Anna Tivel Makes Poetry in Music From Poetry in Nature

There is something woodsy and nature-rooted about Anna Tivel’s songwriting. It calls to mind mountain hiking, tall pines, mushroom foraging. The clink of a water bottle against a caribiner. The gentle tiptoe sound of dew dropping from treetops. Maybe it’s Oregon that’s seeped into her bones. Maybe it’s just the way her intrinsic poeticism steers things.

Listening to Tivel’s music tends to conjure the words of other writers. Consider some of the final lines from Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer:

“Solitude is only a human presumption. Every quiet step is thunder to beetle life underfoot; every choice is a world made new for the chosen.”

Or, consider the poetry of Wendell Berry or Mary Oliver or Andrea Gibson. Each seemed to have plucked their pieces from shrubs and vines – or at least from the air around their foliage. Indeed, some of these names came up in our recent conversation with Tivel about her new album, Animal Poem, which drops August 29 on Fluff & Gravy Records.

Much like a walk through the woods, Animal Poem offers listeners a pathway toward retaining their humanity in a world that can feel inhumane. Though Tivel notes she began writing this album two years ago, she was conscious of the shifting geopolitical landscape and the way the chaos in the news might – or might not – echo into people’s private lives.

In the end, she suggests that life is mostly made of small moments between people who are guided by love and who are trying to understand one another. Those are the moments of dissonance where our commonalities have the best chance of prevailing. To hear Tivel tell it, that is the basis of her job as both poet and songwriter.

With so much going on in the world geopolitically, so many people are struggling with how to make art and why to make art and, of course, feeling compelled to continue to make art. But there’s this existential part of it that I feel like you’re addressing on this album. Maybe also in the creation of this album, which I’m guessing was recorded well before what’s happening today, and will be different from what will be happening when we publish it.

So, when you think about this album now, and what you were working through with these songs in that moment, how has it aged in your mind?

Anna Tivel: That’s funny, I was thinking today how, in this particular year so far, I’m having trouble [writing songs]. I’m having a lot of trouble finding the core of what I mean. I always feel like writing is this search for something a little beyond your understanding. You’re just moving through the world kind of trying to express what you see and what you’re learning and what you’re reaching for. And I’ve been finding, in this particular moment, it’s just so loud and it’s so tangled. I’m writing a lot of angry things that I will never play, [about] not understanding and not even knowing what to reach for to try to understand.

This album was all written like two years ago now, in a state of the world not dissimilar from this one. I was reading a lot of Wendell Berry and just thinking about big, overarching systems and how impossible it is for those to stay about people. [I was thinking] about the earth and kind of thinking about how these smaller communities … function and how things ripple outward. But, the really small things, like your family or your neighborhood. Power lies in these very mundane but magical lives we’re living. How we’re touching the person across the street from us or how we’re figuring out our own hearts, and how powerful that is in the overarching, huge system that [can] become very inhumane so easily.

I think there’s a lot of that there – a lot of love and immense, wild power. All these things are coming out of the technological wavelength that we’re on. And then things like love [that] just can’t be snuffed out.

As you were talking about what we’re reaching for, and the small things, I kept thinking about this image at the end of this record, in the song “Meantime.” The swing set that nobody used and this family that, maybe there was abuse, but the dad built the swing set. Nobody went out to play on it, and they left, and the swing was still there, blowing in the wind.

A swing doesn’t know what it’s reaching, but it’s always there to lift you. What a beautiful thesis that it is for this record, coming as it does, at the end. Can you talk a little bit about that song, “Meantime,” and your decision to place it second to last? Does it feel to you like that’s what this record was reaching toward? I’m always interested in how sequencing tells the story.

Sometimes [sequencing] is really just meaning-based, or it’s sort of sonically based. I really liked the idea of this record kind of starting with this song that expands as much as the whole country. And then going all the way down to the last song, [which] is just very quiet, about love between two people, or what it is to build the language of love with the people nearest to you. I like there to be some kind of journey on a record, where you’re taken through different stories and different lives, for there to be some sort of arc.
“Meantime,” to me, feels [like] that’s what I’m trying to say, but it takes place in a very small image. It’s one neighbor. There’s always a lot of neighbors in my music. [I’m a] very voyeuristic neighbor, probably.

There’s this feeling on the record, I think, that we hold all these things and we’re contributing to all these things – such pain and also such beauty. And we’re all sort of trying to separate ourselves from each other [and] from these big forces.

You can recognize yourself in everything, both the good and the bad. But inside of me is so much love and there’s so much cruelty and so much confusion. And becoming part of a family or a community – or a global community – it’s almost like the deeper you [go,] the more you recognize that you are just like everybody. You hold all those things and they hold all those things, even if they feel ugly or small or huge or powerful, they’re in there.

You’re reminding me of the poem by the late, brilliant Andrea Gibson. When I first heard their line, I actually thought of you. And then listening to this album, it came back to me.

The line is, “Do you know how many beautiful things can be seen in a single second?” It’s from the poem, “In the Chemo Room…” It’s thoughts from chemo, which is such a hopeless, awful thing, theoretically. And yet, all of Andrea’s work is so full of hope. I feel like that is so true to what this album conjured for me. I’m wondering if you have any kind of relationship with their poetry or if you were even aware of that parallel.

Yeah, I wish. I wanna take it in, because my good friends in Portland were just telling me to go read their work. I haven’t yet, but I resonate a lot with that. Like, you can just look all around you and see horror upon horror. [But] we are stunningly alive. Full of love and mystery, all at the same time. You’d die if you couldn’t hold that. You can kind of lean in either direction, or you can kind of like just sit there in all directions at once. That’s the journey of the whole thing.

While I’m bringing up poets, you mentioned Wendell Berry. One of my other favorite lines is from him: “Be joyful though you’ve considered all the facts,” Right? Like, this whole idea that we are animals among animals on this planet. Everything’s brutal – and there’s joy. And there’s love, you know. This is such a vital part of what every poet says, right?

There’s a song on here called “Animal Poem,” but the fact that you chose that phrase as the title of the album seemed to resonate. What was it about, to you, to choose those two words as the title of this project?

It’s exactly that. I feel very much like I want to be another being on the earth [who is] trying to express all those things at once, that everybody’s feeling, going through, and finding ways to say to each other.

There’s so many ways that we hold the word “animal”: Wild, untethered, maybe dangerous, maybe instinct[ive], maybe disturbing. … A poem is such an intentional, beautiful way to capture a small part of being. I like the idea that maybe this whole thing is just [us] running around confused, trying to find a little beauty, in what often appears to be utter chaos.

But where is the line, in your mind, between poetry and music? Is there any difference? Is it something intrinsic to the piece? Or, how do you decide what gets music added and what stays a poem?

Yeah, maybe I just think it all comes from the same place – the raw urge to express something. The way that music, or any art form, allows you to express it a little more honestly, because it’s not so straightforward.

When you can live outside the exact facts and use all the colors and the sensory details and emotion of a thing, sometimes that feels more true than being like, “Ted went to the store and bought an egg.” You know? There’s all the other things that happened in that moment, that informed the way Ted’s heart was moving, that can be more readily got-at with art. There’s all these ways that people do that.

Ted’s egg was actually quite an experience for him.

Yeah, I mean, why did he go for just one egg? That’s my question.

There’s only one egg left. Poor Ted.

Logistically, when it came to making this record, you noted that it was a group of people in a room just kind of playing together. Was there rehearsal? How many times did everybody else hear these songs? And what was the creative process in that circle?

It was really free. I loved making this record. It felt, to me, like a bunch of freedom. Hearts in a room, just having our thing.
Some of us had toured together a little bit, so we played some of these songs in various ways. Some were new. We sort of just sat and played together for a day or two beforehand. We tried really hard not to make parts. [We were] really trying to at least get comfortable with the forms, so you know where the bridge lives, so it doesn’t surprise you. But [we didn’t do] so much that people settled into things.

Then we just sat in a circle. We didn’t wear headphones, which I loved, and we put my voice through a little monitor in the middle of the room. I’m fairly quiet, so everyone could at least hear the words. We mixed ourselves and just played music in the room together. There was no turning yourself up in the headphones or adding reverb. It just was what it was.

That felt really free. It felt like we forgot we were making a record. Just trying to feel the thing in the moment. I love this group of people. I’ve done a lot of touring with [them] over the years. [I’ve] known them a long time and really respect their musicality, but also their spirits.


Photo courtesy of the artist.

You Gotta Hear This: New Music From Larry Keel & Jon Stickley, Gwen Levey, and More

Our new music and premiere roundup is ready and waiting for you, ’cause You Gotta Hear This!

Bluegrass gospel group Eighteen Mile from upstate South Carolina have released their very first single, “Above The Clouds” today. Dripping with rich harmony vocals, the track offers encouragement to anyone experiencing doubt, anxiety, and pain. Supergroup neo-folk assemblage Geckøs – featuring Howe Gelb, Mark McCausland (AKA McKowski), and M. Ward – dropped a new single earlier this week, as well. “Lo Hice” started as an instrumental number, but morphed and changed when it reached the group, ending up as one of their favorite tracks on the upcoming album.

Guitar greats Larry Keel and Jon Stickley have joined forces on a new project; their self-titled EP will be available in just a week. To mark the occasion, we’ve got a sneak preview of one of the tracks from that collection, “Take the Air,” featuring just two guitars in an exciting and engaging instrumental dialogue. Singer-songwriter – and Sister Sadie band member – Jaelee Roberts has released her brand new solo album today, sharing its title track below. “Let Me Be Lonely” was written by Kelsi Harrigill (formerly of Flatt Lonesome) and hit country writer Wyatt McCubbin and it showcases Roberts’ love of traditional country sounds.

Don’t miss another country sensation, Gwen Levey, too, who shares a brand new music video for “Lighter,” the title track from her upcoming EP that is another excellent anthem for survivors of systems of violence. Beginning with subdued solo guitar and voice, the song soars into crisp modern country that will certainly have you feeling… lighter.

It’s all right here on BGS and You Gotta Hear This!

Eighteen Mile, “Above The Clouds”

Artist: Eighteen Mile
Hometown: Upstate South Carolina
Song: “Above The Clouds”
Release Date: August 29, 2025

In Their Words: “I wrote ‘Above The Clouds’ during a season when I was wrestling with uncertainty and learning to trust God more deeply. The song became a reminder to myself that no matter what we face – doubt, anxiety, or pain – God is steady and present above it all. I wanted the music to feel hopeful, something that lifts listeners up and reminds them that the sun still shines above every storm.” – Hallie Ritter

“We hope this song is an encouragement to listeners in all areas of life who may be dealing with clouds of doubt, pain, and anxieties. The sun will always shine above the clouds.” – Eighteen Mile

Track Credits:
Hallie Ritter – Upright bass, lead vocal, songwriter
Carson Aaron – Acoustic guitar, mandolin, harmony vocal
Emily Guy – Harmony vocal
Jack Ritter – Acoustic guitar
Savannah Aaron – Fiddle
Andy Leftwich – Mandolin


Geckøs, “Lo Hice”

Artist: Geckøs
Hometown: Tucson, Arizona; Portland, Oregon; and Omagh, Ireland
Song: “Lo Hice”
Album: Geckøs
Release Date: August 26, 2025 (single); September 26, 2025 (album)
Label: Org Music and PIAPTK Records

In Their Words: “‘Lo Hice’ is a song that started off in Ireland as an instrumental track. The bare bones was written specifically with Matt in mind to see if it perked his ears enough to finish it off. He picked it up and breathed brand new life into it. The song came alive with his voice and slide guitar and his Spanish lyrics took it to a whole new world. One of the beautiful things about Geckøs is I’m slowly learning how to speak the Spanish tongue, or at least I know how to say things like, ‘It’s fucking hot outside.’ We finished the song together in Bristol with John Parish driving the ship, and the puzzle was complete. It’s become one of my favourite tracks on the album. Definitely in the top eleven.” – Mark McCausland (AKA McKowski)


Larry Keel and Jon Stickley, “Take the Air”

Artist: Larry Keel and Jon Stickley
Hometown: Lexington, Virignia (Larry); Asheville, North Carolina (Jon)
Song: “Take the Air”
Album: Larry Keel and Jon Stickley (EP)
Release Date: September 5, 2025

In Their Words: “‘Take the Air’ is one of those musical ideas that came to me like a gift. It’s based on a happy riff that I would play every time I picked up my guitar during the height of COVID lockdown. It was such a time of stress and anxiety, yet I also experienced so much connection with the world around me. When life slowed down, the planes stopped flying overhead, and the wheels of the world stopped turning, suddenly everything in the natural world felt so much more alive. I posted a short video of myself playing it one day and got a text from Larry shortly after saying, ‘Hey man, let’s do some duo shows someday.’ It took about four years, but we’re finally making it happen. The arrangement of this tune purposely leaves some space to take a breath. I hope listeners find it as uplifting as I do.” – Jon Stickley

Track Credits:
Larry Keel – 2008 Andrew White handcrafted parlor style guitar
Jon Stickley – Preston Thompson D-EIA acoustic guitar


Gwen Levey, “Lighter”

Artist: Gwen Levey and The Breakdown
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Lighter”
Album: LIGHTER
Release Date: August 29, 2025 (single); October 24, 2025 (EP)
Label: GAL Productions

In Their Words: “If my previous EP, Not The Girl Next Door, was about all of the toxicity I was experiencing the first few decades of my life, ‘Lighter’ is about shedding all that sh*t and stepping into my healing era. The EP represents the light I’ve been able to find to carry me through some very dark days. The two-and-a-half minute song is an upbeat anthem as a survivor of not only an eating disorder, but of overcoming abuse and life’s tribulations, and my hope in writing it is that other survivors will also feel empowered.

“Being a survivor has given me the voice I have today. I co-founded Rise Above Justice Movement, a coalition of survivors impacted by systems of violence. The theme song for RAJM is ‘Barefoot & Pregnant,’ my viral pro-choice country anthem that has amassed over 20 million views, won several awards, and will premiere on PBS this summer. To this day, RAJM has several notable followers, including Rosie O’Donnell, the founder of the MeToo movement Tarana Burke, Alanis Morissette, and many others. ‘Lighter’ will be another anthem for our survivor movement.” – Gwen Levey


Jaelee Roberts, “Let Me Be Lonely”

Artist: Jaelee Roberts
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Let Me Be Lonely”
Album: Let Me Be Lonely
Release Date: August 29, 2025

In Their Words: “‘Let Me Be Lonely’ is one of my favorite songs on the album for sure! I am such a huge lover of classic/traditional country music and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t listen to it. I am beyond excited that I got to record a song that allowed me to give a nod to that sound. My friend and mentor, Kelsi Harrigill, sent me the demo of ‘Let Me Be Lonely’ that she wrote with hit country songwriter Wyatt McCubbin, and I knew before I’d even gotten halfway through the first listen that I absolutely had to put it on my album. As I’ve mentioned several times, I love sad songs with my whole heart, and this song has all the ingredients that make the perfect sad country song – lyrically and melodically. Kelsi and Wyatt joined me on this recording singing harmony vocals, which just topped it off for me. There is steel and fiddle on this track (which are my favorite instruments), and I sure hope that y’all enjoy my little tip of the hat to the trad country music that I love so much!” – Jaelee Roberts

Track Credits:
Jaelee Roberts – Lead vocal
Kelsi Harrigill – Harmony vocal
Wyatt McCubbin – Harmony vocal
Byron House – Bass
Cody Kilby – Guitar
Andy Leftwich – Mandolin
Ron Block – Guitar
Stuart Duncan – Fiddle
Russ Pahl – Steel guitar
John Gardner – Percussion


Photo Credit: Larry Keel and Jon Stickley by Lexi Simcic; Gwen Levey by Meaghan Campbell.

Basic Folk: Maya de Vitry, Ethan Jodziewicz, Joel Timmons, Shelby Means

Maya de Vitry, Ethan Jodziewicz, Joel Timmons, and Shelby Means are on Basic Folk today talking about their new collaborations. Maya produced both Shelby and Joel’s debut solo albums this year; Joel and Ethan play in Maya’s band; and the two couples (Joel & Shelby are married and Ethan & Maya are partners) are all very close friends. They met in Nashville, where Maya & Ethan still live, while Joel & Shelby live in Charleston, South Carolina. Joel talks about the huge gesture Shelby made in leaving Nashville behind for his hometown of Charleston. He also talks about the elated feeling they both got when Shelby, who also used to tour with Della Mae, got the chance to play upright as a member of Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway.

LISTEN: APPLE • SPOTIFY • AMAZON • MP3

Big themes of this friend group include trust, lifting each other up, and being one another’s “vibe coaches.” In our conversation we talk about choosing love, connecting with your music friends in non-musical ways, and, of course, the most epic hair in Americana: Joel Timmons and his mullet. The group shares insights on how they are still close and able to connect and spend time with each other despite the distance. Short flights and drives are worth it when you’ve got friends like this.


Photo Credit: Shelby Means by Hunter McRae Photography; Ethan Jodziewicz by Joel Timmons; Joel Timmons by Scott Simontacchi; Maya de Vitry by Kaitlyn Raitz.

Ashley Monroe’s Patchwork Quilt:
Tennessee Lightning

“Let me look at your radar,” Ashley Monroe says, pulling out her phone. “I have all kinds of radar apps on here: 24-hour flight radar, storm trackers…” She types in my location. “Yep, it just popped up red,” she says, forebodingly.

We’re speaking over Zoom about her album Tennessee Lightning and, fittingly, a massive storm is rumbling through New York, with loud thunderclaps sending a jolt through our conversation. Monroe is calling from an apartment in West Nashville, which she rents as a creative space in a building shared by fellow musicians and friends Meg McRee, Ben Chapman, and Lukas Nelson. The weather in Nashville is calm for now, but there’s always the chance another tempest could be brewing.

“For a while there I was like, someone’s gotta get me a bunker. ASAP,” she says.

Tennessee Lightning is her sixth studio album (not including the four she’s released as part of supergroup Pistol Annies alongside Miranda Lambert and Angaleena Presley) and her first since 2021’s Rosegold. The latter found her sloughing off the classic country sounds that defined her early work and embracing trap beats and synthy pop moments. Shortly after the release of Rosegold, Monroe underwent treatment for a rare form of blood cancer, a life-altering experience that she’s still processing. Now in remission, she feels newly awash in creative inspiration, breaking the creative silence that immediately followed her diagnosis.

The resulting album, her second as co-producer with GRAMMY-winning producer and engineer Gena Johnson, is a sprawling, 17-song “patchwork quilt” of songs that range from gritty rockers to moony love songs to bracingly stripped-down piano ballads. It’s less story-song-heavy than her beloved early work, but Monroe says that the album – a mix of new and older originals, along with a few carefully chosen covers – is as personal and revealing as anything she’s ever recorded.

“With every song on this record, I feel and see my own personal story in it,” she says. “Maybe I just didn’t need to put the third parties in this time.”

The release of Tennessee Lightning dovetails with the tenth anniversary of The Blade, Monroe’s GRAMMY-nominated 2015 album, which she recently celebrated with an intimate show at The Basement East and it remains fresh on her mind. She spoke to Good Country about her rootsy new sound, whether it’s safe to call this her Americana turn, and how music helps her weather life’s most painful storms.

I’m curious about the title of the album. It’s interesting, because in many ways, this feels like a homecoming, but then it’s also quite different from your earlier music. How did Tennessee Lightning start coming together?

Ashley Monroe: There’s actually a song called “Tennessee Lightning” that I wrote with Shelby Lynne and Jedd Hughes. It’s awesome, but by the end we had over 25 songs and it wasn’t fitting the album anymore. And at that point, it’s almost like Tennessee Lightning had become me, in a way. It’s just a zap of like, “This is everything. Boom.” Gena Johnson is the co-producer and engineer on this record and a dear friend. The two of us loaded up a ton of gear a couple years ago and rented a cabin in East Tennessee. We went to my dad’s grave, we went to see my Granny and Poppy and drove the back roads in Tazewell, Tennessee. We just immersed ourselves in going back to the roots of it all.

We set up the studio there and she recorded me on the front porch, she recorded me in the yard. We started recording “I’m Gonna Run,” which is a song I wrote in 2004, on the same trip as I wrote “Satisfied” and “Used.” We started with that song, and I was really trying not to overthink anything. I was just letting whatever songs needed to come through, come through. I always say this album is like a patchwork quilt of my life, and that applies to my friends that I’ve asked to play on this record: T Bone Burnett, Butch Walker, Brendan Benson, Marty Stuart, Brittney Spencer, Karen Fairchild. I made a joke the other day, “I’ve called in so many favors, I’m going to have to make new friends to call it more favors.”

I think people may be tempted to call this your Americana record. How do you feel about that?

Great. I’ll take that. Americana has been good to me. A lot of Americana radio stations played “Hands on You” when no one else would, and a lot of other songs. So that’s good company.

Also, I’m from East Tennessee, so no one can really hear my voice and say that I’m not country. It’s just there in the accent and the tenor of it. It’s Appalachia. That’s why I think it’s cool to not do something obvious sometimes, to not cut yourself short or shave the edges off. “I’m Gonna Run” reminds me of when Emmylou did Wrecking Ball, just those weird things she did that I love so much. I’ll take Americana all day.

The sound of this record is quite varied as well.

I guess Tennessee Lightning has different types, but it’s all real musicians, it’s all organic. “Amen Love” I was writing with Ashley Ray and Summer Overstreet, whose dad wrote “Forever and Ever Amen.” We wrote the song for Miley Cyrus, and Ashley’s husband recorded the demo. The song ended up not getting cut, but it just kept haunting me. I always like to do a sexy one, like “Hands on You” and “Wild Love,” so I thought it made sense for the young love part of the record.

Then there’s just me and Marty Stuart and Shelby Lynne on “The Touch,” and that’s as country as anything I’ve done. Gena was really good at getting the raw edges and the breaths and everything. “There You Are” was recorded in one take. It’s just me and the piano. I never did it again in the studio, ever. And then there are other songs that are more polished or have different instrumentation, but Tennessee Lightning to me is like a flash of everything. It’s not just one part; it’s all parts.

I’m wondering if maybe not chasing the country radio thing anymore freed you to explore all these different sounds.

I’m sure it did, even though I will say every label I’ve been on – Columbia, then RCA, then Warner LA and Warner Nashville – I’ve been lucky to have label people who were great at the creative part. My first single was “Satisfied,” which didn’t work, but I love that they chose that. Cris Lacy at Warner was also great at helping me pick songs. I didn’t think anyone would like “Hands on You,” but she heard the work tape and convinced me to record it.

When I got dropped by Warner, I thought to myself, “Now I can do anything.” And it’s been fun to explore. Gena is good about feeling when the spirit is moving through. She knows I like to sing in the dark or with candles. We shut the blinds, and I get to sit in that zone, and she captures it. It’s emotional, it’s raw, and I like recording like that without having to think, “What’s the label gonna say?”

You’ve been called a critical darling pretty much throughout your career. With Rosegold, it seemed like the first time the response was more tentative – warmly received, but not quite as glowing from everyone, particularly the “real country” crowd. Did the response to that record influence your approach to this one?

I really didn’t think about that at all, so that’s interesting. Honestly, though, what I will do next is a honky-tonk record. I know my band, and I know exactly what I’m going to do, which is honky-tonk it to the depths. I haven’t done a live thing like that, and I like switching it up. In my mind, what makes a memorable artist, a true artist, is when everything doesn’t sound exactly the same. Tennessee Lightning just felt like, “What are you feeling? What is it?” It’s cool when art reflects what you’re going through at the time, and for me going back to my roots will always have that earthiness.

I’m thankful for all the great reviews and the “critical darling” thing means a lot, especially as someone who doesn’t win awards or get nominated or included, really, in any circle. I’m okay with that, in a way, because I have a certain confidence — I know I have a gift. I know some people will feel it and some people won’t, but no one can deny I’m doing what I was put on this earth to do. I don’t put too much value on what people think of me, especially now after what I’ve been through. I won’t lose sleep over what a critic thinks.

Another thing that came up with Rosegold was this idea of protecting your joy, of not wanting to feel sadness anymore. Tennessee Lightning has songs that are more cutting – “There You Are” almost feels like it could be on The Blade. It made me wonder if your relationship to your art and this idea of protecting your joy changed between this album and the last one.

You know, when I got pregnant was really the first time I thought, “I’ve got to be careful about what enters here.” That doesn’t mean being delusional or not knowing that things can happen, will happen. Of course, something can always come along and bring you to your knees. But it’s about knowing when everything’s okay and shining a light on it and letting it radiate for a little bit. Rosegold was about hyperfocusing on the good and just letting it beam out for a split second.

I don’t mind if music is sad. I kind of prefer it. With this one, there are some sweet love songs, but also not all these songs are new. “My Favorite Movie” was one Vince [Gill] and I wrote in 2015 around The Blade time. He had it on one of his records, and just never did my version of it. “Hot Rod Pipedream” was written in 2015 or 2016, and “Risen Road” was from around the same time.

Let’s talk about The Blade, which just celebrated its tenth anniversary. You played the album through at a show in Nashville recently. What was it like revisiting those songs?

It was so special because I hadn’t really sung those songs. I’m funny about that – I don’t go back and listen to my old records. It’s not like you forget, but you do move on. Singing those songs, even at rehearsal, I got so emotional.

Did any of the songs in particular hit you differently this time?

I was thinking “I Buried Your Love Alive.” I literally felt thunder. I don’t know how to explain it, but there’s a ghost in that one. “Bombshell,” too. At the show I was thinking about how relevant it still is. I still understand the emotion in that song.

In the commentary you recorded at the time, you mentioned that “Bombshell” could be about a few different scenarios. It struck me that you said it could be about a breakup, but it could be about telling someone you have cancer.

I remember that. I forgot until you started to say that, but it’s so true. It’s that feeling of like, “This is big news, and it’s going to blow up life as I know it.” It was definitely a bombshell, and then I had to tell people I had cancer.

I was diagnosed in 2021, and when I came into Tennessee Lightning, I knew that I had to step back and reflect. I had to look back at the whole picture. I had someone ask me in an interview recently why I didn’t sing about cancer on the album. It’s like, I don’t want to think about cancer. Music to me is my holy, sacred place. Even though I sing about painful things and I can keep those emotions with me, I didn’t want to think about it enough to write a song about it. Maybe it’s that cancer has already robbed so much from me. I mean, it killed my dad. It’s already affected me, my family. Maybe I haven’t fully processed it yet. In a way I’m pretending it didn’t happen.

The only place on the record where I did feel the cancer feeling or acknowledgement of my emotions around it was “Jesus, Hold My Hand.” I used to sing that song when I was really young and feeling scared. I really felt it because when I was really sick, with chemo and everything, I felt as close as I ever have to that feeling of handing it over or surrender. It was like I was leaning on the spirit more than ever before.

The hymn is such a stunning moment, in a way that feels different from what you’ve done before. There are a lot of religious references in your songs, but there’s also this thread of religious guilt, particularly on the Pistol Annies songs “Beige” and “Leavers Lullaby.” There’s a lyric in the latter, “It’s as deep as the water that stains me” that comes to mind. Would you say your relationship to your faith has changed?

I can’t speak for the other Annies, but for me the “bite” in those songs is directed toward the people rather than about the pureness of it. The judgment and sending people to hell thing. I grew up with the Bible Belt and I think Jesus has a sense of humor and a lot of church people don’t. With “Risen Road,” it’s like, “You can read the Bible, quote it verse for verse/ You can steal a pain pill out of Mama’s purse.” And when I say “you,” I mean me, because I would do that. I think there’s something to being humble enough to say, “I can believe in God and still be exactly who I am.”

I wanted to ask about that line on “Risen Road,” which of course caught my attention. Between this song, “Best Years of My Life” and of course “Takin’ Pills,” pain pills have become something of a motif in your work. Why is that?

Well, because I was on pain pills for a long, long, long time. My dad died when I was 13, and at the time I was very straitlaced. All my family lived on the same road, we went to church, nobody cussed, nobody drank, nobody smoked. After my dad died, my mom kind of disappeared with a guy. She had a nervous breakdown, really, looking back. He died in February 2000, and she was gone by June.

Looking back, I was flailing. I was devastated, and my mom wasn’t around, and then my brother started having wild, wild parties and I was like, “Hell, I might as well. Give me a Zigma.” Everyone around me had pills and I’d say, “Give me a pill.” I was probably 14 or 15 and my cousin and I would keep a mirror under the front seat and snort oxycontin. Not oxycodone. Oxycontin. It’s a miracle I’m still alive, because I didn’t even know what that was. I just knew that it numbed me out. And, in all fairness, I needed numbing out. I’m not saying it’s the right thing to do, but sometimes, if you can just stay alive – and thank God I did – these things will get you through.

Honestly, though, I don’t think I was ever hooked on them. I’ve never had trouble giving up something when I know I need to. I was on them in my 20s a lot and I was drinking a lot at the time. And then, you know, I OD’d at Saddle Ranch in LA. Like, they thought I was dead. I was like, “Are you crazy? You survive all of that and then let a pill take you out?” So, after that, I quit taking them. But, you know, I took them after my C-section. I took all of them. I just think different people are wired differently and I do think it’s kind of funny now.

“She’s on the highest dose of Prozac a woman can take.” I was.

“She likes to pop her pain pills with every little ache.” I did.

It’s interesting, what you said about wanting to feel numb, because the songs that you wrote during that time had so much pain in them. They really cut.

Well, music’s always been where I let my pain seep out. When my dad died, I remember holding my guitar and sitting at the edge of my waterbed, and it was like the guitar was saving my life. It was keeping me together. And I still use music like that – I pour out pain that I don’t even know is in there sometimes. The pain pills don’t get you all the way numb. They get you numb for about 25 minutes, and I needed those 25 minutes back then.


Photo Credit: Erika Rock

House of Worship,
House of Pain

If you’ve spent enough time within the sacred walls of a sanctuary, chances are you’ve witnessed or experienced church hurt – the trauma foisted upon others, by others, under the guise of scripture. Logan Simmons – a woman of deep faith and former worship leader who grew up in the church and cultivated her powerhouse vocals in the sanctuary – knows this too well. Together with her best friend and musical other half, Malachi Mills, Simmons channeled her wounds into The Band Loula’s single “Running Off The Angels,” an unfiltered exposé of damage done in the name of religion. Reaction has been overwhelming, as both song and video cut deep into listeners who recognize their own stories in the song.

This isn’t the first time the songwriting team of Simmons and Mills has made a bold statement. Tackling and confronting dark subjects usually swept under rugs and stuffed away in family closets seems to be their comfort zone. “Marshall County Man” began as their take on the traditional “murder ballad.” However, with its challenging lyrics and graphic video, the song quickly pivoted to an outcry about domestic violence and generational trauma, speaking loudly to systemic treatment of victims/survivors.

All is not grim in the world of The Band Loula. Far from it, in fact, as evidenced on their debut EP, Sweet Southern Summer, which was produced by Brothers Osborne’s John Osborne, with additional production by Greg Bieck. The six songs – “Running Off The Angels” among them – are a slice of life reflecting Simmons and Mills’ experiences growing up in Gainesville, Georgia, up to the present. The two attended school and sang in church together and became best friends along the way. At one point, their paths diverged. Mills pursued music full-time, including an American Idol audition (fun fact: Luke Bryan voted him a firm “no”), a solo career, and writing for and working with other artists, while Simmons built a successful photography business.

Music, however, had the strongest hold, bolstered by their enduring friendship. They launched The Band Loula in 2020 and officially debuted as such in 2022. They independently released singles recorded at Ivy Manor Studios, where they worked with close friend, co-writer, and guitarist Gary Nichols. Universal Music Publishing Group discovered, auditioned, and signed them in 2023; Warner Music Nashville did the same the following year. They spent 2024 on the road with Brothers Osborne, Ashley McBryde, Paul Cauthen, Brent Cobb, and Elle King.

This year, The Band Loula and their band – Gary Nichols on guitar, Jamie McFarlane on bass, Justin Holder on drums, and Diana Dawydchak on fiddle – are spending the summer touring with Dierks Bentley and Zach Top. When they spoke again with Good Country, they were weeks away from a date at Madison Square Garden and from their Opry debut, and equal parts overjoyed, incredulous, and grateful for all that has happened and is yet to come.

Let’s begin by having you introduce each other to readers.

Logan Simmons: I’m Logan, I’m half of The Band Loula, and Malachi is the other half who leads us very well. He’s been writing songs and playing music since he was 16 or 17, and we’ve been friends since we were 14, so I’ve gotten to watch that whole journey. He had his own career going, added me into the mix once we found that we had some magic, and we created The Band Loula. We bring different things to the table. He is an incredible singer and guitarist, and he’s the planner of the group. He’s got all the logistics underway. He knows what everybody’s doing and at what time. I’m pretty much the opposite of that. I’m very Type B. He keeps us together. He’s definitely the glue of the band.

Malachi Mills: I’m Malachi, and as Logan mentioned, we met when we were 14 years old. When I first saw her, she was performing a skit onstage with her cheerleading squad doing a Justin Bieber dance. We were friends through high school, went to church together, and sang together in church a handful of times. I also got to watch Logan’s career as a photographer. She started when she was still in high school and now she is critically acclaimed. Along that journey she learned so much about visual arts, marketing, and things that are a major part of her role in The Band Loula. She is the brains behind our social media and she’s an absolute visionary. Big visions, big emotions, a great songwriter, and obviously an excellent singer. Half the time I’m just trying to keep up with her vocally.

Logan, is it correct that you first heard Malachi sing at a Relay For Life event?

LS: Yes. It was the same event he’s referring to. We both signed up for karaoke, essentially. I saw him first. He was onstage singing “When a Man Loves a Woman” by Percy Sledge. I did not see him when I was onstage in my Justin Bieber outfit, with Ray-Bans on, because I couldn’t see much of anything! But yeah, that was the first time I ever saw him. That’s how we met.

 

Universal Music Publishing Group came to see you at a gig in a Gainesville parking lot. What, exactly, is the story?

LS: In April 2023, we got an email from Ron Stuve at Universal Music Publishing Group. We had plans a few days later to play under a little pop-up tent by the lake in Gainesville. It was a Food Truck Friday event. Ron came to Georgia with his family and saw us play there for the first time. We didn’t expect this at all. At first, we thought the email was spam because we didn’t have any followers. We were a very small band. But Ron came and he believed in us.

How did he find you?

MM: Ron was on his iPad early one morning and saw an Instagram video of our song “Getting Clean.” He didn’t know how to save it, so he left his iPad open on the charger, for hours, after he had woken up, so he could step away! Thankfully, we were still there when he came back. He submitted a form on our website to email us. We only had that video at the time. It had about 10,000 views, which, when you’re a small band, is a lot. But in the grand scheme of how many views happen daily in the world, that was pretty small odds, so we definitely think it was meant to be.

It’s quite a jump from a food truck gig to Madison Square Garden. Can anything prepare you?

MM: There’s nothing we could have done to fully prepare for the mad rush that has happened over the past two years of our career. It’s been a very quick rise, a lot of opportunities that came fast, but in a weird way we’ve had peace about it the whole time. With our separate journeys, we’ve been able to build the skill sets to come together and be ready for the opportunities that have been given to us. All that to say, stepping out onstage at Madison Square Garden … you can call us back in a couple weeks and see if we feel the same!

LS: There’s nothing to prepare you for something like that except thoughts, and prayers. We’re not even halfway up the ladder. It still feels like we’re babies and a lot of what happens to us doesn’t really hit us until it’s happening or after the fact. We don’t expect anything. We just put our heads down, work, hope that what we believe in is connecting with people, and we’re really thankful when it does. We’re grateful for all the opportunities we’ve been given.

How did your separate journeys help lay the groundwork for the band?

MM: I’ve always had a strong love for songwriting. I looked at the artist side of it as supplementary to that. It’s given me an outlet. I never felt I had a place as an artist until The Band Loula, because there’s so much identity and chemistry in what we have together. All that experience came into play when we started to really commit to this, for sure. You learn what to do and not do, and I was able to bring a lot of what we probably shouldn’t do on our journey as artists, because I had lived and learned in some of those areas.

LS: It taught me a lot about life in general. I shot my first wedding when I was 14 or 15. My dad drove me. One of my cheerleader friend’s sister asked me to shoot her wedding, which is a very important thing. I couldn’t believe she asked me to do it. I learned a lot over twelve years of doing it professionally. You can’t replace the connections you make in that kind of business, where you deal with people of all ages and from all walks of life every day. At one point I was traveling every week, meeting new people, driving across the desert in a podunk car, and sleeping in the car, just to make it to the next shoot. It’s life lessons and learning about yourself.

Now that we’re in the music industry, I find myself using those tools. The photography world is a lot of people-pleasing and deadlines. It tests your strength and emotional intelligence, which is a real skill that you can use in every industry. I feel like I have mastered some corners of that, of being emotionally intelligent, reading people, making real connections, and how that can get you to the next step. Every milestone and opportunity we’ve gotten as the band has been a product of how well we treat the people around us and how we reciprocate the love that’s given to us. I’ve learned how to master that because of all the people that were put in my life during my photography years. I’ll never forget what I learned and the people I met. I [recently] had some backstage guests at a show with Dierks Bentley and it was two people I shot a wedding for in Maine a few years ago. Watching those people become our fans is irreplaceable for me.

What were your goals for Sweet Southern Summer?

MM: Our main goal was to show our listeners a different side of us. A lot of the tracks we’ve put out so far have done a great job of showing a more emotional side. Usually, people don’t come in off the bat with emotional songs. They come in with lighter or more topical songs. We came in with a pretty heavy side of us, and I think that’s why our fans appreciate us. But we wanted to show our fans that we also have songs that are a little less gothic and more bluesy and rocking and soulful.

LS: With this EP and beyond, the goal is to show a different side of us each time, so our fans feel like they are learning more about us, and the relationship gets deeper and deeper. But we also are keeping the common thread of who we are and who we’ve always been. This EP is so exciting because it’s fresh and different, but it is obviously working toward a goal of a debut album. I think these songs will maybe surprise people and keep them on the journey. We really believe in this EP and we hope it connects with folks.

You’re both very open about your faith. How does that guide you and keep you grounded?

MM: A big hinge point in faith is being grateful. Whenever you’re grateful, you’re reminded where opportunities and things in life come from. To think that we could have put all this together with our own two hands would be egotistical. We’ve worked very hard and intentionally, but we believe that if we take care of the small steps, put one foot front in front of the other, and stay grateful for the opportunities that are coming, God will continue to bless us with those opportunities and take care of the big picture.

LS: I agree. Malachi has been a really good leader in that way to point us toward the bigger picture, which is having faith and believing that God will get us where we need to be. I led worship for a long time, but I had a falling out with church and a large moment of my life that was hard to believe that something … I don’t know. It’s a lot to chew on. For the past few months it’s been lovely to watch Malachi lead our band in prayer and keep God and our faith at the center, because I was not previously doing that. I had a really hard time getting past some church hurt and realizing that God is the reason why we’re here and why we’re doing this. That is what I believe now, and that’s what I’m getting back to after a lot of trauma, a lot of hurt, and a lot of figuring things out.

Thankfully, that’s why God put us in a duo – because we’re two different people and we’re able to lead each other in different ways. I’ve continuously been watching Malachi lead in that way and help me regain faith. We like to keep that at the center of our band. I can’t walk onstage without him praying for us now. We both believe we’re not here because of us or something we’re doing with our two hands. It’s a lot more divine than that, and it’s a beautiful thing.

Church hurt is an inconvenient truth mostly swept under the rug, which speaks to the overwhelming positive response to “Running Off The Angels.” Did you also experience blowback?

MM: We don’t ever want to be divisive in any way. Our main goal, without being too specific, is to promote love first. We don’t want to promote judgment. There’s a lot of judging people before you even get to know them, and I think our songs do a good job of reminding people of that reality. I think the ones who get frustrated might be actively judging in that way, or maybe they’re coming to grips that they’re ready to change for the better.

LS: “Running Off The Angels” has been interesting for us, because we weren’t a hundred percent sure we were going to put it out when we first wrote it. It was very specific to my experience and it crosses some lines. We got a wonderful response. We went out on a limb a little bit and were like, “Let’s just post this on social media and see what happens,” and it went viral. There was a lot of blowback, too. On social media, in the Facebook world, people like to talk. They like to hide behind their keyboards. So we did get people who didn’t enjoy the song. But at the end of the day, you can write about experiences that don’t necessarily encapsulate who you will be forever.

When we wrote, “I quit church and never went back, sang my last red-covered hymn,” that isn’t necessarily completely true to me now. But the song has so many truths to it, and it’s something that needs to be said, because people are struggling every day with church hurt and trauma, and it’s not talked about enough. There are wonderful communities and people and churches out there, and I’m thankful for that. And then you have wonderful churches that have people in them with bad intentions or who don’t understand how to treat people. We hope that people always turn toward love, if they can. That’s all that song is about. But it was wonderful writing it, recording it, teasing it, releasing it, and gaining new fans from it.

One of your social media posts says, “Songwriting is an ugly truth. It makes you dig through trauma with your hands, open up an emotional filing cabinet that you locked away and somehow come out on the other side with something you’re proud to sing in front of folks.” How does music help you heal that trauma and protect your mental health?

LS: Music is everything. I’m very much an empath, so music and songs that make me feel something shape who I am and affect me in different ways. That sentiment has amplified now that I’m a songwriter, because I get to create the music that is helping heal me. It’s not just I hear a song that pertains to me and takes me to a place. Now we get to write music that is about what we are feeling and what we experience. That’s therapy. It has deeply affected who I am. It has healed me in many ways. Most of the trauma I went through was recent, in my twenties, so this career choice, leaning into this passion and into music, happened exactly when it was supposed to happen, because it has helped pull me out of some deep, dark places.

MM: I agree. Songwriting and music are very cathartic. The fact that there is a song in my heart, in my brain, inside of me, and having the ability to get it out into the world, is very healing. Also, when you’re able to say things that other people don’t feel they have the words or the song inside of them to say, that is very special, because it makes you feel like you’re really making a difference.


Photo Credit: Sara Katherine Mills

BGS 5+5: Bonnie & the Mere Mortals

Artist: Bonnie & the Mere Mortals
Hometown: Avella, Pennsylvania
Latest Album: Take Me to the Moon (available August 29, 2025)
Personal Nicknames (or rejected band names): I get Bonald a lot. Bon Bon, Bonners, Bonnie Romano.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

Two years ago for our Halloween show, I looked out in the crowd and saw a complete stranger scream-singing along for the first time. As an artist, I constantly question what I’m doing. This is a hard path we’ve chosen that can beat you down a lot, but you can’t fabricate that moment. You’ve reached someone, you touched their lives in some way. I’ve since had that experience dozens of times and have even gotten to do a Bonnie & the Mere Mortals tattoo on a fan, but you never forget your first.

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

I truly think the difference between art forms is no wider than the difference of medium: oil or watercolor? Everything is how you choose to express your idea. I have a literature degree and I grew up in an abandoned coal town; I wanted to make music the way Southern Gothic writers like Michael McDowell made me feel. Southern Gothic is often seen as just slow Americana in a minor key, but I wanted to expand that thinking to include my experience growing up in a Southern Gothic tableau. I also dress up like a drag queen because I want the Mere Mortals to be as visual as we are musical. Our presentation is always firmly tongue-in-cheek because every murder ballad has a punch line and I never think you should take yourself that seriously.

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

When I was growing up, it was the golden age of pop-country. Miss Shania Twain, Garth, the Chicks? Everywhere. I grew up on the values of Hank and “Raise Hell, Praise Dale.” Post 9/11 though, I really started to resent my upbringing. I discovered the Cure, Queen, and Bowie, and put aside Ralph Stanley. I moved to the city, came out as queer, and started a metal band. I never truly felt fulfilled though. I felt I had to hide a part of myself that made up so much of my character.

It wasn’t until I heard Gillian Welch for the first time that I started to dive back into myself and realized that I wasn’t really making art authentically. I bought a banjo and started to learn clawhammer. I rediscovered so many loves I had put aside and I began to feel myself again. I realized that what I loved about the Smiths was the same thing I loved about Jason Isbell, and I couldn’t see why they shouldn’t go together. Some of my folks couldn’t understand the transition, but they certainly do now.

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

Film an episode of The Muppets as a special guest and then head over to Dolly’s house to cook her a pasta dinner.

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

My day job for the last 15 years has been working as a tattoo artist. I co-own a shop in Pittsburgh called the Kindred Spirit Tattoo Co. It can be hard making it as an artist on both sides of the sun, but I feel so grateful I get to do two things I love so much.


Photo Credit: Veronica Baron

Madison Dunn & Reid Kohls on Only Vans with Bri Bagwell

These girls, Madison Dunn and Reid Kohls, are on a mission to bring light to the Twin Rivers Music Scene, which is the place I call home in New Braunfels, Texas. They became friends through meeting at shows and events in the Twin Rivers scene and decided to take their passion to the next level with media coverage and a podcast of their own. This conversation was my first ever time talking with Reid and Madison, but we hit it off instantly.

LISTEN: APPLE • SPOTIFY • AMAZON • MP3

Today on Only Vans I’m joined by Madison and Reid of the Twin Rivers Music Scene podcast and they are two adorable, smart, hard-working young ladies who love live music and are working to promote it, especially in the area where I live. I’ve hung out with them a few times since we recorded this podcast and we’re becoming fast friends. They’re awesome and it’s crazy that this conversation is the first time we had ever met.

Producer Kyle had the idea to do a practical joke on these sweet babies, which was the first ever on this podcast, where I asked them how they felt about the recent bombing in Iran, which is totally not our M.O. It was hilarious and I think that she was pretty mortified, and I’m so sorry Madison… I blame Kyle. Anyway, in a total ironic twist of events, this podcast has terrible audio for the first six minutes, because the interface glitched. It’s so funny how we’re talking about being a professional podcast and it sounds like total heck until it kicks in about minute seven, so hang in there. Sorry about that, girlfriends.

Anyway, check out Twin Rivers wherever you get your podcasts – and they recently had me on an episode, as well! They are also available to hire to film content, too. Hustlers. I love it!


 

Finding Lucinda: Episode 9

Ismay travels across Nashville to the Station Inn to meet with legendary folk singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier. This episode of Finding Lucinda is different from those in the past – rather than interviewing a character from Lucinda Williams’ history, Ismay speaks to Mary because of their shared experiences as fans and devotees of Lucinda’s music.

Mary reveals that her most well known song was in fact directly derived from techniques Lucinda uses in her songwriting. This conversation turns out to be incredibly revelatory, as wisdom Mary imparts allows Ismay to discover that what they initially thought this journey was all about may in fact be completely upended.

LISTEN: APPLE • SPOTIFY • AMAZON • MP3

Produced in partnership with BGS and distributed through the BGS Podcast Network, Finding Lucinda expands on the themes of Ismay’s eponymous documentary film, exploring artistic influence, creative resilience, and the impact of Williams’ music. New episodes are released twice a month. Listen right here on BGS or wherever you get podcasts.

Finding Lucinda, the documentary film that inspired and instigated the podcast, is slated for release on September 9, 2025. Both the film and podcast showcase never-before-heard archival material, intimate conversations, and a visual journey through the literal and figurative landscapes that molded Lucinda’s songwriting.

Credits:
Produced and mixed by Avery Hellman for Neanderthal Records, LLC.
Music by Ismay
Artwork by Avery Hellman.
Nashville Recording: Recorded at The Station Inn.
Sound Recordist: Rodrigo Nino
Producer: Liz McBee
Director: Joel Fendelman
Co-Director & Cinematographer: Rose Bush
Special thanks to: Mick Hellman, Chuck Prophet, Jonathan McHugh, Sydney Lane, Don Fierro, Jacqueline Sabec, Rosemary Carroll, Lucinda Williams, and Tom Overby.


Find more information on Finding Lucinda here. Find our full Finding Lucinda episode archive here. Pre-order the documentary film via Apple TV here.

You Gotta Hear This: New Music From Josh Rinkel, West Texas Exiles, and More

Sit back and relax and enjoy a New Music Friday roots music picture show, right here on BGS! It’s wall-to-wall music and performance videos in this week’s roundup.

Starting us off, Roman Alexander’s new album, Midwest Calling, is available today, so we’re celebrating the occasion with his new music video for “Way Over You.” Built on strong mainstream country sounds, the track showcases how the entire project is built on an indelible sense of self, on acceptance, and firm home ties. In bluegrass, Kentuckian picker and singer-songwriter Josh “Jug” Rinkel debuts a new performance video for “I’m Only So Good At Being Good,” an original song about overcoming addiction and facing down temptation time after time. With just a guitar and a voice, it’s gorgeous-and-simple bluegrass at its best – down-to-earth and moving, too.

West Texas Exiles call on Kelly Willis to share lead vocals on “Division,” which they’ve paired with a gentle fingerpicked melody and a very fun and charming stop-motion music video inspired by a Wes Anderson sort of aesthetic. The harsh realities of a long-term relationship coming to a close have never looked so cute, but this song will gut you – or give comfort – all the same. Singer-songwriter Pete Droge brings us a gauzy, kaleidoscopic video for “Fade Away Blue,” the title track for his new album (out today) featuring lead guitar by Rusty Anderson. Steeped in azure and cerulean, there’s a tenor of hope and looking ahead in the alt-folk twang and open guitar tuning.

Plus, Rachel McIntyre Smith continues her Honeysuckle Friend Sessions with her pal Duke Jones. The pair perform a cover of Zach Bryan’s “Oklahoma City” to celebrate McIntyre Smith’s recent deluxe EP and the robustly talented community of musician, artist, and creator friends that surrounds her. It’s the second installment from the series we’ve shared here (see the first edition here) and we’ll continue in a couple of weeks with another video from the Honeysuckle Friend Sessions.

Pop some popcorn and enjoy the pictures – You Gotta Hear This!

Roman Alexander, “Way Over You”

Artist: Roman Alexander
Hometown: Kansas City, Missouri
Song: “Way Over You”
Album: Midwest Calling
Release Date: August 22, 2025
Label: Twelve6 Entertainment

In Their Words:Midwest Calling is about knowing who you are no matter where you go. It’s about carrying a sense of home through breakups, long nights, and big dreams – the moments that shape you, but also test you. No matter how far I’ve wandered or how much life has shifted, there’s always a part of the Midwest that pulls me back, grounding me in where I come from and reminding me why I started chasing this dream in the first place. It’s both a comfort and a compass – a voice that whispers you can grow, you can change, you can hurt and you can hope, but you’ll always belong to something bigger than yourself.” – Roman Alexander

Video Credits: Directed and edited by Sean O’Halloran.
Coloring by Sam Aldrich.


Pete Droge, “Fade Away Blue”

Artist: Pete Droge
Hometown: Bainbridge Island, Washington
Song: “Fade Away Blue”
Album: Fade Away Blue
Release Date: August 22, 2025
Label: Puzzle Tree/Missing Piece Records

In Their Words: “I wrote ‘Fade Away Blue’ in an open tuning, DADGAD. There is a melody inherent in my acoustic rhythm part that was not speaking through the track once we added drums and bass. So we enlisted Rusty Anderson from Paul McCartney’s band on lead guitar to bring those phrases to the forefront. His tone, pocket, and feel are impeccable. He also added the slide guitar and an additional rhythm part in the chorus. Listen carefully and you’ll hear him add a nice Beatles chord on the last note. I guess after working with Sir Paul for all those years, that stuff is bound to rub off.” – Pete Droge


Rachel McIntyre Smith, “Oklahoma City” featuring Duke Jones (Honeysuckle Friend Sessions)

Artist: Rachel McIntyre Smith and Duke Jones
Hometown: Oliver Springs, Tennessee
Song: “Oklahoma City”
Latest Album: Honeysuckle Friend (Deluxe)
Release Date: August 27, 2025 (video); June 27, 2025 (deluxe EP)

In Their Words: “Duke and I both made our Whiskey Jam debut on the same night! His artistry really stuck out to me and I knew that I wanted to invite him to be part of my ongoing series, the Honeysuckle Friend Sessions. This song was suggested by Duke and for good reason! No one can cover a Zach Bryan song better than him. I’m grateful that BGS partnered with me to release this session. Keep an eye out in two weeks for the final video in this series with BGS as part of ‘You Gotta Hear This.’” – Rachel McIntyre Smith

“This song was one of the songs that inspired me to start singing and playing guitar. I’m thankful Rachel let me join her in this performance! Truly a special song for a special moment.” – Duke Jones

Track Credits:
Duke Jones – Vocals, guitar
Rachel McIntyre Smith – Vocals

Video Credits: Filmed and edited by Rachel McIntyre Smith.

Watch another Honeysuckle Friend Session on BGS here.


Josh Rinkel, “I’m Only So Good At Being Good”

Artist: Josh Rinkel
Hometown: Mount Eden, Kentucky
Song: “I’m Only So Good At Being Good”
Album: Live from Reverb and Echo Studio
Release Date: August 22, 2025
Label: Reverb and Echo

In Their Words: “‘Only So Good At Being Good,’ at its core, is a song about overcoming addiction. About a year into being sober, I started wondering how long I could actually keep it going, how long could I continue to make good decisions and say no to constant temptation. Recognizing your weaknesses is an essential part of overcoming them. That’s what ‘Only So Good At Being Good’ was for me. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to co-write this song with the legendary Jim Lauderdale and he recorded it on his most recent bluegrass album, The Long And Lonesome Letting Go.” – Josh Rinkel

Video Credits: Carter Brice


West Texas Exiles, “Division” featuring Kelly Willis

Artist: West Texas Exiles
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Song: “Division” featuring Kelly Willis
Album: 8000 Days
Release Date: August 22, 2025 (video); May 2, 2025 (single); September 12, 2025 (album)
Label: Floating Mesa Records

In Their Words: “‘Division’ dissects some harsh realities that come with ending a long-term relationship. Hopeful beginnings can unravel to expose a bitter end. Adding Kelly Willis as a counterpart lead vocal really brought home the split screen feeling of the song:

It’s the division
I’ll take the couch, you sleep wherever
Division
I’ve learned there’s no such thing as forever
Division
A storage unit full of tainted memories
And things you deem unworthy for the next part of life…

“As we were finishing this song, the production was really giving Wes Anderson-esque feels. The idea to make a stop-motion video of a house building itself then being torn apart, but the ‘stifling vines’ just felt like a natural and fun way expand upon the emotion and vibe of the song. Callum Scott-Dyson makes award-winning art and absolutely nailed the vision we had for the video.” – West Texas Exiles

Track Credits:
Marco Gutierrez – Lead vocals, guitar
Kelly Willis – Lead vocals
Daniel Davis – Guitar, keys, BGVs
Eric Harrison – Bass, BGVs
Colin Gilmore – Mandolin, BGVs
Trinidad Leal – Drums


Photo Credit: Josh Rinkel by Dan Deurloo; West Texas Exiles with Kelly Willis by Ramon Meija.

Is Tyler Childers’
Snipe Hunter a Prank?
Yes and No

I remember my very first snipe hunt. I was a teenager and my family, along with a handful of others, had recently left our former congregation, deciding to spend each Sunday alternating between our various houses to hold “home church” instead. This particular Sunday afternoon, we had already finished our DIY service, had enjoyed our shared meal, and were sitting scattered in lawn chairs and on the front porch of a humble little brick home in the foothills of southeastern Ohio.

A few of the more mischievous, prank-minded adults had begun gathering as many of the kids as possible, from toddlers to teens like me to young adults, with empty plastic grocery bags spanning the distance between our arms as we tramped off from the porch to the surrounding trees and woods. We were taught to shout, to bang sticks together or against tree trunks, and to keep those grocery bags open and ready, as the snipe were hiding above and – when correctly startled using these certified methods – would fall directly and immediately into our waiting plastic sacks.

We made attempts, we marched around, we laughed and shrieked and ran about. No, we didn’t catch a single snipe that day, but that’s not how I determined it was a prank. It was my very first snipe hunt – we weren’t a Scouts or summer camp sort of family – and still, as soon as they began passing around grocery bags, I knew a joke was being played. I wasn’t on the inside of it yet, but I knew what was happening – even though I really had no clue.

As a young teen, I had at that point spent my entire life obsessed with two things: banjo and birds. So when the jokester adults began spinning their yarn about how we were going to all catch snipe together, I knew we most certainly were not. After all, I knew Wilson’s Snipe were the only snipe species native to North America and that they preferred grasslands, marshes, beaver ponds, shorelines, and flooded meadows to lush hardwood forests in the foothills. Plus, at that time of year they would have already migrated back to their summer grounds in the north.

I had also already passed my Ohio Department of Natural Resources Hunter Safety Course – incredibly proud that I had scored 100% and hadn’t missed a single question – and knew that Wilson’s Snipe were hunted across the U.S. as upland game birds. I hadn’t hunted or bagged any, but having already spent countless hours across multiple seasons tracking down pheasant, partridge, and grouse, I knew that a grocery bag wouldn’t be our first choice if taking home snipe were really our aim.

Though I had never before been initiated into the lore or ritual of such a snipe hunt, I immediately knew what was happening, why it was happening, and – somehow, despite the odds – I overcame my primary instinct as a know-it-all bird nerd and didn’t “Um, actually…” obnoxiously and ruin the joke for everyone. I stretched out that Kroger bag and ran alongside all my home church friends as we hunted for snipe.

On July 25, Kentuckian country megalith Tyler Childers released Snipe Hunter, a Rick Rubin-produced Appalachian fever dream of an album that has had a remarkably polarizing effect across the diverse and disparate swathes of folks who profess to be Childers fans. Drawing from grunge and garage rock as often as old-time fiddle and bluegrassy mountain music, the 13 songs of Snipe Hunter are impeccable, harlequin, and mystifying. This is a fantastic collection – superlative yes, but even moreso, these songs are pure fantasy.

Being a snipe huntin’ veteran myself, as I first listened through the LP, I was floored. As each unpredictable, unhinged, unparalleled song ended and the next began I was all at once shocked and surprised, but still knew exactly what was coming next – and why. (Even though, as for that first snipe hunt as a kid, I actually had no idea what was going on. How could any of us?)

It’s just, I was already on the inside of this joke, too. While the internet (especially TikTok and Instagram Reels) quickly became swallowed up in wall-to-wall speculative videos about the album – claiming it was a prank, a litmus test, a Rorschach inkblot, a middle finger to the red hat-wearing fans who blow capillaries in their eyes screaming for “Feathered Indians” at every show – a host of folks pushed back on their front porch gliders and smiled to themselves. Because, if you’re Appalachian, or a lifelong folk musician, or even just an ardent and committed fan of true country, Americana, and bluegrass, you know exactly what this album is – and you know without a single shred of doubt that it’s not a prank.

It’s clear that many listeners feel challenged and excluded by Snipe Hunter. Many folks think it must be a joke purely because the thing is downright silly, or because Childers forsook the Sturgill Simpson or Zach Bryan trajectory he could have taken quite a few records ago and they’re still grieving what could have been. Other listeners seem to think the album is unserious not because it’s hilarious, but because they don’t hear the country in it. Or the Appalachia in it. Or the homespun, DIY, front-porch, hay-barn-recording-studio, rural-East-Kentucky-VFW-hall of it all throughout the sequence.

But to folks from inside the scenes Childers paints, to folks who’ve lived their lives in or touching on the regions he tributes with these poetic (and ugly and greasy) songs, to folks who still have grounded, everyday relationships with this type of rural mountain creativity and the folkways he draws on, this is just a standard phenotypic Appalachian country record. With more than a dash of Childers panache, of course.

There are eye-widening and jaw-dropping tales of far-off and exotic places (“Down Under,” “Tirtha Yatra”); there are eyebrow-raising retellings of hunting trips that seem just a bit too good or too successful or too chaotic to be true (“Dirty Ought Trill,” “Poachers,” “Snipe Hunt”); there are songs about sticking it to the man, sticking up for the working class, and sticking out your wrist to clown your not-as-rich neighbors (“Eatin’ Big Time,” “Nose On The Grindstone,” “Getting to the Bottom”); there are tributes to the true, multi-ethnic reality of Appalachia and the Southeast (“Tirtha Yatra,” “Dirty Ought Trill”); and of course, there’s “transatlantic” “Scotch/Irish” present, too (“Tomcat and a Dandy”). In short, it’s a country album. It’s an Appalachian album. Rick Rubin be damned.

For a record that has been regarded by thousands and thousands of listeners as a “prank,” it’s striking how grounded in Kentucky, Appalachia, and the Southeast this set of songs really is. Though you may need to be viewing it from the inside of the kaleidoscope to hold onto this fact.

This is a traditional album; it might even be Childers’ most regional and culturally anchored project yet – which is saying something, given the terroir of Long Violent History, the Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? trilogy, and well, you know, his entire remaining catalog of country and bluegrass. Plus, he tracked the thing in Hawai’i. Quite a different set of mountains than East Kentucky.

Snipe Hunter is only a joke if you see Appalachia as a joke. And, my, how so many folks are telling on themselves in this moment. Luckily, Appalachians are used to being the butt of the joke. (And Childers is, too, as he writes himself into that role over and over again – on Snipe Hunter for sure, and beyond.)

The area grew its regional and cultural identity that we all still venerate today from being the first “wild west” of the New World. An ancient mountain range – the bedrock older than trees, older than our current continents, and older than bones themselves – with its hidden hollers, switchbacks, and impenetrable forests and hills, it was the perfect hiding spot for hardscrabble working class folks of all backgrounds and ethnicities fleeing civilization on a continent that didn’t have a lot of that to go around anyway. Villages and towns were often multi-ethnic (white, Black, Asian, Native American) and, by necessity, were remarkably communitarian as, until the advent of the railroad, survival, getting anything done, and getting anywhere in the Appalachians was a tall task that required insider knowledge and a host of help. Back then “it took a village” to survive in Appalachia, and it does to this day.

Alongside the trend of speculating about the intrinsic prank of Snipe Hunter online you’re just as likely to encounter dozens and dozens of vertical videos explaining and hyping up Appalachian folklore about cryptids, ghosts, and paranormal activity. Never before in the history of the region have skinwalkers and unexplained whistling in the middle of the night and beings like Mothman held such cultural power outside of the mountains themselves. You can make an entire career off of explaining creepy Appalachian myths without ever having been there yourself – and with an accent so passé you could be from anywhere.

You wouldn’t think these brands of videos – “Tyler Childers made Sniper Hunter to piss off the fans he doesn’t like” vs. “Here’s what to do when you hear a voice call your name in the middle of the night in rural Appalachia” – would be so analogous, but they really and truly are.

With these kinds of Appalachian myths, of monsters and cryptids and spirits and ghosts, their validity is entirely based upon their contexts, right? Appalachians know there’s no easier way to spot an outsider, a city slicker, or a poverty tourist in their midst than by letting someone who thinks they know what they’re talking about do just that with all the unearned confidence of a person who actually doesn’t know what they mean. These myths, while in many communities and families are held up as true in particular contexts or shared as knowledge – an amalgam of legend, myth, truth, science, and spirituality – their purpose has always largely been to determine one thing: Who’s an insider and who’s an outsider?

If you hear a stranger on TikTok explain to you that you should: 1) never go outside in Appalachia at night and 2) if you do, and you hear a voice you recognize call your name, you should 3) not do that and go back from where you came and thank your lucky stars that you respected this magical place enough to learn your lesson in advance – that person is not an insider. And, if you believe that video as truth or as cultural knowledge, you may not be an insider, either.

And that’s where we land. Tyler Childers’ Snipe Hunter is not a prank, except it most certainly is. It’s a cryptid. A litmus test to show who is on the inside of what he’s making and who’s on the outside. It’s artful, stunning, and resplendent because he makes his musical test such that anyone can pass, anyone can enjoy the product, and anyone can be a part of this wild, ridiculous, and joyous reality. But will you be inside the joke, or outside of it? Will you be shuddering in your car, doors locked, afraid of skinwalkers? Or will you be out under the stars on a ridgetop listening to the hounds bray as Dirty Ought Trill chases the dogs who are chasing raccoons down the holler?

Either way, the music will still hit, but wherever you start or end up here will change how the snipe hunt goes for you – and will determine whether or not you take anything home with you in that crinkled-up grocery bag.


Explore more of our Artist of the Month content on Tyler Childers here.

Photo Credit: Emma Delevante