Angela Backstrom Interview

It’s anything but easy for emerging artists attempting to create a fan base, get their music on Independent Radio Stations and create a platform whereby they can survive in an over-populated industry. For many their budget does not stretch to being in a position to hire PR agencies to promote them and their music, often resulting in their talents sinking without trace. For those who can scrape together the finances to engage that vital support, the dilemma they face is to track down the right people that will put their shoulders to the wheel and justify that hard-earned investment.

US-based Angela Backstrom Promotions certainly appear to fit that bill. Over a short number of years Angela has become very much the ‘go to’ person for emerging acts seeking to get their music on radio and their profiles expanded. Her current list of clients includes the crème de la crème of Americana – Jaime Wyatt, Jesse Daniel, Charley Crockett, Western Centuries, American Aquarium, Joshua Ray Walker and Whitney Rose among them.

Many of the album reviews at Lonesome Highway and tracks that feature on our weekly Radio Show on 103.2 Dublin City FM, come courtesy of Angela Backstrom Promotions. We can certainly vouch for Angela’s professionalism, enthusiasm and faultless efficiency in our ongoing dealings with her. She set aside the time to chat with us recently and, as you will gather, she has no intention of allowing the current pandemic to dampen her spirits or those of the musicians she supports.

Had you worked in PR or Radio in Australia prior to moving to the U.S.A?

Many, many years ago I helped out on a friend’s weekly show on PBS Radio back in Melbourne, Australia. So I had a few years being around the DJ world and seeing what goes into the programming side. I always enjoyed being behind the scenes and I really love local community radio.

Was country/roots your music of choice growing up?

My grandmother was a big country music fan so a lot of Dolly and Merle in my early days.  Mostly growing up in the 90s back in Melbourne I was listening to an array of genres. High school was all about grunge and then being an angsty teenager, I headed to the punk and goth scenes. In my 20s I found Britpop, Northern Soul and Jump Blues and during that period delved into the Alt Country and Rockabilly world.

Can you recall the first country song that turned your head?

Dolly Parton - Coat of Many Colours. I still get emotional hearing that song.  It’s just so easy to connect too.

Your interest in country goes way beyond the music. The fashion side of the genre is also very close to your heart. Did the music or the style come first?

I’ve always been obsessed with fashion. I used to work as a stylist for a few years for a photography studio with some of the most incredible photographers in Melbourne. I was lucky enough to use my own wardrobe for many editorial photo shoots. Later I worked as a buyer for a ladies’ clothing label so was able to create the feel and look of the brand.  Back then we would travel internationally to see the latest styles and know what we needed to do back in Australia. Fashion was always my first love. Before my husband Al and I moved to the USA back in 2010 I had emailed a few Etsy designers that were making western clothing. I was lucky enough that one of them got back to me on making my first custom western suit.

That was Jerry Lee Atwood (Union Western) he makes all the Post Malone suits and I’m sure you have seen Orville Peck in one of his creations last Americana Fest.  Then the first place Al and I relocated to in 2013 was in Bloomington, Indiana and that is close to where Jerry lives so I got first-hand experience with him learning about the art of Chainstitch. Such a great experience. My collection has become a little insane over the years. I am always trying to collect pieces from the designers that dressed the Country Music stars in the day.

You hosted a weekly radio show from Bloomington when you were living in that city. How did you manage to get that radio show a Saturday morning prime time slot?

I had a meeting with Jim Manion the Music Director/Founder at WFHB when I was helping put on a live Americana Music Series with a friend. We wanted to buy some underwriting with the station to get the word out about the music we were hosting – Zoe Muth, Otis Gibbs. That same day after the meeting Jim emailed me and asked me if I was interested in a show. They had a spot. And Hell, I was in America as if I was going to say No. It was Saturday mornings 8-10 am, bi-weekly and later weekly: an all free form, alt.country show - Sweetheart of the Radio was born!

Were you also doing PR work at that time?

No. After I got my USA work permit, I decided that Radio Promotion would be something I would enjoy doing. So, I moved out from behind the mic and on to the telephone. I have over 20+ years in sales experience so it was fun to use that experience on a job that I knew would be really rewarding. Talking about music and artists all day is easily my dream job.

Who were the first acts you represented? 

My first two artists were Jason Wilber and Austin Lucas. Both based in Bloomington IN and great friends of ours. Jason really helped launch my business as he was a huge help in getting the artist side across to me. He helped me with my research, my very first mailing and telephone lists. Jason Wilber was playing guitar with John Prine and he had so much experience in this world. That was really the start of it all. Austin Lucas, a very dear friend, helped me to start working with Last Chance Records who were one of the first labels to take a chance working with me. I feel very fortunate to have formed those early friendships.

Your current clients are the cream of both the emerging and more established Americana acts. Do you identify and canvas acts for work or do they come to you?

I used to do more of the A & R work early days but now I have enough referrals that I try to mostly just work with repeat clients and their friends that they send to me. I’m lucky enough to consider most everyone I work with to be a friend. The interesting part is the bands I used to play on my old radio show before I became a promoter are all mostly my clients now. Feels like a full circle. And it feels honest because my old show used to be about finding those artists that not everyone knew about but were so absolutely worthy of airplay.  My business was always founded on these artists and how could I help them. The chart game is important, but I always firmly believe in the long game. The more I work with an artist to radio the better it gets. Sometimes we have early success but sometimes it takes two to three records. I also believe in not sugar coating anything. I think being realistic is the only way to earn trust.

What process do you go through before signing an act?

The Artist or Label will send me a Soundcloud. If I like the music, we will have a call and discuss details. The artist might be interviewing several promoters. Generally, it’s all about finding a publicist for print and radio that you know will fight for your project. I’m also working with so many more women these days and on many all women teams. And it’s cool. I really enjoy that many women are trying to lift other women up also. It’s long overdue.

What do you find to be the most difficult aspects of getting their music radio airplay?

Competition is hard. The more established acts will generally be added to radio faster that a new act. It’s incredibly hard to break an artist to radio without a big team. It can be done but it’s in no way easy. Over the years most of the DJs and Music Directors see what kind of projects I work and know that I only work quality records that are important to me. I book out generally (before Covid-19) five to six months in advance. Times are very different now for my music friends on when to release music. The pandemic also spun radio in many directions.  My artists lost the ability to do the usual radio tours so every week I try to schedule zoom/phone interviews/DJ guest spots - any new ways to connect.  Many people don’t realise the size of teams working on projects. It’s important to be realistic with your target, especially for a new artist to the genre.

Do you set yourself specific targets with each individual act?

Target is always airplay and interviews.  With repeat clients we are always trying to beat the last result. Some clients will express chart goals. But it really is up to the radio stations to love the music. I can get the record listened to and to the top of the listening stack, but the artist/ music must win each station over.

What’s a typical Angela Backstrom working day?

Turn on espresso machine, coffee, look at tracking, check emails, look at daily call times, check off contacted stations, count spins, breakfast, make calls, send emails, load up singles, work on postage list, listen to radio stations, text folks, client calls, listen to new music, more emails, tracking spins, tracking reports, lunch, Really the paperwork is endless … The only break we get is December when the chart closes for three weeks.  It really never stops.  January can be a little quiet but otherwise it’s go, go, go.

Given the present pandemic and the uncertainty of many venues opening their doors for live music in the near future, do you foresee many of the lesser established artists leaving the industry or settling for part-time musical careers?

None of my folks will give up … I feel like I have chosen most of my folks because of how much they want it. The music industry will continue to pivot. We are all trying to find our feet still.  Every week there’s something new to deal with. 2020 has been such a tough time on the business I love. 

Final questions. What artist past or present would you most like to meet?

Dolly Parton: total badass and the best in the business. Respect for life.

And what fashion piece would you most like to get your hands on?

I don’t have a Nudie Suit… That’s on my bucket list.

Interview by Declan Culliton

Prinz Grizzley (Chris Comper) Interview

Chris Comper - the fine musician using the pseudonym Prinz Grizzley - resides in the Bregenz Forest area of Voralberg in Austria. Lonesome Highway caught up with him to discuss his recently released album as well as his thoughts on getting back on the road, both in Austria and further afield, in these unsettling times.

His second solo album is titled TO MY GREEN MOUNTAINS HOME, which we have recently reviewed and it follows his well-received 2017 recording COME ON IN. With the new album completed and ready for release, like many other artists, he was faced with the dilemma of sitting on it for a while to await easing of Covid-19 pandemic restrictions giving him the option to tour in support of the album.  

‘Yeah, I really was thinking about that option. But then I heard of so many artists delaying their releases that I thought I had better stick to my plan. There’s so much music out there anyway and if all the better known artists release new music around the same time, you can be sure to get swallowed in the masses. I took the risk of the release in favour of maybe getting heard right now. I will live with the disadvantage of not selling any of it at live shows. You can’t have everything.’

Chris is pragmatic on the effect the pandemic has had on both his work schedule and the manner in which the Government has dealt with the virus in Austria.

‘Apart from not being able to play live shows, it has not had too dramatic an effect for me. Me and my wife just got another baby in March, so we can´t complain about having too much time on our hands. I think our Government is doing a good job: they acted early enough and avoided many deaths through that. I think it is time to swing back to normal life now, step away from the panic and start to analyse these events and learn our lessons from it. Right now, we do have to wear masks in shops and public transportation, but there´s an end in sight on that too. We are allowed to have events with 250 people from July on, but with very strict rules.’

The opportunity to perform locally may indeed unfold, but the option to travel further afield with his band The Beargaroos, remains uncertain.

‘To be honest, I really don’t know if there will be any touring this year. I will focus on getting some weekend shows in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, as I don’t know yet whether travelling to other European countries will be an option. I haven´t tried too hard yet to reach out to venues either, because everything is still a bit uncertain. A few shows that I would have had in spring are now delayed until Autumn. I hope the venues and agents don’t face bankruptcy We will see how many venues still exist come September.’

His latest album is a combination of some material that was written for his debut solo album, together with some more recent compositions. Interestingly, the motivation for some of the tracks emanated from preparations for his first appearances at the Kilkenny Roots Festival in 2017. With the opportunity to perform on no less than six occasions with his band over the weekend at the festival, Chris wanted to make certain that he had ample material to draw on.

‘I wrote three or four songs from the latest album in early 2017. I had just got booked to play Kilkenny Roots Festival for the first time and the organiser John Cleere asked for a 90-minute set which I had, but I was missing some faster songs. So, I wrote Longing for a Fire, Drifting (the old version) and I think Meet Me at the Pines especially for this Kilkenny set. And they have stuck in the set list since then. I guess, sometimes all it needs is half an hour and a bit of pressure to write. The other songs came out of a pool of around 60-plus songs I wrote after or around COME ON IN was released.’

The new album was produced by Beau Bedford, who has an impressive list of employers to his name in recent years, both as a producer and session player. He’s worked with country outlaw extrovert Paul Cauthen, Texas Gentlemen and Jonathan Tyler to name but a few and his engagement with Chris came about quite fortuitously. 

‘Imagine, you are an artist coming from Austria, you have just released an album, then you get to play the Americana U.K. in London. You go for dinner and by chance you sit next to who you think is only the keyboarder of a really awesome band.  You get talking, he´s a really nice guy, and you share contact details. Then just before you leave for SXSW, your pedal steel player tells you he looked that guy up, then tells you that he is  Beau Bedford who has not only played on that Texas Gentlemen record, but has produced it as well as another record you really dig, sound and song wise, by Paul Cauthen. Then you meet him again in Austin, pass him a demo, two month later he calls you to say he´s in. I mean, that is unreal isn´t it? What was the question again? But what really influenced my decision was, I was a big fan of his productions, before I even knew he produced them.’

Chris invited Bedford to Austria to oversee the recording at Nautilus Studios in Dornbirn, rather than travelling to the USA to record the album.

‘Yes, that´s right, he came over to record with me here in Austria. We chose to do so because I wanted to have my steady backing band "The Beargaroos" play on the songs. We had already played a bunch of the songs live that then ended up on the album. I didn´t want to rob my gang of the fruits of their hard work and let someone else play their parts. The last three years they have travelled with me through highs and lows and supported me where they could. I couldn´t have asked for a better band, thanks guys, I love you all.

‘I think for Beau it was a great experience, too. By coming over he could see and breath what inspires so much of my music. We hiked a bit in the mountains, he looked out the same window as I did when I wrote those songs, got to know my family, and so on. I guess through knowing all that, it was so easy to work on the recording with him. We had a great time in these Austrian mountains.’

The material deals with a range of issues, but the sanctuary of home is visited on a number of occasions, which is obviously very close to Chris’ heart. The prospect of travelling and touring may appear glamorous but a clear message from the album is the importance of having a strong home base to return to.

‘The first time I was seeking for "fame and glory" I was 20 years old. Me and my band mates quit our jobs, bought an old VW van and went straight to London, thinking they were waiting for us over there.  After two months sleeping and living in a tent in Crystal Palace with endless miles of looking for shows and money slowly running out, I had this weird dream. I could clearly see the mountains of home. I started running towards them but they kept being in the distance and I wasn´t able to reach them. I started crying and shouting and felt really desperate. When I woke up, I knew there´s only one place on earth where I will always long to be.’

He closes the album with The Salty Life Of The Ocean, which reinforces this point and also the importance of the sequencing of the songs on the album.

‘For me the sequence of songs is really important, not just on this new album. I don’t want the singles or what I think are the best songs on tracks 1,2,3 or 4. I want the album to work in its whole and people to explore the songs and get soaked in the world I tried to create. I never write a song and then think ‘oh this is a single’. When I write an interesting song, I immediately think of a counterpart to it. I always think in terms of album tracks, rather than singles, I don’t know why.’

COME ON IN included a powerful and personal song titled Walls.  It was composed after Chris had visited his ailing grandfather in the nursing home where he spent his final days, having suffered a number of strokes. He has travelled back a further generation with the song Shovel, the subject matter containing an intriguing narrative.

‘It’s about my great grandfather, some real events, some fiction. The fact is he emigrated from Italy into our region in search for work, like many others. They weren't treated very well. I wouldn't say like slaves, but it was not welcomed when outsiders like him married a woman from these villages and settled down. I owe him a lot as he was brave, left his home behind and started a new life somewhere else. Who knows, without that move I maybe would be a professional soccer player in Italy.’

Equally powerful are the lyrics in Magdalena, which reads like a traditional ‘stand by your man’ country song. However, with that sentiment considered from the male perspective, it takes on a somewhat divergent drift.

‘Magdalena is a dedication to all strong women out there. Women who have been put through a lot by the men by their sides, but stood true to them because they knew it wasn´t all hope lost, sometimes beneath the dirt there lies a diamond. This song was very much inspired by one of my favourite albums by Bob Dylan, DESIRE. And yes, my wife´s name is Magdalena.’

Having recorded indie rock albums in a previous life, his two solo recordings are very much in the roots music category. I wondered if he had found his musical home yet, or was he still in transition?

‘What I like most about the music direction I am on now is that it is about the song. This Americana genre is so awesome. On an album you can put a blues song next to a country song, followed by a soulful rocker and nobody gets hurt. There's so much diversity. For me that means total freedom. Hell yes, I feel at home.’

He mentioned the musicians and bands that gradually drew him away from indie and towards a more roots-based sound.

‘I have been listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival since I was a young kid and I always loved their roots orientated sound, still do. I think to get where I am now was kind of a process. I listened to Ryan Adams since his debut, then around 2004 a friend introduced me to John Hiatt with the great album CROSSING MUDDY WATERS. When I lived in London for the second time in 2006, I discovered the Delta Blues with the likes of Robert Johnson, Bukka White, Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf. All this roots music was in the back of my mind and slowly but surely making its way through into my song writing. For example, I wrote I Can See Darkness for what would be the last album of my band, but it didn´t fit the other songs. When the band broke up I wasn´t too sure where I wanted to go sound wise. Just then I discovered Daniel Romano (genius) and it clicked.  The music I had been listening for years broke through and I started writing what would become my debut solo album.’

 Never afraid to pull his sleeves up and continue on his musical voyage, an invitation followed to showcase at Americana Fest in Nashville in 2018. The opportunity provided the prospect to both establish a wider fanbase and make useful contacts and connections.

‘It was a really great experience to even be involved in the festival. Nobody is waiting on you and there is a lot competition there, but if you don’t visit the wolves cave, you can’t make progress in howling.’

We’ve all had a wakeup call by recent events and are essentially living through historical times both politically and environmentally. Signing off, Chris articulated his hopes for 2021 and beyond.

‘This may sound like a "Miss Universe" thank you speech, but I wish mankind the wisdom to learn from all these events, finally. Show respect to the human being next to you and to nature. Through this shut-down nature could take a deep breath. We all should be aware to not use the car every time, or to avoid taking the plane for just a weekend trip, which could add a lot to the health of our environment.’

Interview by Declan Culliton

For over two decades, Paul Burch's unique interpretation of American rhythms and roots music has attracted fans and collaborators from both the punk to honky tonk fraternity. Burch’s latest album LIGHT SENSITIVE has recently been released on Plowboy Records. It features a dozen parables about living in the modern south. Lonesome Highway recently caught up with him to discuss that album, his career and his thoughts on being a musician and living in these strange and straitened times.

Looking over your career is it panning out pretty much how you thought it would? 

I never thought very far ahead so I feel very fortunate.  Like everyone, I often feel like I slip through a door right before it disappears. I always wanted to make records. My parents and their friends brought home new records with a sense of pageantry. A good album was played over and over again. I heard a lot of jazz growing up. Early rock and roll. Jimmy Cliff’s THE HARDER THEY COME and Steve Wonder’s INNERVISIONS were on all the time. I loved John Lee Hooker. And my grandparents had the same love for music. My grandfather loved opera. My grandmother played good boogie woogie piano and loved Count Basie and Sinatra. In the Washington D.C. area where I grew up, there were two record collectors –Dick Spottswood and Joe Boussard—who had radio shows that featured early blues and country 78s. They’d play songs like I Got Your Ice Cold Nu Grape by the Nu Grape Twins and Terraplane Blues by Robert Johnson. Records that were hard to forget. D.C. had a great jazz scene. Flautist Lloyd McNeil had a group that played a lot. Les McCaan was a family friend. Bands like the Nighthawks and Evan Johns and the H Bombs were in town all the time. Even if I was just sleeping in the car outside, I could hear the music.  

I didn’t have any idea what kind of place Nashville was when I came. But I had friends here who told me it would be a good place for me as a songwriter. I knew it was a recording town. But I didn’t want to be famous, I just wanted to be included. The first artists I met were members of Lambchop and Tom House—a fine poet and songwriter. They were just like me: they wanted to make records. They were very supportive of the way I was trying to blend together a lot of different kinds of music. I had no goals to speak of other than to figure out to how to make a good record. We were also punk rock kids. We grew up with the idea that you should own the fruits of your labor. That single mindedness –and the fact that I wanted to be in charge of my work—insulated me from a lot of risky business decisions. So, I feel very lucky for the way things have turned out so far.   

I’m still fascinated that you can record the same people in the same studio a year apart and the two sessions won’t sound anything alike.  I still daydream about music the same way I did when I was a boy. I mediate on sounds. The birds in the daytime. The crickets at night. The sound the trees make in the wind. I will often look at a photograph and imagine the kind of music that might go with it. I can close my eyes and hear the ocean if I need to. Good actors can do that. They store away sensations. In Nashville, where the caliber of musicianship is very high, the very best hear so fast and feel so deeply that you can almost sense electricity coming off them. I think fiddler Billy Contreras is like that. The one time I did a session with bassist Roy Husky Jr., I wasn’t even in control of my hands. He stood just a few feet from me and taught me what to do intuitively. After the session, I sat in my car trying to remember everything I had learned from watching and listening to him. I wondered if musicians who played with Charlie Christian felt like I did. Roy took my breath away. That was my introduction to Nashville. My pal Dennis Crouch makes that impression on me whenever I hear him. I'm a better musician everytime we play. 

Would you have changed anything with hindsight? 

My regrets are pretty small. Today, I wish more people could see us perform. But I know that if I had been on the road more, I might not have had a home to come home to. I was self-aware enough when I started to know that to improve as a writer, I had to have the peace and security that comes with having a home. Having a family matures you. In comparison, I saw friends of mine come home from the road with a hard shell—a kind of meanness—that just wasn’t my style. And it’s also tough to write if you’re worried about the logistics of the road.   

I love to perform. It’s a vital part of good musicianship. But the touring business is a racket and you have to be careful.  A couple weeks at a time is fine. Your voice loosens up and you start to surprise yourself. After three weeks, you get in a groove and every show is in the A-range. But stay out any longer and real life begins to fade away. Your day revolves around the few hours between waking up and soundcheck. You become like a prowling panther circling its pray, saving up your energy for the kill—getting on stage. You lose track of the arc that people live by.  You call home and nothing anyone says makes any sense.  There’s a line in Bob Dylan’s Desolation Row about getting a letter from home: 
“All these people that you mention, Yes, I know them they’re quite lame,  I had to rearrange their faces , And give them all another name”

Part of being a professional is keeping your hand on what’s important. Some cats fall apart in the real world once they’ve had that high that music brings. I would guess that most composers enjoy a balance of both. 

A friend took me to see the Daniel Fish production of Oklahoma last Christmas on Broadway. The show brought us to tears. We were in the lobby afterwards, just trying to wrap our heads around what we had just seen. Within minutes after the curtain came down all the actors came out in their street clothes, walked straight by us, and blended into the Broadway night. If you can do that, you can make it. My career is more like an expedition—trying to find those people who I feel have hidden gifts they don’t see in themselves. I want to create an environment so they can discover what I see in them.  

You were one of the musicians that helped to revitalize the music scene in Lower Broadway in the early 90s. How do you view that area now? 

It might as well be another planet now. But it was a priceless experience back then. Playing downtown sharpened my musicianship and toughened me up. When you do a four-hour show, you discover where your voice can go, how to handle a crowd, how to put together a set list, and lead a band. But those joints were tough. I did all my work at Tootsies and there were two owners at the time. They were suing each other. One time, one of the owners forged the other’s signature to sell the bar. When the other owner found out, he came to our show, got on the plywood stage, shushed us down, held up a shot gun and said into the mic: “Show’s over. Time for you mother fuckers to go home.”  Man, I didn’t even turn off my amp. I just picked it up and walked out the back. I have quite a few live recordings we made back then and they’re strong. We weren’t a great band, but we were different, we loved what we were doing.  

During the day I was meeting musicians who were secret heroes of mine.  My first session was with Vassar Clements. My second was with Owen Bradley at the Bradley Barn. There was a couch in the main studio and Owen sat there with his sailor’s cap and mahogany cane in front of a giant grey book cabinet that held Patsy Cline session tapes. Our steel guitarist Paul Niehaus was warming up. Paul came with me from Lambchop and helped form the WPA Ballclub.  Owen heard Paul and said: “He sounds like Jerry Byrd! He’s using the same inversions.” I thought: “Ok, I better find out what an inversion is.”  

Every studio, even the tiny places, had a multi-track tape machine.  If you knew the engineer, you could sneak into a studio on the weekend with a reel of tape, record all day, and walk home with an album. The older session musicians were absolute gentleman. Whatever you had in your pocket, they would help you out if you had your act together.  We just cut a session with Charlie McCoy who played on Oh Pretty Woman and BLONDE ON BLONDE and Simon & Garfunkel’s The Boxer. Records that will last forever. Before we ever played a note, we talked for an hour about his life and how he got started. How he used to hide his Little Walter records from his Mom and Dad. But once the red light was on, he was switch blade serious. And everything he did was dynamite. 

I believe you knew and played with Bucky Baxter who recently passed away? 

I did. Bucky had just left Bob Dylan when we met him. He used to sit in on steel with us at Tootsie’s. Bucky played a 6-string with Bob, but Niehaus played an 8-string. When Bucky came up to play, he took the two “extra” strings off, threw them in the crowd, and re-tuned the steel while playing a solo. At the end of the night, Bucky would take us to the Hermitage Café at 2 in the morning and play Dwight Yoakam’s Fast As You over and over again on the jukebox.  He’d tell us crazy stories like after he quit touring with Steve Earle, he flew planes from Central America with Pablo Escobar’s drugs. He’d say: “Dylan would love you guys.  He wants to be a hillbilly singer so bad.”  And sure enough, Bob took BR549 on the road.  Lucinda Williams and John Prine came to our very first gig at Tootsie’s. Raul Malo of the Mavericks came out and gave me and Paul a lot of encouragement.  

There were a lot less people downtown back then…

Oh yes. Downtown was very funky. And during the week it was dead quiet. You could stand on Lower Broadway late at night and hear the creak of the Ernest Tubb Record Store sign as it turned ‘round and ‘round. I felt like ET was looking right at me. “Go home kid!”  I worked for a while stocking records there and found a box of sheet music for Walking the Floor Over You in the basement from 1941. Up the street there was a junk shop on 2nd avenue that had piles of acetates—funerals, sermons, and record booth recordings of fiddle players and carnival barkers who just wanted to hear their voice on vinyl. 

Back then Bill Monroe played every week at a little club outside of town called the Bell Cove.  If he was in a good mood, he’d talk about DeFord Bailey. If he was in a bad mood, he’d pretend he couldn’t hear you. One time he wasn’t feeling well so I got up and sang I’m Blue, I’m Lonesome in B, a pretty high key. He wrote that with Hank. I didn’t think he was listening. But when I came back the next week, I was sitting at a round table and he came from the other side, took my hand and pulled me across the table—he was very strong. “I sure appreciate you helping me out last week, boy. That was mighty fine.”  

I was backstage once at the Opry and his fiddle player was showing off an old Martin D-28 he had just bought. Bill stopped him and said: “Come here boy…that’s Hank Williams’ guitar isn’t it? I’ve been looking for that guitar. I always wondered what happened to it.”  Bill pulled out a piece of paper in his wallet with a serial number in pencil and sure enough, it was the same guitar. Now this was 1994 and Hank had been dead since New Year’s Eve 1952. No one cared about these crazy fellows but for us, they were like the first generation of daredevil pilots. 

There’s no doubt these are strange time for musicians, so how have the changes that have come around in regards to selling albums, performing and keeping your name out there affected you?

Every time I put out a record, the business has changed a little more. When the pandemic begins to fade, there’s going to be a lot of people who won’t come back to the card game. For now, I’m content with trying to make the best records I can and to perform anywhere I’m asked to go. The only complaint I have about Nashville is that musicians get a little overheated about their career and forget that what an audience wants is a great performance. If people are willing to meet you halfway—get a date, go to dinner, pay the door, buy a beer, and take a seat—then you have to make them feel welcome. People assume that if you’re on stage, you want to be there, you’re rehearsed, and you’ve got something to say. So, make them feel good about giving you a chance. Today, the business is like a game of 3-card Monte. The game was never meant to be played fairly. The only way you can win is if you don’t play.  

It’s a good while since you toured in Ireland and Europe. Is that a financial consideration or has they been other reasons why you can’t tour as much as you did?

The only reason I haven’t played overseas in a few years is because the shows haven’t been there. I miss traveling. But I’m philosophical about it. There are many artists I admire who have gone years without a full calendar and all of a sudden, they will be in demand again. Often the smallest changes in your life can make a great difference in how you perform and how you’re perceived. Success is rarely logical or convenient. So, you just have to be ready and be present every day. Which is how you’d want to be anyway.

What decides your choice of direction when you set out to make an album?

Most of the time when I call a session together, I’m not thinking about a new album. What seems to work for me is to first focus on recording three or four new songs that feel good. When I listen back to what we’ve done, the strongest songs will stand out and from there, I’ll try to lean in that direction. If one of the musicians is playing a new instrument, I’ll encourage them to bring it to the session. New sounds will influence how we play off one another.  

Originally, I was hoping the new album, LIGHT SENSITIVE would be built around loops—repeating rhythms and phrases. That’s an idea I’ve had for a long time. But then in the middle of my writing, I was asked to write songs based on Eugene Walter for the Southern Foodways Alliance conference in Oxford, Mississippi.  Eugene was a fascinating character who was a writer, poet, theater director, and cook who wrote about the history of southern food culture. He also lived in Paris and Rome in the 1950s and acted in a few of Fellini’s films. I had lived in Oxford for a short time, so it was a good trip for me. My favorite songs from that project seemed to fall right into the sound I was originally hoping for. In the end, LIGHT SENSITIVE turned out quite rich, like a series of small film scores.  So, to answer your question, I can plan ahead about what I’d like to do, but I don’t really know what will work until I hear the playback. Whatever feels good to me and everyone else usually sets the direction.  

What denotes a WPA Ballclub album from a Paul Burch album?

It’s a bit arbitrary. But the WPAB is with me on everything and they are never anything less than invaluable. Sometimes the artwork just looks better to have the full name on the cover. The new album feels a bit more like a “band” album to me. MERIDIAN RISING required me to play the role of Jimmie Rodgers—or at least be a spokesman for his imaginary journal. The songs were small soliloquies. The words had to push the music. I felt I had to be a little more out front. In contrast, LIGHT SENSITIVE is a bit more modern. And it’s about a region rather than a person. All the rhythms are based on grooves you’d hear in New Orleans or southern Mississippi. The music and the lyrics push and pull together. Jean Garrigue required us to do some careful arranging together compared to –say—Fast Fuse Blues which was pretty much roll tape and play. I love both styles. 

Even when you are recoding under your own name you have a lot of the same musicians working with you. Do you feel most comfortable with these players and do you like to throw in the occasional wild card into the mix?

I put the band together based on musicianship but also around people I like, people who share my outlook about music. The WPAB are all very interesting, uniquely gifted people who could be producers themselves if they chose to be. As a band leader, it’s up to me to provide a place where they can relax and just play out. Sometimes to make it in Nashville you have to hide away what you love the most. If you get a reputation for just playing R&B, you might not get called to a pop session even though you can play both.  In contrast, I try to focus on what musicians love to do.  For instance, when I was making STILL YOUR MAN, our longtime bassist and co-producer Dennis Crouch had been listening to a lot of Duck Dunn from Booker T & the MGs.  We were working on a song called Lead Me On. I asked Dennis how Duck Dunn would play the melody and he came up with the bass line that starts the song. That’s my favourite part of the tune now. Fats Kaplin and I have also played together for 25 years. During the pandemic crisis he’s been playing a lot of Hawaiian steel guitar so I invited him to work on some Sol Hoopi classics we can record with ukulele—for the hell of it. It’s a great sound. Maybe we’ll write something together. So, on one hand they are my band. But I’m also their rhythm guitar player. We make a powerful sound together. And we’re just as surprised at the racket we can make as anybody. As for adding a wild card, I think every band should. Whether it’s Roy Agee from Prince’s band or Charlie, I’m always eager to bring in great people. Someday, all of them are going to show up and there will be 20 people on stage. 

You once said that recoding with Ralph Stanley was a highlight of your career. Can you define what why and what other outstanding memories have there been? 

Recording with Ralph was a wonderful opportunity that came about because Laura Cantrell and I had done a short tour with him. We talked quite a bit about the Stanley Brothers on that trip.  Little Glass of Wine was a favourite of mine and it was the first record he made with his brother Carter. Our session was a nice way to acknowledge that we had become friends. It was a great honor for me, but he treated me like a colleague. He was very prepared—easy going, very focused. From a singer’s point of view, I felt the tone in my voice wasn’t too far off from Carter’s so I gambled we would make a good record. And it worked. He told my wife he thought my tone reminded him of Carter which was very kind of him. It’s a big responsibility to produce Ralph. I wanted people to hear him how he hears himself. He sings mountain music, not bluegrass.

Part of getting better is narrowing the distance between what you hear in your imagination and what you can actually do. When you’re up against someone who sings so beautifully, all you can do is try to be yourself. Singing harmony is fascinating. You’re naturally inclined to find a place where you and the other person can make a unique, third sound.  If you find it, it’s beautiful.  And it only belongs to you and the other singer.  As for other guests, I mostly vibe on it. I’m drawn to people who are unique. I think the first person I admired from afar that we brought in was Ranger Doug of Riders in the Sky. Ranger Doug is a great rhythm guitar player. We play similar roles in our groups. For me, his presence was also special because I knew his musicianship was informed by people he had worked with like Herb Jeffries and the Sons of the Pioneers—both heroes of mine. Everyone I meet has added something to my musicianship. To them it might not have been a big deal but to me, it was impactful.  

You have recorded and been located in Nashville for quite some time. Is that how you prefer to create?  

I’m not sure I’d call it a preference. It’s my home and the world does seem to come to Nashville eventually. There is nothing quite like being in an environment where there are so many good people. But I don’t think I have to be in Nashville to be creative. The city has turned into an outdoor mall with a very large parking lot. The studios—and the musicians—can’t really afford to be here any longer. And neither can the small clubs and bars and funky little shops that a music community thrives on. I think the world crisis will affect the city in ways we can’t see yet. But the diversity is much, much better. Still has a long way to go, though.

You have your own studio. Is that still where you record and tell me a little about why you like it?

I do still use my studio. It’s a funky spot. If you get too loud, the room fights back. But it has a unique presence and a unique sound. And for all its limitations it does accurately represent the band.  If we’re having a good day, it will show up on tape. To some degree, my favourite engineers like Sam Phillips from Sun Records and Tom Dowd from Atlantic were like good cooks. They made use of everything.  You couldn’t record a lot of drums or bass at Sun Records.  But Sam found a way to compensate. A lot of the great records on Atlantic—John Coltrane, Ray Charles—were recorded in an office. At night, they would just push the desks and couches against the wall and set up some mics.  My studio is a bit informal, too. You can get very close together without wearing headphones and just play. That influences our performance quite a bit. As long as I remember to plug the mics in, we can usually make a good sounding record. 

How would you define your own music?

As strange as you might think this answer is, I call it rock and roll. If I’m listening to the Staple Singers, you’ll hear some Pops Staples in my guitar sound. If I’m listening to Leon Russell, I’ll encourage Jen Gunderman or Heather Moulder to lead us on piano. If Fats is playing tenor banjo, I’ll ask him to work it into whatever I’m writing. My favourite artists are stylists who would sing anything they liked. Sam Cooke. Charlie Rich. Ray Charles described himself as a ball player. He can catch. He can throw. He can bat. Chuck Berry played Hawaiian music, blues, rock and roll, and Calypso. I mainly draw my inspiration from rhythm. Playing rhythm guitar or drums is probably the best way I can contribute to a group. I’m happy to sing, but I’m even more inclined to help set the feel. The WPA’s drummer Justin Amaral intuitively plays what I would want to play so I get the best of both worlds. I learn a lot from hearing everyone play their part. 

Where you happy LIGHT SENSITIVE in all its facets?

I am, thank you. I thought the band played beautifully and some of the songs I think are among the best sessions we’ve ever had. Dennis Crouch and I worked very well together. It was Heather Moulder’s first album and she played wonderful piano. Jen Gunderman became Fats Domino on Boogie Back.  But as with most of our albums, every tune was cut in one or two takes. We have a good time. As Charlie says, when the red light is on, then it’s serious. But in between takes, we’re just trying to figure the tune out. I relish the camaraderie as much as I do the music. Even if I wrote the song, I have to learn it, too. 

What is the future of roots/county music now? Do you think that people are looking for something more authentic?

It wouldn’t surprise me if roots and country music became even harder to pin down as the best musicians start blending different kinds of styles together. I think there’s more appreciation today for the true roots of country music which is—and always has been—the blues.  The record business is a bit of a mess so it wouldn’t hurt if we spend the next year getting acquainted with audiences again before we go back in the studio. I think authenticity is a fool’s errand. What is authenticity? I grew up on a farm and I know what horse manure smells like—as Hank Williams once said—but that doesn’t give me any special credentials to sing country music. I would say I’m a rock and roll singer who loves good country music. But I’m sure what I call “good” might not be the same artists that you like. And that’s the way it should be. 

Your writing often stems from a real situation or place. Do you research a story once you have decided to write a song about it?

Every tune seems to be different. I think when I wrote Gunter Hotel Blues, I had no idea the hotel was haunted or that a famous murder had occurred there in addition to the Robert Johnson sessions. I knew Jimmie Rodgers had kept a room there. Most of the other details were based on just riffs that came into my head. My uncle told me his grandmother, Lena, died in their home when he was a child, so she found her way into the song. 23rd Artillery Punch on the new album was based on Eugene Walter’s drink recipe. I had to add some other ingredients. You wouldn’t normally put avocado in a drink. But I found out that in the deep south, some people call them “alligator pears” and I wanted to have that in the lyric. The best songs seem to come all at once and I barely have time to write them down. If I’m writing about a place or person and I don’t know a specific detail, I will go back and try to find a detail that might fit. When I’m not in the mood to write, I’m always reading or listening to music. Names, places, and odd details find their way into my imagination.  

You mostly write solo but do you enjoy working with other writers?

I love writing with other people but like great friendship, it either blooms or it doesn’t. Writing with a partner requires a love for theatre and for the absurd—for making a show out of nothing. Dennis Crouch and I only recently started writing music together after 25 years playing nose to nose. And we have a great time. Jon Langford and I wrote “Great Chicago Fire” in about 15 minutes—just passing a notebook back and forth. I’d love to write with Amy Rigby or Amy Allison. They are two of the great writers of our day. I love Kevin Gordon and I hope we can write sometime. Friends of mine come up with lines and ideas all the time. There are lots of classics by writers who didn’t think of themselves as writers. Al Bell who ran Stax Records wrote one song—I’ll Take You There—for the Staples Singers. Can you imagine a better song? Having a good experience writing with someone gives you the confidence to put the pen down when you’re stuck. But sometimes you just have to solve it yourself. Every tune is different and seems to have its own code. 

Do you keep notice of your contemporaries and can you recommend any who have made an impact on you?

I have a DJ show on WXNA in Nashville so I get to hear a lot of good new music.  The band Longneck I quite like. Jr. Thomas and the Volcanoes. My neighbors Tommy Womack and Will Kimbrough are making good records. Robyn Hitchcock and Emma Swift live nearby and they’re always making new music. Jessie Antonick recorded my tune “Last of My Kind” and did a beautiful job—lovely voice. My old friend Phil Lee has been working with Crazy Horse. On the big stage, Kendrick Lamar put on one of the best shows I’ve seen in a big arena. I’ve seen Guided by Voices several times and I always hear a 2-minute song that sounds like the best thing I’ve ever heard. Thanks to your introduction, I’ve seen Elvis Costello every time he’s come to town and he’s always taking chances.

Aside from music what other interests do you have? 

I draw quite a bit. My son wants to be a film director, so we are working our way through the Criterion Collection. I’d love to visit Cuba. I’d like to see more of America and write for other artistic mediums like the stage or film. LIGHT SENSITIVE and MERIDIAN RISING gave me the chance to expand my horizons and move a little farther away from familiar sounds.     

What’s next? Are there any musicians and singers who you would like to work with?

I think I’d learn a lot from working with Luther Dickinson. I love his musicianship and we always have a good time together. I’d love to make a record with Booker T. Rhiannon Giddens is wonderful. The composer Paola Prestini—she’s very far out. Sheku Kanneh-Mason, who is a young cellist. I’d love to put Dennis and Christian McBride together on dual upright basses. I recently started an education program called Catfish & Onion with my friend Catie Baumer Schwalb who is a chef and photographer. We want to introduce kids to food and music traditions and show how they are connected.  It’s a combination of history and current events. After making Light Sensitive, I feel the band is entering a new phase—more open, more experimental, more cheeky.  As time goes on, we get closer to “beyond category” as Duke Ellington called his music. That would be a nice place be.

Interview by Stephen Rapid

Interview with Joey Allcorn

Traditional country singer Joel Allcorn was born in 1980. To date he has released three albums and has just releases an EP titled STATE OF HEARTBREAK after a break of 6 years. His debut album was titled 50 YEARS TOO LATE which, in some ways, sums up his ethos. However he, as with any independent artist performing today, has to work within the realities of the current state of music industry. Lonesome Highway recently had the opportunity to ask Allcorn some questions about his life and times.

Can you tell me about your background growing up in Columbus, Georgia, What were your earliest memories?

Mostly just things around the house with my grandparents to be honest. There wasn’t (and still isn’t) much that goes on in Columbus. It’s a big city, the second biggest in Georgia actually, but also a very remote city since there is no interstate that passes through. Some people have called it the worlds largest cul-de-sac and that’s a pretty good way to think of it. You don’t really go there unless you have a specific reason to do so, there isn’t much to do or see.

Was your mother being a Hank Williams Sr. fan something that have left an indelible mark on your consciousness. When did that translate into action and making your own music?

I wouldn’t really say she was a big Hank Williams Sr. fan, she grew up listening to mostly rock and southern rock like KISS and Lynyrd Skynyrd and stuff like that. I think she was just more of a casual Hank Williams fan and for some reason bought a greatest hits CD of his one day and it happened to end up that I was the one listening to it all the time. I first learned to play guitar in a general music class in elementary school and that Christmas my grandmother got me a Harmony guitar from Sears. It sat in my closet for a couple of years until I got that Hank Williams CD and it inspired me to actually want to learn to play and sing and write.

I doubt that hardcore country was the choice of many of your contemporaries when you were growing up. Was it hard to resist following what the majority were listening to?

No, not at all. I’ve never been one to follow the crowd or get into things that happened to be in fashion at the time. I’ve always sort of done my own thing and been sort of an outsider when it comes to stuff like that. I’m still that way today!

Did you have any musical interest outside of traditional country at the time and who in that genre of honky tonk etc were your major influences?

I guess my musical journey began with Jerry Lee Lewis when the Great Balls of Fire movie came out in 1989. Shortly after that I was listening to a lot of Garth Brooks and Alan Jackson, and then a few years later I discovered Hank Williams and that was around the same time bands like BR5-49 and Wayne Hancock were coming out. So as far as country music goes, that was sort of the way it went. But I was also into the alternative rock stuff that was coming out of Seattle in the early 90’s. So really those three genres were my primary influences when I was just getting into any music in general.

You recorded your debut album independently and released it in 2006. It was aptly titled 50 YEARS TOO LATE. You co-produced it in a number of studios between Columbus and Nashville with a group of like minded individuals so was that a difficult thing to do back then and how hard was it to find the right players to achieve what you wanted?

No, I didn’t know what I was doing back then so I’m sure that made it easier! Ignorance is bliss, right? It actually just came together on it’s own time. Some of the tracks were laid down in a local demo studio, then a guy who owned a local club decided to build a legitimate studio and we moved the work to his place. The studio was under construction at the time so we sort of had to work around the construction schedule and had to deal with people learning the equipment and things like that. Then I took it to Nashville to finish up tracking and to mix it. It was about a two year process all said. Some of the musicians we’re guys in my band at the time and they had been playing those songs on the road and the only Nashville studio guys I used on that record we’re for lead parts; Johnny Hiland on guitar, Donnie Herron on fiddle and Andy Gibson on steel.

Three years later you put out the follow up album ALL ALONE AGAIN. That album was special in that you got to work with Hank Williams’ steel player Don Helms. What do you rememberer of those sessions and the reaction to the album on its release?

Working with Don on the road and in the studio will always be the highlight of my career for me. It’s hard to explain what it was like to be on stage and hearing him playing behind me. It was a surreal experience to turn around and watch him play a lead on that same steel guitar he played with Hank Williams and to think how often Hank turned around on stage and did the same thing. When I hear one of my songs that he played on it is still kind of hard to believe I got to record with him and that that same steel guitar that is on Ernest Tubb, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline recordings is on a few of mine as well. After the session I took him back home and paid him and thanked him for the session. He wouldn’t accept the money and told me it felt good to finally play on something again where he felt like he belonged. I’ll never get a compliment any better than that.

Around that time you were pretty much out of step (if you were ever in it) with mainstream country radio and the prevailing idea of what constituted country music. Were they difficult times?

No, I’ve never paid much attention to what was going on in the mainstream. I know that the kind of music I write and record will never be accepted as mainstream country so I just don’t worry about all that stuff. Years ago I went and saw Hank Jr. in concert and he said something that totally changed the way I look at doing music as a career. He said “I play when I want to, where I want to and with who I want to!” I was blown away by that and it totally changed my perception. Music is supposed to be fun and it is a career you can really do whatever you want in, so why not do it that way? It should never feel like you’re punching a clock or in a competition. I just do the parts of it I enjoy and let other people who are chasing fame or fortune worry about all the other stuff. I am in my own little world most of the time.

It was a number of years later (2014) when you put out your next album NOTHING LEFT TO PROVE. This time as streaming was the way that a lot of music was being released you decide to try that instead of producing a physical album. Did this work for you or did it prove a difficult way to sell you album?

At that time I sort of already knew I was going to stop touring and doing music full time. Booking shows was getting consistently more and more difficult and without shows to sell the CD at, I didn’t see much of a need to invest in buying 1000+ copies of something I really had no way to sell other than on the internet. So it was released strictly as a digital album because the writing was on the wall as far as that was becoming the primary way people were going to be hearing new music. But now that I am back as a full time musician again we may finally put it out on CD and or Vinyl if there’s enough interest in it.

Were you gigging around the release of these albums and why did you decide to leave that gap between the second and third albums? 

Mostly due to money. Records are pretty expensive to make and promote so it’s quite an investment and I’m not independently wealthy so I always have to go to friends and fans to fund my records. I’ve never had a record label or a big investor behind what I was doing, just some really good, generous fans that believed in what I was doing and wanted to help me get my music out there. We’ve never been able to afford a real PR campaign or anything for my records, we just kind of send them out there and whatever happens happens. But I’ve been making records for almost 15 years now and people are still buying and playing them, so I see that as a validation that people genuinely like the records I’ve made and that their success is not due to hiring a good publicist or any other means of manufacturing excitement or interest. 

Following on from that why have you now decided to release the STATE OF HEARTBREAK EP?

State of Heartbreak was a song I wrote while I was recording NOTHING LEFT TO PROVE. I was playing the song live and knew it would be a good one that people would like and I was kind of bummed out that I wasn’t going to be able to record it. So I always knew that if I ever did make another record, State Of Heartbreak would be the single and/or title track. But the whole thing came about because a friend of mine turned me on to Patreon (www.pateron.com) and how it worked as far as fans supporting artists to “create” directly. So I started thinking about how that platform could work for a musician and basically came up with the concept that it makes your fan base your record label. In the past, labels would green light budgets for albums based on how many they expected an artist to sell. So in my case, my fanbase will decide how much new music is released. I have it set up so once we reach certain goals, we will do one, two or three EP’s per year as well as vinyl releases. It really just cuts out the middleman and allows me to have that direct relationship with my fans and allows them to play a direct role in my career. I think it’s better that way.

When play was it with band or solo and was that down to the economics of touring?

The industry has changed so much since I first began my career. I sort of got started right at the tail end of a time when it was standard for everyone to tour with a full band and I did that for the first part of my touring career when we mostly played the southeast. I had a five piece band with steel guitar, lead guitar, upright bass and drums. After my first record came out and I started touring nationally in the US, we dropped the steel player due to playing a lot of door deals and to travel lighter and just make it easier as far as finding a place to stay and everything along those lines. I toured like that up until the 2009 economic crash. The price of gasoline shot up and the clubs started paying even less, so that really put a hurting on any national and regional touring. From 2010-2015 I mostly played regional shows and only went outside of the southeast a hand full of times. Then I took a few years off from playing music all together and returned in 2019 to find that most places only want two or three piece bands now and they’re paying about the same as they did in 2010. So yeah, the show you see on the road for any band is usually a result of the economics on the time.

Obviously the Covid -19 situation has added whole new layer to the difficulties and revenue possibilities of all performers with big and small. How have you personally been effected?

It really hasn’t altered much of what Im doing right now. Most of what I do is based online with YouTube, Facebook and Patreon so I’m still able to do all those things as I was before all this happened. If anything, it helped me because it had a whole lot of people spending more time online. As of right now the only shows I’ve been doing have been duo gigs with my guitar player mostly in GA and AL and those have of course not been happening, but other than that it’s pretty much been the same old, same old for me.

You, in the main, write all your own material where do you draw inspiration from to do that?

I try to write from a place of emotion as opposed to telling a story or trying to write deep, complex, thought provoking songs. I’ll leave that to other people. I like to write a song that people can connect with through things they have experienced in life. Pain, love, loss, death, all that sort of stuff and I just write about things I’ve been through, felt or saw happen to people and it’s gotten me this far so I don’t reckon I’ll mess with that formula too much in the future.

Right now there seems to be a growing number or artist going back to a more traditional sound. How hopeful is that, overall, in such a tight-knit scene?

I think there are a lot of bands out there that are called country, but in truth they are acoustic rock bands with a fiddle or steel put in the mix so they can call it country or Americana. I don’t think there are that many people out there that are really doing genuine country music that would have been welcome on the radio or the jukeboxes back in the 50’s and that’s sort of what I use to decide what is or isn’t country music. Of course it’s all subjective and everyone has their own thoughts and opinions on the subject, but that’s how I look at it. If I couldn’t imagine Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb, Merle Haggard or guys like that singing it, then it’s probably not country music.

Do you plan to release a full album in the near future?

The plan is to do two EP’s per year that will be released in limited quantity on CD. Then, those two albums will be combined and released as a full length LP on vinyl. But I will continue released two EP’s per year and then release only singles to streaming services.

What has been the best thing about playing, producing and writing your music?

So many things. I’ve been to so many places and met so many people I never would have if it wasn’t for the music. I’ve worked with and recorded with a lot of the people that played on the records I’ve listened to my whole life. It has really been an honour. I enjoy recording more than any other part of it so producing is something I’ve really grown to love and it’s something I get really deep into the zone with when I’m in the studio. As far as writing goes, I think it’s the best therapy there is to write down your heartache and pain and put it on a record and have other people connect and identify with it. When I started out that was the one goal I had as a writer, to just help someone else get through something the way people like Hank Williams helped me. I hope I’ve been able to do that.

You gave testimony in 2007, you appeared before theUnited States House Committee on Small Business as a record label owner and a performer. What were the effects of that appearance long term to were there any benefits?

It helped a lot of independent radio broadcasters to keep doing what they were doing and you have to remember, this happened back in 2007 before there was any streaming or iTunes or anything of that nature. Back then, internet radio was really the only way people could discover independent artists music outside of the few terrestrial radio stations that would play it. Today, it wouldn’t be as big of a deal because you have Spotify and all these things, but it was something I was happy to do and something I am proud to have been a part of. It’s not every day a hillbilly singer gets to testify before members of the United States Congress!

Looking back on you career would you have done anything different?

I wouldn’t have done anything different, only smarter. I really didn’t have anyone around me that knew how to go about putting a career together, I just had to learn and figure it all out on my own. I was fortunate enough to be around people that knew things and offered their advice, some of it was good, some of it was bad, but that’s just how it goes. I am very satisfied with what I’ve done in my career and that that’s how I was able to step away from it for a few years and try something else for a while. If I had to walk away from it again, I wouldn’t have any regrets or feel like I missed out on anything. I’ve been very fortunate to do a lot of the things I have had the opportunity to do.

What other possible upcoming plans are there for Joey Allcorn? 

You never know, but that’s what makes it interesting! I don’t have anything specific planned other than to continue recording albums and releasing them as previously mentioned.

Finally are they any artists out there right now who have impressed you?

I’ve been a huge fan of Hot Club of Cowtown for many years. I think they’re phenomenal musicians and entertainers. We got to open for them for the first time last year and they were very kind and friendly people as well. I’ve always been a fan of Dale Watson and Wayne Hancock, they have been in regular rotation for me for many years now and I always listen to their new records. But as far as “newer” artists, I’d have to say Pokey LaFarge. I haven’t met him, but I enjoy his music a lot and I like how most of it harkens back to a 1930’s sort of style, the type of stuff from Jimmie Rodgers’ era. Another one is Jason James from down in Houston, TX. I really like his songwriting and voice. I’ve gotten to know him recently as he is part of our “Live from the Lost Highway” deal on Facebook.

INTERVIEW BY STEPHEN RAPID

Interview with Hollow Hearts

One of the interesting musical happenings of 2019 for Lonesome Highway was discovering Norway’s Hollow Hearts band - special thanks to Somerset musician Jesse Budd (aka Billy Shinbone) for turning us onto them. Plans for a live interview were scuppered when their UK tour booked for June 2020 was, of course, postponed due to Covid19. Undeterred, we conducted a socially (very) distanced interview with Ida Karoline Nordgård - in another instalment of our ongoing exploration of the Nordicana music scene.

In our review of the latest album, PETER, Lonesome Highway waxed lyrical about Hollow Hearts’ ‘distinct signature sound, marked by lushly layered vocals, skilfully wrought catchy melodies and gothic undertones’. Their website describes them as folk/roots/Americana. 

We don’t like to think of our music as a specific genre, Ida Karoline explains. Each one of us has quite different influences from jazz, funk, soul, country, blues, rock and folk. Our common influences are bands like Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, Bigbang (a Norwegian band), Bon Iver, The Band etc.

Their base is Tromsø, a city of over 70,000 located in the far north of Norway. It’s probably musically best known outside of the country as the home of Royksopp and a thriving techno scene. What is the overall music scene like there? 

Tromsø is a very vibrant city, with lots of gigs every week, in many different genres. I guess the most important venue is a club called the Bastard Bar, where we played our debut concert. It’s a very cool place, hosting many both smaller and bigger acts. We also have a lot of nice festivals in town, like Buktafestivalen, Rakettnatt, and Tromsø Jazz Festival, which we are booked to play this August.

Fingers crossed that this will go head as planned.

We wondered how the writing process works in the band? 

Sometimes we all start together, writing from scratch. At other times one of us has an idea and we start from there. Ida Helene is the wordsmith in the band, so she writes the lyrics, but we all contribute to the story-making. It often starts off with basic acoustic instruments and vocals, and from there we work on further production, as a collective. Our main band instruments are vocals, guitars, bass and drums - but we like to experiment with other instruments also, depending on what we want to do with a song.

Even on a brief listen to any Hollow Hearts track, it is clear that the standard of musicianship and production is unusually high. The reasons for this become obvious when the origins of the band are discovered.

Myself (bass), Mikael Pedersen Jacobsen (drums, mandolin) and Christoffer Nicolai Mathisen (pedal steel, guitars) were all in the same degree class in Tromsø Music Conservatory, while the other Ida, Ida Helene Løvheim (guitar, accordion) was a few years behind us. We discovered that we liked each other’s way of playing, and enjoyed each other’s company. After a few beers together, the band was formed!

The band’s songs are all written in English. Why did they decide to do this?

 I think it’s about 50:50 whether bands in Norway chose to write in either our native tongue, or in English. We just did it because we wanted to - it is never our goal to be commercial, but of course it helps when we reach out to audiences outside of our country.

Lyrically, the influence of the sea and the weather are very evident in the songs on the last album, PETER. Does the Norwegian folk tradition influence their work on a conscious level?

Our lyrics and stories are inspired by our way of living in Northern Norway, both modern living and older folk traditions. And the weather ..... there’s just something about all this weather!

We have a lot of old sagas in our region, and one of them - the Saga of Birte & Benjamin - became a song on our 2019 mini album TRAVELLING SONGS.

So it seems that Nordicana, like Americana, has to have a murder ballad (as mentioned above) thrown in there somewhere!

Like most bands the world over, the members combine day jobs as music teachers and record store employees, to enable them to continue to fund their involvement in Hollow Hearts and other music projects. However, they are also fortunate to have a very supportive government when it comes to the Arts, and Arts Council Norway has helped them (and other artists like them)  financially with touring and recording costs.

PETER was a concept album of sorts, the closing chapter of the story of Annabelle and Peter (which started on their 2018 debut album ANNABELLE). So, are there any plans yet for the next album? 

We were almost sad when we finished that chapter, but now we’re keeping our minds open while writing a lot of new songs and we’re planning to get into the studio this autumn.

Apart from their native country, have they played anywhere else?

Last year we went on tour to Germany and Switzerland. It was absolutely amazing. The audiences were great and we got so much love from the promoters and everyone we met.

We’ll be keeping an eye out for our first opportunity to catch Hollow Hearts live. We suspect they will live up to their reputation for exciting stage shows. Come to think of it ... who’s up for a trip to Norway once travel restrictions allow?

Interview by Eilís Boland

Pete Gow – The Second Coming

London-based Pete Gow released his solo album HERE THERE’S NO SIRENS in April 2019. Produced by Joe Bennett (St. Etienne, Dreaming Spires), it was quite a departure from his signature sound with highly regarded UK Americana band Case Hardin, who recorded four albums between 2011 and 2016. The addition of orchestration on the tracks propel the sound to an altogether higher level. It was a brave move that has paid off deservedly and spectacularly. Recording the album at that point of his career might have seemed like a musical suicide mission, departing from his core sound. 

‘To a certain extent each new record is a potential musical suicide mission. Within the tiny orbit of Case Hardin, if you loved our album ‘PM’, there’s a chance you wouldn’t get along with COLOURS SIMPLE but that is where you have to sit back and trust your audience. By the same token, every time you write a song, it’s a personal exorcism of sorts.’

The album has been particularly well received but I get the impression that it has not reached anything like the audience that will eventually cherish it. 

‘Well, a ‘slow- burn future classic’ status would certainly be nice, but yes, we are more than happy with the audience who are cherishing it right now. It makes our job so much harder next time around, but that’s a fantastic problem to have. None of this would have been possible without the unswerving support we have received from Clubhouse Records, who I have been with since the second Case Hardin record, Del Day from Ark PR and more recently SRD.’

Recorded swiftly under producer Joe Bennett’s trusted eyes and ears, the notion of populating the songs with strings was Gow’s intention from the outset. 

‘Yes. The idea came from the very first phone call and it was the main reason I chose to call Joe; I knew he could bring that skill-set to the project. The four songs I already had were written for a Case Hardin album that never happened, so internally I was hearing them one way and then got really excited about the potential once Joe got to work. The remaining tracks were all written once Joe had signed up, so I could really work on giving him a platform. Album opener One Last One- Night Stand is a perfect example of this... that big instrumental section in the middle was written very specifically to give Joe room to roam … similarly the outro to Pretty Blue Flower. That song was written before the sessions, but the final section was written in the studio, knowing it would close out the record.’ 

The album was mastered by Tony Poole who has previously worked with Steeleye Span, Maddy Prior, The Men They Couldn’t Hang, Pentangle and Danny & The Champions Of The World. Poole was also a founding member of the 1970’s rock band Starry Eyed And Laughing and more recently joined forces with Danny Wilson and Robin Bennett to form Bennett, Wilson, Poole. 

‘Tony most definitely added to the final product. Mastering is the final layer of polish on any track and helps pull out those tiny musical nuances, especially with complex string arrangements. Tony masters pretty much all the albums Joe produces, so there is an intrinsic understanding between them as to what the final product should be.’ 

The songs that make up the album were written with this venture in mind together with some previously written for Case Hardin.

 ‘For this album it was about 50/50 split (a few of the Case Hardin songs went on to our follow up album THE FRAGILE LINE and a couple will even be revisited for the upcoming record that we have just started recording). When I was choosing the songs for the Sirens recording sessions, it wasn’t so much I felt they were better suited to a solo project, it was more picking songs I thought would work for where we hoped to take the production on Sirens. I had, for instance, written a song like Mikaela for the Case Hardin album. I never thought it wouldn’t fit on a band record, but when pulling material for the solo project, it shone out to me as perfect, both in tone and subject matter.’ 

A snippet of The Pogues’ Rainy Night In Soho features at the tail end of the title track. It’s a deeply evocative inclusion possibly mirroring the emotional state of mind of the composer at the time of writing the song.

‘Shane MacGowan has been mirroring any state – emotional, or otherwise - I have found myself in since I first heard RUM, SODOMY & THE LASH in 1985. He is one of a couple of artists that I fully submerged myself in both when I first heard them, then at various points along the way. That kind of obsessive love of a song and its composer felt like the kind of thing the young woman at the centre of my song would feel and link it internally to her own experiences.’

One of the album highlights is the song titled Strip For Me. It was a brave song to write with lyrics that could invite a number of interpretations. I wondered if it was a deliberate challenging the listener given the lyrics. 

‘The challenge for me came in putting it out as a song without caveats, or explainers: there are ways around that. On a record you can go back and listen to the song again and study the lyrics, and in concert you can set the song up before a performance. 

‘When I was pulling it together, I didn’t really see it as a gauntlet being laid down. I wasn’t pushing buttons, or thinking about what kind of a reaction it might generate. Simply because at that stage I wasn’t writing for anyone but me. 

‘Anyone who came to my songs before this album, that kind of approach – taking an ironic distance from a tough subject, or character, that then allows you to write in the first person – is something I have done on a couple of occasions previously as it gives a lyric so much more power, but it also runs the risk of being misunderstood. Again, you have to go with your instinct and trust your audience. There were a couple of additional verses to Strip For Me that would have made the song less ambiguous, but you have to make decisions on making the best possible song you can, and that doesn’t always align itself with fully explaining yourself for the benefit of the listener.’

The album works spectacularly well in the live setting with Pete accompanied by The Siren Strings on stage.  Given the logistics of performing as a nine-piece assembly, they have been astute in their options to tour and perform. 

‘It doesn’t compromise touring options; it redefines what touring looks like. No- one on our circuit is, or really has, toured this kind of show before… it’s special. As we can’t go out and play 75 shows a year with it, the concerts themselves become special. Joe has been very careful as to how we curate the live shows, particularly where we play. So, we have done churches and theatres and resisted the temptation to reduce the numbers on stage, or perform without strings which would undoubtedly mean we get to go out and play more gigs, but at what overall cost?’ 

One of the festivals chosen to perform was The AMA UK Fest in Hackney. The occasion was a delight, goose bumps inducing times. After showcasing your own material, the band launched into a hair-raising delivery of Warren Zevon’s Lawyers, Guns & Money. An inspired set closer, the inclusion of a well-chosen cover version has become part of their setlist.

‘I can’t really recall where the idea of putting a cover into the Siren Strings show originally came from (we performed Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds Into My Arms at the Here There’s No Sirens’ album launch). I’m a huge Zevon fan and each night I hear that riff and counter riff in Lawyers, Guns & Money being performed by the Siren Strings, it sucks the breath out of my chest. I can only imagine what it does to an audience member hearing it for the first time?’ 

The artwork by Veronica Casey on the album is particularly dramatic, capturing the darkness and mystique of the project. It most certainly does the album justice by matching the material with equally striking imagery. 

‘Veronica’s portrait of me was perfect for this project, in every way and its design has been the template for all the promotion, singles artwork etc. so it’s an honour to bring her work to the attention of a new audience, she truly deserves it. This entire project has been put through the filter of making it a separate entity to Case Hardin. Remember, even four months after it came out, Case Hardin was still a going concern, so outside of the actual music there were a couple of more subtle, personal touchstone. No Case Hardin record has, or ever would be, titled after one of the songs on the record and no Case Hardin cover would ever feature the bands image. Like I say, pretty subtle, but it meant a lot to me at the time.’ 

Given the distinctiveness of the album it’s difficult to imagine a HERE THERE’S NO SIRENS Part 2. It’s also a project that is unlikely to be bettered or equalled for that matter. 

‘Within a wider musical and personal context HERE THERE’S NO SIRENS is unique, a one- off venture. The confluence of good luck in bad times, hard work, sadness and fun that pulled the eight songs out of me, through Joe and Farm Music Studios then out onto that album simply can’t be repeated. Why even try? Just move on to trying to find the next bolt of lightning and hope there’s another bottle nearby!’ 

Gow is one of quite a number of UK artists, loosely categorised in the Americana cubbyhole, that hardly receive the exposure and recognition their talents deserve. His previous band Case Hardin alongside Peter Bruntnell, Danny & The Champions Of The World, William The Conqueror, The Hanging Stars, My Darling Clementine, Ags Connolly, Thea Gilmore also come to mind. They share the distinction of artists that would have been household names in the music industry in different times.  

‘Wherever you are in the world there is an attraction to the seemingly foreign and exotic, what Billy Connolly calls ‘windswept & interesting’. Just look at how Brits are treated in the US? Doug Sahm pretty much pretended he was from England (Sir Douglas!!) to give his band an edge in Texas, because he thought it would improve his chances of making it. It took The Rolling Stones to persuade Americans that their blues musicians should be revered and respected.

‘Record companies funded touring for just about everyone in the decades before the 90s. Not many bands, or artists, toward the lower reaches of the food chain, like myself, who didn’t sign up to a crippling deal with a label could afford to do it themselves. Pretty much everyone these days funds their own tours, so for acts like us economics make the kind of relentless touring required to build up a fan base anywhere harder than it used to be. And who can even begin to predict how much more difficult touring will be in a post-Brexit, post COVID-19 world?’

We await with interest the next musical direction and journey that Pete Gow decides to undertake.

‘I was fortunate to be surrounded by music from the very beginning. My Father and my Grandfather on my Mother’s side were both performing musicians in their respective local circuits, around Elgin in Morayshire, where I’m from, so I was exposed to a pretty eclectic catalogue of music before I hit puberty. But my ‘moment’ came around 1983/ 84 when I first heard Dylan’s Desolation Row. It hit me in a way I had not been hit up until that point. I had never picked up a guitar, had no aspiration to write a song, but I knew then – even if I never did pick up that guitar or pen - that music would be the most important thing in my life from that point, and that song still hits me like that every time I hear it.’

Interview by Declan Culliton

A Conversation with Norma MacDonald

Halifax, Nova Scotia resident Norma MacDonald’s fifth album, OLD FUTURE has just recently been released. It’s a recording that has made quite an impact on us at Lonesome Highway and will most certainly feature in our ‘Best of 2020’ listings at year end. 

It enters the world in extraordinary times both globally and locally for the singer/songwriter who was born and raised on Cape Breton, a small island about four hours’ drive from her current home. The closing song on the album opens with the words: ‘Some days you can’t ever lose, some days you can’t see the green for the blues.’ Given these uncertain times I wondered what sort of day it was in Halifax when I spoke with Norma last week. 

‘’That’s a tough question to answer right now. On top of the global COVID-19 pandemic that is keeping people isolated in their homes, Nova Scotia also experienced the worst mass shooting in Canadian history this past weekend. People are hurting and scared, and confused as to how this could happen in our beautiful, largely-peaceful little part of the world. But ... the sun is out right now and it’s a lovely spring morning. We’re trying to mourn but keep our heads up at the same time.

I wrote Some Days as kind of a country-song mindfulness activity; trying to reconcile myself with the idea that whatever happens, good or bad, that things will pass and then the next thing will happen, and everything just continues to flow along. I’m trying to remind myself of that right now.’’

OLD FUTURE features ten tracks and so much about the album, from the songs to the packaging and photography, appears to be looking back at the classic country sounds of the 1960’s and 1970’s. 

‘’A couple of years ago I was asked by a theatre company in Nova Scotia called Ships Company Theatre to produce a tribute show to the great ladies of classic country music. I did some deep digging through repertoires of female country artists, mostly from the 60s and 70s, and completely fell in love. I wrote a lot of the songs from OLD FUTURE during the time I was researching music for that show. Some of it must have seeped in. Incidentally, I was also listening to a lot of Roy Orbison and 60s girl groups, like The Ronettes, which really influenced the production on I Already Have a Shadow. I wasn’t really intending for the entire project to sound so retro, but once we started production the arrangements just naturally took on that shape. It was also my first-time recording bed tracks to tape as opposed to digital, so I feel that gives the album a warmer, vintage sound.’’ 

Like the work of many artists, the writing on the album is a combination of songs based on both personal experiences and in the third person. The themes range from mortality to regret and passion, with every word meticulously enunciated in what I would describe as classic country vocal delivery. The song Your Wedding Day is particularly striking: it is classic, old school country. I could imagine quite a number of established Nashville artists covering it. A pension song perhaps, with a bit of luck?

‘’I would love that. Could you send it around for me? I definitely feel that of all the songs I’ve written this one lends itself best to being covered by other artists. And it even has a good classic country key change. Your Wedding Day is an amalgam of several (yes, several) situations in which ex-boyfriends got married shortly after we broke up. It’s meant to be pretty tongue in cheek. All my writing tends to be a bit of both. Some songs on OLD FUTURE are intensely personal and others not so much. The opening track, Temperamental Year, is about trying to process the death of my dad in 2015 and the pain but inevitability of losing people you love. Other songs like Slow Down Marie were written just because a stream of words flowed out that worked well with the melody and luckily they weren’t complete nonsense.’’

The track Golden Age reads very much like a song for the days that we face currently. The lyrics are striking and evocative and could be regarded by the listener as relating to lost love or yearning for the more uncomplicated days of yesteryear, or indeed more recent times.

 ‘’The process of writing Golden Age actually went on for several years. I had the melody and chord progression recorded as a voice memo in my phone probably as long ago as 2013. I really loved the mood of those chords but struggled with finding the right lyrics (although the word “Golden” was always in the title for some reason). In April of 2019, I was rushing to finish two last songs for Old Future before heading back down to Dale’s (Murray) studio. I was frantically scrolling through ideas to see what I could try to flesh out. I had been thinking about how a couple of my close friends had recently moved away from Halifax and how much I missed them, and the lightness and ease that they brought into my life. I came across the voice memo for what would become Golden Age and managed to write it all in just about an hour. But yes, I think a lot of us are yearning for the golden age of just a couple of months ago right now. Everything feels so far removed from where we were.’’

 Naming the album DEATH BY NOSTALGIA, a reference that appears in the song Some Days,was aconsideration but one that was eventually overruled. 

‘’Ha. Because people kept telling me they thought it was morbid. I thought it was funny. And the sound and lyrical content of the album are so nostalgic. I do feel like OLD FUTURE captures the essence of the album pretty well, too, though.’’

 It was co-produced with Dale Murray, whom Norma has worked with previously. The song One Man Band could have been directed at him, given the number of instruments he plays on the album. 

‘’Dale has played guitar and pedal steel on several of my albums but we hadn’t worked together as co-producers before this.  I’m a huge fan of both his playing and production so it seemed an obvious and natural choice. He had a ton of great ideas but was always respectful of what I was bringing to the table production-wise as well. The whole process seemed so incredibly easy and fun.’’

Together with her solo work, she is also a member of the folk-rock band Bend the River, a seven-piece Halifax collective covering a range of sounds that include pop, soul and folk. 

‘’My friend Ronok Sarkar is the principal songwriter for Bend the River, although the whole band contributes to the arrangements. I mostly sing backing vocals but take lead on a few songs. Being a backing singer is the best gig in the world, nothing to carry. I LOVE being a member of that band. If you haven’t checked out any music yet, you should track it down.’’

Alongside her musical callings she also enjoys a parallel career as an ER nurse. It’s an interesting dual occupation and one that appears to comfortably suit her character. ‘

“I feel like I have two very distinct sides of my brain that both need attention. I’ve played music full time in the past and it didn’t make me happy. Just as I wouldn’t be happy if I were working as a nurse and didn’t get to write and play music. My life feels very full and satisfying having both careers.’’

The current Coronavirus has imposed immense pressure, both financial and mental, on the majority of musicians, with the exception of the household names and commercially successful acts. Many artists have resorted to live streams by way of continuity. It’s a platform, isn’t it, that most likely will be explored more in the future as a means of communication when things return to some degree of normality?

‘’I do think that artists will continue to use online performances more frequently after the pandemic is over. Touring is expensive and exhausting. If you can reach people from your own living room and create some connection, why wouldn’t you? But on the other side of the argument, playing in front of a live audience - to see people’s faces and hear applause when you finish a song - is far more rewarding than seeing some words and emojis appear on a screen. I feel online platforms will be used more frequently as an income adjunct, but I don’t think this will ever replace the magic of an actual onstage performance.’’

Given Norma’s surname, the issue of her Celtic roots was of interest to me. She explained.

‘‘My family is originally from Scotland but has been in Cape Breton for generations. My brother Peter is a huge genealogy buff, so most of the things I know about our family’s roots are through him (and he could tell you about them for hours. In my early 20s I played in a Celtic pub band called Highland Heights that toured and recorded for several years. We played a lot of traditional Irish and Scottish folk songs so I used to be fairly well versed in that music, but admittedly haven’t been playing much of that style over the last decade. As a bit of a non-sequitur, I also remember being obsessed with Mary Black during that time. A friend of mine had a bootleg recording of her singing at the Royal Albert Hall that he made on a dictaphone and I played it 8 million times. Her voice was just magic, even on that crappy pocket recording.’’

A visit to perform in Ireland did take place some years ago and hopefully she will return in the future. In the meantime, she closes the conversation with this fond memory.

‘‘I grew up in Cape Breton, NS and many things about Ireland reminded me of home; the landscape, the people, the music. This memory may not seem like a big deal but I remember having the day off in Galway and I brought a book to the pub in the afternoon to read for a while. I had a lovely, hilarious conversation with the people next to me and when they left, I had another great conversation with the people who took their seats. Before I knew it, it was the evening and I had spent the entire afternoon chatting with a dozen complete strangers but felt so warm and welcome. I’m really hoping to get back there to play some time in the near future.’’ 

Interview by Declan Culliton

Kelsey Waldon Interview

 A large signboard was erected last year in Ballard County, Kentucky. It reads ‘Monkey’s Eyebrow Home of Kelsey Waldon.’ No mean accolade for a State that in the past has honoured artists such as Loretta Lynn, Bill Munroe, Dwight Yoakam, Crystal Gayle, Keith Whitley and Tom T. Hall in a similar manner. It’s certainly something to be proud about.

‘Yes, very proud, that’s my hometown. Kentucky is very proud of all the talent that comes out of there. I grew up seeing signs like that everywhere around my home State. They’re just very proud people and they like to recognise their own. I’ve been doing this for a little while now and it feels nice to see that.’ 

I’m sitting with Kelsey in the downstairs bar at Whelan’s in Dublin. It’s late February and she is due to perform at the venue together with Sean McConnell and Garrison Starr. She is dressed in denim jeans and jacket and the customary cowgirl boots, which is in contrast to the glitzy nudie suit that she wore when I saw her on stage at 3rd & Lindsley at Americana Fest last September in Nashville.

‘That suit is at the dry cleaners’she informs me, laughing. ‘This is strictly a denim tour, no room in the suitcase for that suit,’ she adds. Her Kentucky drawl is fetching, almost musical, the spoken words identical to the natural and unfiltered accent that feature on her albums.

That appearance at Americana Fest was on the same bill as Tanya Tucker, playing to a full house. Other shows that week included a Jam In A Van session and guesting with J.P.Harris on his annual Sunday Morning Coming Down event. ‘We were everywhere at Americana last year, played almost every night and had that showcase on the same bill as Tanya Tucker. Awesome.’ 

It hasn’t been anything like an overnight success for Kelsey. She left her hometown in rural Kentucky as a teenager for the bright lights of Nashville in pursuit of fame and fortune. Unfortunately, her initial move did not go to plan and she returned to Kentucky. Older and somewhat wiser, her second journey to Music City was motivated by the opportunity to enrol at Belmont University. She subsequently majored in song writing and the business end of the music industry, together with working in bars and playing gigs wherever and whenever the opportunity presented itself.

‘That was a while back. The first time was difficult, I was working jobs and didn’t have much time to play anywhere and didn’t know anybody in Nashville at all. I was only 19 and too young to get work in bars, I played where they let me play. The second time around I just got into the right circles you know, met some of the right friends and progressed to playing in bars as I was old enough then to go to these places. I met the friends I needed to meet the second time there.’

Her career has progressed steadily and methodically ever since. She released her debut album THE GOLDMINE in 2014 and followed it with the excellent I’VE GOT A WAY  two years later. The title of that album was a clear statement of intent. The no-holds-barred songs on it dealt with personal issues confronting her at that time. 

WHITE NOISE/WHITE LINES, released last year, is equally intimate, an anthology of tales often inspired by her home state. Like its predecessors, it addresses her inner feelings and issues such as the contradictions encountered in her childhood, growing up in Kentucky and putting a bad relationship firmly behind her. 

‘Half of the songs were written stuck in a cabin back home in Kentucky where I grew up and half of them were written in Nashville. Any record I’ve made, I don’t ever sit down and think it’s going to be this or that. They’re the songs that define me. I realised that I was honestly coming into my own with the new album. It’s me finding a serious sense of myself and making sense of the world around me too you know. Singing and song writing for me is just that. The songs all come in different ways. I can’t write when I’m on the road, touring for me is hard. I mightn’t write a song for two months and I’ll sit down when I get home from touring and I’ll be somewhere for a week and maybe write five songs, they just pour out of me. I think it does get harder to write as you get older and busier. It takes more discipline but the songs are always there, the ideas are always there, you just have to sit down and write it.’ 

WHITE NOISE/WHITE LINES was released on John Prine’s Oh Boy record label to favourable reviews both in the U.S.A and Europe. She can boast to be the first artist to be signed to that label for eighteen years. The album was recorded and produced in Nashville by Dan Knobler, who had previously worked with Kelsey’s close friends Erin Rae and Caroline Spence. With her own band members on the recording, Knobler creates a potent and raw sound, very much in keeping with her live performances. Acclaimed in many quarters for possessing one of the most distinctive and unique country voices – “One of the more authentic country voices I've heard in a long time” said John Prine – Oh Boy liked what they heard and supported the album.

‘I’d written it and we sat on it for a while until the timing was right. Things had to build up, we finally executed everything and got it rolling. John (Prine) and Fiona (Whelan) were supposedly big fans of the record I put out independently, I’VE GOT A WAY. Oh Boy had heard that record and I had known some of the people there for quite a while and they were always in my corner. I don’t think they were ready to sign another act back then and like I said, the timing was right with the new album. I was patient, I waited for the right moment and I got it.’

Kelsey is a member of a thriving community of female artists in Nashville that includes Margo Price, who like Kelsey, was no overnight success. Following numerous record label rejections, she struck the jackpot when Jack White’s Third Man Records released her debut album MIDWEST FARMER’S DAUGHTER, a career launching break. Is Kelsey’s backstory somewhat similar?

‘Margo and I are great friends, she was one of my first friends in Nashville. We’ve all had different paths, our journeys are seldom the same. No one tells you ‘here is how it’s going to happen.’ My peers just happen to be women but honestly the whole scene in Nashville is very supportive, I think It’s a myth that women are cut throat, there is room for all of us, men and women, especially in the country realms. Michaela Anne, Erin Rae and Caroline Spence are also all close friends of mine: we have a group text and talk most nearly every day when we’re on the road. That said, I’ve had a great team for a long time with plenty of muscle and having someone like John (Prine) endorse the album is really great for me. That worked a lot for me overseas, it got me press in the U.K. and Europe. I’m the same person that I’ve always been but I’m on a train right now and it’s gonna keep rolling and keep me busy until the end of the year.’

With Country Radio Stations for the best part ignoring female artists like Kelsey and her peers, gaining exposure can be challenging. It’s an issue that she’s quite realistic about.

‘Radio play should be based on the quality, not gender. I think that’s the most frustrating thing. There truly is no obvious argument, no reason at all why more women shouldn’t get played. It is unfair, back in the ‘90s and before, all the stars on Country Music Radio were women. I don’t think country radio really cares about quality anyway.’

Does Country Music Radio even care about music, or more likely just selling advertising? 

‘Yeh, (laughs) I don’t think I’m one of those artists that really needs that airplay anyway. We get played on stations like Americana Radio and Independent Radio. Certain artists need the radio others don’t, it’s not needed all the time.’ 

The attendance at this evening’s show at Whelan’s is likely to be considerably less than the numbers Kelsey has become accustomed to. In recent years she has performed at The Grand Ole Opry, The Ryman and sharing stages with John Prine, Jamey Johnson and Willie Nelson to name but a few.

‘That’s the name of the game. I think people on the outside often feel that when you’re an artist and get signed to a label that you’ve got it made. It’s not like that. One day you’re playing The Grand Ole Opry or the Ryman, or your selling out somewhere, and the next week you might come to Dublin and there’s three people there.  I say ‘we just play for whoever shows up’. It’s like starting all over again playing Ireland, you might be the only one here tonight (laughs).’

Since this interview, of course, Kelsey’s touring plans have had to be put on hold and the much-loved John Prine passed away on April 7 from Covid-19. 

She is a focused, talented and discerning individual who has overcome the odds previously – and when things get back to some degree of normality, there is no doubt Kelsey has the drive and talent to continue her climb up that industry ladder.

Interview by Declan Culliton

Lone Bellow Interview

This interview takes place in the midst of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, with the world on shutdown and everybody living under the spectre of health concerns for immediate family and the local communities. Zach Williams, lead vocalist, key songwriter and founder of the band, took time to answer our questions and to talk about their terrific new release, HALF MOON LIGHT. 

Like many other musicians, you have had to cancel all tour plans in light of the recent virus pandemic. Where were you when you took the decision to come off the road?

I was in Oregon on a travel day headed to play the The Fillmore in San Fran. 

There is an old Chinese curse (or English proverb), ‘May you live in interesting times.’ This World event is like a recurring nightmare, every morning you wake up and realise this is not a Sci-Fi movie. Are the band all back in Nashville or located elsewhere with family?

We’re home in Nashville with our families.

Your latest album has been gaining very positive reviews across all music media platforms. You must be very proud of the work and how it has been received?

Yes, we are happy to hear that people have taken the time to listen to this record. There’s a lot of layers sonically and thematically and I’m so glad it is resonating with people.

The writing comes from a very personal place with themes of Death, Family and Friendship, plus a strong message to celebrate life. In many ways it’s a barometer for the way in which people across the globe are coming together during this crisis?

It has been interesting to see how the themes of these songs are lining up with the current situation the world is in right now. “if yesterday is to heavy put it down” - “here we are now lonely together, brothers and sisters did we want something better, tell me how am I going to find you when the dust settles” - “wake me up from this fever dream” - “count on me if I can count on you.”. Just as a few examples.

The pain of loss runs through the songs and the recent deaths of two Grandparents and Brian’s Father, frame the overall message that time is the ultimate conqueror and we should allow happiness and light into our everyday lives?

We wanted to tell other people’s stories in this record. Sometimes the stories refer to getting through something hard, sometimes it’s just talking about the beauty of walking down a NYC side walk after a long hang with your friends. We wanted to shine light on the wonder out there. The unseen. We also wanted to celebrate a few lives worth celebrating. I personally don’t see death as a theme of this record. It’s just a part of life and a part of our stories in general … But we didn’t want to hide from it. I believe the only way to celebrate or reflect on anything is to see the full picture.

You also tackle difficult subjects such as the terrible experience suffered by Kanene’s Mother as a young girl and also the suicide of Scott Hutchison (founder of Frightened Rabbit) who was a close friend of the band and Aaron Dessner, who produced the album. Was it a difficult call to have these personally sensitive areas laid bare for strangers to dissect?

I can’t speak for Kanene, but I know she spoke with her mom about the song before we released it. I think ultimately, we wanted to be doing whatever we could to empower others. We were trying to put ourselves in other’s shoes.  

Your career has gained so much forward momentum in recent years. Was there a lightbulb moment where you all looked at each other and realised, ‘This is happening?’

The most recent time this happened was in LA at The Troubadour. We started the set with our first song from our new record HALF MOON LIGHT. It’s called I Can Feel You Dancing and the second the verses started the entire room sang “happy birthday babe” with me. That was a good feeling. Being able to play music and have other people buy tickets to come and see you play is still the craziest thing to me. It is the honor of a lifetime and I can’t wait to get back at it. 

I saw your AMA set at The Station Inn in Nashville during the 2018 Festival and it was the only gig that whole week where I encountered a long line of people outside who could not get into the show. I remember thinking that night that your career was really about to jump gears. You played for the people who could not get into the show – on the street, a few songs, which was so well appreciated and received. Your generosity of spirit was highlighted right there. Is this something that you nurture as your baseline?

We are in the hospitality line of work. I love finding those little moments in our career where we can do something that we were not planning on and it is life giving to someone else.  Singing outside the Station Inn was one of those moments.

You have a very dedicated Facebook group, Tree To Grow, which I’m sure you know about?

We love those folks. Not only have they been such a beacon of light for us, but they also have started helping out each other. You should see the messages of hope and community that is expressed on that page right now during this lock in. It’s just beautiful.

Does such unconditional love ever feel uncomfortable for you as a band at times?

It’s usually the one thing we have all been waiting to do all day. “The waiting is the hardest part.” So, it’s usually a release for us. We also have realised that we are a lot like a family. Sometimes we drive each other mad. And we have figured out that we can’t play a show unless we have understanding between each other.That is probably the number one way that we focus our work into each night.

Your performance dynamic has been highly praised and the attitude of leaving nothing behind on the stage. The 3-part harmonies are so spine-tingling during a performance. Do you work hard at the parts you sing or do you allow a certain amount of spontaneity each time you perform live?

That’s exactly right. We work hard at writing the foundational parts, but then we leave room for what the song might turn into each night.

The soulful, almost gospel, performances that you deliver seem to be on the verge of overwhelming the audience at times. Do you get that energy from the crowd during the performance?

Sometimes. For sure … 

Given the intensity of every performance, have you ever had to deal with vocal strain or problems due to the rigours of heavy touring schedules?

Yes, I got nodes back when we first started, because I didn’t understand what altitude could do to my body. We were in Denver. I couldn’t speak for a couple weeks … During that time, and trust me, we don’t know him from Adam, but somehow John Mayer found out about what happened to me and he took the time to reach out to me and coach me through it.  I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t. Crazy.

The new record has lots of interesting new dynamics in the arrangements with Aaron Dessner opening up the sound to a wider palette of musical colours. Was this something you were looking for in working with him? 

Working with Aaron, he had just finished BIG RED MACHINE and I loved the new sounds he found with Justin Vernon on that record. He and Jon Low seemed to be on a new level with the exploration they were into. We wanted to stretch ourselves on this record. We wanted to find a new instrumental sound. We started each song with a click track and a humm of vocals and built it out from there. That was new for us ... We had done everything basically live with drums leading up to this record. We also wanted to sing differently. We didn’t want to rest on the things we had done with past work.

Your music resonates with Irish music audiences in its honesty and passion. You were due to play here shortly but unfortunately the gigs have been postponed. What message do you have for the many Irish fans who will not get to see you at Whelan’s or the Kilkenny Roots Festival this coming May?

That we LOVE you so much. We can’t wait to get back there. You guys are the salt of the earth!

Finally, any last message or thoughts that you want to send? 

In closing, please encourage your people to reach out to us on our socials. Especially right now where loneliness is like a monster lurking in the corner. We are in this together.

Interview by Paul McGee

Amy LaVere Interview

Amy LaVere has been creating music of a consistently high quality since her debut, This World Is Not My Home,appeared back in 2006. With the recent release of her sixth album, Painting Blue, she has confirmed her position as one of the leading talents in the Americana/Roots genre, with her eclectic mix of Country, Gypsy Jazz and Soul expression. Currently living in Memphis, Tennessee and facing the same uncertainty that we are all experiencing during the Corona Virus pandemic, Amy sat down to answer our questions in connection with her latest project and her overall career, in the face of the everything that is changing our  world right now.

Congratulations on the release of your sixth album. How long has it been in preparation?

This record took me several years to pull together. Being newly in love and in a more stable and healthy situation was uncharted territory and I didn’t really have much I needed to say for a while.  

There is a very streamlined production across the nine tracks. Was this a conscious decision before you started the recording process?

I have something of my own ‘wrecking crew’ in Memphis. They are a seriously talented group of people whose aesthetics suit me so well and with whom I’ve made several records.  I knew what I would be getting from them. 

Your previous release, Hallelujah I’m A Dreamer, was recorded live in the studio over a single day and it had a stripped back, beautifully bare and bright sound. Was this approach something that you have been channelling over the years since it was released? 

This stripped-down version was happening first in my live shows, initially because of my budget and eventually more often because it happened to suit many of the songs so well live. We made that record to be something for people wanting to take home with them something most representative of the show they had just witnessed. 

Your husband, Will Sexton, produced the new album and his light touch and superb guitar parts add lots of colour to the sound. The album has a sweet Jazz groove with elements of brooding, atmospheric tones laid across the songs. How did the decision to have Will produce come about? 

It was an obvious decision.  I knew what I wanted, for the most part, for the record and there is no one I trust more than Will. He ‘gets’ me and was a natural collaborator of mine even prior to becoming my love. He is also more knowledgeable speaking on matters of the more technical side of recording as well as in music theory. We make a superb team. 

There are three cover songs on the album. You regularly feature cover songs in both your live sets and on your albums and I wanted to ask what your process is for choosing specific songs to fit into the overall feel of a project?

Cover songs find me. I sometimes hear a tune and if it’s something I feel really compelled by and/or feel owned by, I usually sit down and learn it.  I find them useful to complete a thought for me in a batch of tunes for a record. 

You always bring your own unique interpretation to the cover songs that you choose. Do you hear them in your head in a certain way before you track them in a studio environment? 

I can only be myself. They get filtered through my own unique voice and preferences. It’s unavoidable. 

You played upright bass as your instrument of choice right from the start of your musical journey. Did you develop your slapping technique over time or was it a natural rhythm you had from the early days? 

The slap technique was immediate and natural. Mastering intonation and versatility is something I’m always working to improve.

Is it the same instrument that you originally owned - an Englehart from the 1970’s, I think?

Yes!

Has your song-writing process changed much over the years?

I don’t believe so.  It’s as undisciplined and random as it’s always been and completing any song still feels like a minor miracle. 

How difficult is it to be a full-time artist in these days of downloads and streaming with no decent royalty payments available anymore?

Answering this question today amidst the Coronavirus Pandemic is almost too much to bear. The magnitude of all the many mountains facing musicians who are trying to make a living as artists is unfathomable now.

Do you enjoy touring or would you prefer stay home and focus on studio work?

Touring and playing music for listening audiences is the highlight. That said, here in quarantine in the spring in Memphis is proving to be only healthy for my creativity- and my baking skills. 

Did you first encounter Will Sexton back in 2014 when he played on the Runaway’s Diary album?

Will and I met the year prior when working on a project called ‘Chasing The Ghost’ with singer Shannon McNally and my long-time drummer Shawn Zorn. 

I notice that some of the other musicians who played on that album also returned for the new release - Shawn Zorn (drums) and Tim Regan (piano) on a number of tracks. Also, from the 2011 release, Stranger Me, David Cousar (guitars), Rick Steff (keyboards and accordion) are included on Painting Blue. Were these trusted players you had wanted to hand pick for the new record?

A very BIG yes.

As a singer-songwriter you have such eclectic taste across a number of genres. This always has stood to you in terms of an ability to comfortably fit into whatever style and direction that you choose to take. On the new album were you conscious of a specific aspiration regarding the sound you were chasing?

I was not.

Whether you are playing a murder ballad, the Blues, a Bossa nova beat, a smoky gypsy groove, Tejano or a light jazz waltz, the integrity in the playing and the writing shines through. Do you like taking risks across the different musical styles that you employ?

Eh, what is the risk, really? The song and the story dictate what the music it lives in sound like. 

The Stranger Me release was a departure from the first two records and had a bigger sound, more up-tempo tracks and a Rock oriented drive, with horns and keys appearing for the first time. Was that a direction you consciously decided not to pursue on subsequent releases? 

I think more often than not I’m compelled regarding the nature of any production of any given song more than conscious of what it needs to sound like. 

I am drawn back more often to the sad and melancholic songs. With so many songs, they cannot all be character based and there are elements of both your strengths and vulnerabilities sprinkled across your body of work. Are you comfortable opening up a fragile and sensitive side for others to see?

I am, mostly. Maybe I can’t help it. Sure, I didn’t think I would put No Room For Baby on the record but this was mostly because I didn’t think it would be appreciated. It was cathartic for ME. I didn’t think it was necessarily meant for an audience. I did want to record as I was hearing it in my head, however but was reluctant to put it on this record. Ultimately, I’m glad I did. 

The loneliness of the song, Snowflake, from Runaway’s Diary, with a young girl looking for a place in the world seems to lead into the relative distance and separation of another song, Self Made Orphan, from the same record, with a reluctance to commit selflessly to another. The fear of opening up is something that also comes across on the new album in tracks like Love I’ve Missed. Are you hinting at the sophisticated woman that questions everything and continues to wrestles with new insights? 

I think I often dwell on my past as if I were my own analyst. I’m always trying to unravel why I behaved certain ways. 

The joy of creating something unique and never being afraid to take chances in experimenting with your sound, leads to interesting collaborations, whether with other female artists (Shannon McNally, The Wandering) or Country/Rockabilly based male contemporaries like John Paul Keith… Is there a restless spirit within you that gets bored and needs to shape shift?

I’m not always extremely prolific as a solo artist. I have a strong need to stay in motion musically speaking and collaborations and side projects keep me moving and creating peripherally. 

This attraction to the creative urge within has led you to explore acting, which is something that you have successfully navigated. What are the main differences that you find between the discipline required in acting and that of song-writing and performing? 

 For me, very little.  Acting well feels very much like successfully losing yourself in a story just like singing an immersive song does. It’s been a while since I’ve had an acting project, however. 

Maybe all life is a play and we, as actors, are rarely true to ourselves, let alone another. It could be all tongue in cheek and you are gently laughing at the absurdity of it all?

That would be a luxury that I do not have...

Is the glass half full or half empty?

It’s half full, but damnit, it’s ALWAYS ONLY half full. 

Can we expect a tour to Europe at any stage into the future?

YES, I sure hope so. Till then, please stay safe over there and hold each other close. Sending love from Memphis. 

Interview by Paul McGee

Michaela Anne Interview

One of the many highlights of the AMA UK Festival in London earlier this year was the Yep Roc Record Label’s showcase at the trendy Oslo Gastro Pub in Hackney. Six acts signed to the North Carolina-based label performed - established names such as Chatham County Line and Daddy Long Legs, alongside emerging ones, Jack Klatt, Jonah Tolchin and Mapache.

The final artist from their roster was Michaela Anne, who falls somewhere in between ‘emerging’ and ‘established,’ while winning more and more attention thanks to her quite excellent album, DESERT DOVE, which came out last year.

This was a return visit to the festival for the Brooklyn-born artist, currently residing in Nashville, and the difference between now and her previous appearance was dramatic. A less than satisfactory sound system and a small crowd twelve months ago, did little to highlight her capabilities and talent nor to match the dazzling performances I caught with her and her band in Nashville on a number of visits in recent years.

This time around and the experience is on an altogether different level. The sound is crystal-clear, there’s a full house and a cracking band (which includes her husband and musical director Aaron Shafer-Haiss on drums) provides her with the platform to show just why she’s gathered acclaim since the release of DESERT DOVE. She grasped the opportunity with both hands and delivered a set that underlined her outstanding vocal ability as well as the undoubted quality of the material on the album.

A few hours earlier I had been sitting across the table from Michaela Anne in the upstairs bar and it was one of those déjà vu moments as we met there in 2019.

She has impeccable social skills - she’s extremely polite, smiles and laughs a lot, often even at her own expense. Clearly, she has a very wise head on young shoulders, practical and under no illusions of how challenging her chosen profession can be. “A music career costs a lot of money”, she tells me, in a matter of fact way.

After releasing two well-received albums, EASE MY MIND (2014) and BRIGHT LIGHTS & THE FAME (2016), her career appeared to be progressing very much to plan.

It was thrown off course with the demise of the independent label that released her second album, leaving her with a bunch of songs written for her follow up, but without the financial support of a label. Taking the courageous decision to head to California to record the album could have spelt financial suicide. On the contrary, it gave her free reign to put her own stamp on the product without any undue record label interference. It also proved to be a blessing in disguise as the highly respected Yep Roc signed her on the strength of the album.

“It was extremely difficult. I still to this day go back and forth and think what was I doing (laughs). When it came to make this record, I could have done a Kickstarter fund raiser. I’m not knocking Kickstarter and might very well do one in a few years. I just didn’t want to have to ask people for money. As a musician you can always be depending on people’s kindness and generosity, it can be soul sucking. I just wanted to do this for myself and take the risk of betting everything on the record. I eventually took out a bunch of credit cards and ran up a bunch of debt and then Yep Roc came along.”

Self-christened “the artist-driven label that refuses to be labelled’, they would appear to be tailor made for Anne – somewhat like-minded acts such as Aoife O’Donovan, Amy Helm, Tift Merritt and Kim Richey, to name but a few are label mates. She explained how the connection developed.

“My manager also works with other acts on Yep Roc. So, when I had the album finished, he and I were sending it to a number of labels and they were on that list. Fortunately, they liked it and I went out to North Carolina and met them. There was a lot of relationship building. It’s always been an uphill climb, trying to put all the pieces together for an album at the same time.  I love being on Yep Roc and have a great manager, so it feels like home. They have given me the support to do what I want to do. Their prerogative is simply to allow artists to be artists. And it’s worked, the album has sold much more than my other records”

She worked with co-producer Sam Outlaw - she had previously played guitar in Outlaw’s band - and Kelly Winrich of Indie Rock band, Delta Spirit. The decision proved to be rewarding, giving her the space to complete the album devoid of the everyday intrusions that could arise when working from her home base. The relocation also had an impact on the musical direction of the album, which manages to forge a sound with roots in both traditional and modern country.

“Kelly, who recorded the album, has a home recording studio in San Clemente in California and it became an option to spend a few weeks out there. I liked that idea and I also liked getting out of Nashville. I love living in Nashville a lot and have a super community of friends there, but it can also get stifling sometimes and hard to be creative. It was easier to focus outside Nashville and not get distracted by what was going on. There weren’t any shows or any other things happening in San Clemente, we were just writing without distractions.”

Thankfully, she avoided crossing over to the dreaded pop/country sound with the album. Having moved from Brooklyn to Nashville, she also resisted the temptation to enter the ‘nine to five’ writing school scenario, which appears to be the recommended route to stardom on Music Row. Nor did she have a master plan to target any particular market.

 “I definitely don’t look at markets (laughs). I do it from the heart. The most I’ve ever done is try to dip my toe in the song writing scene in Nashville. I thought, “should I be more like some of the others, writing songs for other artists’’ but I immediately knew I had to write for me. I made this record based on what I wanted to write and with music that I like to hear, yet looking consciously for a certain sound. I think it is classic country combined with a modern sound. I don’t know that many records that have the duel influences of that classic country sound but also with a modern feel that I was looking for. Shania Twain and The Dixie Chicks both did that back in the 90’s.”

Much of the album reads like a heartfelt, personal diary, taking stock of her everyday personal experiences.  The tight rope balancing act of trying to keep all the balls in the air at the same time are explored, whether it be fulfilment, marriage, desire, ambition and frustration. The splendid opening track on the album, By Our Design speaks of the toils of her and her husband, surviving the calling of their careers as professional musicians (“Straight jobs and steady pay, were never in our cards to play. Late nights and songs to sing and long drives are our trade”).

‘For me, I hadn’t started touring until about five years ago and I was probably a bit naive as to how difficult it is to live out of a suitcase, away from your family and your loved ones.’

Though petite in stature, you get the impression she is quite a street wise individual, well able to fight her corner. The inclusion of the song, If I Wanted Your Opinion, stemmed from continuing encounters with sexism and gender inequality in the industry.

“It’s still is really bad. You hear that women are just whining but there is a lot of deeply ingrained sexism in a lot of places. I wrote If I Wanted Your Opinion based on a lot of personal reactions I’ve had. I have to say I haven’t only experienced it in the US, it’s everywhere. A man in Amsterdam asked me if I had any children and if I felt guilty playing music and leaving my children behind. He thought he was being funny, I told him ( in no uncertain terms) that he wasn’t.”

The Highwomen (Natalie Hemby, Brandi Carlisle, Maren Morris and Amanda Shires ) were formed  essentially to make a statement about the lack of radio airplay for female artists on Country Music Radio. Their debut self-titled album released in 2019 reached No.1 in the American Country Charts and No.10 in the Billboard Charts. Commercially driven, or otherwise, they have certainly made an immediate impact and not surprisingly Michaela Anne gives them the thumbs up.

 “I think it’s a wonderful idea. If they are commercially driven, I think it’s to push the gender issue and try to get radio play for female artists.  Being commercially driven is not a bad thing at all and I think it’s a beautiful record and not modern pop country. I don’t know them personally but I think they are four genuine sisters trying to give a platform to that sentiment. I’m a big fan of Brandi Carlisle, I think she is pretty incredible.” 

After a whirlwind twelve months with a record label signing and an album that’s been earning glowing reviews, how does she foresee her career progressing in the short term?

“I have no idea (laughs). Exposure, working hard, playing a lot of shows, hoping that the people promoting are really promoting in an effective way, all will help. There are a lot of things that an artist has little control over. All I can do is keep making the music, putting myself out there on social media, being patient and staying true to myself.”

For someone who exhibits the charm of a Southern Belle and the grit of a New Yorker, is she still a Brooklyn girl at heart?

“I feel like I’m a New Yorker in a lot of ways and I’ll always be a New Yorker in my heart. But it’s so fast and so expensive in New York. I love the pace in Nashville, I love owning a house, having a garden, living beside Percy Priest Lake, having space and being close to nature yet also close to the city. We are about twenty minutes’ drive from Downtown.  We lived in East Nashville when we came first and it feels like you’re at Americana Fest all the time. We joke that we now live off campus. I do miss East Nashville, the bars, restaurants and coffee shops and a lot of my friends live and work over there but it’s also beautiful where we live.”

Interview by Declan Culliton

Nordicana Part 2 - Louien (Live Miranda Solberg) Interview

Part 2 of our continuing research into the artists that are carrying the torch for the ever-growing Norwegian Folk/Country genre (Nordicana). We spoke with Live Miranda Solberg (aka Louien) about her stunning album NONE OF MY WORDS and how one single, posted on Soundcloud, created the momentum for local and international exposure beyond her wildest dreams.

The decision to upload your single ‘Demo No.1’ to Soundcloud in 2017 proved to a career changing progression. How did it come about?

Well, I recorded that song after a studio session with my band Silver Lining - I’d just written it and I was really excited about it. I felt like I’d made something very authentically me. But then I let it sit in my computer for quite a long time, until a friend of mine was playing a show in Oslo and I was to open for her - that’s when I felt like I had to put something out there to show what I was about. You could say it was a long time coming, but it was kind of a coincidence that it happened at that exact time.

The reaction was nothing short of exceptional. Apart from attracting invitations to perform at major festivals in Norway and kick starting your career, did its sudden impact inspire your writing or was much of the material for your album NONE OF MY WORDS already underway?

Yes, it was kind of crazy, I never saw all that recognition coming! It inspired me a whole lot, I wrote some of my best songs to date in that period. ‘Heart and Mind Alike’ was written just days before my first proper solo show at Mono (legendary bar in Oslo, now sadly closed), because I needed a few more songs in my set. I was very inspired and had a lot to get off my chest. Some of the material for the album had already been written, but most of it was written between 2016 and 2018. 

You’re on record describing the album as the first phase of a grieving process after the passing of your father. Tell me about the album title. It suggests that the songs ‘came to you’ as if otherworldly?

Yes, it was certainly a time of immense grief for me. The album title came at a very late state in the making of the album - it’s taken from the song with the same title, which is the last one I wrote for this body of work. It’s actually more about how nothing I can say or do will be enough to help this person I’m singing to/about. It might be describing a feeling of hopelessness, but also anger, that this person just won’t listen to reason. 

Even though the motivation for the material came from loss and sadness, the album is uplifting and joyous in many ways. Did the ability to create such passionate music in itself reward you with positivity and a sense of stoicism? 

Absolutely! It’s such a gift to be able to express pain through music. I’ve grown up with so much music around me, and singing has always been a way for me to feel better. Also, to me, an emotion is almost never just bad or just good. There is so much nuance in grief. It felt natural to accompany the sadness in the lyrics with more uplifting and beautiful melodies and music, to show that things can be good and bad at the same time. 

How different was the writing for this album compared to the band Silver Lining which includes three other songwriters?

The writing in itself is not much different - it’s just me and my guitar, trying to express whatever is going on within. But when the song is done, I normally know which project I want to use it in. In Silver Lining we’ve shared the space much more - we’ve all brought songs to the group, worked on them together. One of the premises for the band is that everyone has an open mind and not be overprotective of the song - we’re a democracy, all four of us have a say in how the songs should be “solved”. In my solo project I’m the boss, I call the shots, so that’s a completely different way of working.  

How important was it for you to write this solo album rather than incorporate the songs into a Silver Lining album?

It was the only right thing to do. Some of my songs just needed to be just me. I also feel like I’m quite dual when it comes to writing music - some of my songs are more traditional Folk/Americana, and so they fit Silver Lining very well. The odd songs that don’t really fit in anywhere else are the ones I include in my solo project. 

The album could have been quite stripped back without the addition of the strings to lift the music to an altogether different level. Had you initially intended to reach for such a full sound?

I’m not really sure what I aimed for initially, but when I met my producer Øyvind Røsrud it became very clear that I could bring all my strange and kind of wide spread inspirations into this project. He just gets me musically, and so we had a lot of fun playing with ideas and just going with what seemed fit each song. It was his ideas to have THREE cellos on it, and I just love how that turned out to be perfect for this album. 

Given the different musical layers on the album, do you attempt to recreate that sound live or offer more stripped back versions of the songs on tour?

I’ve done both: for my release concert we were 11 people on stage, cello, guitars, drums, piano, harmonies - the works. But mostly I play solo or with a guitarist, so very much a stripped-down version of the songs. It’s essential to me that the songs can take on any format and still work - that’s when you know a song is really good. 

Was it intended to be a ‘one off’ dealing with particular issues that presented themselves? And given the glowing reviews it has received; do you see it as a stepping stone to further a solo career?

Actually, no, I just wrote the songs, expressing how I felt at the time, and then when we went in the studio, we understood that all the songs were kind of about the same thing. I definitely see it as both a work that can stand alone and a stepping stone. I’m working on new songs as we speak, and I really hope they will become an album too, sometime in the not so far future.

It’s not easy to categorise your sound. How would you describe it to someone who was about to explore your music?

Ha, always such a hard question to answer! To me it's definitely singer-songwriter and folk at its core, and then I guess Americana, alt. folk and sometimes pop could be other words to describe it. And it’s definitely melancholic! 

Were your influences specific artists growing up or a particular music genre?

I have grown up with music around me all the time. I loved (and still love!) Abba, Spice Girls, Hanson when I was growing up. My dad was big into classical music, and always played it loud in the mornings - Chopin, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mozart. My mom listened to Portishead, Nina Simone, Joni Mitchell. My step dad introduced me to Lauryn Hill, Sonic Youth, Dolly Parton. At summer camp we used to sing Tom Petty, Neil Young, Bob Dylan. So, I was influenced by all that. And then I started listening to Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix in high school. I discovered Gillian Welch in my early twenties, along with Alison Krauss and that whole scene. I’m always looking for new music to listen to, there’s nothing I love more than music that resonates with me! My favorites at the moment are Courtney Marie Andrews, Erin Rae, Fleetwood Mac and Amason.  

I’m intrigued and indeed hugely impressed by the quality of music coming out of Norway. Are you conscious of the Nordicana (as its being labelled) genre emerging over the past twelve months and has there been a conscious effort by your label Jansen Records to seek new markets outside your homeland? 

Yes, it’s such exciting times! So many amazing musicians in Norway right now, in all genres really.  I’ve been conscious of this group of “Nordicana” musicians for a long time. To me it all started when the DJ’s in Die With Your Boots On (which is now a record label under Jansen Records) started hosting a Country/Americana club in Oslo about 7 years ago. The played records, and two emerging bands from the scene played at each event. So many people showed up for it! The musicians became aware of each other, and how many other people were into making this kind of music. Many great collaborations started in this period, and the community has grown significantly and since then.  It’s definitely been a conscious effort by Jansen Records to reach a broader audience as well, they’ve worked at it for so many years, and I think they are amazing at it!

 Interview by Declan Culliton

Nordicana Part 1 - Malin Pettersen Interview

I’m in Rough Trade’s flagship record store in Brick Lane, East London for a performance by Norwegian country singer Malin Pettersen – a gig that coincides with the four-day Americana UK Festival in nearby Hackney. Pettersen is a lead vocalist of the band Lucky Lips but she has also recorded two solo albums, the second and most recent, is a stripped-to-the-bone, six track EP titled, ALONESOME. 

She performed her Festival showcase the previous night at Paper Dress Vintage with a full band, which included members of Darling West, another Norwegian act booked to appear at the Festival. Pettersen is fashionably dressed down in tee shirt and 70’s style flared jeans for today’s event, in contrast to the white nudie suit and sky-blue cowgirl boots she wore at the previous night’s show. Renowned as a fashion-conscious performer, her casual attire on stage today reflect the themes in the well-crafted material she delivers from the EP. Where last night’s set was upbeat, this one homes in instead on Pettersen’s rich vocals and nimble guitar playing.

Sitting in the make shift dressing room after her set, I remind her of my first encounter with her. Lucky Lips had been booked for a gig at the celebrated Station Inn in Nashville at Americana Fest 2018, appearing on stage before the rising star, Colter Wall. Not the ideal time for your luggage to go missing in transit, which unfortunately was the dilemma Pettersen found herself in. Shorts, trainers and a straw hat replaced the intended western attire.

 ‘’It was a pretty vulnerable situation as it was the first time we were at Americana Fest and at the Station Inn, which is such a legendary venue,” Malin tells me.” I have this suit that I was to wear which would have made me feel comfortable and allow me to focus on the music. Then when my bags got lost, I thought ‘Oh No!’ I then had to think what do I wear and it just screwed me up so much.  Even though I like to convey feelings by what I wear, I’m conscious that the music is always the most important thing. That night I thought, I’m just going to wear something that’s weird and have fun.’’ 

Her ‘go to’ style when fronting her band is very much Western Style, which seems important to her in keeping with the country music tradition. 

‘’For me, the Western look is just a cool way to show my audience that I appreciate and respect the history of the music and that I’m attempting to be like my musical heroes.  They made the music that they wanted to make. They did not copy anyone, which was very respectful of the people who came before them. As a kid I’d always wanted to express myself by what I wore and I thought by the time I’d reach eighteen I would know exactly what my style was. Well, that never happened for me and it was a very confusing time, reaching that age and not finding my individual style. I then realised that my thing was just about everything and to just dress like my mood at the time.’’

I had been somewhat taken back on the first play of ALONESOME. I had expected a combination of fiddles, pedal steel guitar and twang, but the only instruments are her vocals and guitar throughout. However, I was won over after a few listens. It was a brave move to temporarily change musical direction, yet it succeeded in highlighting Pettersen’s ability to compose deep and thoughtful songs while revealing her crystalline vocals. 

‘‘It was supposed to be a very personal project. I felt I had to do to prove to myself that I could actually do that, just be me. I actually didn’t think that anybody would listen to it. It blew me away that people accepted it and it’s been the album that has got my name out there, more so than my first album REFERENCES Pt.1, which is more of a band thing.  I did feel that I had so many things that I needed to say and so many ways of saying things that I wanted to explore. I knew I could not please everyone all the time, as some people will like my acoustic stuff and some will like the band music more. But I have all of these thoughts in me – and it means so much to me when people say they like the EP because it’s really me in my barest form. It’s also a bit of an adventure because I’m used to being in a very safe place with Lucky Lips. We’ve been playing together for more than a decade and we know each other very well. REFERENCES Pt.1, which was my first album without the Lucky Lips players,was all about trying to play with other people and see if I could make the music I had in my head with other people, and try to be in charge. I’d proven to myself that I could do that with that album but I then needed to see if I could work without other people and trust myself. I was still hiding and leaning on the fact that I needed other people around me. That was where the idea for ALONESOME came from, I needed to trust myself to do my own thing. It was actually after a concert at the Station Inn with Andrew Combs - we did an amazing duo set - that I decided I wanted and needed to do a solo album.’’

The songs are quite melancholy and intimate, in some cases looking over her shoulder at past life experiences, as well as taking stock of the present. 

‘’For that album, all the songs definitely come from my experiences, though Lonely With You, one of the gentler ones, was written in my head as a story about someone else, but with a feeling I had to explore for myself. Three of the songs are written about what I feel right now and the other three are retrospective, looking back at my early twenties when it was difficult, sometimes, just growing up. It was also a good experiment for me, now that I have my kids and my marriage and I feel fortunate for the things I have in my life. I wanted to see if I could still write those type of songs in my present circumstances. So, I had to dig deep and go back to earlier experiences. But it felt good to write about it and see it from a distance.’’

Pettersen appeared on stage with J.P. Harris at his annual Sunday Morning Coming Down event at Americana Fest last September and also features on his WHY DON’T WE DUET ON THE ROAD (AGAIN) EP. The only non-American singer to grace that stage with J.P. Harris, she was offered the closing slot and delivered a note perfect rendition of the Tom Paxton classic, The Last Thing On My Mind.  

‘’Amazing. My God that was a dream. I don’t normally get nervous, I’m usually logical about playing live, but I really was.  All these fantastic artists were waiting there ready to go up and do their songs. All these people that I’d listened to so much, Nikki Lane, Molly Tuttle, Kristina Murray, Miss Tess, Kelsey Waldon and Erin Rae. But it was a great experience.’’

J.P. Harris is renowned for his ongoing support of female artists, often at the expense of promoting his own career. A casual connection on social media with him was the spark that has helped her network with him and likeminded artists in Nashville. 

‘’It was really funny. I’ve always used social media as a means to connect with other country music lovers and I basically started following a lot of these up and coming country artists in Nashville. Many years ago, I had met J.P. Harris for the first time in Oslo when he was playing with Chance McCoy. He and I have a common friend, a fiddler from Austin and that was my connection. We followed each other on Instagram and in 2018, when you saw us at The Station Inn, was the second time I got to meet him. I wasn’t sure he would remember me, but he did and we connected. Later that year he emailed me to say he was going on a European tour and that he really wanted to go to Norway but didn’t have any dates there yet. He’d listened to Lucky Lips and asked if we’d be interested in doing a show together of country classics in Oslo and have fun. We did do it and it was so much fun. One of the things I find with the Nashville people is that they know and love the same music as we do. I could say ‘can we do this George Jones song’ and it’s like ‘Yeh, sure we know that one’. After that show J.P. told me he was recording a new EP and would love to have me feature on it. That was huge for me. Another thing about the Nashville music scene is that I’ve been fortunate to become a tiny part of. It’s amazing how hugely supportive they all are. I expected it to be all elbows.‘’

That trip to Americana Fest also gave her the opportunity to put down the bones of her next solo album, taking advantage of the local talent and recording in Nashville for the first time.

‘’Yes, I recorded songs for a new band album in Nashville with a guy called Ryan Keith. He has a tiny studio in Nashville but it’s filled with the most amazing gear. I worked with Ryan, Aaron Goodrich and Misa Arriaga. These were the three people I wanted to record with. They brought in Eddie Dunlap on fiddle and steel guitar who is fantastic and some other players.  I might also include some older songs on the finished album and I’m enjoying playing with a band. Again, it was all about exploring my music. The reason that I make music is because I have a curiosity about myself, people, power and this life we all live in. I’m always trying to understand it and probably never will (laughs). I also wanted to record with a band that I had never really met, had never worked with and lived on the other side of the planet, with songs they’d never heard before. Songs that were never rehearsed: just go in to the studio and work the songs. It was an adventure, more than I could ever have dreamed about.’’

Artists often refer to the Nashville experience and say they draw inspiration by recording in Music City. Pettersen certainly found this to be the case. 

‘’Definitely, for me it was so true. The first time I went to Nashville I did not really have my hopes up as I figured that a place like that with so much history would be daunting. I pictured that the whole of Nashville would be like Broadway and I thought ‘don’t get your hopes up.’ To go there is like stepping into Country music. In Nashville it felt like I was living in some of the documentaries I had seen.  When you’re in the studio in Norway, everyone is on the clock, it costs a lot and you’ve to be gone at an exact time. That’s a way to be creative, too, but in the Nashville studio where we recorded, it was more like: ‘How long do you want to go’ and we’d say we’ve got a groove on this song, can we go to 2am. It felt amazing.’’ 

The term ‘Nordicana’ is one that is creeping its way into the ever-expanding body of musical genre. Acts like Pettersen, Signe Marie Rustad, Darling West and Louien seem to be currently leading the charge. That said, there has been a thriving country music scene in Norway for decades, although, as is the case in Ireland and the U.K, making a breakthrough both at home and overseas has always been a challenge.

‘There’s always been a country scene in Norway, which used to be called a roots scene. My dad was part of the second wave of that scene and I grew up playing with a lot of that last generation of musicians that made it big – artists such as Claudia Scott, who has played The Opry, and Tore Andersen. They went to Nashville in their day and some are still active, still working. Tore Andersen, who unfortunately died a few years ago, was one of my favourite songwriters. We have country festivals in Norway so there have always been people playing country music in Norway. In the last ten years it’s been steadily growing with a new wave of artists and exploded in the last few years with some of the names you’ve mentioned. It’s difficult to get exposure, not just outside Norway but even in Norway because country music has not been necessarily something that everyone wants to write about. Now because the numbers of acts are increasing and acts like ourselves and other parts of the industry are trying to be more professional, to create a business that we can make a living out of it - it is making a difference. So, we are getting noticed, this is the first time we’ve been at the AMA UK Festival and it’s been fun, and also welcoming. I know that I – and several others – would love to do more shows in Europe. Die With Your Boots On, the label that I am on are very good at trying to connect and find likeminded people outside of Norway.’’ 

What does set Norway aside from many other European countries is Government support for the Arts and Pettersen has recently been the recipient of such financial aid. 

‘’I’ve been doing this for half my life and last year was the first year that I got any Government funding which I feel very fortunate about. After I recorded REFERENCES Pt.1, I went on a small tour with that album and afterwards thought that I just can’t do this anymore. It does take a toll as I have children and was turning thirty. I was not making money and looking for support from my husband, and not being the responsible grown up that you’re supposed to be. So now things are going in the right direction but I do know from experience that it can turn the other way any minute. So, I’m fortunate to have the grant and will continue to work hard.’’ 

It has been interesting observing the progress that the Norwegian has been making in recent years and also her undivided enthusiasm for the music she believes in. Hopefully she will be invited for another return visit to Americana Fest this September. 

‘’I really hope so. I think I’ll be going to Nashville either way, it’s just so much fun. I remember the first time I went there I did Honky Tonk Tuesday Night at The American Legion over there and someone told me after the show that they could tell I was into George Jones by my phrasing. I’d never come across people who knew country music like that before.’’ 

Interview by Declan Culliton

Jerry Leger Interview

Some artists hit the jackpot with their debut releases and struggle throughout their careers to recreate the dynamic of that first recording. Others release multiple albums before they come to the attention of a wider audience. Canadian Jerry Ledger most definitely falls into the latter category. With thirteen albums released over the past fourteen years, to describe him as a prolific songwriter is no exaggeration. That output consists of seven solo recordings, three credited to Jerry Leger and The Situation and three with his side projects, The Del Fi’s and The Bob Fi’s. It has been a long road to attain the recognition his output merits, but the tables appear to be turning for him of late.

 His early albums were released on his own Golden Rocket label, without sufficient funds to adequately promote those albums. A meeting with Michael Timmins in 2013 has proved to be significant, with the Cowboy Junkies main songwriter offering to both promote Leger’s next album at that time and also record it on their Latent Recording label. EARLY RISER (2014), NONESENSE AND HEARTACHE (2018) and his most recent album TIME OUT FOR TOMORROW, have all since been released on that label, under the watchful eye of Timmins and each has found Leger’s audience growing.

‘’ Well, Golden Rocket didn’t have any kind of budget, it was just a name I put on the records. I got the name from an old Hank Snow song I love. Latent is a real label, a small label run by artists with integrity. It’s been a good home for me and what I’ve been doing for the last while. It’s helped get the music out to more people and helped finally to get me overseas to tour and start building something there.’’ explains Leger. ‘‘ I certainly feel that TIME OUT FOR TOMORROW is my most concise musically. I met Mike (Timmins) through a mutual friend Josh Finlayson from Skydiggers, which is a great band here in Canada, also currently on the Junkies label. I was making an album with Josh and another buddy producing, Tim Bovaconti. Josh thought Mike might dig what I was up to and how I was doing it. The title comes from an old dime store sci-fi anthology a buddy gave me. The title just kept sticking in my head. I can’t explain exactly why but I felt it fit perfectly.’’

Leger references the album’s direction being influenced by Lou Reed’s CONEY ISLAND BABY and Nick Lowe’s THE IMPOSSIBLE BIRD. ‘’ Those albums inspired the general feel of TIME OUT FOR TOMORROW. That Nick Lowe record is like a giant hug to me. I get the same feeling from certain Everly Brothers records, Sam & Dave, etc.. and I wanted to make a record like that. That particular Lou record, well, I love it and it just has this real nice coasting feel. Sounds very relaxed while still making a point.’’

At least one album release per year over the past decade is a pretty impressive output by anyone’s standards. ‘’Yeah, I’m continually writing. I don’t want things to rust out.’’

Apart from the solo work and albums recorded with his band The Situation, Leger has two on going side projects to keep his machine well oiled. These ventures include both The Del Fi’s and The Bob Fi’s. They collectively give him the platform to put on record his extensive songbook, the former in a more traditional format than the latter. ‘’The Del Fi’s is a really fun band. I think it lifted me out of the drag that can be the music industry. I hate the amount of pressure that can be around. You know, put a record out then you have to sell it, hopefully get radio play, hopefully get some decent press, hopefully this, that and the other. I wanted to have a band and make music without any expectations and leave the business completely out of it. I wanted it to be a crazy beautiful mess. Some of the songs were written specifically for The Del Fi’s and some were songs I’d have laying around that didn’t fit in with what I usually do. Aaron Comeau, bless his heart, did a great job capturing these albums in his studio. The first album was really casual with musicians coming and going through a revolving door. It was a magical day in the studio, one of the best days I’ve ever had.’’

The Bob Fi’s is a more empirical project, giving Leger a platform to perform his spoken word, while engaging more experimental players. ‘’I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and I always write a lot of words, most of which just stays in the notebooks. I was listening to those Jack Kerouac albums where he would recite poetry to a musical backdrop and also Ken Nordine. I have friends, including Dan Mock and Kyle Sullivan in The Situation that have jazz chops, could write and play it. It was fun and a really good experience for me. I loved hearing the music they all came up with. I just gave a little direction on the kind of vibe I wanted and certain jazz records/artists that I love. I tried to be a conductor using the dynamics in the words and my voice.’’

The core musicians Leger is most comfortable with are his band The Situation, namely James McKie, Dan Mock and Kyle Sullivan. ‘When you find players that really click with what you’re creating and the direction you want to go in then there’s nothing better. Also, they’re really great friends and champions of my songs and the way I want our music and career to go. There’s a mutual respect and that’s also helped us keep going together all these years.’’

With this in mind what difference is there between a Jerry Leger album and a Jerry Leger and The Situation album? His explanation is both practical and understandable.

‘’ TIME OUT FOR TOMORROW could have easily been under “Jerry Leger and The Situation” but I stopped doing that a few records ago. The reason why is that more often than not I’m touring solo, duo, trio or just a different configuration of musicians. The last album where I had “and The Situation” in the title, we did one tour together and then I toured it without the band for the rest of the time. I felt like it was kinda lying to the public. I just decided to go a Springsteen route. Everyone knows E-Street band and they know when they’re present, they don’t need the confirmation on the cover of the album. Also, in the credits it always says “The Situation are:…” or something like that. Some of the albums have definitely had less of the band, like some of the early ones TRAVELING GREY and YOU, ME & THE HORSE. It keeps it simple to have just my name for catalogue reasons too.’’

Given the traction that the recent albums have gained, Leger also recorded a compilation album earlier this year. Titled TOO BROKE TO DIE, it was principally aimed at the European market where his popularity has been steadily growing. It makes perfect sense to trawl through that extensive war chest and offer it to the new audience rather than leave it gathering dust of a shelf.

‘’It was fun putting it together. I went through all the albums and it was a trip ‘cause after I make an album, I don’t sit around listening to it. It was like going in a time machine. “Is that me? I know it’s me, I remember recording that so I guess it’s me.” I’ve never gotten used to hearing myself, especially at different ages it’s pretty strange. The compilation was put together specifically for the European market because we had a big 2-month tour happening there and since the previous album had gotten a lot of attention, I wanted to reintroduce my previous work. Thought that would be a cool way of doing it. We put a couple of unreleased tunes on it for the folks that already had the complete discography.’’

Canada has been producing an endless stream of talented artists and bands over the past decade and appears to be a country that is hugely supportive of the arts in general. It is possible for an artist to survive within the confines of their home country. However, the allure has always been a calling to tour outside Canada for more than financial reasons. ‘’It's a necessity for me in a lot of ways. I don’t want to become lazy and stay in the comfort of my own home. It’s important for me to keep getting the music elsewhere. ‘’

With a reputation as a passionate collector of vinyl both new and vintage and with the current album drawing on the work of others, has he captured any particular gems recently that might spur the direction of the next album? ‘’It’s hard to say, for instance I’ve owned CONEY ISLAND BABY since I was a kid and it just caught me again in a certain moment. I recently picked up Irma Thomas’ WISH SOMEONE WOULD CARE. I really love the sound of that record. Been digging the Skeeter Davis/NRBQ album SHE SINGS, THEY PLAY. Also, a CD by a songwriter from Newfoundland, Ron Hynes. Great writer, sadly passed away a few years back. I really don’t know the direction of the next album; we’ll see when we get there. Some days I want to just walk into a room with a guitar and hit record and then the next day I hear a big orchestra in my head for a song I’ve just written. ‘’

With an uncanny interest and curiosity in ghosts, the latest album includes a track written about a ghost town named Burchell Lake. With a number of ghostly venues available in Ireland, a visit to our shores would be most welcomed. ‘’I grew up in a haunted house! I’m hoping to do a solo or duo tour of Ireland perhaps in the summer and yes, I’d love to do a little ghost research beforehand.’’

Interview by Declan Culliton

Interview with Wildwood Kin

In 2015, Wildwood Kin self released their first EP, titled SALT OF THE EARTH. It had four tracks, two of which made it onto their full-length debut album, TURNING TiIDES, that appeared in 2017. Three singles were released from that album before the writing process and recording of the second album began. 

Just released, this self-titled project sees the band build on their initial sound and start to hone their unique harmonies into something that is capturing plenty of media attention at present. We sat down with the three band members, sisters Emillie and Rebecca and cousin Bethany, for a chat and found them very open and engaging over the 30-minutes that they gave us before taking the stage for their debut Dublin gig at Lost Lane. 

You started playing in Devon at Church fairs, fetes and local mic nights and developed from there to West Country Festivals. 

We always had good local support from the community. We were all born in Exeter but Emillie and Beth moved to Torquay which is a half hour away and has a great mix of small city and countryside.

Your respective Mums (as sisters) are credited with giving you the encouragement to sing together. Was this from a very early age?

It was our Mums’ side of the family that had the musical and song-writing instincts; our Nana also wrote songs and we would harmonise from an early age on car journeys. There was a piano in the house and we did some grades but we also tried violin, learned guitar and clarinet and just always played together without necessarily knowing what note we were playing – just what sounded good together. We still don’t always know what key we are playing in when jamming with other musicians.

You don’t see yourselves as Folk artists despite the media trying to fit you into this box?

We were seen as not Folky enough by the Folkies and were too Folky for the Rock crowd. The comparisons with Fleetwood Mac are also made, which I can understand to a point, as their sound is genre-less and we have that problem.

The first record in 2017, Turning Tides, had no single producer. Do you think that this informed the sound of the tracks with different people wanting different things?

We started recording the first half of the album in 2016 in a London studio and didn’t finish it until the next year in a rural studio in Devon. One minute you are feeling intimidated by who has played in the London studio (Coldplay etc) and we felt a certain pressure as opposed to being far more relaxed in the Devon studio where we recorded probably our favourite songs from that record. We had been signed by Sony Music Entertainment Ltd after a show they attended at Union Chapel in London, about half way through the recording of the album. Sony gave us a licencing deal on the record which helped a lot with their advance going towards the cost of touring and they have been great to us, not getting in the way of what we want to do and not suggesting a direction that they think we should take. They are there if we need them and have been more involved with this second album as they were there from the start of it and have recommended producers that we may like to work with and also with the Marketing of the album. We have been really fortunate.

Everybody does want to pigeonhole you and we are just starting to learn that we do have more of a voice than we originally thought. We recently parted company with our manager due to certain pressures that were being brought to bear.

You released an EP in 2018 which had cover versions of four songs. Was this a conscious move?

We were still writing for our second album and were not ready to go into the studio so our management thought that we should make these covers our own and let our fans see just how we had developed our sound. It was our management that suggested it like an in-between thing.

Co-writes on this current record – how was the experience?

We always struggled with this concept as we tend towards our own co-writes between the three of us in the way we bring songs to each other. The thought of a stranger now sitting in with us felt like a blind date and a little bit awkward. The pressure to finish a song in a single session and then share it with our team. Essentially, they let us do our own thing but facilitated a space for us to look through an outside perspective which is something that we don’t do as a family band where it tends to be 2 against 1 if a vote is taken on something. To have a perspective from someone who wasn’t so close to the music was a good thing.Ed Harcourt for example just listened to what we had and we spent lots of time just talking. He let us play as a band and he wasn’t like,” I’ve got this great concept for you to try”.

The song messages are all very positive and the album works as a cohesive whole.

The reason we titled it Wildwood Kin was because we thought that it is more a representation of who we are and what we want to create. The first album was made over a longer time and there were delays and we were experimenting.

Who is the producer Ian Grimble?

It was one of our management who recommended him as he is a close friend. We were already fans of his work with Bears Den, Daughter and Seth Lakeman. We met with him and decided to go ahead but you never really know how the album will turn out, no matter how well or little you know the producer. If there is a pressure from other voices wanting things to sound more commercial for example, the mixing process can be difficult. 

The sound on the record is very full and the studio players who contributed, Tommy Heap (bass and keyboard bass) and Carlos Garcia V (additional guitars) help build the impression of a layered recording? 

Because of the high female vocals, we wanted the bass to balance out the sound. Playing live we can get away without the bass but on the recording, it just sounded like there was something drastically missing. We didn’t want the record to sound all trebly and empty. We didn’t want to bring extra musicians on this tour because of financial reasons but we are happy to be touring it as a trio. It’s all part of the learning process and we are open to using acoustic versions of our songs.

The message of female empowerment, self-acceptance, not letting life crush you. The manner in which you write about these issues on the album is very open and honest. The tragic events of Meg losing her brother to suicide is beautifully addressed in the song, Not Alone. Suicide is a big problem among the young and do you find your audience is mainly young people at the shows?

The audience is a real mix and we wanted to write about issues that impact us all. This album came after our family tragedy and it naturally felt right to deal with the issue in the correct way. The issue of mental health touches everyone and it’s amazing the way that people come up to you after a show and bring it up in conversation. It’s like they suddenly realize that they can talk about these things.

Interview by Paul McGee Photo by Donna McGee

Angela Perley Interview

Angela Perley Goes Solo with 4.30

Here she talks with Lonesome Highway about the new record, late-night song writing, touring, the Nashville scene and opening for Lucinda Williams.

The video premier of Angela Perley’s single Let’s Gofrom her current album 4.30 caught the attention of Billboard with award winning music journalist, Gary Graff describing her music as ‘’psychedelic garage pop, heartfelt country and Americana.’’ 

His thoughtful words served to emphasise the problem of trying to brand her sound under one simple heading. Her music embraces the psychedelic indie vibes perfected by Jesse Sykes and The Sweet Hereafter, the slick power pop output of Aimee Mann and Chrissie Hynde, yet it also touches on the rugged country sound of Lucinda Williams. It would be all too easy to pitch her under the Americana canopy, but that does not exactly fit either.  

Regardless, Angela Perley is an artist with the capacity to fashion melodic songs, some laid back and others full on, that hook you in on the  first listen and are likely to be locked in your memory for quite some time.

 “I have a hard time describing my music myself. For me it’s probably best to just think of it as rock and roll which encompasses all that, as well as the country and blues roots. We got invited to showcase at AmericanaFest in Nashville, so people definitely see it in that genre too.’’ 

Currently resident in Columbus, the State capital of Ohio, she’s been enjoying a short period of downtime before touring again. ‘

“I’m back home in Columbus, Ohio now. Heading to New York City and West Virginia soon, we have a little run coming up. It’s easy to tour out of Columbus and the cost of living is affordable here right now. But the city is growing and a lot of people are moving here. I grew up in Hilliard, Ohio, which is close to Columbus, and I went to school in Southern Ohio and Athens, Ohio, and back to Columbus after college.’’

The state of Ohio has gifted us a collection of standout musicians and bands over the decades. From Dean Martin to Doris Day, Boz Scraggs to The Black Keys and Dwight Yoakam to Buddy Miller, it has inspired artists across the musical spectrums. Both The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and The Blues Music Hall of Fame are located in Cleveland. A healthy appetite for live music exists in the State. 

“There is. Ohio in general is a hidden gem for music and a lot of different types of music at that. In Columbus itself there’s a big music scene and a lot of bands that are doing really well and touring out of Columbus right now. We play out of town, but our biggest shows are in Columbus and because of that we spread out our home town shows. We still love coming home to play to our local crowd, who have always been so supportive.’’

Previously recording as Angela Perley and The Howlin’ Moons, she recorded two albums on the Vital Companies label, Hey Kid in 2014 and Homemade Vision, two years later. Her latest album 4.30 was released earlier this year and it’s fair to say she has put her heart, soul and more into the project, and is reaping the rewards. The album constitutes a re-birth of sorts and a new chapter in the career of the bubbly and focused singer songwriter.

“Chris (Connor) and I were always the main people in the studio until the end, working on my songs. It wasn’t really like a band anymore. We had different multiple members playing with me in the band. It’s now like a new chapter with the new album based on the songs and Chris and I are taking a lead on it. Our previous recordings were on a local record label. This one was the first one when we weren’t on that label – it’s independent with a bit of rebranding. It gave me the opportunity to go in whatever direction I wanted.’’ 

The production and sound quality on the album are hugely impressive, particularly on Perley’s vocal and the guitar work by Connor. The introduction of layered vocals and strings also add to the overall album atmosphere. Co-produced by Perley and Connor, they engaged Columbus-based producer, Michael Landolt to apply the final mastering.  

“We mixed it ourselves to a point, trying to capture the sound without messing around too much with it. We got it together, getting the best sounds we could. We then gave Michael an idea of exactly what we wanted and asked him to make it shine from there. He’s really advanced, working with bass and guitars and knew how we wanted it to sound.  We had worked with him before. He actually produced some of our earlier stuff. We were a little scared to produce ourselves, so it was nice to have that outsider advice. But it worked out, we’ve had a great relationship with him. He gave general feedback, adding some parts here and there, which inspired Chris to try some things, add a little hook here and there.  That was our last few steps.’’ 

I wondered about the thought process on the sequencing of the album. Some of the rockier songs like Let Goand Dangerous Loveare followed by some of the gentler tracks. With current trends with people only listening to selective tracks, this is becoming an ongoing challenge for artists. 

“Oh my goodness, we had so many different orderings for the tracks, we were giving them to friends and family for comments. We wanted it to flow almost like a mini set and keep people’s attention on every song. We wanted to make an album that you listen to right through and when you circle back to the first track, the title track, it makes sense. That was probably the hardest part.’’ 

The album title refers to Perley’s preferred bed time and many of the songs on the album were written late at night, while the rest of the world slept. Not necessarily the most productive hours for many artists. 

(Laughs) “It is for me, though it’s funny, whenever I’m travelling and with the band it’s the complete opposite, having to get up early and keep moving. If I have a strict schedule I need to get to bed early, I need about eight hours sleep.  But when I’m home, I love late nights when everyone’s asleep. It’s my time to be alone and write songs. I get really creative at that time of night.’’ 

Don’t Look Back Maryis one of the standout tracks on the album, both in its melody and lyrics. I always find myself pressing the repeat button to hear it a second time when playing the album.  Its message is a reminder that there can be light at the end of the tunnel, even when present circumstances may seem endless. Perley’s writing appears to embrace both personal and third person subjects. 

“I try to put several people into a song and usually there’s a part of me that’s in the character, too. It’s usually about people I encounter and their stories. I often find beauty in sad songs and sad characters. In that song Mary is different. She’s been through a lot, but there’s that hope and strength in her that I like. I just love singing that song. I have a conceptual video for it that I’m working on right now which should be out there soon.’’

Leaving no stone unturned, the artwork on the album matches the musical content. The cover features Perley with flared cuffs, bell-bottomed hipster jeans, heavy eye liner, clutching her guitar – it’s the classic early 70s rock chic poise. It’s a striking image that sets the scene before taking the disc out of the packaging.

“I never wanted to put myself on a cover, but this is such a personal album that I put myself out there in that way. I didn’t want to cut any corners with this album. I wanted to work with artists that I admired, and that included the artwork. The designer, Keith Brogdon of Thinking Out Loud Design, who lives in Nashville, happened to be available and he does a lot of covers that have a cool retro vibe. I gave him certain things to work with, some album covers and the picture from the front cover, not much else. I wanted to keep it minimalistic, most of the covers I gave him were from the 70s. I wanted the artwork in keeping with the music and when he sent me the first shot, I knew it was definitely in the direction I wanted. ‘’

4.30 album cover

With the album out there, it’s time to continue working it, touring with a full band and also as a two piece with Connor, a relatively new experience for them. 

“It’s created a few more opportunities to play as a two piece. It’s given us the chance to travel a bit more. We’d normally tour with the full band, but it’s hard to break even on some of those runs, though I try to do everything with the full band as much as possible.  We normally tour lean and mean as a four piece and I also have to keep in mind that some of the musicians who tour with me have other projects that they’re working on. I’ve been more strategic this year with shorter runs, venues and places where we’ve already built up a presence over several years and also work on the festivals. They’re two different things, but I love the energy of playing with a band, it brings the songs to life. Playing as a two piece is good as a confidence builder and makes me stronger as a musician, so it’s good in that way.’’

Having seen her perform the last few years at AmericanaFest in Nashville, I’m interested to discover how that festival works for her, given that the majority of the female acts booked tend to be closer to folk and country than her. ‘

“We’ve gone the last few years. We played a showcase last year which was cool and we went this year to play a show at Tennessee Brew Company and to just take in the festival. I love it because most of my favourite bands are either playing the festival or live in Nashville. We plan to take that week off every year to go. I imagine it’s like SXSW was in the early days, before it got too big. AmericanaFest is still at the stage where it’s small enough to be like a reunion of people in the music industry.  I know that the market for female artists in Nashville is more Americana and Country and with where I’m coming from it’s actually a lot harder. People often don’t know what to do with bands like us, so you have to kind of make your own path and target your own audience.’’

Angela has shared stages in recent years with both Lucinda Williams and St. Vincent, to name but two, as her profile steadily rises.

“I’m a huge Lucinda Williams’ fan. I’ve always related to her as she’s always been a rock and roller but has the country roots side, too. It was one of my most memorable shows getting to open for her. A local promoter got me the gig – he knew I was a huge fan (laughs). She played at an old ballroom in Columbus that they were trying to revive as a venue. I also got to see her at The Ryman earlier this year on her anniversary Car Wheels On A Gravel Road tour, one of my favourite albums. I’d never been to the Ryman before, either.’’ 

With the positive reaction to 4.30 and the inevitable touring to further promote the album, Perley seems committed to continuing on a similar musical direction.

“Recording 4.30 ourselves and putting it all together was quite an undertaking so we’re going to tour off it and probably release some acoustic versions, some singles, maybe EPs. We want to release more because I’ve a lot of songs I don’t want to leave behind. My plan for next year is to hopefully keep releasing things. I’m always writing different things and even with 4.30 it was a case of putting together a collection that made sense as an album. I had lots of other songs that I wasn’t really feeling for this album. I’m finding each record is going in a similar direction so I’m probably not going to change direction too much.”

4.30 by Angela Perley is out now self-released. 

Interview by Declan Culliton Photograph by Cate Groubert

Paul Cauthen Interview

Paul Cauthen is a big, imposing figure as he ambles towards me, wearing beach shorts and flip flops, though he retains his rock’n’roll credentials with dark shades and the black, open crown hat that seems a permanent fixture on his head. 

He is only a few minutes late for the interview which comes the morning after he has hosted and performed at the Big Velvet (his nickname) Revue the night before at The Basement East, only a few doors down from where we are now standing in the swanky foyer of the newly-built Field Jones Hotel in Main Street, East Nashville. The gig – now an annual event at AmericanaFest – finished around 2 a.m. and I’ve no idea how long the after party lasted.

But he is very relaxed and I’m relieved.

And over the course of the next 40 minutes or so, he is considered, articulate and talks easily about the making of his current, excellent album, Room 41, during, and despite, a severe spell of self-destructive, personal problems, how a model broke his nose in a video film shoot, and why one of his new songs would never likely be performed at the Grand Old Opry. It was a lively, smooth, flowing conversation.

Cauthen, previously leader of roots outfit Sons Of Fathers, shifted his focus to his solo career with the release of My Gospel in 2016. This was a blast of Texas country, Memphis soul and gospel that earned him the reputation of an emerging outlaw artist.

His vocals certainly have a Johnny Cash quality to them and, while his musical style remains true to its origins in many aspects, it also incorporates funk, gospel and electro, giving it a unique panache, quite unlike anything else in the market.  It’s not commercially driven, radio friendly garbage, quite the opposite.

It seems the industry is not quite sure where to pigeon hole him but it is finding him too difficult to ignore, given the dynamic he’s creating and his quality output.

Before discussing Room 41, I was interested to get the story behind the Big Velvet Revue that had packed out The Basement East.

“It’s a gathering of all my favourite artists at the time, that I’m hoping will be around to do something with me at AmericanaFest and SXSW in Austin,” he says. “I just call them all up when they’re in town for the festivals and it usually works out. This is our third year. The first year was such a success that I think, man, I’m here to stay. We had a friend from our agency who has a good hook up there at The Basement East.

“We told him that at SXSW they sold $70,000 dollars’ worth of alcohol in six hours at our show, one of the biggest feats of Wessex Street in Austin (laughs) So, everybody just said ‘yes, please come’.’’

ROOM 41 could be described as a triumph over tragedy. The song titles themselves speak of Cauthen’s state of mind at the time after a period of personal trauma, self-afflicted in many ways by burning the candle at both ends and not helped by some relationship breakdowns.

The song Cocaine Country Dancing mirrors a person in free fall, Can’t Be Alone and Angel mourn failed relationships and the car crash left behind. Some of those songs evolved from mammoth drinking sessions, staying up and writing from 4am until midday before crashing out and repeating the same cycle over a period of weeks. The track Slow Down must have been a reminder to him that things couldn’t continue at such a pace and possibly proved a welcome turning point for him.

“That’s exactly what that’s songs about, just slow down, it’s four in the morning again,” he agrees. “I was in that room for the whole time. Lay Me Down, the last song on the album, I had for about eight years, but the rest, came out of that room. It was a rough time. I just tried to dig myself out through my music, happiness came with my songs. It was like therapy, man, then I was like going crazy. I was writing fifteen to twenty songs a week and throwing them to my producer and he was saying ‘we like this, we don’t like this and we do like that one’.  I was just trying to forget about genre and push beyond all that and bring in the things I love about music. Rhythm and blues, jazz and fun, bring them all into one record. We wanted the sound thumpier and sounding cool.’’

Even more experimental than its predecessor, MY GOSPEL, the new album is quite unlike anything in country or Americana at present. An example is the thumping Freak, which lands heartily somewhere between country soul and hip hop. The autobiographical Big Velvet, with its Prince-like rhythm, is amply decorated by Cauthen’s belting yet soulful vocals. The music is quite unique, certainly not market driven at the behest of some record company guru or aimed at a particular listenership.

“No, I don’t care. I’m over caring. I’m done caring about targeting anyone. I want them to come to my music not me go to their music,” he states. “Well, you know at one point I had four different producers working with me. One from Def Jam records who makes hip hop records, he did all the modulation and auxiliaries.

“I had Niles City Sound producer Austin Jenkins and then I got Beau Bridge, my main producer who’s done all my records, and Matt Pence my drummer, who mixed the whole thing and helped me produce it at Echo Lab in Argyle Texas.

“We let all the cooks add their best recipes and flavour to it and the ego left the room. We just let everybody have an open canvas to be able to paint on, instead of me saying this is the way I want it painted and these are the colours. Everybody had their own brushes and paint and all of a sudden, we’ve got something that didn’t sound like anything else. I thought it ended up pretty cohesive even if I did think at one stage ‘holy shit what am I doing? What is this? Dr. Dre meets Waylon Jennings (laughs). Finally, we got to this point where I’m really digging this new sound.’’

Cocaine Country Dancing is a funked up, dark and frenzied adventure - and possibly the most striking track on the album. Its accompanying video is equally dazzling - check it out on You Tube - gloriously over the top, very much in keeping with the groove on the track. Its making proved eventful, too.

“A good friend of mine I’ve been trying to work with for years, Tim Ketchersid, is working out in Los Angeles. We finally got together and we got a budget good enough to get a guy like him and a crew like that. At night we smoked up, drank some and hung out until three or four in the morning and Tim and I wrote this whole idea of this mechanical bull. The idea was that the mechanical bull was actually someone’s vice, and everybody was getting thrown off it. The bull’s name was eightball. That’s what you call a measurement of cocaine. Basically, you ride on something that’s crazy and you’re gonna get thrown off.  And the electric bull operator was dreaming of being this electric cowboy, an incredible bull riding baddass. We just went with this crazy story. This guy, having vices, just getting thrown in the gutter. And even someone whose living in the gutter and making wrong decisions, even then they have dreams, that’s what that whole thing is.

“He dreamt of being the Big Velvet, a persona that’s bigger than him. We just leaned into that. It was fun. We had beautiful models from Los Angeles come in, all three of us got on the bull at one time and I had all these glass mirrors all over me, and on my boots. The bull came up and a model’s knee hits me in the nose, breaks my nose and my heels from the glass mirrors on my boots cut the two models. (Laughs) It was a wreck, a tragedy that just went down in the middle of our set that day. Beautiful models bleeding and me with a broken nose. Don’t hop on a mechanical bull folks, there’s no reason.’’

Only two weeks previously I had received an album by an artist named Elaina Kay for review. Cauthen produced it and this was obviously something I intended to raise. Little was I to know that he had been in a relationship with her and some of the material on ROOM 41 was most probably determined by its failure. The interview could very well have ended there and then, following on from what could have been perceived as a loaded and painful reference. But he was happy to respond calmly and with compassion.

“’Elaina had become my girlfriend and we were dating there for a minute. She had so many great songs, and really rose to the occasion and got that done.  I have nothing but goodwill for her and her career. When you’re producing or helping out, you come across people that have got talent but don’t know how to write, finish songs and record them. I see someone like me in them when I was young and I want to boost their timeline and learn things earlier, teach them some of the things I’ve learned, often by my mistakes. Help them grow as an artist. Like a flower, very delicate, too much sun and you die, too much water the same thing. You have to be super delicate with an artist. This business doesn’t pay well, so I gotta keep working, hustling, performing, hosting, producing. I’m always trying to keep irons in the fire.’’

In the run-up to the making of ROOM 41, Cauthen brought out a seven-track, mini album, HAVE MERCY. That was in 2018 and it brought him industry accolades with comparisons to Nelson, Kristofferson and Jennings ringing out from all quarters. With his professional career on the ascendancy it might have been expected that he would follow a similar path to both Sturgill Simpson and Chris Stapleton and win across-the-board industry recognition, and the commercial success that follows.

Unfortunately, this coincided with a crisis point in his life. He eventually found himself holed up in a room at the Belmont Hotel in Dallas where he lived out of a suitcase for the best part of two years. The tempestuous episode could only deliver one or two outcomes and fortunately for Cauthen and, with the support of a number of collaborators, it proved to be the catalyst for the deeply personal and powerful album that is, ROOM 41.

In the meantime, it’s back to work with a showcase lined up for that evening at The Anchor, an in-store performance at Grimey’s Record Store on Saturday afternoon and an appearance, his sixth, at The Grand Old Opry on Saturday night. I doubt if he’ll get to perform Cocaine Country Dancing on that hallowed stage. 

“’I give them a list of songs and they select three, I’ll do one broken down acoustic. They probably won’t let me do Cocaine Country dancing. It’s not like it’s me saying ‘go do cocaine,’ more like, let yourself go and dance. It’s just a song. I play backed by their musicians at The Opry, but I’m bringing two of my guys this time to help as I want to get some of my players up there. The rest of the band are mighty pissed about that. Following on from that it’s the West Coast, Mid-West then East Coast with Randy Houser all over the whole Unites States with five of us on stage, six including me.”

Before saying our goodbyes I’m curious to hear his take on religion given the numerous references across all his work and his role as a preacher. His response is brief but wholehearted:

“Spirituality is important to me. Religion is separation in my opinion. My ministry is in a bar playing to people getting pissed drunk.’’ 

En route to the hotel, I did wonder seriously whether an early morning call on Cauthen would find him in engaging form (given his late night/early morning work), or if he would turn up at all, despite music industry people assurances that he’d be there.

I had shared my concerns with my pal, Mike Ritchie, the presenter of the Mike Ritchie Show on Celtic Music Radio from Glasgow every Sunday afternoon, who accompanied me. Mike is part of our travelling entourage that enjoys AmericanaFest each year and his presence was twofold. An experienced journalist in a previous life, I invited him along to provide moral support if the interview was heading off the rails and, secondly, to join me for breakfast in the event of a ‘no show.’

Both Mike and I had the pleasure of meeting Cauthen when he performed at The Kilkenny Roots Festival a few years back. My introduction followed his solo performance at midday in The Pumphouse Bar, whereas Mike had enjoyed his company on a bus journey back to Dublin Airport at the end of the festival.

My worries disappeared the moment Cauthen caught sight of us. Making eye contact, he drew both hands from his shorts’ pockets, gunslinger style, and pointed each index finger in our direction with the greeting: “Glad to see two friendly faces.’’

Somehow, my feeling that things were going to work out just fine were spot-on.

Written by Declan Culliton Photograph by Anna Webber

Room 41 by Paul Cauthen on Velvet Rose/Lightning Rod Records is out now

Time spent in the company of Native Harrow

Native Harrow’s first trip to Ireland hasn’t exactly gone to plan. A shattered windscreen in their hired van was inflicted courtesy a of disturbed individual, randomly throwing stones at the oncoming traffic, shortly after their arrival at Dublin Port. Most certainly, not the traditional Emerald Isle welcome. Their arrival also coincided with the best part of two months rainfall crammed into six days.  To add insult to injury, they also had to cancel the last date of their tour, due to the arrival of the tail end of Storm Lorenzo, preventing their intended trip to Derry. Despite the unexpected setbacks, both Devin Tuel and Stephen Harmes are in splendid form when we meet for coffee in Alan Hanna’s Bookshop and Bark Coffee in Rathmines, close to where the couple are staying for their few days in Dublin.

 An invitation to perform at The Long Road Festival at Stanford Hall in Leicestershire in September, opened the doors for an extended seven week stay on this side of the pond for the duo, playing dates across the U.K and Ireland. It also offered the prospect of performing material from their most recent album Happier Now, which has been enjoying stellar reviews since its release a few months back. 

Native Harrow could be the nom de plume for former ballerina and classically trained singer Devin Teul. Equally it could refer to the two-piece band featuring Tuel and her musical partner Harmes. ‘’ It’s both of us but we’re never clear about it! I prefer it to be unclear as I don’t like to be put in a box and maybe having to stay there forever. Since the beginning of Native Harrow I’ve played music by myself and Steve has played music with a bunch of my friends. We started off playing music together in shows around town and eventually we decided we were good together and it worked. So, we came up with Native Harrow. It doesn’t really mean anything, just two words that sounded unique, which we thought would stand up.  I simply sing to Stephen and he builds from there. I might say,’ here is what I’m hearing the bass doing’ and he’ll translate that. It’s a joint effort and a duo first and foremost, even if I happen to be the front person. Native Harrow will always be the two of us, even if we add members to it. We’re in it together we do every part of it ourselves’’

The duo had two albums under their belt – Ghost (2015) and Sorores (2017) and had written Happier Now, prior to attracting the attention of Loose Records in the U.K. who subsequently offered them a record deal in support of the excellent Happier Now.  ‘’ We knew of Loose for the past couple of years through Carson McHone and Courtney Marie Andrews, who are both signed to the label. We lived in Nashville for a few years and had also heard of them there. We came to the UK in March of this year just to say we’re here and we have a new record. Let’s play some shows and see what happens. Stephen had invited Tom (Bridgeman) and Julia (Grant) to come to our show in London. We played a really quick set in London right before a really loud rock band. Stephen didn’t tell me until after our set that Loose were there and we spoke with them briefly. We played a few more shows in the UK and Tom asked us to come into their offices and chat about a few things which we did. And they offered us a record deal, which I’m still surprised by! So, it’s been a dream come true to come to a place where you’re not from and see your album in record shops and having the most supportive and wonderful people come to our shows’’

A prolific songwriter - thirty-seven songs grace their three albums to date - Teul’s writing especially excels when composing sorrowful and sombre songs, a trait which was influential in securing the deal with Loose. ‘’ Hard to Take is the saddest song on Happier Now and it’s oddly the song that helped to get us signed to Lose Records. It’s Tom Bridgewater’s favourite song!’’

It’s just one of many distressing yet beautiful songs in her back catalogue, using her art to confront testing issues, encounters and relationships. It’s also in contrast to the bubbly and self-confident individual sitting across the table from me. ‘’ It reflects a very private part of my personality. I like sad songs and think that songs are a place where we can grieve things that we aren’t comfortable to grieve openly. Not to say I don’t also write happier songs but I think just being happy in real life is far easier for me than being happy in song. Songs are not for me a place to always portray life as being perfect. A lot of artists that I’ve met and talked to would say they are happy people and music or dance or poems are places they go to when dealing with things that are maybe not so pleasant’’

Notwithstanding the content of her writing, the pace of Tuel’s writing and her ability to practically write on tap is impressive. Hard To Take was written in the studio during the recording of Happier Now when Stephen Harmes and drummer Alex Hall were on a coffee break! Harmes explains ‘’ What I’ve noticed with some of Devin’s songwriting and that song and a few more songs than usual on Happy Now, is how she writes songs very quickly. I’ve actually never seen her take more than literally twenty minutes to write a song. She’s experiencing something and attempting to deal with it and uses the song as a method to deal with it. Once she’s written the song, she no longer feels that way, but the song exists forever after that. And in one sense it may be funny to get up on stage and deal with these emotions every night and maybe that’s where actor training comes in. Then the other thing that I think is that if anyone else has to deal with their version of how it feels in that particular situation it can be very useful that that song exists and happy people or indeed people that tend to be sad most of the time can experience how she felt at the time that she wrote that’’

Tuel considers this, sips her peppermint tea and replies ‘’ I’m comforted by that; I think that’s why many people like music. There’s an element of feeling a bit hurt and misunderstood with something you felt totally alone in. That’s why some songs just hit me and I feel wow how am I able to capture that feeling thinking perfectly that I’m the only person that ever felt that way. And I like the idea of something existing that people can just go and be honest with themselves and feel sad or whatever’’ 

It’s not too easy to categorise Native Harrow’s sound. Comparisons to early Laura Marling, Judee Sill and Laurel Canyon are reasonable benchmarks. ‘’ The Laura Marling and indeed Laurel Canyon references are high praise as I’m highly influence by the 60’s and early 70’s so its high praise that those influences come through.’’

 They’ve even found shelter under that widening umbrella which is Americana ‘’ No harm having The Americana tag - it’s a catchall for the underdogs, we don’t make the same music as a lot of artists that are considered Americana, but we may end in the same box.’’ They lived in East Nashville for a while. Currently celebrated for its burgeoning Americana scene, I somehow wondered if their sound might not have been the best fit there.  ‘’ Stephen plays double bass, that’s his first instrument and we moved there as Stephen was doing a bunch of studio work there and was touring with other musicians living there. I found it really difficult in Nashville based on my sound and different tunings. I didn’t feel intimidated just sad that I didn’t feel accepted. I felt like an outsider. I would go to peoples shows and tried to branch out but it’s a hard nut to crack. The sound there is often Americana or country and the stuff that is not those is psychedelic rock and punk. Its highly competitive there which also drives a lot of the social situations and I struggled with that. I had so much competition in the dance world growing up that I thought ‘I’m done with that’. I just don’t have a competitive mindset. There’s room for everybody in my mind, music is for good and competition creates bad.’’

Music and dance have been foremost in Tuel’s world since an early age and despite the frustrations and challenges a career in the Arts entails, it appears impossible for her to shake off.

‘’I started ballet when I was three and danced all through elementary school and High School and even a little bit in University afterwards. I studied ballet and modern dance mostly. The singing came into play in High School, I started doing choir and taking voice lessons and doing musical theatre as well.  I got tired of in being in a rigorous ‘you have to do it this way’ sort of thing and I wanted to do it on my own terms. When I started taking voice lessons I definitely wanted to be on Broadway and wanted to do musical theatre’’

Her vocal training is clearly in evidence when Native Harrow perform at their Dublin gig in The Underground later that day. Each song is delivered note perfect and true to the studio recordings. There’s also a discipline and symmetry to her vocals, coupled with intense concentration, that bears witness to her proficiency to record in a couple of takes in the studio environment. I wondered if her dance training had also been beneficial to her now chosen career.

‘’Yes. You know I really have accepted that the training is so imbedded in me as a person. Because I started so young, I have a lot of discipline, I have become a perfectionist which sometimes is a problem but I think now as an adult I’m trying to bring more of the dance skills to my performances, whether it be the grace or more movement around the stage. Before I would have stood still on stage where now I’m letting myself relax more. Dance has allowed me get to a point where I can master my craft more freely and be more present in my body than beforehand. From an early age learning to be on time, work really hard at things, get things done and be your own critic but also perform.  It let me know that I can do anything I really want to do.’’

That discipline and structure also factors in dealing with the downside of the musical career. Rejections, unanswered emails, self-management and torturous touring, all the obstacles facing the professional musician. ‘’I’ve written about being absolutely exhausted from touring and choosing the life of a performer a number of times. I feel I’m almost destined to do as if I don’t really have a choice. No matter how many times I quit touring I’m just drawn back in. And on a really long tour you get to the point where you just feel absolutely isolated from everyone and everything other than the road and it’s a lonely and tiring place. It happens at every level, we have friends playing arenas and we have friends playing coffee shops and they say the same, it’s a really hard life. We know, we toured for a year living in our van sleeping in Walmart parking lots. It’s not something that we dwell on a lot but when things improve and you get signed to a record label you think about the nights not been able to sleep because of the cold But it’s what we have to do to make money and there’s day that really go well, where you feel on top of the world and this is why I do this and you have a run of  days that are just  awful, the highs are so high and the lows so low, but you’re just pulled back in every time.’’

So how has the touring experience in U.K. and Ireland been. ‘’ On this tour we had people come up to us and ask why we were playing at certain venues and that this is the worst place for you to play. But we’d never been here before and nobody else would answer our emails so it’s hard. Also knowing that there are other people making thousands of dollars when we are struggling. This is our first time here so we’re learning this time, travelling four thousand miles from our home. So, on the first time over we just go to the gigs hoping for the best and often expecting the worst. The flip side is people often come to the gig, they’re excited to see us, they dislike the venue, they tell us where we should play, their friend is a promoter and put us in touch. We had to come here this first time make the contacts and prove that we will come and do the work.’’

Some artists have long term goals, others survive by avoiding looking beyond the next tour or album. I get the impression that both Tuel and Harmes probably favour the former. ‘’Short term game plan is we go home from this and this is the first time we’ve been home for fall which is my favourite season. I’m looking forward to silly things at home, pumpkins and eating apple cider doughnuts and hanging out with my family. We’re also in the process of working on a new record, writing songs and figuring that out. Stay local for shows during the rest of the year and back to the UK/Europe twice next year.’’  Harmes considers her response, scratches his chin and replies. ‘’I have a ten-year kind of plan, with different options depending on how things go. We’re at the point where we want to be working with other people more, maybe not doing all of the booking ourselves and all of the other admin. In the UK we now have Loose to support us. In the States we self-released our records and we work with record stores there otherwise it’s all us. We’ve done over two hundred shows in both 2017 and 2018 and the booking takes a lot of time, it leaves very little time for anything else.’’ 

Written by Declan Culliton

Joe Nolan Interview

Canadian Joe Nolan was very much the wild card at Static Roots Festival in Germany earlier this summer. An artist unknown to the many of attendees, his solo showcase set was mesmerising, delivered to pin drop silence to the packed hall. Far from being an industry newcomer, the Edmonton Alberta resident has been recording albums for over ten years, including Goodbye Cinderella which was nominated for Canadian Folk Music Award Emerging Artist of the Year in 2011. After a gap of five years he released Cry Baby in 2018, the material in the main performed by him at Static Roots. Lonesome Highway met with the engaging young man in Germany back in July and more recently at AmericanaFest in Nashville to get the low down.  

Your performance at Static Roots Festival in Germany a few months back was thrilling. You appeared to be in another world on stage?

In moments like these I never really remember the performance, I remember getting on the stage at the beginning and off the stage at the end. Everything in between is almost like a trance. 

You told of being inspired to write a song the previous evening following witnessing John Murry play on stage. Tell me about that? 

Yes, John Murry’s vibe and performance transported me somewhere, I hadn’t seen real, true rock n roll like that in a long time. His pure artistry alone was so strong that it compelled me to run back to the hotel and write a song. “How I Used To Be”.

 Is the song a stayer? Will it be recorded?

 It’s a stayer, and I’ve already recorded it. Will very likely be on my new “secret” record

The music industry is a minefield at present for emerging artists. With such meagre financial pickings on offer, how difficult is it for an artist like yourself to essentially self manage, promote, write and perform. And do you have available support to assist and advice you?

 As Tom Waits says, it’s like riding down the river, in heavy currents, on the back of an alligator. There aren’t enough hours in the day to manage it all, I’ve got some help, but mostly I’m operating the majority of the ship myself.

 Your current album Cry Baby reads like a diary of a difficult and turbulent period in your life. An exorcism of sorts? 

It is a diary in many ways, and delicate to talk about, that’s why I like to put it in the music, sometimes it’s my only path of expression and freedom to release whatever is going on internally. The album is a statement album about coming out of a long, dark period of my life where I couldn’t see any light. Climbing out of the water… It also reveals many of my colours, I love blues, rock and roll, soul, punk, and sad sad songs. My vision was to create a story that could highlight all of those sides of me within one album.

You had a huge amount of material to choose from when selecting the songs that would make the cut. Is there a Cry Baby 2 in the offering or will those songs stay on the shelf?

We cut 15 songs when recording Cry Baby, so there are 5 songs that never made the cut. I’m not sure if I will ever release them, maybe they will be B-sides someday. In terms of carrying them over to another album or a Cry Baby 2, I don’t see that happening. My next album will take a different and new direction

The track Music In The Streets features Lydia Loveless. How did that come about?

I used to spend a lot of time in Toronto, I would pretend I was a university student and break into the prestigious music school where they had private rooms with grand pianos in them. I wrote this song on the piano one of those few days before getting busted. Lydia and I toured Europe together probably 6 years ago now, I did about 30 shows opening for her and her band. It was one of the greatest times of my life and Lydia is one of my all time favourite writers and performers, she is the real deal. After Music In The Streets was recorded, I asked her if she’d like to sing on it and she gladly agreed to do it. 

Your set in Germany featured a poetry reading, an art form less common by musicians today than it was some decades ago. Is this a feature you generally include on stage?

 It all depends on the vibe, the room, and how I’m feeling that day, but It’s definitely something I want to include in my shows, I’ve got lots of prose!

Tell me about the track Another Dead Poet?

This song is about my own personal experiences, feeling lost in the music industry for years, after being in a terrible record deal, a toxic relationship and drinking way too much. It’s a song for any misplaced artist, poet, painter, dancer… any flower in the concrete. I won’t get into it much more… 

Canada continues to produce outstanding artists in the folk/ Americana genre. There appears to more financial support there than most countries through agencies like Factor. Has this been of benefit to you? 

We are very lucky, although it is still very difficult as an independent artist to be approved for most of this available funding. I have been fortunate enough to receive some help a couple of times.

You recently performed at a The Edmonton Folk Festival. A dream come true? 

A dream come true, as a kid I always envisioned myself being on that stage, so it happening was pretty surreal.

You appear to be in a much better place presently. What inspires your song writing these times? 

I don’t have an answer for this, it’s never changed regardless of the situation, you always have to be open to a song, if it’s flowing through you, no matter what.

What artists currently performing do you most admire, or do you get the time space to listen to others?

 I’ve been really digging another couple Canadians at the moment - Andy Shauf and Leif Vollebekk. Jeffrey Foucault, Chuck Prophet are a couple that have been on heavy rotation this tour.

You have recently got your visa to perform in The States for a year. How do you intend spending the time there, primarily touring or are you considering recording there? 

I’ve had the greatest time here, I’ve got one more show left with The Long Ryders tonight in Washington, DC. Then I drive home to Alberta, 42 hours, in my 2003 dodge caravan with a makeshift bed in the back that I built. 

You most certainly turned heads with your showcase in Germany. Any plans to return to Europe and Ireland in particular? 

I’ll be returning to Europe in February and March 2020 with the release of the the 7 songs I recorded in Sweden this year. It will be a limited edition run on 10” inch Vinyl. I’m also hoping to return for some summer festivals, I’m truly hoping to make it to Ireland for Kilkenny Roots at some point.

Interview by Declan Culliton

Kevin Kinney (Drivin' n Cryin') Interview

No sign of taking the foot off the gas for Atlanta Georgia rockers Drivin N Cryin. Over three decades on the road and they’re still raising hell! Their recent release Live The Love Beautiful is their 19th studio recording and it’s a gem! Front man Kevin Kinney has also released nine solo albums throughout his career and remains as committed and enthusiastic to his art as ever. Drivin N Cryin play a number of showcases at AmericanaFest in Nashville next month and we caught up with the passionate Kinney for a whistle stop journey across an accomplished and continuing career for him and his band.

It’s incredible to think it’s 33 years since Drivin N Cryin first performed, yet you’re still going as strong as ever. How does the industry weigh up today for you by comparison to your early career? 

I prefer it in a lot of ways. I love the one or two-hit wonders. I love the sixties bubblegum era. There are so many fantastic options out there right now.

The caliber of musicians is out of sight!!I liked having a record company behind us, and I thought if we ever lost that, it would be over. Island Records was a dream come true for me. They helped us develop our music by paying for all those early recording sessions where we spent a week getting drum sounds! But I think not having a company behind us for the last 25 years has made us strong and independent.

I don’t really love paying for our recordings, but I love not having to ask somebody about what they think about our art.

Like so many artists, you often name-check The Ramones as being hugely influential in your chosen career. Was it their simplicity and rawness that drew you to them?

Well, growing up in Milwaukee in the seventies was tough. The Ramones were a breath of fresh air and inspiration for me. There was no way I was ever going to play like Jimmy Page. On July 3, 1977, I saw The Ramones live at Summerfest in Milwaukee. I had their records, and I think Leave Homejust came out.

Their simplicity was so beautiful, especially in juxtaposition to all the guitar solo bands on the bill. They walked on stage and were fucking terrifying!!

1-2-3-4!!Nobody but bikers and hoodlums wore leather jackets back then.

Just amazing!A few years later, I became friends with Arturo Vega and Johnny. We traded baseball cards, and I would always drive him around looking for movie posters and cards. I didn’t have a band. I was just a construction worker, but I got a great insight watching them. I learned a lot about merchandising, lighting, and graphic design from Arturo. I learned a lot about fans and discipline from Johnny. I remember one night, I was standing on Johnny’s side of the stage, and he came over to me between songs and kind of scolded me. “Shows out there! “He liked it when I would give him a review of the sound, the people, and how the setlist was going. I miss them all. 

MC5 also appears to have had an impact on you? 

The MC5 was from just one state away from where I grew up. The late ’60s and early ’70s were very political in Milwaukee, Chicago, and Detroit. In 1978, I was a roadie for a band called The Haskels.They were a working-class, socialist-leaning band.

They turned me on to a whole new library of music: New York Dolls, Mott the Hoople, Buddy Holly, and definitely MC5.Milwaukee was a socialist city from the ’40s to '60s.

So, the MC5 combined my interest in social discovery and rock ‘n’ roll, which was very much a blueprint for what we are now.

When you moved to Atlanta you were personally toiling by day at a sewage treatment and playing folk clubs at night. Was it an easy decision to kick the day job and follow your dream?

It was. I was really into Dylan at the time, specifically “The Times They Are a-Changin’.” I kind of gave up trying to be a professional artist, but then, something happened. Tim ( Nielsen) quit his popular Atlanta band along with his drummer, and we started this thing. Rock ‘n’ roll with words about how I saw the world.After the first show he handed me $300!!!It was easy to quit my job after that!!!

The underground music scene in Atlanta appears to have been vibrant when you guys were cutting your teeth as a young band. Did you consider yourselves part of a ‘movement’ at that time, even though your sound distanced itself somewhat from the alt-rock and grunge scene at that time? 

We had a lot of friends in the Atlanta scene, but there weren’t really any that got signed back then. Athens was really a bigger deal.Atlanta was never really accepted in a lot of scenes in the mid-eighties. It wasn’t really until the late ’80s, early ‘90s that The Black Crowes, Collective Soul, and others brought more attention to the city.

We were fortunate enough to kind of create our own treehouse of sorts.We got a lot of help from the REM office and band about how to maintain your independence and still cooperate with a company.

You swiftly developed a large local following in Atlanta. Was it record company pressure your personal ambition to break out and seek national recognition?

It was our own pressure to break out, but the tour support really helped! We all have that wanderlust in our bones. We’ve known where every great coffee shop and book store is since 1987! We know we are different. Nobody said it would be fair. They warned you before you went out there. There’s always a chance to get restarted to a new world; a new life, scarred but smarter. It’s special. You’re not just singing about some sort of “getting drunk” situation. You’re trying to enlighten yourself, and someone else getting inspired is a byproduct of that.

Fly Me Courageous, released on Island Records, was a commercial success and a huge seller back in 1991. In hindsight, were you comfortable signing to a major label and did they influence your musical direction at that time?

MTV, MTV, MTV. I guess the video really helped with that one and the gulf war timing as well. It was a perfect storm of sorts. But I think the effect on us musically wasn’t what I wanted; there were too many cooks for me. I don’t love being in the studio. I had no clue as to how things were working, so I just said yes, a lot! I was from a working-class neighborhood and family, so I did what the boss wanted mostly. The last 25 years have been much more like I wish the first ten could have been. It was rare to have a record deal, let alone a major, so I felt an obligation to all the musicians that would not have had that opportunity. I should have been more honest with myself. Everything is so much easier now that I’m not worried about other people taking my place in line. There is no line. There is no place. There’s just art.

Throughout your career, you’ve always been involved in side projects, whether it be solo albums or diversions such as Sun Tan Angel Revival. Were these both vehicles to allow you to create music outside the Drivin n Cryin signature sound?

I write a lot, and sometimes I just run out of space on Drivin records. But I am Drivin N Cryin. Drivin N Cryin is me. I think it’s funny when it gets so separated, at least as far as the LP’s go, but live shows are different. If Tim is not playing bass, it’s not Drivin N Cryin. But, I need the solo ventures I do to enhance the effect on the band. I have tried out a lot of arrangements in my solo bands and tours, and these arrangements are now staple parts of our show.

Given the current resurgence in folk music, have you any ambitions to record a stripped back solo album in the future?

Maybe in a couple of years, but right now, I’m just doing the band. There’s always plenty of time for me to strip down, but right now, this line up with Tim, Dave, and Laur is making me really happy. I WANT to play, and it wasn’t always like that.

I have a couple of unreleased solo projects I might release in the upcoming future. One of them is an EP from the EP series called Mac Dougal Blues Revisited, which is a record produced by Scott McCaughey. The series features new versions of songs from MacDougal blues. I love it. I’ll try to bring you a copy.

Tell me about the rationale in recording your three EP’s/Mini Albums between 2012 and 2014. Was it your objective to frame three individually themed albums?

It was a deconstruction thesis. I wanted to offer the fans an opportunity to create their own playlists from the four different eras we showcase - all of our roots. Psychedelic, punk, folk, Zeppelin, Stones, Archie’s, Dylan. I just loved recording five songs at a time. It’s much easier to complete a short story arc that way.Live The Love Beautifulis more of a movie, whereas the EPS were more of a series of short films with different directors and cities. Ardent in Memphis was my favorite studio!

You’ve rightfully earned a reputation as a killer live band. You’ve never lost that enthusiasm, whether performing in arenas or smaller clubs. Do you still get the same buzz playing live?

Every show is my last first and every show is my last ...so that keeps me thinking

Your recent release Live The Love Beautiful is business as usual for Drivin n Cryin.  It comes across as a recording by a bunch of happy people! Were all the songs written since the EP recordings or were some rescued from your archives?

Just a couple of the songs were from the original demo recorded on 9/10 the day before 9/11 - one of the songs is this song called “Spies.’’ I think it’s a great garage type of song, but I did not want to release it in the climate of America and shelved it. To this day, I’m a little trepidatious about it. America is a very strange place right now; it’s a place I never thought it would be. I can’t wait to write new songs when this hurricane has passed. It’s hard to write songs and not add in topical situations. The reference to those situations may not exist in 20 years. Like I’m glad I didn’t write about Ronald Reagan because people don’t really care about him anymore. Overall, I am very happy and satisfied. I think we’ve got a good thing going, and I’m glad that it sounds like you can hear that.

Springsteen and Mellencamp are references that often feature in describing your writing. I’ve no doubt this must be personally satisfying, but do you ever think a ’’Kinney on Broadway’’ run would be more welcomed - and a nice pension pot - than all the accolades?

I thought about that years ago, but I think I would be more inclined to have a Kinney and Broadway puppet show. The music will be live, the stories will be live, but there will be puppeteers acting out the improv. I think that would be fun and relative. I loved the “Springsteen on Broadway,” but I think my Broadway stay might only last one weekend!!!!

You’re hitting the road once more for months of touring the album. That life energy seems to be in your veins. It is a case of touring because you want to or touring because you have to at this stage?

If I don’t want to play, I won’t play. I want the audience to know that I’m there because I want to be. I really love this version of the band, but I’m trying to warn audiences that I love to play the new songs. I will play a few songs that you know, of course, because I’m not here to test people, but I love the fact that I can do new songs that are as good as the first tour we ever did. That’s what I love about SXSW.I only play the new songs. If people hate the eight songs that I play, so be it. That’s what brand new bands that go there have to deal with. We are no better than anyone else. We are all artists trying to share.

Bands like yourselves got great exposure across local and college radio stations when you were kicking off your career. How difficult is in today's market to get radio exposure and survive with ever reducing physical album sales?

We have an advantage that people know us from those days, and they come to see us. Unlike the old days, when people had to witness the show and then venture to a record store (because it was unheard of to sell your own records at your show), it’s kind of a relief that we are not only the record company, but we are also the record store. It was a relief when iTunes came around and rescued a lot of, not only mine but also my friends’ early recordings that, when they were cut out on vinyl, were very difficult to find. You actually had to spend gas money, travel around, and hope that some record show would have one of my albums from 1987.I love the world as it is now for recordings.

For me, if one word best describes Kevin Kinney, it is ‘integrity’. Any regrets looking over your shoulder? 

In all honesty, not really. I think I’ve been very honest with myself, kept my expectations reasonable. I’m very proud of who we are and what I am. I look forward to 10 more years of recording and singing and sharing live music when possible. I’m also satisfied when I sit in my chair, put up all of my albums on top of the fireplace, and look at all of them!!!Good lord, that’s a lot of miles and shows!!!What was I thinking!!???

Live The Love Beautiful

What’s Wrong With Being Happy

Free is Not Free

Love is Not Free

But Freedom is Love

I don’t know who said it first, but, if you love something, you could set it free. I like it that I’m not holding onto this, hoping that this rock ‘n’ roll life will save me from anything. It’s entertainment. I’m singing to myself, and if you want, you can listen.

I don’t want to be your favorite band necessarily, just one of the 30 bands you might see in a year would be fine with me. Just give us a chance if you will. We’re different. If you want to make a difference, you got to be different. That’s the deal.

Interview by Declan Culliton