In a shotgun-house studio overlooking the Mississippi River, Bella White poured out her heart and soul in the form of 11 new songs that became her latest album, A Sign In The Weather.
The collection completes a trilogy that began with her debut, the bluegrass-entrenched Just Like Leaving. She followed with Among Other Things, on which she ventured into what she called a “a larger sound.” Between this and her latest release she recorded Five For Silver, a five-song EP covering favorite songs from favorite artists.
White grew up in Calgary, Alberta. She was introduced to bluegrass early on by her father, a multi-instrumentalist with writing and recording credits of his own. Her proficiency on banjo and guitar soon led to songwriting, gigging, relocation to Boston, signing with Rounder Records, time spent in Nashville and Los Angeles, and a return to Canada before moving once again, this time to New Orleans. Along the way, from coast to coast, White’s music gained fans, followers, and kept her on the road, performing at national festivals, supporting A-list artists, and making her Grand Ole Opry debut.
A Sign In The Weather, she says, “hearkens back to the first album in a way. It’s not a bluegrass album, but I wanted to bring it back to that more intimate feeling, and something I could present live in a way that was true to the album. After doing a bigger-production album, which was amazing, I wanted to scale it back a little bit more.”
As always in your songwriting, there’s a lot of self-discovery in the lyrics. Where were you, mentally and emotionally, when the creative process began for this album and where are you now?
Bella White: I was about to embark upon some very big transitions in my life. I was living on Vancouver Island and feeling inspired to be working, touring, and doing everything, but I was living this almost double life where I would be on the road and doing all this stuff. Then I’d come home to my apartment on this island and be relatively isolated. That was amazing and it had its challenges.
At the time when I started writing songs for this album, I was starting to feel like I needed to expand my world. I was feeling a little bit stagnant and a little bit stuck. I was in a relationship that was about to end, I knew it was ending, and this big chapter in my life was coming to a close. And so I was doing a lot of self-reflection and a lot of big feelings. I’m always having big feelings, so that’s just how it is for me. I was in this very calm and grounded yet very uncertain time in my life, where I was like, “I don’t really know what’s coming next, but I know it’s going to be very different.”
Now I live in New Orleans. I’ve been here for three years. I wrote the first half of the songs while I was in that transition on Vancouver Island and making these changes, and the second half of the album came together down here. I know now where I’m at a little bit more, even though I’m always going to wonder what’s next. I feel like I’ve answered some of those questions for myself that I’m asking on the album.
Did the environment and community in New Orleans shape this new music, or at least the songs that were written there?
I moved springtime of 2023. I was ready for some big changes and I have always loved it here, had lots of friends here, and know about this rich, vibrant music community. There’s a great Americana songwriter scene here and of course the deep well of New Orleans music that is really inspiring and interesting. Everyone that plays on the album, except Patrick M’Gonigle and Nikolai Shveitser, lives here, so it did end up shaping the sound, because I met the people I play on the album with and who are now some of my best friends and bandmates.
We recorded it in our friend Lee Walker’s house in the Holy Cross neighborhood, right on the Mississippi River, feeling very inspired by the landscape and weather – the weather is a theme on my album. New Orleans has such an energy that it’s hard not to find its way into the art that’s made here.
How did you meet Ross Farbe and how did that become a co-producing partnership?
Ross was engineering and co-producing an album with Sam Gelband, who plays drums on my album and is in my band. I met Ross through that.
I knew who he was already, because he had produced some albums that I loved. He worked with Esther Rose for a long time, he’s got a cool band called Video Age that I’ve been a fan of, and I always admired him. I watched him work with other people and saw how talented he is, how gentle a person he is, and I liked his workflow style.
We got to talking, I showed him the songs, and he had some cool ideas. I knew going into this album that whoever was producing it, I wanted to be producing alongside them, because I enjoy that part of the process and have not technically been a co-producer on any of my albums. This time around I [wanted to] claim that label.
I knew that Ross has enough confidence in himself to be down to share that role, and that he pretty much has no ego whatsoever. I knew it would be mutual, we’d be working properly together, and that felt exciting to me.
What does “producer” mean to you?
There’s a couple branches to it. On brass tacks, you’re creatively facilitating the session. You’re also setting the tone for the artists who are playing the music. The way I wanted to be involved in the production was with a lot of the creative choices, like what the guitar is doing in a moment, or what the structure of the song looks like, and having ideas to help bring it to life.
That, to me, is what production can look like. Especially if an artist is in a situation where they don’t have very much vision for what they want it to sound like, maybe they’ve written the songs and brought the songs, but they don’t know how to create a supportive band situation, a producer’s role is to make that happen.
I have the connections and friendships and the understanding of what I want my music to sound like, that I can be a part of that process. I think it’s just facilitating the whole thing.
Tell us about the recording studio. You did this in someone’s home.
It really wasn’t a studio at all. It truly was my friend Lee Walker’s house. He’s a musician and a jack of many trades.
There’s a studio in New Orleans, Deslondes Studio, where the Deslondes and lots of other bands have made albums. It’s also a house, but it has been converted into a studio space. Lee’s house is right next door and a couple albums were made in his house before this other studio was brought into the picture. Dean Johnson’s album Nothing For Me, Please was made there. I was hoping to record at Deslondes Studio, but it was unavailable at the time, so I asked Lee, when we were making some demos, if I could use his house, and he ended up going above and beyond for us. He moved his bed out of his house so we could turn his bedroom into our control room.
In New Orleans, these shotgun houses, they’re just a straight line. You can see from the front door out the back door, and so it’s great for recording because you have great sight lines. We set up a live room. We did everything live. We did some overdubs, but the bed tracks were me playing guitar, and bass and drums, all live in one room, and Ross brought his setup. We recorded to tape, he brought all of his gear, set up in Lee’s bedroom, and the house is on the river, so it was beautiful.
There was this nice, laid-back, casual feeling to that recording situation that was comforting for me. Sometimes when I’m in a more typical studio setting where I feel on the clock, I’m like, “We have to really dive in here and get it all done.” That can feel a little bit stressful to me. I love recording, and I love being in that studio environment too, but this felt like even though we were being professional and getting it all done, I felt this ease of being in a cozy home environment. It was really cool to do it there.
How challenging, or maybe even a little nerve-wracking, is it to put your lyrics in front of people that perhaps you’ve not worked with before? How does that differ from doing so in front of an audience, people who know the songs, and that different level of communication?
It depends on who I’m presenting the music to, because in some cases it’s almost easier to show to strangers. With Among Other Things, I met most everyone that was on the album in the session, as we were getting into it. I was like, “Okay, I’m baring my soul. I don’t know you at all, but here we go.”
It fast-tracks connection and friendship in some ways because you’re showing a vulnerable side of yourself. It can almost be a little bit more intimidating sometimes to show the music to people that really know you and understand you, because they’re maybe seeing a side of you that you wouldn’t necessarily show.
But I always have felt, I don’t know for better or for worse, very comfortable baring my soul to people. I’m like, “Maybe I should dial it back sometimes.” I haven’t found it to be too frightening, but I know that it is real. I think I just turn my blinders on sometimes and say, “Here we go.”
In a podcast a few years back, you described your songwriting process as “not always prolific.” You have moments of feeling you “could write a million songs,” and sometimes months of “having nothing to say.” Where did these new songs fall in? Especially being split between two locations and two entirely different phases in your life.
There was definitely a little dry spell in the middle. I wrote four or five songs within a couple months of each other, and I didn’t really have plans for this album yet, so I was just writing and feeling it out. It was a good amount of writing in a decent amount of time.
And then I started wanting to make … the clock was starting to tick. It was like, “It’s time to make another album.” I was struggling with a little bit of pressure of wanting to make sure that I wrote songs I really liked and that meant something to me. I was also moving through the actual changes that were happening in my life, like moving, ending a relationship, and all of that. I was writing, but I was mostly doing a lot of that processing internally.
Once I settled a little bit, the next wave came. That was actually a lot of songs in a short window and felt really good. I was like, “Now I’m starting to feel like this is an album coming together,” and that was exciting.
What is your writing process? You’re a lifelong journal person. Is songwriting the same way? Is it pen and paper? Voice memos? Both? Do you set aside work time? Does it happen at random moments?
It’s all of the above. It really is all of those things. I don’t have too much structured writing time at the moment, and I probably could use some. I think it is important for me to treat it as exercising that muscle sometimes.
I’m a lifelong journaler. I’m always writing something, even if it’s not a song, if it’s just my thoughts or whatever. I used to be more pen and paper all the way. Now I do a lot of writing in my notes app on my phone, which is sad in some ways, but also I’m working with what we have with the times, and I think that’s taken the pressure off a little bit, where I’ll sit down and maybe get inspired by something and start writing. Usually I open voice memos and almost stream of consciousness just sing and play, and then I’ll listen back to it, or as I’m singing, be like, “That felt like it could be something.”
And then I will either keep going on the notes app or I’ll get out a pen and paper. It depends on how much time I have, what my goal is in that writing session, whether it’s to actually finish a song or if it’s just to get inspired, get some ideas.
These days I’m not often writing a song in one sitting. I do that sometimes, but most of the time it’s maybe a week for a song. I used to think that if I didn’t write a song in one sitting I would never finish it. I would just move on to the next thing. But I’ve gotten to a place where I actually like letting it breathe in between sessions, coming back to the song, and having a little bit more perspective when I come back to it and more understanding of what it means to me.
Are you particular about your pens and notebooks?
Yeah, totally. I really like Muji pens. They have a good flow. I’m not too picky about paper. I love my little song journal. I only write songs in it and it’s this special little treasure chest. But at the end of the day I’m frantic sometimes and I’m like, “Oh, I need somewhere to write this down,” so I’ll take an envelope and start writing on that, or I’ll start writing in my feelings journal. So they’re all over the place.
Lyrics first, melodies first, both at the same time?
I would say melody and lyric are arriving at the same time these days. Actually, maybe melody is taking precedence. I write a melody as I’m saying words, and then the words often end up changing more than the melody changes. I’ll create a template and then chisel away at the words. Even if it’s simple adjustments, I’ll try and make it make the most sense to me emotionally.
It’s usually on acoustic guitar. I used to sometimes write songs on the banjo, but I don’t have a banjo at the moment. Something that I find super-inspiring is when I’m at a friend’s house and we’re sharing songs, or I’m hanging at their house and playing their guitar. I love the way different guitars sound, and a guitar that I’m not used to. Sometimes I will play what I would be playing on my guitar, it just sounds different, and it inspires me to revisit certain ideas that I’ll let go of on my own guitar because it sounds too familiar or I’m too used to it. I’ll hear it in a different context and be like, “Oh, that’s cool. I should come back to that.”
Which guitars are on the album and which ones are you taking on the road?
I have two lovely Gibsons from the 1940s. My first nice guitar that I bought is an LG-2 from 1948. I tour with it all the time. This album is the first recorded music of mine that it didn’t make an appearance on.
I love that guitar so much. It is a true beater. I bought it when I was 16, and I was so precious about it. As I started to travel with it, and it started to come to festivals with me and it started to get a little dinged up, I was like, “Okay, I have to be a little bit less precious about this. If I want to play this guitar all the time, I need to accept that it’s going to experience life too.”
I bought my Gibson archtop when I was playing the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. We went to the music store on the main drag and I was trying a couple guitars out just for fun. I found this archtop and was like, “Oh my God, I need to buy this guitar right now. I love it so much.” That’s become my recording guitar. I don’t have any kind of pickup in it, I haven’t drilled into it, and I don’t really want to. I want to leave it pure, and then it can be my studio and writing guitar. I used it on this album.
You’ve been playing guitar and banjo since childhood. When and how did you develop your technique? Watching the BGS Yamaha Sessions [above] there’s something very special in the way you connect with the instrument. You’re also a skilled banjo player – different instrument, different attack. Does banjo in any way inform your picking style on the guitar?
I started playing really young. I wouldn’t say I was very good or very bad. I was very middle of the road. I think jamming and picking bluegrass music will make you a good instrumentalist, regardless of if you’re soloing, flatpicking, or playing rhythm guitar. Playing in so many different settings with so many different types of people is going to make you better. When I started going to bluegrass camps and festivals and picking with people, I started to figure out how I play the guitar. Of course it has progressed as I’ve stepped out of just playing traditional music. I’ve tried to have fun with different rhythmic playing, different ways, different approaches. I’m still figuring out what feels good to me. But having the experience of picking from a young age was really informative.
The banjo is a totally different instrument. Something I love so much, especially with clawhammer banjo, is those open tunings that are so beautiful and whimsical and ethereal-feeling to me. My dad would sometimes tune his guitar into open banjo tunings and play banjo tunes on his guitar, and I always thought that was so cool and so pretty. Realizing that you can apply the things you like from other instruments to the guitar was exciting for me. I wanted to try and capture the feeling of those resonant tones in my guitar playing as well. I play a lot of augmented open chords that are fun.
You are thought of as a bluegrass artist. Coming from that background because of your father, returning to it as a teenager, and now through this new generation of players that you discovered, what is your definition of bluegrass?
It’s something I don’t know if I could really define. Obviously, when it comes down to it, I’m like, “It’s a five-piece string band with a banjo and a guitar.” But, to me, it’s music that you play with your community and that’s meant to be shared and taught.
I still identify as a bluegrass player, even though I’ve stepped out of the more traditional sense. One of my favorite components of that world of music is that people are eager to learn all the time and eager to share what they’ve learned. When I was living in Boston and hanging out around Berklee, living in this house with a lot of amazing musicians, twelve of us lived in this house, everyone would be in their rooms practicing all day. In the evening we’d be like, “Hey, let’s pick and let’s share. Let’s all show what we worked on.” To me, that’s the essence of what I love about bluegrass music. I don’t know if it’s necessarily a definition, but I do feel like that’s a defining part of that music.
You’ve said on several occasions that you look at songwriting as A) storytelling or B) feeling-telling. How do you separate the two? It would seem you have to feel a story in order to tell it convincingly.
They’re interconnected in so many ways. For context, the kind of song that moves me, regardless of which of the two worlds it falls into, has to be something where I am tapped into it in my feelings, like I’m understanding energetically, emotionally, what’s going on and what’s being delivered.
There are songs where it’s more literal, more direct, more “This is what happened, X,Y, Z.” That what I consider the storytelling. And then there’s this other kind of writing that’s a little bit more ambiguous. It’s harder to pin down exactly what is happening in the song, but it hits you in a certain way. I hear it and I’m like, “I don’t really know what you’re talking about, but I’m resonating with this.” That’s the feeling-telling that I think is really cool.
What I’m always trying to do in my songs is find the perfect middle ground where both of those things exist in a moment, so that you can understand the story, but then you can also have a separate relationship to how it makes you feel.
You spoke earlier about exposing all these feelings to musicians and producers, and then to your audiences. When you take the songs on the road and perform them night after night, is it difficult? Therapeutic? Does it take you back to those places?
All of the above. I don’t find it difficult very often because the thing I love about songwriting and laying it all on the table is that is a major way for me to heal something, through that process of writing a song. Getting to proclaim my feelings onstage every night and just be like “Here I am” is very cathartic.
Especially with newer songs, it helps me own my feelings in a way that I feel grateful to get to do, because I’ve been able to move through some of those feelings through performing the songs. When people start connecting with them, and maybe they’re singing along, I’m like, “Wow, this is so cool.” Something that I felt is helping someone else deal with something they’re feeling, and that’s special.
With some of my songs from my first album, I probably started writing those songs in 2019. It’s been so long since I wrote them that I don’t necessarily live in that space anymore, and so it’s fun to just, I don’t know, shout out things that I was feeling a long time ago. It’s fun to let those feelings still live and exist, but I’ve moved on from them. Now I get to give my younger self a hug when I play them. So I don’t think I have to work very hard to protect myself. And, in some ways, there’s this protection that comes from sharing and having people receive the music that feels really special.
Photo Credit: Tamara Flemming
