Tag: BGS 5+5

BGS 5+5: Amy Speace

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Artist: Amy Speace
Hometown: originally from Baltimore, Maryland. Currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
Latest album: Me and the Ghost of Charlemagne

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

I remember from way back, because I started playing piano at age 3 (or so the story goes) and started formal lessons at 5, that I could disappear into my own world at the piano, inside the sound. I didn’t understand it but inside music was always this safe space for me.

So it’s hard to pinpoint when I wanted “to be” a musician because my earliest memories are that I was a musician. I just understood music from the start. Not that I didn’t have to work and practice, but it just made sense to me. So I’d chase that feeling back to being too short for my feet to hit the pedals practicing scales on my grandmother’s black upright piano.

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

Definitely all forms of storytelling. I didn’t write a song until I was about 28 but all through my childhood, I wrote poetry and stories and plays. I drew and painted. I read everything I could get my hands on. In college, I was a dual major in English and Theater and got obsessed with Shakespeare, Performance Art and Avant Garde Theater and Improv Comedy.

Then I went to NYC after college to study classical acting at The National Shakespeare Conservatory for two years and for the first time in my life started going to art museums and got lost in the big physical paintings of Pollock and Rothko. I lived in the Lower East Side and in Greenwich Village and really really loved living in that kind of Bohemia in my 20s.

I worked three jobs, one of which was as Lainie Kazan’s assistant on Broadway and in her cabaret shows, where I got the chance to meet so many legends of the theater. I hung out with dancers and clowns and actors and musicians and poets and we were all broke and idealistic and scrappy and I went to every show, every concert, every happening I could talk my way into.

I mean, there’s not really an art form out there that hasn’t moved me to tears and to want to create something of my own in response, from seeing Sondheim on Broadway to a poetry slam in the Lower East Side to my friend dancing burlesque. It all kind of informs whatever soup is all up there in my head, processing the pictures and the emotions and the memories. But when it gets down to pen on paper and crafting a song, I think that’s when film is really my guide: I think like a director/screenwriter/playwright. What’s the entry point in the story? What do you see out there? What’s the landscape like.

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

Easy. That will be the next one I write after I finish this one I’m working on. Because it’s always like starting over at the beginning and I go through all the fears that I’ll never write another good song again and I’ll just sink into the ocean of bad cliches and stolen melodies.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

Probably the earliest, honestly. I was in 8th grade, Curtin Middle School in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. I was a very awkward, permed hair, 14-year-old. Bookworm, nerd, and not really that cool. I had joined chorus for the first time (I didn’t think I was a good singer) because my best friend Laura was a good singer and convinced me to join.

The end of the year the choir did a musical theater revue. I was kind of a class ham, very theatrical, did all the accents, and the choir director gave me a solo doing “Adelaide’s Lament” from Guys and Dolls because I could fake a good thick Bronx accent. I will honestly never forget how I felt when I stepped out onstage and the lights were on me and I disappeared into this character. It felt like the crowd roared and I got a standing ovation and the next day was like a freaking Christmas parade…

I went from being the new kid at school to everyone looking at me as if for the first time. The choir director took me aside and really encouraged me to study voice. She said, “I hear something in there…I think that you have a gift.” And literally, from that moment on, I knew I wanted to be onstage singing. I literally felt like I’d found myself that night.

I’ve had incredible stage moments, like being onstage at Town Hall in NYC opening for Nanci Griffith to a sold-out crowd — and you could hear a pin drop. To playing Gruene Hall with Guy Clark a few years before he died. To the first festival stage I was on at Glastonbury a few years back. Even to some incredible house concerts and small clubs. But that first time, it’s still so present to me, that I think that’s my favorite memory because it was when I first felt that I knew something true about myself.

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

Fascinating question. I don’t hide. I bring me into all the he’s and she’s and they’s and you’s in my song. If I don’t understand the characters’ passion, their desire, I can’t write it. So there’s got to be some autobiography in there, even if it’s masked by someone else’s story, even if it just creeps through two words in a bridge.

If I only wrote about my life and what was going on with me, literally, well, I’d have a short catalogue of songs because my life isn’t that interesting to sustain a career of writing about it. I don’t have time to hike the Himalayas or to be the captain of a ship. I’ve got a 16-month-old and an album coming out and I’ve got to get posters out and keep up with FaceTwittInstaHell. I’m tired. All the time.

Plus I have songs that need to get out and I have literally only the 30 minutes when my son may be napping to get a chorus idea down. So I have to find stories in newspapers or thieve parts of conversations I overhear or steal what you say that rhymes that you don’t even hear the rhyme. I’m always listening for ‘language of lyric’ to show up in my life and then, if I’m lucky and I can catch it, I keep it in a notebook for those naptime writing sessions.

So I may not let on that the “you” is actually “me” but it’s always a little bit of me.

Photo credit: Neilson Hubbard

BGS 5+5: Ana Egge

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Artist: Ana Egge
Hometown: Brooklyn-based, by way of North Dakota
Latest album: Is It the Kiss

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

Well it might go back to my first concert seeing Willie Nelson at the North Dakota State Fair when I was 5 or 6. My parents and their friends all listened to his records. We had a poster on the wall at home with animals wearing cowboy hats that quoted him, saying, “Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys.” And I remember sitting up on my dad’s shoulders watching this gentle man with a long braid sing and play the guitar for so many people all singing and smiling along. I lived in Ambrose, North Dakota. A very small town of fifty people. That made a huge impact on me.

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

I love to read. One of the songs on my new record was inspired by Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, and what a powerful, deeply felt love story it is! The love between Teacake and Janey practically jumps off the page. I’ve just recently had my mind blown by the insane talent of Anton Chekhov and his short stories.

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

That’s a good question. It might be “Bully of New York” from the album Road to My Love. It took me about three years to finish that one. And I knew it was so special from the get-go. Sometimes they take a little while, but I couldn’t figure out how to differentiate between the three characters in the song. It’s a true story about hitching a ride with a park ranger in Central Park in the rain and him sharing his stories of his hard life with me while I was daydreaming of my new girlfriend. So many are silently suffering. Lend an ear and you might just lessen the loneliness for a moment.

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

I’ve always wanted to be an artist and a musician. I’ve always wanted to be a good person and to build and make things and share them with people and maybe, just maybe, bring people together in that. To quote Barry Manilow, “I write the songs that make the whole world sing, I write the songs of love and special things, I write the songs that make the young girls cry, I write the songs, I write the songs.”

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

I like this question. I feel like my head is so often in the clouds that it helps when I slow down. So air, breathing. And earth, when I get grounded or think of being grounded. It is part of the work.

Photo credit: Shervin Lainez

BGS 5+5: Bug Martin

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Artist name: Bug Martin
Hometown: Philadelphia, PA
Latest album: GUTTERBALL
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): formerly known as Dead Bugs

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

Undoubtedly there have been a select few at different points in my life and work, but I’ll say Will Oldham has been a notable influence on me. He occupies a very specific corner of folk, or Americana — or “new weird America” or whatever you want to call it — that can be hard to pin down (as evidenced by the game of horseshoes I just played with genres there). [He] always takes on the task of exploring sound in unique ways.

The first record of his I ever heard was I See a Darkness, the title track of which Johnny Cash later did a version of with him. I listened to I See a Darkness at the recommendation of a friend and didn’t like it for a long time. I’d walk around at work with it playing in my headphones just having an all-around bad time; but there was something about it that continued to draw me back. I’d be thinking about what that unnameable glinting thing was way too much while I was listening to it. Eventually I learned to lean back and appreciate the joy of not knowing the answer.

Years later, I got to meet Will and heard him give a lecture to a very intimate crowd, maybe only 30 people, about topics like what songs are, the songwriting/recording process, and live performance. I asked him a question I had been pondering a while and he gave me an unsatisfying answer. Brought me right back to where I’d originally found him and that initial journey of un-learning and for that I’m forever grateful.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

In the town I grew up in there were lots of loud and lively bands. It’s the common plight of the up-and-coming acoustic act; show up to a bar or venue and play your heart out while folks zone out or talk over you. I always saw all these electric bands come through town that tried to command attention through volume and were also unsuccessful and it got me to thinking.

The next time I played, I brought a few power strips and as many electronics as I could fit in the car — I’m talking toasters, Christmas decorations, a TV looping a muted Looney Tunes VHS while I was playing… pretty much anything that I had in my house at the time to spare. I plugged all of it in around me and turned everything on while I was playing. It was probably the quietest that place had ever been as a room full of people collectively tried to figure out what was going on.

A thunderstorm rolled in and the whole room was pretty much dark and silent except for the glow of all these unnecessary electric props and what I was singing. After the set was over, people came up and talked to me about things they had just noticed in those same songs that I had played a dozen or so times in that same venue. I was glad they were able to be mindful of something going on in front of them and connect with live music. I was gladder still that I didn’t short out the entire fuse box mid-set.

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

My job is to be a conduit for whatever stories the ghosts around us have to tell. When I’m presented with an idea from wherever it is thoughts come from, I can give my opinion on it in a song but that doesn’t mean I can claim any ownership or that the story is mine. Thoughts don’t belong to or define the thinker.

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

My partner is a very talented abstract painter, so our studio space and home are full of visual works. In the past we’ve collaborated on work where, say, the title of a song will be the inspiration for a painting or I’ll meditate on a piece of theirs and try to capture feelings that the colors or forms stir up. It’s a great exercise to shake up patterns you fall into as an artist.

Besides that, I’m a film buff and a fairly avid reader. I had the pleasure of working recently with a friend of mine who is a dancer to create choreography to a song off of GUTTERBALL. Basically I have no allegiance to any specific medium of expression and recognize that inspiration is everywhere if I have the good sense to accept it.

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

Living? I’d happily make brunch for Alice Gerrard any day she’d let me. All-time? I’d take the Carter Family out for ice cream.

Photo credit: Mia Fiorentino

BGS 5+5: Elaina Kay

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Artist: Elaina Kay
Hometown: Wichita Falls, Texas
Latest album: Issues
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Laines, EK

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

The first thing that comes to mind for some reason is being on stage when I was 10 years old. One of my first times on stage and my whole family was there. I was singing to a tape, yes a cassette tape. All of a sudden it just stopped in the middle of my song. The MC quickly got it playing again as he joked about it.

From that moment I learned how to smile and recover. It reminds me of life. Show business is a lot like that. It’s not a steady path or always perfect, but that is what made me fall in love with it. That is what made me know nothing could keep me off that stage.

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

The toughest time I ever had writing a song was when I wrote about my biological father. It really was a small memory I buried back into the back of my brain, but that’s how I knew it had to be written. That is why I write. To overcome something, to have more of an understanding, or just to get close to it for a while so I become at peace with it. That is what I did with that song, even though it was uncomfortable.

It was also hard because I got a lot of resentment and hate from people who didn’t like the story I told in the song. I was even afraid to put it out for a while. Then I realized this is MY story, MY song. I didn’t start writing to only sing about the happy times. That isn’t genuine. I am real, and I want real listeners, real fans. It can be difficult taking that risk.

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

I grew up on a working cattle farm and ranch. My favorite days are the ones I get to be horseback. There isn’t a better way to connect with nature in my opinion, than being on a live animal, in the country. I was fortunate enough to spend many days working side by side with my family on the ranch, and also competing in cutting competitions and rodeo. Farming and ranching is a lifestyle, just like music is a lifestyle. My music has greatly been impacted and inspired by it, and always will be. I think about being on horseback every single day.

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

I love watching and listening to stand-up comedy. The good ones are brilliant. It’s about writing, but the delivery is so important. Just like music.

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

BEAR DOWN.

Photo Credit: Cal Quinn & Aly Faye

BGS 5+5: Spirit Family Reunion

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Artist: Spirit Family Reunion
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Mag, Kendo, Pank, Zuba, the Stiv.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

There are many treasured stage moments to choose from, like collaborating with some of the biggest inspirations for our band, but probably the most transformational moment was our first performance at the Newport Folk Fest on Sunday morning 2012. It’s hard to put into words what made that moment so special, but it was as if all these enormous things like years of passion, dedication, exhaustion, the music, which has a life of its own, the history of that festival, and so many more elements were all being crystalized into what felt like one single moment that was so extraordinarily palpable. It was a genuinely special moment that revealed the power in music. Both fleeting and eternally memorable.

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

We had been screwing around playing some haphazard late-night sets at a bar that a couple of us worked at. One weekend this guy Frankie from the bar invited us up to Saugerties, New York, to a big house he was looking after which belonged to the guy from Swans. We gathered some instruments and he put a microphone in front of us, and I think that was the first time we heard ourselves recorded. We maybe had one or two original songs at the time, but it gave us enough encouragement to put some real effort into this thing. We got a few more songs and a few more musicians, and all of a sudden we had ourselves a band.

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

We usually eat a meal together before whatever is next. When our band was beginning we used to get together pretty regularly to make big family feasts. On the road a good meal can reach legendary status, and over the years we’ve gathered up some favored spots we always try to return to. A good meal has a special way of bringing people together.

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

Our band has always been guided by the social nature of music. We want to convey the energy and attitude of the good old stuff that pre-dates the record industry, while being genuine and relevant to ourselves today. The danger of looking back is to fetishize either through absolute preservation or appropriation. We are drawn to the raw, communal, rebellious spirit of the old music we love, and we want to translate that into our own original expression that is vibrant and alive right now. We want people to sing and dance who have no idea of the old stuff we’re referencing, and we want traditionalists to recognize that familiar essence in the music we’re making today.

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

When we got to open for Pete Seeger in 2013 the organizer of the show said Pete requested Chinese food and asked if that was OK with us. We said whatever Pete wants is fine by us, but I think we were far too nervous to eat anything before the show that evening. Pete Seeger has always been a guiding light for our band and it was an unbelievable honor to join with him that night, cold leftovers and all.

Photo credit: Rakel Stammer

BGS 5+5: Davina and the Vagabonds

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Artist: Davina and the Vagabonds
Hometown: Twin Cities, Minnesota
Latest album: Sugar Drops
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Dottie Boots & The Hostiles

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

This question gives me anxiety. It’s so hard for me to pick one. I would say Led Zeppelin for my love of English Blues. Preservation Hall for collective improvisation, horns, and Trad Music. Siouxsie and the Banshees for Siouxsie Sue’s style. Louis Prima for letting me know it’s OK to have a sense of humor on stage and still kick ass at music. Nick Drake for singer-songwriter and Tom Waits for everything.

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

Nature, which I consider art, helps ground me to understand my emotions enough to write. Fashion to give me a certain strength and little “feel boost” when I wear certain things.

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

I find either songs come strangely easily, like “Where the hell did that come?” to being just absolutely never-ending to finish. This new album took me three years to write and arrange. What a head wreck when you can’t write… let me tell you! It’s past frustrating for me; I still have mountains of songs I haven’t finished.

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

Before a show: I sit with myself and put my face on. I hum and listen to music. Before the studio: I just freak out due to being nervous and anxious, drink loads of coffee, run around looking for all my material, making sure it’s prepared, and possible cry.

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

My heart’s on my sleeve. If I’m gonna feel, I’m gonna let you know.

Photo credit: Christi Williams

BGS 5+5: Steelwind

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Artist: Steelwind
Hometown: Oklahoma City
Latest album: Blue

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

We would love to have biscuits and gravy along with sausage, bacon, and fried eggs with the one-and-only Sam Bush, followed by a raging morning jam on the porch. How could you not have a good day after that?

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

When recording we love to set the mood with the lights down low and candles lit — you’d think we were inviting a girl over for dinner. Our go-to delivery food was Chipotle… we love Mexican food! Smoothie King was also near the studio and we became addicted to the almond mocha smoothie with cold brew coffee in it. The more caffeine, the better!

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

One of our new songs called “When We’re Gone” was re-written three or four times. The song started out in a minor key, then we switched it to a major key, and then switched it back to a minor key. By the time we were done it sounded nothing like the original version, but we loved the end result.

As songwriters sometimes we get lucky and write a song in 15 minutes, which happened with “My Baby’s Gone.” However, we really had to grind out “When We’re Gone.” We love how it can relate to everyone’s life, not just ours, which is something we try to do with all our songs. We even had a fan in Germany say it’s his new favorite song!

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

Blake Parks (fiddle) has been influenced most by world-renowned fiddler and resident Oklahoman, Byron Berline. Blake actually learned to play fiddle by watching instructional VHS tapes that Byron had made. Michael Henneberry (guitar) draws a lot of inspiration from Canadian singer-songwriter Fred Eaglesmith. While Steelwind’s songs certainly have their own feel, if you listen closely you’ll likely hear some of Fred’s influence.

Becca Herrod (mandolin) is a die-hard Alison Krauss fan, and her music has beautifully impacted her musical style. Kenny Parks (bass) loves the playing of Mark Schatz, and you can hear him doing bass runs reminiscent of Mark’s style.

Adam Davis (dobro) is a disciple of “Flux” aka Jerry Douglas. Joel Parks (banjo) is a huge John Hartford fan. In fact, the whole band is!

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

While Blake and Michael co-write all of Steelwind’s songs, they discovered bluegrass music at different points in their life.

Blake was around 12 when he went to RockyGrass, a festival in Colorado. It was there he saw musicians his own age playing and enjoying bluegrass music. He then realized it was much more than just music his parents played and was inspired to become a musician himself.

Michael fell in love with bluegrass when he worked as a logger in the New Mexico mountains during his summers off from college. He lived without electricity there, and their main source of entertainment was music. There’s something about mountains and bluegrass that go together, and that’s where it all started with Michael.

Photo credit: Alexa Ace

BGS 5+5: Chely Wright

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Artist: Chely Wright
Personal nickname: Chels

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

I don’t mean to sound like I’m too cool to acknowledge that books, films, and paintings affect me (of course they do), but I think the single biggest influence on the work I do comes from human interaction and my observations of it. I absorb communication (spoken and non-linguistic) between people — whether it’s firsthand or from the sidelines — in the ways that one might go to the Met to see their favorite Degas. I do think, at times, that the way people interact is a form of art, because the composition matters and because it requires context and begs for interpretation.

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

When I was just a little kid, I’d sit in front of stacks and piles of my parents’ vinyl record collection as my mom would curate the playlist of the day. Buck Owens, Loretta Lynn, Emmylou Harris, Bobbie Gentry, Conway Twitty, Hank Williams Sr., Elvis, and The Beatles… those were some of the artists in heavy rotation in our household. I remember being four years old and all I wanted to do was listen to those records. I was learning to read at that time too and my mom would help me as I sounded out the words written in the liner notes. I recall saying to my mom, “I want to do this. I want make my own records.” To which she replied, “You can.” And in that moment I really believed that I could and that I would.

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

Mission Statement: Find joy in every part of the work. The music. The people. The solitude. The airports. The chaos. The struggle. The triumph. The songs. Find The Joy.

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

I try to walk a lot wherever I am. I’ve always cherished the experience of putting my feet down on dirt, gravel, pavement, and stone in places where I’m pretty sure I’ll never walk again. There’s something profound about it for me. Like most folks, I do my best thinking on my walks. Usually, on these walks, I don’t think about melodies or lyrics, but rather, I think about characters. The characters I consider (mostly fictitious) have free reign of my imagination for 1-2 hours to share their monologues or dialogues with me. I remember being a kid on my paper route and doing the same thing. I don’t know why I enjoy it, but I do.

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

I’m not a big foodie and I’ve never answered questions about the intersection of food and art with any style or substance, to be honest. I can say this though– if you give me a night of Rodney Crowell and Joe Henry together on stage, I’d be pretty damn happy with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Photo credit: Matthew Rodgers

BGS 5+5: Chris Staples

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Artist: Chris Staples
Hometown: Seattle, Washington
Latest album: Holy Moly
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Buns, Stapes

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

I would have to say Tom Petty. I fell in love with his albums as a youngster from Florida. His tunes were always about being dumped or being bummed. How did this guy from Gainesville, who probably grew up in a trailer park, make these great songs and become a rock and roll sensation? He was pretty dorky and genuine at the same time. He was from a few towns away from where I grew up and it always filled me with hope.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

So many to choose from, geez. I played a show recently in San Francisco. It was in a top-floor apartment near Chinatown. There were 75 people crammed into this apartment so it was pretty cozy. I had just hurt my back really bad on tour; people helped me carry my gear and merch up four flights of stairs, which was really nice. Everyone was so excited to be there. I could hear a soft rain through the open windows of the apartment, as well as sounds from the city drifting by. It just felt magical for some reason.

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

I watch a lot of documentary film. I just watched a great doc called Los Angeles Plays Itself. It’s about the many filming locations in L.A. that have been used across decades of film and in different genres. The documentary makes the assertion that L.A. is a character in many films that does not mirror reality. It delves into some of the darker truths about the city. Great film, but it’s also a look into the mind of a director with a sort of twisted perspective.

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

Usually before a show I try to find some time to walk around outside and get some fresh air. Sometimes I try to find someone at the show that reminds me of an old friend. Someone who makes me laugh or seems interesting. If I have a 20-minute conversation with a stranger at a show, I forget that I have to play and I’m not nervous at all about playing. For me, it’s the best antidote I’ve found to being nervous. A fun conversation with someone can take me from being almost crippled with nervous energy to being ultra chill. It still amazes me.

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

The opposite happens more often. I write a lot about other people a lot but I say “I.” Sometimes my friends text me and say “I didn’t know you went through a divorce??!!” I have to explain that it’s just a song. The names/places/events can be made up but the sentiment is all real, and universal. I think music listeners are conditioned to think that the singer is the person in the song. It’s just an aspect of this medium that is confusing. I think it’s good in a way for people to wonder but never really know. It’s different for screenwriters or authors. No one emails Stephen King asking if he broke someone’s legs with a sledgehammer. It’s a given that all of his stories are born out of his imagination.

Photo credit: Andrew Shepherd

BGS 5+5: Griffin House

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Artist name: Griffin House
Hometown: Springfield, Ohio; currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee
Latest album: Rising Star
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): “Balls” was my nickname, which is part of why I named my 2013 album Balls. I guess you could say it was kind of like a self-titled album. My friend (when we were younger) thought it was funny to add the suffix “balls” onto everything. All nouns, common and proper, including people’s names. Griff-balls apparently had a nice ring to it, since it stuck. Eventually it was shortened to G-Balls and eventually just Balls. It was fun when that album “dropped.” The jokes were endless.

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

So many influences, but I think probably Woody Guthrie is the greatest. I do a little more singing than I heard him do, being influenced by guys like Bono and Jeff Buckley, but Woody passed down an American tradition to Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Wilco, etc; his songwriting influenced [and] shaped how we’ve all done things. I relate to him particularly being a guy with his guitar traveling all around America and singing and telling stories about what’s going on around him. He really paved the way for all of us modern day troubadours singing any kind of folk songs.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

One of the first shows I played when I started was opening for John Mellencamp. I was so nervous I told the crowd I was going to go back behind the curtain and “When I come back out,” I said, “Can you just pretend like you are all here to see me and go crazy?” They gave me a standing ovation and went wild before I even played a note. On the last song, I did a victory lap around the audience of 5,000 people and high-fived everyone and then finished the last song. I mostly did it because I didn’t know if I’d ever if I’d ever have an opportunity like that again and I wanted to make the most of it (and have a good story to tell). It felt like something you’d see happen in a movie.

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

Lots of film. I love watching movies and disappearing into the scenes that I’m watching. It’s a great escape for me and sometimes inspires a song. Going to museums and looking at paintings and sculpture is a wonderful joy for me too. I also love books; I majored in English Literature in college and learned to really appreciate writing during that time. Poetry and literature probably have the biggest direct influence.

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

I saw Rattle and Hum and wanted to be Bono, circa 1988. [U2] were just so unbelievable. That set the bar pretty high, but I’m also content just making a living, telling my stories, and being a singer and storyteller playing for smaller crowds.

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

“Yesterday Lies.” I think it took me a couple years to write. But the toughest ones were the ones I couldn’t write at all. Every one I finish is easier than the ones that never happened.

Photo credit: Gabe McCurdy