Margo Timmins of Cowboy Junkies Interview

The word ‘unique’ can often be bandied about when describing a particular band or artist. But, when referring to Cowboy Junkies, whose signature sound over three and a half decades and 25 albums has remained distinctive and individualised, it is wholly appropriate. From their ground-breaking recording, THE TRINITY SESSIONS, to their recently released full covers album SONGS OF THE RECOLLECTION, their ability to combine elements of folk, country, rock and blues, both on original material and well-chosen covers, remains unmatched. It was a great pleasure to chat recently with Margo Timmins, who talked freely about the band’s early days, their collective love of playing live, and their longevity. 

‘Staying together in the band was always more important than winning the argument. So, we always seemed to be able to solve it, before we became like Oasis,’ she joked.

 Your recently released album SONGS OF THE RECOLLECTION was your first full covers album. Did the enforced downtime of 2020 have a bearing on that? 

Yes, I don't think it would have happened otherwise. It was a project we had been talking about for a long, long time, a complete covers album. It took a lot of time because it wasn't as simple as ‘Okay, let's get together and do some songs.’ It took so much time going through the archives and listening to so many songs and then trying to find different versions of those songs. That’s why I don't think it would have happened without COVID, which gave us the time.

What is the band’s process in selecting suitable songs to cover?

When you choose the song, you're choosing songs that you love and grew up with and meant something to you, that's always the first step. The process is then what do you do with that song? More often than not when we are doing a cover, we may find that we are not doing it in any way that offers any value from the original. We’re not a covers band, so we are looking for reinterpretations rather than simple covers and if you can’t do that what is the point?  That happens quite a lot.  I might love the song, the boys can play it and I can sing it, but the last question is always ‘what is the point?’ That often leads to songs being shelved and sometimes we might go back to them in later years. For example, we recorded Thunder Road and when we first attempted it, I couldn’t find my way into the song. It’s such a big song to take on. We shelved it but brought it out a number of years later, maybe I was a little bit older and wiser then, possibly a better singer.

You have also just released your ‘lost album’ SHARON, thirty-three years after it was recorded live at the iconic Sharon Temple in Ontario. What was the deciding factor in not releasing it back in 1989?

SHARON was our next recording after THE TRINITY SESSIONS. We were then in the business with a record company and the expectations that go with that.  What the record company really wanted was Trinity Sessions again.  We weren't averse to doing another album off the floor like that, but we also didn’t want to redo THE TRINITY SESSIONS.  And of course, that was always the conflict between us and the record company. So, we said, ‘okay, we'll do it off the floor, and we'll see what we get.’ We went to Sharon, which we knew had this amazing sound and quite a history. We recorded the album and we liked what we heard, but it was too similar to TRINITY SESSIONS, it was just more of the same, and we just didn't want to become that type of band at that time. So, we said ‘no’ and, luckily, our first record contract gave us a lot of power and we had something to bargain with. Instead, we went into a studio and did THE CAUTION HORSES, which is sort of SHARON revisited but in a studio.

Your debut album WHITES OFF EARTH NOW!! mainly featured blues covers. Had you also been interested in country music prior to the recording of THE TRINITY SESSIONS, which followed?

You know, it's interesting but in Canada, country music was not a big thing like it was in the States, especially in the southern States. We did not grow up with country music. We grew up with folk music, early Neil Young, Leonard Cohen and Dylan, so we would focus on folk and rock and roll. Mike and Alan and I are all 60s kids so later in the 70s when punk came along, it was like,’ Oh my god, we love this.’ Toronto had a huge punk scene at four or five different clubs. All the bands came through, we saw all of them in small clubs like The Edge. Everybody played The Edge, we saw The Cure and The Police there, they all pulled up in their station wagons. That era was huge for us as young teenagers. It was punk that told Alan and Mike that you don't have to be a big rock star. You can just pick up a guitar and just do it, that was the message.  That's when they started to pick up guitars and started making noises and soon, they had a couple of bands together. Hunger Project was their first band, very punk-oriented and then Germinal which was more sort of jazz instrumental.  That led to Cowboy Junkies and our first album WHITES OFF EARTH NOW!!, which took us into the States. We toured for months on that album in our station wagon and while we were driving around the States we were listening to Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett and Steve Earle on the local radio stations, and reading articles about who influenced them. We started listening to all this music with different ears, going back to artists like Patsy Cline. So, this discovery of country music happened to all of us at the same time simply because we were all listening to it in the car on the road. That opened up a whole new world of music to all of us and vocalists who were just phenomenal. The fun thing was traveling around looking for gigs and going into these towns that had huge used record stores. We'd be finding all this new stock and having so much fun listening to it. What none of us realised at that time was that it was really helping us also become the band we became by dipping into that sound.

Had there been a degree of music snobbery on your behalf previously when it came to country music?

Oh, yes, one hundred percent. Country music was for hicks, not for sophisticated people like us. But it was so mind-expanding and hit us at exactly the right time.  Punk gave our generation the permission to go where you want to go, listen to whatever you want to listen to, do what you want to do and who cares what anybody thinks. So, when we came home from that tour we wrote THE TRINITY SESSIONS, which had more of a country vibe to it because of the point we were at just then.

So, what were your expectations recording THE TRINITY SESSIONS, and was it simply a self-indulgent project based on where you were all at musically at that time? 

Well, firstly we were a Canadian band and Canadian bands really weren't on the map then. There were a few but not really a lot of young bands. Our expectation was just to put out a record that we liked. We had put out WHITES OFF EARTH NOW!! ourselves, we sold it out of our band house and through the mail.  Before rehearsals every night, we would fill the orders and mail them out the next day, and that's what we expected from Trinity. Especially in 1988 when Michael Jackson was at the top of the charts and big production was what was out there. Certainly, THE TRINITY SESSION was anything but that.  Our intention was just to create a good record. We walked into Trinity Church with that expectation that day. If we hadn't gotten what we wanted, we would have just walked away. We had no record company, there was no time limit. We would just have gone and recorded it again elsewhere if we didn’t like what we got, there was no pressure that way. However, once we set up the sound, the whole thing took about seven hours. Most of it was just trying to find the right position for the mics and the musicians. We found that, because there were no overtakes or overdubs, if you made a mistake, you screwed it up. I can remember as if it was yesterday, singing I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, hearing it floating around the room and thinking ‘don’t screw up.’

Not only did it launch the band’s career, but its success allowed Peter Joseph Moore, who produced the album, to leave his nine-to five-job and launch his career as a full-time producer.

Peter has always been there and still is when we take our stuff to him to mix or master it, depending on what it is. You know, he has a very unique ear, so he's been important, very important. He’s been with us forever.

Your lifespan as a band has been extraordinary with no line-up changes over thirty years. You seem to have taken control of your own destiny and operated on your own terms throughout those three decades.

It's not that we haven't had our troubles and our differences, of course, but I think at the end of the day, we love playing as a band. You know, the Junkies is the four of us playing and if you change one of us, not to say it'll be better or worse, but it would be different. Even now, after all these years, when we get on stage and play, it's the same if not better.  I don't mean musically, I just mean getting the feeling we get from the appreciation, the joy, contentedness, whatever it is, It's the same as when we were young people playing in the garage. And I think at the end of the day when we had differences, the music always won out, you know: staying together in the band was always more important than winning the argument. So, we always seemed to be able to solve it before we became like Oasis. We always seem to be able to solve any problems and nobody's ever quit.

With four individual parallel lives outside the band has it been difficult to schedule your regular tours?

Everybody has children but I was the only mom. So, when my son was a teenager and before that when he was a young kid, we set up a sort of routine where we would go out and play Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and then get home. In that way, I could keep an eye on my son and luckily, we have always had an easy-going relationship. That’s what we did pre-Covid and now we’re back on the road and my son is part of our crew as well as having another day job when we are back home. We are actually touring more now, out for two weeks at a time with a six-week gap in between. We’re heading to Europe soon for a month, which we haven’t done since my son was a little baby when he also came on tour with us.

Collectively do you still get the same buzz from your live performances?

Yes, we do. Playing live is really why we make records. It doesn't really make much money for you, but it gives you the income to tour, and that's what we do. We are a live band. That's where our joy is and as we've gotten older and moved further away from the industry and business side of things, it’s actually got better.

Looking back at your career, are you happy with the way things have worked out for you individually and for the band?

I think I'm really happy with the way they went. Joining a big record company and getting that early money gave us income and freedom, it also bought my house, which was nice. More importantly, it also gave us our audience. We reached a lot of people and remarkably they're still there. We wouldn't have been able to reach out and have a power machine pushing us out there and putting us on radio without a label behind us. So, we created this audience that is fiercely loyal. I'm always amazed that they keep coming back to our shows. What I would tell my younger self is that if you have bad managers and hangers-on, you need to let them go and not keep them around too long. We also had a period when we tried to manage ourselves and that didn’t work out, we needed a manager then. Those things could have been managed better but that’s all hindsight.

Finally, given your surname, I presume that you have Irish Roots?

Yes, we do.  Our ancestors all came over on the boat, I'm not sure exactly when but it was in the mid-1800s. They came over to make a better life here, apparently. Some succeeded, and some didn't. The story has it that a lot of them went to Northern Ontario and got into prospecting and mining.

Cowboy Junkies play at The National Concert Hall, Dublin on 17th November 2022.

Interview by Declan Culliton

Mariel Buckley Interview

If you need a pointer for the talents of Canadian singer songwriter Mariel Buckley, look no further than her winning the annual Project Wild contest in 2019. The competition, sponsored by radio station Wild 95.3 and Alberta Music, earned Buckley a cool $100,000 towards her career overheads and she put some of that funding towards the recording of her fine, recently released album EVERYWHERE I USED TO BE.  With the production overseen by Marcus Paquin (Arcade Fire, The National, The Weather Station, Tim Baker, The Barr Brothers) plus a host of Canada’s finest session players contributing, it’s an album that packs a hefty punch from start to finish. It features Buckley’s most unguarded writing to date as she lifts the veil on some difficult personal issues. We spoke recently with the career-focused artist about the album and her musical influences. 

 Where are you based at the moment?

I am in Edmonton, just three hours north of Calgary but I'm originally from Calgary.

I understand that you grew up in a fairly conservative environment. How difficult was that for you?

It's a fairly conservative part of Canada, for sure.  The Far West is kind of in that right hand cradle but honestly, it was not too bad. There were obviously exceptions that I talk about on the new record and there was certainly an old-fashioned mindset in a lot of religious and social values for sure 

Did that draw you to music as a way of kind of dealing with that?

Oh, definitely. I was a big music fan since I was just little, I would burn CDs and really dive in and I definitely felt understood and heard when I listened to music. So, definitely being an outsider was a big push for me to get into music.

When did Mariel the listener become Mariel the writer and performer?

It took some time. I was pretty shy about it. My brother is also a singer, songwriter and performer. He was ahead of me by quite a few years and when I started to see him performing, I would have been about fourteen and I was kind of toying with the idea. It still took me another five or six years of practicing in my room before I would be comfortable sharing my own stuff.

Was there any particular artist or album that convinced you that you had the songs and the talent to take the next step?

Not that made me feel more confident. I certainly heard a lot of records that made me think that I really needed to practice more if I wanted my own records out there. Right around the time when I wanted to start performing, I heard a lot of Neil Young and a lot of Lucinda Williams, which would have been both from my brother's collection. When I heard Neil Young for the first time, I certainly learned that there's room for some strange songwriters in folk music.

Winning the Project Wild commercial radio artist contest with a prize of $100,000 must have been hugely rewarding both in respect of the income and also an endorsement of your talent.

Yes.  It was a development kind of contest that took about a year to complete from start to finish. There were ten people accepted and there was a series where we had to write a marketing plan and a grant report. We then had to do a performance piece, just like one of our shows with original content. We were then essentially scored and graded and the winner was allotted the prize money. The money was facilitated through our provincial Music Association, so I don't actually receive the funds directly. But the funds go towards touring and recording.  So, it was a huge help.

There appears to be a huge support for the arts in Canada.

Oh, yeah, we're very lucky in Canada. I think we are up there with some of the most federal arts-funded people in the world. We're also very fortunate to have this Project Wild project, which is a privately funded contest. So, I was just lucky to tap into it, I guess.

That must have been a huge confidence booster for you.

Well, yes and no. I obviously was so excited to win, but I was also like, ‘oh my god, what sort of expectations do folks have now, can I live up to those expectations?’  There was a bit of reckoning that I had to do but that didn't take too long to get over.

Your latest record EVERYWHERE I USED TO BE arrived four years after your last release MOTORHOME, which was released four years after your debut album DRIVING IN THE DARK. Was this an intentional four-year cycle or a coincidence?

So far, it's been coincidental, and I would say, you know, with semi-confidence, I'd like to shorten that significantly with the next follow-up. The only reason this one took four years was partly because of the pandemic. But things do seem to happen for me in four-year bands. I don't like to put things out before I feel like I've got something reasonable to say.

I believe you were going to call the album SAD ALL THE TIME.

That song Sad All The Time is a B-side now. It was just a satirical song I'd written for the record that I was sort of toying with using as the title because I just found that sort of satirical and funny, and for all the depressives out there. But I waffled back to EVERYWHER I USED TO BE for the title. I just felt that that one really encompassed a lot of the themes that I'm talking about on the whole record, that feeling of growing in a liminal space and moving on, so all that stuff seemed to be wrapped up nicely in that tune. So, that's why I ended up picking that one.

I read that you wanted to make a good pop/country record but the album is far removed from what is masquerading under the pop/country genre coming out of Nashville.

Well, what I mean when I say that is that nobody can argue that great pop music is some of the most influential music that anyone's listened to, as well as some of the most interesting stuff to listen to. When I made this record, I wanted it to say things that would complement my very traditional sensibilities of songwriting and production. I wanted something that was more contemporary in feel, and less contemporary in content because I like that sort of juxtaposition. I think that to do pop music with that sort of polished sound really well is an art and especially without all the digital stuff and much of the crap coming out Nashville and, on the radio, which I agree with you it's not good. It's very fun to do that but it’s also difficult to do well.

Less than a minute into the opening track Neon Blue, I was reminded of Kathleen Edwards and that comparison remained with me both in the songwriting and delivery of a number of the songs 

Yeah, she's the best and a big-time influence for me in songwriting. She was such an original voice coming out of Canada. There hadn't really been a female singer like her, especially out of Canada, until she came out. That was a very promising thing to see for a young songwriter like myself at the time. So yeah, she’s top of the batch for me.

There is a lot of soul-searching on the album. The track Hate This Town particularly stands out. Mixed emotions?

Yeah, it's obviously super heavy. But I loved writing that song. It came out to me very quickly, as difficult things often do, because it feels very cathartic to get them out. So, as much as the song is dark, it’s also a little bit sickly and funny in spots. I really like playing that song because it really disarms people quickly.

I love the lines on the song Love Ain’t Enough, ‘Thought I saw you in the back of my car, you were combing your hair in the mirror, I was falling apart.’ Are lines like these personal recollections or part imagination?

Mostly recollection. With that particular line, I think I was I was trying to do a Bruce Springsteen thing. He does such good artistic call-backs and memories and tells them in a way that makes you feel like you're in the back of a 1960s Muscle car. So, I think I was doing something similar there, but a lot of that is from my own experience

You called on Marcus Paquin to produce the album. He previously worked with Arcade Fire, The National, Tim Baker, The Weather Station, and The Barr Brothers. Did the funding from Project Wild give you the freedom to choose your producer?

Yeah, it certainly did. That was a huge help in landing Marcus. The National and Arcade Fire are great bands, but certainly his work with Tim Baker, The Weather Station and the Barr Brothers was a big reason that we chose him because he has such a cool approach to music. Marcus is not prohibitive by any means but, as you know, the costs to record an album are immense and to be able put all the finance down at once as opposed to paying it back over time really allowed me to kind of get everything in place with all the people that I wanted, and in a relatively short window to get it all done. That was a very big gift.

How long did it take to record?

Everything was recorded live off the floor except for my vocal, which is doubled on the record. There are a couple of synth patches but mostly everything is live off the floor with me in the band and Marcus playing percussion in a room. We did it all in about twelve consecutive days, without any pre-production. So, everyone came in pretty fresh which was also really fun. On this record, the only returning staff from my previous albums was Tyson, who is a bass player from Vulcan, Alberta. Everyone else was a session player from Alberta or Ontario or Quebec.

You are due to continue your hectic touring schedule supporting The Bros Landreth in the U.K. and Europe soon.

Yes, we're in Germany and Denmark after the U.K. dates with them, and then I’m over to Sweden with my full band.  I start touring again in February and March of next year, that's mostly in Canada and then the spring and summer will be in North America. We'll be back to Europe in the fall of 2023.

Are you happiest on or off the road?

Most of the time on the road. But everybody's always the same. You get about three weeks in and then you kind of want to be at home. And then when you sit at home for a couple of weeks, you start to want to go back on tour. It’s always one or the other.

You appear very structured. Do you have a career game plan in the short to medium term?

Yeah, absolutely. I certainly am a person who likes to make plans and try to hit my milestones. Hopefully, we'll get another record out in less than four years and then just keep touring, and keep growing it. But, you know, I'm glad people are listening to it so far and seem to dig it. I want to be able to work and keep playing and make a little bit more money as the years go so the band gets fed and everyone’s doing okay.

Interview by Declan Culliton

Michelle Rivers Interview

Unlike most aspiring singer-songwriters who head to Nashville to follow their dream, Michelle Rivers chose a somewhat different career path. Although she grew up in the small town of Leipers Fork, barely thirty miles from Nashville, the bright lights of Music City were not for her. Instead, she headed north to Montana, where the more peaceful lifestyle and environment fuelled her passion for song writing. Her latest record, CHASING SOMEWHERE, which follows her debut recording BREATHING EMBERS from 2016, has been getting lots of love both in her homeland and Europe. It’s an album loaded with tracks delivered with discipline, confidence, and grace by Michelle, and includes gilt-edged playing by some household names in country music. Speaking with Michelle, we got the impression of an artist with a definite game plan, which appears to be progressing very much as intended to date.

Your father is a singer songwriter and had a studio in Tennessee, so music was there for you from a very young age. Did you buy into what he was playing or rebel as a teenager and seek out other music?

I loved what he was doing, especially when I was younger. As a teenager, I definitely went through a phase where I was listening to pop punk and bands like Green Day.  I got really into that in high school. For me, it was the contrast between the very polished and perfect Nashville sound that I grew up with that I loved. But I didn't necessarily feel like I fitted into it so that was what drew me to punk music.  I think it was just the wildness and the rawness of it. That kind of led me into bridging those two worlds and discovering Americana and Outlaw Country, Red Dirt Country, the different subgenres of country where the music is a little bit freer and less polished. It's not that I don't like music that sounds polished, but I just love the authenticity of somebody expressing themselves through music and not trying to create something that has a commercial sound.

Despite growing up in Tennessee, Nashville did not appeal to you career-wise?

I love Nashville, and I still love to visit Nashville. I’ve lots of wonderful friends and family who still live out there. But yeah, it just wasn't my place. So, I went to Nashville for that one year of college. That wasn't for me, then gradually started making my way west to Texas and went to the same college that many family members had gone to. But then after that, I was like okay, now it's my time to move to the mountains and also make music a part of my life.

 Montana is a long way from Nashville. What drew you to that part of the world?

I had always wanted to live in the mountains. We grew up in Tennessee, out in the country. Walking down to the creek and walking through the woods, was a big part of my childhood. My parents would drive us to Colorado to learn to ski, but also to go hiking and fishing and all those things. That happened every summer and so when I became an adult, and it was time to make my own decisions, I planned to move to Colorado, but my sister had already beat me there as she found herself a rancher cowboy and moved there. My mom had visited Montana and she came home from that trip just raving about how incredible it was and that I would love it, So I ended up getting a job up here in Montana and never looked back. I moved here fresh out of college and just never want to leave.

Is there a strong music and art scene in Montana?

Yeah, there actually is. It's such an interesting place for music and for me as an artist to grow and develop. There are lots of artists who make pottery, paint and do different creative things, but also, there are quite a few singer songwriters. I live just north of a very quirky area called Whitefish Mountain Resort, close to Glacier National Park, which is very popular to visit. A lot of tourists come in summertime, which is good for musicians, except that there's also the expectation for artists to play cover songs. There’s such an interesting collection of musicians up here who can play shows five nights a week and get paid to do it. I grew up in Nashville where if you're a small independent artist, you don't really get paid to play until you've done your time. You have all these waitresses and regular everyday workers who are spending their nights playing for free or for tips. Up here, I can play music and I can get a little extra money for it and have the opportunity to play live music in a regular way. The area has also definitely helped me to grow as an artist and there are quite a few wonderful songwriters in the area that you just wouldn't think would live in the middle of nowhere Montana. It is such a beautiful place to live and such an inspiring place to live, I’m inspired by this kind of lifestyle. Montana has created a pretty neat musical culture. I'm not the only one that uses a ton of natural imagery and small-town life is woven into my music. That's something that quite a few of us are doing up here.

Have you found yourself more productive in your song writing since moving there?

Yeah, absolutely, I've always loved nature. I recognised a little bit later in life that nature is very calming and very healing for me, and when I go into a city it's fun for a while. I can handle it for a few days and I really enjoy it. I do enjoy just being around a lot of people and enjoy playing shows in cities. But that creative part of me is most inspired when there's stillness, and there's quiet.

There are a lot of songs on CHASING SHADOWS, fifteen in total. Were you tempted to save a few for your next recording?

Yes, I was tempted to and I was advised to consider that by some other independent artists and friends.  People in the industry telling me:‘Well, it'd be smart if you release ten songs, and then a five-song EP later, or save some to be singles after the album.’ Every one of those people was totally well-meaning and I did consider it. It costs a lot of money to make a record and you do want to maximize what you've done profit-wise.  We live in a generation where releasing content regularly is so important, and so I get that side of things.  But when it came down to trying to narrow it to ten or eleven songs, I just could not let go of any of these songs because it feels like a complete body of work. So, it was a difficult decision, but I definitely feel like I made the right one. And you know, I do see more artists doing that. I mean, Zack Bryan releases nearly forty songs on a record, yet he has this incredible following of people who are listening to all of those tracks. I think sometimes, as independent artists, we try so hard to do what the ‘right thing’ is, make smart business moves and I think sometimes you can lose the artistic presentation of your work when you focus too much on that.

Was the album recorded in a studio with the various players or did they record remotely?

It was kind of a mix of everything. We recorded in October of 2021. I flew to Georgia, which is where my producer Jason Hoard lives. We could have recorded in Nashville, but Jason has a friend who owns this little cabin in the middle of Georgia and he's like: ‘I think that's where your record needs to be made.’ Jason has his own studio, so he brought all of his studio gear to the cabin. We recorded most of the bones of the album live. I did go in and cut my vocals later, as I sang a scratch vocal while we were recording live. We then sent it off to a few other musicians that we wanted to add in different parts, mostly players that my producer uses on his own recordings.  

Those players include big hitters such as Jenee Fleenor on fiddle and Barry Bales on bass. You also had Al Perkins playing pedal steel.

Al Perkins is a family friend of ours from our Nashville days.  When we were talking about pedal steel, Jason had someone in mind for it. I very shyly said that I would really love for Al Perkins to be on this record.  It was an incredible experience to have him play on it. I'd heard him play live with different groups growing up and even heard him play at church. That was the closeness of our family friendship.  Just to hear him play on my record and knowing that he's played with Emmylou Harris and Buffalo Springfield was really, really incredible. Right before my record, he played on Miranda Lambert's huge radio hit ‘If I Was a Cowboy.’

The track Buy Myself A Job on the album sounds autobiographical?

Yeah, I think I was reflecting on my journey as a musician. I don't own a Westphalia camper van, that's like a dream for me to own a campervan and just travel everywhere I want. But, you know, aside from that, it was mostly a reflection on the journey of all of these musician friends that I have, and just how hard it is to be playing for tips playing or free, spending gas money trying to do all of these things because you feel you are called to this music career. It’s a career that has not got a path, there is no path to take and the road is always winding and difficult.  I tried to capture as much of that as I could in the song but at the same time, I had that hopeful feeling of someday I'm going on the radio, touring, and that things are coming to fruition.  I think that that happens when you don't give up and you just keep that positive mindset, reminding yourself that this is what I'm meant to do. 

Last Cowboy is another favourite track of mine from the album.

I actually co-wrote that with a friend, Jessee Lee, who I met in Wyoming at a songwriter festival.  I'd been sitting on this song idea for a little while, it's really just about what a cowboy means to us. There's an old cowboy culture in Texas and a little bit in Tennessee, although it's mostly a horse culture and country music in Tennessee. Jesse and I both come from these rural backgrounds and have so many definitions for what a cowboy is and what that means. Is it that hat that makes you a cowboy? Is it the way you dress? Is it the fact that you actually have cows?  What makes you a cowboy? All of those are the questions that kind of influenced us to write the song, so it's really just a reflection of who we think a cowboy is. My favourite line on the song it is ‘he's denim in a black suit kind of crowd.’ A cowboy isn't necessarily a very popular thing at this point in time and this particular cowboy is trying to live life in the city where he stands out like a sore thumb, even in a city like Nashville.

You have quite a number of shows lined up this year, where will you be playing?

I'm mostly playing Montana, Wyoming, and Washington this year. I still have a part-time, day job teaching elementary music for half days. During the school year, I'm like a weekend warrior. I'm really working hard to plan my first big tour in June 2023. I'll start with a regional tour then the southwest, the southeast, and I also want to come over to the UK and Europe. I think it makes the most sense to probably tour as a duo or trio at first.

How would you measure success for yourself?

That's such a great question. I think that the definition of success is constantly evolving for me. I try to set small goals, to focus on the next thing I want to accomplish. Over a year ago I decided that I'm going to make this record, so I feel like I'm successful right now. I think to be able to do music full time is what success would look like for me. I've been a part-timer for a little over a decade now.  Just to be able to do it full-time and be able to make a modest living doing what I love would be a success.

Interview by Declan Culliton

Wade Bowen Interview

SOMEWHERE BETWEEN THE SECRET AND THE TRUTH, the latest recording from Texan country singer songwriter Wade Bowen, arrives twenty years after his debut album TRY NOT TO LISTEN. The intervening years have yielded eleven more, collaborations with Ray Wylie Hubbard, Pat Green, Radney Foster and Cody Canada, two duet albums with fellow Texan Randy Rogers and, not least of all, regular high placings in the U.S. Country charts. His new album is arguably his strongest to date: it includes three co-writes with Lori McKenna and a duet with living legend Vince Gill. Lonesome Highway found Bowen in sterling form, refreshed and hugely enthusiastic about the album and the upcoming dates on his hectic touring schedule.

I get the impression that the enforced pandemic lockdown gave you the opportunity to take a few steps backward and re-group.

The pandemic was a good way for me to pull the reins in a bit, without actually wanting to at the time. It gave me time to rethink everything and I came out of it refreshed, re-energised, with a better grasp of what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. I think that’s what you hear on my new record. The other positive to come out of the pandemic for me was Zoom, the fact that we can see and talk to each other. All the songwriters started to write on Zoom and that was great. I got to write with my good friend Grammy Award winner Lori Mc Kenna. She lives way up in Boston and I’m in Texas, so we hardly ever got to see each other before the pandemic, along comes Zoom and I was able to interact and write with Lori. Having that resource has become huge for me. That became one of the best things to come out of the pandemic for me, being able to interact with people like that.  

When were the tracks for SOMEWHERE BETWEEN THE SECRET AND THE TRUTH written?

Some were written during the pandemic and some were just written in the last year. I never stop writing until the record is done, I finished this record in December of last year so I was writing right up to then, even in the studio. I never feel a record is done until it’s turned in and you can’t mess with it anymore.

Where and when do you traditionally write. Is it on the road or locked in a dark room?

I’ve got a place in Nashville and I make trips back and forth there and I do actually hole up in a dark room. That’s my place where I can clock in and clock out and write there. I also force myself to do some writing on the road but don’t write when I’m at home as that time is spent with my family.

You decided to self-produce the album. What motivated that?

I had co-produced stuff for other artists but had never produced a record on my own. I guess I reckoned that if I going to mess it up at least I’m only messing up my career and not someone else’s. I’m at my best when I’m on the ground trying to get up, in a corner trying to fight my way out. Producing this record made me get out of my comfort zone and made me work harder on the songs, and every other aspect of the record, whereas previously I’d pass it on to someone else to let them figure it out. By having my own hands on it, I think it helped the record overall. I’m normally hands-on anyway and this was something I really enjoyed.  I’m looking forward to doing it more going forward.

You re-engaged players that had worked successfully with you in the past for the recording. Guitarists Tom Bukovac and Jedd Hughes and drummer Chad Cromwell came on board once more.

I wanted to go back to the early stages of my career, that early Wade Bowen sound but with more of a country aspect. Lyrically and production-wise it’s more country but still with the vintage Wade Bowen sound. I wanted guys around me that knew me and I wouldn’t have to talk stuff through with them in the studio as those guys instantly know where I am and what I want from them. Tom Bukovac is one of the biggest reasons that I have a career. He played guitar on my early records and on almost every record I’ve done since then. It was nice to go back to all those guys and also try some new things.

How would you describe your sound?

I hate to be too broad with what I do, I simply define my sound as country music. I think it has so many borders now and so many lines in the sand, I just think everybody has their own version of country music. Rock and roll did that back in the 60s and 70s, putting lines in the sand. I just say I play country music. I’ve always loved country music and I’m just a boiling pot of all my influences over the years, from the 80s and 90s country and my influences from the Texas country music that I grew up with – Willie, Robert Earl and Waylon, all those guys. I just wave that country music banner as proudly as I can.

Lori Mc Kenna, who you spoke about earlier, is credited with three co-writes, A Guitar, A Singer and A Song, A Beautiful World, and the title track Somewhere Between The Secret and The Truth. Tell me about your connection with Lori?

We have been friends for a long time and being able to reconnect, as I mentioned, through Zoom allowed us to catch up again, talk about our families, just be buddies, and also get some great songs written. That connection has been huge for this record. She’s a great friend but also as talented as it gets, and a phenomenal songwriter. Whenever I bring my quirky and weird ideas to her, she’s not afraid to dive into them and say ‘I get what you’re saying, let’s try that and see where it goes.’ I think that our friendship getting a lot stronger is a great thing that came out of the pandemic for me. My day instantly gets better just talking with her.

Is the title track self-descriptive?

I had actually finished the record and added that song at the last minute. I wrote that song the day after I thought the record was done, so it’s funny how that works sometimes. As soon as I wrote it, I knew it was the title of the record. It summed up my internal thoughts. Somewhere between the secret and the truth is pretty much all of us: we all have our lives tucked in between those things. I love that it’s truly a country song, sounding like a cheating song but at the end throws you a loop with the person in the song making a good decision. It really hit home to be the title track for so many reasons. I’m glad we sneaked back into the studio and finished it off.

A Guitar, A Singer and A Song is a duet with Vince Gill and a standout track.

Every time I’ve met him and been around him, he’s been nothing but phenomenal. I told him that the song is about a guitar, a singer and a song and that he is top of that list for me for all three of those things. I actually still can’t believe when I’m doing interviews like this that I’m talking about a duet with Vince Gill, as it blows my mind. He was great to work with, a dream come true for me. He’s such a gracious and kind human being.

You’re back in full swing touring once more. Did you get to play many shows in 2021?

Yes, I played quite a few shows last year. After 2020, which was rough, we were able to make sort of a living in 2021. It’s been slowly increasing ever since and I’m so thankful for that. I tell everybody that I’m always on tour, I never stop. I’m a weekend warrior, I play every weekend, probably forty-five to forty-eight weekends every year.  I take off Christmas, that’s about it. We’re working the record right now, and also playing The Grand Ole Opry again, which is a huge thing for us. I still hope to get back to Ireland, that was my favourite trip of my whole life when I went there with my family and played some shows. My wife and I still talk about Ireland and how much we loved it over there. There are days when we say ‘let’s just move to Ireland.’

Interview by Declan Culliton

Joshua Fleming Interview

Six-piece Texas band The Vandoliers was formed by Joshua Fleming in 2015, following the demise of his punk band, The Phuss. Blending the punk sensibilities of his former band and Fleming’s love of outlaw country music, the band has established itself as one of the most energetic and hell-raising stage acts on the circuit and has toured with Flogging Molly, Turnpike Troubadours, Toadies and Lucero. Despite the demise of their record label Bloodshot, they have gone from strength to strength and are currently touring Europe and the U.K. for the first time. We caught up with Joshua by Zoom to get the low down. 

This is your first trip to Europe and the U.K. How are you finding it?

Yes, it’s been great so far. We’re in London right now, we’ve been playing a couple of festivals and some shows. We just played The Maverick Festival, playing to a thousand people stuffed into a barn and overflowing out onto the street, it was incredible. We’ve a couple more shows and festivals in Europe and then we head home.

When did you decide to target Europe for shows?

We were at SXSW in 2018 and Bloodshot approached us and wanted to take us on and it happened from there. I’m a landlocked Texan and had never crossed the ocean before. I started out very excited about it but, when it was cancelled the first time because of Covid, I got kinda scared. Right before I eventually left for the tour this year, I was just hoping that people will enjoy what we’re doing, which they seem to be. 

How did the demise of Bloodshot affect you, having released your 2019 album FOREVER on their label?

Yes, it was bad. Everybody’s career was set back during that time. It was like, ‘oh well, there’s another thing gone wrong’. We were on top of the world before that, recording the new album for Bloodshot, the one that we’re about to put out now.  We were playing with bands like Lucero and The Toadies, we had been discovered by the band Flogging Molly, lots of stuff was going to happen in 2020, and then it didn’t. The first concern with Bloodshot was when we didn’t get a contract extension, which meant that they were in some sort of trouble. A little bit later the label disbanded and folded. Like ourselves, every band had a choice, either stop and change or try and hold out.  In March 2020, we finished recording the record the way it was supposed to be at that time, the first version of it. When we got back in the studio later that year songs like Every Saturday Night, The Lighthouse and Bless Your Drunken Heart made it onto the album. So, in the end everything worked out for the right reason. We were supposed to be on this tour in 2020, but I don’t think we would be drawing the crowds that we are now, so it’s all worked out. 

The new album will be self-titled. Is that a statement that this record particularly defines your band?

Yes, I feel like this is a turning point for the band. We’ve been burnt to the ground and we have rebuilt. There’s a lot of stuff on this album that we’ve never done before, we’ve pushed harder in every direction and I think it has the best songs that we’ve put out. The original songs were written before covid and written before I was a father. I went through more challenges, grew up a bit more during that period. Usually, I’m writing songs based on where I am with my life at the time. When the album didn’t come out on time in 2020, I just kept on writing and found more songs that defined where I was at that time and what person I was at that moment. I think we really got to the point where we had the right songs for this album and it’s ready to go. We then had to figure out how we were going to put the album out and decided to start our own label.

How do you describe your music and were the early cowpunk bands such as Jason and The Scorchers, Meat Puppies and X influences?

Yes and no. When I first started writing, I was listening to Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton and classic outlaw stuff.  I don’t know, I think the damage was done for me playing with my punk band, The Phuss, before starting this band. It’s all Texas music. As you get older your songs evolve, I was lucky that I got to grow as a person and still being in a band now. I’ve been along different paths and I’ve found this one. All the guys in the band had been aware of each other, the final line up of the band is a mixture of my best friends and musicians that I have most respect for. We are all players that wanted to keep things going with this band.

You’ve recorded four albums in a relatively short time. Had you written the material for the debut album, AMEN-KINDA, while you were still with The Phuss?

No, I wrote about twenty songs to start the band. We formed in the studio because we didn’t know we were going to be able to do what we’re doing now. I just called some friends up with these songs I was working on. We found a sound and were just going to play one show at this little local festival. We had a really good time and booked another show and, all of a sudden, we had a band.

With your normal hectic touring schedule, how do you find time to write?

I’m always writing. I’ll put my headphones on in the van and put on sounds that block out the noise of the van and write some lyrics. I’ve written thirteen songs on this tour already.

You’ve toured with Flogging Molly and Turnpike Troubadours, were they not anxious that you might be too dynamic to open for them?

(Laughs) Flogging Molly wiped the floor with us every night, those guys are great, we had a great time with them. They had us on their Salty Dog Cruise, we got to play with some of my favourite punk bands of all time on that cruise. We were the first band to play, we were the sail away band as the boat starts moving. We played in front of three thousand people and I got to open for Face To Face and Descendents with my country band, it was ridiculous. After that we played with Turnpike Troubadours opening shows for them which was really special, I’ve always wanted to play with them.

Any particularly noticeable differences between playing in Europe and the U.K. compared to the States?

There’s a lot, for a start it’s a bit smaller over here and people are a lot better mannered, maybe not as loud in the mouth. We’re starting off in Europe having worked so hard getting around America over the past seven years and it does feel right at home here, it’s good.

How difficult is it for all of you, being on the road so often?

We’re a week away from going home and then twelve days later we leave again. Our families are making sacrifices as we all are, but it’s all because we believe in the same things. As long as we respect each other, love and listen to each other, things go pretty smoothly. We got the chance to produce this record and put it out and I’m working with the best team that I’ve ever had. My life and my career, like everyone in the band, is hard.

Interview by Declan Culliton

Steve Hammond Interview

I have to admit that the collected works of Steve Hammond were not on my radar until I listened to his latest release HONKY TONK RECORD CLUB No 1. However within his varied output he has touched on the genre. There are the solo albums TIME WILL KILL US ALL and THE HOUSE OF DEATH as well as  KEEP TRUCKIN’ by Leeches of Lore and all the albums by Black Ale Sinners. They can be found at his lorco.bandcamp.com label site. Lonesome Highway took the opportunity to ask Steve Hammond some questions about his work and times.

Looking at your Bandcamp page and the number of releases there you seem to be in this for life. How important is making music to you?

Music is the most important thing in my life after my family.

Tell us about the trials tribulations and also the good times of being involved in the music industry since you started?

Well, I don't consider myself part of the industry. There may have been a time when I was trying to "make it" at least on a small scale but the industry only cares about money and popularity which are not things I consider virtues. I don't consider art that doesn't make money as a failure. I think if an artist creates the art they set out to make then it is a success, even if no one sees it or hears it. That said I do appreciate when people like my music, but if no one did I'd still make it.

Traditionally influenced country is a part of your vocabulary. When did you become interested in writing and performing in that style?

I grew up on country. Songs by people like Hank Williams or Johnny Cash have been with me my whole life. I did rebel against country as a teenager but rediscovered first bluegrass then singers like George Jones and Dwight Yoakam in my early 20's. My first country band started as a sort of punk bluegrass thing then evolved into honky tonk.

Another aspect of what you do is “original space age country.” How does that expand on the more traditional version?

I'm really into music from the honky tonk era, roughly the late 40's to the mid 60's, and that era definitely inspires my music, but the experimentalist in me always wants to do something new with it or fuck it up somehow or make it weird.

The songs on the album cover many of the themes and mores relates to the form. Where do you draw inspiration from?

They are mostly just classic honky tonk themes: heartache, cheating, drinking, death, trucking, religion, etc.. But maybe I'll write a cheating song that isn't gender specific, or a trucking song from the point of view of someone who's fed up with big rigs on the road or a song about the fallacy of religion. 

You have released a series of singles from this album in the past are they statements or promotional tools?

They were kind of very limited edition singles, only 20 or 30 of each. They were 7" records hand cut on a 1940's lathe so they were scratchy, lo-fi and mono. Perfect!

When you are able to perform live do you have a regular set of players or do you need to find and rehearse new ones each time?

At the moment here in Troy, NY I have my band The A.M.'s. We play not only my songs but the other members' songs too. We have only been playing less than a year so these songs from the new record were already recorded before I started this band. Before that I was in various bands around the country and then also spent a fair amount of time doing solo gigs.

What sort of venues do you normally play when you get out on tour?

I love a good dive bar or honky tonk of course. I think that is the natural habitat for this kind of music. I also tend to play a lot of breweries.

How about overseas gigs?

I have toured Europe and played in Mexico and Canada but that was all with rock or punk bands generally. Would love to get back over to Europe with my honky tonk band!

Many have used the pandemic to their advantage to write and record rather than play. How did it affect you?

In 2020 I released a new song every week (the "small songs" album). Of course I didn't know the pandemic was going to happen and I think the music got darker and was influenced by it. It did leave me a lot of creative time! Then in 2021 my wife and I had a baby so a lot of stuff has been put on hold and my creativity has been focused elsewhere but I have been writing a lot more music lately.

Taking the new album as a statement of intent. What do you feel is good and bad about country music in the mainstream, or in the alternative area, these days?

To be honest I don't listen to a lot of modern country. Every time I hear modern country I'm always asking "Is this country? It's so hard to tell …” I consider myself a honky tonk artist rather than a country artist mainly because that is the style of music I'm into. I don't want to confuse anyone wanting to hear Florida Georgia Line or whoever. If you like Buck Owens or early 60's Ray Price or the Byrds during their psych-country era you might like me.

What do you think your new release will give you in terms of direction?

I just hope folks who listen to it or buy it like it and I hope to break even so I can release the next one!

You have three steel players on this album and it seems an instrument that is vital to your current sound. Has it always been that way?

I also play it on there so that's four! Steel guitar is probably my favourite instrument and if it doesn't have a steel guitar it probably isn't honky tonk.

As an independent artist how difficult is it to survive these days. Has the internet been good for you?

I love/hate the internet. It is easy to release music these days but much harder for anyone to pay attention. I have such a niche and small following that I'm not sure that it matters, but there probably have been a few folks that found me because of the internet so for that I am thankful!

How does your music relate, for you, to what is happening around you?

Even if it's not conscious, the world around me surely finds its way into my music.

Interview by Stephen Rapid.

Sunny Sweeney Interview

The past two years have been a rollercoaster ride for Austin-based singer songwriter Sunny Sweeney. On top of the pandemic, the completion of her fifth studio album MARRIED ALONE was delayed by over twelve months following the electrocution of producer Jeff Saenz, who was due to mix it. Further tragedy was avoided quite recently when Sunny and her bandmates were involved in a motor crash that fortunately left them relatively unscathed. However, better times are most certainly on the way with the forthcoming release of her outstanding new album. Sunny has also been offered a weekday DJ slot on SIRIUS XM’s Willie’s Roadhouse Channel, where she now hosts from 6 am to 12 pm, broadcasting from all over the country when she heads off on tour. We caught up with the vivacious and engaging artist who will more or less be on the road until the end of the year.

You played The Midlands Festival about 15 years ago. What do you remember about that trip to Ireland?

Honestly, you know what I do remember in Ireland was going to the Guinness Brewery and drinking there. We are in the U.K. later in the year but won't get to Ireland this time around, though I want to come back really badly. So hopefully next year. I’m Irish, we used to be O’Sweeney. I guess when my relatives came over, they dropped the ‘O’ and it was just Sweeney, but as you can probably tell I'm very Irish, as are my entire family. We all get sunburned easily.

You had a serious motor incident a few weeks ago. How did that occur and did you sustain any injuries?

Well, we had taken my car for a show instead of a van, which we normally take to the gigs, but there are no vans available right now whatsoever. On this particular day, there were just going to be three of us travelling. So, I just decided to take my car to save gas and all that. We left the gig, had played really early and we were going to drive about five hours to go back to Nashville. After about two hours from Nashville, I was just passing someone that was in the right lane. I was going around them and when I went around them there was a two-hundred-pound deer in the road. We just like popped it, obviously the deer didn't make it, and we just kind of skidded to a stop for a couple of hundred yards, it was really scary. Two of us were not hurt at all, just a little burnt from the airbag and my guitar player hurt his fingers, but they're better now. We're looking at a really frightening experience. We talked about it that night, surprisingly, we don't wreck more often because we’re often driving late when there are drunks on the road.

I was very moved by your social media posts earlier this year when a journalist wrote suggesting you were ‘a one-hit wonder’ with your song From A Table Away, from the album CONCRETE, particularly when you’ve since recorded two excellent studio albums and a live album?

You know, some people think that artists don't have a life, they don't exist, and are not successful because they don't get millions of plays on Spotify.  That pissed me off, not because of what he said, it pissed me off because he acted like a keyboard warrior, just saying shit that he doesn’t need to say. It's hurtful more than anything else. I have the thickest skin and you can seldom hurt my feelings, and it didn't really hurt my feelings, it just made me mad. I was just like, ‘who is this guy’? He doesn't realise that I'm out there pumping it day in, day out, playing as much as we can: literally blood, sweat and tears.

You have very recently been given a DJ slot on Sirius Radio XM, with a 6 am to 12pm slot Monday to Friday. How did that come about and what sort of additional pressure does that put you under?

Sirius XM is what we listen to all the time. I've been a fan before it was Sirius XM as I had XM back in the day. I have been offered a couple of these gigs over the years and I've always turned them down because the music sucked on the channel and I would never put myself in a situation to promote something that I thought sucked. Anyway, one day, this guy Jeremy Tepper called me and he said: ‘I know this is super random, but we've been passing your name around for doing a radio show on XM.’ And I was like, ‘ok, which channel’ and he goes ‘Willie's Roadhouse’. And before he even got it out of his mouth, I said, ‘yes, I want to do it.’ I didn’t even ask for any details. It’s been really cool and really fun. The format is basically four or five songs and then you talk and then four or five songs and you talk again. I'll tell you, I have turned into an actual machine, I'm actually not a human anymore, but it's doable, it's totally doable. In terms of content, we play all traditional country, mostly 50s to 80s stuff. Today we actually played a duet that I did with Jessi Colter, a remake of Good Hearted Woman, and so it's stuff that's either traditional country or influenced heavily by traditional country.

We had the pleasure of listening to your latest album MARRIED ALONE, which is due for release in September and we love it.

Thank you. It is a little different from my last albums. But then also there is some stuff on it that I wanted to stay familiar with, I didn't want to piss off the country fans that I have, but I also wanted to broaden my horizons and show more of my other influences and stuff.

Tell me about bringing Paul Cauthen on board to co-produce.

Well, I've known Paul forever, we used to play at the same clubs back in Austin a hundred years ago. He used to be in a band called Sons of Fathers and I followed that band. I loved that band. And then he did his own thing for a while. His voice has always captivated me and his individuality has always captivated me. He is wild as hell but he’s got such a good attitude. To me, he's like a cheerleader, almost like a giant cheerleader. I didn't want to use the same people again on this record, I wanted to go outside of the box. I know how to make country music but needed and wanted some direction to go a little bit outside the box. Paul’s name got tossed around and I thought ‘yes, let’s do it.’ and use Paul. Using Paul also brought Beau Bedford and Jeff Saenz into the mix. So, you know, you’ve heard the album, there's a couple of songs that are like completely out of the box for me, as well as the country ones.

You recorded the album at Modern Electric Sound Recorders in Dallas?

Yes. Dallas is only three hours from Austin, where we all live, so it made it really easy because it was recorded during COVID. We didn't want to get sixteen hours away from home in Nashville and then somebody gets COVID and then not be able to go home and have to be stuck in a hotel in Nashville for you know, two weeks or whatever.

Over how long was the album recorded?

It was over a few sessions in the studio. A full week first, Monday through Friday, long, long days. Ten in the morning till two the following morning. We had the rough mixes for ten songs completed then and we were going to start mixing the record after we did some overdubs and emailed people all over the world who were adding bits as everyone has their own home studio now. We were supposed to start mixing on June 6th 2021. On June 1st the guy that was going to be mixing, Jeff Saenz, got electrocuted and he lost both of his arms. The story is truly amazing and he is pretty damn inspirational. Anyway, when that happened, I kind of just was like: ‘You know what, stop everybody, just stop and get your priorities in check. Who do we think we are? This is Jeff's life, our music is so insignificant compared to anything that he's going through.’ And so, we stopped everything and I just didn't worry about it for like months and was thinking that it'll happen when it happens, I'm not worrying about this anymore.  Jeff’s accident was just so eye-opening to me and is still to this day, it makes me realise how fragile everything is.  Anyway, we decided finally about six months later to go back in and do two more songs and make it a twelve-song record instead of ten.

Who did you get on board for that final mix?

Ok, so here’s the story. We decided to get Beau Bedford, who was the other producer, to work on these extra two songs, How’d I End Up Lonely Again and Want You To Miss Me. Beau was also going to take over where Jeff left off and mix the whole record. Beau, Jeff and Paul are all close friends and work very well together. On the very last day of mixing, we went up to Dallas and were just hanging out in the studio and waiting for Beau. He had called me that morning and he said ‘hey, I'm gonna be about ten or fifteen minutes late, I’m really tired and can you go to Starbucks and get me two coffees.’ I was thinking that it was a bit weird to ask for two coffees but we got them anyway.  But what had happened was that he had gone and collected Jeff and brought him in to finish the album, which was amazing.  That was like the last week of December last year and I feel that if we had put those original ten songs out, it would have come out during 2021 when things were still really wild. It's like a two-and-a-half-year process from when we started it. But the timing is probably perfect and I do believe in everything happens for a reason.

You have some big hitters singing with you on the album. Vince Gill, Jim Lauderdale and Courtney Patton all sing alongside you.

Yes. Courtney sang on All I Don’t Need and Jim sang on Someday You’ll Call My Name, which I wrote With Brennen Leigh, who is one of my best friends. That song has actually just gotten into a movie by the way. It’s in a BJ Novak movie that’s actually not out yet, but I saw the preview of it. It's out in July and it's called Vengeance. It's like a whole minute of the song in there, which is pretty cool.

And you have Vince Gill duetting with you on the title track?

Yes. I didn't write the title song Married Alone, but I have had it on hold for two and a half years. I basically fought that nobody would take that song from me because I knew I wanted it. And so anyway, after we recorded it, I just couldn't picture anything else except Vince singing on it. So, I just got a wild idea and I went out and called him and asked him if he would sing on this with me. He said ‘yes’ before he even knew what it was, saying that he trusted my judgment. So, we sent it to Vince there and then and we're all just like sitting there going ‘YES.’ When it came back, it was just mind-blowing to hear his voice with my voice because I've been a fan of his literally my entire life. 

You’re due to go back on the road soon?

We’re gone now until mid-August.  We are home for five days and we go back to Europe then for a month. And then we'll be back for five days again and back on tour pretty much for two months. We're pretty much gone from July to mid-December.

What players will you have on tour with you?

I have my guitar player Harley Husbands and I have a female bass player, Amanda McCoy, a drummer, Brandon Barnes, and a steel guitar and lap steel guitar player, Steve Nelson. Oh, and also my little yorkie, who is completely spoilt.  

We won’t get to see you play in Ireland this year but we will get to see you perform at Americana Fest in September?

Yes, we’re playing and Brennen Leigh. Kayla Ray is also playing, she will blow your mind, her songs are so good. Brennen, Kayla, Courtney Patton, Jamie Lin Wilson and Erin Enderlin, that’s like our little circle. Make sure and come and say ‘Hi’ at Americana Fest when you’re over.

Interview by Declan Culliton

Sierra Ferrell Interview

Very much a refreshing addition to the Americana and roots musical landscape, Sierra Ferrell’s debut album LONG TIME COMING, released last year on the Rounder Records label, has propelled the West Virginian from emerging artist status to one that has well and truly arrived. The album’s eclectic musical template embraces folk, gypsy jazz, country, old-time and ragtime. The possessor of a stunning smoky jazz vocal range and an artist that is evolving into one of the most captivating to surface in recent years, Ferrell opened her European and U.K. tour at The Button Factory in Dublin.  We chatted with Sierra just before she took to the stage to enthrall a packed house with a dynamic ninety-minute set, accompanied by two crack players, Geoff Saunders and Oliver Bates Craven.

You've been practically catapulted into a major career advancement over the past twelve months with what seems to be endless touring dates. How have you been coping with that?

It's amazing but can also be terrible at times. It’s great that people are interested in me and they want to hear my music, because it's always been my life and my passion and always been something I knew I was going to be involved with. But I never really knew it was going to get this far with it.  I'm very honoured but I also feel like I need to pay more attention to my mental health a little bit more. You know, we all have our internal battles, and a lot of times we don't even realise what the battles are because it's something that's imprinted on us at a younger age.  Growing up, we don't really realise some things that mess with us until it's, like, until we're older. It's just life, you're always going to have a bad day, everyone does. So, I guess for me, on a personal level, I feel like I need to have a partner with me when I’m touring and right now, I don't really have one. So, I have to battle with this a lot. But the positives definitely outweigh the negatives.

Is Nashville home for you now?

Yeah, whenever I'm there (laughs).

The music community in East Nashville is a very tight-knit group and very supportive of each other.

There is great support in the music community in East Nashville. It can be a bit weird when you arrive at first but when you get over that little hump, you’re in. I just wing myself out there and hope for the best, sometimes there’s a crash and sometimes I get lucky. In Nashville, I got lucky.

 Nashville is regarded as a ‘ten-year’ town for artists to make a breakthrough, but you’ve succeeded in less than four. What were your expectations when you moved there?

Well, when I went there, I definitely wanted to move in the direction of doing more stuff with my music.  I started playing in this honky tonk cover band The Cowpokes for a while at the American Legion, I was just really hoping for the best and just putting myself out there. I wasn't making much money and I lived in my van. I didn't really know what the future held for me, it was very lonesome, tiresome and just weary at times because I didn't really know where my life was taking me. Then slowly but surely people started kind of coming around and people seemed to like my music and they wanted to lift me up and so now, here I am.

Getting that gig with The Cowpokes was some achievement, I would have thought that there would be any number of artists looking for that slot. How did that come about?

It’s kind of funny because like, you know, I like to dress a little differently every once in a while and just do my own thing. That’s definitely not a Nashville thing where a lot of singers like to wear rhinestones. Most people didn't really know who I was, they thought I was just a kind of just weird girl hanging out. You know, I was wearing platform shoes and berets and stuff, but when they heard me sing, I won them over. Kevin Martin, the lead guy who played fiddle in The Cowpokes, left the band for a bit and he moved to New York.  I just so happened to be at the right place at the right time. I started crunch-running all these honky tonk songs and before I knew it, I was in their band.

And then Rounder Records stepped up to the mark overnight and signed you to their label?

There was a little bit more to it than that, it was about a year before I was signed to Rounder. The engineer and producer Stu Hubberd along with Gary Paczosa, who is the Rounder guy, just started coming to my shows a lot and I would do the honky tonk stuff with The Cowpokes but I was also playing my own stuff. They kept coming to the shows, loved my music and kept saying ‘you’re going to get signed to Rounder Records’. I was saying, ‘Ok, prove it’ and then within a year they signed me.

The musical direction on LONG TIME COMING has your numerous influences stamped all over it, from gypsy, Latin, jazz, bluegrass and country. Did you have to fight with Rounder to have control over the musical direction on the album?

They were very open-minded and welcoming of something different. Some people’s music is just one style, and while there is nothing at all wrong with that, I think Rounder liked that I was different. I wanted to reach and uplift other artists and people with different musical styles and they allowed me to do that. I particularly wanted to reach out to women. It’s hard to be a woman generally in the world let alone being in the music industry.

Your times spent in New Orleans simply oozes out of much of the album.

Absolutely, not only is New Orleans magical, it has such history, though it is sad that so many locals that have lived there all their lives and have family history are being pushed out as it becomes more and more gentrified.

You have some wonderful players on the album including Billy Strings, Chris Scruggs, Tim O’Brien and Jerry Douglas to name a few. Did Rounder have these players lined up for you?

I actually had a lot of names in the hat, Billy Strings being one of them. It was recorded at Southern Ground in downtown Nashville in January 2020 during the pandemic which was a really weird time, but those players were all available then.

You ended up with an album that includes everything from bluegrass to fiddle-induced jazz and old-time waltzes to Dixieland. Where did all those influences come from?

Being from West Virginia people automatically assume I’m all about old-time music and a banjo on the porch. I often shock people when I tell them that I grew up with mostly radio music around me and also a lot of Gospel music from going to church and joining in a lot of choirs. As I got older, I started travelling, hitch hiking and hopping trains. A lot of the train kids were listening to all this older music from the 20s, 30s and 40s. I just got really wrapped up in this old music, even listening to Haydn Quartet, who was a harmony group from the early 20th century. I was getting goosebumps from that music because it was so genuine and had so much feeling and purity in it.  People are trying to smooth out the edges in today’s music, killing its soul.

So how do you possibly follow that album?

I don’t know, I’m going to have to think of something (laughs). I do have a handful of songs that I’ve been messing about with on the mandolin and the fiddle. I also have a lot of other songs in the style of Why’d Ya Do It from this album. I’m not sure how I’ll progress from the direction of LONG TIME COMING, because I had a lot of those songs for quite a while. I’m just working through this one at the moment. There are a number of people that want to do a record with me but right now I’m not even sure when I’m going to have the time to work on the next one. 

I understand that we will also get to see you at Americana Fest in September?

 Yes, I’m pretty sure it’s a Saturday show but I’m not sure what venue yet.

Interview by Declan Culliton

Shawn Williams Interview

A native of New Orleans, Shawn Williams ditched her secure employment in radio to pursue her passion as a singer songwriter and performer. She has recorded four full-length albums to date. The latest WALLOWIN’ IN THE NIGHT is generating lots of love, not only from us at Lonesome Highway but much further afield. It’s a passionate and hard-hitting guitar driven project that rocks and soothes in equal measures, and features a host of New Orleans’ ‘go-to’ players. Unfortunately, Shawn’s touring van developed a serious engine issue at the start of her scheduled dates, leading to the postponement of a number of shows. We caught up with her recently via Zoom to learn more about her and the striking new album.  

Such a shame that you had to abort your tour recently when your van had engine problems. What is the latest update?

I am in Georgia at my mom's right now and I am dropping the van off tomorrow to be worked on, and it will take three to four weeks to repair. In the meantime, I’m going up to New York and staying there for a couple of weeks. I'm staying at a friend's house and watching her cats while she's away, even though I’m allergic to cats. I've booked some solo shows in New York, which should be good.

What’s the situation with your touring band given that you’ve lost those shows?

I lost my drummer, who was new to the band. I’m auditioning for a new drummer at present and I expect by September or October we can pick the tour up again.  Right now, I'm planning shows for late September, or early fall: things are kind of getting back to normal with venues booking three to four months in advance.

Are you originally from New Orleans?

I was born in New Orleans but moved around a lot. I lived in Georgia, I lived in New York and now I'm back in New Orleans.

I believe that in a previous life you worked in radio?

Yes. I worked in radio for thirteen years starting when I was 18 in Atlanta.  I also worked in both New York and New Orleans. I was an on-air personality, a producer then I became the programme director of the stations.

Had you been writing and performing during that time?

I have been writing music all my life.  I began when I was nine years old and started playing guitar when I was fourteen. I was basically writing and singing them to myself. I always hated my own voice; it took a friend in New York who made me play one of my songs for him. He told me I should be writing music, playing in front of people and recording. I got back to New Orleans and I found that people were so inviting there and welcoming, which helped me work on my fright of playing in front of people.

Did you give up the day job when recording your debut album SHADOW?

No, but when I released that first record, I was really tired of the corporate radio world. I found it so draining and entertaining has always been in my blood. So, I just quit my good paying job and worked my way up, starting with going on tour all by myself for almost two years straight with only a couple of weeks off. I was completely broke at that time but would never look back.

There’s an eclectic variety of sounds on your albums. What was your go-to music growing up?

I'm a big fan of Neko Case, Lucinda Williams and Ryan Adams. I love rock, I love psychedelic music, I love singer songwriters. I end up incorporating all those genres in my music, it just oozes out. Growing up, I listened to everything from George Strait to Salt-N-Pepa and also some New Orleans Rap. Jewel was my greatest influence. I got her first album, Pieces Of You, when I was ten. That's what made me want to learn guitar. I listened to her album and taught myself how to fingerpick, which makes me feel more in touch with the instrument. She was a big influence for me as a writer. I thought, ‘wow’ writing like that and with sarcasm. That style perfectly suited my personality.  

Your song writing is hugely emotional. Quite a number of the tracks on WALLOWIN’ IN THE NIGHT read like open wounds. Is your writing personal, imagined or observational?

A bit of all three, but mostly personal with a lot of imagination.

How difficult is it to perform some of those songs live, particularly solo?  

It can be hard to hold back the tears particularly when I perform this album live. I do try to hold back a little bit of anger naturally when I perform them.  When I was playing What’d I Do Wrong on my live stream the other day in the hotel stuck in North Carolina, I was having to hold back the tears with that one.  That song definitely brings back certain emotions. Songs like You Don’t Care at All and Everything You Stood For on the record are older songs, probably about ten or twelve years old. I wrote them when I was living in New York and I put it on this record because I can still draw from them in my current situation.

A number of the tracks are unlikely to receive radio play given the lyrical content?

Using certain words definitely portrays a lot of emotion and to take that out removes a chunk of emotion from the song. I did also make radio-edited tracks with this album to facilitate radio play.

No, I’m happy with the original. A Christmas album is probably a bridge too far but can we expect a 'happy’ album from Shawn Williams at any time?

I would find it a little tough to write happy songs because it can get a little cheesy and forced. I could write about the butterflies and the sunshine but who wants to hear that?  Maybe I might release a happy album at some stage but no Christmas album anytime soon, maybe a Halloween one.

Can you tell me about your writing process?

I generally just sit down and write whatever comes to mind at that time. I write songs in five to fifteen minutes but 20 minutes max.  If it takes me any longer than that I am filtering it too much and starting to think ‘what if the listener doesn't like this song?’

You chose to self-produce WALLOWIN’ IN THE NIGHT. What production experience did you previously have?

I have produced all of my records.  I have progressively gotten more comfortable in the studio, particularly knowing how to communicate with other musicians. I don't know music theory or anything like that, but I found I was able to get what I wanted across a little better with this record.  I recorded my third record, THE FEAR OF LIVING THE FEAR OF LOVING, on my little phone on my GarageBand app and played all the instruments. I'd never played bass or keys before.

You were surrounded by some crack players for the recording including Dr. John’s guitarist John Fohl, ex- Hurray For The Riff Raff, Casey McAllister, on keys and New Orleans roots rock band,The Iguanas, as your rhythm section. Were they all available at the same time?

Yes, they are usually around New Orleans in springtime and tour during the summer. They are on all my records except my third one, which I recorded myself, playing all the instruments during lockdown. We recorded in springtime 2021 at Blue Velvet Studios in New Orleans where I also recorded my first two records.

How do you feel about playing locally in New Orleans? Many of your peers admit to avoiding playing at home too often as they find it can be intimidating.

Absolutely not, I love playing in New Orleans. Prior to the pandemic I was playing from six to eight times a week, often two shows a night and mostly with my band.  At the moment I'm generally just playing once a month at ticketed shows. In New Orleans since the lockdown has eased, places have started to open up again but the clubs have changed managers and bookers and unfortunately, most of them are going back to either traditional or cover bands. I'm not going to do that, if I were to do that I may as well go back to the corporate radio world. They reckon that's what the tourists want to hear, which is pretty unfortunate.  

Is the corporate radio world very much a thing of the past for you?

Definitely, I would never go back. It was great fun at the beginning but then the big corporations started to take over the little stations and it became like any type of corporate world job. It ended up that there was no creativity and radio is supposed to be fun.

Will we get to see you perform at AmericanaFest in September?

I’d love to play but as of right now I’ve nothing lined up, but hopefully, that might change. I'm definitely going to try and book something around AmericanaFest in Nashville.

Any ambitions to make it across to us in Ireland?

I’d love to, I really want to come over to Ireland.  I'm Irish from my dad's side as my great grandfather was born in Ireland.

Interview by Declan Culliton

Emily Scott Robinson Interview

Every now and then, an artist emerges and takes your breath away with their ability and their craft. Emily Scott Robinson is one such artist. I can remember the first time I heard her sing and the way in which she captured my attention to listen more intently to the wisdom in her words. Not only does Emily sing like an angel, but she also possesses the natural talent to observe the human condition in all its flaws, finding both empathy and understanding in the daily push to endure, and to believe that we matter. I see a bright future ahead for this superb songsmith and it was a pleasure to sit down with her for a brief conversation before her Irish stage debut at the Cellar venue in Dublin. 

Welcome to Dublin! Your first concert on Irish soil and thank you for coming over. You grew up in North Carolina and you reflected that Dar Williams was one of your early influences?

Yes, I just love her and I got to go on tour and open for her last December. They say that you should never meet your heroes as they are just ordinary people too but she was so gracious and kind and that really meant a lot to me. I have not found a lot of female musicians who would mentor me and take me out on the road, so it was really special. She is very generous of spirit.

Were your parents very influential regarding music as you were growing up?

I grew up with a piano in the house and we all grew up taking various musical lessons. I was classically trained on the clarinet, which I played for about twelve years, from age eleven through university. I also sang in the church choir. I taught myself how to play guitar, playing along to records by Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Dar Williams, Indigo Girls.

What was it like performing in public for the first time?

I was in high school and I had been working up some Joni Mitchell covers, like Both Sides Now and California, songs I really loved ... I played at an open mic night and was very nervous, but got that first  hit of the drug of performing for people. Discovering that I had a voice that was very clear and unique, like a high soprano ... It was a very gentle introduction into performing.

When did you first start writing your own songs?

I didn’t start until I was into my twenties. Up to then it was mostly learning cover songs, sitting around the campfire at Summer camp, and for my friends. At college I would perform in local coffee shops, and play a lot of covers. Lots of Nanci Griffith, who I know was loved in Ireland. She was actually the inspiration for my first song. I saw her in my home town in 2007 and was so inspired by her that I went straight home and wrote my first song. That was the only time that I got to see her play live and she was a really big influence on me. I recently found the original programme from the concert in my keepsakes too.

If we jump forward to 2016 and the recording of your debut album, MAGNOLIA QUEEN. Self-produced by you and very much based around your acoustic guitar and the songs?

If I’m honest, that set of songs weren’t even mastered. I had won eight hours of studio time in a local studio where I was living at the time, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The engineer there, Bret Nolan, had the common sense to set me up with just a guitar mic and my vocals. No click tracks, no overdubbing, no production – just simply me and my songs.

And that is the real joy of the album. There is a simplicity and an honesty to it. Your command of language and turn of phrase are superb. For someone so young to have such insight into what can happen in relationships and to capture such complexity was something quite special.

Thank you for saying that. I do a lot of character writing and settle into and embody a character. A lot of my characters are speaking from a much older age and looking back on their lives. I have always been a person who just picked up on other peoples’ emotions very easily - really empathetic and intuitive.

Perhaps there is no such  thing as character writing, without having a little bit of you wrapped up in there too?

Yes, always. I was talking to Gretchen Peters, on Twitter, about this and I said that character writing is like a way of exploring all the rooms in the house of my psyche – there is always some of me in all of those characters and those songs. I think it’s very Jungian in that way! (laughs) …

 If we move forward three years to 2019 and your second album. What was the shift for you over that period of time when you look back?

That album, TRAVELLING MERCIES, every one of those songs was written while I was living in an RV trailer, on the road with my husband. I started doing music full time in the Spring of 2016 and that record has a lot of the fabric of our travels around America and my experiences as a touring musician and stories from that era of my life. It was my first album with a full band in the studio and I asked a lot of friends and musicians; “Who do you recommend working with?” So, I was looking for a producer who could guide me through the experience of making a full-blown record in the studio. I heard a lot of stories coming out of Nashville about producers who had different styles and where the songwriter would be buried by the band or the production. I wanted the production to elevate the song-writing and the solo artist at the centre.

So, I worked with Neilson Hubbard who has produced songwriters like Mary Gauthier, Amy Speace, and Ben Glover. Everything that moves in the orbit around Nielson is really beautiful. He is just a very authentic artist, and like a midwife of music – helping to bring music and birth it out into the world. He’s amazing.

You are touring a lot at this stage, in 2019, and building on your success to date?

Yes, this was the time when I first got a booking agent. Up until then I had been doing all the bookings myself since 2014 and playing anywhere that I could make it work -   house concerts, backyards, breweries, restaurants, theatres.

You were also starting to see the arc of your career climb with the confidence of a studio album behind you?

It was my first national and international press and my first placements in the streaming world happened. It was pretty wild and I was just going up, up, up and up – until Covid hit.

So, what did you do during Covid shutdown? Did you go back to the basics, questioning what it’s all about, or did you throw yourself more into song-writing as a release?

I threw myself more into song-writing as there was little else to do. Also, I did get back to the basics of living my life, cooking, hiking, mountain biking, taking care of myself. Reflecting on what is important. Everything mattered to me before Covid. There was a death in my family in late 2019, and the song Hometown Hero is about that. And with the pandemic hitting, both events just washed me clean of worrying about things that really didn’t matter in life. It kind of rinsed me, and I feel really grateful that I’m not spending any energy worrying about things that just don’t really matter.

Amid all these challenges and upsets, along comes Oh Boy records. How this this come about?

Apparently, they had been watching my career and I had no idea they were interested. I had always watched what they were doing, but never met with John Prine, or Fiona and Jody. Kelsey (Waldon) and I were just talking about this and of course she had a profound friendship with John. He was like a second father and took her out on the road and loved her like a daughter. His death had a profound effect on us all in different ways. I had written this song, The Time For Flowers, during the height of the pandemic and right after John died.

So, six months after I had released it, I got a phone message from Jody at Oh Boy records, who said that he had just listened to the song and it really moved him in what had been a difficult year. He said that they would like to work with me and I had no idea that they were paying attention to young, up and coming artists. I was so excited and so surprised. It came out of left field and there was no part of me that was expecting that. So, Jody and I spent about a month having conversations over zoom calls and discussed the label. I met the team and discovered that we had a lot of common ground in our values about what matters in the music business and why we make music; and how John had built his career and how I am building mine. It is all about the personal connection with the fans; the music and our relationship with the people. It’s all about artistic integrity, creative control, being fun and funky and heartfelt and weird; and being true to who you are.

In April 2021, we ended up making a new record, AMERICAN SIREN. Jason Richmond was the producer and I liked the way that he pushed me out of my comfort zone sonically. We did the record with almost all North Carolina artists. So, Neilson has my Nashville crew and Jason is my North Carolina crew. The sounds and the aesthetics coming out from each are all different. It was a magical experience and also a challenging project as we were all just coming out Covid and had access to the vaccine. Everyone was just coming out of our caves wondering if it was safe to be in a room with each other again. Steep Canyon Rangers played on a couple of songs and they are a pretty famous bluegrass band over from where I’m from.

If I was to go back to that young girl in Greensboro, North Carolina; growing up, playing open mic nights and learning her craft - and I bring you forward to who you are now, an artist, living in Colorado and seeing your success build. What would the older self  say to the younger self?

I would say ‘trust me,’ because there are a lot of things about who I am now and what I’ve done that I had to find the courage to do in my life and career as a musician, in those moments, that just took every ounce of courage and faith that I had – and more. I sometimes think that the woman I have become is so powerful and free and honest; that she would really scare the girl that I was. The girl that I was would see me now grown into the fullness of who I am. There were just a lot of things that I wanted, when I was younger, to be wrapped up neatly with a bow, as young people want. The fullness of my life and my song-writing has been embracing the fact that you just can’t do that. We exist with all the messiness and beauty and hardship and grief and joy. It cannot be tied together.  I think that she would be a little scared of me, but also a little proud and in awe of her older self. ‘You get to do what?’   

Finally, have you been pleased with the response to the new album internationally?

I had been told that my music was reaching people across the ocean, across different cultures and language. It has been one of the greatest joys of my career. To experience this heartfelt connection and shared understanding of the human experience through my songs. I have been floored!

Interview by Paul McGee

Katie Spencer Interview

The UK Folk genre has always defied the urge of the media to place it in a neat little box. From the traditional roots of song collecting, through to the contemporary revival the 60s and 70s, and the creation of many sub-genes since, Folk music continues to expand and to thrive. Whether you define it as Progressive Folk, Nu-Folk, Inde-Folk or Folk Rock; there is something to be found for all tastes. From Davy Graham, John Renbourn, Bert Jansch and Nick Drake, all the way forward to the enduring talent of Richard Thompson and Martin Carthy, there is a rich tradition to be explored and celebrated. John Martyn was a key inspiration in the move away from traditional Folk towards a more progressive style of experimentation; one that included Jazz influences and free-form exploration. As a young girl, growing up in East Yorkshire, Katie Spencer was inspired by this music and wanted to create her own style of self-expression. Over years of developing her craft, Katie has just released one of the best albums of the year with THE EDGE OF THE  LAND. It is an ethereal, free-floating, haunting affair and quietly addictive. Katie first captured media attention back in 2016 and has been winning many new admirers with her considerable musical talent ever since. She very generously took time out of her increasingly busy schedule to share her insights and thoughts with us.

Congratulations on the new album release, THE EDGE OF THE  LAND. Have you been pleased with the initial media response to the music?

Thank you! Absolutely, it feels wonderful to have this album out there. The reviews have been brilliant, and I have been blown away by the response. I found out yesterday that the album has reached number fourteen in the Official Folk Album Charts, and that’s all down to kind folks buying the record, which is lovely as a DIY artist.

Growing up in East Yorkshire, were you introduced to music at a young age?

Yes, although my parents aren’t musicians themselves, they are huge appreciators of music. As a kid they would take me to local folk festivals, and there was always music in the house. I’m very grateful for that, and the accessibility of folk music in general is great for young kids I think.

Who were your initial influences when you started listening seriously?

I started listening seriously to music when I was about twelve, I think. I had a long bus journey through rural East Yorkshire to get to school and I’d listen to hours of music a day. As a kid I listened to lots of indie music, but I started to really dive into songwriters when I was about fourteen, I think. Laura Marling was a wonderful role model for me then, and I still love her albums now. Then when I started to play the guitar at around sixteen I discovered this late-sixties, early-seventies folk revival stuff – folks like Bert Jansch, Sandy Denny, John Martyn, Roy Harper, Joni … That world really blew my mind then!

Was your instrument of choice always the guitar?

Yes, and I think given the chance to choose again it would definitely be the guitar. I love how versatile it is, and each person totally has their own voice within the instrument. It’s a beautiful, varied thing!

You seem too young to have been influenced directly by the early 70’s folk and songwriter movements. How did you find your way to this music?

I can remember watching a documentary on folk music, on the BBC one night. John Martyn came on screen and I fell in love with his music. The atmosphere that he created in those few minutes was astounding, so deep and connected. From there I found lots of other musicians involved in that same scene, and have loved it ever since.

Your guitar playing is very accomplished and do you practice every day to maintain the high standards?

Thanks! I love playing, but I don’t keep to a regular schedule. Some days I’ll play a lot, others not at all. I do like to keep a sense of connection with my guitar though, it keeps it feeling natural and smooth when I play live. Recently I have tried to play something new and fresh each time I pick my guitar up, even if I’m just rehearsing, which is fun.

Your partner, Henry Parker, is also at the forefront of the new Folk movement in England. Does it help having him to bounce musical ideas off and to try new things?

It is a privilege to hear his ideas forming, it feels special to have heard the beginnings of a lot of his songs, up in the top room of our house. And then hearing the finished piece, it’s wonderful. We generally keep our music fairly separate, but it is a lovely thing to be able to share songs and ideas together – absolutely! We keep chatting about working together on a project in the future too, so fingers crossed we’ll sort something out soon.

Who else do you look to on the current circuit for inspiration and encouragement?

There is a brilliant scene in Yorkshire at the moment, particularly in Leeds with lots of younger folks releasing first-class albums. Chris Brain and Iona Lane are two good friends who have both released outstanding records recently. It is great to have that community there to inspire and encourage.

Your debut album, WEATHER BEATEN, appeared in 2019. Can you reflect on the recording process and did you change much in the approach to the new album?

The recording process was incredibly different to my most recent album. For Weather Beaten I went into the studio and recorded all of my parts separately, then I had individual sessions booked for each musician to come and add their parts afterwards. It meant that we could really dive in deep and pay attention to every tiny detail, which was really interesting. I learnt a lot, and this was only my second real time in a big working studio, so it was a great experience, and good to take our time over the album.

You have the talents of Spencer Cozens and Tom Mason in common over both albums. How did you come to choose the other musicians on the new album?

I’m a huge fan of both Spencer and Tom – they’re both a joy to work with and are incredible musicians. I also worked with Arran Ahmun on this latest record. Back in 2019 we both played at a concert in Glasgow, celebrating the music of John Martyn (Arran had been touring and playing drums with John for years). I love what he does, and I think he brought a beautiful touch to the recordings. Nathan Bray on flugelhorn was a suggestion from Spencer. I enjoy that jazz/folk cross over so it was a treat to work with him, and I’ll hopefully have the chance to do so again.

The organic playing is quite haunting and did you record everything live, off-the-floor, during the sessions at Steinway Recording Studios?

Yes, the four of us went into the studio for two days, set the microphones and instruments up and played through the record a couple of times. I’m so glad we took this approach, not only because the memories we made over those two days were so special but because I think we hopefully managed to capture the movement and the space of the songs.

The jazz-like arrangements are so fluid and the playing carries a spontaneity that can only be captured with many hours of playing as an ensemble and mutual trust. Was this the case?

That’s kind, thank you. Although we met before the session began, we hadn’t played as a trio before. I had played with both musicians separately, but not with these songs. They are both amazing musicians, and luckily we got into the groove and it happened.

The cover version of Annie Briggs, Go Your Way, (recorded in 1971), fits seamlessly into the album. What inspired you to include the song?

I’m a big Anne Briggs fan, she’s so authentic and her voice is emotionally powerful. This song seemed to fit with the others on the record because she is essentially dealing with some pretty hefty emotions and processing them through landscapes and the natural world. This is similar to some of my songs on THE EDGE OF THE LAND, I think.

The song, Roads, seems to conjure up memories of a childhood friend.  Do you write from a personal perspective usually?

Yes, all of my songs are written from a personal perspective – be that emotionally or of the natural world. It’s what comes naturally I suppose, and it also seems to give the music a longevity for me personally. If I have that connection with the music, it means I can go out and play those songs on the road every night without tiring.

Equally, Shannon Road, appears to reference a particular memory of adolescence and growing up in a small town. Is there a nostalgia that tugs at your sleeve to be expressed?

I think I have an unhealthy relationship with nostalgia, ha! I spoke to a friend about this recently, they said that it’s part of being a songwriter, but I don’t know! I suppose it’s a desire to capture those sharp, distilled feelings.

Wormhole, seems to channel feelings of loneliness and a sense of isolation. Is this something that you have witnessed, growing up in a rural environment?

I have been lucky enough to mostly enjoy my own company growing up. I’m an only child too, so I suppose I had to get used to that! But for sure, there have been times when I’ve felt disconnected or left behind. I chose to commit to music after leaving college (and kindly had the support to do so) instead of heading to university with my friends, so I suppose there is a bit of that in there too.

The sense of taking time to experience the quiet calm of nature is something that runs through the songs. Was this something that surfaced as a result of Covid lockdown?

Growing up in the countryside certainly provides a good foundation for appreciating the natural world, but yes, the lockdown certainly brought that gratitude to the fore. It was the only real chance of escape at that point and I dived into that with relish, I guess!

How is the year ahead for you in terms of touring the album?

I have just finished a UK tour, and I’m excited to get out to festivals throughout the summer now. In the autumn I will also be heading on tour, visiting some of the places I didn’t get around to this time.

Hopefully, we will see you play in Ireland at some stage?

That would be wonderful!

Interview by Paul McGee

Isaac Gibson Interview

What kicked off as three neighbourhood kids in small-town Castlewood Virginia (population 2045) with two guitars and a banjo has mushroomed over the past decade into a six-piece, ass-kicking country band. With a pipe dream, three albums, numerous tours and a reputation for hard graft and dynamic live shows, 49 Winchester came to the attention of Nashville record label New West, who signed them up and have recently released the band’s fourth album FORTUNE FAVORS THE BOLD. With this year’s calendar packed with festival dates, headlining shows and supporting Whiskey Myers on tour, the band’s hard-edged country sound is likely to accelerate them from ‘emerging’ to ‘arrived.’ We spoke with frontman Isaac Gibson to hear about the band’s back story and their latest recording.

Are you at home right now? Tell me about growing up in small town Castlewood, Virginia?

Yes, I’m right here now in my homeplace, Castlewood, Virginia. It’s a great place to grow up, there’s not a lot to do so it’s a hard place to get into trouble. A creative outlet can sometimes be a hard thing to find in a town in Appalachia, but playing music was one of the things that made growing up here so great. The people here are fantastic. You’d be hard-pressed to cross the whole of the U.S. and find kinder or more polite people.  It is different here. I didn’t grow up in a place where there was a huge music scene, and I didn’t have access to live shows when I was a kid, so 49 Winchester was like something that just sprang out of the ground and blossomed when we all graduated high school. It comes with its own unique challenges but, overall, it’s a blessing to be where I’m from to be certain.

Are you all from that town?

Me and Chase Chafin, the bass player, we’re next-door neighbours and we’ve both known Bus Shelton a long time. That’s where the band started with two acoustic guitars and a banjo most of the time, just three local boys and kindred spirits that wanted to play some music.  Noah Patrick is also from around here and there are six of us in the band now. Our drummer Justin Venable is from Johnson City, Tennessee and keyboard player Tim Hall is from forty minutes up the interstate. All six of us are just a bunch of kids from the mountains.

Were there raised eyebrows locally when you started the band rather than take up nine to five employment?

Both, by and large people told us to ‘go and do it, we’re proud of you,’ and there were some people when we first started out that it was hard to convince that one day, we’re going to be people that get to travel the world, make some money selling records and playing shows. It was hard coming from a place that isn’t a huge haven for art. For many years here in Appalachia the only thing you could do was work in a coalmine or work on a railroad hauling coal out of a coal mine.

Were there particular bands that influenced your musical direction?

We all have a lot of different musical influences and as we hung around with each other the music that we each respectively loved rubbed off on each other. Folk Soul Revival was a big influence, our drummer Justin played with them for a lot of years. What it came back to was a lot of cool funky country and rock and roll sounding stuff. That’s what it was from the start and what has evolved with the band.

The band formed in 2014. Fill in the gaps between then and appearing at SXSW recently?

The most important thing between those two points was a group of people with one simple focus who never wavered from it. We’ve worked really hard, stayed focused and changed our lives to suit this band. There’s a great sense of loyalty and pride that comes with being in this band that we have fostered from the beginning. A whole lot of hard work can be attributed to a slow climb for a number of years and the recent uptick in that curve that we are now enjoying. Eight years of working really hard and trying in a very conscious way to spread our music to as many people as we possibly could.

Does touring as a six-piece create its own complications with personality clashes and different individual pressures, and does the band operate as a democracy?

A whole lot less democracy and a whole lot more family. There’s a great atmosphere of camaraderie and fraternity within the band. We’re more like brothers than bandmates, all of us. The biggest thing that we do is maintain that focus, our life’s mission is this band. We’ve invested so much of ourselves personally that there is no compromise. This is our bubble of protection and the place where we can function in a way that pleases us, pays our bills and gets us in front of the people that we need to get in front of to share our art. We know it’s all business when we are on tour, you need to get out there and work for each other, but there’s a whole lot of peace and love in 49 Winchester and it’s always been that way.

I believe you have a background in metal. How does that translate into what the band is doing now?

That’s common ground among every single member of the band. We’ve all spent some portion of our lives as metalheads. I love the energy, the anger, the drive and the profound emotion that goes with metal. The energy from that music has translated into what we do live, which is a lot of jumping around and a lot of whooping and hollering.

Your songwriting is traditional country, real life stories about where you come from and what’s going on in your lives. Tell me about the progression from you writing the songs and the final product.

I write the songs, the melody and the progression and bring them to the guys to let them flesh out their parts with minimal input from me. As unique and variable as our sound can be, it is because all the guys have creative freedom to play what is in their hearts as opposed to suiting some need for my songs, as if they were sole possessions of mine. It has always been a ‘band thing’ with us. I might write the songs but the band’s input, feelings, emotions and their skill is important to me, and I want it to translate to the records and how we play live. That idea has allowed us to remain true as a band; there’s some healthy non-conformity in our music and I take pride in that.

Your sound has remained consistent from your debut album to the latest recording FORTUNE FAVORS THE BOLD.

There is a core of things that we have always stayed true to. The process hasn’t really changed, what has changed most is that we have grown and matured so much, both as musicians and people. We are grown men now and we weren’t when we started this band. We were high school kids back then that basically just had a dream and infinite free time that summer. Eight years later it has taken us this far and hopefully is going to take us further.

Where did you record this album and what was the recording process?

We recorded at White Star Sound in Charlottesville, Virginia, with our engineer and co-producer Stewart Myers. The foundations of all the songs had already existed and most of them had already been played live and had worked their way into our live set with a couple of exceptions. We went into the studio, laid down drums and bass, and started building the rhythm sections. It wasn’t live recordings per se. There is merit in a live approach, just going in there and letting it fly, but we were really conscious of how we wanted things to sound and took a week on little intricacies that we didn’t pay enough attention to on our other albums.

What has signing to New West meant to 49 Winchester?

John Allen, the president of New West reached out to us and said that if we were going to be making a record anytime soon, we ought to do it with them. We were going to be putting out our fourth album on an independent label like we always had before. When New West came knocking and we saw their line-up of artists, the past works that they have released and talked with other artists about their experiences on the label, we realised that this was a golden opportunity, given how artist- centred New West is. They are big on maintaining the cool, they are not going to try and commercialise you. There has been an enormous benefit since signing the deal. We were afforded time to get in and work out things the way you need to, instead of scrapping together for cash like we have done on albums in the past. Immediately on recording the album, the wheels were turning in a way that we never imagined. The New West team have knocked it out of the park and they’re working their tails off for us. It’s been a huge difference and a huge blessing.

Is the album title a statement of 49 Winchester’s intent?

You know that song was actually an old 49 song that never made a record. It was one of those songs that I got stuck on, a writer’s block kind of thing. The lyrics for the new version just hit me like a bolt of lightning when we were in the studio. It changed and evolved into something completely different. As soon as we knew that song was going to make the cut, we knew that it was also a great album title for the band.

Which of the album’s songs are you most proud of?

From a lyrical perspective, I felt Russel County Line was always a strong song. I knew it had weight and power, the melody was cool, and the song is bittersweet. I think it still holds up for me and I like playing it live. It’s the song on the album that I’m most proud of and not just for those reasons but also the significance it has to my home, to my lady and to the people, and places that I love here.

Interview by Declan Culliton

Jim Murphy Interview

Jim Murphy is the creative centre behind the very talented Irish Roots/Rock band, Blue Fish Diamond. He decided to concentrate on a full-time career in music back in 2014 and his band have gone from strength to strength ever since. Jim describes the music as Inde/Folk but there are many other colours to discover in the songs and their excellent musicianship. Lonesome Highway wanted to get Jim’s thoughts following the release of their second album, written and recorded during Covid Lockdown.

When did you first start playing music?

I played traditional Irish music when I was young (the accordion and the tin whistle) but I gave it up in my ‘teens. When my eldest son was born, I found that I had more time on my hands as I wasn’t going out much anymore (!) so I bought a guitar and fell in love with it. That was 20 years ago.

Did you always want to make a career in music and who were your earliest influences growing up?

They say that there’s a link between maths and music. In my case, maths came first. When I left school, I studied to become an actuary and worked in the insurance sector for 25 years. In 2014, I made the decision to pursue music full time. I had been thinking about it for a few years but kept finding reasons not to do it but in the end I decided to take the plunge and I haven’t looked back since! I think that some of my musical influences can be heard in the music of Blue Fish Diamond – The Beatles, Tom Petty, R.E.M. and Paul Simon.

Can I ask about the band formation back in 2016?

When I finished work in 2014, I went to BIMM in Dublin where I did a four year degree in Commercial Modern Music. It was there that I met all of the band members – Shay, Laura, Axel, Matilda and Ronan. We played our first gig upstairs in Whelans in October 2016 and I still remember it vividly!

Your debut album, From Dark To Light, arrived in 2018. How long had the project taken before the launch date?

I started writing the material for the album in 2015 and in 2017, we went into Orphan Studios in Inchicore to record it (the studio has since moved to Wexford). The album was mixed and mastered by autumn 2017 and we released the first single from it in early 2018.

How did you find the media reaction to the album release?

We released a couple of singles before the album and then a third single at the same time as the album release. We got some great radio play for the singles including on RTE Radio 1 and some lovely write-ups about the album, notably one from yourself which we were very proud of. Hot Press also reviewed the album and described it as “essential listening for those who like their music powerful and heartfelt”.

The new album is now available, FROZEN STARS ON THE NIGHT, – how did you arrive at this interesting title?

The title is taken from the lyrics of the last track on the album Secret Bill. The song is about an ethereal spirit that’s woven through the fabric of life and the verse in question is:

“Snowflakes fall from a ledge / Hear his breath, its hollow edge / Frozen stars on the night / Secret Bill again”

The songs seem to focus on relationships and the quiet beauty contained in nature. Was there a specific pattern running through the songs as you were writing them?

The theme running through the album is one of human emotions. Each of songs deals with one or more emotions – love, anger, despair, hope … they reflect personal experiences and experiences of friends and family.

How did you find the last two years and all the frustration of Covid lockdown?

It was tough not being able to gig but we recognised a couple of months into the pandemic that it would be some time before we would be able to perform live again, so we turned our attention to writing new songs. During the periods when restrictions were eased, we’d race into the studio and record some tracks! Having the time to work on new material and refine our sound was definitely a silver lining and we would not have been ready to release our second album last year without the space that the pandemic provided. In fact, we’ve made significant inroads into album number three.

What is your approach to song-writing – is it sudden inspiration or melody first and words follow?

Some of the songs I’ve written have come quite quickly in a spell of inspiration. I learnt last year about a state of being called the “flow state”, where you suddenly find yourself immersed in a creative zone and come up with ideas that afterwards you look back on and think “where did that come from?”! I’ve also learnt that you can be waiting a long time for the “flow state” to arrive and so I also follow a structured approach to song-writing. I’m constantly making notes/recordings on my phone of lyrical/melodic ideas and I make time every so often to sit down and go through the various ideas and craft them into a song – a combination of creativity and process.

You are self-managed and I wanted to ask about the administration and management side of things. Do you enjoy being involved in the process of putting gigs together and making sure that everything runs to schedule?

To be honest, I don’t really enjoy the process of putting gigs together and the various other administration tasks but they need to be done! We played at a festival in the Iontas theatre in Castleblayney recently and it was a joy to just have to turn up on the day with all of our equipment, do our sound check and then play the gig that night.

Is it difficult to get your music noticed on the busy traffic of social media these days?

Definitely! There’s a lot of new music being released every week as, like us, many musicians were busy writing songs during the two heavy years of the pandemic. In addition to trying to get noticed above the crowd, it’s hard to get good organic reach on social media platforms since the various platforms moved to a “pay and play” model a number of years ago and so to get any decent reach you really have to pay for sponsored posts.

How does the band dynamic work in the recording studio?

We worked with the same producer, Gavin Glass, for the two albums we’ve released to date and he is also producing our third album. He’s great to work with, both in terms of the creative elements he adds to the mix and also the way that he gets the best out of all of us. Our approach to date has been to record the rhythm section together live with guide vocals and then to add various overdubs afterwards such as lead guitar parts, piano licks, redo vocals and so on.

What are your mid-term plans for the band?

We are currently in the process of organising an Irish tour to promote our latest album, which will take place in the autumn. We are also putting together some videos of recent live performances and have plans to make some concept videos for a couple of our songs. As I mentioned earlier, we have made good headway on album number 3 and our plan is to get into the studio at the end of the summer to finish it off with a view to releasing a few single next year and the album itself in late 2023. Watch this space!

Interview by Paul McGee

Richard Olson Interview

The general consensus among the team at Lonesome Highway is that London-based five-piece band The Hanging Stars is one of the most impressive and intoxicating bands to come out of the UK in recent years. With a distinctive sound that marries cosmic and psychedelic folk, West Coast 60s country rock, and classic 60s Brit-pop, they have steadily established themselves as one of the most exciting acts both in the studio and on stage. That progression has yielded four studio albums while they continue to hone their live act with numerous festival appearances both in the U.K. and Europe. Their two sold out shows at the recent Kilkenny Roots Festival were hailed as highlights of the festival weekend by many who were wowed by their vocal harmonies, masterly musicianship, and overall panache. That’s not to mention the quality of the material performed, mostly taken from their recently released recording, HOLLOW HEART, their debut album on the Loose Music label. We spoke with the band’s frontman Richard Olson about their steady onward movement and the recording of that latest album.

Tell us about the formation of The Hanging Stars?

The Hanging Stars were born from a band called The See See. In my humble opinion a brilliantly ramshackle but completely out of time and fashion jangle rock band who sadly regularly ended up in some pretty dysfunctional situations. When I found myself being the only original member of the group left, tired and weary after some general bad luck and too much indulgence, I felt it was time for a new start. Paulie Cobra and Sam Ferman had been members of The See See for a few years and felt the same as I did. It was time to turn the volume down and start looking forwards and inwards. At the time we were hanging out a lot with some good friends from LA who were regularly in London and Europe, playing in the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Especially, our good friend the Los Angeles musician and producer Rob Campanella, who was always incredibly supportive and encouraging. He really meant a lot to the formation of The Hanging Stars. However, we needed a clear break between the two bands, especially after one gig at the Shacklewell Arms in East London, where we ended up playing one show as The See See and another show as The Hanging Stars because the headliner cancelled at the last minute. Strange times. Over the years Rob Campanella had offered to let us use his studio in Lake Hollywood many a time and one day after an ok PRS pay-out we decided to take him up on it. So, the main part of the first record and the first show we ever did was in Los Angeles. This, of course, coincided with a long-lived passion for folky, psychedelic, harmonious West Coast sounds, so it all fit like an air-conditioned desert dream for us. Me, Paulie and Sam really found the seed for what The Hanging Stars could achieve around then. Pardon the rambling.

There are lots of late 60s and early 70s in your sound, both British and American. Were there particular bands or albums that steered you down that road?

I could go on here about all the obvious names that we all know and love but I’ve always felt that The Hanging Stars are always more influenced by particular songs and vibes as opposed to albums, bands and styles.  The playlists that we share and listen to are pretty diverse. Cliche perhaps, but I’ve always felt that we’re looking for a feeling and a vibe more than a particular sound. But if you want names, I could go on forever. Fairport Convention is always a big one for me. I’ve always felt like they’re chasing the same notion as say, The Byrds around Notorious Byrd Brothers, Beau Brummels around Bradley’s Barn or Love’s Forever Changes. But honestly, I find the same feeling listening to Don Carlos Balearic classic Alone - Paradise as I do listening to If I Could Only Remember My Name by David Crosby, The Velvet Underground’s 3rd or Roy Orbison.  Fragility, warmth and wistfulness. Oh, and Iain Matthews and the Woods Brothers forever, of course.

You’ve been making steady progress in the recent past and honing your sound with four albums in six years. That’s a fairly prolific output: is it your intention to attempt to release an album every two years?

Not really no, however, we’re pretty driven, I write constantly and we’re a working band so it just happened like that. Then the obvious happened. But yeah, it’d be nice to keep that up but the days are getting shorter and shorter somehow!

Did the pandemic and the resulting lockdowns have a radical effect on both the writing and recording of your recent release HOLLOW HEART?

In hindsight, absolutely none whatsoever, except for the odd lyric dealing with isolation and hopeful deliverance then. We would’ve made this album in whatever times I think. I mean, of course, we were caught in it just like everybody else but it didn’t mean anything when it all came to pass. The Hanging Stars would’ve made Hollow Heart regardless, I think. 

How did you end up in Edwyn Collins’ Clashnarrow Studio in Scotland for the recording?

Patrick Ralla, our guitar and keys player, is a phenomenal musician who goes way back with Edwyn ever since Edwyn gave his blessing to young Patrick’s family beat combo The Kinbeats. Pat regularly plays in Edwyn’s band and one day Edwyn said that The Hanging Stars were welcome in Scotland anytime. I felt pretty blessed then too. I mean, like, it’s Edwyn Collins. And of course, his incredible wife Grace Maxwell also helped a bunch to make it happen. I feel incredibly grateful to that pair for letting us in. And producer Sean Read, I can’t talk about Hollow Heart without mentioning that man. So, we set off in two cars for the 13-hour journey only to find ourselves in even more isolation. But with a rising sun over the bay in our eyes every morning and a heather covered mountain to go stargazing at after our, shall we say, myopically enhanced dinner.

Edwyn contributes backing vocals on the album. Did the recordings get the seal of approval from him? 

If tweeting “The Hanging Stars album is the dog’s bollocks, FACT” counts then yeah. I think he liked it.

How did the recording process differ from working in Echozoo Studio in Eastbourne on your last album A NEW KIND OF SKY?

Two very different processes. ANKOS was made as a tight touring live band who’d honed the songs on the road so to speak, while Hollow Heart was much more theoretical and natural. Echozoo down in Eastbourne is an incredible place and Dave Lynch is an incredible guy, he’s a very busy man and the studio is like a finely built Swiss watch. Everything works and he knows every single nut and bolt. Clashnarrow is more like an unexplored world, like an audiophiles Jules Verne book. And of course, being in a North East Scottish town with a population of 203 took the tempo down quite a bit. All for the better.

As with A NEW KIND OF SKY, the songwriting duties are shared on HOLLOW HEART. How do you manage this with four contributors and have you a particular template for developing the songs?

We decided a while back that if we wanted to last, we needed to make sure everyone got their dues. Everyone has an input on the songwriting, even if I may be the one bringing most of the tunes to the table. I’m not precious about songs as I believe that they are not necessarily mine once I feel I’ve done what I can with them. It’d be foolish not to let the input of these four incredible musicians in on the writing and arrangements of my songs. I mean, why would I play with Sam Ferman, Joe Harvey - Whyte, Paulie Cobra and Patrick Ralla if I didn’t let their outstanding ideas and musicianship influence the songs? 

You’ve only recently had the opportunity to tour the new album. Your sell-out shows at The Kilkenny Roots Festival were a blast. Has it been difficult to get live shows this year with most bands and artists scrambling to fill their calendars?

Thank you very much for the kind words. Yes and no. We acquired a great booking agent (Sedate) just before lockdown so in a way, it’s been easier than before. 

Do you feel you get sufficient exposure from the British press? I expect that if HOLLOW HEART was recorded by a band from California, it would probably be featured in a three-page spread in the popular music press in the U.K. 

Ha-ha, I will take that as a rather wise but backhanded compliment from you, and I appreciate the sentiment. I really don’t know and I’m not so sure I care either. But you’re right, though. The British press tends to have a problem seeing the wood for the trees. I mean, of course I think that we deserve endless press as I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think we were a great band who make great records. But the press is so decentralized nowadays, as well as very exciting. Take a publication like yourself for example or Shindig! Magazine who’ve been very supportive, Raven Sings The Blues, Twitter. I guess I also naively believe that it’s about the connection to the music and the people. Supporting Teenage Fanclub or The Long Ryders at an amazing London venue is awesome but even better is a tiny pub packed to the rafters in Hastings on a Sunday night. But rest assured. Our day is coming. 

Signing with Tom Bridgewater’s Loose label appears to be a marriage in heaven and further steady progress for your career. Are you hopeful of making ripples outside the U.K. with the support of Loose?

It’s been nothing but a pleasure to work with Tom and Conor (Cleere). Tom has got a vision, a passion, and an experience which is exactly what we needed at this time. The album is only young still, and there are some very exciting things on the horizon. You’ll have to watch this space though. 

If that exposure should translate into recognition across the pond, would you foresee you re-releasing your earlier albums if that transpires?

I love your questions here; you’re diving deep into the pond and I like it. One thing I’m immensely proud of is our back catalogue and the quality of it. But yeah, you’re right. They’re running out and that’s not right. Especially ‘Over The Silvery Lake’ which is long out of print and fetches silly prices online. We’re open to ideas. 

I get the impression of a group of players highly focused and professional. Have you a specific game plan worked out?

Why thank you. We try our best. And yes, we have somewhat of a plan as a matter of fact but there’s a lot to be confirmed, so you simply have to buy the records in the meantime, keep an eye out and we shall deliver.

Interview by Declan Culliton

 Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier is about to release her latest studio album, DARK ENOUGH TO SEE THE STARS.  An artist that writes from the heart, Mary’s latest offering is both celebratory and contemplative as she reflects on her present emotional state but also on the sadness of losing loved ones and close friends in recent times. The enforced lockdown during Covid allowed her to complete her memoirs Saved By A Song; The Art and Healing of Songwriting, which details her progression from a self-destructive and somewhat lost soul to her current status as a celebrated songwriter, teacher, and performer.  Her regular online streams have been consistently attracting viewers in large numbers over the past two years and she also continues to host songwriting workshops. Mary has been cherished by us at Lonesome Highway for many years and her regular visits to Ireland are hugely anticipated. It was a pleasure to catch up with Mary once more as she prepared to tour her latest album.

You have been positively beaming on your live streams over the past few years, notwithstanding the difficulties presented during that time. What are your reflections on those past two years?

It’s been good, it’s all worked out good for us to be honest. Doing the live streams from here in the office has been great. We’re back out on the road again and we have a lot of shows booked. I did get some travelling in early 2022 and have managed to bob and weave through the past two years. There has also been so much loss and grief and suffering and a lot of deaths, the most recent being Nanci Griffith, which was so sad for me. Also, John Prine and Dave Olney – and lots of other people who aren’t so famous have passed away during the past two years. Personally, I’ve been grieving the loss of people but I’ve been fine and have somehow managed to come out the other end of it.  

Will you continue with the weekly live streams?

Yes, when we’re at home. We like doing it and people enjoy them. They seem to appreciate the stories we can tell and the casual nature of the streams. We get a couple of hundred people logged on when we do them, so they’re worth doing.

There are elements of sadness on the new album, DARK ENOUGH TO SEE THE STARS, yet the essence of the material suggests love and contentment. The first three tracks Fall Apart World, Amsterdam and Thank God For You are particularly uplifting.  Did you intentionally open with those tracks to emphasise your present mindset?

To be honest, I didn’t actually do that on purpose. What I do is to try and capture what is inside and in front of me and those songs are exactly how I’m feeling now. I’m just full of joy and gratitude. But of course, there’s grief on the record, too, because of the loss that we’ve all experienced in the last couple of years.  For me, I haven’t had to go through that alone. I’ve got someone with me that I love very much and we’re solid. I wanted to write about that. I’ve written about the difficulty of relationships my whole career because that’s where I’ve been. Finally, I’m in a place where things are solid and I’ve got this connection that is glorious, which I’m grateful for. The joy on the record is authentic. I’m not the type of songwriter that just makes shit up. I’m writing about my life and what I’m experiencing, and what I see other people experiencing in real time.

The track Amsterdam captures that tenderness and love beautifully. I understand that you ended up there quite unexpectedly with Jaimee (Harris)? 

That’s right. We were supposed to be going to Denmark a week early for a festival and the flight got messed up. I asked them to re-route us to Amsterdam and that was perfect. So, we got to go there unexpectedly, stay in one of my favourite hotels and have a few days in the city. I’ve written a lot of songs in Amsterdam; my first record deal was on a Dutch label and I established a relationship with the Dutch people early on before I had anything going on in the United States. That Dutch label was part of my life for the first decade of being a musician. I go there every year; it feels like a second home.

When were the songs for the album written and did you record in the studio or remotely?

All the songs were written after RIFLES AND ROSARY BEADS came out with most of it written during lockdown. We recorded in the studio with pretty much the same crew as RIFLES, and we also added Fats Kaplin to the team.  Neilson Hubbard was producer again; he also played the drums and Kris Donegan was on guitar. Michael Rinne was on bass, Danny Mitchell was on piano. Jaimee (Harris) sings on it which is great and Allison Moorer also came in and sang.

Beth Neilsen Chapman co-wrote the title track. Do you ever consider that artists such as Beth, Gretchen Peters and you are to other young artists what John Prine and Nanci Griffith were to you?

That’s really hard to understand, I couldn’t think about that. In my mind, I’m still the young person in awe going to a John Prine or a Nanci Griffith show and just watching them smiling uncontrollably, in love with their music and what they are bringing to the world. It’s impossible to fill those shoes.

With up to a dozen studio albums in your back catalogue, is there one that gives you the most personal satisfaction?

That’s like asking a parent who is their favourite child. I am actually quite fond of this one, because of the joy. It was high time that I chased down some joyful songs and I’m happy that I lived long enough to do that authentically and from the heart.

You only began to write professionally when you were in your mid-thirties. Had you dabbled in writing prior to that?

No, not at all. You know I wrote the whole book about that. It’s about what drives me as a songwriter and what I personally think songs and music are for. I see the music and the songs as part of my purpose and I had to find that purpose over time. I had a real problem with drink and drugs and after I got sober, I started writing. That was 1990 and I moved to Nashville to take this on for real.

How do you compare songwriting with your experience of writing longform for your book Saved By A Song?

I don’t think writing is ever easy and to write well is hard. The book took six years to write and I was only able to finish it because of the shutdown. For me longform writing is difficult, songwriting is difficult, and writing well is a big challenge.

With your love of food and cooking, maybe your next book will be about that passion? 

(Laughs) Yes, it will be titled ‘Cooking with Mary.’

With your upcoming touring schedule, I presume things are very much back to normal with you over there.

Everything is one hundred per cent back to normality here, we’re all acting as if Covid is not happening. Numbers are climbing but the vast majority of people have been vaccinated and for most people, if they get it, it’s like a bad flu. 

Can we look forward to you over this side during the year? We reminisced fondly at Kilkenny Roots Festival recently about you playing that festival back in 2018.

I remember that show well. It was as hot as hell outside and I was watching all the Irish fair skin burning to a crisp when I was waiting to sign CDs. I remember it well and wish I was there this year; I love that festival. We should be over to you in November of this year and hopefully also next April. I’d love to also get to Celtic Connections in Glasgow in January and if that happened, we’d also do a few shows in Ireland. I hope to be over with the new record several times. Hopefully Michele Gazich will travel with us in Europe too.

Interview by Declan Culliton

Born in Derbyshire in 1961, Michael Weston King played in a number of bands on the edge of the post punk scene in Liverpool during the late 70s and early 80s. He then became aware of bands such as R.E.M., Green on Red, The Dream Syndicate and The Triffids, whose influences mirrored his own newly found interest in Gram Parsons, Hank Williams, and The Byrds. So he joined country rock band Gary Hall and The Stormkeepers. In 1992, after their demise, he formed The Good Sons to further explore this emerging musical direction. When they broke up in 1999 he began to work on his solo career but rejoined the band for a fourth album HAPPINESS in 2001. In 2004 they released COSMIC FIREWORKS - The Best of The Good Sons (1994–2001). From 1999 to 2011, King released 10 critically acclaimed solo albums including in 2005 the compilation album THE TENDER PLACE: A Collection 1999–2005. Now, after concentrating on the more country orientated project My Darling Clementine with his wife Lou Dalgleish, he has released THE STRUGGLE, his first solo album in a number of years. Lonesome Highway took the opportunity to catch up with him recently for this interview.

Congratulations on the new album. It continues the fine body of work you have delivered so far, both as a solo artist and with My Darling Clementine. Had you been writing material all along that you considered more appropriate for you under your own name, rather than for MDC?

Well, I just write whenever I get inspired, and I don’t really think about where the song will end up or who will be singing it until it takes shape. I then tailor a song accordingly if necessary. But I did feel, with this, I had a bunch of songs, an album’s worth of material, that really hung together well, that was really just suited to one voice. They are pretty personal songs, many about my own feelings, no one else, so it was logical to me that one singular voice suits them better. The whole album is pretty intimate. 

Is it easier writing for yourself or do you find the MDC songs are now a part of your writing psyche?

You do have to be more disciplined when writing for two voices. I wouldn’t say one is more difficult than the other, just that you need to consider other factors when writing for a duet. Instinctively I tend to write, like most writers I guess, with just one voice in mind, usually mine but sometimes in the guise of a character I am channelling (such as the world weary beat cop in Weight Of The World).  But,  it will soon be time again to start delving back into that writing psyche you mentioned and get some new songs together, some “My Darling Clementine songs”, if we are indeed to make another album

You noted on the cover about the origin of THE STRUGGLE title, both as a particular place but also as a state of existence. Did it seem the best title to encompass this body of work?

Yes, it did. Not only this body of work but a larger reflection on most peoples’ lives in general over the past two to three years.  But to be honest, I really liked the title anyway. I have a note book with lots of possible album titles, song titles, ideas etc.  Even if the song doesn’t get written or the album made, I have always got a list of potential names on the go. This one came to me when when I was in the Lake District a couple of years back, and I saw a sign for the mountain pass ‘The Struggle’. It seemed such a potentially great album title to me. And after all that we have been though recently it seemed extremely fitting.

You produced this album, as you have other work in the past. Is that a process that you particularly enjoy?

I like to produce my solo stuff myself, as I have quite a singular vision and found it easier that way, to draw people into my way of thinking. It is different with MDC. We have used producers (or co-producers) on all those albums simply because, well, Lou and I need a referee! On my stuff I can be more indulgent in my influences and references and not feel need to explain or justify myself. 

Making this album was a special treat. I cut it in a beautiful location in Wales, it got me out the house, from what was becoming a very claustrophobic situation at home (as I am sure it had become for everyone), and it kept me sane. I could just disappear into these songs and into this process. That is not an option when making an album with a partner, especially your wife.

You take care with your cover artwork as you do with the music production. Was it a case here of finding the image and then the title or vice versa?

The image I chose in the end came quite late. As I mentioned I had the album title for a long time. There is a lot of ‘Welshness’ about the album, not only the fact it was made there but also was recorded and engineered by ‘Welsh wunderkind’ Clovis Phillps, who also played brilliantly all over it (guitars, bass, keys, mandolin, drums, backing box). He made an outstanding contribution. It then seemed natural to use some Welsh art and of a Welsh location. I met the painter Dan Llewelyn Hall though my son, the poet, Oliver James Lomax. He had illustrated one of Oliver’s collections. Dan was also painting his way along the Offas Dyke (the footpath that borders England and Wales) to celebrate it’s 50th anniversary. I like what he does with landscape. His paintings are kind of rough and rugged. I love the colours in this painting, the dirt brown of the earth. Again, it just seems very prescient to this collection of songs. In the painting there is what looks like a small figure almost at the top of the mountain, which to me, signifies someone who, after a long struggle, has almost made it to the top, almost made it through the obstacles he faced, but who still has a little way to go. Will he ever get to his final destination? That too felt very apt! The painting is called The Coalface and represents Aberfan.

Though you have added guests on the album, it is essentially you and Clovis Phillips. Were they added remotely, something pretty prevalent prior to the pandemic, though more focussed on now as a recording possibility?

Yes, it was just Clovis and I in the studio. Jeb Loy Nichols, who lives nearby, called in for a day to do some backing vocals and my daughter Mabel too came for her parts, but all the other things (trombone, strings, slide guitar etc) these were recorded remotely by the players that we chose.  So we had parts coming in from Paris, London, Liverpool, Sheffield and darkest Devon. 

Recording in Newtown in Wales, was that a place where you had a certain remoteness, that in the winter/spring when you recorded helped you to concentrate on the material and work without distraction?

Absolutely. After such a period of lock-down I was desperate for a change of scenery, for some solitude, for some remoteness in a rural setting. It is no coincidence that so many people have been fleeing the city recently. It was just what I needed. 

There are a number of fellow song writers mentioned in memoriam on the cover. Whom have you felt the loss of most profoundly, in terms of peers and influences?

Undoubtedly Jackie Leven. Even though it has been over 10 years now, I still miss him terribly. I miss his counsel, I miss his wit, his view on life, and especially his music. I miss playing shows with him, I miss drinking with him. He was a real kindred spirit. The songwriters mentioned in memoriam on the album (Eric Taylor, David Olney) passed more recently, in 2021, and were artists that I had worked with and was proud to call friends but I was not as close to them as I was to Jackie. 

I also wish I had had more time to get to know Townes, who I met 1993 but he was gone by 1996. I often wonder where that friendship would have gone had he got clean,  and if we had got to work together more.

You also, in that memoriam section, mention Valerie Dalgleish. I assume that Valerie’s Coming Home was inspired by her passing?

Yes, it was. We lost Lou’s mum in November 2019, a few months before the pandemic struck. She was in and out of care homes by then, so arguably it was a blessing. 

Is that type of song more difficult to write than any other?

Well, writing about a family member is a delicate thing. Naturally you feel under more pressure to portray them with a fondness that is shared by others. Thankfully, all the Dalgleish family members have really liked the song, but yes, the last thing you want to do is write a bad one when trying to remember someone that was so well loved by those close to you. This song though, it did flow. I didn’t have to labour over it. All the events recounted in the song all happened, so it was just my recollections of her, my relationship with her, images of her when she a younger mum, and the aftermath of her passing, so I had plenty to draw on. 

Weight Of The World, which opens and closes the album, has a political as well as personal dimension. How deeply do world events affect you as a writer?

I think any songwriter is, or should be, affected by world events.You cannot ignore what is going on around you. Phil Ochs is one of my favourite songwriters and, in my humble opinion, the finest ever writer of protest songs. I have lost count of the amount of times I have thought “I wonder what Phil would have made of this” while I watched yet another appalling news story. Of all the atrocious things we saw Trump do during his tenure as President, it was his photo op outside St John’s Church in Washington, where he had the streets cleared of peaceful protests so that he could hold a bible (upside down), that I found the most repugnant. I found it so utterly disgusting, and depressing. Weight Of The World uses the back drop of the killing of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement and events of that day in Washington to express how it is really politicians who are the ones holding us all down.

It appears you are now a lifer in the music business. Can you reflect on that?

To quote your fellow country man Van, “it’s too late to stop now”. I turned 60 last November and can’t see myself doing anything else now. I don’t have any security or pension plan, retirement is not an option. Musicians, we just keep going until we fall over. And why not? We have been blessed, whatever the level of material success we have had, to live a creative life, a travelling life (a great reward), and one that has avoided us getting proper jobs! Apart from a brief spell in my late teens when I genuinely thought I was going to become a vicar, and a briefer spell before that when I thought I’d play for Man United, I have never wanted to work in any other area. Write, record, tour, repeat. Has always been enough for me. Yes I have got some other projects in mind, one is a film script about the late, great Mickey Newbury, and I also have a couple of books I want to finish at some point but I am a restless soul and the urge to travel makes it hard for me to sit and focus on things that take a long time to come to fruition. I need that instant gratification of writing a song or playing a show.

Has taking that path become clearer or is it as full of chance and circumstances as ever?

Well, over the years you build up a network of people you work with (musicians, promoters, agents, labels etc) so I guess that can make the path clearer but this is the music industry so nothing is ever really certain. People quit, venues close, labels go bust. Also, the internet has taken over to such an extent now too. We all spend too much time on line and musicians have to do the same to continuously self promote, which I must admit I find extremely tiresome. The mystery has gone, the veil between artists and audience, and I dont like that. So yes, I’d say it is as full of chance and circumstance as ever.

What do you look back on as achievements, and indeed look to the future as things left to achieve?

I think my greatest achievement is still doing it. Still being out there. Touring, making records, writing (and hopefully still getting better). David Olney once said his greatest achievement was the fact it said ‘musician’ on his passport. I tend to agree. This is such a competitive business and one that has seen millions of people ‘have a go’ and then drop out, or been chewed up and spat out along the way. You are open to great uncertainties and huge vagaries in opinion. It can be frustrating when you feel you are not as recognised as maybe you think you should be. But then again I have so many great memories, so many people I have met, places I wouldn’t have been were it not for the music. When I am asked what I do and I tell people I am a musician, you can see them come to life. The same would not be said if told them I worked in accountancy!

”What is left to achieve” is a tricky one. I have made a lot of records, written a lot of songs but an actual hit would be nice! ha ha.  I would also like to see a well put together box set come out, of all the studio albums. Either three separate ones to cover The Good Sons, my solo work and My Darling Clementine, or a ‘one stop shop’ of everything I have done since the 90’s. I recently did a deal with Cherry Red Records, so all the back catalogue is now available across the streaming platforms (a lot of it wasn’t up there)  but a physical version would be a nice thing too.

There are some collaborations I’d like to do that are on my wish list. Some achievable, others maybe hard to make happen. I am a huge fan of Robbie Fulks and would love to work with him at some point. So too Joe Henry. Joe nearly produced the third MDC album but logistics and finances prevented it. Still, maybe in the future.

There is a song on the album co-written with Jackie Leven and you have helped to put together a tribute to him and his work. Was that something that had its own rewards as project?

It did. Like all tribute albums, it is an eclectic mix but it sounds fabulous and there are some stunning versions of Jackie’s songs on it. The album looks wonderful too. Sarah Brisdion, who did the art for it, I used for THE STRUGGLE design too.  

Pulling the album together brought it’s own frustrations. I was angry nothing had been done sooner and it looked like nothing was going to happen, so I decided I had better do it. Frustrating too, as some artists (no names) I genuinely thought would get involved declined or didn’t even respond but, that aside, it was wonderful to get such a positive feedback from many fellow musicians, fans and admirers of Jackie who were keen to contribute. And then, once the process began, to have songs drop into my mail box was like Christmas Day every day. I am proud of it and would urge everyone to check it out. A gorgeous double vinyl version recently came out for Record Store Day too.

What’s next for you and My Darling Clementine?

The road. Two years  of not playing live means I/we have a lot to catch up on. Since Feb 2022, My Darling Clementine have toured Europe, UK and the east coast /mid west of America. More UK and Euro touring is coming before summer. Back to US later in the year too

I will continue to promote THE STRUGGLE and there will be more solo shows too. At the ones played so far, Clovis and I have performed the whole album, which has been really enjoyable. More of those for sure. Lou and I are also looking to do some shows with Steve Nieve in July, as we never got to tour the COUNTRY DARKNESS album when it came out. As for new recordings, the next album will be an MDC album, though I am not sure what direction we are going with that. Or maybe it is Lou’s turn for a solo album? And if so then, maybe, I will get one of those books completed!!

I am also currently working on and contributing vocals to an album project with Mark Brend (aka Ghostwriter). Very much an experimental sound-scape project based around hymns and even some “youth praise choruses” from our 1970’s church days. It is a curious project but what I have heard so far is fabulous. Mark is a really inventive guy and I love what he has done in remixing some of my songs, most recently his remix of Weight Of The World on the new album. 

So, will keep on keeping on, seeing what life throws at me, and what new musical avenues I can wander down. Right now though, a pint of Guinness and lunch with my grown-up kids is  my immediate concern.

Interview by Stephen Rapid

Dean Owens Interview

Singer songwriter Dean Owens’ travels in recent years have transported him from rainy days in Leith, Edinburgh, to sunny days in Nashville, Tennessee, and further west to the scorching desert sun of Tucson, Arizona.  Kicking off his musical journey in his late teens with the progressive pop band Smile and moving on to more roots-based music with The Felsons, Owens’ solo career has subsequently yielded ten albums, together with a number of collaborations. The title track of his 2018 album SOUTHERN WIND, earned him the accolade of UK Song of the Year at the UK Americana Awards in 2019.  Its successor, the recently released SINNER’S SHRINE, is being hailed as a career highlight, with excellent reviews continuing to emerge from the U.K., America and Europe, including our own thoughts at Lonesome Highway. The album was recorded with Joey Burns and John Convertino of Calexico, a band Owens quotes as a firm favourite of his, way back to their early recordings. We spoke with Owens recently as he reflected on his early career days and ambitions, his love of American roots music and history, the recording of Sinner’s Shrine, and the three EPs titled THE DESERT TRILOGY, which he released in 2021. 

With your Leith, Edinburgh grassroots and your love of football and boxing, I would have expected your record collection to be packed with Bowie, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed albums, rather than American roots music?

Actually, I have all of those in my collection. I love a bit of Iggy, big Bowie fan as well. I have a very eclectic taste and I think that is reflected in my own music. Over the years my albums have been quite different and I like artists that do that. Even going back to the Beatles, if you listen to all their albums, they are quite different, there are all genres going on with their albums. Put on Sergeant Peppers and you get everything from blues to jazz and even country influences.

Going back three decades to your early career as a late teenager with the band Smile, what were your musical ambitions at that time? 

To be honest, I wanted to be on Top of the Pops like everybody else. That was the holy grail back then. Sadly, I never got there and Top of the Pops folded but I kept going. I’ve outlived Top of the Pops, that’s some claim to fame. Actually, it was never all about fame even back in those early days, I was always very interested in the song writing. Fame wasn’t something and it’s still not something that I have ever craved.

Your next venture was with The Felsons, who had a more roots sound. What marked the change in musical direction for you?

My old manager and friend ran a record shop and gave me some albums to listen to. They were pivotal records for me. One was Graham Parsons’ GREVIOUS ANGEL and GP, where you had both albums on one cd. I also got given an old vinyl record which was a Hank Williams’ collection. Those two records really opened my eyes to music I hadn’t heard previously.  Up to that country music was, for me coming from Scotland anyway, a guy called Sydney Devine that my granny listened to. I guess Sydney Devine was a bit like your Daniel O’Donnell, very tame and not what I was interested in. When I heard Hank Williams, and especially the song Ramblin’ Man, that really hit me hard. I started to delve into that area and once you go down that rabbit hole it is hard to get out of it, there’s so much great music there.  Through that, I discovered bluegrass and so many great artists and writers who heavily influenced the Felsons. The Americana genre did not exist when the Felsons were going. We were called everything from cowpunk to alt-country. When you mentioned boxing earlier, it’s like how many world titles there are now.  Similarly, there seems to be a new genre each week related to roots music. I certainly don’t mind the Americana term because I am heavily influenced by that music and not only the music but also American landscape and American literature from my travels there over many years. Around that time there were also a number of bands being labelled alt-country that knocked my socks off.  I was discovering bands like Wilco, Son Volt and eventually Calexico and Giant Sand. 

Your next move was to venture on a solo career with your debut album THE DROMA TAPES.

We had been together and making music since I was about nineteen with Smile and The Felsons. We just got to the point where we had been living in each other’s pockets for a long time and decided to take a break, but not necessarily a permanent one. I headed off to a remote cottage on a Scottish island and started working on songs that were in my head and probably for another Felsons’ record. A number of them were quite stripped back and mellow and sounded really nice with me and just a guitar.  That basically became the first solo album, THE DROMA TAPES. It was really an accidental album.  I recorded it in the cottage and when it did come out people liked the vibe of it. It was very much based on and influenced by two old albums I had, THE TEXAS CAMPFIRE TAPES by Michelle Shocked and The Original Harmony Ridge Creekdippers’ self-titled album. 

Moving forward eighteen years and eight solo albums later and you recorded the Buffalo Blood album with Neilson Hubbard and his fellow Orphan Brigade members Joshua Britt and Audrey Spillman. Was the album and its recording location a result of a childhood romantic fascination of all things American for you, from spaghetti westerns to your love of Muhammed Ali?

I think so, you are right about the westerns okay. When I first went to the States on a long road trip, I wanted to see all those big John Ford landscapes. I got very interested in the old days of American culture and history, and their story because growing up in Scotland we were only given one side of the story. I started to read a lot and study American native history, and go to a lot of places where events took place. That became a very big part of my life, travelling and studying history over there. My wife and I at one point bought an old airstream trailer and put it on a friend’s property at Joshua Tree. I’ve always loved the time spent out in the desert, I don’t know whether it’s the contrast in weather from Scotland where we have to suffer a lot of rain. For the Buffalo Blood project. I started writing a number of songs based on the Native American Story and their trail of tears. I was also thinking of what was going on in the world around me at that time and the number of displaced people in the world. I had these seeds of ideas for songs and I mentioned to Neilson Hubbard and Joshua Britt that I was interested in recording songs based on American history and the American native experience. Neilson really liked the idea as he has just done the first Orphan Brigade with Joshua and Ben Glover. They had done that on location and Neilson, in his crazy wisdom, suggested that we make the record and go out to the desert to record it, rather than doing it in the comfort of a studio. We drove from Nashville out to New Mexico and based ourselves around the Georgia O’Keefe Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, set up our gear in various locations, strange rock formations, caves, and canyons, and made the record. It’s one of the things I’m most proud of. 

Did that lead to the connection with the Calexico guys for THE DESERT TRILOGY EPs and SINNER’s SHRINE?

Funnily it didn’t, although I do see the strong connection between Buffalo Blood and the new record SINNER’S SHRINE for sure. My whistling for one. During the process of being in these canyons, Neilson and others remarked that they hadn’t heard anyone whistle like me before. I started coming up with all these Ennio Morricone-inspired tunes and melodies. The hook-up with Joey Burns and John Convertino happened later. I was on tour in America in the spring of 2019 and had a week off. I wanted to go somewhere for that week and relax and soak up some local music. I had been in Tucson, Arizona once before with my wife, but only for a few days, and hadn’t really got a flavour for it, though I’d always loved the music coming out of there, Calexico and Giant Sand, in particular. I love mariachi music as well. So, I went down there to soak up the atmosphere and eat some good Mexican food.  I got invited to a benefit show for a local guy called Tom Hagerman, who is in a band called Devotchka, who have a great desert vibe. There was a mariachi band playing and Joey from Calexico was also performing. Long story short, but during the concert, I had gone indoors to the air-conditioned hotel where the outdoor gig was playing as I was suffering a bit in the Tucson heat. When I was coming out, I bumped into Joey and we just started talking about music as he was interested in Celtic music and I was interested in mariachi. We kept in touch after that and out of the blue he contacted me and said I should come back to Tucson and make a record with him and Jim Convertino, his partner in Calexico. I was blown away and it was an invitation that I wasn’t going to turn down. It was like being asked to play centre forward for my beloved football team Hearts, and scoring the winning goal. That was May of 2019 and I spent the next few months just getting songs together and the following January I went out to Tucson and recorded SINNER’S SHRINE with the boys from Calexico.

Tell me about the recording sequence from THE DESERT TRILOGY EPs and SINNER’S SHRINE?

As always, I had recorded too many songs. The songs on the EPs were ones, for one reason or another, that didn’t make the album. They simply didn’t make the album because I thought I had a nice sequence and flow to the album with the songs that are on it.  I had four or five left over from the recording session and during lockdown, I recorded the remaining songs for the EPs long distance with the guys. The EPs were released by necessity in a way. It didn’t make sense to put the album out when I couldn’t tour but I also wanted to pave the way for the album coming out. It also gave me the chance to use those songs that I really liked from the sessions. It was really pandemic driven but also a blessing because I got a much bigger reaction to the EPs than I had expected. 

I’m hugely impressed by the artwork on the EPs and the album. 

It came about through James Morrison, who has done a lot of my artwork over the years. His partner Luisa Carmela Casasanta is also a great artist so I gave them a basic idea of what I wanted and they ran with it. They came up with some really beautiful work, with a really nice thread through the EPs, the album, and also through to the merchandise.

Unfortunately, touring the albums has been disrupted. What are your plans going forward?

I was scheduled to launch the album at Celtic Connections in Glasgow in January with a full band, which didn’t happen because of Covid. I played a few shows last month in Scotland with an ensemble called The Sinners, and the plan is to do more of that along with solo shows, duo shows, and some more band shows later in the year. Thankfully, the press I have been getting for the album is the best I’ve ever got, which is a relief because it’s a slight step away from what I’ve done previously and a different flavour from my last album SOUTHERN WIND. I’m also aware that by taking a musical departure you risk alienating some of your original fans as well as getting new ones. I have to stay really focused on SINNER’S SHRINE in the short term as I put so much work into it. I think the album deserves a good life and I intend to give it one.

Interview by Declan Culliton

Alma Russ Interview

In a genre populated with many crossover country artists, North Carolina-based singer-songwriter Alma Russ is the real deal. Growing up with a farming background, she combines her independent music career with seasonal work, either on horseback in the great outdoors as a stable tour guide, or as a rancher in Wyoming. Her parallel career finds her touring for months on end, transporting her music across state borders to bars, honky tonks and clubs. She’s recently released her standout sophomore album FOOL’S GOLD, which not only showcases her quite distinct vocal range but also marks her as a talented tunesmith and writer. She recorded the album in a hundred-year-old church in a ghost town out in the Chihuahuan Desert. There is a charming innocence and simplicity to the album, which was described on the celebrated Saving Country Music website as ‘one of the best albums to be released in 2022 so far.’ That mirrors our opinion of the album that   the extremely modest and enthusiastic Alma spoke to us about.  

You appear to have the ideal life balance with your parallel occupations alongside music.

I worked on a ranch last year in Wyoming but I’m back in North Carolina now. I’m working at a riding stable where I used to work full time at one point. These days I work here when I’m around. The riding stables are in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and I take people for tour rides in the mountains. I’m really thankful to get to work here when I’m not touring.

How does that break down time-wise for you ?

The work is seasonal for me, I do my music in the off season. This year I will be mostly playing music. When I left the ranch in Wyoming last October I was playing wherever I could get shows and getting by as the gigs kept happening. I realised I probably didn’t need another job, which was probably a miracle. I love my jobs, though the work on the ranch meant that I was holed up on a mountain for up to six months, which meant that I couldn’t play music. So, this year I decided to mostly focus on music. My boss here at the stables is really supportive and kind, so I’ll stay around here and then I’ll be on the road touring for three months. 

You are also from a farming background?

I grew up on a farm in Florida. We were actually a nursery, more of plant-based farm. We had forests and also rented out some of our land to other folks.  You don’t hear that much about farming in Florida because it’s getting so overpopulated, but I was the seventh generation born on that land. My family got the property after the civil war, the nursery closed down a while ago but my grandparents still live down there and I visit every once in a while. 

What are your earliest memories of being stimulated by music?

This is kind of different from what you’d expect. I started playing piano when I was five. An early memory is getting the soundtrack to the movie Shrek when I was a kid. It had Duran Duran’s Hungry Like A Wolf on it, which I loved. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the Country Bear Jamboree, but we lived an hour north of Orlando and when I was a kid we’d go to Disneyworld in the off season, when all the crazy summer season crowds weren’t there. There was this thing called The Country Bear Jamboree that, even then, was terribly outdated. It was a show in an auditorium where they had electronic bears playing banjo, bass and other instruments. You should look it up, it’s really bad. But for some reason I really loved it. It wasn’t until later that when I was twelve and picked up the banjo, that I realised that the spectacle really got me interested in playing music. After that, I spent a lot of time in the mountains getting into traditional mountain culture. Music is a major part of that and became a huge interest for me. It all started with The Country Bear Jamboree. As I got older, I loved Alison Krauss and Dolly Parton. I was really influenced by Alison Krauss because she played the fiddle and sang. I had also got into singing Scots and Irish ballads even before I took up the fiddle, singing songs about people getting their heads chopped off when I was only eight years old. 

I understand you were a contestant on ABC’s American Idol?  I would have thought your vocals are far too distinctive and edgy rather than the stereo-type singers they promote?

They don’t want folk singers; I knew going into it that it wasn’t my thing. It was really a fluke but my dad encouraged me to send them a video and surprisingly they responded. It was a free trip to Hollywood so I couldn’t really complain and I went thinking ‘I wonder how long this will go on for.’ I met some really cool, genuine people and there were a lot of very competitive people there. For me it wasn’t competitive, I was just waiting to get eliminated, I knew it wasn’t my thing. 

You released your debut album during the pandemic: when was it recorded? 

I recorded NEXT DOWN in Johnson City, Tennessee with Bee Hive Records. We started recording it long before the pandemic, it took us a long time to finish it because I was heading to Wyoming to work for four months. We finished when I came back and we decided to release it during the pandemic. With that album, I really didn’t know exactly what I wanted from it and had a lot of songs that I’d since written that I liked a lot better, which ended up on FOOL’S GOLD.

Your new album FOOL’S GOLD, sounds like a huge step forward. How did you end up in a ghost town nearly two thousand miles from North Carolina to record it?

I live on the road for months at a time. This may sound ridiculous, but I have a Prius which I’ve rigged out to live out of. I used to tour during the off season simply because there were so many places that I wanted to visit and see. To do this, I’d book some gigs to help me pay for gas and music wasn’t really the focus, I was just rambling around. I first went to Terlingua in Brewster County, Texas, last winter, it was during the pandemic and a good place to go because there was hardly anyone there. I have a lot of friends who had worked jobs at the Big Ben National Park there and wanted to see it. I had my instruments with me and there’s this place out there called The Starlight Theatre in Terlingua. It’s really cool, Willie Nelson and Jerry Jeff Walker used to play shows there. The stars out there are so bright because there’s no light pollution. Although being in the middle of nowhere, a lot of musicians go out to Terlingua . I ended up meeting some musicians on a porch out there and we just jammed. One of them was Bill Palmer, a dear friend of mine who recorded FOOL’S GOLD, and another was Myles Adams, who is a talented singer songwriter. At the time Bill was recording Myles’ album at the St Inez Church, it was the first album to be recorded there. They asked me if I’d play fiddle and sing some harmonies on the recording. I was already tired of my first album NEXT TOWN, loved the way Bill worked and was hoping he would record my next one, which he did.  With the new album I wanted to mix Appalachian music with Texas country. So, I decided to book my future gigs heading across the country towards Terlingua. I booked St Inez Church and we ended up recording the album in two days because, honestly, that was all I could afford.

There’s a delightful organic back porch feel to the album as if the musicians knew exactly when to support your vocals and when to withdraw. 

That’s really how it was in the church. Because I was on the road, I didn’t have a lot of time to practice with the musicians. I was playing a really weird gig in Houston, probably the weirdest I’ve ever played. It was in a place called Super Happy Fun Land. On their website, it said that they were open to all genres of music but when I got there, I knew it was really a venue for metal bands. Anyway, I ended up playing in a songwriter round in a metal band venue and one of the ladies that played was Mary Brett Stringer. At that time, she was playing washboard in the Austin band Feeding Leroy and, coincidentally, she was also heading to Terlingua with the band to record their album. So, she ended up doing backing vocals on FOOL’S GOLD. My one requirement for the album was to have pedal steel on it but I had intended to do that digitally, I didn’t think I’d get a pedal steel player out there. So, it just happened that Lee Martin from Feeding Leroy was also there the same day. So, because we had no practice time, Bill Palmer and my drummer Moses were the only ones that had got to hear the tracks beforehand, Lee had to do his playing on the spot.

Why did you select FOOL’S GOLD as the title?

That song is my theme song, the one I open every show with. I love what I do, I don’t make a lot doing it but I get by. Sometimes stupid things happen and I wonder why I’m doing it, but I love it. The title came from me doing what I do for the right reasons and not for the reward. 

Two tracks particularly stand out for me on the album, Oklahoma Freight and In Another State. Can you tell me about the background to them?

I was in San Antonio, Texas, when I was on the road for the first time by myself. I was nineteen at the time, playing in these bars for the first time and nervous, which can be intimidating sometimes. I was playing a show and this guy was giving me a lot of trouble. I went to the bartender and told her and she threatened to beat him up for me: it was a bit dramatic, for sure. She was a really cool lady and I ended up sleeping on her couch and hung out. She’s not doing that work anymore but she told me her story about hopping freight trains in Oklahoma - oddly enough I’ve made friends with a lot of hobos and I learned how to write songs from one. She initially inspired the song. It’s a combination of her story and also stories from other women I’ve met, and there’s a little bit of me in that song also. 

And the song In Another State?

There was this girl I worked with who was really mean to me. She’s not going to read this, so I may as well tell you. It was really hard for me, but when I heard her story, it made me be able to be kind and understand her.  She was the initial catalyst for the song, but I also wove other people’s stories into it from growing up in a small town. I loved living in a small town but also knew people that felt trapped by it and ended up in that song. 

You’re heading off on tour shortly. How difficult is it to self-manage and what are your ambitions? 

I love what I do and never thought that I’d be able to make a living out of it. The dream is to do it full time, but if I have to get a job next time, so be it. I would love to have a booking agent, but that’s not affordable at the moment. The worst part is the booking, but by doing that myself I get to go wherever I want. At the moment I’m fortunate with the people I’m doing seasonal work with. My boss is great, so it’s as much of who I’m working for as much as the outdoor work I’m doing. There’s a line in a Gillian Welch song, ‘Never minded working hard, it’s who I’m working for.’ I’m lucky to have someone who is supportive of my music and happy to have me work for him when I’m around. I’m also lucky that I can play with a band when I’m at home and when I’m on the road it’s just me, playing shows and sleeping in my car, keeping my overheads really low. It's really weird, but as a travelling musician, you meet a lot of people that want to be a part of your journey. I’m humbled by the number of people who invite me to stay with them, which I do sometimes. Other times, being an introvert, I’m happy to crash in my car in a parking lot. I love meeting new people as it’s part of the job, but I often get to the stage where I prefer sleeping in my car than couch surfing. In the meantime, I’ve made the album that I wanted to make, which is exactly what I was hoping for.

Interview by Declan Culliton

David Quinn Interview

It’s surprising that David Quinn is not yet a household name in country roots circles, given the quality of the three albums he has released over the past four years.  The arrival of Covid in early 2020 denied him the opportunity to tour his sophomore record LETTING GO, which he finished in Nashville weeks before shutdown. Rather than sit back and lick his wounds, Quinn abandoned city life in Chicago and relocated to a rural lake house in Indiana, where he wrote the material for his latest recording COUNTRY FRESH. His new surroundings and the enforced lockdown heavily influenced his writing, which is a fusion of nostalgia and an appreciation of the oft-overlooked simple pleasures in life. It’s a worthy companion to LETTING GO and, like its predecessor, features a host of top-notch Nashville musicians.  We recently caught up with Quinn via Zoom, where he was finalising his schedule to bring both albums on the road for the remainder of this year. We expect, following the tour, that his profile will be deservedly heightened. 

Do you have an Irish bloodline as Quinn is a very popular name over here?

Unfortunately, I don’t. A lot of Irish people out here ask me that. Quinn is actually my middle name; my last name is Italian, which nobody can pronounce. 

My introduction to your music was the song Long Time Gone from the Bloodshot Records compilation album TOO LATE TO PRAY, DEFIANT CHICAGO ROOTS from 2019. How has the demise of Bloodshot affected the music industry in Chicago?

It’s had quite an impact. A lot of people are still trying to figure out how to move forward. It’s unfortunate how it all happened as they supported a lot of great music. A lot of my friends who were with Bloodshot have moved on and are doing great music at other places, though. 

Is there a vibrant Country music scene in Chicago?

There is a small scene that is more specific to the honky tonk crowd, which is really where I started. Since then, I’ve explored other genres, which is what my last two records are all about, just letting all my influences show. There is a honky tonk scene alright and we have a dance crowd that comes out to those shows.  I feel somewhere in the middle. My sound is harder country, a little bit of everything, kind of bluegrass, kind of country, trying to carve out my way out there. There’s also a bluegrass scene and a big indie rock scene in Chicago. 

There appears to be a steady growth of appreciation for roots music in recent years.  Artists such as Colter Wall, Charley Crockett, Ian Tyson, Tyler Childers and Jaime Wyatt are getting deserved recognition.  

The market is growing and all those artists are beginning to become household names now. That would not have been the case five or ten years ago when this new roots movement wasn’t as well known as it is now. It’s growing every year, which is great.

I should also have mentioned Jeremy Pinnell, who you’ve recently played with. 

I played a few dates with Jeremy recently in Ohio and Kentucky, having played with him in the past. He’s one of my favourite songwriters out there right now, he’s a remarkable talent. 

You’ve been particularly productive over the past five years, recording three albums. You’ve also been very selective in the producers and players you’ve worked with and recorded the three albums in Nashville. 

The last two records, LETTING GO from 2019 and my new one COUNTRY FRESH were both at Sound Emporium in Nashville. Mike Stankiewicz was the engineer on both of those two records. The first album, WANDERIN’ FOOL was really interesting, recorded at The Bomb Shelter and produced by Andrija Tokic. Prior to the recording, I had literally sold everything I had, kicked off on a road trip, and wrote a bunch of songs. I hadn’t played with a band much at that time so it worked out perfectly when Andrija came on board. He was able to say ‘I have the perfect band for you’ and he brought all the players in, it all really worked well that way. After making that record, within weeks I had my own band together and some of those guys are still with me now. I had been playing those songs from LETTING GO on the road for over a year, so it was a different approach when I went to Sound Emporium to record that album. I really knew what I wanted going into the studio at that point so it was so much easier for me. I knew the melodies I wanted, the drum sound, the lead guitar, etc.  So, it was a learning experience with that album. With COUNTRY FRESH it was a combination of both experiences from the previous two recordings. I knew what I wanted for most of the songs, having written most of the songs by myself during the pandemic. I basically picked players for the recording that I knew and trusted, and would make the album a collaborative effort, but would also sound exactly as I had it in my own mind. 

Those players included Micah Hulscher and Jamie T. Davis from Margo Price’s band and Kacey Musgraves’ pedal steel player, Brett Resnick. Having them available without touring commitments was fortuitous? 

Absolutely. With the questionable timing of things and not knowing when things were going to get better, it also helped that those guys were itching to work. I had gotten to know a lot of those guys pretty well over the years. I was lucky to be able to reach all those favourite players of mine and each of them to say ‘yes’. 

You also recruited Fats Kaplin to play on COUNTRY FRESH. How did that come about?

I had known all the other guys and worked with them before. I knew I wanted fiddle on this record because I had written a number of melodies with fiddle in mind. I had the fiddle parts, figured out the songs I wanted them on. I asked a couple of people who I should reach out to. I had played with Kelsey Waldon in the past and she recommended Fats and Micah also said I have to use Fats. When he agreed to come on board he arrived with his fiddle, mandolin, harmonica and dobro. He had a number of ideas that made it onto the record, so it couldn’t have worked out more perfectly. It was an honour to meet Fats and play with him.

You left Chicago and went to rural Indiana to write the material for the album.  

Yes, I moved right at the start of the pandemic over two years ago now. I had just got back from Nashville after making LETTING G. I had that record finished and was figuring out what to do with it. I got back to Chicago in March just as everything was closing up. After a week or so I decided to pack up and move. I was never a city person, I didn’t grow up in the city and it was pretty easy to come out here, where I still live. I started writing that record right away when I got out here and it was almost like I needed to move here and write the album, as if it all happened for a reason. 

The material is very homegrown and reflective. Did the absence of time pressure help the writing process? 

A feeling of freedom is certainly reflected in the record. Ironically, it’s funny, with lots of time to write and no deadline the songs actually came very quickly. No deadline, no pressure, and no shows to play, I just wrote the record so quickly, the songs just came pouring out. You’d normally never get a time in life with no obligations and it actually felt a really nice time to write the songs. 

I’m intrigued by the origin of the album’s title COUNTRY FRESH, which I understood came from an ashtray you stumbled upon in the recording studio?

Yes, I came across the ashtray in the back of the studio at Sound Emporium. I asked my engineer Mike Stankiewicz about it and he reckoned no one had probably seen in in forty years.  That was during the making of LETTING GO and the name stuck with me and reflected the direction of the album’s songs. When I went back to record COUNTRY FRESH the ashtray was still there. 

You’re on record as being influenced by fellow Illinois legend John Prine. What other artists set you on your musical career? 

I’m a big music listener and always have been. I love artists and acts that mix genres. Charlie Daniels was a big influence on me, The Marshall Tucker Band, Willie Nelson and, as you mentioned, John Prine.  Townes and Guy Clark have always been there for me. John Anderson is another that I’ve become a big fan of and has shaped where some of my recent stuff has come from.  My dad had a large vinyl and cd collection and at weekends he’d be playing vinyl all night and really loud. He’d be having a drink and I’d be just listening. He’d play everything really loud, not only country but everything from John Prine to Willie Nelson, The Temptations to James Brown, Neil Young and Supertramp. The neighbours were always calling to turn the music down. That’s probably where I got such wide musical influences growing up. 

The songs are very personal and nostalgic, dipping back into simpler times in the past.  The ones that particularly come to mind other than the title track are Hummingbird’s Song and Cornbread and Chili. Are they also a reflection of your relocation to a more rural environment? 

Absolutely. It’s funny, I had made the record and was getting the artwork done and going through the process of getting the record ready for release. By stepping back and away from the music, I’ve been able to reflect on the songs a bit more. I’ve been noticing things about the songs when people tell me little things about some of the songs. Being able to step away and have a bit more freedom up here played a part in that nostalgic view of things and missing times past. Hummingbird’s Song, in particular. It is a song for my grandfather, each line from that song is true. I have his eagle tattoo on my arm. Cornbread and Chili is more about how I’m living right now. All those simple things in life that I was reminded about, things that are easy to overlook until they are taken away from you. 

You have the album release show scheduled for April 15th. Will that be in Chicago? 

Yes, it’s in Chicago. I grew up forty miles west of the city, so a lot of friends and family can come out and I’ve built a bit of a fan base in Chicago, too. So, that’s going to be a fun show. I’m hoping to be full time on the road after that for the rest of the year. 

Will you tour solo or with a full band?

A bit of a mix of both but I’m hoping that most of the tour will be with my band, probably as a four piece. I’m actually working on that right now.

You will actually be touring two albums having not had the chance to tour LETTING GO since its release. 

Yes, my setlist at the moment is half LETTING GO and half COUNTRY FRESH. Since I didn’t get to tour LETTING GO, I’m hoping people will come back to it and that it will eventually get its day as that record means a whole lot to me. I was going to wait to release that album because of the pandemic, but when it got to fall of 2020, I just decided to put it out and start working on a new one. 

Are you suffering from the dreaded ‘post-album depression’ that many artists suffer from having finished a project?

I haven’t yet, knock on wood. I’m actually almost finished writing the next one. It’s probably because of the year locked inside that I’m feeling backlogged, ready to go on the road and make more records.

Interview by Declan Culliton

The Delevantes Interview

Mike and Bob Delevante started performing in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1988 but decided to relocate to Nashville in 1992, on the advice of a Nashville music executive. The duo known as The Delevantes released their first album, LONG ABOUT THAT TIME, in 1995 on Rounder Records. Production was by fellow New Jersey musician and the E Street band member Garry Tallent. It received a good critical response including three stars by Rolling Stone Magazine.The album debuted in the sixth slot on the Gavin Americana charts thus making the group the first alt-country band to reach the top ten. In 1997 they moved to Capitol Nashville and released their second album POSTCARDS ALONG THE WAY. The album was again produced by Tallent and he also featured on bass alongside Heartbreaker Benmont Tench on piano. After a hiatus of over a decade, The Delevantes are again actively performing and recording with their most recent album A THOUSAND TURNS released last year it again saw them continuing their working relationship with Gary Tallent.

Tell me a little about the motivation that inspired you to reform and record the new album?

Mike: We had talked about getting together to record again for years but it wasn’t until the manager of Blackbird Studios here in Nashville heard us perform at a Tom Petty tribute and invited us to the studio to record. So we really hadn’t set out to do an album when we started. We had a great studio and engineers made available to us and we went in as friends just to create music. After that session we realized what was beginning to develop. We went back in to Blackbird for another weeklong session and came out with 14 songs that we felt great about and then decided we should release it. And I think that mentality of going in to a studio just to create something as friends in really a relaxed, joyous environment comes out in the record….vs. maybe a different scenario. Not that we didn’t enjoy making our other records, we did. We’ve always loved the recording process but motivations were different back then. Labels, managers, publishers as well as career decisiionswere all involved. This was purely friends creating music.

Bob: Our initial inspiration came from a show at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ. Mike and I were playing with Garry Tallent and we were joined on stage by Bruce Springsteen. Playing in Garry’s band, and that night at The Pony inspired and motivated us to start working. Soon after we took part in a Long Players show. (The Long Players are a band that perform a classic album from start to finish and have different artists sing.) Rolff Zwiep, the studio manager from Blackbird Studios, an incredible recording facility in town, saw us play and offered us studio time. We booked some dates and we were off!

Were they similar to the ones you had when you decided to perform together back in the late 80’s?

Mike: I think it was different in the sense that back in the 80’s our day-to-day life was centered around playing music every day, attending art school and then working in that field. After our second record on Capitol, I decided to take a break from music to return to art and design and Bob did a few solo records while also pursuing photography and design. Our desire to create and work together despite the medium hasn’t really ever really gone away. We’ve always stayed close and even worked together on projects over the years.

Bob: Yes and no. We’ve always enjoyed the process of recording so that was an overall motivator, but not having done it for so many years really made us want to get in the studio and start working.

What were the major influences you both had growing up?

Mike: NYC AM radio to start, which meant pop music of the 60’s and 70’s. Beatles, Bee Gees, Monkees, Motown. Then learning to play guitar led to folk/singer-songwriters of the time: Dylan, The Byrds, Jackson Brown, Springsteen. We formed our first band with a high school friend that turned us on to John Prine, Flatt & Scruggs and one album in particular that had a huge impact was the first ‘Will The Circle Be Unbroken’ album by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

Bob: For me there were so many things. Family of course, and where we grew up. Being so close to New York City as well as the Jersey Shore were inspirations to me.

You moved from Hoboken to Nashville on advice. In retrospect was that good advice?

Mike: Absolutely. We knew that in 1989, a band that sounded like Creedence or The Byrds could have a really good following in NY/NJ but they weren’t going to get signed by a New York label. Jody Williams from BMI Nashville saw us perform at the New Music Seminar in NYC and invited us down to Nashville for a week to introduce us around. In that week we saw Steve Earle perform, met Garry Tallent who would become our bassist and co-producer, met Mike Porter who would play drums and co-produce. And met and saw U2 play in Tootsies in front of about 10 people. That was a good trip! There was just a sense of great possibilities. We felt like we were at home. We started to travel more frequently here to play and record until eventually we made it permanent.

We also knew that we’d always be a little different wherever we were. In New York we were a country band. In Nashville we were a rock band. But at the heart of it was the close-knit and creative community here that seemed to embrace a lot of different genres. The people here were accepting, all with relatively similar goals. And the last remaining real songwriting community was still in Nashville.

Bob: Yes, for sure! Living in Nashville certainly changed our music, making it more of what we had wanted it to be. Between the atmosphere, songwriting, work ethic, and musicians here in town, all these things had an effect on what we were doing. My wife and I also enjoyed living here and raising a family. I miss New York and New Jersey but I do get up there often.

Your first album was released on Rounder and then for the second you signed with Capitol Nashville. There appeared to a critical and solid fan base and the trajectory seemed upward, however you decided to quit not longer afterward. Was that a decision forced on you or one you made yourselves?

Mike: I was moving in the direction earlier. In my head I thought at some point I wanted to get back into art and design. I didn’t have a plan for when, but I knew that I missed it and at some point I’d like to go back to it. The major label industry experience was at some points ridiculous. There were wonderful people that we got to work with over at Capitol but when Scott Hendricks was fired and replaced by someone that knew nothing about music that just signaled that things wouldn’t be as planned.

Its a pretty common scenario I would imagine: Creative has a vision – they sign a certain act to fulfill that vision – the creative gets fired – the act gets dropped. What’s weird is we actually didn’t get dropped. The new president thought our record was the best record he had. When we met with him he just said “I was hired to sell country radio acts, this isn’t a country radio act. I’m not gonna drop you, but I’m not gonna work it either.” So, that moment felt like the right moment for me to move on to smething I’d thought about for a long time.

Bob: I would say a bit of both. Things at Capitol changed and we realized it wasn’t the place for us so we eventually decided to leave.

You both have creative souls and found careers in the graphics industry. Was that a good substitute for music at the time?

Mike: I never thought about graphic design or visual art as a substitute. Both Bob and I went to art school before being in working bands. So, from a timing perspective, art came first. Then as we progressed in music, we did both. By the time we had moved to Nashville and had signed with Warner Chappell publishing and Rounder records in 1994, for a 10 year period,writing,  making records, being on the road, I didn’t do a lot of artwork because there just wasn’t time.

Bob: Yes, definitely. And I would say far more than a good substitute. I studied design and photography at Parsons in NYC so there were many times when we were touring that I missed doing visual work. It was good for me to take a break, start photographing again, get back into the darkroom, and take on some design projects before I got back into the music world.

Bob, you of course, continued to make solo albums and released three under your own name. Were they labours of love or did you just want to keep that side of your creativity open? 

Bob: I love writing and recording so I really wanted to continue doing that. I set up a studio in my home and put my albums together there. I learned about the engineering and production side of the process which I found interesting. And I was able to produce some other artists as well. I was also able to incorporate my visual work in many of these projects. For example, my album Columbus and the Colossal Mistake is a collection of songs, and my photographs.

There’s 20 years between A Thousand Turns and 1997’s Postcards Along The Away on both you worked with Garry Tallent so there is an obvious continuity in the production. Was that the intention?

Mike: Not really … I think it was just us being us writing, playing communicating. It all just felt natural. In fact I remember after maybe tracking the second song, we walked out of the control room and Garry said “It sounds like you guys just never took a break.” We felt that way too. Specifically, our choice to go back in with Garry, that’s probably more centered around the idea that we’d become life-long friends. Our families became very close. It’s kind of like a band in that sense. And we’re so fortunate in that besides our friendships there’s no one else I respect more musically than Garry.

Bob: Yes, for sure. We’ve always worked with Garry so it felt like the natural way to go. He’s become a good friend, we love the way he plays, and working with him is effortless. He’s the third Delevante brother!

You recorded and released the album during the pandemic was that a enabling factor in the process or a hindrance?

Mike: A bit of both I guess. We tracked the 14 songs for the record before the pandemic and then when it hit we were stalled because we couldn’t get back in a studio to finish it up. After we realized the virus wasn’t going anywhere we looked into other ways to finish it up. For me, I taught myself ProTools so I could work on all the guitars in my studio. So, in a sense it became a very unique process for me…in the past I’d usually be in a studio with engineers and producers as I worked through parts and this time it was a solitary process. I can’t say exactly which I prefer more, they both have their merits. So again, both.

Bob: I feel like it was a bit of a hindrance. Fortunately we had everything tracked before we all shut down. We could still do some overdubs on our own at home, but it did make it a bit tougher. And we missed the best part of recording-we didn’t get to sit around and hang out!

How much, from your viewpoint, did the music coming out from mainstream Nashville change, both in direction and promotion, in the time between the last two albums?

Mike: I have to admit that I didn’t really pay close attention to industry moves in that time. To me commercial country Mike: became worse, aside from a few diamonds in the rough. But just overall what was becoming obvious was the format newly called ‘Americana’ was growing and growing. It was nice to see that format becoming more and more popular even though radio still doesn’t pay it that much attention.

Bob: I honestly don’t know very much about that world. Some things I hear sound the same thematically but change sonically to fit the time. But the genre is certainly growing and there’s many new artists

Was there a lot of pressure from Capitol at the time to change or compromise your music?

Mike: Not at all. Looking back I give them a lot of credit. In the world of commercial country music coming out of Music Row, we were pretty different so for a major label in Nashville, them releasing our record was pretty forward thinking.

We were signed by Mark Brown, head of A&R. He had worked with Steve Earle on the publishing side for years so he got us. And Scott Hendricks the president at the time. I had a conversation recently with Mark, we still keep in touch and we talked about this. He had a team of people there that had previously been over at MCA and worked on the Mavericks and a few other acts that leaned more roots than commercial. They told him they wanted a press act. One they could dig in and work on. Also, this new format called “Americana” was getting a lot of attention and they saw it as a bold step. I always remember Scott Hendricks introducing us the night of our record release party. He said something to the effect of “these guys are different, and that’s why we like them.” Scott is a mainstream engineer, producer so for him to give it his blessing was very cool.

I will say that when you go through all the steps of making a record in Nashville during that time…the studio choice, the engineers, mixer, masterer, etc. I think there was an element that made this maybe a bit more polished than what we were used to. Throw in the sounds of the ‘90s and yes listening back its maybe more polished but there was never any push from anyone to compromise.

Bob: No, not at all. I think we were so far out of the mainstream that they didn’t know where to start to try to change anything we did. We were always considered to be on the fringe in town.

For this album you called the shots, was that an important consideration being able to release the music you wanted?

Mike: I think it made the process very freeing, very open. So open we didn’t know we were even making a record as I mentioned in other answers.

Bob: It was great. I’ve always worked independently on my albums. For Mike and me, on both of the labels we recorded for, Rounder and Capitol, we were pretty much left on our own so we’ve always been fortunate enough to release the music we wanted

You played in Dublin back in the late 90s with Steve Earle. Do you remember much of that trip to Europe?

Mike: I do. It was an amazing experience on a number of levels. Steve Earle was probably one of the most influential artists to us back when we were starting, so to be able to open for him on that long of a tour was over the top. And then to be able to do it in such diverse places as Dublin, Bergen Norway, Zagreb Croatia where we were really bonded together … just added this element of discovery camaraderie that made it really a once in a lifetime trip. I also want to mention that Steve brought his then 14-year-old son Justin along that we got to know very well. We all got to play together every night for the encore. 

Bob: That was such a great trip! I don’t know where to start. The wonderful receptions we received  from audiences, to travelling with Steve. We had a blast! Eating raw herring in Amsterdam…drinking at the Guinness factory in Dublin…playing a huge auditorium in Edinburgh and then a basement club in Croatia. The list goes on and on!

I believe you had a brief encounter with U2s Bono and Adam on Lower Broadway. What were the circumstances of that meeting?

Mike: That was our first trip to Nashville, actually our first night in town. We hadn’t even checked into our hotel yet. We drove in on a Monday night and arrived around 10pm. We thought it’d be great to drive into downtown, see the Ryman and check out what the city looked like. Back then downtown Nashville was nothing like it is today. There were just a few bars open, stores were boarded up. It was a pretty typical sleepy southern downtown area then. You could park anywhere you wanted on Broadway. We saw one bar open and I can’t recall the name of it but it was right across Broadway from Tootsies. We decided to have a beer, I think there was a country band playing, maybe just a few people, pretty quiet. We left after the beer and decided to head to the hotel. I’d parked the car right in front of Tootsies and as I was getting into the driver’s seat, Bob looked in the front window and said in a deadpanned tone “I think we should go in here, U2 is playing.” That sounded absolutely crazy to me. But sure enough, we walked in and Bono and Adam Clayton along with a 70-something year old guy on pedal steel were playing I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For. There was a total of maybe 10 -15 people in the whole place. Coming from New York nothing like this could ever happen and if you found yourself near a situation like this it was probably some special/private event that you were likely to be tossed out of. We sheepishly headed to the bar (Sure we would be asked to leave, but never were) and had a beer and listened to them do about 3 or 4 songs. After a few conversations with the bartender and later the steel player we came to learn that no one knew who they were except a few friends at a table in the back. On their last song, the bartender, unimpressed with how we tried to express their fame to him said to us “Man, we get ‘em all in here. You guys pickers? You’re next.” So, sure enough, Bob and I headed to the stage and played about 4 songs and the steel player joined us as well. Bono danced with a friend to one of the songs…it was a surreal but wonderful evening. As our first night in town was closing we thought if this is Nashville, I think we’re gonna like it here.

Bob: Our first night in Nashville. We pulled into town around 10:00pm and we were tired from driving so we went looking for a beer. We parked our van on Broadway and looked into the window of a bar called Tootsie’s. I said to Mike, “that looks like Bono singing”, and sure enough it was! We wandered in, sat at the bar, and ordered a beer. He and Adam were playing I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For with the house pedal steel player for an audience of about 10 people (including Mike and I and the bartender). We were served our beers and invited to play a song when they finished. We got up and played and Bono danced as we did an old song of ours called “The Mandalay”. After they left we looked at the bartender and said that was amazing! We couldn’t believe they were in the bar. But he had no idea who they were. He asked if they were big! A very surreal first night in town.

There are other sibling acts round now such as the Cactus Blossoms and while they have similar roots your sounds are quite different. Is that something inherent in the distinctiveness of a unique family voice?

Mike: I think yes. And we discovered this as we went from a band with 2 brothers in it to being a duo. There is of course the similarities as sharing DNA that your voices could blend in a unique way, but beyond that there is an unspoken language from the history of growing up together that comes into choices you make, directions you take. We’ve just done so many things together for so long that you just know where to go.

I’ll also throw in that while we’re not brothers, we’ve been friends and played with Garry so long now that we have developed that language as well. As I would assume most long standing band members have.

Bob: I guess so. There are so many factors besides just physical differences in voices. Songs, melodies and lyrics, and how you approach music is affected by where you’re from, your family, and experiences you’ve gone through. All these things inspire and inform your sound.

What other brother acts influenced you or was that a factor in your music?

Mike: When we started, I think the fact that we were brothers was less a factor then it was when we decided to go it alone. We started as a 4 piece with high school friends that happened to have 2 brothers. Although vocals were always a huge part of what we did and made us unique. A lot of bands were loud and good but we could sing. That really was different. We all sang…3 and 4 part harmonies. So vocals from The Beatles, Motown, Byrd … AM radio that we all grew up on were all influences. As Bob and I decided to do our own thing and sang more and more directly together we discovered a blend that we maybe hadn’t focused on before. In college I took A History of Rock and Roll class as an elective which was one of the greatest experiences I’d ever had in school. One class, I was introduced to the Louvin Brothers through the song “Make Me A Soldier”. The moment the instructor dropped that needle it really was quite an awakening for me. I had never heard anyone sing like that. It seemed just effortless. God-given. I ran out and found that record and brought it home to Bob and we listened over and over.

Bob: The Everly Brothers and Louvin Brothers of course. But there’s also the Wilson brothers of the Beach Boys, Ray and Dave Davies of the Kinks, and Phil and Don Alvin of the Blasters.

Does the title of the new album have a particular significance?

Mike: I came up with the idea for the name but its from a lyric Bob wrote in one of the songs. So that was a nice collaboration. We had a few titles going but we were stuck. One other title was “Come And Go” which would have made sense too but didn’t feel exactly right. To me “A Thousand Turns” felt like a continuation of the previous record titles. “Long About That Time”, Postcards From Along The Way” and…“A Thousand Turns”. They all speak to time, journey and relationships. And maybe most importantly choices you make along the way. Bob and I have done many things together and apart over the years. Some people have said “why did you wait so long to work together again?” We don’t really feel that way. We’ve collaborated on many artistic projects whether its music or visual art since those days. Plus we remain in the same group of friends from high school and here in Nashville. Our families are together here and we see each other like other families do: Christmas, Easter, birthdays.

Bob: It had been such a long time since we’ve recorded, and so much has happened during that time. Families, moving, career changes, that “A Thousand Turns” seemed appropriate.

Did you go through any disagreements along the way, as often happens with brothers, or was it a harmonious experience overall?

Mike: Do you mean this project specifically? This project was extremely harmonious. It was just easy and fun. We really didn’t have any agendas and just enjoyed everything. If you mean since the ‘90s I’d have to say yes. To be best friends and brothers and work partners, traveling together sharing rooms and beds sometimes is pretty difficult to without any disagreements. But I think all in all we weathered it better than most…there really weren’t that many and we got over them.

Bob: Sure, there’s always bumps along the way when you’re working with someone for a long period of time, especially family. But overall it’s been pretty smooth.

Do you have any plans to tour when things get a little easier in terms of post-pandemic travel?

Mike: I think we’d be up for touring depending on what it is. I don’t see us getting into a van and playing wherever and whenever like the old days! We both have so many other projects going on. But certainly Europe is something we’d like to do and any other dates/tours that come up that make sense we’d love to play. At this point we have some things being booked in for the spring and summer.

Bob: We’ll see. I’m sure we’ll try to do some isolated shows but it’s been hard trying to put anything together these days. Hopefully that will change.

Finally, as you are both graphic designers can you tell me some of your favourite album covers?

Mike: Great question. And actually the first time anyone has asked us that I think. I would say 2 of my favorites would be from one of my favorite artists: Born To Run and Nebraska stand out for me. The beauty and simplicity of early U2 albums. The “Elvis Presley/London Calling” connection is great. I would have to say overall, the Blue Note catalog still just blows me away. And some of those covers are anonymous. The choices they made, they way they worked with their limitations which is a key factor in design…the ability to turn that around and make it work for you is a true talent. One of the biggest aspects should be obvious…does the art match the tone of the music? Does it help represent the artist? All of the examples I mentioned I think do that well and in some cases they add to the story.

Bob: I was at Parsons in downtown New York in the late 70s so I’ve always been partial to work from that time period. I love all the Talking Heads packages. I really like the covers Andy Warhol put together and for some older pieces, the work of Jim Flora and the illustrations of David Stone Martin.

Interview by Stephen Rapid