Tag: 5+5

BGS 5+5: Amy Irving

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Amy Irving
Hometown: San Francisco, California
Latest Album: Always Will Be (out April 25, 2025)

What has been the best advice you’ve received in your career so far?

I’ve been an actor all my life. I began on this new path, making music with the band GOOLIS, a few years back. And I’ve been learning so much from them, especially our band leader Jules David Bartkowski.

I remember going into the studio to record our sophomore album, Always Will Be, and Jules suggested I improvise some. Well, let me tell you, as an actress, I had been traumatized in acting school improv class. I was never comfortable acting without a script. I’ve always considered my gift was in interpreting playwrights’ words. So, when I sang, I followed the notes exactly. But Jules and Aaron, our keyboardist, insisted that I try. I complained my mistakes would be so loud and they replied, “Oh yeah, Amy, we never make mistakes here.” Okay, I got it. I did it. And now you can’t keep me down on the farm.

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

Before every show, after sound check, I retreat to my dressing room, to meditate and rest my voice. It’s a time to conserve my energy. I eat some protein that will not talk to me on the stage. Half a beta blocker keeps my hands from shaking. I do a vocal warmup, either alone with a taped class or over FaceTime with my wonderful vocal coach, Celeste Simone. Gabriel Barreto, my son and manager and record producer and photographer, then digs his elbows into my tight shoulders. When it’s five minutes to showtime, I usually run to the bathroom and have to throw up (yes, I get terrible stage fright), knock back a shot of tequila, then Jules leads us all in an exercise of shaking all the tension from each part of our bodies.

Genre is dead (long live genre!), but how would you describe the genres and styles your music inhabits?

Working with bandleader Jules is a thrill, because our music covers so many genres, once he decides on his arrangements. He has taken the songs of Willie Nelson and transformed them from punk rock to samba.

Broadly speaking, Jules was going for a kind of golden age of mid- to late-century global pop/rock approach. To offer a more specific example: the first song of the record Always Will Be, “Dream Come True,” was, for Jules, an attempt to channel 1960s Italian rock acts like Mina and Adriano Celentano, while throwing in some Vegas-style late Elvis maximalism and some doo-wop baritone sax. On the song “Getting Over You,” he was trying to find an intersection between The Clash and The Supremes. On “Everywhere I Go” he was trying to mix the Mexican influence of the original with the connected worlds of Klezmer and Balkan music and 1970s Ethiopian jazz.

Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?

I’d like to eat foie gras and fig jam on a baguette with a glass of pinot noir while Édith Piaf sings to me “Non, je ne regrette rien.”

Does pineapple really belong on pizza?

I think anything goes. I remember a long time ago when Wolfgang Puck first opened Spagos on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, I was appalled to see “Jewish Pizza” on the menu. Well, it was smoked salmon and cream cheese pizza and I’m here to tell you it was delicious!

Photo Credit: Gabriel Barreto

GC 5+5: HORSEBATH

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: HORSEBATH
Hometown: Montréal, Québec and Halifax, Nova Scotia
Latest Album: Another Farewell (released February 7)

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

One of our biggest highlights was definitely opening for Sierra Ferrell at Toronto’s legendary Massey Hall. A few of us are from rural Ontario and grew up going to show’s there, and so to have the opportunity to step on that stage in front of our family and friends was quite special. We are extremely grateful that Sierra trusted us and our music, and it’s a memory we will cherish forever. – Etienne Beausoleil

What other art forms – literature, film, dance, painting, etc. – inform your music?

We love to dance – especially swing and two-step. When we’re jamming and that heartbeat kicks in – the pulse, the groove that drives us – we know we’ve got a tune that’ll pull people onto the dance floor and keep them moving all night. – Daniel Connolly

How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?

I think it’s easier to use a kind of veil, in a way, when it comes to writing a certain type of song. We often write about our own experiences and it’s always an exposing thing to share. A lot of our songs are quite personal. Maybe we focus on the sadder ones, but I’ve always felt they make for a more relatable story. The “character” can be the way you play or sing it. You can easily picture yourself living through all the same experiences but in another time, era or place. When it’s coming from personal experience, playing with those different imaginary versions we all have inside of us can create an entire mood that becomes the song. – Dagen Mutter

If you didn’t work in music, what would you do instead?

Make films. – DC

We’re all artistic people. It’s hard to say what we would be doing if it weren’t music and this band, but it’s safe to say that we would all be interested in the arts. Some of us have backgrounds in filmmaking and acting, so perhaps we would be involved somehow in the filmmaking industry. – EB

What’s one question you wish interviewers would stop asking you?

What colour we would be. – DM

The meaning of our name. – DC

It’s our best kept secret and only very few people in the world know the true meaning of the name. – EB

Photo Credit: Sophia Perras

BGS 5+5: Max Wareham

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Max Wareham
Hometown: Middletown, Connecticut
Latest Album: DAGGOMIT! (releasing February 21)
Personal Nicknames or Rejected Band Names: The Bluegrass Pagans, The Bluegrass Feds, The Bluegrass Paranormal Investigators, The Bluegrass Rats

Which artist has influenced you the most – and how?

I play in Peter Rowan’s Bluegrass Band – he’s been a pretty big influence on me. His spirit as an artist burns strong; he has a vision that isn’t restricted by parameters of tradition or genre and he has an incredible way of singing and playing from the heart. Who else has played in a band with both Bill Monroe and Jerry Garcia? I was honored to have him produce my album, DAGGOMIT!. He’s also a distant cousin of mine.

What other art forms – literature, film, dance, painting, etc. – inform your music?

I like to write and practice photography, especially film. The great French photographer Eugene Atget is a huge inspiration to me. His photographs have profound harmony in them – every proportion is perfect and the simplest lines can be so expressive. To me, it’s very musical. I also love the German author W.G. Sebald. His writing often explores themes of decay and loss through a gauzy lens of nostalgia, not unlike bluegrass music.

What’s the most difficult creative transformation you’ve ever undertaken?

I’ve worn lots of different musical hats, so I generally don’t find it difficult to transform creatively. While bluegrass and the banjo are my primary focus, I played electric bass for years in psych-pop band, Sun Parade, and studied jazz guitar performance at school. I write and record some non-bluegrass songs under the name Sir Orfeo and was in the chamber-pop studio band Cousin Moon – to me, it’s all music.

If you didn’t work in music, what would you do instead?

I’d probably work in archaeology. I quit music for a short while and worked on an archaeological dig in eastern Tennessee, excavating a 16th century Cherokee settlement. There’s something I love about digging, whether that’s literal or uncovering the history of forgotten banjo players.

I crewed for a hot air balloon pilot for a while, too, but that’s a tough gig.

Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?

Well, I did once find myself grilling a steak in a parking lot behind a venue with Dobro legend Jerry Douglas. I thought his company and the steak were a perfect pairing. He was wearing denim and the steak was medium-rare.

Photo Credit: Sasha Pedro

BGS 5+5: Crys Matthews

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Crys Matthews
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Latest Album: Reclamation
Personal Nicknames (or rejected band names): Papa Bear to my future-wife, Uncle Bear to our youngest nieces, and just Bear to my chosen nephew, River.

What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?

Without question, the song that took me a while to get ‘right’ is my song “Suit and Tie.” This song was written in response to the drag ban being rolled out in Tennessee. Nashville is my home now, so having a front-row seat to the fallout from that bill definitely weighed on my heart. [The ban] was intentionally loosely worded so that law enforcement could have cause to harangue anyone who they saw fit, even a singer-songwriter like me who happens to dress in suits and ties more often than not.

Gender and gender expression are both deeply, deeply personal – they are nobody’s business and certainly not our government’s business. As a social justice songwriter, I take tremendous care to avoid “speaking for someone” or inadvertently appropriating something that I only meant to appreciate. In “Suit and Tie,” only one of the verses is about me directly and offers my perspective as a Butch-identified lesbian who has been wearing clothes that bucked the patriarchy since I was four years old. The other verses are about a nonbinary person, a femme-identified gay man, and a trans woman.

My friend Holly [Near] once called my songs “truth-telling journalism,” which I took as a badge of honor. The notion of being a faithful steward of the truth means a lot to a PK (preacher’s kid) like me, and so it took me about seven drafts before I felt like I had done that with this song.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

My mission statement is: To amplify the voices of the unheard, to shed light on the unseen, and to be a steadfast reminder that hope and love are the truest pathways to equity and justice.

What has been the best advice you’ve received in your career so far?

Unsurprisingly, so much of the best advice I have received during my time on this planet is from my mother. One gem in particular that has seemed more and more profound is, “Babygirl, you better remember whose you are, so you don’t forget who you are.” It was (and still is) her way of reminding me that this industry and this world can try everything in its power to try to change the things about you that make you special, those things that, so often, are the very things that drew them to you in the first place.

You have to be steadfast and secure in who you are at your core. You have to remember your ancestors and your community and the people who knew and loved you before anybody who thought they could help you ‘make it big’ even knew your name. That advice from her is why I have managed to have an actual career that centers my ideals and values. And I think it is why the people in my corner seems to also reflect that ideals and values.

Does pineapple really belong on pizza?

Absolutely not! I keep telling my future-wife that, but she keeps insisting that I’m wrong.

What is a genre, album, artist, musician, or song that you adore that would surprise people?

Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” – before I realized I could write songs, I was fairly certain that I was going to be a high school band director. I have a deep love for classical music. I can conduct the 1812 like nobody’s business!

I know some musicians hope they get famous enough to sing the National Anthem at a Super Bowl or play at the GRAMMYs, but I’m just hoping that I get to conduct the 1812 with a philharmonic at least once before I die.

Photo Credit: Emily April Allen

BGS 5+5: Olivia Wolf

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

(Welcome to another 5+5! Hit play, scroll, and get to know artists, creators, and roots musicians of all sorts with five questions and five songs.)

Artist: Olivia Wolf
Hometown: Leipers Fork, Tennessee
Latest Album: Silver Rounds

Which artist has influenced you the most – and how?

Gillian Welch. She has shown me that lyrics can be both beautiful and dark, honest and true. Her instrumentation is brilliantly simple and to see her play live is to transcend to a different plane.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

We played “The Wild” in Seattle, and I asked if anybody had gone fishing that day. A fella had been out that morning and caught three coho salmon. When the song started he closed his eyes and I knew he was back on the ocean in the breeze and the water. I love to see other people getting to escape through my music.

What other art forms – literature, film, dance, painting, etc. – inform your music?

Photography, antiquing and home décor design, cooking, and hosting friends.

What is a genre, album, artist, musician, or song that you adore that would surprise people?

I love Daft Punk. Especially their song “Something About Us.” They influenced a lot of the cosmic aspect of my album and I greatly admire their lyrics and musicality.

If you didn’t work in music, what would you do instead?

There is nothing I could do instead, I am married to the music.

Photo Credit: Alysse Gafkjen

BGS 5+5: Shane Pendergast

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Shane Pendergast
Hometown: Corran Ban, Prince Edward Island, Canada
Latest Album: Winter Grace

Which artist has influenced you the most – and how?

I’ve really spent a lot of time studying the music of Gordon Lightfoot. From his lyrics to his intricate melodies to his fingerstyle picking, I keep coming back to him for inspiration. He was able to create strong music over a long period of time. I admire his work ethic.

What has been the best advice you’ve received in your career so far?

Al Tuck told me, “Stay humble, stay serene, keep instigating.”

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

I live on a small island where the ocean is always close by. Whether it’s the rhythm of the waves or the salt in the air, I think it impacts my songwriting. I’m always thinking about how location impacts arts and culture. In terms of storytelling through song, I find myself writing a lot about things like fishing, rum-running, and the romance and ferality of the sea.

What is a genre, album, artist, musician, or song that you adore that would surprise people?

I really enjoy songs from old musicals such as The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof and Oklahoma! There’s something about the playfulness and grand production of the songs that I can’t resist. Before I die I’d like to perform in a musical. Guess I’ll have to work on my dancing…

Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?

Maybe eating PEI oysters with Stan Rogers. If my uncle, chef Robert Pendergast, was doing the shucking it would turn into a great kitchen party.

Photo Credit: Justin Rix

BGS 5+5: Lily Talmers

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Lily Talmers
Hometown: Birmingham, Michigan and Brooklyn, New York
Album: It Is Cyclical, Missing You
Personal nicknames: To most people I’m just Lily or LT. Though… I’ve long been just a hair away from changing my moniker from my real name to “Scary Magdalene.”

Which artist has influenced you the most – and how?

Judee Sill has been so huge for me – there is such musical intricacy to her work and to the metaphors she works with in writing. She just goes beyond the script of singer-songwriter in every way. She is really playing! With texture and tone and size and scope on every level – lyricism, meaning, arrangement, melody, harmony. She was just so devoted to every facet of the craft, and her songs thematically are themselves devotional.

As far as contemporaries go, though, Madison Cunningham has also totally changed my hopes and dreams. Her ways of being and writing have granted me permissions and reminders as simple as, “Women can be forces on the guitar!” and as wide as, “You can trust your audience to hold depth and complexity!” Her devotion to craft, like Judee’s, is the underlying thing that moves me.

What other art forms – literature, film, dance, painting, etc. – inform your music?

Does teaching count as an art form? I have taught or studied literature formally for the last 10 years off and on. I could rattle off a bunch of titles or something, but to be honest a huge part of my music and craft has to do with performing. I’ve learned so much about the type of performer and space holder I want to be by trying and failing at teaching and witnessing some really brilliant colleagues. It’s influenced everything – my body language, my attention, my ability to embody and to really mean what I’m saying or singing.

I taught literature to college students for four years at an alternative/outdoor education program called the New England Literature Program. I’ve been hugely impacted by the many ways one can go about instructing someone else to undergo a creative act, be it writing or interpreting writing. I’m always floored by what can be done by a group of people just paying attention to a work of art or piece of writing. And that practice of noticing and paying attention is like 80% of how I’ve gotten any good at writing songs or playing music.

How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?

In a word, “often”! I think we’re only really capable of seeing in others the things that we most intimately witness in ourselves. So, if a song is about betrayal, it’s writing both of the betrayer and the betrayed, as if they’re separate people. But, usually, I’m reporting with a real understanding of both sides because I am both, the betrayer and the betrayed, at once! And, if I don’t realize at the time of writing the song that I am both, usually my life reveals it to me somewhere down the line. I hear the accusations and questions and outcries of the songs differently with time. People in my life have a deep impact on me, but a lot of my best songs emerge from the many binaries and paradoxes of my internal world and less often from literal features of my life.

Does pineapple really belong on pizza?

Absolutely. I feel like people who can’t accept this are still crying themselves a river over Dylan going electric. Things that seem like they shouldn’t work often do work! Get with it!! Having a pineapple-goes-on-pizza attitude bodes well with making music too – you should always say yes to inspired ideas that sound weird or impossible. And if it works, it just does. There doesn’t need to be theoretical sense-making of it all.

What is a genre, album, artist, musician, or song that you adore that would surprise people?

HA! I love this question. May the world know that I love Celine Dion. Particularly her French records – D’eux or On Ne Change Pas. When I’m sad I like to watch this video of her singing a Christmas song on TV when she was a teenager and being surprised by her family. I was shown her music in high school French class and have always loved her drama and the way she really dignifies the figure of “singer.”

Photo Credit: Alex Gallitano

BGS 5+5: Kasey Anderson

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Kasey Anderson
Hometown: Portland, Oregon
Latest Album: To the Places We Lived
Personal Nicknames (or rejected band names): For a brief while in my early 30s I was convincing people to call me “T-Bone,” but it died out pretty quick.

Which artist has influenced you the most – and how?

I’m extremely fortunate in that the artists who influence me most are, by and large, my friends. I’ve been doing this a long time and had the opportunity to meet a lot of people, many of whom were heroes to me before I met them and remain so. Others have become heroes to me over time, through their work and friendship and their orientation to the world.

Hanif Abdurraqib, Kaveh Akbar, Melissa Febos, Brandon Shimoda, Lizzie No, Adeem the Artist… those are all friends whose creative work inspires and influences me – and whose orientation to the world, to their communities, and to their places within the world/their communities inspires and influences me.

One of my dearest friends, Ellen, runs a harm reduction program here in Portland and her approach to community and care has been an enormous influence on how I experience the world, and in turn, I see that influence in what I write. My family informs and influences me every day, in ways I sometimes don’t even realize until I hear them come back to me in my songs. I think when I was younger it would have been easier to say, “Bob Dylan, Steve Earle, Joan Armatrading,” whatever – Mike Watt, who I just spoke to last week. The list is long, you get the point – and of course that’s still true; there’s a long list of artists whose work influenced mine but, again, I’ve been doing this a while. The people who have a significant impact on my life, the people I love, they find their way into the work as much as anyone or anything else.

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

Eric Ambel taught me about the importance of lunch during a recording session. I’m not really a lunch eater – I never have been – but getting that break, that time to just be together, is important. My inclination is always to work from the second mics are set up until the second they come down. I’m glad I’ve been surrounded by people smarter than me who know when to take a break. It doesn’t matter as much when lunch happens, just that it happens. Just that people get a chance to extract themselves from the process for an hour or so.

How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?

I didn’t realize this until much later on, but I hid behind most of the characters I wrote on Heart of a Dog and Let the Bloody Moon Rise. At the time, and for years after, I talked about those songs as if they were all works of fiction – or at least about people other than myself – but once I had some distance from those records and had been in recovery for a while, I recognized myself in all those songs. I had been writing to myself, about myself.

What is a genre, album, artist, musician, or song that you adore that would surprise people?

I think what might surprise people more than anything I do listen to is the fact that I don’t really listen to Americana or country music much. I listen to my friends’ records, if something comes out that a lot of folks are talking about or someone recommends I’ll check that out, but I don’t really listen to the kinds of songs I write, at least not much anymore.

If you didn’t work in music, what would you do instead?

Well, I am currently the Deputy Executive Director at a nonprofit in Portland, so I’m not sure how much more of a “second job” I could possibly have.

Want more Kasey Anderson? Check out his recent podcast episode of Basic Folk here.

Photo Credit: Matthew Leonetti

GC 5+5: Emily Rose & the Rounders

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Emily Rose & the Rounders
Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Latest Release: “Too Much Too” (single)
Personal Nicknames (or rejected band names): Steve from Pink Mountaintops/Black Mountain calls me E.R., which I like. He’s the only person who calls me that.

Which artist has influenced you the most and how?

I think probably Gram Parsons has been my biggest influence. When I was first learning to sing and play guitar, I would pretty much just play his songs. The earliest incarnation of what would sort of morph into the Rounders was actually a Gram Parsons cover band called the Kickers, where I sang and played drums. Then I started to sort of want to try to write my own material.

[Gram was] an LA guy, his voice is so sweet and sad and his songs are just heartbreaking. I also used to have these wild dreams when I was like 18 or so, where he and I would be driving around in a car, talking. They were recurring and it was very sweet. I’ve just always adored him.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

Definitely playing and singing with Willie Nelson at Austin City Limits. Can’t really top that.

What’s the most difficult creative transformation you’ve ever undertaken?

When I left Ty [Segall’s] band, I really didn’t know what I was doing. I had been playing drums with him since I was 20 years old and I found myself at 27 with a repetitive injury that was making it so that I couldn’t really play drums anymore like I used to. It really messed with me psychologically on the last few Ty and Mikal Cronin tours and I started having stage fright, too, which I had never had before.

Since the crowds were getting bigger than ever, the judgment on my abilities was getting more fierce and I was taking it to heart in a very serious way. I don’t pay much attention to reviews or trolls online anymore, but at the time I really would and all of this was compounding in this really difficult way. I was sort of unsure if I would ever make music again or want to be in the public eye in any way.

Eventually, I sort of just committed to trying to do what I had wanted to do all along, but never had the guts to – which was writing and singing and making country music. Thankfully, I had some encouraging friends and a friend in particular who sat with me many nights a week, teaching me guitar. We’d harmonize together and stuff, and play almost-secret shows out of town and around LA until we had a fully realized thing going on. It was one of the scariest pivots I’ve ever made, but it really changed my life to sort of take the reins and figure out how to express myself musically again and to have fun doing it again. Country music is so cathartic, too, so it was really freeing to share a lot of the growing pains and to turn it into something really positive and productive.

If you didn’t work in music, what would you do instead?

I think I’d want to do something with dogs – maybe I’d be a vet or something or work for a dog rescue? I’m a big dog fan.

I also got certified as a domestic violence and sexual assault advocate over lockdown and volunteer for a non-profit that helps try to arrange housing, healthcare, legal services, etc., for those who need it. That’s something I’d like to be more involved with as well.

If you were a color, what shade would you be – and why?

I think black would be a natural answer, since I basically almost exclusively wear black. But actually, I’ve always thought and been told that my aura was blue!

Photo Credit: Sheva Kafai

GC 5+5: Noeline Hofmann

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Noeline Hofmann
Hometown: Bow Island, Alberta, Canada
Latest Album: Purple Gas EP

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

It’s nearly impossible to narrow down, but one of my favorite memories from the stage happened this October while on tour with Colter Wall. For the better part of the tour, Corb Lund – a fellow Western Canadian (like Colter and I) – was also on the road with us. I grew up listening to Corb on the radio back home and later discovered Colter as a teenager. Their songwriting resonated with and influenced me deeply as a young writer and continues to today.

Colter kindly invited us to join him in singing “Summer Wages” by Albertan cowboy legend, Ian Tyson, for his encore during tour. The first night that Corb joined us on stage, he took me by the arm for a two-step during the instrumental – much to mine and the crowd’s surprise. (Sorry about scuffing up your boots with my two left feet, Corb.) It was such a wonderful, full circle moment to be on stage beside two artists from home who had such a huge impact on me and singing a song together by a late legend from home who has impacted all of us.

Further, Patrick Lyons, the producer of my EP, Purple Gas, plays guitar in Colter’s band. Another reason that made these memories of singing “Summer Wages” special was it being the first time(s) I was lucky enough to share a stage with Pat as well as all of the other boys in the band, who I’ve come to know and love not only as musicians, but as friends.

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

I love to spend time out on the prairie. It has an understated beauty that with every passing year becomes more and more striking to me. It is unforgiving. Seemingly never-ending. In tune and knowing. It’s seen my own blood, sweat, and tears and that of generations of people that I love, alike. I’ve never felt closer to God than I have out there, all alone. Being raised in a prairie town, around prairie people, the landscape and all that results due in part to it, has defined my life experience thus far in an immeasurable way – and consequently, impacted my work just as deeply.

What’s the most difficult creative transformation you’ve ever undertaken?

While I’ve been feeling incredibly inspired to write in the wake of releasing my first recording project, I think I am simultaneously in the midst of one of the most difficult creative transformations I’ve faced so far.

All of the songs on my debut EP were written during a very different time in my life; before I’d ever been on tour, or set foot in a studio, or before the music industry began revealing itself to me behind the thick veil of mystery that once clouded it from my gaze. I was working blue- and pink-collar jobs such as bartending and doing farm labor before eventually putting all of my cards on the table and giving a career in music an all-or-nothing go, starting with the regional music scene in Alberta. Those years, age 18 to 20, were raw and electric, reckless, trial by fire. I was full of piss and vinegar, stubbornly tuning out the expectations others had of me and striking out into the world for the very first times to try forging a path towards something more for myself in life. I confronted some shocking losses and also experienced those first great formative loves you do at that age. Environments and emotions that are natural recipes for songs.

My day-to-day life has pulled a complete 180 since those songs were written. I have a lot of writing to do from my new pair of boots. I haven’t been able to take them for many test drives behind the pencil while on tour this spring and summer and am waiting with bated breath for the winter, when I’ll get to sit down and really dig into writing and processing the last year. It’s in my nature to always want to step above the bar I last set for myself – it’s as nerve-wracking as it is exciting to be starting to write for the next project. Especially now that most of the surroundings and life circumstances that inspired the songs on my first project are no longer part of my daily life on the road and there is now a recorded precedent set that didn’t exist at the time I wrote the songs on my first body of work.

What is a genre, album, artist, musician, or song that you adore that would surprise people?

“Good Luck, Babe!” by Chappell Roan (of course!)

If you didn’t work in music, what would you do instead?

I would probably be a ranch hand. Ranching is humbling, creative, and requires your all – mind, body, and soul. You have to live and breathe it. I can’t do anything halfway. For two jobs that, on the outside, look as though they couldn’t be any more different from each other, I’ve found a surprising number of parallels between my experiences working on a ranch to working as an artist.

(Editor’s Note: Sign up on Substack to receive even more Good Country direct to your email inbox.)

Photo Credit: Christian Heckle