Tag: 5+5

BGS 5+5: Rose Gerber

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Rose Gerber
Hometown: Portland, Oregon
Latest Album: Untraveled Highway

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

I like to describe my music as rock meets country, though I have some ’90s alternative and pop influences in there. To mash all those up into one genre, I settle on calling it alt-country.

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

All the time. It’s almost impossible to exclusively divorce my own emotions and experience when creating a character. It’s very freeing, though, and I like to weave in and out of not just the character’s perspective, but the perspectives of other people I know, too, as well as mine.

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

I wrote a song called “Back of My Mind,” which is about my father who passed away when I was young. I cried my way through writing it and relived a lot of the grief I hadn’t felt in years.

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

I love Enya. I put it on when I am super stressed, need to fall asleep, or just want to feel some mystical vibes. Last time I visited Ireland, I fulfilled a dream and put it on full blast as I drove along the Irish west coast taking in the scenery.

Does pineapple really belong on pizza?

I fought it for so long and one day I was high and hungry enough to be talked into it. It was an instant love affair. I’ve since branched out into being open to other fruits on a pizza. Fig, pear… though I might draw the line at watermelon.

Photo Credit: Whitney Lyons Photography.

BGS 5+5: JEMS

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: JEMS
Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Latest Album: Back Around
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Wild Valley Dream Weavers, lots of others!

Which artist has influenced you the most – and how?

I grew up with Joni Mitchell. For every season of life, her music feels like the soundtrack. I find myself returning to songs and finding new meanings as my scope continues to broaden and deepen. Her voice is unapologetically her own and I am so inspired by her journey. – Emily

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

When my dad played me the song “Eleanor Rigby” I had a major lightbulb moment. I don’t think I had realized how powerful music as storytelling was until then. I must’ve been 8 or 9 and my imagination burst wide open. – Jess

Probably when I started playing the songs I was writing as a kid for my Dad. He was both kind and critical in ways that confirmed that I wanted to work on and share my songs with not just him, but everyone. – Sarah Margaret

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

We each have distinct vocal timbres and have been influenced by the genres we grew up listening to, from jazz and soul to indie rock to classical and film scores to folk and Americana. That diversity adds a richness to our blend and has influenced how we approach melody, harmony, and storytelling. As a trio, we live in the folk world, but lean into many other lanes depending on the instrumentation and production of each song.

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

I’d be a hairdresser. I cut and color hair for fun/therapy and I truly love it. Although I don’t know if I’d love it as much if I had to do it…  – Jess

I’d be a private chef. I love going to farmer’s markets, learning from local farmers and artisans, and expressing myself through food. Maybe it’s the French in me! – Emily

A marine biologist, or boat captain, or something that lets me be in and around the ocean all the time. – Sarah Margaret

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

Gold! I’d don’t know why, but I’ve just always felt like the sunshine. – Jess

Olive green. I’d like to be as warm, relaxing, and grounded as that color! – Sarah Margaret

Photo Credit: Jayden Becker

BGS 5+5: Jon Muq

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Jon Muq
Hometown: Kampala, Uganda
Latest Album: Flying Away

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

I would work in construction or be a lawyer or a therapist.

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

I would be green – green represents plants and herbs that heal us. I’d like to be the person that saves a person’s day

What would a perfect day as an artist and creator look like to you?

Cooking and having good healthy meal, editing projects I produce for friends, playing soccer with friends, having a cocktail in a dive bar watching a local band perform.

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

It was when I was like 12, I went to this school that had a choir and when I listened to them sing, it was amazing then I knew I have to try singing. That’s where singing starts for me, but wanting to be a musician was never a plan, I just went with the flow of life and ended up being one… none of my friends even believe I sing.

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

Gardening and soccer always reminds me that life is not all about just work, it calms my mind; when I get back to work I feel less pressured by the whole work system and pace.

Photo Credit: Jim Herrington

BGS 5+5: Grace Pettis

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Grace Pettis
Hometown: From Mentone, Alabama and Decatur, Georgia. Currently living in Nashville, Tennessee. Spent my formative musical years in Austin, Texas.
Latest Album: Down To The Letter (out June 14)

Personal Nicknames (or rejected band names): I was Gracie Pettis ’til age 8 or so. When I was in the 5th grade, I made everyone call me “Bob,” because I thought it would be hilarious to be a 10-year-old girl named Bob. My Nobody’s Girl bandmate BettySoo calls me “Graceface” sometimes. I really tried to get my first band to go by “The Bluebirds.” Nobody was into it but me. I wanted Nobody’s Girl to be “The Starlings,” but it didn’t stick. I’ve got a thing for bird band names, including a really good one I’m holding on to, because I might use it one day. Robby Hecht and I think “Dessert Island” would be a great band name. (That’s a recent favorite from a long list of possibilities Robby has going on his phone.)

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

When I was 24, I was in the Kerrville New Folk songwriting contest. I’d been dreaming of going to Kerrville and getting into the contest since I was a kid, because my dad Pierce Pettis was a winner back in ’87. I remember being so incredibly nervous before playing. I was wondering if the judges would like my songs, if I’d be able to hit all the high notes, etc. And then when I was actually up there on the stage, I had this moment of clarity, where I realized that everyone in the audience was on my side. As in, everyone there was hoping and expecting that I’d be great. They were ready for me to be really good; in fact, they wanted me to succeed, not to fail.

Something about that realization – that the audience is not my enemy – helped me relax. And over the course of a few days, I realized that the other “contestants” were actually the friends I was making that would last me for the rest of my musical life. The word “contest” implies competition. But what I understood in that moment was that music is a collective and collaborative act. The audience and the performer are in it together; everybody wants it to be a great experience. And we artists are a tight knit community. We write together, play together, stay on each other’s couches. Music can be an ecosystem, and not a battle.

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

I like to watch a little comfort TV on my phone while I’m curling my hair and putting on my makeup. Popular choices have included Star Trek, The West Wing, and Late Night with Stephen Colbert. It really helps me zen out and relax. That hour before the gig – when you’ve got a million thoughts in your head about the set list, and remembering the sound person’s name, and setting up merch, and making sure you put those names on the guest list – it’s really nice to get to sink into a familiar routine. Curling hair, putting on mascara, etc. It sounds silly, but that time is really important to me.

When I’m playing and traveling with friends, I like to have a “human” moment before the gig – just a second to check in with each other. Maybe tell a few jokes, have a bite to eat, or share how we’re feeling (physically, emotionally, etc.) before we have to be “on” with an audience. It’s easy to forget to check in with each other in the busy hustle of the pre-show and post-show check list.

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

“Make it mean something.” As in, the song, my day, the show, my life. I want the things I make and the time I spend on the planet to mean something, firstly to me, and also to others. I actually wrote that mission statement into a song (“Mean Something”), which I recorded on my album Working Woman (2021). It’s great to have a song that’s also a mission statement. I sing it a lot during sound checks and during shows, when there are obstacles getting in the way of me being able to center myself and be present in the moment. Maybe the sound system is not cooperating. Maybe there’s a disrespectful person in the crowd. Maybe it’s a noisy bar and the game is on the TV overhead. Maybe I’m sick, or tired, or just in a bad mood. “Mean Something” helps me remember why I’m on the planet and here in the room that I’m in. It connects me with my purpose, gratitude, and joy.

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

When I was a very little kid, I also wanted to be an artist – as in a painter or illustrator. I wanted to write books too. Later, in middle school, I briefly wanted to be a school counselor, but dismissed the idea because I didn’t want to be in the same office every day, five days a week. In high school, I was into the idea of being a truck driver. The whole world is your office and your view changes every day. And you can eat as much junk food as you want and use those cool portable devices that plug into your truck engine. Little stoves and TVs. I love gadgets like that. And I love the idea of listening to audiobooks for hours on end. My music job is pretty similar to truck driving, really. I do a lot of driving, and loading and unloading of gear. More junk food than I would like. And a lot of audiobooks.

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

I’ve always been a really big Jennifer Lopez fan. When I was a guest on my bandmate BettySoo’s virtual show during the pandemic, we were asked to play “guilty pleasure covers.” I covered “Love Don’t Cost a Thing.” I maintain that it’s a jam.

Photo Credit: Starla Dawn

BGS 5+5: Malachi Graham

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Malachi Graham
Hometown: Portland, Oregon
Latest Album: Caretaker

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

The Portland release show for my new album Caretaker in January was both surreal and sublime, in the best way. It was a month and two days after I had emergency brain surgery, necessitated by a rare blood infection called Lemierre Syndrome. I had only just regained use of my left side in rehab, I wasn’t allowed to lift more than 10 pounds or bend over and there was a historic ice storm in Portland just starting to thaw. Honestly, it was a little absurd to play the show and keep the date, but it didn’t feel reckless, because I had a community to catch me. Bandmates who insisted on lifting my gear, physical therapists who taught me how to play guitar again, a loving partner to change the bandages on my head, incredible parents who housed me and my band through the ice storm so we could all practice together, and so many supportive faces in the audience.

Caretaker is about trying to hold it all together, on behalf of other people, whether they ask you to or not. It’s about how that gets messy, about when that’s generous, and when that’s self-serving. My health crisis turned the meaning of the record on its head for me and taught me to receive care myself, to fall apart and trust I’ll be held. I tumbled into the web of care we weave for each other, that catches us when we least expect to need it. My friends, my family, my partner, and my bandmates were all there for me in every way that night. It was hard to make it through the songs without weeping with gratitude for being alive. I’ll never forget it.

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

I read once that the four qualities of excellent songwriting are texture, detail, wit, and truth. My very favorite songwriters are masters of all four — artists like Aimee Mann, Loretta Lynn, Eef Barzelay, Anna Tivel, and Jolie Holland.

Another art form that’s a study in the same principals? Miniature making! Lately I’ve been enthralled by dollhouse building and the creation of tiny worlds. Miniature artists pay attention to the smallest details that make something feel realistic and truthful, even if a scene is an imaginary place. The very act of building something tiny in meticulous detail is inherently whimsical and a bit absurd. It requires sharpness and ingenuity, and a scale of thinking that’s totally different than the day-to-day.

All of that feels akin to songwriting for me. I got to dabble in miniature making myself in the new music video for my song “We Made a Home,” which I built and filmed in a little yellow dollhouse at 1:12 scale. My favorite part was hand-building the tiny lifelike details of a cohabitating relationship in decline, from mini Rainier Beer cans, to mini self-help books, to mini dirty dishes. I also made a tiny Ear Trumpet Labs microphone case. (When I’m not making music, I’m the business manager at Portland microphone workshop, Ear Trumpet Labs.)

N.B., miniature making takes a lot longer than songwriting.

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

This has been an evolution for me. My early forays into songwriting felt more driven by an observational, sometimes academic curiosity, influenced by poetry, history, and family stories about my matriarchal ancestors. My first EP, Selfish, includes songs inspired by the 1934 Hays Code, Marconi’s theories of radio transmission, and my grandmother cleaning out the eaves of her house. I wrote and learned a lot from other people’s perspectives before I’d experienced much life myself. I still enjoy writing from other people’s perspectives as a practice in empathy and curiosity, but I find that my most emotionally resonant songs have more to do with my own experiences. It takes a different kind of bravery and vulnerability to write in the first person, and that has felt scary to do sometimes. On songs like “Montreal” and “Before Pictures,” even if the exact thing that’s happened to the narrator hasn’t happened to me, there’s a deeper truth or feeling I’ve experienced that I can get at best through a fictionalized story.

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

Don’t be afraid to get weirder! My friend Jamie Stillway, a masterful guitarist and fearless sonic explorer, told me this about six years ago and it really stuck with me. I was feeling a bit trapped in particular instrumental and songwriting styles, because I assumed it was what people wanted to hear from me. I used to keep my musical selves neatly divided; I play and write in a synth pop band called Small Million and as a solo songwriter under my own name, and when I was younger I was more afraid to blend those worlds or explore the space between them. My musical start was all in folk and Americana music. The tradition and depth of songwriting in those genres is still a huge inspiration to me, but I’ve tried to give myself permission to be more faithful to a song and a feeling than to any genre in particular in my arrangements. The track “As Is” was written as a straight-ahead country song, but we recorded it played on an electric guitar looped backwards, played by two people at the same time with a screwdriver as a slide. A team of magical friends and collaborators helped me rip my songs apart and put them back together again to make them so much better, stranger, wilder than I ever could have imagined.

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

Truth be told, I’m a bit of an indoor kid, so I guess… the air. But really, sincerely, I do spend a lot of time thinking about the air around me and inside of me, and how I interact with it through my breath. In singing, in practicing mindfulness, in both movement and stillness, breath is the element that calls me home into my own body. That helps me to remember that the body itself is an element of nature, and our breath is the place where the wild elements of the air and the self meet.

I often find myself exploring themes of both the body and the breath in my lyrics, as a window to intuition and self-trust, on songs like “Wonderful Life” on Caretaker, or “Be Wrong” and “Lightswitch” on my last Small Million record, Passenger. This really came full circle in my recent health crisis when I found myself on heavy oxygen in the ICU, and breath became something even more precious and sacred to me. My lung capacity as a singer really ended up saving my life— I’m still unpacking my gratitude and awe of that.

Photo Credit: Kale Chesney

BGS 5+5: Charlie Overbey

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Charlie Overbey
Hometown: Cerrillos, New Mexico
Latest Album: In Good Company (out July 26, 2024)
Personal Nicknames (or rejected band names): “Punk Rock Spy In The House Of Honky Tonk” (courtesy of Lemmy of Motorhead)

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

In 2016 I was touring with Blackberry Smoke and we were playing The Fillmore SF. As I walked up to the microphone, the magic of the Fillmore ghosts overtook me and I just stood there caught in the moment. I could hear the crowd getting louder and louder, but I was deep in the history of it all and then all of a sudden – I popped out of it and said, “Sorry, folks! I was having a Fillmore moment!” That crowd got louder at that moment than I had ever experienced! I think I’ll remember that moment even when I can’t remember my name anymore.

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

The night my Father died I sat down and wrote “This Old House.” The emotion one feels in such deep despair and loss is hard to put to song or on paper. The fact that I have never played it live and have a hard time even hearing it solidifies for me the depth of “This Old House.”

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

Genre is a tricky thing – as artists, we all want to avoid that word and focus on writing from feeling and heart, delivering whatever comes from there. I have a long history and background in music from rock to punk to country and I tend to write with all of that mixed in, which in the music “business” is not favorable. They say, “You have to fit into a genre” or “People need to know how to classify you to have any success.” This could explain why I’m still a struggling musician, because I don’t steal from other writers and I don’t commit myself to a “genre.” I just do what I do. When I was a kid, my favorite local punk band, The Tazers, had a song called “Don’t Classify Me” and I guess at heart I’m still a young punker, semi-growed up, with an acoustic guitar and a killer band behind me.

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

I have always loved the depth, emotion, and songwriting of Barry Manilow. I have seen him 5 times in the first 4 rows. I am a pretty solid Fanilow and have never been shy or closet about it.

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

I would love to sit at an all you can eat taco bar for hours listening to Raul Malo play guitar and sing.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

BGS 5+5: Louisa Stancioff

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Louisa Stancioff
Hometown: I live in Warren, Maine and I am originally from Chesterville, Maine
Latest Album: When We Were Looking

Which artist has influenced you the most and how?

Regina Spektor keeps coming to mind. I listened to her albums Begin to Hope and Far incessantly when I was young, and I loved her voice, her intricate, thoughtful, creative melodies, her silliness paired with intensity, and her unpredictable song structures. Those albums were two of 10 or so CDs that I had, so I knew every word even when I couldn’t understand or quite grasp the things she was singing about. It’s hard to pinpoint who or what has influenced me, but she definitely opened up a new sonic landscape for me that I’m always still so entertained by whenever one of her songs comes on.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

I was once playing a house show in Paonia, Colorado in someone’s backyard with my old band, Dyado. It was a warm, beautiful night and we were singing this song we had written together that mentioned the wind whipping at the trees and right then there was a very strong gust that whipped the leaves of this huge willow tree and made such a loud whooshing sound. It all felt pretty magical with the perfect timing and everyone was laughing and cheering.

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

It wasn’t until COVID lockdown times. I’d been playing music my whole life and touring around the country here and there for a few years, but never felt any sort of commitment to it career-wise. Once it was no longer an option to perform and collaborate with people, that’s when I realized how bad I wanted it. I decided I had to truly attempt to build a solid music career or I might regret it for the rest of my life.

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

The folks from the band Darlingside gave us some really nice advice a couple years ago when we were on tour with them. It’s so easy to get caught up in comparing yourself to other peoples’ music careers, but if you take a step back and compare yourself to where you were a year before, it can help you realize how far you’ve come. Now whenever I am feeling down about my career or feel like it’s not moving fast enough, I think about where I was a year before, and it always reminds me how much I have grown.

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

I am a water person – I love swimming in lakes and rivers and oceans, canoeing and being on the water in general. A lot of my songs mention water in some way or other, in fact I have an entire song about a canoe race. I was actually in a river canoe race last week and I almost died. I got rescued by a kind firefighter after our boat was completely swamped and swept away. Perhaps I’ll write a song about that, too.

Photo Credit: Matt Gaillet

BGS 5+5: Matt Koziol

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Matt Koziol
Hometown: Linden, New Jersey
Latest Album: Last of the Old Dogs (out April 5, 2024)

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

I was probably 4 years old and I saw Elivs on TV. It was like watching lightning in a bottle and I wanted to do it. No one in my family really listened to him, but I heard the sounds and the voice and knew that what he did, I loved. It introduced me to every kind of music that has been an influence for me. Rhythm and blues, country, gospel. It all played a part in the music that moves me. I think hearing Elvis for the first time turned a light switch on in my head. It made me realize music was what I wanted and something I would always be working towards.

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

The toughest time isn’t just one moment. It happens often. Co-writing with people, my brain works fast. I had a great writing friend, Jason Nix, once say “dare to be wrong” and it changed my approach to writing in group settings. It made me fluent. When I’m writing alone is when the tough parts come, especially if it’s a subject I feel strongly about. It’s like painting, and you don’t want to use the wrong color you imagine in your mind. Sometimes you have happy accidents, but I’ll use a word or a phrase to describe something in a song and it just doesn’t always make me feel how I felt when that moment happened. The way I’ll work around it is to try and just say what happened out loud like I’m talking to a friend. Then I try to write it in simple language, but every once in a while I just get stuck. And, I mean STUCK. Not a single word comes to mind, or I’m playing the same chords that I’ve used in another song, or a melody that I’ve repeated. At that point, I just put everything down and walk away. I come back to it later, or the next day. The story will still be in my head, but if I can’t serve that feeling justice, then I’ll wait until I can.

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

I was in high school, and I made a demo for the first time. I brought it to my middle school music teacher (Reggie Turner) and had him listen. He told me to come back a few days later to get his thoughts. What I didn’t know is that he would play it for 20 of his sixth grade students and have them write a short review on how they felt. Now, if you ever want brutal honesty, let a bunch of 10 year-olds review your songs. He then showed me the notes and it was ruthless. They said I sounded like I had a frog in my throat, that they couldn’t understand what I was saying. They said they liked the guitar, but it felt messy. I was trying, at that time, to emulate my heroes. I wanted to play like them and sing like them, but it wasn’t my voice. He then said something I’ll never forget:

“You have your own fingerprint. No one else has yours. If you sing like someone else, and try to be their fingerprint, you’ll always be number two. However, if you sing like yourself, you’ll always be number one. No one has your sound, and no one has your fingerprint.”

I take that with me everyday.

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

This is such an awesome question, because I love both of these things so much! I grew up in an Italian household so for me, pasta and wine go with jazz or crooners. Something about good wine and an Italian-made meal feels like Tony Bennett. It feels like Frank Sinatra. When I’m having a good steak and bourbon, I tend to lean towards bluegrass. Something about a rustic meal with my favorite drink bleeds Appalachia. I usually follow up that meal with a fire and more bourbon and a cigar. All those smells and flavors are my favorite. It also depends on people’s tastes, but for me, those are my two ideal pairings for food and music.

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

I have very seldomly put a song out that’s a “character.” Songs like “Work All Day” or “You Better Run, Son” have been songs that are stories for me. Things that I’ve read or seen in movies that give me the feeling and I want to write it down. The only other time I’m writing like that is when I have a person in my life whose story I’m telling because they don’t know how. Everything else, however, is me. I’ve lived it. I don’t always love that I have, but I love that I made it through. One of the things said in writing rooms, especially in Nashville is, “How do we make this relatable?” My response to that is always, “Just write what happened. You’re not the first for it to happen to, and you won’t be the last. Someone else has been through this before, they may just need your words to get them through it.”

I think relating with a song comes from the honesty of the writing. I know that I didn’t have the exact same thing happen to me that caused John Mayer to write “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room,” but I sure as hell had something happen that made me relate to the lyrics. It was his story, and I had mine. I needed his words to find a way to understand how I felt. That’s the power of writing. If it’s honest for you, It will be honest for someone else.

Photo Credit: Kaiser Cunningham

BGS 5+5: Kendl Winter

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Kendl Winter
Hometown: Olympia, Washington
Latest Album: Banjo Mantras
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): “Lower half of The Lowest Pair”

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

I like this question, because I think everything you do, witness, consume, walk by, dance with, or touch informs your (my) music. Most books I’m reading make their way into my lyrics directly or indirectly. I know I’ve quoted or misquoted from E.E. Cummings, Richard Brautigan, Hafiz, Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler, Rumi, Rebecca Solnit, Thich Nhat Hanh, and probably so many others. All the authors and poets and spiritual leaders I’ve read or listened to and been moved by have woven their ponderings into mine and in turn the tumble of words that spill out onto my morning pages is often informed by those thoughts.

I watch a lot of film and I love movement. I go for long runs in the Northwest – or wherever I currently am – and the landscape informs my music, or the highway does, or the venue. I’m (we) are so porous and regularly trying to make sense of the cocktail of experience I’ve been sipping on. That said, this is an instrumental record, so for me it’s a new kind of transcription or interpretation of the collage of experiences in my head.

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

My Hebrew school teacher back in Arkansas said he had a video of me as a 5 year-old singing to a stick of butter. In second grade, I wrote a song about landfills and saving the birds. My folks were both classically trained musicians, one a high school string teacher, and the other a low brass professor, so I had music and the example of disciplined musicians practicing around me all the time. As kids, my sister and I were often crawling through the orchestra pit in the Arkansas Symphony or falling asleep in the balcony.

I loved punk music and dabbled with guitar and drums though high school, although I don’t think I actually knew I wanted to be a musician until my early 20s, when I had just moved to Olympia. In the Little Rock area of Arkansas and in Olympia, Washington there was/is such a vibrant DIY scene for music. Some of my first attempts at performing were in Olympia and I had only written half-songs, so they were very short and with a lot of apologies.

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

I would say lately has been the toughest time for me, writing lyrics at least. Maybe that’s why I’ve been enjoying the spaciousness of instrumentals for a while with the Banjo Mantras. It’s felt less exacting to let my art be more ethereal and open to interpretation. Something about the last five years has made me feel less sure about what to share, in terms of my own verbal songwriting. I think I’m more self conscious or potentially private and maybe more aware of my voice in a way that makes me feel a bit uncertain of what more can be said from my vantage. Songwriting has always been such a huge piece of how I interpret life, though, and it’s an integral piece of my personal process. So I’m still writing, just having a more difficult time sharing it.

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

If I had to write a mission statement for my career, I guess it would be to let curiosity and interest/passion lead me. My music has never been easy to put in a genre and my voice and songwriting has changed over the years. It’s been great to work in the Lowest Pair, because my bandmate Palmer T. Lee is similar in that his sound is difficult to box in, and that both of us have roots and interest in traditional sounds, but are always curious about expanding upon the subject matter and textures in our duo. The Banjo Mantras are just an expansion of that I think. I love the sound of a solo banjo and wanted to share some of the meanderings I found in various tunings and grooves. But yeah, I think my mission statement would involve personal growth, following curiosity and passion, a focus on heart-centric themes, and a goal for connection.

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

I spend at least an hour most days going outside for a run or walk. I live in one of the most beautiful places, the PNW, so a short jaunt from my house and I’m next to the Puget Sound inlet full of kingfishers, seagulls, blue herons, and mergansers depending on the season. Low tides and high tides, I see and hear eagles swooping about and on a rare sunny horizon I can see the Olympic Mountains. The other day, I came home with a sticky pocket full of cottonwood buds for my housemate to make a salve with. The nettles have just begun showing this spring. I go for regular wanderings and collect pictures and sounds and try to make a regular practice of noticing things. Less like a practice, and more like just the way my days are, but I recognize it as an integral part of my centering practice.

Photo Credit: Molley Gillispie

BGS 5+5: The Lost Wayne

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: The Lost Wayne (AKA Hunter Hoffman)
Hometown: DMV (DC/Maryland/Virginia)
Latest Album: Tangerine
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Hamster, Smooch

Which artist has influenced you the most and how?

There have been, and there continues to be, so many that it’s hard to narrow it down to just one. But the artist who has had the deepest impact on me has definitely been Noah Gundersen. My sister introduced me to his music in my early 20s and I have been a massive fan ever since. His honesty and vulnerability in his writing is something I’ve always admired and been drawn to. We’re both around the same age and I felt the experiences he was singing about were lining up exactly with my life. I’ve seen him play live many times, both solo and with a full band, and you can feel the crowd just completely magnetized to him and feeling every lyric and emotion of each song. One way I like to test if a song is well written is if it’s message and gravitas holds up with just the artist and their instrument. His music is equally impactful with the fullness of produced sound or a solo acoustic set. He’s inspired me in so many ways in finding the deep truths in my songwriting and how to translate that into performing live. I could go on and on, but I feel like it’s starting to sound creepy so I’m going to stop!

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

I moved to New York to go to acting school at The Neighborhood Playhouse and in my college years I had played little open mic showcases on campus and had written a handful of songs. I had dreams of becoming a musician, but was primarily focused on acting. I set a goal for myself that I wanted to get a show playing a full set of original music, so I went to an open mic at the former coffee shop/concert venue Waltz-Astoria in Queens. Pedro Gonzalez and his wife Song were the owners, and after I played my two-song slot he asked if I wanted to perform a set that weekend, since another artist had dropped out at the last minute. All of a sudden my dream became a reality in the first few weeks of moving to the city. After I finished my set and felt the rush of baring my soul through my songs on stage, I knew this was no longer going to only be a therapeutic hobby. I’m grateful to say I’ve been able to juggle both acting and music in my adulthood and I take pride in saying I am an actor AND a musician. It’s been a wonderful ride so far.

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

All of them. I just finished reading Rick Rubin’s book, The Creative Act: A Way Of Being, and it’s really opened me to finding inspiration everywhere. I’ve grown to appreciate how individual and subjective art is for everyone and that what I appreciate and connect to could be the complete opposite experience for someone else. So even if I don’t relate to something or “like” it, I try to keep my mind open and attempt to analyze why it doesn’t. Art helps us define who we are to ourselves, and as an artist I try to consume as much as I can, because you never know what’s going to hit you.

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

Steal from other artists. And not in the copyright way, but in the inspiration. Sometimes if I’m caught in a writer’s block or a creative lull in my songwriting, I get so much from learning a new song from an artist I love. Or messing with it to sound a different way and make it cater to my voice. I’m also self-taught on guitar and have relatively zero knowledge of music theory, so when I learn and practice other people’s music, I discover new chord progressions or playing styles that can be so helpful to my own songwriting.

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

I’ve written a few songs through a sort of character in mind, but inherently every song I write is a form of me. 95% of the songs I’ve written have started from me in a room with my guitar, sitting with whatever feelings or circumstances are making their way through my life, and doodling around ’til something sparks. Sometimes I’m in a sad place and out comes a corny love song, or I’m happy as a clam and I word vomit a full existential crisis, my world burning down around me. At the end of the day it’s all me, whether I’m inhabiting a character or not, I have to start with the truth of it for myself. I think it can be a great exercise to write from the perspective of a character, and I can attest it’s a lot of fun, but my favorite songs I’ve written are the ones that are uncomfortably me. My experiences and stories are the only things I can honestly share, and if I can write a song that impacts someone the way so many artists have impacted me, then hopefully I’ll find myself in the ballpark of making something meaningful.

Photo Credit: Shannen Bamford