After a four-year wait between albums that included concert cancellations due to mental health struggles and a broken wrist, Ian Noe returns in full strength on Canyon Falls Trailer Band. The bold and exploratory project centers around an imaginary band that takes to the bright lights of Nashville for one night and one night only in search of industry approval.
With tear-in-your-beer tunes like “She’s Familiar (In the Strangest Ways)” as well as stories about peculiar mountain folk just trying to get by (“Redneck Mess”) and putting LSD on bananas (“Another Night Like That”), Noe’s mind runs wild throughout the album, which he recorded at The Bomb Shelter studio in Nashville with producer Andrija Tokic.
Although the Kentucky native has called Bowling Green home for over a decade, Noe says that the new album’s name comes from a small town about 15 minutes from his hometown of Beattyville in Eastern Kentucky called Canyon Falls. Noe grew up going there to hang with friends, but he didn’t include it in the album title based on nostalgia alone. He simply just thought it sounded good.
“I wrote the song about three and a half years ago and have played it at most of my shows since then,” Noe says. “As for the concept, I can’t remember when I decided to move ahead with the album like that, but I will say that it’s not my first song with Canyon Falls in the title. I have an old song called ‘Canyon Falls Bound’ that I recorded in Louisville 15 or so years ago. There’s a couple other songs I’ve mentioned it in as well, but they aren’t recorded yet and I barely play them live.”
Ahead of the album’s release, Noe spoke with BGS about the origins of his imaginary band, how honky-tonk star Gary Stewart and Nashville songwriter Craig Wiseman influenced the project, and where he got the idea for a lady of the night to take center stage in one of his songs.
BGS: What was this idea for an imaginary band playing one night only, looking for industry approval, born from? Was it a disdain of the music industry?
Noe: There’s no disdain at all. I just started knocking out song after song, knowing [“Canyon Falls Trailer Band”] was going to be the lead track and title of the record, so I wanted to have fun with it. Even though they are only playing for one night, they’ve been working at it for a long time and wrote all kinds of different songs. Some stuff they’re throwing at the wall and on many of them they don’t even have real instruments.
What do you mean they don’t even have real instruments?
If you look closely at the album cover, all the people on it in that “band” are actually my friends from back in Canyon Falls. The whole thing is a recreation of the second verse of “Canyon Falls Trailer Band” where everyone’s playing their instruments, but the only real one is a banjo and the rest of it’s weird objects like barbed wire, a torch, a lit Marlboro cigarette being tapped onto a Mountain Dew can and a windshield wiper that I’m waving around like a conductor. Then we made everyone but me look like silhouettes to play into the imaginary band dynamic even more.
Would you say the song “Kickin’ It in Nashville” is almost like an origin story for your imaginary band?
It is! And going back to what you said earlier about a disdain for the music business, it’s not really about me even though I did come from Kentucky with a Martin guitar like the song mentions. It’s really just a universal story about going to Nashville with the hopes of making it big. The main character in it is the same guy that on the song “Canyon Falls Trailer Band” is trying to jump on stage and join the band, then at the end of the record on this song he’s moving down to Nashville for good to play with them. For the most part though, it’s all fictional. I’ve not spent much time in mainstream Nashville but I just thought it was a funny song and one of the most different ones I’ve ever written.
You recruited an all-star cast of musicians for this imaginary band of yours. Tell me about them?
You don’t do anything alone, so to have everyone we did on this record was a blessing. I have my producer, Andrija Tokic, to thank for all that. I had recorded a couple songs before with Billy [Contreras on fiddle] and always wanted to let him stretch out more, which he did all over Canyon Falls. Then when I finished “She’s Familiar (In the Strangest Ways)” I sent [Andrija] the demo and told him I wanted some country, cross harp harmonica on it because I’d never had one before. I wanted that late ‘70s, early ‘80s vibe to the song and he nailed it, bringing in Charlie McCoy to fill the part.
I remember wondering if he’d actually show up to the studio to record with us. I was standing outside waiting when he came around the corner carrying his harmonica case. He had to be at the Grand Ole Opry in an hour and a half but was so courteous and professional, knocking out his part in just two passes. He’s easily my favorite country harmonica player of all time, so having him be a part of this was a real treat.
This was your third time working with Andrija. What drew you back to him, and is there any new ground you feel like y’all broke together this time around?
He’s very good behind the board and knows what goes where. We’ve always worked well together, but we’re not consciously saying out loud, “Let’s make sure we do this or that.” We’re just trying to match in the studio how the songs sounded in my head. Because of that we stretched out the tunes on here more than on any other record I’ve done. There’s also a lot of harmonies on this album and I’m a big lover of the French horn, so we put some of those on “Tobacco Moon” as well. I wouldn’t call that one breaking new ground, though, because we also used the instrument on [the 2022 album] River Fools & Mountain Saints with “One More Night,” but it was fun to revisit again with all the other experimenting we were doing this time around.
On River Fools & Mountain Saints you recalled rising waters on “Road May Flood / It’s a Heartache.” Is “Kentucky Hurricane” from the new record a similar story of making it through a natural disaster?
Not at all. That one’s actually about a semi-truck driver who has become obsessed with a lady of the night who goes by the name Kentucky Hurricane. “One by one they slide in hot / Crowding up the parking lot / Darling, how I wish they’d let you be.” He loves her, only sees her, and wants her all for himself. The song started with the melody, then I had Exit 22 [which he mentions in the song’s first verse] on my mind because it’s where I get off the highway coming home to Bowling Green and the song took off from there.
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I understand that the song “The Heidelberg Fisherman’s Ball” was a catalyst for much of this record’s sonic palette. Care to explain?
Heidelberg is a place located about 15 minutes from where I’m from in the opposite direction of Canyon Falls that has a lock wall where people fish. Last summer I was sitting there picking a minor chord and was beginning to get a bit bored and frustrated with it, so I began watching videos of Craig Wiseman on YouTube. He didn’t give a whole lot of interviews, but I did find one where he gave a speech on self-awareness and not overthinking that really struck a chord with me. It’s something I heard at just the right time, so after watching it I shut the phone off, began playing what became the opening riff to that song and quickly wrote it.
Earlier you mentioned going for a late ‘70s and early ‘80s vibe with “She’s Familiar (In the Strangest Ways).” I couldn’t help but pick up a Gary Stewart sound when listening to that tune. Would you say he was an inspiration for it as well?
110 percent, that’s exactly what I was going for. I was listening to a lot of early Gary Stewart and even George Jones’ I Am What I Am record, the latter of which Charlie McCoy is all over. I love writing narrative songs and am a sucker for trying to come up with crazy characters. That being said, the song is very short on paper and naked in the lyrics, so I didn’t want it to be out of place on the album. It’s easily the most straight-up country song I’ve ever written.
“Whiskey to Work” also seems like a very Gary and Jones-esque tune. Would you agree?
I’d absolutely put them in the same category. I was listening to a lot of [Jones’] “She’s My Rock” when writing that one. Neither song runs over three minutes but both get the job done. I’m hoping to get [“Whiskey to Work”] on one of those compilations where every song mentions beer. [laughs] I’d never written a song before with beer or Jack Daniel’s in it. It’s an old country trope but you can revive any of that stuff as long as the melody’s right.
This album has been described as the conclusion of a trilogy of projects dating back to 2019’s Between the Country. When did you realize this was the case, and where do you go from here?
I didn’t recognize that until I was almost completely done recording. We were getting ready to send the record off for mastering when I first noticed that my last three albums all focus heavily on subject matter related to Kentucky. I’ve written a lot about where I’m from and I’m not necessarily done doing that, but when you write as often as I do naturally you’re going to move into different territory at some point.
Ultimately, I’m just wanting to be in the studio as much as possible putting out more records. It was a four-year wait to release this record, and typically I don’t like to harp on things that much. And I actually already have my next record done, so you definitely won’t be waiting that long to hear from me again.
Photo Credit: Jace Kartye
