When reviewing THE TRASHCANNON ALBUM, the debut record released by Caitlin Cannon in 2020, we described the songwriting as ‘Washing your dirty linen in public is never pleasurable, particularly when your laundry basket is overflowing.’ The Nashville-based artist tackles personal issues head on in her writing with a sardonic and often wistful eye, incorporating wicked humour alongside heartache and tragedy in her songs. Her latest album LOVE ADDICT finds her changing her style somewhat from her debut recording. On a similar template to her four track EP BEGGAR from 2024, her sound is less frenetic drawing the listener into the stories she has to tell. The album has nods to the classic 60s Countrypolitan sound without being strictly a country record and is Cannon’s most sophisticated work to date. We chatted recently with the ever-engaging artist about her latest project.
Is Nashville now home for you in the long term?
Yes, it's the first place that has actually felt like home to me. Part of it is the climate because I was born in Alabama. When I left there, I thought I would not come back to the South because, generally speaking, I don't like the politics. Nashville is a very productive city, and when I moved here, I felt like I was home, which has a lot to do with the air quality. It may be gross, but I like it when it's so hot that you're stuck to the plastic of your car seat. Nashville is pretty liberal, but compared to certain places I have lived in, you feel like you are in a bubble, similar to living in California or New York, which is also like living in a bubble.
Your 2024 EP, BEGGAR and the new album LOVE ADDICT are somewhat distanced from the more full-on sound of your debut record, THE TRASHCANNON ALBUM.
THE TRASHCANNON ALBUM was a snapshot in time. When I started working with my new producer, Misa Arriaga, the way that I produce music changed. I had fewer resources with THE TRASHCANNON album, but I had a reference check with every track, and my producer Megan Burtt was like, 'Sure, I can do that.' The producer is very important, and on a lot of records, the producer is the sound. On my records it is usually collaborative because I need to have my hand in every part of it, but on this record, I let the musicians do whatever they wanted to do. If you include the BEGGARS EP, we tracked and made the fourteen songs at the same time that I was touring with my other project Side Pony. I would come off the road, get the band together and track the new songs that I had written. It reached the point where we had to figure out what songs to put on the record and which ones to leave off. The first song that we recorded was Amarillo and Little Rock, which ended up on the BEGGARS EP, and if we had recorded that song last, the new album would have sounded much different. The songs on the new album, Love Addict and Jesus is My Lover, which are very different to the first songs we recorded for the album, for me, have more of a confidence about them and maybe for the next record I might lean back a little bit.
If I were to ask you to name other artists similar to yourself, who might you name?
I don't know; I often think I don't sound like anyone else; maybe I'm too close to it. I probably sound like I'm giving myself a real high, but if you like Jason Isbell's type of songwriting, you might like my writing, complex and emotional stuff. If you also like tongue in cheek writing, you might like my thing, but my sound, I don't know. If you like Kristina Murray's new record, you might like mine because we have the same producer and are similar songwriters, though Kristina is more of a traditional country songwriter. Also, if you like Kiely Connell, you'll probably like my stuff; it's like a 'birds of a feather thing,' who am I hanging out with right now?
Is it an advantage or disadvantage being difficult to categorise?
I think people have a hard time wrapping their heads around me. 'We don't really know what you are doing,' I often hear that. That is probably because I'm not just one thing, I think I am pretty dynamic as a human being. I'll go into a prison and take in a songwriting programme, the Lord's work, and then I'll write a song called Jesus Is My Lover and make candles with Jesus' head and the song title on them that no one will buy. People probably can't decide if I'm serious or not or if I take myself seriously.
Where was the album recorded?
In Misa Arriaga’s Music City Studio B. It is called that because Misa and Ryan Anderson Keith had a studio called Music City Studio A. During the pandemic, they shut down the space, moved all the equipment into Misa's house, and ended up setting up the studio there. Every room in the house is used, there is no isolation booth, and there is something very organic about how he records. He is one of the last purists and has changed my sound. I'm less 'coming at you' and 'drilling this into you,' I've pulled back on that, and my sound is more honest right now.
Did Misa arrange the musicians to play on the tracks?
Yes. When you work with Misa, he will want to use his guys. I remember him telling me that a well-known Nashville-based artist asked him to produce her record. She wanted to use her own band, and he told her that she would not get what she wanted from him doing it that way. Misa's guys are so good we got most of the recordings on the first or second trackings.
I expect that the track Jesus Is My Lover has raised a few eyebrows. It's not likely to be played on country music radio.
None of my songs are, but that song is actually being played on WMOT. There is no cursing in it; I tell people it's a church song; you could probably play it on Christian Radio (laughs).
The title track, Love Addict, certainly won't get radio airplay. It's a shame because the melody is addictive and tells a great story.
I have been asked for a radio edit of that song several times, but I just couldn't do it. How can I make a radio edit out of that song? Even if I did, I would never get Misa to do it.
My Own Company is a co-write with Kiely Connell and was the title of her last album. I detect similarities between your writing and hers.
I met Kiely when I first got to Nashville at a songwriter's hang, and we instantly hit it off. I am drawn to people who are really good singers, and Kiely's talent, like Alice Wallace, is undeniable. She can write, sing and play, and the first time I asked her to co-write, she said 'no,' because she doesn't do a lot of co-writing. We wrote another song called My Irish Goodbye, which I will probably put on my next record.
Are you personally comfortable co-writing?
I'm ok with them. They help me to be less precious about my writing because the other person is likely to come up with something that you don't agree with, and the chances are I'm just going to let it be there rather than fight. It's not that I'm giving up; it's more about 'maybe I'm wrong.'
You also included classic country songs like I'm Losing You and Let It Hurt Some on the record.
Let It Hurt Some is the first country song that I wrote. At that time, I had a house in Hermitage that I was selling, and because Alice (Wallace) and I were touring so much with Side Pony, I didn't have anywhere to live. When I'd come off the road, I'd move into Misa's house because I knew that I could expedite what we were creating by doing that. I would stay up until five or six in the morning, getting this classic country music education I had missed before. I had the Hank Williams thing, but for me growing up, I was listening to The Judds, Alabama and Hank Jr. at that time. I then got into the alt-country thing and needed to go back to what influenced that music and learn about traditional country music. I had previously listened to all the Connie Smith albums on vinyl, but when I listened to them at that time, I didn't feel anything. The thing about traditional country music is if you go back and really listen, the reason why it can just wash over you is that it is so simple. But if you actually listen carefully to the words on, say, Willie Nelson songs, they are so deep and concentrated, every song has a modulation, they really hit you. I then started listening to the great country singers like Dawn Sears and early Lee Ann Womack records and wanted to write a country song.
There is a lot of reality alongside the humour in the song Dr.Dealer.
Yes, because I'm on all these pharmaceutical meds to straighten my mind out, and I can't get off them. I probably could get off them if I were to go to a rehab, where they would teach me to do some cognitive behaviour therapy.
Are you writing songs primarily for yourself?
I really appreciate how you worded that question. All of my songs, every single one of them, are about something that I am trying to figure out for myself, like some puzzle. The writing of the song clarifies what that is, and once I've done that, I can decide if I want to be entirely truthful about it or if I want to augment the story.
Interview by Declan Culliton. Photograph by Stacie Huckeba