October is a busy month for Texan Pug Johnson. With the release of his third album FROM A BEAUMONT BAR due at the end of this week, Pug has also been invited to perform in Nashville as a semi-finalist in the American Songwriters Road Ready Talent Competition, with the winner pocketing a not insignificant $20,000. It’s a testament to an artist who has steadily raised his profile in country music circles over the past few years. We spoke with Pug about the new album, his most traditional to date, and rooted firmly in his hometown of Beaumont, Texas.
Before we chat about the new album, tell me about the American Songwriters Road Ready Talent Competition that I understand you'll be performing soon at the 3rd and Lindsley in Nashville?
Yeah, so my wife Mindy signed me up for that. I had no idea until one morning I woke up to an email saying I was a semi-finalist, and I asked Mindy, "Hey, did you sign me up for some type of competition?” She said, "Yes, I did. I said, "Well, I think we're doing all right. So, yeah, now we got to go to Nashville and play a show.”
What was the criteria for entry to the competition?
Mindy submitted two songs, Rancho and Believer, and I'm not sure which one actually got us through. So, when we go and play the show, I'll play both of them. I think we get a full 30 minutes to play. I’ll have two of the guys who played on the new album with me, and I'll have a couple of guys based out of Nashville.
FROM A BEAUMONT BAR is traditional country through and through. Was it your intention, as a one-off album, to go down that road, or is that where you see yourself going forward?
That is a good question. I've always considered everything that I was doing to be country at heart. But yeah, this one I feel like we've tapped into something more traditional, but with the amount of the accordion in there, I think it gives it something different. You know, it's got that Beaumont flair, its own kind of blend of people and culture from Beaumont, and I think you hear that on the record.
Does the title refer to one bar in Beaumont, or multiple bars there?
It's about multiple bars that were all concentrated at the intersection of Dallas and Phelan. You had Thirsty's on one corner, and John Wayne's, Bar Local, and The West on the other corner. Sadly, two or three of those are gone now. So, it’s kind of a snapshot in time when I was more of a hellion than I am now. Mindy won't tolerate me being a hellion these days.
As you prepared to write the new record, were there particular albums that served as benchmarks and influenced the direction lyrically and musically?
Yes, I'm pretty late to the Jerry Lee game, and I never dug into his country albums until recently. Wonderful albums, one killer country track right after the next, including his renditions of hits by other artists. I wanted to try to make something that kind of sat between one of those '70s Jerry Lee albums and, like, a 1980s Merle Haggard and then just throw in the accordion, a little bit of fiddle, pedal steel, and keys, and make it boogie.
Did you have the songs written before you brought them into the studio with the melody in mind, or did the melody develop during the recording?
The melody was definitely there, but certain hooks and lead lines were also made up on the spot in the studio, and that's the benefit of working with, you know, killer players.
Where did you record, and over what period of time?
We had four days with the full band in Fischer Studios at first, and then I wound up having probably another four days separately, just me and Ryan (Johnson) in the studio, and that was done down in Beaumont.
Were you working with your regular band members or guest players?
Quite a bit of both. Yeah, I had my drummer (Kristopher Schoen) and my lead player (Jonathan Matthews); they've been with me for quite a while. The bass player (Jimmy Hartman) had just started working with us, and then Caleb (Melo) and Jan (Flemming) came in on pedal steel and keys. They both played on my last album, too.
The album has fifteen tracks, including a number of short intros. Where did the idea for those come from?
I wanted to do something kind of like Willie (Nelson’s) PHASES AND STAGES album, where he had interludes something that would kind of kind of help to make the album a little more cohesive. We wound up capturing a little bit of a jam that the guys were doing while they were waiting on me and Jonathan to get back from a smoke. We walked in, and they were already just kind of grooving. I came back in the next day and told Ryan that I wanted to do that again, and that way we'll have we'll have some options that we can chop up and use as stop-offs at the Beaumont bars, going through the album.
Relationships and bars are at the cornerstone of country music, and certainly the album taps into that on every track. Are the songs born out of real-life observations or fictional?
You know, a bit of both. That's what Rodney Crowell says about Texas writers: we are the best liars. I think the reason is that we're able to embellish the truth so well. So, I would typically be pulling from some aspect of a breakup or a failed relationship that I had gone through and allowing myself to make it bigger and grander.
The album opens with Bubbles in Your Beer, a cover previously recorded by Bob Wills. Was that selection intended to set the scene for what was to follow?
Right about the time I wrote the song Tucson, I was looking for a cover, something kind of a standard, to change the groove up a bit. Willie's version of that song, which is pretty close to the Bob Wills’. It's still in that old-school Texas swing vein, and I thought, ‘that's the one,’ and let's make this thing swampy and a sleazy opening song on the album.
The Jerry Lee connection you mentioned earlier surfaces in The Closest Thing To You, which he also covered.
Yes, sir. And it was written by Bob McDill, who, like me, is a Beaumont boy as well.
You haven’t abandoned your playful sense either with Shuckin’ and Jivin.’ Is that a Beaumont expression?
I don't really know where I got that. It's just kind of something I touched on in a way of trying to express that idea. You know that somebody's been playing around in your bedroom, and that's what came out, and so I ran with it. It was kind of ridiculous; I wasn't sure I could even get away with the terminology I was using. I think I just went for broke with the rest of the lyrics and said, "Well, hell, you know, we're just going to throw all the rules out.
You finish the album with Lowering The Bar about an unsavoury type of character whom we’ve all encountered at some stage.
When we started off that song, my co-writer and I came up with that line. I was thinking about a guy who was bumming everybody out at the bar, and my co-writer came up with the idea to make it about lowering a standard.
How does your wife, Mindy, feel about your recent obsession with relationship breakups? Does it concern her?
No, she was just glad for me to actually put a group of songs together so that we had an album to make.
Have you had the opportunity to play the new songs on the road?
Yes, sir. Quite a bit now. I actually got to play the song Tucson in Tucson, and it was a hit. And in Fort Worth, we played most of this new album straight through, and the dance floor was full the entire time. So that's a good sign to me.
Is your normal stage format now with a band, or are you doing solo gigs too?
It's still a mix. Mostly when I've got the band, we're just a four-piece. Every once in a while, I'll be able to bring some keys or a pedal steel in.
When you're writing songs, do you keep in mind that you'll want to be able to perform them solo as well as with a band?
Yes, I need to be able to go out by myself at any given point and still be able to get this thing across by myself and have some impact. I've made that mistake before, but I've gotten a little more experienced figuring out a way to make it still work without the bass and the drums and everything else.
Three albums in now, and with the support of Thirty Tigers, is the industry getting any easier for you?
I'd say it ‘slowly getting easier, because there are different parts of the hustle that Mindy and I don't have to do now. We're still in that slow build phase. For the past couple of years, we were with a talent agency and playing great gigs, but they were kind of spread out, so we didn't really build our market here in Texas. So now that's what we're that's what we're trying to do, focus a little more is focus on Texas.
Interview by Declan Culliton. Photography by Ingrid Fortenberry