Spring is a transformation. A reawakening. A rebirth.
Time marches on and no matter how cold the winter may be, the spring arrives and reminds us that we can start again. These songs represent that sound and spirit.
The past three years have felt like a long spring for our band. From writing and recording our album, Waving From A Sea, to now playing those songs every night on tour, we have found the warmth and growth within ourselves. – Michigan Rattlers
“You Must Believe In Spring” – Bill Evans
Bill Evans’ music sounds like the 30 minutes before sunrise or after sunset. It’s like wet soil for me as an artist – refreshing and fertile. – Graham Young
“Everything Is Peaceful Love” – Bon Iver
I’ve heard Justin Vernon talk about this record as finding what he loved again about making music, it’s a rebirth of sorts for him. Even the GOAT loses the muse sometimes; an inspiration for us all to keep trying. – GY
“Inconsolable” – Katie Gavin
I found a shaky fan video of this months before it ever went live and haven’t stopped listening since. To me, this song is about nurture versus nature and choosing to defy patterns and spring a new path for yourself. – GY
“Geranium Day” – Michigan Rattlers
This is a song from our new album, Waving From A Sea, that is about those moments that bring your life into focus. Times that make you feel the ground beneath your feet. It’s about making it through the transformation of spring into summer and soaking up every bit of the day that you can. – GY
“Joy Spring” – Clifford Brown, Max Roach Quintet
I love the melody in this song, it reminds me of spring. The standard’s title is the pet name Clifford Brown gave to his wife. You can’t go wrong putting Clifford and Max together. – Tony Audia
“Spangled” – Fust
Fust’s latest album, Big Ugly, has been in my heavy rotation this spring. The song “Spangled” features moments of frustration and doubt. I get the sense that many Americans are feeling the same way this spring. – TA
“Countdown” – Phoenix
The line in the song, “We’re sick for the big sun,” sums it up. You’ve gotta have a Phoenix song if you’re talking about the rebirth of spring. – TA
“The Birthday Party” – The 1975
This song feels like waking up to me. The muted instruments and the intimacy and fragility of the vocal all feel like thawing out after a long winter. Both outside and in. – Christian Wilder
“Tinseltown is in the Rain” – The Blue Nile
I fell in love with The Blue Nile about a year ago. I’m perpetually obsessed with how they make this song switch feels and sway using pretty much all synthesized and gridded out sounds. This song is for standing outside pub at 2 a.m., rain coming down, it’s April fools day. – CW
“Bright Future in Sales” – Fountains of Wayne
Every spring carries with it an inherent sense of optimism. This is gonna be the big year, this is the year it all happens, this is the year I get my shit together. Almost never pans out the way you think, but it’s fun to pretend. I got a “Bright Future in Sales,” baby. – CW
“Under a Stormy Sky” – Daniel Lanois
This song feels like spring up north. The weather is chaotic and awful, yet you notice the birds returning and there is reason to celebrate change. Also, those lines about feeling pulled toward the city resonate with me. Winter where we’re from is pretty isolating, and I associate this time of year with anticipation for summer festivals and baseball games and just being among people again. – Adam Reed
“Light of a Clear Blue Morning” – Dolly Parton
This is a springtime song if I’ve ever heard one. It’s practically perfect, I don’t think I need to explain it. – AR
“To-Do List” – The Felice Brothers
For me, spring always brings an aspirational feeling, more daylight, more possibilities. This song gets right at that manic but euphoric headspace that comes right after thinking, “What the hell was I doing all winter?” – AR
Hop aboard another edition of our weekly roundup of new music and premieres!
This time, we’re grabbing a ride on a Greyhound with blues rocker Liam St. John and Molly Tuttle for a special live performance video of “Greyhound Bus Blues” that’s a truly lovely roots duet. There are a few more stops for this bus, though, so hold on! Next, the Faux Paws take us to New York City and while that city (never) sleeps they cover Jimmy Martin’s “Night,” a new single and video, shot by Dylan Ladds.
Trad bluegrass innovators Chris Jones & the Night Drivers turn a familiar idiom on its head with “Plenty Ventured,” their latest single which drops today. And, Jones’ fellow Canadian Jadea Kelly brings an endlessly smooth and soulful original Americana song that sets a peaceful and calm tone for the weekend, entitled “Friday.” It’s a special track you can find on the deluxe issue of her most recent album, Weather Girl.
Don’t miss up-and-coming bluegrass and folk string band the Wilder Flower from the mountain-y portions of the North and South Carolina line. They close out our round-up this week bringing us back to Molly Tuttle, who with Jon Weisberger wrote “Every Time the Rain Comes Pouring Down.” The Wilder Flower successfully make the song their own.
It’s a perfect musical journey, all right here on BGS. You know what you gotta do? You Gotta Hear This!
The Faux Paws, “Night”
Artist:The Faux Paws Hometown: Springfield, Vermont Song: “Night” Album:No Bad Ideas Release Date: May 9, 2025 Label: Great Bear Records / Free Dirt
In Their Words: “When Andrew unearthed this great Jimmy Martin tune we all knew the groove hidden within would be well-served by our treatment. It slaps from the first note. We linked up with great filmmaker Dylan Ladds and all decided to head to New York to shoot this video. Jimmy may not have been thinking about ‘night’ in the city that never sleeps, but we love how open the lyrics of this song are and sometimes the loneliest place being surrounded by 23 million people, right?
“We’re really excited to release this along with the single from our upcoming record and tour all spring and summer to some of our favorite towns and festivals!” – Chris Miller, banjo, sax
Video Credits: Dylan Ladds, Filmed at Epiphany Recording Studios, Long Island City, New York.
Chris Jones & the Night Drivers, “Plenty Ventured”
Artist:Chris Jones & The Night Drivers Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Plenty Ventured” Release Date: April 11, 2025 Label: Mountain Home Music Company
In Their Words: “This twist on the old proverb ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’ popped into my head pretty much out of the blue. The idea of putting too much effort or resources into a lost cause is certainly relatable, whether it’s in love or work or some other part of life. We’ve all been there at some point or another. Once I started working on it, it lent itself to a bluesy feel, and it really clicked for us in the studio. Mark Stoffel came up with the little melodic variation that starts the song.” – Chris Jones
Track Credits: Chris Jones – Acoustic guitar, lead vocal, harmony vocal Mark Stoffel – Mandolin Grace van’t Hof – Banjo, harmony vocal Marshall Wilborn – Bass Carly Arrowood – Fiddle
Jadea Kelly, “Friday”
Artist:Jadea Kelly Hometown: Whitby, Ontario, Canada Song: “Friday” Album:Weather Girl (deluxe) Release Date: October 12, 2024 (album); April 11, 2025 (deluxe release)
In Their Words: “This is a very simple, feel-good song about staying in and doing absolutely nothing on a Friday night. Since removing alcohol from my life two-and-a-half years ago and entering my late thirties, the weekend has a different mood and intention. It’s sacred, quiet, and filled with self-care. I also feel that the pandemic forcibly reintroduced us to home time in a new way. And I love it!” – Jadea Kelly
Track Credits: Jadea Kelly – Vocals, songwriting Peter Von Althen – Drums Jim Bryson – Production, instrumentation
Liam St. John, “Greyhound Bus Blues” (featuring Molly Tuttle)
Artist:Liam St. John Song: “Greyhound Bus Blues” (featuring Molly Tuttle) Release Date: April 11, 2025 Label: Big Loud Rock
In Their Words: “Life as an artist is beautiful. It is unpredictable, it is incredibly fulfilling, and it is full of highs and lows. But there are moments in your career as an artist that act as pillars of affirmation. Moments that let you know you’re on the right track. For me, there are a few pillars: The first time I played a headline show where the crowd screamed every lyric with me. When I signed to Big Loud records. When I found out Molly Tuttle was going to feature on my song ‘Greyhound Bus Blues.’
“When I got the call that Molly was going to feature on this song, I could hardly believe it. I’m such a fan of her work and I admire her so much as a songwriter, singer, and musician. She elevates ‘Greyhound Bus Blues’ to another level with her world-class flat-picking and GRAMMY-winning bluegrass vocals. Collaborating with Molly, both in the studio and for the live recording, was a master class in combining professionalism and adoration of music.” – Liam St. John
Video Credit: Sean O’Halloran
The Wilder Flower, “Every Time the Rain Comes Pouring Down”
Artist:The Wilder Flower Hometown: Brevard, North Carolina / Pickens, South Carolina Song: “Every Time the Rain Comes Pouring Down” Release Date: April 13, 2025
In Their Words: “As a group of developing songwriters, we couldn’t be more proud to release a song written by two distinctive stylists and heroes of ours. It blurs genre and generational lines, with the feel of fiddling ballads and bluegrass rhythm that colors our group. It’s a deeply emotional number that we connected with after the first listen. We’d like to thank Jon Weisberger and Molly Tuttle for the opportunity to take their work & make it our own.” – Danielle Yother
Photo Credit: The Faux Paws by Dylan Ladds; Liam St. John and Molly Tuttle courtesy of the artist.
The Wildwoods are not shy about the pride they hold for their home state, Nebraska. The Lincoln-based trio – guitarist/vocalist Noah Gose, violinist/vocalist Chloe Gose, and bassist/vocalist Andy Vaggalis – named their gorgeous new album, Dear Meadowlark (out April 11), after the state bird, while songs like “Sweet Niobrara” and “I Will Follow You To Willow” represent odes to specific Nebraska towns.
“The album really is about our home here in Nebraska,” elaborated Noah, who is the group’s principal songwriter.
The Wildwoods have been together, in one form or another, for over a decade. Noah and Chloe, who are now married, first started performing together as teenagers, while Andy had played in the Wildwoods on and off for several years before officially joining them as a trio in 2022. Dear Meadowlark is their fourth full-length, but the first with Andy as a full-time member, and this album showcases their marvelous vocal chemistry throughout its set of gentle, pastoral acoustic music.
Before heading out on an East Coast tour, the three spoke to BGS about their new album, their growth as a band, and how the pandemic actually helped them become more widely known.
You all have been really upfront with how the new album reflects your deep affection for your home state, Nebraska.
Noah Gose: You know, living in a place like Nebraska, you hear a lot about people wanting to move away. But we’ve just grown to really appreciate our life in Nebraska and appreciate having had the opportunity to grow up in a place like Nebraska.
Chloe Gose: As much as we leave, I think we’ve all always appreciated our home.
Dear Meadowlark also has a very smooth musical flow to it. The title track opens the album like a lovely overture, while the contemplative closer, “Postcards From Somewhere,” bookends it as something like a reflective travelogue-type tune.
CG: It kind of felt like [“Postcards From Somewhere”] was the perfect fit to tie everything all together.
Andy Vaggalis: I think it works super well at the end, too, because [the album] is almost like little stories being written on the postcard with the last song for the postcard to be sent off.
NG: And that song originally wasn’t going to be a part of the album. It was just going to be a single. I wasn’t too keen on adding it to the album, but you know what Chloe says goes, so it was her decision to put it on, but now I’m really happy that we decided to do that.
The album’s music is really rooted in your acoustic instruments; however, drums, keyboards, and cello are used to nicely fill out the arrangements. Was that a conscious choice?
CG: I’m glad that you say that, because with our last album, Foxfield Saint John, I feel like each song is very epic-sounding in the sense that it just has a lot going on in all the arrangements, and we really wanted this album to sound more like us like how we sound live.
NG: All those extra instruments don’t really have the main spotlight at any point throughout the album, but they’re definitely kind of underlying things that brought certain parts of the arrangement out.
Noah, you are the primary songwriter – how did you approach writing the songs for Dear Meadowlark, which sounds like it is a quite personal album?
NG: Yeah, our first two albums, Sweet Nostalgia in 2017 and then Across the Midwest Sky in 2019, were all songs that were music first, lyrics second. And Foxfield was kind of half and half. Most of the songs on Dear Meadowlark were lyrics first. I feel like the songs mean more to me personally when the lyrics are first, because all the lines feel more purposeful.
CG: Things that are happening in our life are inspiring the words. So, all the words are very truthful and mean something in real time… I can tell when certain songs were written.
NG: I don’t like writing songs that just feel like everything’s completely made up. I like to just relate every song I write to things that happened in real life.
Are the vocals something that you think about when you are writing the songs, Noah?
NG: I very rarely have Chloe’s vocal range or Andy’s vocal range in mind when I’m writing the initial bones of the song, because I don’t want anything to get in the way of whatever kind of creativity goes into the initial writing. Most of the songs though, I arrange with Chloe singing the melody. I just don’t feel as confident in my own voice as I do in Chloe’s voice. And just with her being the only female voice, I feel like her voice stands out the most and works the best most of the time as singing the melody.
Your wonderful harmony singing seems to have become central to your sound now.
NG: The whole album of Dear Meadowlark was written around three-part harmony being kind of the main focus of the album.
AV: When I joined the group, I had it in my head – “I’m playing bass.” I wasn’t envisioning doing all these three-part harmony stuff. … When I first came back into the fold, it was like learning the songs and just finding a part in between [their voices] that fit. I remember like one night we were trying to make a fun ad for a show, so we switched around the words to “Teach Your Children” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. And I remember just feeling way easier than I normally would at [how] to put the three-part harmony together, and just like, “Oh, shit, that sounds good!”
Andy, while Dear Meadowlark was your first full album in the band’s trio setup, you have been with Chloe and Noah frequently over the years?
AV: I started playing with these guys in 2017. We were like a six-piece band. So, I was on Sweet Nostalgia and Across the Midwest Sky. Through the years, I’ve been lurking around.
CG: We’ve had different musicians playing with us throughout the years, but Andy has always been like a core member – basically since the beginning. … We were in choir together in high school. I think there’s kind of like an epiphany with Andy still playing with us. We’ve had other members and clearly that wasn’t like their dream to be doing that anymore. I feel like the reason why we are all still together and doing it is because we all have the same appreciation for what we’re doing.
Okay, speaking of beginnings, I must ask about the beginning of your musical partnership, Chloe and Noah. You two have been making music together since you were both teenagers.
CG: Noah and I met in 2012 when we were 14. I was playing music with my brother and we just like played for fun basically at farmers markets and stuff. [Noah] joined my brother and me, and we played all throughout high school [as] the Wildwoods.
NG: If you were to see videos of us playing at 14, you would probably turn your computer off. … I only really ever had this acoustic guitar that was my dad’s. So, I didn’t ever dive into any other kind of music other than songs that I would play on the acoustic guitar. And when I met Chloe and I learned that she played the violin, I think I just immediately felt like we should play music together. We really enjoyed each other’s company. And playing together so much over the past 13 years, I think it’s just there was no kind of epiphany at first; I think it’s been a 13-year-long epiphany
Andy, when you decided to formally join the band, you still hadn’t finished college yet – was that a big decision?
AV: I was going to college for music. When I would think about what I wanted to do after graduating college, it was travel around and play music. So, I figured might as well. I didn’t necessarily need college to do that at the moment. I can always go back, right? We’ve been great friends since before I was even playing with them. And then, after years of playing with them, it was a pretty easy decision to talk myself into it.
When you rebranded as a trio, it was also when your group started to get a lot of attention during the pandemic for the cover song videos you put up online.
NG: When we started posting his videos, the response that we were getting from the trio videos was just far better than anything that we had ever done in the past, and so we just felt, “This is what works best!”
AV: Then when the “Home” video (a cover of the 2010 Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros hit song) blew up, I think it was Halloween night. All of our phones were just notification after notification after notification, and we’re like “This is insane!” And then the next day, it dawned on us, “Okay, this is exciting, but also this is like a little opportunity here that we need to maximize.” We were trying to still practice together, because we were still kind of in the infancy of playing together as a trio.
CG: Yeah, it was kind of a stressful time during that time, because all three of us were teaching music lessons as well as doing the Wildwoods full time. So, we would meet up early in the morning. We’d start our days at like 8 a.m. and just go until 3 or 4, and then we’d all go and teach lessons. Then we would meet up after lessons to finish what we were working on.
Did the viral success of your cover song videos change what the makeup of the audiences coming to your shows?
CG: We went on tour not really knowing what to expect after our social media blew up. And then [on] our first tour, it was really amazing to see. We started just selling a bunch of tickets in cities that we had never even gone to…
Did you fear that your cover of “Home” might become your “Free Bird”?
NG: Yeah, it was definitely a worry at first, just because we usually throw in one cover, maybe two. We’re mainly an originals band.
CG: I think it has evolved, now that it’s been a couple of years, where people are finding our original music. And they’re requesting them at shows more so than the cover songs.
AV: Even some deep cuts, too.
The songs on Dear Meadowlark, besides drawing inspiration from your home state Nebraska, also holds a warm, woodsy vibe that suggest to me about being out in nature. How would you describe your sound?
CG: Yeah, I think that’s the vibe we’re trying to go for, like aesthetically and musically. I feel like our music too is very soothing – even our upbeat songs. I don’t know if that’s just because of the harmonies fitting together. It’s very calming and soothing music.
Basic Folk is making trouble at sea with Ani DiFranco and Carsie Blanton! Hosts Lizzie and Cindy had the opportunity to speak with the two like-minded radical songwriters aboard the 2025 edition of Cayamo, a roots music cruise. Our conversation kicks off with Ani sharing her transformative experience performing as Persephone in the Broadway show Hadestown, delving into the challenges of acting and the lessons learned from stepping outside her musical comfort zone. We navigate through Ani’s journey of independence, discussing Unprecedented Sh!t, her first album with a producer besides herself in 23 years – BJ Burton – and what it means to relinquish control in the creative process.
In Ani’s memoir, No Walls and the Recurring Dream, she writes about how her creativity is aligned with her menstrual cycle. She described the most creative part of her cycle as “THE WINDOW.” Cindy asked all three artists onstage to reflect on how their creativity relates to their periods. What resulted was a discussion on how creativity is impacted by not only menstrual cycles, but menopause and ovulation and how that has evolved over time. The conversation also touches on the significance of hair as a form of self-expression and how societal perceptions of women change with their appearances.
Ani and Carsie speak to the power of songwriting in addressing historical and political issues, emphasizing the importance of music as part of a larger movement for justice. They share insights on the necessity of community and collaboration among artists in a challenging industry, encouraging listeners to find strength in solidarity rather than competition. To wrap up, they reminisce about their parallel wild, youthful experiences and how those versions of themselves continue to influence their art today. As Ani had to leave the stage early, Carsie brought it home with an Ani DiFranco-themed lightning round.
Palmyra is a bit restless. Their emotions knot into a mangled ball, almost suffocating them.
“Early hours in the morning, tossing and turning/ Everyone else in this house is asleep,” Sasha Landon pours into the microphone. “Palm Readers” emerges integral to the band’s new musical chapter. Aptly titled Restless, this album marks their debut with Oh Boy Records. It’s like reintroducing themselves to the world.
The trio – rounded out with Teddy Chipouras and Mānoa Bell – pounces from the get-go. Similar to The Lone Bellow’s tightly wound vocal work, their harmonies exude a vintage richness throughout as they do on the title track and opener. It’s quite evident that they take their work seriously, down to the lilt of their voices as they glide through the air. Palmyra makes you believe they’ve been singing together for decades, their harmonies are so electric and full of life.
“We definitely put a lot of effort into our harmonies. It’s something that always feels super important when we’re arranging a song,” shares Landon. “The three of us weren’t people who sang with others a lot before this band. When we formed, we learned a lot from old recordings of other bands and all sorts of stuff. We did a lot of transcribing harmony early on in the lockdown. The record needed to start with our voices and we wanted that to set the tone for the album.”
Perfectly performed harmonies underpin the album’s emotional currents. The trio builds guilt, frustration, and hope into the project’s backbone to create a coming-of-age story. “There was a moment when we understood what the album was about. There were separate songs that we found homes together through playing them live,” says Chipouras. “‘Palm Readers’ feels great right after ‘Restless.’ And those songs then became a pair. Their energies matched. The coming-of-age narrative emerged from the time period that the songs were written.”
Restless sprouts from the cracks between each song. Where “No Receipt” meanders through sun-caked uncertainty, the cheeky “Dishes” sees the band accepting domestication and finding peace. Along the way, they agonize over being present while time yanks them this way and that – the pressure that comes from being a working musician crushes their shoulders. The album, based on a “period of leaving college, going out on our own, starting a band, going out on the road, and just trying to figure out what the life of a musician looks like,” captures brutal truths of living, loving, and losing time.
Hopping on a Zoom call, Palmyra spoke to BGS about feeling restless, reenergized creativity, and mortality.
What is it about the title track that made sense to be the opener?
Sasha Landon: It made a lot of sense for us to have this song that starts with the three of our voices kicking off the record. Also, it is a song that has a through line to the record from the jump. The emotional center for this record is pretty heavy. And that’s not to say that there’s not a lot of light in the record. I think there’s a lot of fun on it, as well. But the overall emotional center is pretty heavy and restless, felt like a good way to jump into that.
In “No Receipt,” you lament that there just isn’t enough time. As you’ve gotten older, what’s your relationship with time been like?
Mānoa Bell: That’s the central theme of, not only the record, but questions we’re always asking ourselves. Specifically, the last line there about finding those quieter moments has proven to be such a challenge, to put it all to the side. Being an artist is such a consuming experience. Every moment of your day is a part of that journey and it can be hard to have separation from it, which is a really beautiful thing, but frustrating at times as well. You can’t get away from it.
“Can’t Slow Down” deals with a similar thematic thread. How did this one come together?
Teddy Chipouras: This one was a song that I wrote after a couple of years of not writing songs. I don’t think I wrote hardly any songs during COVID. This tune kind of came out all at once after being fed up with not writing anything for a while, and I think we had just gotten off the road. It was kind of like just throwing words at the page of how I was feeling at the time, just feeling exhausted.
That one’s funny, because it was a really big moment for me and I felt very accomplished that I had written something and finished something. I remember being nervous to send it to the band and then really not thinking anything would come from it. I did not think we would be playing that song every night. It’s one of those tunes that has changed meaning, or it means more to me now than it did when I wrote it.
“Buffalo” roots itself in a phone call during a show in Buffalo after one of your friends had taken their own life. Was this song a necessary cathartic exercise?
MB: There are songs that you try to write and then there are songs that you just have to write. I remember very clearly writing the beginning of it and immediately feeling better. It was a very therapeutic experience, not feeling good but feeling better. It’s a song that’s still hard to play. I feel a responsibility to try to connect emotionally with it every time we play it and not just phone it in. Sometimes, when you’re on stage, you’ve done something so many times, there’s a muscle memory aspect to it. But that song never really feels like muscle memory.
When someone dies, you begin questioning your mortality. Did that happen to you?
MB: I think suicide, specifically, when it’s someone who you see yourself in, and someone who you grew up with, makes you wonder what life would be like without them. It’s not just suicide. It’s just about loss and grief. There was never a point where I was like at such a level of grief that I didn’t want to continue living. But it definitely makes you wonder what life will be like moving forward.
The closing track, “Carolina Wren,” feels like a big sigh to let all the things on the record go. Why does it appear as primarily the demo you recorded?
SL: [Producer] Jake Cochran did such a great job of trying to make sure that the songs sonically matched their emotional core and that the version of the song that we were putting out felt really authentic to the lyrics and our live performance of it. This was a tune that I hadn’t played for anyone in the band yet. I wrote it right before we went to the lakehouse [to record] and played it on a whim. I think Teddy was out getting groceries or something and Jake pressed record. Mānoa is holding the bass and I think plays one note on it, and I am playing guitar and singing. We just felt, after hearing it, there was a consensus that that’s how the song is supposed to exist. It’s how it’s supposed to sound.
And Jake helped us get there, too. With some songs, like “Shape I’m In,” for example, we had to be mindful of how many performances we gave it before we exhausted it and weren’t going to get any more. When you have a song that takes a lot emotionally to perform, you can only do it so many times before it loses its meaning, or becomes muscle memory, or just wears you out from overuse. We had one take that felt earnest. It speaks to the song. It honors the song in a good way and it belongs as it is. Then we decided that it made sense as the last tune on the record. It is a nice little breath at the end.
What have been the biggest realizations you’ve had of being working musicians?
MB: I think maybe for me, I’ve learned that there’s kind of an endless amount of resilience needed. You’re constantly faced with just things you need to get through, to solve. I don’t even know if I would call that a music thing, though. I think that’s just like a growing-up thing.
TC: One thing for me is I didn’t realize how hard it would be to find creative time when you’re a full-time creative. We are full-time musicians, we’re on tour a lot of the time, and then we get home and there’s a lot of work to do. It’s almost harder to schedule the creative time than it is to schedule the work. I never thought it would be hard to find that balance.
Did this album change you in any way?
MB: This record showed all three of us that there was another level to get to and that there are endless places of growth that we will find. I think we dug deep as a band and it has continued to be rewarding for those reasons. The further we dig, the better it is. It does just keep getting better.
With the release, the songs no longer belong to you, but the world. What’s that experience?
TC: It will be interesting to see how this one feels, because this one feels bigger than our previous projects. We talk about this a lot with our songs going through different phases of us letting them go. I think the biggest one for me of letting songs go is starting to play them live. We’ve played all of these songs live before for a while. That moment, for me, is the biggest in terms of feeling like releasing full control of it, and it becoming the world’s and not ours anymore.
MB: We haven’t released something at this level before, so I don’t know. I’m excited to see how it feels releasing the whole project. Last year’s release was an EP. I think that if I’m defining what feels different about an EP versus an album, it’s like Teddy saying that this feels bigger than anything before; it’s the amount of energy we put into creating the music – the amount of energy we’ve put into getting it out to people. It’s just like we’re putting so much behind it.
SL: I’m so excited to see, to know that a listener’s first experience of Palmyra could be Restless, that the first thing that they hear is something that of all of the music we’ve put out, we have been proud of, and has been a really good snapshot of where we are at the present time.
Artist:Sterling Drake Hometown: Philipsburg, Montana Latest Album:The Shape I’m In (out May 2, 2025 via Calusa Music/Missing Piece Records) Personal Nicknames (or rejected band names): “Sterl Haggard”
If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?
Roots country and folk music have a way of bringing people together. These songs carry the stories and wisdom of those who came before us, reminding us of what we share across generations. Music can open hearts, challenge perspectives, and create space for vulnerability. I’m especially grateful for the chance to use my platform to advocate for the land, the people who depend on it, and the importance of mental health both in rural communities and beyond. Whether playing for a small gathering or a big crowd, I see music as a way to keep these stories alive and inspire connection.
Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do they impact your work?
I live in a small town in Granite County, Montana, where the land is mostly ranches and public wilderness and things are luckily untouched by urban sprawl. The Rockies and the high desert ranges are the place I like to go to in my mind. Although music is my main focus at this time in my life, I spend a lot of time outdoors. Horseback, hiking, camping, skiing, and helping out the neighbor in the branding pen. Being outside is part of my daily life, and it helps keep me grounded.
Genre is dead (long live genre!), but how would you describe the genres and styles your music inhabits?
I consider my music “roots” in the broadest sense. It draws from the deep well of American musical traditions: country, folk, Western, bluegrass, Western swing, and even Irish traditional. At times I may lean more on traditional country and honky-tonk and other times I may feel inspired by something else, and I enjoy the creative flexibility. At its core, it’s about storytelling, connection, and carrying forward the sounds and ideas that have shaped generations before me.
Which artist has influenced you the most – and how?
Willie Nelson has influenced me the most. He pulls from so many corners of American music – jazz, blues, folk, Western swing – but no matter what he’s playing, it always feels country, always feels Western, and always feels like Willie. He never let genres box him in, and that’s something I really admire. His approach to songwriting, storytelling, and even the way he plays guitar has shaped how I think about music.
A close runner-up would be Roger Miller. He had this effortless looseness and wit in his writing that made even the simplest songs feel unique. He never took himself too seriously, but was still a master of his craft. That balance between depth and playfulness is something I aspire to carry into my own music.
What’s one question you wish interviewers would stop asking you?
Interviewers will sometimes ask artists the question, “When did you know you were talented, or when you were a musician?” It makes it sound like creating music is something only a few people are born to do, when in reality, it takes years of work, dedication, and a willingness to keep learning. More importantly, it makes artistic expression seem out of reach for most people, when creativity exists in everything we do. Music isn’t about being chosen, it’s about choosing to put in the time and effort to make something meaningful.
They may be called The Lil Smokies, but the bluegrass bangers birthed by the band originating from Big Sky country are anything but small.
Formed in the late 2000s when the group’s current sole remaining original member, Andy Dunnigan, began bringing his Dobro to picking parties during his college days in Missoula, Montana, the Smokies have gone on to become one of the West’s most captivating modern-day string bands, as they release their fourth studio album, Break Of The Tide.
Out April 4, the album is the Smokies’ first since 2021’s critically acclaimed Tornillo and features new band members, bassist Jean Luc Davis and banjoist Sam Armstrong-Zickefoose, for the first time. They’re joined by the core of Dunnigan, fiddler Jake Simpson, and guitarist “Rev” Matthew Reiger. According to Reiger, who joined the Smokies in 2015, his nickname stems from a life changing trip to California’s High Sierra Festival in 2007, where he earned the label for his love of the Stanley Brothers and gospel music. When he later joined the band, the name stuck, due to him sharing first names with their banjo player at the time, Matt Cornette.
“High Sierra changed the whole course of my life,” Reiger tells BGS. “It was at that festival that I made the decision to drop out of music school, grow out a band, get a band and most importantly, set out on a path to create a life where I really enjoyed the music I played instead of the academic pursuits. We made it back to the festival 10 years later to play it for the first time in 2017, so it’ll always have a special place in my heart.”
Ahead of the release of Break Of The Tide we caught up with Reiger to talk about the four-year process of bringing the album to life, recording in Texas, and the band’s separate lives while not together on the road.
What’s it been like for you, first joining an already well-established band and then welcoming two new members into the fold in recent years now with plenty of experience with the Smokies under your belt?
Matthew Reiger: It was a fast moving train when I jumped into the band. I had a decent place in Seattle at the time that I sublet to abandon everything I had and jump aboard. At the time we played and moved a lot faster. It was an incredible ride at the beginning and has been the whole way through, but what I love is the steady progression from runaway train to a rowboat on a gentle pond, which musically is more of where we’re at right now. This new record is as honest as anything we’ve ever recorded. Most of the songs were slowed down a bit, which is a good metaphor for how we are as people now.
Right now is about as introspective and pensive a time that I’ve ever experienced. A lot of people are making changes and finding a new path forward after COVID and the instability that ensued. For example, I recently started practicing with a metronome, not trying to play faster, but rather to see how slowly I could play a song. I want to see just how slow and deliberate I can play the song of my life. When you do that you find some challenging points where it’s not all bouncy, happy, and driving forward. The stillness is sometimes unnerving, but I’m happy we’re going through it on this record.
In that regard, [producer] Robert Ellis played a big role in slowing things down, especially on my songs. The way he heard the songs was perhaps even more honest than I heard them. It was quite a display of skill and artfulness on his behalf.
This was the second album in a row you’ve gone to Texas to record, following 2021’s Tornillo with Bill Reynolds at Sonic Ranch. What made y’all want to head back there to record with Robert at Niles City Sound this go around?
It was all for Robert. I’d fly anywhere in the world for the opportunity to work with him. He likes to produce the records he works on in Texas and I don’t blame him. We also recognized the impact of using a familiar place and equipment to a producer. On Break Of The Tide I probably played four guitars and there were a couple more involved beyond that. I think there’s a special alignment between instruments and the places where they live – they’re all there for a reason. It could be a big deal or seemingly innocuous, but there’s a reason they’re in that space and I think you can create some really cool things in those environments. That really came through on this record.
As we mentioned previously, Break Of The Tide is the Smokies’ first record since 2021. Was that four-year gap intentional and a byproduct of what you said earlier about slowing down, or is it due to something entirely different?
COVID, the resulting instabilities, and the band’s general desire to slow down were all factors, but if I had to pick a standout factor it’d be all the uncertainty within the touring music world. Just finding the time, money, and other resources necessary to continue doing that in the midst of a global shakeup was on our minds. It has taken every bit of determination and willpower I can muster – and I’m sure the rest of the guys would agree, too – to keep playing and stay together as a group. Adding an album to that was too much for us for several years and once you summon the courage to go do that you have the arduous process of working through the business side of things and everything that goes into making a record that’s non-musical.
You just touched on some of the struggles and the grind of being a touring musician, especially these last few years. Are those things y’all are singing about on songs like “Lately” and “Keep Me Down” from this new record?
You’re spot-on. I don’t think there’s any way to explain how challenging it is to juggle one’s personal life and touring. It is something I didn’t understand until I did it. The size and shape of the pieces you have to make the puzzle are always changing. It takes a radical toll on who you are at home, even when you’re not touring. You have this recovery period, you have this social adjustment, you have this relationship adjustment, and it’s sort of like you’re always jumping onto or off of a moving treadmill. Going on tour is like jumping on the moving treadmill since you often stumble because everything’s moving so fast, but then when you return home you have to slow down that uncomfortable pace and hop off the treadmill, which feels weird at first even though you’re hopping back onto stable ground since you’re so conditioned to running at full speed. Because of that there’s a lot of picking yourself up each time you go on tour and each time you come home, which is something both those songs touch on.
Similar to what we just talked about with “Lately” and “Keep Me Down,” it seems like “Break Of The Tide” and “Bad News Babe” are sister songs about being there for people you love while also knowing when to cut them off. Your thoughts?
I love the term “sister songs!” Like we talked earlier, touring takes a huge toll on personal relationships. I’ve said before that my first marriage isn’t to the Smokies or touring, but to music in general. It’s my first partner and has been for a long time. It takes a very special person to be in a relationship with someone who already has a partner, though it’s all very trendy in the coastal areas. [Laughs]
“Break Of The Tide” in particular is a song about feeling powerless, which is one of the biggest struggles we can face, and how it’s difficult to help those you love and even harder to walk away and recognize you can’t save them when those situations arise. Sometimes you just have to walk away to protect everyone involved, including yourself, which is oftentimes easier said than done.
We’ve been talking about the sacrifices of being a touring musician, but I’m also curious about your sacrifices within the band, particularly the miles between y’all being spread out in Seattle, Montana, Oklahoma, and Colorado. How has that affected how you operate together as a group?
It certainly makes it harder to get together and practice. [Laughs] I live just west of Seattle on Vashon Island, which is a 24-mile existence with a lot of retired folks. Everything’s a little slower than you expect and there’s a lot of hippie stuff going on – like I have a shower in my backyard. It’s super rural with a lot of farms, but it’s also just outside Seattle. Driving my car there is a little tricky, because I have to hop on a boat, but there’s ways to cross on a ferry and get to the city in 45 minutes to an hour. You have to put in some work to get there, which is what I love not only about this island, but the band as well.
It’s important for us all to feel like ourselves when we’re not on tour, because it’s a lot of costume-wearing when we are out on the road. Having that separation makes it easier to go back out on tour with more energy once it’s time to throw the costumes back on and jump in the van with a bunch of crazies for a while.
From the title of this record, Break Of The Tide, to songs like “Sycamore Dreams,” nature’s influence can be heard throughout the project. How would you say the outdoors informs The Smokies’ sound?
In some ways I think you could argue that nature is the only muse. There’s something so powerful about the ocean that I love. It’s the biggest thing in the world and connects nearly every point in it. In order to write in the way that I want to I have to be able to feel small and insignificant, and there’s nothing quite like an ocean to remind us just how small we all are and to be grateful for that. Because of that I’ve written very few songs that didn’t mention water.
What has music, specifically the process of bringing this new record to life, taught you about yourself?
I’ve spent most of my life trying to write music, but something that I’ve come to see – especially these past few years and what I hear on this record – is that the best art is not so much written, it is captured, and in order to do that you have to practice your listening. Writing and working on things is great, but in the end you have to turn off the metronome, stop thinking and just listen. That’s where you’ll find the beauty in every facet of life, not just in music.
Kentuckian singer-songwriter Kelsey Waldon has announced her upcoming album, Every Ghost, (June 6, Oh Boy Records) with – you guessed it! – a song about a pickup truck. Do not worry your pretty little heads, though, as this is a truck song that’s definitely Good Country.
“Comanche” text paints a common image in country, long languid drives down rural backroads in your favorite truck. Your four-wheeled security blanket, your best friend with a tailgate. (Watch the brand new music video above.) Listeners can imagine riding along with Waldon, in the passenger seat, down some gravel track in far Western Kentucky, as she hums the tune, formulates the hook, and builds the song around her relationship with her trusty 1988 Jeep and the contemplations that keep her company as she drives. Did she write it while behind the wheel? If not, it certainly sounds that way.
Waldon has no concerns about her “authenticity” or being perceived as dyed-in-the-wool country; she’s been exactly who she is her entire life, and certainly her entire musical career. She leverages this confidence to take up a tired radio trope – the quintessential truck song – and turn it into something earnest, relatable, engaging, and somehow brand new. It’s a perfect song to take into the summer, for rolling the windows down, sipping a cold (soft) beverage out of a glass bottle, and blasting Good Country as the miles fly beneath the floorboards.
“Comanche” is an excellent debutante ball for the upcoming Every Ghost, a nine-track album that promises to continue Waldon’s penchant for real, raw, original country that’s not too concerned about being mainstream or outlaw, “legit” or “poser.” The Kentucky native doesn’t make music or write songs for that reason, anyway. For Waldon, it’s all about expression. About finding a thread that feels grounded, down to earth, and emotive and pulling for all its worth. Doing so, she untangles plenty of simple and resonant songs that straddle alt-country, bluegrass, mainstream sounds, old-time, and much more. “Comanche,” on the surface, is a truck song, but even a moment with the lyrics shows the subjects it turns over are much more complex and in-depth.
This kind of creative work isn’t the only thing she’s been hauling. Every Ghost finds the artist challenging herself and growing beyond the sonics, production, and recordings, too. “There’s a lot of hard-earned healing on this record,” Waldon shares via press release. “I’ve put in the work not only to better myself and leave behind bad habits, but also to learn to love my past selves. It took time and experience, but I’ve come to find compassion for who I was, and that’s a major part of this album.”
Waldon’s music has always been honest, it’s always been confident, but Every Ghost still feels like the dawning of a new era. Where that honesty and confidence are underpinned by a fresh sense of ease and a trust in herself. Like the trust she has in her reliable old friend, the Jeep Comanche.
In the wake of several viral country songs released in 2023 – most notably the ill-conceived pair of Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” and Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” – renowned author and country journalist David Cantwell penned an essay for TIME magazine with an absolutely stunning (while quite simple) observation included. Cantwell considered place, citizenship, and ownership. To whom does the “small town” belong?
“…For most of today’s country fans that small town isn’t TV’s tiny Mayberry; it’s a suburb or exurb of some decent-or-giant-sized metro,” Cantwell explains. “I wish more country songs would talk about that proximity, how city folk and small-town folk flow back and forth for work and fun – and are very often the same people.”
And are very often the same people. Humans don’t live their lives along strict, black-and-white boundaries and borders – no matter how often society attempts such demarcations. Our lives are lived in the gray, in the blurry in-betweens, as collections of many disparate and often dichotomous parts.
Singer-songwriter Olivia Ellen Lloyd is just such a person, caught up in the nebulous purgatory between rural and urban, city folk and country folk, doing it for herself and doing it for ambition. Her brand new independent album, Do It Myself, finds Lloyd with a sense of confidence that could only be earned through a hard-working, bootstraps approach to making music – a mindset that, whether within or outside the arts, is well known to West Virginians like herself.
After a stint living in Nashville, Lloyd returned to New York City, following up 2021’s fantastic Loose Cannon with the heartfelt, sensitive, and often point-blank songs of Do It Myself. Like Loose Cannon, this material is danceable, country, honky-tonkin’, and bluegrassy while it boasts deft and majestic moments of WV DIY, punk, and rock and roll. After crisscrossing the country proffering her art, Lloyd seems to have realized that being both a city person and a country person is never a drawback, it’s a superpower. Having her feet in NYC, her heart in West Virginia, and her work anywhere and everywhere, Lloyd has clearly determined it’s not a dilution of the “authentic” or roots-music-ready facets of herself to straddle these arbitrary borders and own that duality.
As a result, Do It Myself is remarkably successful. Like Hazel Dickens in D.C. or Dolly Parton in Nashville or Tina Turner in Memphis, Lloyd has found her voice and found herself not by running from who she thinks she can’t be anymore, or editing out the parts of herself that don’t seem to “fit” with country tropes and perceptions of good ol’ American rurality. Instead, she’s reached this current era of music making by resting easy – or not so easy, at times – in the knowledge that the best she can do as a singer-songwriter-artist is to be herself, whoever that is, in the truest format possible at any given time.
We began our BGS Cover Story interview by discussing that ongoing search for herself and how that particular journey shows up throughout Do It Myself – in the lyrics, sonics, and beyond.
It feels like your music in general, whether we’re talking about Loose Cannon or the new album, Do It Myself, you’re most often turning over the idea of finding yourself – and not that that’s a static thing to be found. It’s not that you find it once and you’re done finding it. Your music orbits around these questions of, “Who am I? Is this me?” I feel that really strongly in this record. So, as you’re releasing this album I wondered, who is the self you have found? And how goes the search for yourself?
Olivia Ellen Lloyd: I think what’s really interesting is I don’t know that I would’ve put a finger on that until recently. I’ve also come around to the understanding that that is what my music has done, which is help me come back to myself and find myself. I would say it’s currently going pretty well, but boy it has been a journey to get there.
I think writing this record, I was much closer to her – to me – when I started writing this record, but I wasn’t as close as I thought I was. It’s taken not only writing it and realizing that I wanted to put it out and all that stuff, but also deciding to self release it and deciding to continue to champion my own work where I’ve truly found that. That, “Oh there she is!” [feeling]. I feel very recently like I have arrived at the person that I’ve been looking for and that’s exciting and also really scary, because boy, has most of my work orbited around, “What the fuck happened? How did we get so lost?”
I once was lost, but I’m pretty found lately.
How do you feel about writing songs that are so personal and that are so much about growth, introspection, and questioning and then having to carry them around on your back for a year or two or three on tour – or for the rest of your life! How does that process feel to you or that emotional or mental understanding?
Interestingly, at least with my first record, I think I wrote often with no aim, so there were no expectations. I mean it’s funny, Justin, because you are one of the few people in the music industry and in my music world who knew me when I was writing many of these songs, but not performing often. The process of writing was very much a way to try and tune into this inner voice that I’ve been learning to listen to. It was an attempt to get in touch with myself, which I really have struggled to do for various reasons throughout my life.
I think I’m also quite an impulsive person, historically, and I have a lot of tattoos – a lot of stupid tattoos – and I kind of think of these songs, especially the personal ones that no longer represent [me like tattoos.] I don’t drink anymore really – I wouldn’t say that I’m sober, but drinking is not a big part of my life anymore – and all of Loose Cannon and much of this record involves talking about those moments in my life. But I have this tattoo of a possum drinking a High Life. That’s not who I am anymore, but that was a part of how I got here. When I think about these personal songs that involve a lot of myself and a lot of what’s really going on I think, “Well, that’s a part of the patchwork,” but it doesn’t have to be – luckily – the whole story or the end of the story, either.
The way that you’re utilizing so many different roots styles, it’s disarming of a listener, so you can have a danceable, honky-tonkin’ track that’s still lonesome as fuck, tear in your beer. It feels like it can still be very country, very Americana in the way that it is melodramatic, but it still feels grounded in reality.
I think that playing with genre in the same way that we experiment with different sidemen and co-writers is just another tool that we can use. I see a lot of artists, especially right now, there’s just so much pressure to hit. There’s so much pressure to hit on a vibe, hit on a moment. Part of the joy of this is playing in those in-between spaces and finding something unexpected.
Come on, if we’ve got Dolly and Patsy and Loretta, they did a lot of the groundwork so we should get to play around that space! We’re not gonna outwrite or outsing those women, we simply cannot, so the opportunity we have is to explore. I don’t wanna go back. I don’t wanna go back to any type of past anywhere. The future is scary for me, but I’m really curious about what could come next, after those things, and how we can develop those sounds.
You’ve spoken on social media and on microphone about your approach to genre and how so much of it comes from growing up in West Virginia having this agnostic approach to genre aesthetic, on a practical day-to-day level. You’re doing West Virginia music, you’re bringing in Nashville, you’re bringing in New York City. Can you talk a little bit about that?
For the first record I got the feedback that you can hear the country and the city kind of intermingling together and someone was like, “This [new] record feels like so much more New York.” I think I understand where people are coming from, but actually I think what’s happened is I built a musical community in New York City around bluegrass, which I think is one of the great community music forms. It is a great way to bring people together. I’m so grateful that I knew a bunch of those songs and then I got better with those songs and then I met people who were passionate about that music. But actually, this record was more about digging into the sounds that I grew up with. I grew up going to DIY punk shows, I grew up with my dad listening to the Grateful Dead, the Band, some Jerry Jeff Walker, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
I think this record really returns to a landscape that’s more true to how I was raised, which was eclectic, a little bit daring, and a little bit more rock influence. I think I’ve been quoted once and I’ll say it again, I think the reason that the places in West Virginia gravitate more towards that kind of music is because music got gentrified and country became this bizarre fascist, patriotic propaganda wing of the Republicans and of government.
If you are not one of those things, if you were not a kid who could afford to go to Berklee and you were not somebody who was all that proud to be a fucking American in the 2000s, you likely grew up listening to a lot of that. Especially in rural places, you likely grew up listening to a lot of punk, a lot of rock, a lot of indie pop. Like many people do, I walked way far away from that stuff and dug into the roots of country and folk and bluegrass. I swirled around in that stuff for so long, and then I came back to myself; I came back to the first music that really inspired me and felt less academic.
In my opinion, the most interesting part is all of those genres coming together. I do think that I’m very wary of anybody who talks about “good folk music” or “real bluegrass” or anything like that, because typically some very nice man in a fisherman sweater in New England has told them [to think that way]. I learned to like music the way that most normal people learn, I just listened to it and I didn’t worry about whether I was listening correctly or not. I think we gotta return to that.
Community has come up multiple times already in our conversation and I know how important community is to you – how pivotal it’s been in your musical career. How do you balance the “doing it for yourself” with the “doing it with community”? How do you do it for yourself and trust yourself and give yourself permission to be who you are and take up space to do it your own way, while also being a member of a community and doing it for the collective at the same time?
Have you been listening to my therapy conversations? [Laughs] I struggle with deep individualistic tendencies. I have a tendency to be like, “Fuck it.” That can also be bad. Notably, have yet to accomplish a successful relationship, because of this thing I do. “Fuck it, I’ll deal with it myself. I’ll just do everything myself. I will stop relying on you. I don’t need to rely on anybody for anything.”
I hope it comes through in the music that many of my songs, including “Do It Myself,” include enough self-awareness to know that I’m talking about choices that I’m making and things that I’m doing and they are not always the healthiest choice or the best choice. That’s okay. I think there’s a side of this where, yeah, I have been way too [self-reliant]. As I sit here selling shows out, opening for Jeff Tweedy, and unable to get a booking agent or a manager. Yes, I have isolated myself a little bit too much for people to be paying close attention.
Certainly “doing it myself,” in this context, many people told me to wait to put this record out. Maybe that would’ve made sense for a more reasonable person, but I think this is really important: Your community is everything. You need to be able to trust that the people around you are people who are willing to let you show up like however [you are]. In the last two years, I have focused so hard on surrounding myself with people who I know I can trust to both keep me honest and on my shit and love me through mistakes and they will engage in conflict resolution. They will be gentle with me and like I can do the same for them.
It’s not possible to be self-sufficient, emotionally, creatively, if you do not have a community that supports that in you.
I love that on the album you have “Live With It” back-to-back with “Do It Myself.” I think it’s pretty striking, they’re kind of a reaction or a response to the other – and vice versa. That line, “If this don’t kill me…” feels like such a natural lead in to “Do It Myself.” I wanted to ask you about “Live With It” and also about that placement of those, like bookends.
Thank you for asking about “Live With It.” My producer Mike Robinson is gonna be so happy and that’s his favorite song on the record. I mean, that’s my pandemic [song]. The chorus of that song I wrote during the pandemic. Looking back, it was probably also the worst point in my life for my drinking. I was at a point where I was not in control. Things were so bleak that it was like, what’s the point of trying to slow down or get a handle on it? There was no future to look forward to.
But by the time I finished the song, what I really hoped to accomplish is [communicating that] there are many times in our life where we have a pessimistic view on our own personal outcomes. We’re not really convinced that things could get better and yet there is an interesting tendency with human beings, we just keep going anyway most of the time. I find that to be both very curious and also something that is inspirational in its own way. We can continue to live and survive through unsurvivable things, even when we don’t know entirely why or how. That’s what “Live With It” is about. It’s four people experiencing something that they, for whatever reason, don’t see why they have to live through it or how they’re going to, but they do.
I also love the feel change in “Every Good Man.” So good. It’s nasty. That song is a bit like “Stand By Your Man,” playing with country tropes in a really fun way, but that feel change – I think I made a stank face just listening to it. Can you talk about that one a little bit?
Once again I just have to say, I think a lot of what you hear and the really cool musical stuff is owed to the creative partnership that Mike Robinson and I have. I can’t say enough good things about him. I met Mike at a fucking bluegrass jam and he was playing the banjo, which is like his fourth instrument, you know? I think these days he mostly makes money as a pedal steel player. Everyone is sleeping on his ability to play the acoustic guitar. Like, truly.
I met Mike six years ago now and out of the blue he coached me into a music career. He would deny that, but that is 100% what happened. He bullied me into it. And something I really love is that I can bring songs to him and he finds exactly [how it should sound], especially when he’s excited about the songs. Both “Every Good Man” and “Live With It” were definitely high on his list of loves. He finds these like beautiful moments and we have such a similar [approach], we were raised on the same music. For “Every Good Man,” that feel change came from some moment in a John Prine song.
Another song that I really like – it might be my favorite – is “Knotty Wood.” It feels like country. It feels like church. The lyric, “Who says memories can’t be bought? We always sold ours for a song…” grabbed me. You’re talking about how we compare and contrast and measure ourselves against other people and our perceptions of other people’s lives. “Don’t they look good when you paint over the pain and knotty wood?” It’s such a great hook. I love the imagery of it. I love that it takes me to my grandma’s house. But I feel like it begs the question: Do you ever worry that in synthesizing your experiences, putting them into songs, and taking them to the world that there’s any part of that process that is also “painting over the knotty wood”?
Yes, and my mother would definitely say yes. The genesis of that song actually came from my mother and I growing up in the same small town. I grew up a mile from [where she grew up] and from our home to her childhood home it was less than a mile. That house, my grandparents’ house, I spent probably two days a week there and almost every day after school I walked from my elementary school to my grandparents’ house. It was my home, too.
It got sold after he died, we couldn’t hang onto it. It got sold again during the pandemic by an actually really lovely woman. She started renovating it on Instagram and I watched this place that held generational memories be stripped in some cases to the studs and rebuilt. It was pretty public. I felt a sense of ownership of our place – that I do not factually own and never have – that got me. Being curious about place and home made me think about the journey my grandparents went on to become property owners and to become middle class. And about that moment in the height of prosperity in the ‘50s, all the things my grandparents sacrificed.
I think the song is about thinking about those generational ties, thinking about the things my grandparents sacrificed, and did not sacrifice or did not give away. I’m also thinking about how, especially right now in this weird American moment – “Don’t other people’s lives look good when you paint over the pain and knotty wood” – how many people want to talk about their humble, hardscrabble beginnings without having to actually live them.
There are so many other reasons why it’s taken me so long to get here, why it’s taken me so long to put my songs out. But it all revolved around the generational trauma of growing up relatively poor and with people who had to give up everything in order to get anything.
You can’t have it both ways. You can’t have the small-town, Appalachian upbringing and also have the confidence and gumption of [privilege]. I mean, it’s rare. It happens, but you don’t often then also come equipped with the gumption to believe that you have the right to be a fucking artist. All my grandparents wanted was just a nice home in a small town.
I’ve been hustling, self-promoting my own art and music, and in a desire to attain the things that the people I’m criticizing have attained, we get to the third verse. … The crux of that song is, I think, a way more interesting story than “rags to riches.” It’s middle class to rags.
I mean, my grandparents went to war so they could get an education, right? My grandfather’s nickname was “Bones,” because he was so thin he looked like a bag of bones. The trajectory of their lives into middle class comfort is astounding, and the way that his grandchildren and children are sliding back into poverty is much more so. It’s much more true to what is happening in this country than this “rags to riches” bullshit that we are still being asked to sell, but it’s trickier to talk about.
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