest that female artists aren’t every bit as worthy of the outlaw tag, to do so would be an insult to Elizabeth Cook, Nikki Lane and Lydia Loveless to mention but a few. Unfortunately, breakthrough classic country artists are not emerging in the same numbers, so the discovery a few years back of the young Texan Jason James was a joy to behold to the champions of that genre among us Lonesome Highway purists. 

His 2015 self-titled release was uncompromising and no-frills honky tonk, groomed, polished and perfected by years of performing at dance halls and clubs across his home state. It’s more than likely that he would have continued to travel around Texas making a living as a live performer had his mother not taken the bull by the horns and unknown to him sent some demos of his songs to New West Records. Studio sessions were arranged by the label in both Austin and Houston with some crack session players and the results impressed label president John Allen to the extent that he lined up additional studio time in Nashville, to finalise the recording.  Three years later and we wondered had James joined the gang of musicians that deliver a once off classic and disappear off the face of the world, until the news filtered through that he was, in fact, about to start work on another album.Lonesome Highway tracked down James to get the lowdown.

We’ve been loving your self-titled album at Lonesome Highway since its release.  The whole package unapologetically captures what we consider to be classic country – with two capital C’s -  across the twelve tracks. It’s ironic that an album with so much in common with decades past sounds so refreshing! How satisfied were you with the final product?

Ha-ha well, thank you so much! Means a lot. Sonically speaking I had a pretty good vision of what I wanted. That being said it can really be tough to find the right producers that can help manifest your vision into a product. Both John Evans and Keith Gattis knew exactly where to steer the ship when it came time to record.  I am happy with the record very much ... considering the length of time in between sessions and all ... I'd say it flows real well. I can tell some things but that's because I was there! But, when I have listened to the record at times it is very fluid. Gattis did a great job in that respect. Not venturing from the overall feel of the record that John Evans had it going in. There was no real ego on the record, it was for the sake of the songs.

You’re beginning working on a follow album. What timescale can we expect?

Pre-production is already under way. We should have the record done by the end of July and a release date is scheduled for late this year or early next.

The last album was recorded in Austin, Houston and Nashville with an impressive line-up off players to say the least.  Where will you record this time around?

It was all over the place last time. And yes, I was blown away sitting in the studio with those cats. I've stayed close with most of them too. As honoured as I was to play with those guys I'd hear them shouting after a take "now that's country music!" For as serious as the situation was for me professionally, I've never laughed as much as we did in the studio. It was incredibly light hearted. I think we're going to record in Austin this time with John Evans again. 

Will you be using players from your band for the album?

I'm not sure. We may. Depends on scheduling and all. When I'm not on the road with my guys they are making a living playing constantly. 

You included a co-write with Jim Lauderdale (Walk Through My Heart) on the album. How comfortable are you writing with others as opposed to working alone?

I wrote that with Lauderdale and Odie Blackmon and it was my first ever co-write with anyone else. Ever. I had no idea what would happen but at least I'd get to hang with those two fellas. Glad we got a song as good as that out of it Lol. I prefer to write myself though. Prolific doesn't always mean great but ... I have a lot to say. I feel possessed at times like I have some deadline to say everything I can say. But, I'm also open to work with others. I've had to learn to not hold my songs so tight to my chest. Other input can be great.

A small number of artists like yourself, Joshua Hedley, Dallas Moore, Zephaniah O’Hora and J.P. Harris are leading the charge in keeping classic country very much alive and kicking. Do you feel that the industry in general is helping or hindering your progress? 

I only know Dallas and J.P. personally. But, I will say that those two guys are some of the most talented and hard working men I've ever known. Anything credited to their success has less to do with the industry but, rather them putting their boots on the ground and grinding and putting out the best material they can routinely.

The larger labels are taking note with Atlantic signing Sturgill Simpson and Third Man giving Margo Price and Joshua Hedley deserved support. Does seeing artists like these getting a break keep you enthused? 

Uh, it's hard to answer that for me personally. I'll be honest- I have no illusions of ever wanting or really caring to be famous. If that happens and there is a "musical movement" then great! I just enjoy singing and writing and touring and doing things I like to do. Fame comes and goes. That being said- I'm happy for them for sure. And from what I've heard of them and about them they are in it to win it. Score one for the good guys and girls! 

Diversities between Texas country and Nashville country have been debated for decades. Do you feel that Texas still recognises and supports ‘real’ country more so than its neighbours?

Yea, that comes up quite a bit. Texas definitely has a lot of dancehalls and county festivals that seem like Mayberry where I play on a trailer and it feels so country. But, I also feel like I haven't been threatened by anyone outside of Texas when I play. I think it's all in your attitude and the way you approach people. We played Chicago recently and everyone loved it. Country music comes from the heart. Not everyone will like it but that's ok. Sometimes I like to stick in Texas because it's my comfort zone. I always feel like someone will make fun of me for being country. That's my own personal issues though (laughs).

Is there much radio support locally for you and your peers?

Oh yea!! I'm played in Texas a lot. In fact, I released just recently a song from the record. "Here Comes The Heartache" it was just put into rotation and it's already climbing the chart. My friends are all on there too.

Like so many younger artists we encounter that are travelling the traditional country path your earlier years involved playing punk and rock. What encouraged you to move towards country?

Lord - I'll be honest. I was so lost for a long time. I was in trouble with the law growing up. Music saved me. I think I liked expressing myself and it just came out in the way of punk. I only played it for such a short time. People have come up to me and I've used the old demos as a frisbee lol. I would cover Hank Williams in the old band(s). When I heard Hank Williams again I realized what my path would be. It directed me here. I owe my life to country music. I love it more than anything and I'll never stray from it.

You’re on the record noting how people at shows tell you they don’t like country music but like what you’re playing, which pretty much sums up the what most people perceive to be country today. Are you finding a younger audience buying into what you’re doing?

Young people all the time come up and tell me they've been a fan for their whole life. I always smile and chuckle. I try to keep the songs simple and catchy so I can see why kids like it. The songs are kinda like nursery rhymes. 20 and 30 something's have also gravitated towards my sound. Young adults who are just now getting a dose of real life and the ups and downs that it throws at them. My music documents loss and the overall struggle. But the melody I try and keep pretty. So, it's a dance in between light and dark. I get people who've had a bit too much to drink and cry at the edge of the stage to "sing their life to em". Of course, my life has been everything but squeaky clean... so maybe they find it comforting to have someone else that has been through it too. We're all on this trip together I suppose. Country music is the misfit. The unwanted, the forgotten but, it's also about salvation. It's real life. Don't try and be a phony son (laughs).

Is the market in Texas big enough for you to survive as an artist like or do you need to establish yourself outside the State?

Oh, this state is huge. Unless you've travelled every bit of it it's hard to fathom at times. I make a living here. But, I'd love to travel and see America and the world. The label I was on kinda tried to keep me only in Texas. I'm not sure why ... but, I got the feeling they didn't see how much people wanted to hear this type of music.

And the European market. There is a hard core following for classic country in the UK, Ireland, Scandinavia and Holland. Do you expect to tour over here?

Yes Sir! I had a 3-week tour scheduled there and I got no help for tour support and had to back out last minute.  After this record is out though I will most definitely be there! I'll start making announcements soon. 

Interview by Declan Culliton

SUSTO - Justin Osborne Interview

A refreshing and original crossover of Americana & indie rock, Susto’s 2017 release & I’m Fine Today featured in Lonesome Highway’s most loved albums of 2017. The vehicle for songwriter Justin Osbourne, the band have grown from relative obscurity to sharing the stage with Band of Horses and a stadium tour with The Lumineers over the past few years. They made their European debut at Celtic Connections in Glasgow earlier this year with a dazzling performance at The Mackintosh Church, Osbourne also played a solo gig at the festival. The band embark on an extensive touring schedule over the coming months in The States, followed by some solo shows by Osbourne in Germany, Holland and Belgium. A hectic schedule for the recently married Osbourne but one that he appears to be revelling in at present as the band go from strength to strength.

All of a sudden, the word is out on SUSTO! So many crack bands and artists remain undetected and under the radar simply because of lack of exposure. What got you noticed?

Man, to be honest I really don’t know. I guess it’s been a mixture of luck and hard work. We've been very lucky that since the beginning, people have really latched on to the music and supported us. Everyone we work with came to the band as a fan of what we are doing and has worked really hard to get the word out. Also, we’ve found a lot of incredible fans all over the place who have been spreading the word and supporting us. It’s an incredible experience, we are having a great time and it’s been cool to see the fan base grow from our home town, to towns and cities all over the world.

You’re pushing out musical boundaries in different directions from Americana to Psychedelic Indie, which can catch a very wide market both in age profiles of audiences and their listening preferences. Is this a musical path you intend to follow?

I think the creative process for this band has just been one of fearlessness. We try to be ourselves and also let ourselves grow. Americana, Psychedelic, Punk Rock, Gospel … I could name tons of genres that I think are some piece of what we are, and I think as long as we continue to stay true to ourselves and allow ourselves to be brave, we’ll be on the right path and all these different types of influences will continue to come out.

The album title & I’M Fine Today and much of the material suggests an artist in a good place at present. Was that a personal disposition or a reflection of the band in general?

That was definitely more of a personal reflection, but the title is really meant as more of a personal mantra I've had, just to keep myself going. I think lots of people deal with hard shit in this life, we all do in various degrees, and even just being alive can be such a struggle sometimes. "Jah works and I’m fine today” is something I have been saying for years now, to myself to keep myself going when the going is tuff, and also to remind myself to appreciate the moments when things are really good. It’s sort of a tool for living, which is why I would describe it as a mantra.

Drawing down from topics such as homosexuality, religion, drug use and mental illness appear to be somewhat more taboo in the Southern States of America than they would be in Europe. Has that been your experience?

Yes, you know I guess I kind of knew that would be the case because I was aware of Europe being more post religious than parts of the US, but I definitely noticed in a more up close and personal way when I met people and told them stories of how I grew up … people were just really shocked, it was hard for them to comprehend. But, I think regardless of whether or not talking about these things is more taboo in one place or the other, they are still relevant issues that people everywhere are aware of. The American South isn’t the only place where people have ridiculous ideas about religion and politics, and I think a lot of people in a lot of places are interested in talking about these things

Hallucinogens implications repeat on the album. Do they enhance the creative writing process? 

Sometimes, during the making of & I’m Fine Today, we were micro dosing LSD. This is an experience that I wouldn’t describe as hallucinogenic, it’s more of an overall mental boost. You are taking a trace amount of LSD so it’s a very lite experience and you are just having a great day. You hardly notice you have this boost until after its completely gone and you look back and realize how productive and creative you were. So, some of us did this several times over an 18-month recording period, just to keep things moving. I will say, although we don’t take enough psychedelics in the studio to trip, some of us do like to have a larger dose periodically. It resets your psyche and keeps the mind fresh. So yes, I think Psychedelics enhance the creative process, and life in general…but they should be used with caution and respect.

The cover artwork on the album is stunning and very much in keeping with the musical content. Tell me about it?

The cover artwork is by Pablo Amaringo, who was a renowned South American artist and conservationist. His paintings depict visions he experienced from drinking Ayahuasca. The name of our band, “susto” is a Latin American term for fright, but also its a spiritual illness that literally translates as “soul loss”; when someone is experiencing on going trauma, depression, anxiety, etc. all these things can be attributed to susto. Ayahuasca is used to combat susto, and this painting really spoke to us. The snake gods are symbols of rebirth and cyclical power, the snake is our symbol also and appears on a lot of our designs for T-shirts and posters. Pablo’s painting seems like the perfect reflection of what we are trying to describe to the world with & I’m Fine Today and I’m really glad we were able to use it as our album cover.

Do you consider yourself as a ‘journal’ writer, where your output generally reflects where you are personally at a given time?

Yes, I would consider myself a confessional writer. I’ve always used song writing as a way of processing my emotions and because of that, my songs are personal and confessional. When I look back on albums that I’ve released with Susto, solo albums, and records with my old bands - all of them are reflective of certain time periods in my life. My dad keeps a journal everyday so he has books and books of notes from every day for the past few decades, I just have albums that come out every few years.

The members of your band vary in age profile, musical background and indeed gender, in many ways the perfect mix. How did the current line up come about?

Yes, everyone has a bit of a different story in our band, which I think can be helpful. When I released the first self-titled album it got popular in Charleston pretty quickly and I was able to meet other musicians and creative people in town that I’d never been introduced to before, suddenly people knew who I was and got familiar with Susto. Once that happened, I started meeting people who were interested in being a permanent part of the band. Corey was first, he joined around June 2014, only a few months after the release. The friends I had recorded the album with were all busy doing their own projects so I was doing a long solo tour of the US & Canada, but I had a big kick off show in Charleston + a couple shows opening for Band of Horses where I wanted to perform with a full band. Corey was a part of that line up and then as we started doing more stuff as a band he remained part of the line up, then Marshall our drummer came in early in 2015 when we did SXSW (it was also around this time that my friend Johnny Delaware re-joined the band. He had a part in making the album). We had people filtering in and out playing bass until late 2015 when Jenna joined as our permanent bass player. After a long year of touring in 2016, Johnny decided it was time for him to go back to pursuing his own songs, so he left and started The Artisanals, who are great and I highly recommend checking out! When Johnny left, we asked Dries to join the band. It was an easy choice for us because he had already been touring with us as our videographer so we were all very comfortable with each other, and he happens to also be a great guitar player. So that’s the short version of the story of our line up ha-ha. Everyone kind of ended up in Charleston at different times and for different reasons, but it’s a small tight knit musical community so we all found each other gradually, and it’s been great traveling and getting to be like a family these last few years.

I can’t start to imagine what’s on the SUSTO playlist in the touring vans to cater for all tastes. Are there musical common denominators or do you feed off each other’s tastes?

Everyone definitely has their own tastes in our band. Some folks lean more towards pop or R&B, while others have a draw to heavier or folkier things. We do have some common denominators though. There are a few records that we can put on in the van and everyone will listen. We all really enjoyed the latest War On Drugs Album, we all like Bob Marley and we are all huge fans and followers of JPKS’s album Constant Stranger. We also learn a lot of new and old music from each other, which is very nice and keeps things interesting.

The opportunity to support The Lumineers on tour gave you exposure to larger audiences which can be beneficial but also damaging. Did the experience pay off and how did the experiences of playing in arenas work for you?

We honestly had an incredible time on that tour. We made a lot of new fans and got to play in some really incredible places. Playing arena’s is such a cool experience, you really have to rise to the occasion and play to a room of thousands, this can be daunting but for us it was a scenario we loved and learned a lot from. The whole crew on that tour was so good to us, everyone was so nice and excited about us, it felt really good to be appreciated. We would roll into the venue with our van and trailer, meanwhile there were like 12 buses on that tour plus 8 or so semi-trucks, so we felt very small at first but we learned to love that role as the little siblings, we learned a lot and I think we became better performers because of that tour.

Your showcase at Celtic Connections in Glasgow took place in The Mackintosh Church, possibly not the ideal venue for a live band! The previous night you played a solo slot at The Oren Mor. You put your heart and soul into both performances. Do you see Europe as a significant target market for you?

Yes, Europe is important to us and we plan to continue touring in Europe regularly as long as the band is active. This past tour was our first in Europe as a full band, so we were playing all sorts of places, Celtic Connections was definitely a highlight. I was glad I got to do a solo show at Oran Mor, and also that we got to perform full band at The Mackintosh Church. For that second show, we definitely had to lean into the setting, so we played a bit more reserved and curated our set list to fit the church, which is fine and definitely allows a certain side of our band to shine through. I hope when we come back to Scotland we can play a show where we can let the rock shine through as well, it’s a big part of our live show that we weren’t really able to show everyone at any of the 2 shows at Celtic Connections. Regardless, we had a wonderful time at the festival and were treated really well. I was happy with both of our performances. I think at The Mackintosh Church especially, we played a very clean “Nashville” type of set, and I remember that being really fun for us.

You’re doing some solo dates in over here in the summer. Will you be performing all SUSTO material or have you a Justin Osborne solo album in mind in the future?

Yes! I’m excited to be getting back to Europe so soon. It’s funny to think about a solo album, because that’s really what SUSTO was supposed to be in the first place, a solo project after I left my old band. But yes, it has definitely become more of a band experience over the last few years. I will be playing SUSTO songs on this tour. I have a couple solo albums I released on band camp back in 2014, but I don’t really perform those tunes much. I get to have a lot of freedom and control over the song writing and production of SUSTO, so I don’t really feel the need to do solo stuff. Who knows, maybe one day, but for this tour you can expect to hear SUSTO songs, possibly some new ones.

You’ve been quoted explaining how touring previously led to burnout. Does your current profile and the attention you been generating make the stress of the endless tours more bearable?

This is definitely a different experience than I had before, because now I believe in the music more and also I’m making a living doing this now, which feels nice and helps me keep good spirits. Touring does take a toll though, and I’m trying to be careful not to let myself get burnt out. During a long tour, it can feel overwhelming but I’m currently home for a while with only a few shows a month, and it feels like a nice break. It’s a balance, I know I’m going to be doing this for a while now because I’m enjoying it and its working pretty well, so I’m just going to try to be careful about how much I take on, because I really don’t want to feel burnt out again. I think we’ll keep touring pretty hard for another few years, another couple albums then maybe I’ll step away for a bit and try some other things. I don’t know, just trying to keep things open ended and interesting. I don’t want to find myself chained to the cycle of recording and touring, there are other things I want out of life too and I’m going to pursue those things at some point. For now, I’m enjoying the ride, and really enjoying working on our next album which I’m very excited for.

I look forward to seeing you in Europe in July!

Thanks for the questions! Looking forward to being back, hope to see you all at Static Roots.

Interview by Declan Culliton

Interview: Dietmar Leibecke / Static Roots Festival

With the summer festival season looming and given the quality of events on offer, it’s time to make those difficult decisions of which ones to consider. Unfortunately, with the exception of Kilkenny Roots, there are not too many choices at home for festivals catering for the Americana, Roots and Hardcore Country followers, resulting in the prospect of trips to the U.K. and further afield to seek out the kind of acts that hit the Lonesome Highway sweet spot. Oberhausen in Germany is the location for the Static Roots Festival, one that we will most certainly be returning to after attending the festival last year for the first time.

Germany is becoming a target market for many Irish acts with John Blek & The Rats, Anna Mitchell Band, The Midnight Union Band, Malojian, Luan Parle, Shane Joyce and Clive Barnes all having toured there in recent years, often playing to sell out venues. Static Roots is a festival that is attracting increasing numbers of punters from Ireland and the U.K, given the simple travel options available. It is also very much a punters festival, not overcrowded, impressive venue and surroundings, allowing easy access to the performers on stage and indeed off stage, as they mingle with the attendees between sets. Accurately described as a boutique festival, this year’s line-up includes Hannah Aldridge, The Cordovas, Anthony Da Costa, Charlie Whitten, Bennett Wilson Poole, The Stephen Stanley Band, Donald Byron Wheatley, Terra Lightfoot, Prinz Grizzley, Susto and our own Midnight Union Band. Lonesome Highway caught up with promoter Dietmar Leibecke, a passionate music follower and regular visitor to Ireland, to discuss the history of the festival, his motivation for staging the event and his ambitions for the festival going forward.

What was your inspiration to launch the festival two years ago?

I always loved the folk/americana festival scene in Canada, Ireland and the UK. Even in the Netherlands there are a few Americana festivals (e. g. “Take Root” or “Roots In The Park” and the newly founded “Down By The River”). But there is no such thing in Germany. The only two that come close are the label-dominated “Orange Blossom Special Festival” by Glitterhouse Records and the occasionally happening “Blue Rose Records Christmas Party”. Since my wife and I had a couple of anniversaries in 2016 - like our silver wedding, my 50th birthday, the 20th birthday of our daughter, the fifth anniversary of a kidney transplantation surgery (my wife donated one of her kidneys to me!) - we decided to organize a festival on our own after then ten years of promoting shows (another anniversary), booking tours, and having an Americana house concert series called “Raumfahrtzentrum Saarner Kuppe” in Mülheim an der Ruhr.

Since the Static Roots Festival 2016 was a (mostly) invite-only event, my wife and I sponsored the event (fees, food, drink, accommodation, venue etc). And at the same time we set up a funding campaign for Doctors Without Borders which ended with a phenomenal 9.500 EUR. We had the best of times – and all for a good cause!

Another big inspiration for the Static Roots Festival was the Kilkenny Roots Festival. It’s got such a great quality of acts, the most passionate, attentive and friendly audience you could wish for, and it has become a legend of its own in the European folk festival scene. When I first attended the Kilkenny Roots Festival I instantly felt like being part of a big family. For our Static Roots Festival the idea was to make something like the Kilkenny Roots Festival happen in Germany, too. That’s how the subtitle for our festival emerged: “peace, love, rock’n’roll” and I think it perfectly captures the great atmosphere we were able to create at the first two Static Roots Festivals.

While preparing for the Static Roots Festivals 2016 and 2017 I’ve been in touch with Willie Meighan quite often, asked for advice, discussed acts with him, and he’s been a great mentor. Willie recommended to book the Kilkenny-based The Midnight Union Band for the SRF 2016 and, man, he’s been so right! When Willie Meighan died after a long battle with cancer at the end of 2017, we decided to have a permanent festival slot in remembrance of and to celebrate the late great Willie Meighan and for 2018 there was no other choice than inviting over The Midnight Union Band again.

It’s very much a boutique festival, perfectly sized, well-chosen acts and a particularly social atmosphere. Is it your intention to expand the festival or are you content to keep it at the present size?

Actually, I am completely excited about how the festival developed. In 2016 there was actually just one festival day with six acts (well, five when considering Daniel Romano took the wrong turn on the Autobahn and ended up about 700km away from the venue). In 2017 there were two days and nine acts, this year we’ll have eleven acts on two days. We’ve been discussing other ideas with the venue (Zentrum Altenberg, Oberhausen) e. g. an outdoor acoustic stage but then again I think it’s very charming to have the lovely outside beer garden for a chat, some lovely food, and a German beer (of course) while people pay attention to the music in the stage room. 

The room itself has a capacity of 300 and the venue has another room with a capacity of 500 people. So there are options to grow from the number of attendees, too. But we’ll just see how things develop. I think it is important to keep the atmosphere of “peace, love, rock’n’roll” and it all might be just perfect the way it is.

As a smaller promoter how difficult is it to get your preferred acts to commit?

A big advantage of the Static Roots Festival: it’s the only pure Americana festival in Germany. The Americana scene is still a niche while it’s certainly growing these last few years. So we can offer a platform for acts that try to get a foot in the door of the German Americana market. We’ve had excellent press and radio coverage these last two years so the Static Roots Festival is indeed a great opportunity. And the acts I’m negotiating with usually recognize the chances. Except some managers who sometimes ask for unreasonable fees (“You’ve got to send a bus load of money to sign xxx!” – true story). All in all it’s not too hard to get my preferred acts to commit. It takes a while and I need to be persistent but my enthusiasm for great music is unbreakable and my optimism keeps me going. Even when an acts cancels, the disappointment doesn’t keep me distracted for more than fifteen minutes. Because it’s the opportunity to book another great act – and there are quite a few of them. As you sure know.

You appear to be as excited as the punters when you confirm acts that have been booked. Have you some set criteria for selecting the range of acts?

First of all, I am a fan. I don’t want to see the Static Roots Festival as some kind of business. I want to enjoy great music, I want to enjoy the people, the craic, the love that’s almost tangible at the Static Roots Festival. I’ve met so many amazing people through music, made tons of friends all over the world – it’s what I want our guests to experience as well. If music touches me in some way, it qualifies to be chosen for the line-up of the Static Roots Festival. That’s it. And I hope the music touches the audience as well – and mostly it does. Sometimes I feel like a little kid unwrapping presents on Christmas eve when an act confirms. Thinking about the lineup of the Static Roots Festival 2018 and the people that will attend makes me happy as a pig in mud. One thing is for sure: we’ll have a blast. 

You engage a dedicated MC to introduce the acts. What motivated this?

At the first Static Roots Festival in 2016 we had six dedicated folks announcing the six acts. One of them was my good friend Jeff Robson (radio host for Tell The Band To Go Home on umfm.com, a Canadian community radio station from Winnipeg, Manitoba). He introduced Leeroy Stagger and the way he did it was just phenomenal. He has a great sense of humour, an endless knowledge of music, he knows how to make the punters pay attention, he sends them to the merch table in a very charming way and he is totally perfect for the job as an MC. In 2017 we invited him over to be the MC for the whole festival and he was simply BRILLIANT! You don’t find good MCs too often and most festivals don’t even have an MC. I myself hate being the centre of attention, I like working in the background, I don’t want to stand in the light, I am much better at other things. So Jeff is actually doing me a big favour too. And then I think Jeff has become the face of the festival – which is totally great! He is such a great person, his radio show is my Sunday night tradition for at least ten years, I love him and he totally deserves it. And I think he loves being the MC, too. Which makes it even better. 

How much local knowledge is there for Americana in Germany?

As mentioned before, Americana music is still some kind of niche over here in mainland Europe. While the UK has some smashing success (from my point of view) since setting up their Americana-UK committee, there is not much going on in Germany. There are no particular Americana-related print or online magazines (except for maybe countrymusicnews.de). But there are a few German radio shows which are flying the flag of Americana music such as:

•HappySad, Christine Heise (radio eins, RBB), which in my handsome opinion is the most important one

•Songs to play, Markus Bäcker (674.fm)

•Blue Rose Records Radio Show, Edgar Heckmann (rockradio.de)

•Hillbilly Rockhouse, Gerd Stassen (countrymusic24.de)

What acts particularly excite you at this year’s festival?

Once again, I’m a total fan of Americana music. Each and every act at the Static Roots Festival has at least a couple of songs that touch me in some way or the other, some songs will make me shed a tear (e.g. when thinking of Stephen Stanley’s Troubadour’s Song which to me has become some kind of farewell song to our friend Willie Meighan), some songs will make me jump for joy, a ton of songs will give me goosebumps, I will have the best of times and will be wearing a big fat smile in my face all weekend long! The last act that hasn’t confirmed yet (we’re close to confirming though) will let me stand in the audience with both hands up, rooting for them after each song. There will be mesmerizing singer/songwriters, country acts, acts with a blues rock touch, indie-rock Americana, 70s guitar-and-harmony-driven music, soulful Americana… To me it’s such a great line-up, it wouldn’t be fair to name just one particular act. I see excitement all over the two days of the festival!

Your dream act, in realistic terms, to perform at the festival?

Dream act? Hm, my first thought was “I’ve booked all my dream acts already!”. But then again, there is one particular act I want to book for the festival at some point in time. And I think it would close a (very personal) circle.

I’ve got to go back in time to tell the story because somehow it’s the foundation to all I do in music (I took this text mainly from my invitation to our latest house concert with the legendary Steve Wynn from New York, USA):

Spring 1983: the 16 year old Dietmar is sitting in his tiny room and puts on a new album, “The Days Of Wine And Roses” by The Dream Syndicate. First song, Tell Me When It’s Over, 30 seconds in, completely blown away, knowing that this music was made for him, the album a total cracker. The next decade was musically shaped by The Dream Syndicate and its frontman, Steve Wynn. The album is still one of his all-time-favourites.

Spring 2004: never really having partied any of his birthdays, 38 year old Dietmar thinks about something special for celebrating his 40th birthday. And starts bothering Steve Wynn, the guy who  had the biggest impact on the development of Dietmar’s musical taste, about playing his 40th birthday party. 18 months later finally the confirmation: Steve Wynn & The Miracle 3 will be playing at the party!

June 2006: Dietmar’s 40th birthday party is big fun and Steve Wynn and his band play a blinder of a show. After the show Steve Wynn comes up and says: “Dietmar, have you ever heard of the concept of house concerts? I think you’d be the right guy to do it.” House concerts? WTH is that?

November 2007: the idea of house concerts has been growing big time on Dietmar and in November 2007, the Canadian folk rocker Leeroy Stagger plays the first ever show at Raumfahrtzentrum Saarner Kuppe. The beginning of a series of about 60 shows until today.

Finally the Static Roots Festival is some kind of natural development from the house concert series, from booking tours for my favourite acts, promoting public shows etc. So it all goes back to Steve Wynn and his band, The Dream Syndicate.

At some point in time I want The (reunited) Dream Syndicate to play a slot at the Static Roots Festival. This will finally close the circle from where it all began about 35 years ago. And then I might go and see what is the next step I can take.

Interview by Declan Culliton

Birds of Chicago Interview

Husband and wife duo Birds of Chicago - JT Nero and Allison Russell - make a welcomed return to Ireland in May, playing two sold out dates at the Kilkenny Roots Festival. The shows take place on the weekend of the official release of their eagerly awaited new album Love In Wartime, a fitting title reflecting the more than ever requirement for empathy in disturbingly uncertain times, both in The States and Europe. Among other things Lonesome Highway spoke with Allison about the new album, their gruelling touring schedule and the prospect of a return to Kilkenny where she performed with Po’Girl back in 2007.

The song writing on Real Midnight, released in 2016, often reads as a reminder of appreciating the present and living in the moment as much darker places may lurk on the horizon. Is that a reflection of JT (Nero) and your own ideology or simply a theme you adopted for the album?

I think we try to live that way… in the moment, in the present. But we don’t always succeed. We became parents 4 years ago - having our daughter, Ida Maeve - intensified everything. The greatest love we’ve ever experienced and also the deepest fear, terror and uncertainty. We were (are) wrestling with the profound heaviness of being responsible for another’s life. The fear of the vagaries and cruelties of the world - the desire to keep her safe always and the pain of knowing that’s impossible. We’re trying everyday to be our best selves for her, seeing the wonder of the world through her eyes. I think the writing on Real Midnight reflects the beginning of that journey.

Engaging Joe Henry as producer on Real Midnight seemed the perfect fit for that particular album. What drew you towards him?

We’ve been admirers of both the albums he makes himself and those he makes with others for many years. Joe brings out the best in everyone he works with. He knows a little something about shadows and light - love and revelation…He was our dream producer really- and like a dream - we didn’t think it could ever happen in reality. But our friend Rhiannon Giddens stepped in and brought us together. It was a transcendent experience working with Joe. There’s a warning about meeting your heroes - but he is better than we could have imagined. And we’re proud to call him a friend now.

I believe the album was the final album recorded at his legendary Garfield House Studio?

It was indeed, and a bittersweet happenstance it was. Joe, and his wife Melanie, and their children Levon, and Lulu had spent a decade in that house. They rebuilt and beautified it and filled it with music, life, love, and goodness in a most palpable way. Everyone from Bonnie Raitt and Lucinda Williams to Solomon Burke and Allen Toussaint recorded there...I got to sing into the same mic Bonnie used.  Joe called it his decade long masters class. The “For Sale” sign went up as we were beginning the Real Midnight Sessions and it sold shortly thereafter. Jay Bellerose had a kit that had lived there for over seven years. Ryan Freeland (Joe’s go to engineer- he is a genius and a fantastic producer in his own right- he produced the Barr Brothers Sleeping Operator album and their latest) and Joe knew every acoustic nook and cranny of that house and used them to best effect for each project. The walls radiated history, creativity, and song... We feel very, very fortunate to have been blessed by that mojo…

Rhiannon Giddens, a regular visitor to Ireland, features on the album and in many ways the album has a gorgeous bluesy spiritual thread similar to that of her solo work. How did that connection come about?

I met Rhiannon when she was playing with the Carolina Chocolate Drops at the Vancouver Folk Fest in 2006. I was playing with Po’Girl at the time. My bandmate Awna Teixeira and I wound up in shared a dorm with CCD in the artist residence (literally a dorm at the University of British Columbia - which is where the Fest put up the artists in those days) - and epic jams and hangs ensued. I remember Rhiannon showed me Skype for the first time - which seemed so Sci-Fi to me - she was skyping with her then fiancé, now husband,  Michael Laffan, who was in (and is from) Limerick, Ireland…And she helped me track down a recording put out by the Library of Congress called Sweet Petunias - a compilation of rare early “race records” of African American women blues songwriter/singers. We stayed in touch and in 2011 she invited me to be part of a production that she and the Drops were spearheading at Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. It was an exploration of the Great Migration of the African American diaspora from the South to the North and Vaudeville called Keep a Song in Your Soul - telling the story of the Black experience in America through Archetypal Vaudeville characters and music and dance from the period. Rhiannon played the protagonist “Country Girl” - and I played a bit of a villain- “City Girl”. There was a dance off involved - ha! JT and I formed Birds of Chicago in 2012 and Rhiannon invited us to open for the Drops on a tour and then had us open for some of the dates of her solo debut Tomorrow is my Turn tour in 2015.  She introduced us to Joe Henry, and now we rent her house in Nashville. And in her role as guest Artist Curator she’s presenting us at the Cambridge Folk Festival this August alongside Yola Carter, Amythyst Kiah, Kaia Kater, and Peggy Seeger. I’m also working on a project that she’s spearheading for Smithsonian Folkways. She’s a dear friend and a kindred spirit and has been a generous champion of ours.

We await the release of your new album Love In Wartime. Very interesting title. How will the material compare with Real Midnight?

Thematically there’s definitely a through line. Musically though - it’s a bit more of rock n’ roll record than Real Midnight. It’s more urgent. It’s been a fraught and divisive time in America, as I know it has in Europe as well…As a Canadian, who can’t vote in the country I’ve married into.. the last election was particularly destabilizing. If we only ever listened to the 24-hr news cycle or the current administration and didn’t have the privilege of traveling the length and breadth of the US - we wouldn’t know the deep kindness and goodness of the vast majority of Americans. We receive so much kindness and generosity from strangers in our touring life. Red State and Blue State alike. In the US, and Canada, and Ireland, and the UK, and the Netherlands - everywhere we’ve had the joy of touring. Strangers welcome us into their communities and become friends...  Friends who have all sorts of different beliefs, views, backgrounds, experiences, ethnicities, orientations, hurts - but who ultimately have more in common than not… We felt an urgency about reaffirming the ties that bind us and our shared human experience-  strength and vulnerability, fear and anger, hope and love- music… rather than buying into the specious rhetoric of  “us” and “them”...

The songs on Love in Wartime were born on the road - through two years of intensive touring and bonding with our 5 piece road band- Chris Merrill on bass, Nick Chambers on drums, Joel Schwartz on electric guitars, and JT and I of course, and Ida Maeve and our magical tour manager/ Ida whisperer Suzi Boelter... It marks the first time that JT and I have co-written songs (in the past we’ve written individually and then brought the songs to the band to arrange and elevate) - and the first time that Chris Merrill and JT have co-written, and the first time that Drew Lindsay (JT’s younger brother and our keys man on all our records) and I have co-written. We were also joined on the record by Dan Abu-Absi (Radio Free Honduras), who is a long-time member of our extended musical clan and a JT and The Clouds (JT’s previous band) alumnus - he plays second guitar. And we were joined by Javier Saumee Mazzee on percussion, and Kelly Hogan and Nora O’Connor (The Decembrists, Neko Case, The Flat Five) on additional harmony vocals.  We were joined by the marvellous Luther Dickinson (North Mississippi Allstars) in the role of co- producer along with JT. He made sure that we never played a song more than 3 times. We were all together at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio Studio A (great warm sound, high ceilings, fantastic sight lines, and more music history mojo) with Alex Hall on the board (The Flat Five) - playing live and in real time pushing back the shadows in our hearts and minds and revelling in the communion that is a whole becoming more than the sum of its parts.

Is the album’s theme based in the present day or a retrospective on bygone times?

Both I’d say - and with a hope that our children or their children’s children may see an end of war in all its guises...

JT gets the writing credits for the majority of the songs on Real Midnight. Is this also the case with Love In Wartime and does he seek your input to ensure that the songs suit your vocal?

It’s always collaborative arrangement and shaping wise - but Love in Wartime is specifically more collaborative in terms of co-writing, though he still takes the lion’s share - not in a selfish way - JT is simply a much more prolific writer than I - he tends to churn out finished songs faster that I do. I have a slower arc to my writing- I have to fight the crippling inner critic more fiercely - particularly since becoming a mother. I’ve tended to write more in fits and starts.  But that’s starting to shift now that Ida is older and doesn’t get enraged anymore every time I pick up a banjo, or work on a tune- ha! JT is my biggest cheerleader. And he has been one of my all-time favourite writers since before I met him in person. So, I do particularly love when he taps into his inner feminine and merges with my voice/perspective. It’s a deeply intimate, open heart process. And I shape and bend the melodies as I see fit. Trust and connection and intuition like that with another writer/musician who also happens to be my life partner and one and only love is a gift I don’t take for granted.

You’re certainly working with some of the best with Steve Dawson co-producing the American Flowers EP released last year and Luther Dickinson on board for Love In Wartime. What factors dictate your choice of producers?

Joe, Steve, and Luther are all kindred spirits. They all have the same disregard for false/ superficial genre divisions that we do. They all have a bracing lack of preciousness or perfectionism in their approach as producers and musicians. They are all three musicians first - extra-ordinary ones - which I didn’t really think of consciously before you asked me this question. They are all ego-less - it’s not about them slapping some sort of brand upon the other artists they journey with/guide. It’s about keeping the conduits open, and the music flowing as naturally, and honestly as possible. It’s about helping the artists they work with get out of their own way. And that resonates deeply with us. They are also all three supremely good, wise, gentlemen and long-term husbands (of truly brilliant, amazing, creative, strong wives Melanie, Alice, and Necha) and fathers of equally brilliant, amazing, creative strong daughters (Joe also has a son - extremely creatively gifted too) - another commonality I never really thought of before...None of them supports flogging a song into the ground. Flow masters one and all...All of them tend to make a record in 6 days or less. In our case 4 days for Real Midnight, 1 day for American Flowers, 4 days for Love in Wartime.

Does Luther also contribute on the new album given his vast instrumental talents?

He doesn’t - this was such a band record - Luther didn’t feel the need to play since Joel and Dan were already shredding so hard- ha! Again Luther, like Joe and Steve isn’t coming from an ego-based place with his producing or playing. We will definitely do some recording together in future. I had the joy of doing some singing, and playing some clarinet, on Luther’s upcoming children’s record… He was initially slated to come and do some playing on the American Flowers session - but his schedule got too crazy ... he’s one of the hardest working musicians I know.

Has your relocation to Nashville changed your musical direction in any way?

Maybe in the sense of being more open to co-writes. And perhaps feeling more validated as a writer. There’s something so freeing and empowering for an artist and a writer to be in a town that has literally been built on songs. It is a “real” job!

You seem to be constantly touring, playing up to 200 shows a year. Is this a labour of love for you or a necessary industry evil?

Both I’d say … in a perfect world we’d tour 6 months out of the year and not 10-  Ida is getting older and needing more social time with peers…That’s been part of our move to Nashville - trying to shift things enough - to have a little more home time. She’s started (pre)school three days a week at a lovely gentle school here -they are used to musician’s children and nomadic schedules - and are flexible about it.  JT and Steve Dawson have started a production/engineering team together called Dim Stars. They just produced an album for Raina Rose (she is wonderful) - which I’m very excited about. I recently had a song of mine recorded by another artist for the first time - the luminous Lizz Wright (Concord Records) recorded a version of my song Barley to start off her latest Joe Henry produced album Grace. So, baby steps towards diversifying our music industry portfolio so to speak...I’ve always wanted to do voice overs- just putting that out there. 

You’re embarking on an intensive four-week tour in Europe commencing in April. How challenging is that both logistically and financially for Birds of Chicago?

We’re bringing over our five-piece band (with Andy Stack filling in for Joel Schwartz on electric guitar) for the first time - so it’s definitely a bigger risk/leap that we’re taking financially this time around. We wanted to do justice to the record and play our full band show in Europe- so hopefully people come along...I heard our Kilkenny Roots Fest shows are already sold out - so that’s encouraging! Logistically we are in very capable hands with the debonair Will Waghorn covering tour management duties. Our dear friend Pam is coming to watch Ida. We love how short the drives are in Europe as compared to touring in North America - especially my Canadian homeland … JT and I are very much looking forward to exploring the parks and museums of Europe with Ida before soundcheck everyday. 

Are both your previous projects, JT & The Clouds and Po’Girl, history at this stage or just in a self-induced coma?

Ha, I like that - self- induced coma ... Not history -Po’Girl has been on an extended hiatus whilst I worked on BoC and nation building, and whilst my beloved bandmate and sister from another mister - Awna Teixeira worked on 3 gorgeous solo records, we are the last two Po’s left standing. Trish Klein is managing other artists and running her own cafe/small venue/record store/label in Vancouver, BC called Hidden City Records. Diona teaches fiddle on a small island in BC. Most of the Clouds are also Birds. And Awna has also just relocated to Nashville - she and I are working on writing a new Po’Girl record (which is going to be produced by JT and Steve Dawson AKA Dim Stars) - that we’ll start recording sometime in the autumn. It’s a big extended family.

You played the Kilkenny Roots Festival in 2007 as part of Po’Girl. What are your memories of that visit?  

We had so much fun - hard to reckon that that is over a decade ago now! I remember we got there in time to dance with wild abandon to the Sadies set, I remember staying up till all hours in the hotel bar with all the other musicians- I remember playing in some beautiful underground ancient stone place- for some of the sponsors maybe with some of the other artists - I remember being mesmerized by Patrician Vonne’s castanet dance. Hearing Sarah Borges for the first time ... I remember being too shy to go up and talk to Amy Helm who was playing with Ollabelle at the time- she has since become a dear friend. I remember Paul Brainerd from Richmond Fontaine leaping up onstage to play a ripping trumpet solo with us … I remember feeling so welcome and at home and our whole band plotting how we could move to Ireland - in fact Trish Klein took steps to get her Irish citizenship soon after that - and met some long-lost relatives of hers while we were there … We were very young and we all drank too much and didn’t sleep enough and it was glorious.

I’ve no doubt you’ll receive a very warm welcome on your return to Kilkenny Roots in May and we very much look forward to your shows!

Thank you so much Declan- I’m thrilled that I get to come back with my new band! And with my family - peace, love, music - See you in May: xo Alli and the BoC family.

Interview by Declan Culliton

Margo Price Interview

The Margo Price story is well known by now, selling the family car and pawning her wedding ring to finance the recording of her debut solo album Midwest Farmers Daughter. The album finally received the deserved love from Jack White’s Third Man Records, having been rejected about everywhere else. The acceptance by Third Man was a blessing in disguise because she was finally signed to a label renowned for allowing its artists the freedom to express themselves artistically, a factor critically important to Price. "I’d castrate my arm rather than sell out" she notes without a hint of humour. "The more popularity I get the more I have to try even harder to keep my feet on the ground and not sell out and not get into advertisements for products I don’t believe in. Sometimes it’s hard to turn down the money, not everybody buys records these days and it gets very gruelling being out on the road all the time away from my kid. But I love it and it’s what I am."

Midwest Farmer's Daughter is confessional, raw and personal. A depiction of her life journey, warts and all, from childhood to the present day, confronting family trauma, bad relationships, depression, a short spell in jail and the tragic death of one of her twin baby boys. Its successor All American Made, though not musically dissimilar, casts a wider net questioning gender equality, politics, insincerity and exploitation. I wondered how comfortable she is when not writing in the first person or real-life issues. "I’d soon run out of things if I keep writing about myself’’ she laughs’’ I think I’m a strong writer when I deal in the first person but both my myself and my husband Jeremy, who cowrites with me, have written fictional. We might be watching a film and a scene influences a song idea. We recently wrote a song about a couple that finds a bunch of money and go on the road running from the cops and another story about a stripper and her dippy husband. I like writing about stuff like that too.’’

There is a song writing bloodline in her family. Her uncle Bobby Fischer took similar risks to his niece when packing his bags and leaving seventeen years of steady employment with International Harvester in Illinois to head to Nashville in 1970 to try and make a breakthrough as a songwriter, a career he had pursued part time for a number of years. With the support of his wife, who remained in Rock Island Illinois with the children for a further three years, he survived a few rocky years to eventually establish himself and wrote songs subsequently recorded by artists including George Jones, Reba Mc Entire, Charley Pride, Conway Twitty, Tanya Tucker and Lee Greenwood. I asked would she ever see herself recording a Margo Price sings Bobby Fischer album. "I do, I definitely do. He’s one hell of a writer and I’ve learned a lot from him and look up to him so much. He keeps notebooks full of lines, just song ideas. My husband and I have been over with him sometimes and he’ll say, I have a song title. We worked together on the song, put it down on a tape recorder and he had us sign a contract that it was a co-write. He’s blood but there was no such thing as a handshake, business is business! For his eightieth birthday I went over to his house and sang Writing On The Wall for him and was so nervous’’

The past two years have been a whirlwind for Price with the release of her two solo albums within an eighteen-month period, resulting in endless touring, appearances on Saturday Night Live, Austin City Limits, Jimmy Fallon in the States and Later With Jools Holland and Glastonbury in the U.K.  The twelve preceding years laid the foundation stones for her breakthrough, recording three albums with Buffalo Clover, a rock and southern soul fusion band that she and her husband Jeremy Ivey co-wrote for.  I question the temptation to release another album immediately to continue the momentum or will she spend a bit more time touring the two last albums. "Jeremy and I have already recorded a third record’’ she explains "though I’m not sure if we will put it out next, we decided to just record as much music as possible now. I’m thinking also about a new direction of sorts but it will still be roots, there won’t be any electronic music going on or collaborating with any DJ’s, that’s for sure!  We’ve recorded the album that I just mentioned in Nashville having gone to Memphis for Midwest Farmers Daughter and All American Made. I might go down a complete different avenue, Joshua Tree or something like that, maybe the West Coast, I like to change it up.  It’s hard to decide when to release the next album because we recorded All American Made in December 2016 and waited all the way until October 2017 to get it released and I’m already tired of those songs now (laughs), reinventing them and changing the tempos to keep us interested and on our toes.  I’d really like to get back on the Spring album release cycle, it’s the perfect time, so I’m thinking of the next album release in Spring 2019. I’ve got stuff going on between now and then, I’ve been working on the soundtrack for a western film and we’ve talked about releasing a compilation of Buffalo Clover recordings including some stuff that’s unreleased so we’ve got a few things to tide us over. I’ve also got a country artist that’s one of my favourites and has a hold of one of my songs to hopefully record which I’d love.’’

The title track of All American Made was in fact written during her Buffalo Clover days and might not have seen the light of day had there been a different outcome to the last American Presidential election. "The election definitely gave the song more weight and gravity. The message has always been the same, I’ve always questioned authority and not trusted the powers that be and the last election definitely brought the song out, it’s amazing how events can change a song.’’

Price is representative of a growing group of female artists in East Nashville with the talents to make industry breakthroughs given the opportunity and some good breaks. I mention artists such as Lilly Hiatt, Erin Rae and Lillie Mae, three exceptionally talented artists, all neighbours of hers. Price has consistently written about gender inequality both in financial and career opportunities with This Town Gets Around from her debut album and Pay Gap and Wild Women from her current release. A torch carrier and spokeswoman for her peers perhaps. "I love Lilly Hiatt, I’ve played drums in her band! There’s always music circles going from disco to a poppy sound and then people get tired of the shallowness. I think now is a good time for musicians in general who are writing real heartfelt songs and not one dimensional. You may have heard of Dan Bradbury, he’s one of my favourite writers and he’s also struggling a lot to get people to believe in him and put his music out. I just tell them this is the purgatory period and there is light at the end of the tunnel and keep working hard and you’ll get the breaks. I really love Lillie Mae also, she’s been playing bluegrass for years and years, since she was a young child, she’s a phenomenal picker and great guitar player as well as the fiddle. Erin Rae is coming on tour with me opening on some dates in The States, such a talented writer, the Joni Mitchell of her generation’’

The C2C tour that she is currently playing is interesting in that realistically herself and Emmylou Harris are the only two acts of the twelve performers who could be classified as country in the true sense. They are also the only acts of the touring group that don’t get wall to wall airplay on Country Music Radio but have still managed to made major industry inroads. With a touring schedule that has resulted in her being at home for the grand total of two days in the past two months I wondered, given that she would be performing to a different audience than her core followers, if the exposure would be beneficial."Yeah, but you know what they say about exposure, some people die from it! Last night in Glasgow, I’m not sure if many people at the show knew or ever heard of me. It took some work but I think I did win them over. We were the only act to have pedal steel so I’m quite happy to represent the roots side of things and when I went to my dressing room and see its next to Emmylou Harris’s it makes me want to cry! So that’s good enough for me.’’

The mention of Emmylou Harris prompts me to recollect a conversation I was fortunate to  eavesdrop on a couple of years back. It’s September 26th 2016 and I find myself at The American Legion in Nashville, attending a party night hosted by young local honky tonker Cale Tyson. With the Americana Music Festival closing the previous day the evening promises to be the perfect come down before heading home to the real world the following morning. Between acts I slip out to the near empty bar for refreshments where, to my surprise, both Margo Price and her husband Jeremy Ivey were seated and in conversation with the bar maid, a charming lady who must have been approaching eighty years of age and who was obviously known to the couple. Only an hour earlier Margo Price had completed a live radio recording of Skyville Live, on stage with Emmylou Harris and was recounting the tale to the intrigued bar maid.’’ I’ve just been on stage with my lifetime hero Emmylou Harris’’, said a beaming Price to which the bar maid replied "But honey, you’re a big star now." Price gets quite emotional when I recall this incident, wiping a tear from her eye. We are seated in the hospitality room at the 3 Arena, where Price is due to perform that evening at the C2C Festival, on a bill that coincidentally also includes Emmylou Harris.  "Oh my God I remember that well. It’s pretty surreal some days. I had actually played The Americana Award Show at The Ryman in 2016 a few nights previous to that. I couldn’t find my ticket and didn’t know where my dressing room was. I thought I’d just go backstage and hang out. I passed the dressing rooms and saw a sign on one door that read Emmylou Harris, Bonnie Raitt and Margo Price. I got so nervous that I thought, I can’t go in there right now. I went to the bathroom and stayed there for a while before I plucked up the courage to go in to the dressing room. When I did they were all so nice to me and I got a photo taken with me between Bonnie and Emmylou and after I played they both shook my hand and gave me some compliments and I was on cloud nine. Even last night in Glasgow when I went to my dressing room and see it next to Emmylou Harris’s it makes me want to cry’’ she laughs. "I love her so much and have covered so many of hers and The Hot Bands Songs over the years.’’

Emmylou Harris is only one of country music royalty that Price’s has been rubbing shoulders with in the past couple of years. Steve Earle, Kris Kristofferson and Buddy Miller, all heroes of hers, have shared various stages with her but possibly the most striking endorsement of her rising profile was having Willie Nelson guest on the track Learning To Lose on her current album. As the track fades out Nelson can be heard signing off by saying ‘Allright … that’s good’. And good the track certainly is. ‘’We were listening to a lot of Willie Nelson when we wrote that song so it was written in the style of Willie Nelson’’ she points out "I had never met him and my husband and I were in our bedroom writing the song and I said wouldn’t it be cool to get Willie to sing on this song. It was a pipe dream having not ever met him so we were on cloud nine when he agreed to sing on it. I’d love to hear him sing the whole song himself one day. His vocal was so good and his guitar playing too. We had so many solos from him that we didn’t know which one to pick for the track. I was sitting there listening to them with tears rolling down my face.’’

Interview by Declan Culliton  Photographs by Ger Culliton

Tony Poole Interview

Those of a certain age, together with earnest music historians, will be familiar with the U.K. 70’s band Starry Eyed and Laughing. Formed by Tony Poole and Ross McGeeney in 1973, their title was taken from a line in the Bob Dylan composition Chimes of Freedom, a song recorded by The Byrds on their 1965 debut album Mr. Tambourine Man. Poole’s trademark Rickenbacker playing combined with Mc Geeney’s Fender Telecaster sound was further evidence of The Byrds influence on them but they matured into much more than a mere tribute band, developing a distinctive stamp of their own with material that embraced both countrified folk with a sound that would be tagged today as power pop. Signed to CBS Records in 1974 they recorded their self-titled album that year followed by Thought Talk in 1975 and also three John Peel Sessions over that two-year period. A poorly managed career promoting tour of the States together with their management company folding unfortunately derailed the band, who finally disbanded in 1976. You’re left to consider what heights they could have reached had they been launched five years earlier, as the arrival of British Pub Rock followed by Punk and New Wave in the mid 70’s alienated theirs’s – and many other band’s - core sound.

Tony Poole’s musical career in the intervening years concentrated more on production duties, working with numerous acts including Maddy Prior, Steeleye Span, Pentangle, The Men They Couldn’t Hang, Rose Kemp and Danny and The Champions of The World.  He has recently returned to creative writing and performing duties in collaboration with Danny Wilson (Danny & The Champions of the World) and Robin Bennett (The Dreaming Spires). Bennett Wilson Poole, their self-titled album, is due for release next month following some excellent pre-release reviews in many publications including Lonesome Highway.

Tony Poole’s continuing enthusiasm and positivity is a joy to behold, well in evidence as he articulated the highs and lows of his career to date and his passion for his current project with Danny Wilson and Robin Bennett.  

What career expectations did you have when Starry Eyed and Laughing were signed to CBS in 1974? 

You know, at the time there was really no 'career' expectation at all - just a drive to write and perform, inspired by the music of The Beatles, The Byrd’s, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and all those great artists who expressed honestly what it is to be alive in this time, and find some understanding of it all. I think that is still the motivation for many artists doing the same today - a 'career' is just about being able to keep doing that.  

Fond memories or regrets looking back at that period?

Many great memories - probably the best was playing the Amazing Zigzag Concert at the Roundhouse with Michael Nesmith, John Stewart, Help Yourself and Chilli Willi & The Red Hot Peppers. Pete Frame and John Tobler's Zigzag magazine represented that same honesty I mentioned. It was incredible to be a part of that celebration and fantastic to have had it all recorded ('The Amazing Zigzag Concert 5 CD Box Set' on Road Goes On Forever Records). The only regret I can mention is that we didn't survive longer and have a chance to grow as a band.

The pub rock scene was particularly vibrant at that time with bands like yourselves, Ducks Deluxe, Ace, Eggs Over Easy, Bees Make Honey, Brinsley Schwarz, Kilburn and The High Roads and Dr. Feelgood at the leading edge. Did you consider yourselves part of an alternative movement to the overblown prog scene at that time?

All Great Bands! But not really - we were kind of in our own bubble - our virtual 'scene' was populated by those artists I mentioned. And, strangely enough, although we were playing in that same 'pub-rock' period, (and played many pubs!), we never felt part of that scene either - our music didn't quite fit, and we only briefly interacted socially - usually in 'dressing rooms' (a euphemism a lot of the time) or in service stations at 4am after gigs.

You toured with some heavyweights in the U.S. at that time. Who impressed you the most and what are your memories of that tour?

The biggest impression was when we supported Flo & Eddie (The Turtles) for three nights at The Bottom Line in New York. The place was heaving, the atmosphere magic and they were fantastic. In the audience were Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Slade (!), The Flying Burrito Brothers (who we invited on stage to play with us!) - I recall meeting Eddie Tickner, The Byrds' legendary manager. And of course, after becoming friends with Mark & Howard (Flo & Eddie), they eventually produced the very last Starry Eyed and Laughing records. Apart from our gigs, being on Columbia Records meant we got to see Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder show in Hartford - absolutely amazing to be in the presence of the music and words live and right in front of our eyes and ears: Dylan, Baez, McGuinn, Joni, Mick Ronson and the rest of that gypsy gathering. We were kindred visiting gypsies on our US tour too!

Some of the bands or their members seamlessly (with shorter hair and narrow trousers!) infiltrated the punk movement or new wave as it eventually became. Were you a supporter or coconscious objector to Punk / New Wave 

Definitely a supporter! I loved The Sex Pistols, The Clash, and Siouxsie, never saw them but their records were amazing (for different reasons- The Pistols for their sheer force and amazing production, and The Clash for their rawness). And although I also loved many of the suddenly short-haired skinny-tied new wave 'punks' (Elvis Costello, The Police - sorry if that offends anyone), I never felt I could do that convincingly and never did - I did have shorter hair and a skinny tie though!

Tell me about your efforts to regain the rights to the masters of the albums and the remastering process that followed?

Luckily for us, our record deal was cleverly negotiated by our manager Norman Lawrence (a wonderful man, sadly died at 58 from Leukaemia in 1998), through a licence to CBS that had an expiration date. So the rights in the recordings are all ours. Recovering the actual masters was a trial of endurance, as nobody at the label even remembered we'd been signed! Eventually I managed to trace them, and then had the well-known problem of disintegrating Ampex tape. The re-mastering was a long process, sometimes of trial and error, but became easier with more recent archive tracks as the music software increasingly approaches a kind of magic 

You survived in the music industry in the intervening years and still maintain an obvious enthusiasm for all things music. What were the highs and lows of that period?

The high that matters is really just having managed to survive doing (mostly) the true thing I love to do. Specifically: being able to produce Danny's album, getting to work with The Dreaming Spires, knowing Roger McGuinn and getting his ultimate praise for what I do (still a dream to produce him!).

The lows (living in my car, being broke consistently, being virtually paralysed for 3 months with polymyalgia 4 years ago - those are ones that come to mind) don't even seem that low in hindsight- just part of life's adventure - we're soon gone anyway!

What musically has impressed you most since then and how does the standard of recording and performing artists compare to those of your early career?

I think there's been a consistent thread of genuine artists and songs that carry the same honesty and questing of those that I mentioned at the start - I'm so happy to be connected to the ones I've come to know, and to play with or produce. Recording has becoming so much easier and available than when we started - I think becoming a recording engineer (as it really was in the analog days of mechanical machines) and producer comes from my frustration with that. But the essence of it remains the same - the intention and the 'realness' of a record is far more important than how perfectly auto-tuned and quantised it is (to quote the great Robin Bennett: 'you can ride your horse to win, but that's not the race we're running in').

Which brings us to the present and your involvement in Bennett Wilson Poole. Had you ambitions at the outset to record and perform with Danny Wilson and Robin Bennett or how did the project develop?

Our manager, Howard Mills, says it was absolutely inevitable that we'd do something together! We're such great friends, and having sung and performed with both of them previously, I think he's put it perfectly! (He’s a very wise man).  For me, it's been completely serendipitous - a natural confluence of skills, personalities and common outlooks on what we're here for.

Who took the lead in respect of the song writing duties?

This all started with Danny and Robin deciding to write some songs together on Facetime. So, I think that was pretty much equal between them. When they'd had a few written, they asked me if I'd get involved and sent me some demos - that was a no-brainer, and would have been without hearing a thing! They're both incredible songwriters. I sent them a couple of phone demos of unfinished songs which they liked, and we three finished them very quickly on the morning of the first session - it was a wonderful 'common-mind' experience. For 'Lifeboat', Robin actually took the phonetic sounds I sang in the chorus and wrote down what he thought he heard (' I don't know ...there is no easy way to know how we got here'), - it worked out perfectly. I wrote 'Hate Won't Win' the morning after the murder of Jo Cox, a Thursday which happened to be two days before a session, and sent them a phone recording - on the Saturday, we finished the song together and had it recorded by the end of the day - up on YouTube on Monday. The short answer is that we’re all very pro-active and have all been 'front men' in our careers, so it's a completely equal thing.

What tracks on the album are you most proud of?

I couldn't possibly choose - they're all like children and have taken a life of their own. Time will show which means the most eventually. And to be contrary to what I just said, I think Danny and Robin's 'Hide Behind A Smile' is probably going to be the classic ... it's such a universal truth of this culture we're all living in.

The closing track Lifeboat (Take A Picture Of Yourself) is very much a reflection of the double standards that prevail today and at nearly eight minutes long is epic. What was the motivation for the song?

I saw a news front page that had a photo of an overcrowded and possibly sinking refugee boat in the Mediterranean - right next to an article on 'selfies'. The juxtapositon just hit me - two sets of humans on this same planet, yet in such different worlds. How could it be? The drowning mass unseen and ignored by the individual self-obsession of this culture. I just thought I'd put them all in that same boat. In which we all are, ultimately. My original words were a lot stronger actually, but as is usually the case with extremes, less effective if understanding is the aim, rather than destruction.

The album has been receiving great review even a couple of months before its official release. Have you been taking by surprise by the reaction?

Very surprised! Though I must say Danny and Robin's enthusiasm for the album, and the reaction from many friends we sent copies to did form a kind of thought that we'd hit something special, and a modest expectation that people would like it. You get a feeling that the wave is pulling you, rather than you pushing against it. I've had it just twice before, firstly in Starry Eyed And Laughing when Geoff Brown wrote a glowing review in Melody Maker of our 8th gig ever, and we just seemingly sailed upward to a major label record contract within months.  Secondly, after I produced The Men They Couldn't Hang and became their de facto manager (I was the only one with a phone!). The wave for them - such a great band! - was an absolute surge - No.3 in John Peel's Festive 50 in 1984, front page of the Melody Maker, and clandestine handing over of singles for exclusive reviews! It's a different world and music business now for sure, but the positive wave feeling still applies. I think we've just been very honest with our thoughts and influences in the writing and recording of the songs, and those thoughts and influences are shared by so many.

You’ve already starting performing the album live. Are you intending playing as a three piece or with a band when you perform at The Kilkenny Roots Festival in May?

We're playing as a three piece at The Kilkenny Roots Festival in May - it's shaping up to be about 50-50 Full band/trio gigs over this summer.

Can we expect some Starry Eyed and Laughing, Danny & The Champs and Dreaming Spires material on the set list or all Bennett Wilson Poole originals?

Yes! We've rehearsed 'One Foot In The Boat' and 'Flames In The Rain' from the 2nd Starry Eyed LP ... we're also doing some Grand Drive, Goldrush and Dreaming Spires tunes - specifically The Dreaming Spires' amazing  'Searching For The Supertruth' which I played and sang on and produced. A wonderful Goldrush song that made the charts 'Wide Open Sky'. Grand Drive was Danny's band before The Champs, and we're doing a great song of his about Elvis: '5th Letter'. Coincidentally, I produced and played on another song Danny wrote about Elvis: 'Colonel & The King' on his 'Hearts & Arrows' album - I like that connection. And one of my favourites of Danny's (there are lots!): 'Old Soul' from his solo album 'The Famous Mad Mile' - soon to be released on vinyl I think! I'm sure there'll be more ... and also some surprises!

Interview (in the style of Zig Zag) by Declan Culliton

Peter Mulvey Interview

Singer-songwriters never tread an easy path and the demands of the journey are filled with unseen twists and turns. One such travelling troubadour, Peter Mulvey, has navigated this chosen path with great élan and joie de vivre as his career has developed. Take his prodigious energy for continuous touring and his ever- impressive recorded output and you are close to the perfect example of the creative drive involved in turning dreams into reality. Lonesome Highway asked Peter to give us a peek into his current state of mind and also, reflect on the past, as he prepares for his Irish tour. 

Your next Dublin concert is coming up on 21st April next at the Workman’s Club in the city centre. Is this to highlight your latest release, Are You Listening?, which came out in March last year?

I’ve been on the road all my life. Every show is just about the audience, and myself, and the room. A moment that comes and then goes. Sure, I’ll play stuff from Are You Listening? but I’ll play very old stuff and brand new songs. I imagine I’ll play a song or two that get written between now, when I’m typing these words, and that day at the Workman’s Club.

The record was produced by Ani Di Franco, and released on her record label, Righteous Babe Records. Was it your song in 2015, Take Down Your Flag, that led to your initial meeting?

We’d met long before then and been peripherally aware of each other. But in 2014 I did a show with her in Anchorage, Alaska, and we had supper and bonded a bit, and she brought me on a few little runs here and there. It was during one of those that the murders at Mother Emanuel happened, and we sat together with her bandmates Terence and Todd just mulling it all over. I went in the dressing room, wrote Flag, went onstage, sang it, and when I came off Ani said “teach me that tune” and that’s where it started. So, it was natural that she would shepherd my next batch of songs out into the world.

That song was written as a result of a mass shooting at the AME Emanuel Church in Charleston and there was also an online benefit concert which you organised in support of the victims and their community. Were you pleased with the support of the music fraternity and the results, which generated quite a lot of media attention.

I was pleased to be of some small help, and to be some tiny drop in the river of our ongoing American awakening. We have a long road. We are a country awash in racism. Our current president is clearly racist, and an awful human being. I hope that this whole era is a wound being lanced.

As a musician, Ani Di Franco has always displayed a very eclectic vision, delivering a mix of folk, punk, rap and more recently, jazz leanings, across her records. How did she impact on your song-craft and the overall production?

She’s a born leader and a tremendous listener (those are the same thing, now that I say them out loud.) All of this ran through her lens. My favourite part was when she was overdubbing all the subtle vocal flourishes and piano and glockenspiel. 

Her guitar style is very percussive and rhythmic, something that you share in common; is there anything you learned from collaborating with her that has changed your approach to playing? 

Everything, though most of that is probably so deep in the past that it’s unavailable to me consciously. It’s just in the DNA now, Michael Hedges and Ani DiFranco and David Hidalgo...

You have been influenced by Chris Smither in your formative years as a musician and collaborate regularly with David Goodrich. What do these artists bring to you in terms of your musical development?

They’re my mentors, and still my dear friends. Smither brought me along into the world and taught me everything, and Goody and I grew up together.

You are looking back at 25 years of playing, recording and touring, averaging 100 gigs a year. What drives you to keep up the unrelenting pace over so many years?

Actually it’s 130 gigs a year over that span. But I’d go with “brisk” rather than “unrelenting”. I just love my work. I love a room, I love listeners, I love songs. At my age, I do have to engage in better self-care than I used to. More walking. Less drinking. More sleeping. I hope to keep a brisk pace into my seventies. Smither sure does.

Has the dynamic of touring changed much over this time?

Not at all. It’s a familiar thing and I wouldn’t really want it to change.

Does the relentless travel take its toll on your performance levels?

The opposite is true: I really feel I get into the swing of things as a run goes on.

Is getting paid from performing live the main source of income?

Yes, and it always has been. I probably just break even on records. I usually only sell three or four thousand records over the release, and that’s not a huge amount.

The lack of royalties on downloads and streaming has driven many talented artists out of the music business. How do you survive in an environment with the many constraints on income generation from all sources these days? 

I never depended on it in the first place. I was lucky enough to find the part of the job that I love, and that hasn’t dried up.

You have been a frequent visitor to Ireland over the years but we have not seen you for a while (three years?) – did you decide to finally take a time-out from your demanding touring schedule to take stock?

Not at all. I just didn’t have someone booking me tours over here. Now I’ve found, strangely, an American agency that does a decent job.

When did you first visit Ireland and how do your experiences of that time compare with the Ireland of today?

I was an exchange student in 1989 at St. Patrick’s College in Maynooth. Mostly I just cut classes and hung out on Grafton Street with all the young buskers who were doing songs from Fisherman’s Blues and This Is The Sea. Peter Gabriel tunes, and Violent Femmes tunes. I made money in Irish coins and spent it on a used army jacket in Temple Bar ... I’d take the money and go hitchhiking and stay in youth hostels. And then I didn’t come back until 1997, Celtic Tiger and all that. Things change. Things don’t change. People are people. We’re all just primates with cell phones. 

You display a real lust for life and draw your influences from a number of creative sources - including poetry/ literature/narrative/daily encounters. Does your writing tend towards the personal perspective as a preference?

I tend to veer pretty widely. I have two records written right now, and just put the personal one down. I’ll follow with the universal one after. I will say, over the years, that those two antipodes have merged.

In 1995, your release, Rapture, included a hidden track and spoken word song, Aurora Borealis. Is there a factual story behind this track?

Yes indeed. A friend of mine was the kid. Hitchhiking in the South, taken in and given a place to stay by a racist, sexist jack wagon. The whole story is true. I stole it. What an unmerry band of thieves are we writers.

Your release, Letters From A Flying Machine (2009), was a departure in that it was a concept of sorts; letters from you to your nephews and nieces, read as spoken word pieces. What was the motivation behind the recording?

It all just arose from real life. I was setting down artefacts in my relationship with my brothers’ and sisters’ kids, things for them to dredge up when they become adults. And it seemed vibrant enough to make a record out of it.

You have also written a book, Vlad The Astrophysicist. It is dedicated to Children, Adults and other Old Souls. What was the original idea behind this?

It was one of the letters. And it’s a true story: I met an astrophysicist from the Czech Republic, and I asked him “Why haven’t we heard from another civilization” and he gave me an honest answer. It blew my mind, and so I really, really needed to find a way to get it into the world. So, it became one of the spoken word pieces on Letter... and then it became a TEDx Talk. And then a book. 

Was this the key factor that lead to your appearance on the Ted Talk programme?

The curator of the TED event got dragged to one of my shows and immediately asked me to participate in TEDx. It’s invite-only and it doesn’t pay. Which normally, as a working artist, I’d be a little wary of. But it’s a pretty beautiful idea.

In 2014, Silver Ladder was your 16th official release and was funded by a kick starter campaign. Have you happy memories of that experience?

Indeed I do. It’s a great feeling when you realize that you have the stalwart support of an audience that goes back decades.

Chuck Prophet produced this record. What did he bring to the project?

He is an instigator, a born antagonist, a court jester and a devil’s advocate. He made me walk the plank at every moment. The opposite of Ani. Both of them got good results.

You embark on a yearly bicycle tour in America. Apart from promoting fitness levels beyond most musician’s comprehension, have you encountered many close shaves on the American highways and byways?

Occasionally, yes. Cars are suspect. They isolate us in our glass bubbles and make us aggressive and careless. It’s part of why I do the bike tours in the first place: to find yet another way to stay human.

The latest release, Are You Listening?  suggests a growing frustration at the creeping indifference to hardship, inequality and suffering in the USA over recent times. Is the title a reflection of this?

The lynchpin of the whole record is an Anton Chekov quote: “Art should prepare us for tenderness.” It appears as an epigraph in the poem that made it onto the record, Winter Poem. I’m actually very hopeful about my country: Trump is clearly one of the worst people ever to hold the office, but, significantly, he is the oldest to hold that office, too. He’s the past. Frankly, my generation is kinder and softer and more creative and more nurturing than his was — the evidence bears that out. And the kids, don’t get me started. The kids are great. I’m very hopeful. I can’t help but notice that Sinn Fein’s new president is my age, and that she quoted Maya Angelou in her acceptance speech. I don’t know much else about her, but those two things seem promising from this distance. I think the future’s promising everywhere.

Your high energy performance levels have been captured on your live records (Glencree/Ten Thousand Mornings), collaborations (Redbird/The Knuckleball Suite), instrumental projects (David Goodrich), recorded standards (The Good Stuff) and indeed your entire body of work. How important is it to challenge yourself and step outside of your comfort zone when it comes to taking on different projects?

Picasso said that art shakes the dust from ordinary life. My experience is that you’d better be growing, always growing, if you want to be of any use to an audience. I’m just looking for ordinary magic.

You often include cover songs in your live shows and recorded output. What motivates your choices when it comes to selecting specific songs?

Oh, it’s just like trying on a jacket in a thrift store. Does it fit? Does it feel good? Sold.

Is the glass half full or half empty right now?

The glass is twice as large as it needs to be.

So, looking forward to seeing your return to Ireland in April. Is there a full tour this time around and what can we expect?

Oh yes. Dublin, Cork, Galway, Belfast, Ballymore, Dundalk, Leap, Limavady...

Peter Mulvey plays Dublin Workman’s Club on Saturday 21st April next. There will be other Irish dates announced shortly.

Make sure you catch this superb musician on his upcoming Irish tour. His live performance is always one that stays in the memory and Peter Mulvey gives everything he has got in communicating, entertaining, motivating and inspiring an audience to go out there and live life to the full. 

Interview by Paul McGee

Peter Oren Interview

Indiana born Peter Oren’s dramatic baritone voice combined with his visionary song writing places him among the most talented young artist currently representing the lo-fi music genre. His concerns at the continuing interferences by humans in atmospheric and geologic issues is the subject of his recent album Anthropocene. Depressing as the subject matter may be, the album is dreamlike and immensely enjoyable, enriched by Oren’s calming and restful vocal delivery. Due to perform in both Dublin and Kilkenny next May Lonesome Highway spoke with Oren about the motivation for his writing, his frustrations and the artists that he currently admires. 

I believe your initial writings came by way of poetry. What motivated you to add music to the words?

Right. I had an English teacher my senior year of high school that had us read and analyse a poem as a class. The year prior, I stopped hanging out with a group of old friends because I was tired of the way they made fun of each other in a group setting. I started hanging out with a couple of new friends not long thereafter, and one of them I knew a little bit better than the other. The friend I knew better graduated a year early our senior year and went to Spain to work on a farm. The friend I didn’t know so well also knew a bit of guitar, so we ended up trying to write songs together for fun and joke about being famous indie musicians.

Had you studied music growing up?

There was always a piano in the house so far as I remember. I was made to take piano lessons at a young age, but I hardly practiced and didn’t really enjoy it. Later at 12 or 13 I asked for a guitar after learning more about music, particularly classic rock such as Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd. I didn’t take guitar lessons more than a year or two as I recall. I played in the middle school church band at my catholic school. I stopped playing so much when I left the private middle school for high school. All this is to say that my musical training is limited and that I mostly just took the chords I learned and figured out which ones go next to the others.

Your work appears often inspired by travel and observation. Is the material written on the spot or ideas stored and fleshed out when you sit down to complete an album?

It depends. My workflow is far from streamlined. I think Living By the Light was mostly written while traveling. Lake Crescent was written a month or two after having visited Washington state. Songs mostly happen independently, but I guess that some of the songs for my current album Anthropocene were written with the album in mind.

Your lyrics are as much about questioning as voicing an opinion?

I feel like I have a hundred songs that start with “I don’t know.” It’s my accidental-go-to opening line. I have plenty of opinions, but even more questions. I’d rather have understandings than opinions, but sometimes opinions are all you can have. An opinion is like an untested hypothesis. For example, in my opinion, a shift to an economy that prioritizes meeting people’s needs, protecting the ecological health of the planet, and maximizing autonomy via direct democratic control would be significantly better than capitalism, but this hypothesis has scarcely had the opportunity to be tested, with the exception of the anarchists in Spain back in the 30’s, the Zapatistas in Chiapas, MX, and recently the Kurds who formed the PKK. What I’ve read about these groups has been limited, but favourable.

Many established artists and bands dip in and out of environmental issues, often genuinely, sometimes a more cynical marketing exercise. Your song writing predominately addresses ecological issues.  Do you feel like a lone voice by times and have you considered forming a movement with other like-minded artists?

I definitely don’t feel alone in being tuned in to the ecological catastrophes of the day. I think there were a number of albums called Anthropocene when I looked it up, but not many in my genre if any. It was mostly metal I think. But there are definitely songwriters who are concerned and putting it in writing. It’s not always front-and-centre, and the artists aren’t as big as, say, Drake, but they exist. I’m definitely interested in seeing more people not only deeply concerned about the state of things but also taking action.

I don’t know what a movement of artists addressing the pervasive environmental problems would look like, but I hope that it would involve a look in the mirror that it would not just scratch the surface of the problem but also find the systemic causes.

Artists travel a lot in order to make a living, which makes our footprints much larger than most. I don’t blame them, mostly. I for one am just trying to survive capitalism in a way that might contribute to change, but I’m not sure it will. I fly and drive a lot more than I would otherwise. Sometimes I wonder what the “music industry” would look like in an ecologically-sound economy. High-speed rails to shows powered by wind and solar? Shows via the web and less travel? Collective ownership of the labels they are on?

Does much of the subject matter of your work depress you and is your writing a means of dealing with the inherent despondency contained within the material?

Yes, often I write to relieve depression brought on by the big issues we face collectively but have so little power over individually. In the case of “Anthropocene” I was writing from my own perspective and frustration, but I was spurred by a friend who was feeling depressed about the state of things and wondered out loud where all the songs about climate change are.

Your latest album Anthropocene, one that I’ve been treasuring since its release, appeared only one year after your debut recording Living By The Light.  Was all the material for the album written in that twelve-month period?

I’m glad to hear you dig it. I think most of the material was, yes. The song New Gardens was written way back in 2011 and brought into the mix when my ex said I should consider it because the line “save the fences for the rabbits” sounded timely, given Trump’s border policy. Oh, also, River and Stone was written in 2014. And Canary in a Mine was tumbling around my box of songs for a couple years I think. I don’t remember exactly when I wrote it. Had to look through the list of songs to answer that question...

 How challenging is the material from Anthropocene to deliver live while playing solo and do you prefer performing with a band or unaccompanied?

I rarely play with a band, unfortunately. I wish I could afford it, but it’s difficult to pay people at this stage to be quite honest. I wrote the songs without a band, usually on guitar first, so they’re built to be played solo. It’s not a big deal. I think they sound good stripped back. When I’m really raking it in, though, I’ll surely play with other people. It’s lonesome playing alone!

Tell me about how your relationship was formed with producer Ken Coomer?

I played a show opening for Gill Landry. He was accompanied by a band, including Jacob Edwards on drums. I kept in touch with Jacob and passed him Living By the Light. He passed it to Ken, then put us in touch when Ken indicated interest. Eventually I met with him at his studio while I was in Nashville and played him some new tunes, and we decided to work on a record.

Are you working on a third album at present?

I have a bunch of half-written songs and ideas for songs that I’m trying to work through and figure out which things are good, which are not worth the groove on a record, and which I can get placed in beer commercials so I don’t have to pay rent anymore. I’ll be free to do so until late March, so I’m hoping I come up with significant progress towards an album (or at least a song for a beer commercial) in that time.

The most obvious comparisons with yourself is Bill Callahan, an analogy that you may be tired of at this stage!  I understand you’re on record as an admirer of his work.  What other current artists or music moves you?

Yeah, I heard that almost every night on my recent tour with Jens Lekman. Bill’s great, so I can’t complain.

I really dig Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief. She’s an amazing writer. So outstanding. Alynda Segarra of Hurray for the Riff Raff is also great. Her song “Pa’lante” put me in tears. Tamara Lindeman of The Weather Station is a favourite. All Of It Was Mine is my favourite of hers. Joan Shelley’s great. I listen to Sleeping Bag a lot--a buddy from Bloomington, IN. I really dig Ka. His lyricism is so good it’s ridiculous. I wish AA Bondy would put out a new record. I play his three records more than anything else I listen to, probably. Blake Mills would be my first pick if I were building a band. He’s an absurdly talented guitarist, a standout songwriter, and a great producer. Also, Aaron Lee Tasjan, Duran Jones and the Indications, Angelo de Augustine, Elvis Perkins, Jessica Pratt, Kevin Krauter, and Lean Year all ought to make my list. Why not, this is an internet publication, right? 

Interview by Declan Culliton

Peter Oren plays upstairs at Whelans on Saturday 5th May. Tickets €12 are on sale now from Ticketmaster.

Midland Interview

Midland are a trio who play country music that has an allegiance to the traditional side of things while maintaining a strong contemporary edge to their music. The latter is a result of working with the production and successful mainstream writing team of Dann Huff, Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne. The former by their commitment to delivering songs in the spirit of 70’s and 80’s heroes like Gary Stewart and Dwight Yoakum. Mark Wystrach, Jeff Carson and Cameron Duddy had all played music in the past and with each other but never as the trio Midland until they met at a wedding, realised a common bond and began writing and playing together. They also come from different working backgrounds and experiences with Wystrach gaining employment as an underwear model and Cameron Duddy as a video director (for Bruno Mars). This background, in certain quarters, fostered some controversy about the band’s background and history but there was no discounting the success the band had with the song Drinkin’ Problem. It was featured on their 2016 EP and was released as a single in July the following year and was a Top 5 hit at radio. Later that year they released their album On The Rocks which also featured the 5 tracks on the EP along with 8 additional tracks. Both were released by the influential Big Machine a label who undoubtedly had the where-with-all to help the band get noticed.

They have been touring since the album’s release and are playing the C2C Festival in Dublin, Glasgow and London where they should make a lot of new friends with their looks, “Nudie” styled suits and strong country sound. Lonesome Highway spoke to the band in Nashville prior to their departure to Europe.

The band’s name was take from the song Fair to Midland which featured on Dwight Yoakum’s Population Me album. So I asked them what the song and the title meant to them and by choosing it from Yoakum’s work was he a hero of the bands. Jeff responded that Midland has “multiple meanings in that each of us has our own philosophical appreciation of that but it began with Dwight Yoakam’s Fair To Midland song”. He further explained that “We were all living in different places when we started the band and we kind of met in the middle, which was El Paso, Texas. We meet in the middle as what we do is the combination of the three of us. So it has those multiple meanings for us. But in the simplest form the Dwight Yoakum song is the source” He acknowledged that the singer/actor was a big influence at the beginning with his “brand of balls to the wall honky tonk”.

As Yoakum did in the 80’s and 90’s and as Marty Stuart and Jim Lauderdale do today, did they feel that wearing the embroidered suits on the album cover was a statement in itself. Jeff again was affirmative in his response “Yeah, if you take someone like Dwight and going back to people like Roy Rogers in the ‘40s and Gene Autry and others it was important to be seen or as Roy Rogers said “from the nosebleed seats.” He further reasoned “there has always been a certain pageantry in country music all the way up to Gram Parsons and Dwight Yoakum and people like that. So we’re just wearing that influence literally.” 

Asked about the creation of the songs and their sound and how it developed Wystrach considered that the album came from “three years of us being on the road and playing live for three or four and sometimes five night a week. So that comes straight from our blood, sweat and tears. There is a persona in the album that’s a little bit of Jess and Cameron and of me. That came from where we had been and where we were living - which is what On The Rocks is all about, which was our journey.” 

So I wondered were they going to stick with the same team for their next recordings. Again Wystrach answered that “nothing stays the exact same.” Elaborating that with the band “there is always going to be evolutions but the elements of who and what we are in Midland are evolving, so I don’t think the next album will sound just like On The Rocks as we progress and something changes.” But did they as band members felt that they were working well as a team and that they were going to continue to work with the team we have. “Cameron, Jess and I are very involved with every single aspect from the songwriting to the production through the creative direction etc. Everything is done through the three of us. We have amazing collaborators in Dan Huff, Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne so we’re looking forward to working with them again.”

In that light I asked if there was pressure for them to move in any way to a more pop-oriented direction to gain more exposure on radio. Wystrach considered this but felt that “Midland - me, Jess and Cam just focus on what we’re doing. I think that’s what has been cutting through. I think you can attribute a lot of the success to the fact that it has something that is fresh and something very musical. It’s not pop.” Midland he emphaised were aiming for something less throwaway that some of the music currently riding high in the country radio charts. The band were not trying to do follow that more obvious route and that in terms of their song writing “what we do has some density to it as we’re not writing disposable, mechanical pop songs. We are writing from the heart and that’s where it’s got to start and finish.”

Was that a difficult position to maintain in that light I wondered. This time Carson responded “We didn’t have pressure from radio as when we started we didn’t think that we would be getting radio play or that radio would be interested in the music. I think that Drinkin’ Problem shocked everyone by showing that there are people who want to hear that on mainstream country radio. So we didn’t record those songs for radio we recorded them for ourselves.” 

Like most bands there is a democracy of sorts at play but did the trio divide tasks among themselves to a role that they felt best suited. Duddy answered “Well it depends on the task but we are definitely more productive when we divide and conquer. We each have a strong suit in something and it’s also a better use of our time. Everything goes through Midland so it’s actually easier for us on an emotional level as I couldn’t imagine doing this myself.” There is obviously a close bond that they have together and they had evolved a way of working that suited them and helped with the stress that is part and parcel of being in a band in these times. Duddy felt that there was a lot of pressure involved in making music including touring and he noted “I feel that every week there is some new bar that you have to raise up to, some new obstacle, and to be able to do that together and bear the weight of the pressure is made durable by the three of us doing that together” Also in terms of creativity that “you have a bouncing board and it has therefore to pass through at least two filters. If you’re Luke Bryan you don’t have that.”  Therefore if you were an individual that “you are always thinking, in the back of your mind, where is this opinion coming from? Whereas when you’re in the band the three involved can give an honest opinion, a straight “do you like this or not?” 

With a time constraint I asked the final question as to how they like to play live “We travel with additional players, they are close friends. Robbie Crowell is our drummer Luke Cutchen is our guitar player. He was basically working on our guitars in Austin and so we offered him the job.” All are looking forward to bringing their show to Europe “We haven’t been across the pond yet to play a show.” Duddy ended the interview by exclaiming “Speaking for myself I’m really excited to be coming over.”

Interview by Stephen Rapid

Rachel Baiman Interview

27 year old Nashville based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Rachel Baiman released her debut solo album Shame in June of 2017. Baiman is also a member of 10 String Symphony, a duo with Christian Sedelmyer, both five string banjo players, whose 2015 album Weight Of The World featured on NPR’s listings of newest and most promising voices in Americana on it’s release.  She is scheduled to play dates next May at JJ Harlow’s in Roscommon and Cleere’s in Kilkenny on the final day of The Kilkenny Roots Festival. Both dates will feature her sharing the stage with Molly Tuttle who was voted Guitar Player of The Year at The IBMA Awards last October. Lonesome Highway caught up with Rachel to learn more about the album and the motivation for much of the material featured on it.

Your excellent album Shame featured in our Best of 2017, having reviewed it last year. It’s perfectly balanced by being most listenable while challenging thorny political and social issues head on. You must be particularly pleased with it? 

 I'm really proud of it- it was definitely a big step for me artistically, and thanks for your kind words!  

The title track is particularly powerful tackling subject matter that is currently the focus of a referendum to be conducted in Ireland in the coming months. Was this the first song written for the album?

I don't think it was the first song written chronologically - but it was the song that first shaped the whole idea for the album. I think I actually wrote I could have been your lover too first. But after I wrote Shame I think the thematic tone was set and I felt more sure that this was an album I needed to make. 

The album mixes present social and political issues rather than harping back to older times as other artists do. Is this an indication of someone who lives very much in the present?

Ha-ha I wish! I always admire people who are Zen and do lots of yoga (my band mates in particular). I think I live mostly in the future - I'm usually on to the next thing so fast that I can't fully enjoy the present. 

How did the song writing and formation for the material compare with your compositions for your other project 10 String Symphony?

I think it's a difference between a personal voice and a band voice. When 10 String Symphony began we were working a lot with traditional music and how we could innovate on that - deconstructing traditional forms and incorporating a lot of original elements. Now that we do mostly original material the writing and arranging is really collaborative and has to reflect the mutual voice that we've created. With Shame I kind of went the opposite direction- I wanted to uncomplicate things. I was purposefully honest and straightforward to a vulnerable extent. 

The album includes two covers, one being Never Tire Of The Road by Andy Irvine, an artist who’s writing continually tackles issues of social injustice. Were you introduced to his music at an early age?

Actually, no- I'm a more recent fan. My fiancé George introduced me to that song because he thought I would like it and I became obsessed. 

Rather than the expected rebellion against your parent’s principals as a teenager you actually embraced their ideals and continue to do so in your musical career. You obviously had an interest in global politics from an early age?

I wasn't necessarily interested so much as inundated with global politics, but I was definitely always interested in social justice issues. It took me a while to figure out how to make that something I can tap into emotionally, through songs. I was living to two spheres for a while, studying anthropology and playing music at night. Now I feel like those interests are very much one and the same. 

The motivation for founding Folk Fights Back hardly needs explaining given the political upheaval in The States over the past couple of years. How has the movement been growing and what are your realistic goals going forward?

We've seen a lot of amazing support this year, I think the movement grew really fast, more quickly than the three (myself, Lily Henley and Kaitlyn Raitz) of us really had time to do properly. So moving forward, we are going to aim to do fewer shows and have them be more synced up so that we can get back the national/international community feel of having them happen surrounding the same issue on the same day. We are also working this year to support voter registration and voter engagement for the mid-term election. A lack of voter participation is a huge problem over here.  

The lack of support for female artists whether it be by radio play or record labels must be a source of infuriation, particularly with the endless stream of talent presently residing in Nashville and the quality of the material being produced. How do you deal with this frustration and do you see any light at the end of the tunnel?

 I'm lucky to have worked with an amazing label, Free Dirt Records, for the release of Shame. Free Dirt has released a number of albums by great female artists, which is part of the reason that I wanted to work with them. They don't make a big deal out of their feminist business practices, they just treat it as business as usual, and I really like that. I think it's the way it should be because it normalizes things that should be normal. 

There is so much horror going on in the United States, and it's hard to find a group of people that isn't being attacked or disadvantaged further by this presidency.  It's hard for me to focus specifically on sexism in the music industry when I see it as a part of this huge societal issue. My way of dealing with the patriarchy in general is just to constantly push myself out of my comfort zone. I push myself to make the best music I can make, to be a better instrumentalist, to know about sound engineering, to work harder and dig deeper and exceed people's expectations of a "female artist" so that nobody can argue with my abilities and my professionalism.  I was inspired by some amazing female artists, Caroline Spence, Lilly Hiatt, Courtney Barnett, Dori Freeman, among many others, to believe in myself. So I hope that females in the music business can continue to inspire one another, lift each other up, and become those record label executives and radio programmers and producers so that we aren't depending on an unrepresentative population to "support female artists".

Did you train formally as a musician? 

Yes and no - I had a lot of lessons with fiddle players and violinists growing up. In college, I studied anthropology but I also spent a lot of time at the music school taking theory, ear training, music history, etc. 

You are due to perform at The Kilkenny Roots Festival in May with Molly Tuttle, another musical virtuoso. How did the relationship with Molly develop? 

Molly is a good friend of mine, we started hanging out when she moved to Nashville a couple years ago. Since she also recently released her first solo album, I thought it would be amazing for us to be able to co-promote our projects while simultaneously having a total blast.  As you know, Molly is a phenomenal instrumentalist and I'm really looking forward to learning from and playing with her. 

The pairing of you both on tour is inspired. Do you intend performing selections from both your recent albums on stage together or playing individual slots?

We will be doing a lot of collaboration, mainly backing one another up on our respective original material (me on fiddle and banjo for her songs, her on lead guitar for mine), but we are also working on some special new material that will be more duo oriented. 

I have no doubt you’ll get a tremendous reception and welcome when you play your dates in Ireland and very look forward to your shows

Thanks so much, we are really looking forward to it as well! 

Interview by Declan Culliton

Michaela Anne Interview

 

One of the joys of travelling to Nashville every September for the AMA’s Festival is discovering artists not previously encountered and with over 300 acts on offer each year it’s not difficult to come across a number of new-sprung gems.  2017’s pilgrimage was no exception with a number of - new to me - acts particularly impressing, none more than Nashville resident Michaela Anne.

 The 5 Spot on Forrest Avenue in East Nashville is where many emerging local artists cut their teeth, often at the renowned weekly Tuesday sessions hosted by Derek Hoke, which offers entry and beers at the princely sum of $2. Last year’s AMA’s Tuesday 5 Spot evening featured Nashville based band Los Colognes, listed to play the entire Neil Young Tonight’s The Night album in chronological order, but also to be joined on stage by ‘friends’. The mention of ‘friends’ immediately set off alarm bells that this was the place to be on that particular evening. True to form Margo Price, Caitlin Rose and Lilly Hiatt all joined Los Colognes on stage for what proved to be a memorable set with the venue full to capacity from early in the evening.  The icing on the cake was the opportunity to also catch Michaela Anne’s splendid support set, a mixture of traditional honky tonk and bar room weepies, aided by a top-notch collection of musicians.  A fellow annual Nashville wayfarer, who accompanied me to the 5 Spot, had met Michaela on a previous visit to the festival and made the introduction after her show. We agreed to make contact in the coming months for an interview with Lonesome Highway when she arrived back in Nashville following an extensive touring schedule as part of Sam Outlaw’s backing band.

Where do you call home today having relocated from Brooklyn to Nashville or did you even get a chance to unpack a suitcase given your hectic schedule last year?

Nashville’s home now. I moved there 3 years ago. My husband and I bought a house over a year ago but I’ve probably only lived in it collectively a handful of months. 2017 definitely was wild with how much I was on tour so I’m excited to be home a bit more this year.

The East Nashville underground scene is blossoming at present, populated in particular with an apparent endless stream of gifted female artists. On arrival did you find the environment supportive or competitive?

I found it really supportive. My first night in town I played a show at the 5 Spot in East Nashville and immediately met Kristina Murray, Erin Rae McCaskle, Derek Hoke and a handful of other local musicians who have all remained great friends. Erin Rae right away told me she thought Kelsey Waldon and I would hit it off, which we did, and that first year in town I felt immediately embraced and befriended by many of the women whose music I love. There are so many talented artists in town, especially of the female gender and I really do think we all genuinely support each other. Of course everyone probably feels envy or some sense of competition at different points as this is a tough business to keep going and survive in. But at the core I think there’s a sense of feeling like we’re all in this together. And we’re musicians, we love playing AND hearing music, so we genuinely do enjoy hearing each others work and being inspired by it.

I get the impression of Michaela Anne as a decidedly structured and disciplined individual, traits not always to be found in particularly artistic people but a huge advantage in someone focused on making a breakthrough. Is this an accurate assumption?

Ha! Well yes and no. I definitely work hard and am ambitious and driven and probably have a bit more “structure and discipline” then what some would assume the “typical artist” would have but I do also have my head in the clouds quite a bit. I did work for a record label right out of college so I learned at a young age some of the benefits of 9 to 5 office structure and the hard work that goes into promoting music. And of course the important lesson that just being good at music isn’t always enough to build a career. 

Your 2016 album Bright Lights and The Fame is top drawer traditional classic country, avoiding the radio friendly pop crossover sound so dominant on what passes for Country Music Radio today. Did you make a conscious decision to avoid a mainstream sound on the album?

Yes and no. It wasn’t conscious in that we weren’t overtly avoiding it. We were just making the record we liked and wanted to hear. I don’t like hating on things so I wouldn’t speak negatively about it but I would say the pop country radio sound is not one I’m particulary drawn to. I’ll get into a song here and there but generally the production isn’t my preference. I definitely love some good pop music and love a lot of 90s pop country but for my album I was drawing more inspiration from records of the 60s/70s and my favorite old records by Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris and early Lucinda Williams records.

I believe you had written a number of the songs before heading to Nashville. Were the finished versions dramatically different from what you originally intended?

The majority of the songs were actually written in Nashville. Stars I wrote in Brooklyn following the death of my grandmother, Luisa was in Brooklyn and Liquor Up I started in Brooklyn but finished the day before we started tracking in the studio. Writing in Nashville was the first time I had concentrated and dedicated writing time. In New York, everything takes longer and is more expensive so having a whole day to focus on songwriting was a very rare luxury. Nashville provided me with that and it was exciting to get to focus on songs in a whole new way. I remember when Dave Brainard and I wrote Everything I Couldn’t Be, we started at 9am and didn’t end until 9 at night. We took breaks for meals but I had never had that experience and the attention we gave that song was really exciting for me.

You co-wrote two of the tracks on the album (Everything I Couldn’t Be and Won’t Go Down) with Dave Brainard who previously worked with Brandy Clark.  How did that relationship develop and is co-writing an experience you intend pursuing in the future?

I had met Dave when I opened a show in NY for Brandy and he was playing in her band. We kept in touch and started getting together when I moved to Nashville. He was one of the first people I really started co-writing with. I do intend to keep pursuing co-writing. I love writing alone as well and will always do that but it’s interesting to see how different the songs can come out when you team up with another songwriter. You can push each other out of your habits and go-tos in a way that you don’t on your own. 

Not many artists can boast of breezing into Nashville and having Rodney Crowell appear on their first album recorded there! How did that come about?

Dan Knobler, who produced Bright Lights and the Fame, is married to Rodney’s daughter. We were good friends along with colleagues so I was friendly with the family and Dan suggested we ask Rodney if he’d be interested in singing. Luckily he was and squeezed in the session during a very busy year for him. He’s one of my all time favorite songwriters so it really was surreal and one of those ‘is this really my life?’ moments when I sat in his home studio listening to him sing my song. I’ll always be grateful to both Rodney and Dan for that.

The album was produced by Dan Knobler, who previously worked with Rosanne Cash, Tift Merritt, Erin Rae and Shannon McNally. I believe Dan also relocated from Brooklyn to Nashville and that you had previously worked with him?

Yes Dan and I were friends in Brooklyn and he had been playing guitar for me the last year I lived there. We started talking more about recording and did a couple trial sessions  before he moved to Nashville and then ultimately started working on the record as soon as he arrived. 

Tell me about your transition from a jazz student in Manhattan to a country artist?

Well they are definitely two very different worlds. I grew up singing all kinds of music: country, pop, musical theater, jazz standards, you name it. So when it came time for college I was a little at a loss for what to do. I ended up in jazz school because I loved the American Songbook and old swing tunes, many of which have a lot in common with old country songs and western swing. Patsy Cline used to sing Irving Berlin tunes. But I quickly realized that wasn’t the kind of jazz they were focusing on at the New School and sought out the rootsier music scene in NYC. Luckily I heard about Michael Daves (a great bluegrass guitarist) and started taking lessons from him. From Michael, I learned how to play guitar and he turned me onto the Louvin Brothers, which completely blew my mind. From there I got really into the thriving Bluegrass and Old Time scene in Brooklyn and naturally just progressed into owning the fact that the songs I had been writing for years were much more country sounding and jazz was not the genre where I would be having my career.

Solo shows, a showcase at the Americana Music Festival, playing in Sam Outlaw’s Band, tours of Europe and performing on stage with Ron Pope at Carnegie Hall. 2017 seems to have been a whirlwind year. Did you get an opportunity to do any writing while you were on the road or do you generally require a more relaxed environment for creative inspiration?

I have! I generally don’t write very much while on tour but occasionally a song idea will pop into my head that I’ll save to finish later. I often feel like I need relaxed and reclusive environments to really be able to write. I try to take self imposed “retreats” semi-often to be able to focus more and get some songs under my belt. I’m excited to currently not be touring and get to write a bit more (although I constantly miss the road).

Is it imperative to have a number of projects running in parallel to survive in the industry today given the meagre financial pickings available and do you foresee this changing looking forward?

I honestly have no idea! So many people refer to the music industry these days as the wild west. Formats and platforms keep changing rapidly as far as how/where/when people consume music and where the money will come from. So I’m really unsure of what the future holds for artists. I try to keep the faith that between live shows, selling merch and teaching music lessons I’ll keep getting by and hopefully people will keep valuing music and artists enough to pay for all of these things! I also try to focus on the connection with fans. Streaming/cds/vinyl whatever will all change and come and go but I really believe if you connect with your audience you have a better chance of surviving all of the changes in the long term.

Plans for 2018?

Record an album! I’m currently on a flight out to LA to record a couple new songs of mine with Sam Outlaw and making plans to record a full length by spring. I really really want to return to Europe in 2018 so I’m working on making that happen as well! 

Interview by Declan Culliton  Photograph by Kristine Potter

Interview with Ryan Boldt

The Deep Dark Wood’s first performance in Ireland at The Kilkenny Roots Festival in 2013 appears to have made as much an impression on the band as it did on those lucky enough to witness their shows. Arriving at the venue with the assistance of a tow truck might not be considered the ideal starting point but everything worked out admirably in the end.

The Canadian band make a return visit to Kilkenny for The Roots Festival in May and frontman Ryan Boldt took the time to chat with Lonesome Highway about the history of the band, his love of Celtic Folk music, their excellent current album Yarrow and much more.

How has The Deep Dark Woods evolved since its formation in 2005 and how difficult was the break up with the original line up?

Members have come and gone since about 2009, Geoff joined just after Winter Hours, Burke left and Clayton Linthicum joined, Lucas left. Chris and the band mutually agreed to part ways. There’s been a lot of changes, most bands that last over 10 years change members. It was quite painful, but we’ve come through it and are a better band because of it. 

What prompted the release of your solo album Broadside Ballads in 2015?

I’d recorded a lot of the songs a couple years before it was released but never got the chance to put it out. The band went on hiatus and it seemed like the perfect time to release it. I wanted to continue playing music and touring even if some of the other members of The Deep Dark Woods didn’t want that. This is all I’ve known for my entire adult life, this and working garbage labour jobs. I didn’t want to go back to mixing concrete or hanging drywall.

The Celtic / English Folk influences which appeared on Broadside Ballads also weave their way through much of the material on your recent album Yarrow. Is this a reflection of the territory you want The Deep Dark Woods to permanently inhabit or will you head in a different direction next time around?

I’ve always been into English, Irish and Scottish folk music. I guess it’s kind of seeped into my own writing over the years. It certainly helps to have people in your band that listen to the same records as you. I’m not really sure what direction the band will head in, I just write songs and the band plays them, we never really think about making it sound a certain way.

The material on Yarrow works remarkably well as a whole, dominated by tales of dark, unearthly and spooky places, occasionally visited in your previous work with the band. Over what period was the album written and how important was it to achieve that symmetry?

I wrote most of the songs over the 3 years the band was hiatus. It was a dark time, which probably contributed to the darker songs I suppose. I wanted the album to be shorter and to the point. I find the previous albums to be too long and not as consistent, I wanted the album to fit onto two sides. I wrote about 14 songs for the record with the help of Shuyler Jansen who I produced the record with and we trimmed it down to 9. In the past we would have recorded all 14 and put them all on there, it was nice to have someone in the studio with me doing some editing, something I’d never had before.

You’re on the record name checking Shirley Collins as an inspiration for your song writing / story telling a number of years before she recorded Lodestar in 2016 after an absence in the studio of nearly 40 years. How did you connect with her music?

I found her records through Fairport Convention, someone gave me a copy of Liege and Lief when I was about 18 or 19. I started going back and looking into albums related to them, that’s when I came across Shirley Collins’ No Roses and from there I found a well of beautiful records. Because of Shirley Collins I’ve discovered a lot of traditional music I had never heard before. Songs like Brigg Fair, Dabbling in the Dew and Richie Story. I love her and hope someday I can sit down and thank her for the influence she’s had on me over the years.

You recently opened for Richard Thompson at The Pitchfork Social on salt Spring Island. I suspect he is another artist that has had an impact on you during your career?

Yes, very much so… Fairport Convention is my favourite band. Opening for Richard Thompson was one of the greatest thrills of my life, the best part was taking the ferry back to Victoria with him, talking about folk music and watching birds. He had binoculars with him.

Understandably much of your musical roadmap direction appears to be from artists and recordings of decades ago. Do you tap into any current artists output or continue to be influenced by the past? 

I’m mainly influenced by stuff from the past, I don’t listen to a lot of modern music. I do like Kurt Vile and Cass McCombs and of course The Sadies are the finest band in Canada.

The inclusion of backing vocals by Kacy Anderson, beautifully threaded through the album, creates a spectacular atmosphere. How did the connection with both Kacy and Clayton (Linthicum) come about? 

I’ve known the both of them for years now. They lived out on the farm in southern Saskatchewan, about a 2 or 3-hour drive from where I was living in Mortlach, which is just a Sunday drive for us prairie folk. Clayton played in the Deep Dark Woods for a couple years after Burke left the group and I’ve been singing songs in my Mortlach living room with Kacy for about 6 years now. The two of them are like my younger siblings, I love them with everything in me, unconditional love. 

 The quality of acts coming out of Canada under the Americana umbrella in recent years is staggering.  The Canadian Council of The Arts and The Canadian Music Fund (CME) appears to offer support to artists quite unlike other countries. Has this been helpful in your continuing career and how does the model work?

Yes, it’s been very helpful. We are very lucky here in Canada. Canada cares about artists, they realize that without music and art we would all be extremely depressed and a lot of us would have no reason to live.

You are due to return to Kilkenny in May 2017 for the Roots Festival. Tell me about your memories of your appearances at the Festival in 2013?

Kilkenny Roots is still one of the greatest festivals we’ve played, the people are so welcoming, real music fans. The night before Kilkenny we were in London, drove after the show and broke down somewhere in the middle of nowhere. We called a tow truck and they basically told us we weren’t going to make it in time. Kiko, our tour manager somehow got the driver to tow us to the ferry terminal in Holyhead, we were able to start the van and barely make it on the ferry, we called another tow in Dublin who came and towed us from the ferry terminal right to the venue. We made it just in time for soundcheck, hadn’t slept a wink, the venue was packed and it was one of the most memorable shows of the past 12 years. We ended up staying up all night listening to people sing Pogues songs in the bar. It was our first time in Ireland and it is now one of my favourite countries I’ve had the pleasure of visiting.  

Who can we expect to see on stage with you at The Festival?

Geoff Hilhorst will be there playing the organ along with the Yarrow band, Shuyler Jansen, Mike Silverman, Kacy and Clayton and our latest addition Evan Cheadle. My mom and dad and aunt will be there too. They’re flying from Victoria for the festival and to do some family history research. I had family in Kilkenny before they came to Canada. Could be why I feel at home whenever I’m there. 

Interview by Declan Culliton (January 2018)

Interview with Jesse Dayton

Jesse Dayton is a Texas born guitarist, singer and songwriter who has had an ancillary career in acting, directing, screenplay writing and composing soundtracks. He grew up on a diet of traditional country artist such as Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, George Jones, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash alongside the music coming from New Orleans and across the border with Mexico. To date he has released 9 studio albums under his own name, one of which was a duets album with Brennen Leigh. The first (Raisin’ Cain) came out in 1995 the most recent The Revealer was released in 2016. Prior to that Dayton had been a member of a rockabilly band The Road Kings who released one self-titled album. He is currently working on his next album and also has a screenplay in the works as well as an acting role on the cards too. A busy man and a very talented one whose guitar playing and production skills are much sort after. 

What were the influences of a boy growing up in Beaumont, Texas?

A lot of Gulf Coast regional influences as it was the Texas/Louisiana border. I could very easily have gone to New Orleans as easy as I could have gone to Austin. Beaumont is pretty much in the middle. I took my parents out to dinner after my graduation, because I was making $500 a week playing in an all-black zydeco band, and I said I have good news and bad news. The good news is I got my own place I don’t need any money and I’m buying the dinner tonight. The bad news is I’m not going to go to the University of Texas.

I grew up playing honky tonk music, rockabilly, rhythm ’n’ blues and all that stuff. But in 1982 a friend of mine said “hey you want to go see The Clash?” So we drove to the Egyptian Theatre in San Antonio. We saw The Clash and Charlie Sexton and Joe Ely opened up the show. So I said “okay, that’s what I want to do.” The whole thing was something bigger than the playing.

Do you think there is a direct correlation to some honky-tonk and punk?

I would totally agree with that. So that meant that some people in Texas never understood me because they didn’t have that same experience. I was born in ’66, so I heard White Riot for the first time when I was 13 or 14 which must have been around ’78/’79 - something like that. Maybe in 1980, but close to it. So I wanted to bring that energy to roots music. My parents had played classic country music and that’s what separates me from the rest of those suburban kids in America because I could sit down and play Harlan Howard songs, or an obscure Willie Nelson song that was never on the radio. These other kids were into some other things, which I was in to too, like hard rock - Thin Lizzy or punk rock. But I knew things like Jolie Blonde and some Zydeco. 

How did the wave of what was termed Cowpunk bands effect you?

I loved all those bands, but at that point once I had a guitar in my hands and when I was 15 I started putting my blinders on. I was in such a weird little town and none of that stuff hit there. If you look back a lot of those guys were also from small towns. They were often the ones that ended up with a discernible and unique sound. They were kind of in a little bubble. They end up doing what they think it’s supposed to sound like. 

Did you think that when you released Raisin’ Cain (on Justice Records) that you were on your way to the big time?

No. I didn’t. Because before that I had already been asked to go to Nashville and talk to executives there at some major labels and I just thought that they were so square. I’d been driving to Houston to see Townes van Zandt and Guy Clark. So I had these different components compartmentalised in my head - ok, these are the singer/songwriter guys that I got to listen to. I had to put in my 10,000 hours on that and these are the guitar players that I think are really great. My brother was hanging out with Clifford Antone in Austin so I was also getting all this great blues stuff - seeing all these great blues guitar players. So when I got to Justice they said “make whatever kind go record you want.” 

I had always thought that if I just had a cult following and could pay my bills that I would be happy. If I was in it for the money then I wouldn’t even be playing guitar I would probably become a music publisher … or a lawyer or something. Something mundane and boring. 

When you started out did you see yourself primarily as a guitar player or a songwriter, Had you made any sort of choice?

I had always wanted to do them together. I had been around great players but they wouldn’t have any songs and I be around great songwriters but they might have a bunch of crappy players. You could tell and you just can’t bluff your way through that. People can hear that. 

My parents were the first ones to make it out of the oil fields and to kinda become academics. So I was reading a lot, a lot of books. I was reading college stuff in Junior High. My parents had me reading The Dubliners alongside an autobiography of Malcolm X when I was in 8th Grade. That was really informing my lyrics. I was trying to put that together and as Springsteen had said I learned more from a 3 minute record than I ever did in school. Learning how to condense it into a song. It’s the way Townes explained those characters and that imagery, listening to a Townes songs is similar to reading a Cormac McCarthy book. It’s landscapes and big stuff. 

That was opening you up to different ideas?

Yeah, but I didn’t realise it at the time as I was just doing it. I was little redneck kid in a small town so I didn’t know how to do it. I was in a bubble.  

Another aspect of your career has been working in film as an actor, screenwriter and soundtrack maker. Has that also expanded your horizons?

Well I tell everyone that all my favourite country stars were in movies or on TV. All of ‘em! Jerry Reed, Willie, Cash - they were all on television shows and in movies. Then I got that call to do that soundtrack (The Devil’s Rejects) in ’07. The thing went big and Rob Zombie had given me 75% of the publishing. The people at the studio hadn’t realised that a rock star had directed the movie - which had really never happened until then - so they didn’t care about the soundtrack (released as Banjo & Sullivan - The Ultimate Collection 1972-1978). He just said to get on with it, that they’re not paying attention. So that became a thing in itself and the next one was put out on Rob’s label rather than with a major. I was in the movie (Halloween 11, he appeared as singer of the fictitious band Captain Clegg & The Night Creatures). He taught me how to make music videos. It was my one on one film school crash course. We then did an animated film and following on from that he said “why don’t you come on tour with me as the band from the movie, everybody will know you as they’ve seen the film.” He said that I’d have to be in character and not do any of my solo stuff. So I just said “How Much?” (Laughs) I’ve been trying to sell out for years as I hear the money’s awesome! So we went on out and it was a 40 date arena tour of North America. Huge places, like Ozzie-type shit. 

I’m playing this weird hybrid of ‘60s surf rock and honky-tonk - it’s all over the place but it’s guitar music and it’s aggressive and kids are seeing me. So while I was on that tour I wrote two pages everyday and when I got home I had an 80 page script. I got it to Malcolm McDowell, who I had been in the movie with, and he said that he’s do it. As soon as I got him to sign on literally overnight I got all the money to make the movie (Zombex). I talked them into letting me direct it which was a kind of catastrophe (laughs) -  but it worked. It was not fun. Being the director was the opposite of being a singer in a band. Total and utter sleep deprivation. I had it all in my head but not on paper. Luckily I had a really talented crew, a bunch of Robert Rodriguez’s people and some great actors. I got John Doe to be in it and I’d asked Mike Ness (Social Distortion) but he said “I can’t really act.” He said to get John Doe, that he was a real actor. Doe said that he would be in it if his friend could be in it too and get killed. So I said “well okay.”

However I felt I was little out of my depth so I ran screaming back into the arms of the music business. I did act in a couple of movies after that though and I’m doing a movie in Canada next year. I’m also licensing a motorbike gang script based on a Kurosawa movie. I like to work a lot.

When I was working with John Doe he asked me if I wanted to do the Letterman show with him. He’d said that he heard that I was a guitar player, he didn’t know too much about me. So I said “yeah man.” He called me after that to tell me that Billy (Zoom) was sick and that they had a big American tour to do and would I learn 30 songs and meet them (X) in New York in a week! It was nerve wracking as Billy Zoom is no slouch. That got me back out there touring again.

You played with The Supersuckers too.

Yeah, I played on Must Have Been High they’re biggest record. I have a demo of me and Eddie (Spaghetti) doing every song on that record on acoustic guitars weeks before we went in to record. They always say that I turned them on to country music. I opened up for them in Dallas and they were like “Man, we really don’t like country music.” I told them that they were really missing out. We supported them on the whole tour when they were playing those songs and Eddie would say that I was the guy who turned them on to country music and I said “Don’t tell them that!”  

With all of what you have done and achieved do you want to do something different next or carry on doing what you have been?

Well a lot of my success has been in that I married a really hot, smart Jewish girl from Los Angeles. I’ve been with her almost 21 years and she put a gun to my head several times and said “look dummy, you’re going to take the money from this TV show and we’re going to buy a house in Austin. Which was at a time when you could buy at a reasonable price. Now our house is worth crazy money. Her family is like a publishing dynasty - her grandfather, Lester Sill, worked with Phil Spector and was the publisher for Elvis and Motown. Her father became even bigger than that. So she decided that we didn’t need other people who were essentially bad bank loans. So we would get enough money to make a record and hire a publicist as well as a radio guy. We stared to actually make money off our records. Her name is Emily Kaye, so she’s a big part of how I learned how to monetise this rather than be saying “Oh well, they’re dropping me because I didn’t sell over a 100,000 units.” I’ve never played that game. The end result was always about did we get more people. That’s all that matters. She took some of the money we made and invested it in other things. In real estate and stuff like that. So that’s the reason I can come and play a small gig like in Whelans and not freak about the money.

 You played in Ireland once before I think?

Yeah I played a festival here a long time ago back in the ‘90s.We had to leave the same day which was bit of a bummer. But we want to come back over here and to Europe again as I’m shocked as to how great these shows have been. We haven’t been here for ever. It’s all been word of mouth and the record (The Revealer) has been out for a while in the States but just got released here. it’s not like we had a huge publicity team, so we’re totally coming back over. We’re super streamlined, so if no one shows up … well, whatever. When we play I see kids who were into the Rob Zombie stuff. I see older guys who were like Rory Gallagher fans or whatever.

What have you planned on the recording front?

We have eight songs already in the can. So I have to do two more songs when I get back then this guy named Vance Powell is going to mix the record. He did Sturgill Simpson and Chris Stapleton. We’ll see what happens with that. I’m just trying to morph this thing into a hybrid as I don’t want to recreate anything. Plus I’m older and you don’t care about the same things anymore. I’m not a cynical young man anymore and I can go see something and see it in a different light. I try to keep myself open, something I learned by working with Rob. Rob is so childlike but he’s only something like 2 years older than me. But he keeps in touch with that little kid inside. The people who give up on things like music, art and culture that little kid has been gone from them for a long time.

Interview by Stephen Rapid  Photography by Kaethe Burt O'Dea 

Interview with Worry Dolls

Rosie Jones and Zoe Nicol are the Worry Dolls and first met while attending the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts as students. They have come a long way since those early days and their debut, Go Get Gone has been receiving widespread critical acclaim since the release in January last. Lonesome Highway has reviewed their album and featured their music on our radio show. We were delighted to meet with them on their maiden tour of Ireland for plenty of conversation, laughter and tea …

Tell us about touring. You have not been off the road since the start of 2017.

We have had a couple of days off since the release of the album in January but it has been pretty intense. A few breaks, but it has been constant touring. 

What countries have you been to?

Mainly touring the U.K. but we have also been to Belgium and Spain. We did our own headline tour in England and also toured with Ian Hunter (Mott the Hoople fame), which was really different and fun. It was the hottest week of the year and we call it our sweaty clubs Rock 'n' Roll tour. We also did our Country tour with Sam Outlaw and now we are touring Ireland for the first time.

You originally met at Liverpool University?

We became great friends and saw each other play at open mic nights. We began writing and collaborating on a very relaxed basis; let’s just hang out and learn a cover or write a song. We had a Bluegrass band as part of a project and Rosie had purchased a mandolin which she wanted to master by learning Nickle Creek songs. They are technically difficult and I was obsessed – tabbing them not for note and practicing 8 hours a day, wanting to be as good as the best. We realised that we harmonised really well together and that it was all very natural to us.

Is it true that Sir Paul McCartney gave you advice?

Yes, he is a former pupil of the Institute of Performing Arts and he mentors the third-year songwriters. It was just him and us in a room with him listening to our songs. We had been paired by the school as a natural team when we could have been put with anyone from the class.

Was he of practical help in terms of advice?

We were both somewhat in awe of the whole thing but we did soak up what he said to each of us. He was really helpful on little tweaks in song-writing techniques and one of the really big things that we got out of it was his advice to change up the melody in the second verse in order to keep the listener interested. That has stayed with us when writing, that you don’t have to repeat the same thing. It was strange having him listen to our songs and then play them back to us!

So, a couple of E.P.’s released and then the big decision to relocate stateside with a move to Nashville

We had been working towards that decision for a long time and like anything in life, sometimes you just have to do that crazy thing or you never quite see what could happen. We went to Nashville with half an album written and it could have all been an epic failure. But we both trusted that it was the right thing to do.

There are a number of cowrites on the album. Was this a conscious decision?

Our first EP was recorded at University while our second was written when we were living in London and was more representative of what we were doing. We went out to Nashville initially for 10 days, meeting friends and new people. Everybody there says ‘let’s just write a song’; almost like going for a coffee. We were inspired and it became part of the story of the album. Songwriters in Nashville are credited much more than in England where it does not seem to matter who wrote the song. In the States the songwriter if often credited higher than the artist and we wrote so many songs as a shared experience.

Was it a culture shock and intrusive to suddenly be faced with letting others into your creative process?

No. We are together already and a strong writing unit. It might have felt intrusive if it had just been one of us and new people that we had never met. We are so solid in what we want to create so it was ok to let someone else come in and share what they thought would work. There is a transition between writing on your own and writing with another person. We had already been through this when we first decided to start writing together so to let someone new into the collaboration process was not as difficult as it may seem. We felt very much at home in Nashville and we brought a lot of that feeling back home with us to London. We feel like a part of that community now and you just have to know how to find these groups which exist in all of these areas – it’s just finding it and being a part of that network.

Bread & Butter is your record label. Are you happy with their input?

Very much so. It’s a U.K. label but one of the heads works for an American label in their European division. They help us go to the next level by assisting in distribution further afield than just what you could do on your own. It is all about working together to ultimately help us grow as artists. We had recorded the album ourselves and were about to release it before any label was involved. We had a distributor that was willing to come on board but we could never have had the success we did by not waiting for a year in order to have Bread & Butter come on board.

Are you happy with the way that the record has been selling?

We don’t always see the figures for how the album is selling digitally and we always do our best sales after the live shows – hopefully there is a big cheque in the post for us down the road! That would be nice.

The fact that you have done it all yourselves augers well for the future

Yes, and the nice thing about this Irish Tour is that we had been playing recently with a band, whereas now we can get back to our roots. We always wanted the core of it to be just the two of us, which is why we made the album stripped back and that it sounds like us. The additional musicians and instruments that came on board for the record was wonderful but hopefully everyone will appreciate us playing it live as a duo.

On the album there are songs about travelling, the need to be free, experiencing the new, leaving and wanting to return.

The creative process is the best part and the songs are so fresh that some of them were only written a few days before we went into the studio. Miss You Already was written as an acapella song initially and it was only later that we added the instruments for the studio. She Don’t Live Here is about the sacrifices that you take. That was one of the only songs we played on the piano and our life change was involved in the song along with the fact that the piano we wrote it on had been given to us by a family member that subsequently died. It is the last song that we wrote for the album and is a special song for us.

The song Passport speaks of a negative experience that you had as part of being in this career?

It’s about how not everyone has your best interests at heart. It’s not about a specific relationship and it was somebody we didn’t know. We were opening our hearts up to a lot of wonderful things but unfortunately when you do that a certain amount of darkness can also come your way.

It is all part of the odyssey you have embarked on. It must be very rewarding to see the attention that is now coming your way?

It feels like the tables are turning a little bit after all the hard work that we put in. It can be funny however because anything that brings you right up the next day you can be brought back down again! It keeps you on your feet. Playing the Cambridge Folk Festival was the most incredible experience and to hear people singing your songs back to you in the middle of the day was special. Country 2 Country was another highlight, along with London Fashion week appearance; Jessie Weston is this incredible western-style designer with native American stuff which is so our vibe! We played the catwalk and it was amazing to see the models in real life; the way they can just switch on that look.

Do you write from a personal perspective?

I think that the songs will always be written from a personal angle. If you don’t write something from personal experience then people are not necessarily going to connect with it. From co-writing you get less precious, in that words you would never use can be given new meaning. For example, the song Someday Soon has a refence to ‘my last cigarette’ and I never would have used this as a non-smoker. However, as a metaphor for being down on your luck it works really well … I would like for the two of us to just write the next record and to each take the lead more on certain songs in this direction. This will not be taking us away from the personal!

So, this nomadic life is suiting you at the moment. You haven’t started getting tired of the travelling yet?

In the time we had off we were moving house but luckily our base is very happy, so wherever we are, we are never going to feel alone. Meeting people after the shows is important and we love to hang out at the end of our performance getting feedback.  

Both Rosie and Zoe are charming in conversation and totally open in their honest assessment of their career trajectory to date. They contribute equally to the answers and often talk with great enthusiasm so that the answers recorded here are a composite, without singling out who exactly said what and when. We look forward to following their continued success into the future! 

Interview by Paul McGee

Jess Klein with Mike June Interview

 

With a very impressive back-catalogue of nine releases to her name, Jess Klein comes highly recommended as an artist and singer-songwriter bearing great gifts and insight. This highly accomplished musician and wordsmith, recently sat down with Lonesome Highway to share her thoughts on life, the universe and everything after. She was joined by her husband and fellow musician Mike June who is currently accompanying her on their European tour.

LH: Life on the road versus recording – how do you split your time?

JK: I really love to be in the studio because you feel like the sky is the limit. I am working on an album right now and you go in thinking that it will be really stripped down, just me and my guitar mostly; then as soon as I got in we started bouncing ideas around and suddenly it becomes a much bigger soundscape. It is like a cool fantasy world to live in but then I also get very antsy if I am not playing for people. It’s like I can’t get my fix of a real live spontaneous experience. When we are in Europe I really love being on the road whereas at home the drives can be longer and it doesn’t feel as special.

LH: Do you have your own studio?

JK: Mike is currently building a studio…

MJ: When we lived in Texas we had a one room apartment so when we moved to North Carolina our first priority was to get some walls…! I have a love/hate relationship with recording. I love the end product but it can be so tedious, almost like anti-music. I have all these great ideas running around in my head but putting them down shows up all you’re your limitations. It can be very hard being in the studio and keeping it spontaneous. Playing live gives me that chance to be spontaneous and to have that feeling that pretty much anything can happen. That is why we play music I guess.

LH: So, it comes down to balancing the recording process with the need to tour again?

JK: We both decided to take a few months off this year but then I start to forget who I am and what my purpose on the planet is… Especially when I look at social media and watching everyone else’s experiences and it starts to feel like, ‘I could be doing that’ – so I don’t have a good sense of what is coming in two months; it’s whatever I’m doing now that is my experience. 

LH: You haven’t got exhausted with the whole touring thing yet?

JK: A couple of years ago I really got burned out and we had to make a couple of changes as to how we did it. We had to let our agent go because he wasn’t doing a great job and it can be really hard to make it work.

MJ: It’s hard when you have to ask people for money and I would prefer to have someone else doing that part for me. Last night was my first gig for a while and it felt a little strange. I had lost a whole tour because of the problem with our booking agent but it was kind of good in that I had previously been playing almost 200 gigs a year in the States and don’t know if I really gained anything career wise.

JK: You have grown a lot as an artist…and as a performer and a player. However, career wise you can drive 600 miles to play to a handful of people.

LH: I suppose it depends what you define as success? The fact that you can both keep doing this career as professional musicians can be seen as a success in itself

MJ: I tour a lot with Jon Dee Graham and he’ll complain that he is ‘barely makin’ it; what you makin’? For me, I get to travel around the world playing music with my wife, so it is a great experience. For example, we got engaged in Paris which was very special…

LH: It’s a real bohemian lifestyle and people would be envious of that.

JK: I find that when I’m at home I am a real homebody but I actually find it really freeing when we are moving on the road to keep things lean and we only have so many things with us. I don’t like packing but when we’re moving it is great to keep things simple.

MJ: If we didn’t tour then I might never leave the house. I’m just at that age when I’m not much into the social life!

LH: Speaking of not leaving the house, how does the writing process work for you?

JK: I’ve learned that the writing process can change. The last few records were all done in Austin Texas with this same group of people so you always had a sounding board. But then we moved to North Carolina and I went to a town I had never been to and didn’t know too many people so I didn’t have the structure with me. My initial response was that I would sit and try to write everyday but it doesn’t work like that. It has to flow and you have to trust that if I go live my life then the songs are gonna come. I sometimes use my phone to capture ideas at the time they appear.

MJ: Living with Jess makes me ashamed to call myself a songwriter as she is up first thing in the morning working on stuff whereas I am waiting for the inspiration to come…My last record, Poor Man’s Bible, I poured over every part of that for almost a year before we went to the studio. This new stuff, I had just an EP come out on Friday, Election Day and I decided to not think too much about what I was writing but just go back to having fun and keeping it simple. I think this is a progression for every artist who starts out wanting to prove that you can do something really big and I think that doing that with Poor Man’s Bible made me comfortable with myself.

LH: What comes first when you write, the lyrics or the melody?

MJ: Usually it’s always words for me first but it can be a guitar riff, sometimes the song just goes in my head and I have an idea how I want it to be but when you sit down and start pounding it out, it can sound totally different.     

JK: Early this year I had a repetitive strain injury in my arms and hands which was really terrifying. For me it had almost always been melody first but I couldn’t play the guitar as much as I normally would so I had to compose just in my head and sing it into the phone and wait until my hands were able to play. It was interesting in that my first thought was ‘oh my God, I can’t play the guitar the way that I want to…’ but then I had to roll with it and it just works its way through you. I don’t think my guitar style has changed but I was so nervous when I returned to doing shows after taking the time off. I changed my guitar (a Martin J-21) and found that when I played, it was the one time I was not thinking about my hands, so it all worked out fine!

LH: Getting paid as a professional duo; can you make money anymore from the recorded product or is it live performance?

JK: Honestly it is a combination. I think that I make half of my money on the road from merchandise sales. If I’m not on the road then it is harder.

MJ: I signed my record deal last year and the budget that my record label gave me was only quarter what I had spent on my previous record by myself. They send me statements every month about how much I owe them or how much they have lost on me! They’re sweethearts but what can you do? Even a band like Los Lobos who have been around for almost 40 years and have made so many great records were chatting amongst themselves as to whether it was even still worthwhile continuing to make records. The cost of making them is so high and then services like Spotify don’t pay the artist anything. As a listener, you can have all the music in the World for just $10 a month but that doesn’t pay the artist. Any other business would revolt against that... Even using Kickstarter to fund your record ends up with 15% of the money raised going to them.

LH: Looking at the arc of your career and that first album that received great media acclaim, you had the experience of being on a big label before doing it all for yourself

JK: I would have to look at my files to see who now owns Rykodisc, maybe Warner Bros., but I was not with that label for very long. I made two albums with UFO also but I found myself feeling that I can do this better on my own and hiring the people I wanted for myself. If I’m failing, then it’s because of decisions I am making on my own now.

MJ: Having been on both sides of the fence, previously as a booking agent, at our level then to be doing it for yourself is the best option. A lot of the people working I the industry are just not very good and can let you down. Do they have your best interests at heart?

JK: I feel like we have both been through enough now to just do it yourself. I feel like I know what questions to ask before getting anyone involved now.

LH: You must have built up a decent network of people over the years that you can trust?

JK: I think it is important to be able to ask for help – no man is an island!

LH: You are quoted as saying ‘my motivation in making music is to connect with people and in doing so, to connect with myself, which is the hardest and the scariest part…’ How vulnerable do you feel on stage?

JK: It’s not that playing in front of people has ever really been hard. I feel that there is a difference between putting on a show and giving yourself over to the performance and connecting. I feel like the thing that I have been working on over the last 4 or 5 years is going a little on faith and being completely open. When I am on stage, you have to have a purpose and I put all the love I could into these songs and I really want for people to be able to act off that. I can’t control how they receive it but the intention I go in with is to share the love in my heart as I have crafted it.

LH: You are a very giving performer and the audience just believe it. This is what makes it special

MJ: You have to play to the people that are there and not the people who aren’t. I remember playing a gig in Clarksdale, Mississippi to zero people. I am just rockin’ it, by myself, thinking this is good practice, just get into it, when 2 guys come in at the end and one turns out to be Danny Boyle, the movie director, who liked my stuff and wanted to buy some CDs. I didn’t know who he was right then and I’m saying just keep your money, you are on vacation so just have a CD… Then in North Carolina I was playing to 8 people on a Sunday afternoon and decided not to let it be one of those ‘I don’t want to be here’ moments; I do a strong set and it led to me getting my record deal out of that…! Play to the people that are there.

JK: I don’t want to overblow the importance of art but I feel because this is what I do, I look to art and music to give me permission to open up and feel my feeling. I believe that there is good in this world and it is like a sacred transaction when I go onstage and it can’t just fit in a box. It means something to me to be able to give to other people.

LH: Do you write from the personal or the observed experience, or is it a mix of both?

JK: Some of the songs are very personal. When I was younger it could be pretty scary to try and figure out the answer to something by the end of the song and present it in this neat package. Now I’ve grown up!

MJ: I made a conscious decision a couple of years ago to stop writing songs about things that everyone else writes about. I started to turn my attention to the outside and look at religious and political issues. It’s what I think about, it’s just who I am… I want people to get along and to see that this world is so much better than we give it credit for. If I am angry and I want to write songs against the establishment then that is what I do. The Folk Alliance and the American Music Association used to say they don’t want any political issues here. However, It is really personal for me…

JK: The other night he was dreaming and shouted out in his sleep ‘you can’t lie to the American people’…!!

LH: When you travel do you find differences in the audiences you play for?

JK: I think the difference is that there seems to be a more embedded cultural appreciation of the arts in Europe. In the States people come to see us feel that way but it seems more of an uphill climb.

MJ: A couple of years ago I did a tour and was playing house concerts in Texas and in San Francisco where the political views were different and the culture and perspective was so varied. You meet people in small towns that give you a different view of why people feel isolated and on the outside of things in America.

Travelling then to Europe is a real education. Taking in refugees is so much talked about in the States but people have never seen it. Then we are here and on the day we got engaged, what is in my head is; ‘I’m going to ask this woman I love to marry me today’ and the first thing we see when we get off the highway is a refugee camp on the outskirts of Paris and you see people living on the street dividers. And you see that this is the reality of it. Getting that perspective is a whole new education.

Being on a small level lets you be able to sit down with people and really listen with real communication. A big change with music now is that a lot of house concerts end up with your fans becoming your friends.  

Coda:

Jess Klein talks of her career as a twisting journey and says that she is tired of all the anger and cynicism she can sometimes encounter; ‘I say, get out there and do something’.

This is a good note on which to bring our conversation to a close. There is so much to recommend in the sublime talents of Jess Klein and her body of music is waiting to be discovered by those of you who like to visit the realm of accomplished writing and sensitive soul-searching.

Her husband, Mike June, is a very engaging person who was really interesting to spend time with. Together they make a great team and in trying to bring light into the lives of those that they meet, both Jess and Mike lift the collective spirit to an elevated place where our awareness and appreciation of the arts can be heightened.

Interview by Paul McGee 

Slim Cessna Interview

The first thing you notice about Slim Cessna is that he lives up to his name. He’s both tall and thin with an open smile (complete with gold tooth) and an open attitude. This is the bands first visit to Ireland where they are due to play four dates after which they return to play in the UK before heading for a gig in Moscow. The bands roots go back to the early 1990s and the band has evolved since that time into something quite unique in both its recorded and live entities. We sat down prior to the gig in Whelan’s to discuss the band’s career and outlook. Cessna explained the genesis of the band which started initially as an offshoot of his main band. One that also briefly included David Eugene Edwards of Woven Hand and 16 Horsepower. “The Denver Gentlemen was my main thing but I started the Auto Club because I wanted to experiment with playing country music; even more so than what the Gentlemen were doing.  I learned some chords on the guitar and got some buddies in and we started messing around in my basement. We didn’t really have a plan to do anything other than to drink beer (laughs). All of a sudden then it got busier than we were with The Denver Gentlemen so that became the main thing.” 

The influences on his musical journey were as much non-musical as they were musical. Living and working in Denver meant that the presence of some extreme weather conditions should not be underestimated. “ A good storm is pretty influential. They happen rapidly and then after it can be total calm and peaceful. We don’t try to use that on purpose but that we do anyway. There’s a lot of space where we are.” He felt such forces would just as easily be reflected in the music as they might in the content of the lyric writing. As well as having the environment play its part on their music it has also meant that touring has to be a planned exercise. “It is a long distance from Denver though to anywhere else” Cessna explained. “Kansas City is the nearest town east and that’s 9 hours drive. Salt Lake City is 7 hours west and there’s not a lot of anything in between. When we tour we work out a route that makes sense as doing a one-off show is impractical unless we are in Denver or a surrounding college town.” All well and good but adding an additional layer to the bands continued existence. “We have to make it work to survive” Cessna adds. The continued existence of any band depends on there being a means for the band to play and to record. Something that was made more difficult in the past when various members lived in different places. “We were living in different places, he explained. “I was living in Pittsburgh, which is 2000 miles from Denver for years and I raised my family there. But in the last 3 years I have been able to move back to Denver. Dwight’s also back in Denver and that has helped us to consolidate things and we can tour whenever we want too. For me there’s no extra trips involved. That’s been pretty good.”

In terms of their recorded output the band have recently set up their own label (SCAC UnIncorporated) and also produced their most recent album The Commandments According to SCAC themselves. Both Cessna and guitarist Lord Dwight Pentecost taking the helm for that process. Something that was a learning curve for them both and one that they hope to revisit when they begin to record their next album. “The Commandments album was the first time that we done all of it by ourselves including having it on our own label. But the next one will be better. Because we learnt a lot doing it. All of a sudden we found ourselves with a deadline but I still think it turned out great. I love the album. But there’s certain things that could have been thickened out here or thinned out there.” 

Cessna revealed that Munly Munly, his fellow singer and banjoist, was the main songwriter for the band. “Munly writes all of the songs for all of the bands.” This includes the offshoot DBUK or Munly and The Lupercalians as well as Sim Cessna’s Auto Club. How they made the choices as to which song suited which of the different bands was, he felt, pretty much down to Munly. “I suppose it just depends what mood he’s in which band the songs are for. It’s kinda fun for all of us. They’re all completely different musically. Different kinds of story telling. There are different worlds that Munly creates and it’s pretty fascinating for us to explore that with him.” Having such an enigmatic character in the band was “like having a Flannery O’Connor in our band.” It gave him and the band the opportunity to be involved in a singular creative process “It’s a privilege for me to help bring some life to those characters in performance and in my interpretation of what he’s writing. That has been amazing. Sometimes he brings a lyric to us or often times the whole chord progression. We then build from there. We cut and paste. Sometimes the songs end up going somewhere he didn’t intend and he probably doesn’t like it but it’s a democracy.” One that has an obvious starting point though. “Munly as always be the primary and initial songwriter and he’s very meticulous and we don’t apply any pressure to him or to ourselves.” This process has meant that they don’t want to force it in any way but to ask that they try and deliver something that they can feel proud of. “It always takes us longer than other bands because we always want it to be perfect.” 

In previous visits to Europe the band had tended to play in the larger cities rather than to do something more of a tour. This current longer tour was due to the band working with the Punk Rock Blues Agency (who book “twisted roots and blues” across Europe). As regards this visit to these shores Cessna reasoned that it had been hard to get shows here but also in the UK and Scotland as previously they had only played in London. “It’s harder for us to make money doing more shows but we know we have to do and we have to bust through -  and hopefully we can. This trip isn’t going to be financially successful (laughs). We knew that coming in though. But we’re very happy to be here.” This shows that the band realise that opening a second front in Europe could, in the long term, give a band an additional audience to appreciate their music. 

The band, since their inception, have created an identity, one that has been consciously considered and administered. The graphics especially have been, along with the photography an important constitute of that overall image. “We all do that, though Dwight does a lot of it. All our photography is by Gary Issacs from Denver. We try to keep things in the family. There is a certain branding that’s important to us, a certain visual sense, even with the show.” Along with the image, which can only take a band so far is their music which has become a blend of different sources and strands that have been blended to create the SCAC sound. “When we started, and I’m the only original member of the band now, I just wanted to play country music with friends, the music that I grew up with. I had played with punk rock bands and we were getting closer to that with the Denver Gentlemen.” However that soon seemed to fall short of being as satisfying as he had hoped. “I really wanted that, but in a weird sort of way it just got kinda boring (laughs). Well not boring, that’s the wrong way to say it just wasn’t as satisfying, especially as this started to become the main thing.” that however changed soon after when the key members of the band joined him. “When Munly and Dwight joined, and that was probably 18, maybe 19, years ago now everything took a left turn. Almost instantly we didn’t have the same rules. We knew that this isn’t going to be a country band. But the root of it is still American folk music.” In the process they realised that what they were creating and refining was something that was every much based in the collective consciousness. Something that soon found it’s realisation in the songwriting. “For whatever that’s worth. we let the songs become their own personalities. They have to go where they’re supposed to go without worrying about any preconceived structure or genre.”

There is no escaping the religious element of the music, the balance of sin and redemption, the balance of Saturday night and Sunday morning. This is something that Cessna has grown up with and so incorporated that Christian ethos into the fabric of the music. “That was really important to me, a huge part of it. I was born in the church and my father was a Baptist preacher.” As we talked he told me that, surprisingly it may seem to some, that U2 were a big part of the music he loved growing up. “Touring bands didn’t really come to Denver except for during the summer - we had Red Rocks Amphitheatre which U2 made very famous. I was at that show. I was grabbing the flag - you can see me in the movie. I was a 17-year-old knucklehead (laughs). I was a huge fan in the 80s with Boy and October especially. People don’t like them sometimes in my circles but I say “you haven’t heard Boy and October!” Those were amazing albums. Red Rocks was a great show and Bono is very influential in my life as is David Byrne, as well as many of the greats from the 1980s.” Another factor in his enthusiasm was that U2s’s music and message was music that was acceptable to his parents. That they were considered uncool by many of his contemporaries was something that he considered was because in retrospect “that some of the people that say they don’t like them are just trying to be cool. It’s just one of those things because they’re successful. People say the same things about the White Stripes and how stupid is that? One of the great rock bands of all time.” 

I wondered then was there a time then that he might have rebelled against that. “I never rebelled against that. That’s not necessarily to say that I stayed in the church. I go back and forth with that even now.” A strong factor that emerged during his growing up with that framework was his particular love for gospel music in all its forms. “I have always really loved gospel music. The pure form of it. I mean I love Bob Dylan more than most anything and I think his greatest album is Saved. It is so powerful. You don’t have to believe in any of it, but it just hits me. That kind of music - Mahalia Jackson, Hank Williams, gospel. It’s all amazing.” This is the gospel according to Slim Cessna - on that day, at that time. Hopefully SCAC will find further converts on future visits.

Interview by Steve Rapid   Photograph by Kaethe Burt O'Dea

Clare Sands Interview

I was transported back a number of decades at The Harbour Bar in Bray a few weeks ago by a powerful performance of what used to be described as Celtic Fusion back in the day before buzz genres such as alt-folk, indie folk and New Age folk became the vogue. The occasion was a show by the Clare Sands Band, a Cork-based young artist who had been highly recommended to me by a number of reliable sources.  An outstanding fiddle player who also plays electric and acoustic guitar and possess a beautifully potent vocal style  was accompanied on stage by a four piece band, equally youthful yet playing like seasoned veterans.  Featuring material from her 2016 album Join Me At The Table and a number of well-chosen covers their ninety minute set was outstanding. Their sound is a blend of folk, blues infused jazz and traditional, superbly executed. Self-assured, bubbly and with an infectious personality Lonesome Highway took the opportunity to chat with Sands, a young lady with melody, rhythm and verse ingrained in her genes and endless potential in wherever her musical career takes her.

You seem to have the perfect career and lifestyle balance combining teaching, session playing, support artist, performing and recording with your own band. A full-on schedule without doubt but well structured. Was this your game plan?

I wouldn’t say ‘Perfect’- more like intense, hectic! I never had a huge game plan. But I knew from day one that I wanted to play as much as possible, and release an album under my own name. I don’t like to rely 100 % on gigs for income- thus the balance I have finally achieved with teaching, music therapy, session work etc. It keeps me interested. I’m interested in a lot musically, and in other walks of life, so I have to keep it new and exciting.  Ironically enough, the Leaving Certificate points came out yesterday- I had Music and Italian, or Law and French. I went with the music! 

Am I correct in saying that you are the fifth generation of fiddle players in your family?

6th! No escape. All Dad’s side are fiddlers, songwriters. Mom’s side are pianists, singers.

Aside from the obvious inspiration from family members what other musicians have influenced your playing style?

I’ve found myself inspired by a variety of different genres and musicians. I’m a huge fan of Gypsy Jazz (The music of Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grappelli). I also love Latin music, in particular anything from Cuba. The rhythms are incredible. The musicians barely think- yet they can do things us Westerners can’t even dream of.  I love rhythm...Something these two genres are steeped in. 

When did Clare Sands the musician become Clare Sands the songwriter and which writers would have had the greatest impact on you?

I wrote my first song when I was 14 and learning to play the guitar. A song called Hear My Call which was all about homelessness in Ireland. Something or somebody must have affected my subconscious. After that, I just kept writing. It was a good way to deal with feelings, and what was going on around me. But as you get older, your songwriting definitely starts to change, and it’s not all about YOU! I loved poetry growing up, and still do, in particular Irish poets like Kavanagh and Heaney. I’m a huge Bob Dylan fan, and have acquired a recent obsession with Leonard Cohen, after reading a book of his poetry when I was in Guatemala. Strange guy. Master of the Pen. I also love two Cork men’s writing, John Spillane and Mick Flannery. Nothing is as it seems in their songs. I find that I write my best when I’m travelling. New experiences, new people, new cultures. I guess I’ll just have to keep jetting off if I want to keep writing!

Your musical style strays away from traditional, embracing both blues and jazz in equal measures, what I would describe as genuine Celtic Fusion without introducing a soft pop core centre. Did the motivation come from any particular artists consciously steering you in this direction?

Thanks! That’s a nice compliment. Consciously, no. I think it’s more to do with music I was immersed in growing up. I would listen to my Dad playing tunes in the house at night, but listen to Rodgrigo Y Gabriela (two Spanish guitarists) on the way to school. UCC also affected my playing hugely. I had a fantastic Jazz teacher-Tommy Tucker-who I really admire. My band also contributes hugely to the ‘Celtic Fusion’ sound. My keys/sax player Dylan Howe, is probably the best musician I know. He knows which chords to use, and puts them in the right places. Dylan and I have been playing for a long time together, as well as guitarist Kevin Herron. I feel we are extremely in synch with each other, and the two Fionns on bass and drums never miss anything.

Unlike the annoying tendency of many artists to ‘create’ a vocal style your delivery emphasises your natural accent which is refreshing, similar in many ways to that of Mary Coughlan. Was it a conscious decision to avoid adopting a ‘singing accent’?

I’ve thought about this a lot, and changed my opinion many a time. Firstly, I wouldn’t call it ‘annoying’. Everyone to their own. When children are listening to the radio, they imitate the accents of the singers they hear. All of my students sing in English Ed Sheeran accents! Some musicians also do this as adults, maybe from growing up hearing American accents constantly on their parent’s records. It’s nearly ingrained in them. I have no problem with it. I listened to a lot of American music growing up, but also to a lot of Irish singers- Karen Casey, Mary Coughlan, Mary Black. So maybe I slipped through ‘that’. I did make a conscious decision. When I listen back to my first single there is a twang of an American accent. I don’t know when I decided ‘Why am I singing in that accent’ but I did, and haven’t looked back. It’s too much effort to put on an accent- I’ve enough going on in my head! I’m also ridiculously proud of this fine island. I’ve been in eleven different countries this year as far away as Mexico, but Ireland has something very beautiful about it. I would like anyone that listens to my music to know that I am from Ireland.

I was hugely impressed with the band that accompanied you on stage on your recent Irish tour. Are these your regular band members and can you name check them?

Sure. Yes, they are my band members, and sometimes we have an additional percussionist, Paul Leonard. I mentioned them above, but to reiterate - Dylan Howe is on the keys/sax/vocals, and whatever else he can get his hands on. Multi-talented, multi-instrumentalist. Kevin Herron on electric guitar, sometimes dobro, and vocals. Funkiest guitar player around, and a fantastic singer. Fantastic rhythm. Fionn O'Neill on bass, sometimes guitar, vocals. New addition, and ‘A Rock!’ Fionn Hennessy Hayes on drums and vocals. Fionn is fantastic. Because he’s not ‘a drummer’, he picks up on my right hand of the guitar, and most importantly, listens. He can be as rock 'n’ roll as you want, or sit there and play a song on symbols.

With an increasingly over crowded market internationally and a small Irish market how does an artist like you best market yourself going forward and do you foresee yourself dropping the day job and pursuing a professional performing career at some stage?

I don’t know, to be honest with you. Definitely need to keep social media up and running. Make good videos. Try get as much airplay as possible and tour as much as I can. It’s really like building a house!  Always building. It’s been an extremely busy year. I’ve been happy with everything that’s happened. I released the album last October, and have toured with some great Irish names as well as my own tours, and getting airplay on album tracks. It’s not so bad for a 23 year old, I suppose. I’m ridiculously hard on myself- and will never be fully content- but that makes it very easy to be driven. Won’t ever give up the day job (I say this now!) I don’t think music is a very sustainable or healthy business. There are the few exceptions (The Beatles, Dylan etc.) but I feel everybody has a ‘use by’ date. I’m not being negative- I think it’s a logical train of thought, especially with how music has gone.  Even if you become the next U2, I don’t think I’ll want to be touring in forty years time. And for those that do, fair play! I’m a woman of simplicity, and I like my freedom. My goal is to start my PhD soon (music related - ha!) and take it from there

Are you working on a follow up to your 2016 Join Me At The Table or simply drawing breath and enjoying the opportunity to tour the album at present?

I’m enjoying the touring immensely. I have a new live video coming out soon and dates coming out of my ears till next December. Anything is possible. I might even go back and do Law!

Interview by Declan Culliton

Christopher Rees Interview

Christopher Rees is a Welsh born and based solo artist, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, band leader, producer and record label director. He performs both with a full band and in a solo capacity. To date he has released 7 full length albums, The Sweetest Ache (2004), Alone On A Mountain Top (2005), Cautionary Tales (2007), Devil's Bridge (2009), Heart On Fire (2011) Stand Fast (2013) and his just releaswd album The Nashville Songs. To get some background on his latest Music City based album and life in general Lonesome Highway recently had the opportunity to catch up with Christopher.

What does Nashville mean to you now in a musical sense given that it is often seen as the home of the mainstream?

I realised very soon after my first visit, that Nashville is now much more than just the home of Country Music. It’s fair to say that it really is ‘Music City USA’ as it claims to be, mainly because of the sheer amount of talent that is there and on display in every venue. It’s pretty jaw dropping. Yes, it’s still the home of country music and quite rightly celebrates its amazing musical heritage and tradition, but there is a lot more going on away from Lower Broadway or Music Row. I really have no connection or concept of what is going on with what they now call ‘Mainstream Country Music’, because in many cases I just don’t hear it as country music. It’s can often be soft rock, pop or even hip hop dressed up with a sprinkling of fiddle or banjo. A lot of these ‘mainstream hits’ are written by people who don’t necessarily write ‘country songs’. Nashville is certainly a central hub for the practise of ‘song writing’ and a good song can translate into any genre of music. 

 

Personally, I was attracted to Nashville because of its historical musical legacy through people like Hank Williams and Johnny Cash. It’s hard to escape it when you walk around. So, in a musical sense that will always be more important to me. There is also a big resurgence in traditional old timey style country music and songwriters who have that authentic spirit which I’m really attracted to.

  

How important has been location (and your Welsh upbringing) in your overall musical direction?

It’s difficult to say. I am a very proud Welshman and certainly feel at home in Wales but my musical inspiration has always come from elsewhere. Yes, I love Tom Jones and John Cale but I think it’s fair to say that their inspiration or influences also came from outside of Wales. There is no disputing the power of a good male voice choir or the beauty of a Welsh harp but I never really connected with that music like I did Rock’n’Roll, Country or Soul music. It always felt more direct and immediate. I think it’s very common when you grow up in a small town, wherever it may be, that you aspire to break out and leave. Travelling America in my early twenties certainly opened my eyes and inspired me immensely but I’ve always just tried to follow my gut instincts with song writing and take the songs in whatever musical direction I feel suits them best. You can create your own musical environment via your own music collection. If you surround yourself with the music of a certain style, whatever it may be, then it will inevitably inform and influence the music that you are inclined to create. As the old saying goes, “It’s not where you’re from, it’s where you’re at”.

 

Did you enjoy the co-writing situation that is fairly common in Nashville? How did it affect the writing?

I did enjoy the process very much. To begin with it came remarkably easy. I think it really depends who you are writing with and how you connect on a personal level. I was fortunate that I felt very comfortable and connected with the other writers (Rick Brantley and Mando Saenz) during the first couple of trips. They were just so easy going and with a little encouragement the songs just clicked into place. I had never written with another person before I went to Nashville but I approached the sessions with an open mind and an impetus to come up with something. You have to be very present and engaged for the process to work, and try to work towards creating something you can both be happy with. 

I was just amazed how quickly things can come together when you are both on the same wave length and working together towards the same goal. It wasn’t always that easy. Someone must come up with a seed of an idea first, whether it’s the music or the lyric. But you’ve got to start somewhere. Even if you later go in a different direction and abandon the original idea. Someone has the drive the idea forward and engage the other writer into knocking ideas back and forth. When it’s balanced and positive the process can be very rewarding. It’s only when ideas run thin or stall that it can become a little frustrating. But overall it was a very positive experience and one that I think really helped to develop my craft as a song writer.

 

Which is the most interesting part of the process for you the lyric writing or the music?

I don’t think I can separate the two. They are both so dependent on one another and benefit from one another. Yes, I often write reams of lyrics before I marry them with music. And I also write instrumental pieces of music before I marry it with lyrics but almost always they will both change and adapt to one another when they come together. And generally, become stronger together. 

 

That direction, through your various albums, has looked at different variations of roots music while retaining a consistent viewpoint. Has that been a fundamental attitude?

I think so. As I mentioned previously a good song can always translate into any genre and I have always just tried to follow my gut instinct regarding where I should take a song. My taste in music is very wide ranging and I really don’t wish to be restricted in any way. I naturally seem to react against the last song I’ve written, so if I write a slow melancholy song, I will almost immediately begin something fast and upbeat next. The contrast is often exhilarating and keeps things interesting. It’s very easy to get stuck in a rut and keep repeating the same process so I need to shake things up and remain inspired to try new ideas. I guess the consistent viewpoint is my voice and my outlook on life. Even when you are writing a character or story driven song which has nothing at all to do with you, it’s hard to resist injecting something of your own viewpoint or attitude in there somewhere.  

 

You recently supported Mavis Staples in Wales. How was that?

It was truly wonderful. A real dream come true. Such an honour and a privilege. 

 

I have such a deep love for Mavis. Her music and her voice have been a source of great comfort and inspiration to me for many, many years. My set itself went well and I had a great response from her audience. I played a mix of the more soul or gospel influenced songs from previous albums as well as a few from the new album. After my set, I bravely knocked on her dressing room door to say hello and she invited me in. So, there I was sitting with the one and only Mavis Staples. Just me and her for 5 or 10 minutes talking about some mutual friends and the new album that she’s just finished recording with Jeff Tweedy, whilst I tried hard not to just gush like a giddy fan. She has always been my favourite female soul singer and I absolutely adore her. She was everything I had hoped and expected her to be. She was warm and welcoming with such amazingly positive energy.

She was so gracious, sweet and kind. I’ll never forget what she said to me. She paid me the compliment of saying, "Boy you sounded great! Your voice is strong! And that was just you up there - you sounded like three people". I was so flattered. It was a moment that I will cherish for the rest of my days. 

 

And then of course Mavis' set was just amazing! Her band were phenomenal. 

She filled the room with positive vibrations, love and joy and the crowd worshiped her. The world is just a better place while you are in her company. 

 

Obviously with recent albums like Heart On Fire with the South Austin Horns reflect your interest in soul. Something that has now become something of a musical trend in the last couple of years. Did you foresee that?

Not really. I have always been a big fan of vintage soul music from the 1960’s and to me it’s utterly timeless, which might explain why it still connects with a modern audience so well. The combination of a passionate and soulful voice with a horn section and a good arrangement will always speak to people. To me it’s ‘Feel Good Music’ even when it’s singing of blues and heartbreak. It can just hit you in the gut and then tear your heart out but somehow also feel joyful and uplifting. In my case I had slowly been putting songs to one side for many years, that I felt would benefit from a soul styled arrangement, long before I decided to record ‘Heart On Fire’. A couple of them were written before my first album came out. So, when the opportunity finally presented itself to record with a horn section, I had the material ready to go. Musical trends come and go but good soul music like rock’n’roll will never really die. It’ll always have a place. I never really thought of what I was doing in terms of following any contemporary trends. I just felt that those songs in particular where calling out for that kind of instrumentation and I wanted to follow my gut instinct to try and do them justice. 

 

Are there other artists who you worked with that provided you with a memorable experience? 

Yes, quite a few. I’ve been very fortunate to work with or tour with some of my absolute musical heroes. People that I have admired. People that had an important impact or influenced me in some way through listening to their music, long before I met them. Working in the studio with Victoria Williams was certainly a memorable experience. I remember first finding out about Victoria when I was in California in 1993. I had read an article about the tribute album ‘Sweet Relief’ that was being released to raise money for her medical bills after she was diagnosed with MS (Multiple Sclerosis) while on tour with Neil Young. It featured a lot of great acts that I liked, from Lou Reed to Evan Dando, Buffalo Tom, Pearl Jam and more, covering her songs, so I had to check it out. I then bought a few of her earlier albums, and when Loose came out in 1994 I was a big fan. Twelve years or so later, I was invited by a friend in Cardiff to meet Mark Olsen from The Jayhawks as he was looking to find someone with a studio that he could use to record some demos while he was in town. 

 

To try and cut a long story short, I ended up putting a band of local musicians together for Mark to record the demos which went very well. Then a few months later Mark returned to Cardiff, this time with Victoria. I was thrilled to see her walking down my street one morning and to meet her. We recorded another batch of songs (some of which went on to be re-recorded in LA for Marks’ solo album, The Salvation Blues) and at the end of the second day of recording I had the crazy idea of turning my song ‘Bottom Dollar’ into a duet and asked Vic if she would be interested in recording some vocals for me. She was happy to oblige and I was just blown away. A year or so later Vic came back over to record with me again. I took her up to a cottage near Aberystwyth to specifically try and develop some song ideas for a new album of her own. There were lots and lots of ideas flying around that week and we captured some great stuff. On the strength of those demos she was later offered a deal with ‘Honest Jon’s Records’ but as far as I know nothing ever materialised. She is an unique and special singer and song writer. I hope that I helped in some way and that she can deliver a new album sometime in the not too distant future.

There are a few other memorable moments like the first time I opened for John Cale which was a very big deal for me at the time. Touring the UK with Kristin Hersh was huge for me too, as I was such a big fan of Throwing Muses as a teenager and her solo work was such a big inspiration to me when I first started making music. She was just so kind and supportive. I feel privileged to now call her a friend. I don’t want to come across like a name dropper but I have been fortunate enough to tour with some legendary people. I’ll never forget sitting in the dressing room talking about Townes Van Zandt with Steve Earle or talking about Johnny Cash with Billy Joe Shaver or discussing Elvis with Wanda Jackson. It’s pretty insane to think about really, when you revere those people so much, but the biggest lesson I’ve learned from meeting all of these great people is that, away from the stage spotlight, they too are just living and breathing human beings like me or you. They have exceptional talents – yes, but they face their own challenges and have to work as hard as anyone else to sustain their success and continue to produce great work.      

 

As an independent artist how has the musical landscape and the way music is now distributed changed your process?

It hasn’t really changed my process, but then I’m quite old fashioned in my approach to making and releasing music. I’ve always valued the album as a body of work above the single. I do struggle to pick individual songs for a ‘Radio Single’ or a video as I get too attached to them being part of the album. I realise that it is a necessary thing, to try and promote an album but I’m not very comfortable with the process. The digitisation of music and all the various platforms that are available to distribute music does make it easier to get your music out there online but it has also devalued the product so much that it makes it very difficult to get any financial return, as people have become so accustomed to consuming music for free. It now feels like you make an album then battle to try and give it away for free with some vague hope that people may then come and see you play live. Youtube has become such a massive platform because the visual aspect is so powerful. I am guilty of this too. If someone recommends a band or artist to me, the first thing I will do is go and check what they have on Youtube. It’s crazy really. An artist or band toils away for a year or two trying to make the best sounding record that they can and then people just go to Youtube and end up watching and listening to some low quality live recording captured on a mobile phone camera. It’s a great resource for archive recordings though and I use it a lot. I’m conscious of the fact that I need to feed that side of things more. 

As an independent artist, these days you have to cover all bases and be a great multitasker. On top of being the song writer, singer, musician, performer, producer, recording and mixing engineer, manager, booking agent, press and radio plugger, and whatever else, it seems that being a good videographer or film maker should be high on the list of priorities now too. I certainly need to work on that area of things and get more quality videos out there. 

 

In these somewhat confused and troubled times how do these events filter into your music?

I think it’s inevitable that they filter into the music. If you care at all it’s hard not to be aware, not to feel emotionally moved or reflect what is going on in the world within the things that you want to say and the music you make. I can’t really claim to have ever been an overtly political or social songwriter but I’ve written a few and I’m sure I’ll write a few more in due course. We are certainly living in very troubled times right now and it’s sad to think that so many of those protest songs from the civil rights movement in the 60’s are still as relevant today as they were then. I’m just glad that Mavis Staples is still alive and kicking and able to sing them whilst also spreading her positive message of love and inspiration. 

 

Are the opportunities to play live more difficult these days and does that mean that you have a reverse situation in that touring the US in that it is usually US artists coming to Europe rather than the other way round. Is offering some scope for you?

It seems that it has become more difficult yes. Venues and pubs are closing down all over the country, for various reasons, and there is a lot of competition for gigs. As an independent artist and your own booking agent you can’t sit back and wait to be offered gigs. You have to keep seeking them out and driving things forward, whether that is in the UK, Europe, America or anywhere else. North America has always been notoriously difficult, firstly to get the work visa to tour and secondly to make any kind of impression. Canada is somewhat more accessible and parts of Europe can be great but Brexit will most likely have a negative effect on UK touring musicians over there. There is always scope but it’s a hard slog sometimes. Some days you dig around trying to find opportunities and it feels like your banging your head against a brick wall. But then every once in a while, you might knock a chunk out of that wall and a ray of light comes shining through. And that makes it all seem worthwhile. 

 

Is the future bright or is it a struggle (the glass full or half full question)?

Oh, it’s a struggle alright, but the future is bright too. I’ve always regarded myself as something of a cynical-optimist. Prepared for disappointment but always hoping for the best. Sometimes the power of positive thinking does seem to work. It’s hard to stay optimistic sometimes and I am prone to getting stuck in a rut from time to time, but in general I feel tremendously fortunate and grateful to live the life that I live.  I have so much to be thankful for. I may not sell as many albums as I’d like, or play to as many people as I’d like, but I still live for it. And I still love writing songs, recording music and performing.

 

You still love making music, given you continue to release albums, is it a necessity for you?

Yes. It may sound cliched but the creative process really is its own reward. There is a great feeling of accomplishment when you create something out of nothing or turn a negative emotion into something positive. It’s often like taking a weight off your shoulders or getting something out of your system so that you can look at it in a more objective manner. It can be very therapeutic or cathartic.

You can grow bitter or grow better. I often console myself if an album doesn’t achieve what I might think it should, by telling myself that the next one will be better. I think it’s healthy to always aspire to improve and develop your abilities. And with music and song-writing you never stop learning. There are always areas that you can work on, and that feeds your drive to move forward, improve and hopefully make better records. Playing live is rewarding too and necessary to gauge the quality of the work you’ve created. To see the reaction to songs and find out if they sink or swim. It also feeds the ego a little, helps to boost your confidence and provide some reassurance that you aren’t completely misguided or delusional.  

 

It’s a long time since you played in Ireland. Any plans to return? 

Yes, it’s been far too long since I was last over there on tour opening for The Handsome Family in 2009. I would love to come back and play some shows, especially the Kilkenny Rhythm & Roots Festival which people keep telling me is the greatest. I really enjoyed playing at Cleere’s when I was last there. The people were amazing and I’d love to return. I need to make some serious plans to get back over there to play especially with this new album out now. Of course, it would be great if I can get on another tour with a more established act to ensure a good crowd, but I just need to get a few gigs of my own organised and get over there again. It’s such a beautiful country to tour around and always a great experience to play to such passionate music lovers. I’ll keep you posted.

Interview by Stephen Rapid