Thomm Jutz has worked with a wide cast of characters since moving to Nashville in the early 2000s – John Prine, Nanci Griffith, Todd Snider, Billy Strings, and the SteelDrivers’ Tammy Rogers. But on his latest record, Ring-A-Bellin’, he strived to capture each song with the smallest musical unit possible.
The result of the 18-track album, released April 3, is a distinctly timeless vibe that feels just as much rooted to the present day as it does the mid-1900s or Civil War era, due to its recurring themes of history, mythology, and working with your hands. From self improvement (“Sharpen Your Knife”) to using natural disaster as a metaphor for perseverance (“Holy Mother Mountain”), the mastery that comes with time (“The Hammer And The Anvil”) and becoming more grounded in yourself (“Settle Me Down”), the GRAMMY-nominated transplant from Germany waxes philosophical and takes listeners back to a period long before we walked the Earth.
According to Jutz, the approach – recording with only a small group of people all in the same room not wearing headphones – is his way of replicating the process for how musicians would’ve recorded a century ago.
“This is how I want to make music right now,” he declares. “I don’t want to make a layered record – not because there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just not what I’m feeling at the moment. It’s like saying I don’t want to use red in my paintings right now, because I’ve used enough of it already.”
During a lengthy conversation with BGS at his Belmont office on Music Row, Jutz spoke about his concept of home, how psychology and mythology informed Ring-A-Bellin’, and a companion book that takes listeners even further into the world of his 18 new songs.
You’re releasing this album with a companion book. Tell me a little about what’s inside and why you decided to adopt this approach?
Thomm Jutz: It’s more and more important to create some kind of parallel narrative to the music nowadays. Vinyl has seen a resurgence over the last couple years, but it is not practical for me to take on my one trip to Europe every year. Because of that, I wanted to create something that was still a larger format, fun to hold, and had all the liner notes present without being something so small it’s hard to read.
I’ve also always enjoyed writing and reading – especially during my last 10 years as an instructor at Belmont – so I wanted to articulate some of those thoughts as they relate to the songs on this record in a longer form. When I got to working on it I quickly realized I was in over my head with the graphic design aspect of it, so I consulted my friend Gina Meredith. I just told her what I wanted artwork for and commissioned various folks to create pieces for each song. But rather than tell them what to make, I just sent them the music and had them use the songs as their creative prompts. Because of that I don’t always see the linear connection between the songs and the graphics that were made, but that’s also my favorite part.
A lot of my thoughts on this record revolve around analytic and Jungian psychology, alchemy and things like that, which are difficult to talk about in a tiny CD booklet, so I wanted to do something that allowed for a more longform format.
Overall, this record has a timeless feel – it could be (and is) from 2026, but if I didn’t know any better I wouldn’t second guess if someone told me it was from the mid-1900s or Civil War era as well, especially songs like “Sharpen Your Knife” and “The Hammer And The Anvil.” What are your thoughts on the vibe you were able to conjure up here?
I’m a traditionalist at heart, so everything I do is always trying to bring something new to the way I perceive what came before us, whether that’s lyrically, thematically, or in the recording process – which in this case was mostly all done live. I just think there tends to be more mystery with that music. There’s new music that does that too, but it’s easier for me to find that in old music because the cultural context can be studied since it’s not as close to my own lived experience. No matter how much I listen to or read about Charley Patton, I’ll never understand what he fully experienced because I was never there.
Regarding the songs you mentioned, both talk about people working with their hands, but they’re also metaphors for working on yourself – like you are the hammer, you are the anvil, you are the iron that’s being forged. Those mantras are rooted in human thought and analytical psychology, which is something I’ve dealt with and thought about a lot over the last 15 years. Particularly in terms of how mythology and history go together, and how understood the former is.
On one hand, some people think a myth is a lie and others say a myth is a fact, but both are wrong. A myth is a metaphor and must be understood as one. These songs are an effort to create a mythological framework that is a mirror image of my development as a person and artist. If you ever want to develop as an artist, you must develop as a person first.
With so much of this record wrapped up in concepts like history, psychology, and mythology, what’s the timeline for bringing the 18 songs on it to life?
These songs came from a period of about three years, but when I started I wasn’t setting out to make a record – I just wanted to experiment with a couple things. I had a few songs that I co-wrote with my friend Adam Wright that I wanted to test out with only me singing and playing and Mark Fain on bass. And it worked out really well. As I got fascinated with that process I began looking through my catalog and noticed that the songs which spoke to me the most were all ones that formed a narrative arc.
However, it’s not an autobiographical record that says, “I was born here,” “I did this,” and “This is how it made me feel.” But more so, one that explores spiritual development. I’m not interested in autobiographical songwriting. I find it very claustrophobic how you have to spell everything out to the listener. When you do that you’re shutting them out with nothing to do, which has me opting for a more open approach. A song is only ever truly finished when the listener interprets it for themselves, not with what the person who wrote it intended.
One of the songs on Ring-A-Bellin’ that is tied to more recent events is “Holy Mother Mountain,” which was inspired by the fallout of Hurricane Helene, specifically in Western North Carolina. But it’s also a metaphor for overcoming adversity. Care to explain?
That song is a good example of how writing with someone else – in this case Mando Saenz – can profoundly shape an idea. I remember Helene happening and having this line “Holy Mother Mountain” appear to me out of nowhere. From then on I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I brought it to a writing session with him and said I didn’t know what to do with it. Then the co-writing dance ensued, with him taking the lead, followed by me for a bit, until it started becoming much clearer that there was no way to move forward without it being about Hurricane Helene somehow.
While it was inspired by that, the song is also about overcoming adversity and understanding that it’s going to happen again. Just because you live through Helene doesn’t mean there’s not another storm coming right behind it. If that storm showed us anything, it’s that perceived climate safety in Appalachia is not true. Also, “mother” and “mountain” are not just a nice alliteration, but there’s also a feminine quality about a mountain. An inverted mountain is a valley – or a place you can seek refuge in – and if you go on top of a mountain, you might find yourself closer to some kind of spiritual awareness.
The song is much more a collection of images that relate to the archetypal images of mother and mountain. Maybe even the word “holy” in the title has something to do with the fact of how little modernity treats nature with respect. Maybe that’s what we need to do – not bring offerings, but bring out attention to it instead of riding around and abusing it like crazy.
On “Too Many Walls” you sing about the idea of home. Given that you moved to the states 25 years ago from Germany, what is “home” to you?
Home and time are two of the biggest themes we write about, and it’s longing that connects the two – longing for home, longing to belong somewhere, longing to live in a different period of time, longing to get over something. Over the last couple years, I’ve also started thinking more about how strange a thing it is to build a house, because you’re just enclosing space that’s been there all along. You’re building and calling it something that wasn’t there before, but the land was always there. It’s a strange construct, and at the same time we need shelter.
From an early age I didn’t feel at home where I was because I longed for a place where music was part of the everyday lived experience. But in Germany after 1945 that was completely out of the picture, because the Nazi regime had completely and absurdly abused any sense of folklore. Since I was longing for an environment where people played music, I went to Ireland for the first time with my wife when I was 18 since it was much closer than coming [to the United States], which we couldn’t afford at the time. I was amazed by the music coming out of the pubs there – it felt so natural, like it was rising out of the Earth.
That fascination carried over into my love of American roots music. In that sense, “home” is where I feel connected to a place through music since that’s my main way of expressing myself. Additionally, southwestern Appalachia and the Black Forest that I’m from in Germany can look astonishingly similar sometimes, so when I go back to visit my parents I occasionally feel like I’m navigating the mountains around Johnson City, [Tennessee]. When I’m in Johnson City I sometimes imagine I’m back in Germany. But Appalachia has more importance to me now because it’s where I live and long to be. If it weren’t for all the writing I do in Nashville and my work at Belmont, I’d be in Appalachia fulltime, because it just speaks to me. When I haven’t been in a while I can start feeling something deep inside me – it’s not a heaviness, but a feeling of “I just really wanna fucking go.” [Laughs]
What has bringing this record to life taught you about yourself?
It’s taught me that I know nothing about graphic design and should always let someone else handle that instead. [Laughs]
In all seriousness, it has taught me that while I don’t consider myself a great singer, I can still enjoy the way I deliver a song if I do it correctly. It’s also taught me that while I have great deficiencies as a guitar player, I do enjoy the way I play guitar and this record, where I’m keenly aware of everything wrong with my playing. Even Tony Rice said that about his playing.
It’s not a sense of having completed my journey as a guitar player, but quite the opposite. It’s more like I’m aware of what’s missing. It’s also taught me that staying on the path of creating and writing a lot. You have to be in it for the long game in today’s environment and be doing it for the right reasons or you’ll run yourself ragged. I already understood that a little bit, but now I understand it even better. Maybe that’s what it’s all about – gaining a little awareness and moving on.
Photo Credit: Don VanCleave
