Tag: BGS 5+5

BGS 5+5: Gillian Nicola

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Artist: Gillian Nicola
Hometown: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Latest album: Dried Flowers
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Ginny, Giggy, Giggz

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

This is a really tough question for me to pin down, because I am influenced by so many people. Kathleen Edwards is probably my most influential songwriter. I love her storytelling and how easily she can float between fragility and strength. She was one of the first Americana/Canadiana artists I started listening to and I think her music very much shaped the way I think about songwriting. I am also very influenced by genre-fusing artists like Joni Mitchell and Kacey Musgraves.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

Last year, I performed a small house concert in cottage country in Ontario. We performed the concert on a dock and it was a very beautiful, intimate concert — with a nice summer breeze as the sun was setting. That on its own was magical enough. What I didn’t know at first was that while we were playing, boats were pulling up to watch from the lake. It was such a perfect Canadian scene and I will remember that one forever.

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

I don’t remember this one too clearly, but I’m often told this story by my family. When I was about 4, I was at a family friend’s birthday. In a party mostly full of boys who were playing sports and racing around the room, I took out a chair, sat down, and insisted that everybody stop what they were doing, because I was “going to sing for them now.” Music has always been a part of me — it’s not a firm memory, but rather, an inseparable part of who I am.

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

I think open space and the atmosphere of nighttime is a strong part of my work. I sing about the night a fair bit on my new album (“Night Comes to Call” and “Moonshine”) and write the most during the night. There’s also been a lot of influence from water, mostly in terms of writing about space and distance, and how well that’s reflected through bodies of water.

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

I have a very strict policy of never revealing who a song is about and whether or not it’s a personal anecdote or about someone else. Many of my closest friends don’t know who or what I am singing about (though I’m sure many could take a stab at it) and I prefer to keep it private that way. The only song that I’ve written where I explicitly talk about who the character is on “Across the Sea” off of Dried Flowers.

I wrote this song about one of my best friends who moved to London, England, a few years ago. He is the first person I send new songs to and despite the distance, we have remained very close. It was really nice to be able to write a love song for a friend, instead of from a romantic angle. Other than that, everyone will just have to make their own assumptions, which they probably would do anyways even if I confirmed or denied anything.

Photo credit: Jen Squires

BGS 5+5: Ordinary Elephant

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Artist: Ordinary Elephant
Hometown: Austin, Texas (Sort of. We are nomadic, living on the road full-time in our van/travel trailer set up with our dogs.)
Latest album: Honest
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Extraordinary Eggplant (given to us by a musician friend from San Antonio)

What is your favorite memory from being on stage?

It’s hard to pick one favorite, but there was a night in San Marcos, Texas, that particularly stands out. There is a little bakery/coffee shop that also hosts music. Rather than being background music in a noisy cafe though, it actually turns into a listening room environment with people gathering around the tiny wooden stage, you know, listening. Before we started, we met an adorable 70-something-year-old couple, both retired teachers, who were the type of folks that immediately make you feel like you’ve known them for years.

In the middle of a song during our first set I look over to see them sitting side-by-side on a bench seat, like mirror images, on the same side of a table whose width was intended for a single person, elbows on the table top and chins resting in their hands, with grandparent-proud smiles, creating a moment that made me smile with every part of myself and also close my eyes to keep from forgetting the words.

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

Tea. Moroccan Mint or Ashwagandha for me (Crystal) and Pau D’Arco for Pete. Ideally in a ceramic mug rather than a paper cup (or glass). It’s not just having the tea, but the pouring of the water and the waiting for it to steep — the whole process. It’s grounding and calming. Once it’s done, it’s nice having something to hold. Having mug of tea also makes any conversations we have with new people feel more like… conversations.

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

Be true, to ourselves and the songs. Tell what needs to be told. Don’t compromise. Do what we do, and we will find our community.

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

We are drawn to two opposite environments — areas full of trees, forests, and mossy dirt paths and the desert (particularly New Mexico and West Texas) — and the mountains they can both have. They are both quiet, but in different ways. Forests have the lack of road and city noise, but the desert is a whole other level. It’s like when the electricity goes out and every background hum stops, but turned up to 11. The quiet lets our brains breathe. I am often hypersensitive to noise and can feel overloaded in a sensory sense in loud situations, so these places let me recharge.

There is more than the quiet though. The life and color in a forest and how clean the air feels–there is just something about being tucked inside this and the trees that feels so comfortable and calming that it’s as if it were a home in a previous life. The sunsets and dark night skies in the desert feel sacred.

We have songs about some of these places (e.g. “Before I Go” and “Thank You” from our previous album, Before I Go), but I think nature most impacts our work by letting us do our work.

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

I think we more often do the opposite. This is a transition from earlier writing though, which I think is probably common–start out writing what you know, your own stories, then expanding to tell others’ stories. We’ve learned to not be afraid of embodying a character that we are not, in order to tell a story how it wants to be told.

Photo credit: Olive and West Photography

BGS 5+5: The Felice Brothers

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Artist: The Felice Brothers
Hometown: Palenville, New York
Failed band name: At first we were ‘The Brothers Felice’ but quickly realized that was really dumb.

Answers by James Felice

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

I really enjoy sitting and looking at a photograph with a lot of small details. I also did a lot of reading as a young man. Read the classics, Moby Dick and War and Peace. Those tremendous works of genius that were able to capture both the grand and mundane moments of life equally well.

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

I never knew I wanted to be a musician… I just knew I really wanted to play music. It was a language that always felt very natural and intuitive to me, but I didn’t ever think that I could do it for a living. It never really occurred to me such a thing was possible. I assumed I would become a carpenter like my father. Luckily I was an absolutely abysmal woodworker!

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

Sometimes songs take forever. Hammering away for years at one little idea, trying to mold it into something of value. Usually it doesn’t work out and you wasted hours and hours of your life, but once in a while you get something special, and it makes it all worth it.

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

I photograph insects. I spend a lot of my time very close to these strange creatures, and I enjoy the astounding amount of detail on their tiny bodies. It helps remind me that even the smallest things that no one else cares about can matter the most.

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

Oh all the time! I also do the opposite. I say ‘me’ when it’s actually ‘you’. Usually though, I like to write about people who have a very different life experience from me, I find it exciting and challenging.

Photo credit: Lawrence Braun

BGS 5+5: Patrick Park

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Artist: Patrick Park
Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Latest album: Here/Gone
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Double P, P Diddy, Paddy P

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

My favorite memory being on stage would have to be getting to play at Red Rocks. I grew up in that little town in Colorado and literally looked up the mountain at Red Rocks every single day and could hear the concerts from my room. In high school my friends and I would hike up the hill in the dark and scale the walls to sneak into shows there at least once a week during the summer. So being on the other side, being on that stage and getting to play there was almost like an out-of-body experience.

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

There were so many moments, but one that stands out was when I was probably 8 or 9. I had a guitar teacher briefly in grade school who had a cover band that had a standing gig a few nights a week at dive bar somewhere out in east Denver. Every now and again he would have a night where some of his students got to come up and play a couple songs with his band. I remember I played “Taxman” by the Beatles and “Panama” by Van Halen. Hahaha! We played to basically my parents, the bartender, and a couple regulars, but it was so fun! He let me take the guitar solos, and I remember thinking I would do it every day if I could.

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

Working to understand my true self through music, so as to be less reactive in a reactive world and better serve others.

What is the toughest time you ever had writing a song?

There have been so many tough ones hahaha! Writing is an exercise in letting go as much as it is anything else. For example it becomes difficult anytime I find I am stubbornly clinging to an idea that I want to work but doesn’t. Songs have their own momentum. It’s when you try to control that in some way, or try to force it in a direction that it doesn’t want to go, that you feel stuck. Our lives are the same. One that I especially remember being hard to crack was a song on my third record called “Silence And Storm.” I probably worked on it for six months.

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

Literature probably has influenced my songwriting more than any other art forms aside from music. Dylan Thomas was really inspirational to me early on. How he often used words in ways they weren’t necessarily intended to paint a picture or express a feeling. Rainer Maria Rilke, the way his words implied and circled around something inexpressible to words, but who presence was felt in the spaces.

Photo credit: Mia Kirby

BGS 5+5: Tylor & the Train Robbers

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Artist: Tylor & the Train Robbers
Hometown: Boise, Idaho
Latest album: Best of the Worst Kind

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

It’s so hard to choose just one, I’ve been inspired by so many great songwriters. My first major influence as a kid was Hank Williams Sr. I was introduced to his music through my grandparents record collection and it was a sound I had never heard before. My first songs were heavily infused with his tone. Over the years I’ve drifted from that, but it still serves as an important first step down the songwriting rabbit hole. John Prine was my next big influence and his music has continued to inspire me to this day. I find myself re-listening to his records and finding nuances in his writing that I never noticed before and that to me is the mark of a truly great songwriter.

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

I grew up watching a lot of old Western movies with my grandpa, which played a big role in my writing of the track “The Ballad of Black Jack Ketchum” on the new album. The imagery from the films painted the picture for the backdrop of this song. I also pulled inspiration from the language and storytelling style of Louis L’Amour from his classic series of Western novels.

Honestly though, my biggest inspirations come from other musicians. I love listening to all kinds of different music, new and old, to pull ideas from. I feel like the best way to continue being inspired is to listen to more music.

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

From an early age, I just remember that whenever I was listening to music I had a strong desire to want to play along and learn the songs. My mom played guitar and sang to me a lot when I was kid, she had always wanted to be a musician, but never pursued it. I found one of my mom’s rusty electric guitars in my house and started to try to teach myself to play, which eventually led to my parents getting me my first acoustic guitar. I pretty much knew right then that this is what I wanted to do and I never really turned back. I was really lucky that my mom was always very supportive of my dream and never tried to talk me out of it.

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

Probably the toughest song I have ever written is actually on our new album. “Storyteller” was written back in 2012 when my grandpa passed away, he was a huge part of my life and we lost him at a pretty early age to illness. I wrote the song to help cope with the loss, but couldn’t completely finish it for over five years after his death. Sometimes I feel like that song and the time it took to write it are a literal representation of the time it took me to grieve.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

For years I had a goal to play The Braun Brother’s Reunion Festival. If you’re not familiar with it, it is an annual Americana music festival in Challis, Idaho, with some of Red Dirt/Americana’s best bands. It’s hosted by the Braun family (Cody and Willy of Reckless Kelly, and Micky and Gary of Micky & the Motorcars). They are Idaho natives who took their music to Texas and have thrived in that scene for many years. I went to the BBR for the first time back when I was 18 years old. It was the first time I had seen that much of the music I loved in one place and from that point on, it was my goal to play it someday.

In 2017, a good friend of mine, Jeff Crosby was playing the festival and he reached out and asked if I wanted to come play a Tom Petty song with him during his set. Of course I said yes! He got me up in front of that crowd and on that stage for the first time. He introduced me to the crowd and told them that we were his favorite Idaho band, which meant a lot. It took us a couple years after that, but this year, 2019, the band and I are on the bill for the festival and we can’t wait!

BGS 5+5: Tim Baker

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Artist: Tim Baker
Hometown: St. John’s, Newfoundland
Latest album: Forever Overhead

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

In late 2017 my former band Hey Rosetta played our final farewell shows before going on hiatus, and probably the final one had the most beauty packed into it I can remember being packed into any show before or since. We were a seven-piece sort of scrappy orchestral indie-rock band from St John’s, Newfoundland, that somehow managed to tour off the island and around the world and get awards and make records for 12 years and I have no idea how we did it but our hometown was very proud of us and good to us and the very final show was in the sold-out stadium there. It had so much emotion and love and nostalgia and significance around it that I don’t think my feet touched the ground the whole time, even though I had bronchitis and strep throat or some god-awful combination of classic touring lead-singer afflictions. I sang and played everything powered by 12 years of support and love and it is the brightest and biggest and best memory I have a show.

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

Listen, sing freely, think freely, listen, don’t be too hard on yourself, don’t be too easy on yourself, listen, work, play, and try to have it all help people and do good. By mostly listening.

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

As a Newfoundlander recently resettled in Toronto I spend a lot of time missing and dreaming of nature. And actually this impacts my work a lot. Several songs on this latest record are about moving from a place with easy, instant access to the ocean and the woods, to this grey and glass land of shadows and cars. About trying to get back home, whether literally, or to some forest from our collective past.

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

Well, as a man with a lot of dietary restrictions these days I may be more excited about the dream meal than the company, but I would love the most to sit down with Leonard Cohen himself and eat a grilled cheese sandwich, followed by some handmade raviolis, and then some Montreal smoked meat sandwiches, all there around the corner from where he lived and wrote for so long. And then maybe some coffee and cookies and a walk through the mountain after.

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

You are always doing this. Perhaps it’s a defense when your songs get too personal, or perhaps you don’t want to come off as a narcissist that alienates your audience, but yeah, you do this a lot. But actually it can be kind of nice when you listen to songs years later, when you’ve grown so far from that younger singer, and you feel that perhaps this kid is indeed talking to you, and sometimes even has something to say to you.

Photo credit: Britney Townsend

BGS 5+5: John Smith

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Artist: John Smith
Hometown: Essex, UK
Latest Album: Hummingbird
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Smitty (Joe Henry and The Milk Carton Kids started calling me this around the Invisible Hour recording sessions and it stuck. I like it). Johann Schmidt (when on tour in Germany and Austria). When I first started gigging I had a little outfit of bass, cello, and violin. I called us The Wooden Ducks for about five gigs. Since then it’s been the John Smith Trio. I’ve always admired jazz musicians and to me, the words Trio and Quartet are innately very cool words to use, even for a folkie like me.

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

I remember it took almost a year to write “Great Lakes.” I had the first verse and the chorus but I spent months trying different ideas, looking for the right path and tripping over myself the whole time. That’s what got me into co-writing. I started to share ideas with others which opened up my creative thinking in a new way. Suddenly I felt more receptive even to my own ideas. I finished writing “She Is My Escape” with Joe Henry and then “Great Lakes” revealed itself to me. I’ve been into co-writing since then.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

I used to play electric guitar with David Gray. There was a moment during a slide solo at Red Rocks when the band went quiet. I had a very brief moment of very loud guitar heroism with the sun going down over the mountains and I didn’t screw it up! It’s so easy to screw up a guitar solo though. I think they are often best avoided or attempted alone at home. I played a bum note in the Royal Albert Hall around that time and half the crowd laughed. I had to die a little inside before I was able to see the funny side. My classical musician friend told me, “Darling, you’re no one until you’ve whacked out a spare at the Royal Albert Hall.”

In Amsterdam a guy in the audience asked if he could play and sing a song on my guitar, and he performed a beautiful rendition of one of my own. That was a kind of magic. It’s one thing seeing it on YouTube but another entirely when it’s onstage at your own gig. That would be my current favourite memory.

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

When I was 11 years old I had already passed a few grades on the piano. I thought nothing of it beyond the fact that I was simply playing piano in school. I enjoyed music of course but I don’t think I knew that I could live my life through its lens.

So my dad sat me down one day and put on the Physical Graffiti LP and I heard “Kashmir” by Led Zeppelin for the first time. It completely blew my mind, a totally definitive experience. I saw a different world on the other side of the needle. Doors opened in my mind and I felt alive in a very different way to before. It might sound a little hyperbolic but it’s true. I knew right then that I wanted to make music and I actually needed to play guitar. My dad gave me a Stratocaster and that was it for me.

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

I learned early on from Joe that if you’re going to work you need to dress the part. Not just for yourself but for the people around you. When I’m in the studio I make sure to iron my shirt and comb my hair. I work harder and concentrate well if I’m holding myself to a reasonably high standard. The same goes for being onstage. I believe you should look good for the people who’ve paid to see you.

In the dressing room, or maybe it’s just a corridor or a bathroom, before a show, I warm up with a song or two and write a couple of notes. I don’t believe in carrying much around with me. I try to use what’s in my guitar case.

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

I once ate a bowl of olives at an Allen Toussaint concert and those were the best olives I ever tasted. I like to listen to Ry Cooder when I eat. I reckon Bop Til You Drop is the record I’ve listened to the most in my life. My dad used to put it on every time we had friends over for dinner, and he cooks Indian food. Therefore I like to cook curries and play Ry Cooder records for my friends. I don’t know a better way to do it. If ever I have a clear day off at home, I’ll spend it cooking and listening to Freddie King, Joni Mitchell, Keith Jarrett. Sometimes I’ll crank up Mastodon to help chop the onions.

About the Playlist: Songs and interpretations by the artists who have influenced my life as a folksinger, not only in the musical sense but in the way I think about the bigger picture; each of these records has helped to guide me to where I am now.

Photo credit: Rose Cousins

BGS 5+5: Lowland Hum

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Artist: Lowland Hum
Hometown: Charlottesville, Virginia
Latest album: Glyphonic (out May 10, 2019)

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

Last year we were opening a run of shows for The Oh Hellos and something surprising took place at the Columbus, Ohio, performance. It’s a regular part of our show to invite the audience to interact if they so choose and that particular audience was extremely participatory. Throughout our show they were super engaged and communicative and towards the end, someone yelled out, “Have you ever crowd surfed?!” I (Daniel) used to be in a rock band for a number of years so I said, “Well, yes, but not in this band,” to which he replied, “Do you want to?” We laughed and then we played our second to last song.

As the final note of that song lingered in the air, the crowd started chanting “CROWD SURF, CROWD SURF, CROWD SURF” with increasing volume. I turned to Lauren and handed her my guitar. I walked toward the crowd as they continued chanting and then stepped to the edge of the stage, turned backward and fell into their arms. The crowd went wild and began passing me around the room. Because our band is a duo and half the band was in the crowd during this, there was no music accompanying this rock and roll moment.

After a while, I cried, “To the stage” and the crowd passed me pack up toward the front of the room. Then a burly security guard grabbed me with one hand and threw me gently back on stage where I landed on my feet. Lauren informed me that I looked at her with delight on my face and said, “I feel so serene.” I think we are probably the quietest band that has ever had an experience like that. It was a glorious evening for us both. Thank you, Columbus.

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

When approaching the studio, we generally designate an amount of time where we will stay in a place/mode of operating that we refer to as “yes town.” In “yes town” all ideas are explored and we don’t allow editing or assessing. This openness to any and all ideas gives even partially formed notions the space they need to come to fruition. At a certain point, we then shift into editorial mode and we are able to more clearly identify which elements of a song or arrangement belong in the final version of the recording.

Before shows we often make a cup of black tea and try to find a place to sit outside or by a window to have a bit of slow presence. We read in an essay recently that human beings are not meant to move through space at any speed other than walking and when we do, it takes time for our full selves to arrive at the place where we are physically present. This idea resonates with us and I think the tea ritual is our way of trying to allow our minds to catch up with our bodies and realize where we are on any given night of a tour.

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

We can’t answer which artist has influenced us most, but we’ve been consistently inspired by Devon Sproule the last few years. Her ability to approach songwriting with a profound gravity while maintaining a sense of wonder and rigorous exploration is both refreshing and challenging. We are taken with the imagery she shares in her songs, the playful arrangements on her recordings and her unaffected, evocative vocal performances. Devon reminds us to pay close attention and to stretch out and try reaching into unknown spaces sonically and thematically.

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

Our creative process has always been inspired by literature, film and visual art ever since the early days of Lowland Hum, leading to multiple songs exploring the work and life of Toulouse Lautrec and a mildly jealous lyric about Andrew Wyeth catching Lauren’s eye, but more recently, Lauren created a music video featuring the work of an incredibly gifted dancer named Edward Villella. The video is a visual companion for our song, “Slow,” using imagery from “Reflections In Space,” and “Mystery of Space.” “Reflections In Space” is a film by Bernard Beane, Philip Courter and Harold M. Weiner, that features the interpretive dance of Edward Villella and the work of other visual artists inspired by outer space. Whenever we encounter the creative explorations of other people, we notice that new spaces in our minds open up.

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

When I (Daniel) was 12 years old, my granddad took me to a local CD store in Greensboro, North Carolina, where I grew up and told me I could select any album and he’d buy it for me. For some reason, I picked out the Beatles’ White Album as my selection, probably because it included two CDs and I thought I was being clever. I became obsessed with it. As an extremely sensitive kid who felt emotions strongly. Somehow the songs made me feel empathized with and soothed, and I had never had that experience with music before. This obsession led me to begin writing songs in the weeks and months following that trip to the CD store. My mom is a fan of those early, angsty, preteen musings, but she’s the only one.

Photo credit: Serena Jae

BGS 5+5: Field Medic

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Artist: Field Medic
Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Latest album: fade into the dawn

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

One of the first big shows I ever played was at the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles. One of my friends was joking with me the night before, saying that I should ask everyone to put their phone lights on and sway them back and forth at the show. Apparently he had told our other band friends to try this, but no one wanted to because it’s kind of a ridiculous thing to do. Since I was the opener and didn’t really have anything to lose… and I suppose also because I’m kind of a ridiculous person, I asked the crowd to do it during my song “Do a Little Dope” and the whole room lit up. The show was sold out so there was a lot of lights and it felt so cool and surreal, especially being one of my first experiences playing to a room that big. There’s a video taken from side stage of that moment and you can hear my friend screaming while laughing, “It’s a good bit!!! It’s a good bit!!”

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

Reading informs a lot of my music. I love to read novels and poetry. I find that reading every day brings me general peace of mind while also filling my head with words and metaphors and symbols which tend to come out subconsciously later on when I’m writing a song.

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

When I had no room & was crashing between my girlfriend’s place in San Francisco and my friend’s house in LA in between tours, songwriting became quite difficult because I was never alone.

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

In the studio I like to track a song exactly three times without listening in between takes. Sometimes I’ll move the microphone around for each take as well. After I track, I like to step away and maybe smoke a cigarette or go for a walk and just get on with my life. Then hours later I’ll listen back and choose which take to use. it’s usually the first or the second.

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

Conscious, not precious.

Photo credit: Stephen Beebout

BGS 5+5: Taylor Alexander

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Artist: Taylor Alexander
Album: Good Old Fashioned Pain
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

This may be a little left field, but when I discovered Chris Carrabba’s music with Dashboard Confessional as an early teen it totally changed the way I looked at music. It hadn’t occurred to me up to that point what one guy and a guitar could do. It blew my mind to see a guy with an acoustic guitar impact people so greatly with his lyrics like that. His music led me directly to the greats like Bob Dylan, Guy Clark, and Townes Van Zandt, so his influence can’t be denied.

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

Reading has always informed my writing. I don’t necessarily write a song based on a book or a character that I’m reading at the time, but I often find that just the act of reading gets my writing muscles warmed up and ready to work.

Martial arts has “art” right there in the name, so I would be remiss not to mention the impact Brazilian Jiu Jitsu has had on my writing and my life. Jiu Jitsu requires a similar intentional, focused effort that writing does, and forces you to learn patience and perseverance to push through when you feel like you can’t. I try to apply that same grit to my writing practice, forcing myself to push through a block and keep working on a song until I think it’s done, and not settling for less.

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

When I was in 2nd grade I performed a really simple guitar arrangement of “Ode To Joy” for a school talent show. I was really nervous because I’d never played in front of people before, but I’ll never forget how invigorated I felt after walking off stage. I definitely caught the bug at that moment.

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

Guy Clark had the best references to food in his songs, from “Homegrown Tomatoes” to “Texas Cookin’,” so I immediately think of him. Some authentic Texas BBQ, a couple cold beers and Guy Clark playing would be about as good as it gets.

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

I realized recently that I do this quite a bit. I’ve been joking on stage about how this album is really just me talking to myself for over half an hour, and I’m not sure that I realized that while writing the songs. I don’t really write about fictional characters — when it comes down to it, I write songs to speak to myself as much as I write to speak to an audience.

Photo credit: Joshua Black Wilkins