Tag: Interview

Folk Trio the Wildwoods’ New Album is a Love Letter to Nebraska

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

The Wildwoods are not shy about the pride they hold for their home state, Nebraska. The Lincoln-based trio – guitarist/vocalist Noah Gose, violinist/vocalist Chloe Gose, and bassist/vocalist Andy Vaggalis – named their gorgeous new album, Dear Meadowlark (out April 11), after the state bird, while songs like “Sweet Niobrara” and “I Will Follow You To Willow” represent odes to specific Nebraska towns.

“The album really is about our home here in Nebraska,” elaborated Noah, who is the group’s principal songwriter.

The Wildwoods have been together, in one form or another, for over a decade. Noah and Chloe, who are now married, first started performing together as teenagers, while Andy had played in the Wildwoods on and off for several years before officially joining them as a trio in 2022. Dear Meadowlark is their fourth full-length, but the first with Andy as a full-time member, and this album showcases their marvelous vocal chemistry throughout its set of gentle, pastoral acoustic music.

Before heading out on an East Coast tour, the three spoke to BGS about their new album, their growth as a band, and how the pandemic actually helped them become more widely known.

You all have been really upfront with how the new album reflects your deep affection for your home state, Nebraska.

Noah Gose: You know, living in a place like Nebraska, you hear a lot about people wanting to move away. But we’ve just grown to really appreciate our life in Nebraska and appreciate having had the opportunity to grow up in a place like Nebraska.

Chloe Gose: As much as we leave, I think we’ve all always appreciated our home.

Dear Meadowlark also has a very smooth musical flow to it. The title track opens the album like a lovely overture, while the contemplative closer, “Postcards From Somewhere,” bookends it as something like a reflective travelogue-type tune.

CG: It kind of felt like [“Postcards From Somewhere”] was the perfect fit to tie everything all together.

Andy Vaggalis: I think it works super well at the end, too, because [the album] is almost like little stories being written on the postcard with the last song for the postcard to be sent off.

NG: And that song originally wasn’t going to be a part of the album. It was just going to be a single. I wasn’t too keen on adding it to the album, but you know what Chloe says goes, so it was her decision to put it on, but now I’m really happy that we decided to do that.

The album’s music is really rooted in your acoustic instruments; however, drums, keyboards, and cello are used to nicely fill out the arrangements. Was that a conscious choice?

CG: I’m glad that you say that, because with our last album, Foxfield Saint John, I feel like each song is very epic-sounding in the sense that it just has a lot going on in all the arrangements, and we really wanted this album to sound more like us like how we sound live.

NG: All those extra instruments don’t really have the main spotlight at any point throughout the album, but they’re definitely kind of underlying things that brought certain parts of the arrangement out.

Noah, you are the primary songwriter – how did you approach writing the songs for Dear Meadowlark, which sounds like it is a quite personal album?

NG: Yeah, our first two albums, Sweet Nostalgia in 2017 and then Across the Midwest Sky in 2019, were all songs that were music first, lyrics second. And Foxfield was kind of half and half. Most of the songs on Dear Meadowlark were lyrics first. I feel like the songs mean more to me personally when the lyrics are first, because all the lines feel more purposeful.

CG: Things that are happening in our life are inspiring the words. So, all the words are very truthful and mean something in real time… I can tell when certain songs were written.

NG: I don’t like writing songs that just feel like everything’s completely made up. I like to just relate every song I write to things that happened in real life.

Are the vocals something that you think about when you are writing the songs, Noah?

NG: I very rarely have Chloe’s vocal range or Andy’s vocal range in mind when I’m writing the initial bones of the song, because I don’t want anything to get in the way of whatever kind of creativity goes into the initial writing. Most of the songs though, I arrange with Chloe singing the melody. I just don’t feel as confident in my own voice as I do in Chloe’s voice. And just with her being the only female voice, I feel like her voice stands out the most and works the best most of the time as singing the melody.

Your wonderful harmony singing seems to have become central to your sound now.

NG: The whole album of Dear Meadowlark was written around three-part harmony being kind of the main focus of the album.

AV: When I joined the group, I had it in my head – “I’m playing bass.” I wasn’t envisioning doing all these three-part harmony stuff. … When I first came back into the fold, it was like learning the songs and just finding a part in between [their voices] that fit. I remember like one night we were trying to make a fun ad for a show, so we switched around the words to “Teach Your Children” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. And I remember just feeling way easier than I normally would at [how] to put the three-part harmony together, and just like, “Oh, shit, that sounds good!”

Andy, while Dear Meadowlark was your first full album in the band’s trio setup, you have been with Chloe and Noah frequently over the years?

AV: I started playing with these guys in 2017. We were like a six-piece band. So, I was on Sweet Nostalgia and Across the Midwest Sky. Through the years, I’ve been lurking around.

CG: We’ve had different musicians playing with us throughout the years, but Andy has always been like a core member – basically since the beginning. … We were in choir together in high school. I think there’s kind of like an epiphany with Andy still playing with us. We’ve had other members and clearly that wasn’t like their dream to be doing that anymore. I feel like the reason why we are all still together and doing it is because we all have the same appreciation for what we’re doing.

Okay, speaking of beginnings, I must ask about the beginning of your musical partnership, Chloe and Noah. You two have been making music together since you were both teenagers.

CG: Noah and I met in 2012 when we were 14. I was playing music with my brother and we just like played for fun basically at farmers markets and stuff. [Noah] joined my brother and me, and we played all throughout high school [as] the Wildwoods.

NG: If you were to see videos of us playing at 14, you would probably turn your computer off. … I only really ever had this acoustic guitar that was my dad’s. So, I didn’t ever dive into any other kind of music other than songs that I would play on the acoustic guitar. And when I met Chloe and I learned that she played the violin, I think I just immediately felt like we should play music together. We really enjoyed each other’s company. And playing together so much over the past 13 years, I think it’s just there was no kind of epiphany at first; I think it’s been a 13-year-long epiphany

Andy, when you decided to formally join the band, you still hadn’t finished college yet – was that a big decision?

AV: I was going to college for music. When I would think about what I wanted to do after graduating college, it was travel around and play music. So, I figured might as well. I didn’t necessarily need college to do that at the moment. I can always go back, right? We’ve been great friends since before I was even playing with them. And then, after years of playing with them, it was a pretty easy decision to talk myself into it.

When you rebranded as a trio, it was also when your group started to get a lot of attention during the pandemic for the cover song videos you put up online.

NG: When we started posting his videos, the response that we were getting from the trio videos was just far better than anything that we had ever done in the past, and so we just felt, “This is what works best!”

AV: Then when the “Home” video (a cover of the 2010 Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros hit song) blew up, I think it was Halloween night. All of our phones were just notification after notification after notification, and we’re like “This is insane!” And then the next day, it dawned on us, “Okay, this is exciting, but also this is like a little opportunity here that we need to maximize.” We were trying to still practice together, because we were still kind of in the infancy of playing together as a trio.

CG: Yeah, it was kind of a stressful time during that time, because all three of us were teaching music lessons as well as doing the Wildwoods full time. So, we would meet up early in the morning. We’d start our days at like 8 a.m. and just go until 3 or 4, and then we’d all go and teach lessons. Then we would meet up after lessons to finish what we were working on.

Did the viral success of your cover song videos change what the makeup of the audiences coming to your shows?

CG: We went on tour not really knowing what to expect after our social media blew up. And then [on] our first tour, it was really amazing to see. We started just selling a bunch of tickets in cities that we had never even gone to…

@thewildwoodsband ‘Home’ by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros🏠 #edwardsharpe #edwardsharpeandthemagneticzeros #home #folk #folkmusic #trio #folktrio #bass #uprightbass #fiddle #acousticguitar #harmonies #eartrumpetlabs #acousiccover #acousticmusic #vibes #sweatervest #fun #love #nebraska #tambourine #guitar ♬ Home by The Wildwoods – The Wildwoods

Did you fear that your cover of “Home” might become your “Free Bird”?

NG: Yeah, it was definitely a worry at first, just because we usually throw in one cover, maybe two. We’re mainly an originals band.

CG: I think it has evolved, now that it’s been a couple of years, where people are finding our original music. And they’re requesting them at shows more so than the cover songs.

AV: Even some deep cuts, too.

The songs on Dear Meadowlark, besides drawing inspiration from your home state Nebraska, also holds a warm, woodsy vibe that suggest to me about being out in nature. How would you describe your sound?

CG: Yeah, I think that’s the vibe we’re trying to go for, like aesthetically and musically. I feel like our music too is very soothing – even our upbeat songs. I don’t know if that’s just because of the harmonies fitting together. It’s very calming and soothing music.

Photo Credit: Emma Petersen

Palmyra Shakes Off Anxieties With Oh Boy Records Debut, ‘Restless’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Palmyra is a bit restless. Their emotions knot into a mangled ball, almost suffocating them.

“Early hours in the morning, tossing and turning/ Everyone else in this house is asleep,” Sasha Landon pours into the microphone. “Palm Readers” emerges integral to the band’s new musical chapter. Aptly titled Restless, this album marks their debut with Oh Boy Records. It’s like reintroducing themselves to the world.

The trio – rounded out with Teddy Chipouras and Mānoa Bell – pounces from the get-go. Similar to The Lone Bellow’s tightly wound vocal work, their harmonies exude a vintage richness throughout as they do on the title track and opener. It’s quite evident that they take their work seriously, down to the lilt of their voices as they glide through the air. Palmyra makes you believe they’ve been singing together for decades, their harmonies are so electric and full of life.

“We definitely put a lot of effort into our harmonies. It’s something that always feels super important when we’re arranging a song,” shares Landon. “The three of us weren’t people who sang with others a lot before this band. When we formed, we learned a lot from old recordings of other bands and all sorts of stuff. We did a lot of transcribing harmony early on in the lockdown. The record needed to start with our voices and we wanted that to set the tone for the album.”

Perfectly performed harmonies underpin the album’s emotional currents. The trio builds guilt, frustration, and hope into the project’s backbone to create a coming-of-age story. “There was a moment when we understood what the album was about. There were separate songs that we found homes together through playing them live,” says Chipouras. “‘Palm Readers’ feels great right after ‘Restless.’ And those songs then became a pair. Their energies matched. The coming-of-age narrative emerged from the time period that the songs were written.”

Restless sprouts from the cracks between each song. Where “No Receipt” meanders through sun-caked uncertainty, the cheeky “Dishes” sees the band accepting domestication and finding peace. Along the way, they agonize over being present while time yanks them this way and that – the pressure that comes from being a working musician crushes their shoulders. The album, based on a “period of leaving college, going out on our own, starting a band, going out on the road, and just trying to figure out what the life of a musician looks like,” captures brutal truths of living, loving, and losing time.

Hopping on a Zoom call, Palmyra spoke to BGS about feeling restless, reenergized creativity, and mortality.

What is it about the title track that made sense to be the opener?

Sasha Landon: It made a lot of sense for us to have this song that starts with the three of our voices kicking off the record. Also, it is a song that has a through line to the record from the jump. The emotional center for this record is pretty heavy. And that’s not to say that there’s not a lot of light in the record. I think there’s a lot of fun on it, as well. But the overall emotional center is pretty heavy and restless, felt like a good way to jump into that.

In “No Receipt,” you lament that there just isn’t enough time. As you’ve gotten older, what’s your relationship with time been like?

Mānoa Bell: That’s the central theme of, not only the record, but questions we’re always asking ourselves. Specifically, the last line there about finding those quieter moments has proven to be such a challenge, to put it all to the side. Being an artist is such a consuming experience. Every moment of your day is a part of that journey and it can be hard to have separation from it, which is a really beautiful thing, but frustrating at times as well. You can’t get away from it.

“Can’t Slow Down” deals with a similar thematic thread. How did this one come together?

Teddy Chipouras: This one was a song that I wrote after a couple of years of not writing songs. I don’t think I wrote hardly any songs during COVID. This tune kind of came out all at once after being fed up with not writing anything for a while, and I think we had just gotten off the road. It was kind of like just throwing words at the page of how I was feeling at the time, just feeling exhausted.

That one’s funny, because it was a really big moment for me and I felt very accomplished that I had written something and finished something. I remember being nervous to send it to the band and then really not thinking anything would come from it. I did not think we would be playing that song every night. It’s one of those tunes that has changed meaning, or it means more to me now than it did when I wrote it.

“Buffalo” roots itself in a phone call during a show in Buffalo after one of your friends had taken their own life. Was this song a necessary cathartic exercise?

MB: There are songs that you try to write and then there are songs that you just have to write. I remember very clearly writing the beginning of it and immediately feeling better. It was a very therapeutic experience, not feeling good but feeling better. It’s a song that’s still hard to play. I feel a responsibility to try to connect emotionally with it every time we play it and not just phone it in. Sometimes, when you’re on stage, you’ve done something so many times, there’s a muscle memory aspect to it. But that song never really feels like muscle memory.

When someone dies, you begin questioning your mortality. Did that happen to you?

MB: I think suicide, specifically, when it’s someone who you see yourself in, and someone who you grew up with, makes you wonder what life would be like without them. It’s not just suicide. It’s just about loss and grief. There was never a point where I was like at such a level of grief that I didn’t want to continue living. But it definitely makes you wonder what life will be like moving forward.

The closing track, “Carolina Wren,” feels like a big sigh to let all the things on the record go. Why does it appear as primarily the demo you recorded?

SL: [Producer] Jake Cochran did such a great job of trying to make sure that the songs sonically matched their emotional core and that the version of the song that we were putting out felt really authentic to the lyrics and our live performance of it. This was a tune that I hadn’t played for anyone in the band yet. I wrote it right before we went to the lakehouse [to record] and played it on a whim. I think Teddy was out getting groceries or something and Jake pressed record. Mānoa is holding the bass and I think plays one note on it, and I am playing guitar and singing. We just felt, after hearing it, there was a consensus that that’s how the song is supposed to exist. It’s how it’s supposed to sound.

And Jake helped us get there, too. With some songs, like “Shape I’m In,” for example, we had to be mindful of how many performances we gave it before we exhausted it and weren’t going to get any more. When you have a song that takes a lot emotionally to perform, you can only do it so many times before it loses its meaning, or becomes muscle memory, or just wears you out from overuse. We had one take that felt earnest. It speaks to the song. It honors the song in a good way and it belongs as it is. Then we decided that it made sense as the last tune on the record. It is a nice little breath at the end.

What have been the biggest realizations you’ve had of being working musicians?

MB: I think maybe for me, I’ve learned that there’s kind of an endless amount of resilience needed. You’re constantly faced with just things you need to get through, to solve. I don’t even know if I would call that a music thing, though. I think that’s just like a growing-up thing.

TC: One thing for me is I didn’t realize how hard it would be to find creative time when you’re a full-time creative. We are full-time musicians, we’re on tour a lot of the time, and then we get home and there’s a lot of work to do. It’s almost harder to schedule the creative time than it is to schedule the work. I never thought it would be hard to find that balance.

Did this album change you in any way?

MB: This record showed all three of us that there was another level to get to and that there are endless places of growth that we will find. I think we dug deep as a band and it has continued to be rewarding for those reasons. The further we dig, the better it is. It does just keep getting better.

With the release, the songs no longer belong to you, but the world. What’s that experience?

TC: It will be interesting to see how this one feels, because this one feels bigger than our previous projects. We talk about this a lot with our songs going through different phases of us letting them go. I think the biggest one for me of letting songs go is starting to play them live. We’ve played all of these songs live before for a while. That moment, for me, is the biggest in terms of feeling like releasing full control of it, and it becoming the world’s and not ours anymore.

MB: We haven’t released something at this level before, so I don’t know. I’m excited to see how it feels releasing the whole project. Last year’s release was an EP. I think that if I’m defining what feels different about an EP versus an album, it’s like Teddy saying that this feels bigger than anything before; it’s the amount of energy we put into creating the music – the amount of energy we’ve put into getting it out to people. It’s just like we’re putting so much behind it.

SL: I’m so excited to see, to know that a listener’s first experience of Palmyra could be Restless, that the first thing that they hear is something that of all of the music we’ve put out, we have been proud of, and has been a really good snapshot of where we are at the present time.

Photo Credit: Rett Rogers

David Ramirez Shares His Dreams on ‘All the Not So Gentle Reminders’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

The first key to All the Not So Gentle Reminders, the sixth album by singer-songwriter David Ramirez releasing on March 21, is “Maybe It Was All a Dream,” the moody, elegiac song that opens his first LP in five years.

There are no lyrics to spell it out for the listener. It’s an instrumental, mostly a synthesizer riff over drums and a stately organ interspersed with a muffled, mysterious, and unintelligible voice. It’s more about mood – think Twin Peaks – than anything specific.

“The connection I have with it, which is a little too personal for me to share, it just felt right to open the record,” Ramirez said. “I had already gone into it knowing that I wanted some very long and dreamlike intros and outros to some of these songs. So it just seemed like a very fitting thing to have it all tie in by introducing the record with a musical number.”

The second key to the album is “Waiting on the Dust to Settle,” the second track, where Ramirez confides he doesn’t yet know where he’s headed.

“Amen, I can see it in the distance, the potential for a new beginning,” he sings. “I don’t recognize this place anymore … [I’m] waiting for the dust to settle.”

In our BGS interview below, you’ll learn the identity of the third key song on All the Not So Gentle Reminders, why it took so long to record and release the new material, and how the album’s lush string arrangements are a sign of the maturation of the artist.

The string arrangements on the album are very prominent, a counterpoint that duets with the lyrics. What brought that on?

David Ramirez: Yeah, for sure. I’ve never worked with strings before and just to kind of stay in the same lane of this dream world that I was trying to build, it made sense. … I’ve been doing this thing for a while now, but I feel like bringing strings into an album, I felt very adult for the first time. It felt good. It was really exciting.

Why did it take you five years to get this album out?

It was COVID and a breakup that kind of paralyzed me from being creative. I didn’t want to directly reference [the breakup]. There is one song on the album called “Nobody Meant to Slow You Down” that is direct from my last relationship. But the rest of it, I wanted to explore some other things.

You have Mexican heritage. Things are going badly for Mexicans and Mexican Americans — and immigrants and their families from many nations and backgrounds — in the U.S. now. Any reason you didn’t tackle that?

I have a couple of political tunes on past records and it’s something that I address during shows. This record for me, especially with the state of my heart recently going through a pretty big breakup that was extremely world-shaking for me, I didn’t want to put out for personal reasons a heartbreak record. … I did write some songs that were more social and politically heavy and I’m reserving those for an EP or my next album. I have this new song that I’ll release sometime later this year, called “We Do It for the Kids,” which is probably my most political tune to date and it’s a pretty heavy one.

To get the full effect of your songs, close attention must be paid to the lyrics. Is that a challenge during shows where people are also socializing?

I’m lucky enough to have people here in the states who’ve been following me for a while and they enjoy the lyrics. They enjoy how meditative it is. But the shows aren’t just that. I do not like going to see a songwriter and they sing for two hours and it’s just dark and depressing the whole time. So we mix in a lot of music from a lot of different records and make sure that there’s a dynamic and it’s fun and it’s funny and it’s upbeat.

Sure, there are slower and more contemplative moments. But we like to put on a show. … In Europe, they’re very polite and you can put on the most rocking show and they’re going to give you a golf clap. They’re there for the songs and the stories. So I generally have to curate a different set when I’m overseas.

You’re based in Austin, Texas. Did you grow up there?

I was born and raised in Houston, playing baseball growing up. It wasn’t until my senior year in high school that I met these fellow students who were all in theater and choir, and those relationships led me to stop playing ball and join choir and join theater and pick up an instrument and start writing my songs. I went to Dallas for a brief time to attend [Dallas Baptist University], and that’s where I started playing out in front of people for the first time, whether it was just open mics or the midnight slot at a metal club where they allowed an acoustic songwriter guy to show up and close out the evening. I was just so desperate to play that I didn’t really think twice about it. In 2007 and 2008 I lived in Nashville and then I moved here to Austin, Texas, in December of 2008 and I’ve been here ever since.

A third key track on the album is “The Music Man,” where you credit your father for helping spur you to make music.

“The Music Man” is a song I wrote about my father who gave me a Walkman when I was 10 years old. There are many people I can thank and [to whom I can] attribute my passion and my love for not just music itself, but for writing and performing it. But if I’m really upfront and honest, I think it goes back to when my father gave me his favorite cassette tapes and how that led to this life as a 41-year-old where I make records and tour the world full-time.

Who were the artists on those cassettes?

The Cars Greatest Hits. That’s obviously a rock band, but the song that I was so obsessed with was [the downbeat] “Drive.” Then I went to the Cranberries, and then to Fiona Apple, and then I went to Sarah McLachlan and that led to Radiohead.

… There’s this melancholy nature and mood that all those records have that at such a young age made a deep impression on me. I didn’t start playing music till seven, eight years after that, but by the time I did pick up a guitar or pick up a pen or piece of paper and start writing down my feelings, I think all those influences from such a young age really started to show their faces.

Any one artist in particular that inspired you to take up songwriting?

When I was 21 I got Ryan Adams’ Gold and that was just a big, massive influence musically for me. … That really locked in for the first time how I wanted to tell stories and what kind of stories I wanted to tell. Ryan and I don’t know each other, but his records led me to folks like Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings, Neil Young, and Bob Dylan. He was the doorway to a lot of a lot of greats that weren’t really coming my way when I was in high school.

Are you comfortable with your music being categorized as Americana?

I don’t mind it, but I don’t really understand it either. If you say it’s Americana, people assume that it’s more country and I don’t feel that way at all. The more I do it, [I prefer] just “singer-songwriter,” because at least that offers freedom. Because every record I’ve released sounds different than the last. So at least with singer-songwriter, I can kind of have the freedom to evolve and change.

Photo Credit: Black Sky Creative

With New Double-Album, Nefesh Mountain Send Out ‘Beacons’ for Dark Times

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

It’s been a decade since Doni Zasloff and Eric Lindberg became musical and life partners, melding her background in musical theater and singer-songwriter music together with his blues, jazz, and banjo-picking roots. Now, with a new double album, Beacons, their band Nefesh Mountain dives deep into the myriad ways music can serve as a light in dark times.

The album’s eighteen tracks across two discs convey not only a ferocious command of numerous roots styles, but also a level of compassion and empathy lacking from so much topical music.

“We’re always trying to … walk that high wire between trying to provide an escape … and not neglect[ing] what’s so clearly happening day by day to all of us, as we watch the news and look at our phones and feel this fear and anger and depression,” says Lindberg. The news, he adds, has become “this thing that we can’t run from.”

For many artists on the folk/roots continuum, this desire to comment on the state of the world might mean focusing entirely on our current political leadership. For Nefesh Mountain, though, it means relating with their audience on an even more personal level than usual.

“That’s really part of our job, I think, as artists right now,” Lindberg says.

This echoes a message of “revolutionary love” that many other artists have gotten behind, courtesy of author Valerie Karr.

“Wonder is where love begins,” Karr wrote in her 2020 memoir, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love. “When we choose to wonder about people we don’t know, when we imagine their lives and listen for their stories, we begin to expand the circle of who we see as part of us.”

This notion is what inspired Ani DiFranco’s 2021 album Revolutionary Love and seems to be echoed on Beacons, with Nefesh Mountain’s determination to weave radical love into their approach to progressive bluegrass and Americana music. Indeed, Beacons seems to strive toward illuminating our common humanity.

Granted, this mission of “radical love” began with the name Lindberg and Zasloff chose for their band in the first place. “Nefesh” is a Hebrew word denoting life force, the sentience that pervades all living things. Radical love requires as much vulnerable expression as it does being open to the array of scary, emotional, dark trepidation so many people have in common. Among the topics Lindberg and Zasloff breach on Beacons: coming clean about a history of substance use, discussing the hard truths around their seven-year fertility journey, and their shared determination to maintain a sense of wonder in a world that can feel relentlessly staid. (“If we’re looking for some heaven, babe/ There’s some right here on the ground,” Lindberg sings in “Heaven Is Here.”)

The first disc of Beacons features a deft exploration of the group’s Americana tones. Though Lindberg and Zasloff are from the Northeast, their Nashville connections and twang-centric improv skills deliver a set of songs that could play just fine on say WSM, the radio home of the Grand Ole Opry.

The set begins with “Race to Run” – a radio-friendly country song about overthinking the struggles of the creative life (“I’m tired of trying to stay out in front/ But you remind me … it’s your own race to run”). “What Kind of World” is a rumination on a sense so many folks share these days, of powerlessness in the face of climate change. (“Is it just me? Can you feel it too?”) But, the song’s lyrics extend into geopolitics and the sense of divide that leaves so many feeling unstable.

Asked about the song’s vulnerable and rather personal honesty, Lindberg notes: “Remember, it was a year and a half ago when the fires from Canada kind of made their way down. We live in the New York area … so the line in the song is, ‘I saw the golden hour at 11 a.m./ They say it’s from the fires, it’s not us or them.’

“Now, a year later or so,” he adds, linking last year’s fire headlines with those of 2025, this time in California. “We had to sing this in Orange County a few weeks back while they were [still seeing smoke].”

As Lindberg’s proverbial camera pans out, the song considers the role of the average citizen in the face of such behemoth powers as climate and politics. “What’s it all for if we’re not all free,” the lyrics ask, shifting from fear about climate disasters to a purpose of climate justice. This ability to move from complaint to action item in a single verse, all couched in infectious twang, is what sets Nefesh Mountain apart from many others in the country space.

The Americana disc’s finest moment, however, is “Mother,” a song written by Lindberg that addresses so many of motherhood’s side effects. “I’ve lived many lives,” Zasloff sings. “…It’s all part of the job as a mother.”

Zasloff notes that her first two children – from a previous relationship – were practically grown when she and Lindberg began trying for a child of their own. What ensued was a seven-year fertility process that echoes what so many women encounter when they discover becoming pregnant is not always as easy as it seems.

“I burst out crying when [Eric] first shared [‘Mother’] with me,” she says, “because it was so personal and so empowering and beautiful for my husband to write that about me.”

In addition to the way the song tackles their infertility journey, it also reckons with Zasloff’s history with alcohol – something she chose to leave behind in order to become a mother. “I decided in that moment of having that song come into the world,” she says, “that I was wanting to talk about something personal that I had never talked about publicly, ever. Which is the fact that I am sober. I’m an alcoholic and I just celebrated 20 years of sobriety. And I actually became sober to become a mother. It’s part of my whole story.”

Livin’ with that drink, Lord,
Always left me wanting more
But I was saved
When I became a mother

After that high point, the group moves into the traditional “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning,” which Lindberg notes has long been a part of their live show. “We’d always mess with the arrangement,” he says. “I kind of just called it in the studio. We had a little bit of extra time. I didn’t know it was going to be on the album, but it’s one that the band knew when we were down in Nashville and we kind of arranged it on the fly.”

“We’re all New York guys and jazz players,” he adds. “So we wanted to lean into that a little bit and bring this real Americana spiritual into a different sonic space, really let improvisation take over, and help that add to the obviously beautiful meaning of the song.”

Nine tracks in, Beacons switches to bluegrass, bringing in giants of the form to round out the band. Of course, anytime Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, Rob McCoury, Cody Kilby, and Mark Schatz come together in any room, the sound is bound to slap. Toss in Lindberg, whose pre-Nefesh background is jazz improvisation, and something truly special crops up.

“Regrets in the Rearview” opens this second disc, feeling like a bluegrass answer to the Americana set’s opener, “Race to Run.” Its instrumental section sets a high bar for the rest of the collection, as the band hands around lead duties, featuring some of the finest bluegrass instrumentals in the biz.

But it’s “This Is Me,” coming in at bluegrass track number three, that delivers one of the double album’s finest moments. Capitalizing on the band’s commitment to building connections and “radical love,” “This Is Me” tells the bluegrass side’s most personal story.

“A question that’s been thrown at us for years now, and especially to Eric,” says Zasloff, “is: How did a Jewish kid from Brooklyn get into bluegrass? … He came to me and he said, ‘I think I wrote a response song so that people will stop asking me that question.”

“I was thinking about it,” Lindberg says. “How did I get into bluegrass? [“This Is Me” is] more about if we’re lucky enough to find that thing that really makes us come alive and makes our soul kind of catch fire –whether it’s writing a song … or painting or sculpture or any trade anyone does. If that’s the thing, then it doesn’t matter, geographically, where we’re from.

“I’m of the belief, nowadays especially, with what we’re trying to do in the roots world, [that it’s important to] try to break down all the barriers,” he continues. No matter where people are from, he adds, “there are people that find this music and go, ‘Wow, that is lighting me up!'”

With that, Lindberg hearkens back to the title of the album. That music might be a light in dark times is, of course, no new concept. (Consider “This Little Light of Mine.”) But the fact that the idea has been floated before doesn’t mean it’s not worth mentioning. At a time when so many folks feel powerless to the onslaught of news and information coursing through the internet and the real world alike, it can be easy to feel like none of us are enough to meet the moment. But Beacons is a reminder that there is no darkness without light.

“No one knows how we become who we are,” Lindberg says, before offering a word of advice. “Everyone just be yourself –regardless of the questions you get or the pain or the hate that you see. You’ve just got to stay true.”

Photo Credit: Kelin Verrette & Rafael Roy   

Mark Knopfler’s ‘Shangri-La’ Rearranged Adam Wright’s Artistic DNA

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

(Editor’s Note: No Skips is a brand new feature from BGS that asks artists, songwriters, musicians, and industry professionals what albums they regard as perfect, with every track a masterpiece – i.e., No Skips!

For the first edition of the column, songwriter-artist-musician Adam Wright highlights Mark Knopfler’s seminal album, Shangri-La, as we look ahead to Wright’s own upcoming project, Nature of Necessity, coming later this year.)

There are only a few times in your creative life when someone’s work hits you so hard it rearranges your artistic DNA. I could probably count those moments for me on one hand.

Shangri-La was a big one. It told me that you can write away from the outside understanding of things. That you can start from the inside of your own knowledge and continue inward. It also taught me that you can write about anything you find interesting. That being understood is not as important as whether or not you’ve put something down worthy of working out for whomever decides to try to understand it. And that there are so many things to write about that are not falling in and out of love. (People probably could have stopped writing love songs in 1950 and we still would have too many.)

The depth and perspective of the storytelling, the crafted excellence of the writing and the sublimely tasteful musicianship make it, to me, Knopfler’s masterpiece. He’s done this on all of his albums, they all include brilliant gems of songs, but Shangri-La is just perfection from top to bottom. – Adam Wright

“5:15 AM” (Track 1)

Like all of the songs on this album, “5:15 AM” is exquisitely written and recorded. It is the story of a coal miner on his way home from the night shift discovering a murder victim who turns out to be involved with organized crime. It is chock-full of lingo and references to specifics about gambling machines, nightclubs, and lots of mining terms. The way Mark weaves all of this language into lyricism and brings it back to the tragic lives of the coal miners at the end is exceptional and beautiful writing. The recording is gorgeous and still somehow earthy as dirt. Just a masterclass in songcraft.

“Boom, Like That” (Track 2)

“Boom, Like That” is about the rise of Ray Kroc from a milkshake salesman to a fast food emperor. Like “5:15 AM,” there are plenty of specific references in this one. “Going to San Bernardino, ring a ding ding. Milkshake mixes, that’s my thing now.” You’re in the middle of the beginning of a story right off the bat. I love songs from the character’s perspective and few writers do that as well as Knopfler.

The movie The Founder was filmed in my hometown of Newnan, Georgia. I noticed the town when I saw it, so I looked it up and read a bit about the filming. While the song was inspired by the book about Kroc, I’d read the movie was actually inspired by the song. Even if the song weren’t so well-written, the riff at the end of the chorus is enough to keep any guitar player happily busy for days.

“All That Matters” (Track 11)

Much of Shangri-La is written from the perspective of the characters in its songs. The title track and “All That Matters” seem to be more personal. “All That Matters” is just a sweet, simple song from a father to his children. Again, beautifully written and pretty as porcelain. It has some surprising chordal and melodic turns in the B section to juxtapose the nursery rhymey-ness of the verses. Just perfect. And a nice respite from the mostly cynical tone of much of the album.

“Stand Up Guy” (Track 12)

“Brew the coffee in a bucket/ Double straight man and banjo/ If you don’t got the snake oil/ Buster, you don’t got a show.”

Again, you’re right smack dab in the middle of someone’s story. This time it’s a musician in a group of traveling, Victorian-era pitchmen. They apparently have teamed up with “the Doctor” who peddles snake oil medicine to townspeople and does it well enough to keep them fed on beefsteak and whiskey. Just wonderfully interesting, both lyrically and musically.

If you wanted to become a very good songwriter (or musician or producer, for that matter), you could only study Shangri-La for years and get a very long way toward the goal. I’ve been mining this album for inspiration for twenty years. It always gives me something more.

Photo Credit: Jo Lopez

GC 5+5: HORSEBATH

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: HORSEBATH
Hometown: Montréal, Québec and Halifax, Nova Scotia
Latest Album: Another Farewell (released February 7)

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

One of our biggest highlights was definitely opening for Sierra Ferrell at Toronto’s legendary Massey Hall. A few of us are from rural Ontario and grew up going to show’s there, and so to have the opportunity to step on that stage in front of our family and friends was quite special. We are extremely grateful that Sierra trusted us and our music, and it’s a memory we will cherish forever. – Etienne Beausoleil

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

We love to dance – especially swing and two-step. When we’re jamming and that heartbeat kicks in – the pulse, the groove that drives us – we know we’ve got a tune that’ll pull people onto the dance floor and keep them moving all night. – Daniel Connolly

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

I think it’s easier to use a kind of veil, in a way, when it comes to writing a certain type of song. We often write about our own experiences and it’s always an exposing thing to share. A lot of our songs are quite personal. Maybe we focus on the sadder ones, but I’ve always felt they make for a more relatable story. The “character” can be the way you play or sing it. You can easily picture yourself living through all the same experiences but in another time, era or place. When it’s coming from personal experience, playing with those different imaginary versions we all have inside of us can create an entire mood that becomes the song. – Dagen Mutter

If you didn’t work in music, what would you do instead?

Make films. – DC

We’re all artistic people. It’s hard to say what we would be doing if it weren’t music and this band, but it’s safe to say that we would all be interested in the arts. Some of us have backgrounds in filmmaking and acting, so perhaps we would be involved somehow in the filmmaking industry. – EB

What’s one question you wish interviewers would stop asking you?

What colour we would be. – DM

The meaning of our name. – DC

It’s our best kept secret and only very few people in the world know the true meaning of the name. – EB

Photo Credit: Sophia Perras

Roots Pop Quartet TopHouse Contrast ‘Theory’ With ‘Practice’ on New EP

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

With a self-made story spanning from their founding in Montana down to Nashville and beyond, roots pop quartet TopHouse know the difference between “theory” and “practice” all too well. But with their intriguing new two-part recording project, they might be some of the first to capture that difference in song.

Comprised of Joe Larson (lead vocals/guitar), Jesse Davis (guitar, mandolin), William Cook (violin) and Andy Lafave (piano), the band first released the hopeful, eminently uplifting Theory EP in 2024, and have now followed up with Practice, which dropped on Valentine’s Day (February 14). But what is the difference, really?

Both EPs fuse grass-roots simplicity with an experimental spirit – plus a rush of kinetic Celtic and Appalachian influence, just for good measure. With nearly 10 years behind them, the band have seen periods of unbridled optimism just to get a gritty reality check in the end; their songs live somewhere in the middle. Over 12 tracks in total, they cycle through warm, everyman vocals, spacious sounds, and live-in lyrics, and seem to conclude the concepts aren’t really opposites at all – more like two sides of the same coin

Where Theory is bold, bright and optimistic, Practice might be darker and a bit more reflective. Yet both are part of the broader truth – and both continually feed off of each other. Speaking with BGS ahead of Practice’s release, Larson and Davis explained where the new six-song set comes from and how it contrasts with its Theory companion.

This whole idea I think is pretty ambitious. Why don’t you tell me how the Theory and Practice EPs came about? Where’d that idea come to split this thing into two parts?

Joe Larson: Honestly, it was kind of an accident. I think Jesse and I were just hanging out one day. … We really wanted to do a full-length LP and we probably had, I don’t know, 14 or 15 songs and we were trying to find a common thread and get some idea of what this album might look like, what the concept of it might be. It just felt natural to split them into two lists. We’re like, “Alright, over here these songs are all about ideals and just optimistic worldview and all that. And then you’ve got these other songs about heartbreak and hardship and all that.” We just put ‘em into two lists and went back and forth for what felt like an eternity trying to decide what to do with this information. Eventually we were like, “Well, let’s just do a double thing.”

Do you see Practice as a more pessimistic kind of project? Or is it something different?

Jesse Davis: I wouldn’t say pessimistic. I’d say realistic. I think with Theory being sort of the ideals, maybe Practice is how they land in the real world, and it’s not pessimistic either in the sense that the EP ends with a tinge of hope. We’re big fans of hope here at TopHouse-the-band, LLC, and the EP ends with a little tinge of hope – in sort of a recognition of this cycle of striving for an ideal, falling a bit short, and maybe you fall quite a ways short. But then you pick yourself back up again and it’s almost like it’s a practice in itself.

I think also the two EPs are supposed to go together in the sense that it’s not like you listen to Theory and then you’re like, “All right, now I’m going to listen to what’s actually true and listen to Practice.” They’re supposed to kind of be combined in the sense, “Okay, there’s Practice, but the Theory is just as important to apply to the Practice.” It’s like, “Yeah, the realistic hard nature of the world is going to kick you in the teeth, but there’s a hope that you should bring to all of that, and ideals and standards that can be applied even in the hardest moments.”

JL: You might say that Theory is fake optimism, and Practice is real optimism. [Laughs]

How is the sound evolving on this one. Your fans really love that uplifting mix of rootsy, Celtic/Appalachian stuff. Has the vibe changed at all?

JD: I remember Joe and I had always had in the back of our minds writing a cowboy EP. We’re fans of artists like Colter Wall and I don’t know what you’d call it – maybe new country or underground country, whatever the term is. We just always had a little soft spot for that kind of a tone, I guess. So while we weren’t setting out to do that with this EP, I think it inevitably bled through a bit. It’s funny because sometimes the sound doesn’t line up with the lyrical message, if that makes sense. But when it doesn’t, I think I kind of enjoy that all the more.

Do you feel like your Montana roots still show up in the band? Maybe just in the willingness to think outside the box a little?

JD: I definitely think so, and for me, I think a lot of that has to do with what I’m visualizing. Maybe it’s not necessarily a musical thing so much as just a lyrical thing. But I think maybe the biggest factor with the Montana connection is that I just miss Montana, so a lot of songs point to this idea of going home or having a place. It kind of feels like we’re all wandering around right now, being away from our roots, which I think many people probably know that feeling.

The EP starts on “Meteor” and it’s got this simple, spacious sound. I just wonder, how does the image of a meteor fit in with the overall theme?

JD: It’s definitely metaphorical – or wait, sorry. Technically, it’s a simile, because it features “like” or “as.” [Laughs] It’s definitely the feeling of coming crashing down. It’s one I wrote, just sitting with my acoustic guitar and kind of strumming, and I remember feeling like it was pretty cheesy at the time I was writing it, because it was just catharsis. But sometimes either your tastes grow or things just develop into something a little bit more.

After that you get into a little bit more energy with tracks like “I Don’t Wanna Move On.” Where did that come from?

JD: “I Don’t Wanna Move On” and “Meteor” are almost sister songs in that those were two I wrote. They were written roughly around the same time and I was feeling some kind of way. “Meteor” is simile. There’s a picture to it. But “I Don’t Wanna Move On” is more of the incessant feeling of not wanting to move on. The chorus is not very ornate in its lyricism. It’s literally just that phrase repeated four times. And I feel like that fits the way sometimes an emotion just won’t leave you alone.

You guys mentioned finishing on a hopeful note, and “Falling” is definitely that. A really dreamy, beautiful song about being in awe over the ability to fall in love again, right?

JD: I think a lot of us struggle with periods of – maybe even if it’s not a full-on depression, just like a numbness to the world or just struggling with feeling anything at all. I mean, I know I definitely go through these phases. …“Falling” is about that. You wake up one morning and you’re like, “Oh, I feel my heartbeat again.” I think I wrote that one coming out of one of those seasons and just being just so grateful to get to feel joy or hope. It was funny because it was supposed to be a depressing song and then I finished it and I was like, “Huh, it’s hopeful.” But that’s probably a good thing. [Laughs]

With it being so uplifting, why did you include it on Practice and not Theory?

JD: That was definitely very intentional, because at least to me I think viewing the real-life things in just a doom-and-gloom view is pretty detrimental. And I don’t think that that’s realistic either. I mean, I know we said that Practice is sort of the realistic album where things go wrong, but I think that realism also includes the Theory. Realism includes the things that we strive towards because that is just as much a part of our life as the breakup or the loss or the addiction. The good things in life are just as real as the bad things.

Also, I think fits with the cyclical nature of the two EPs. If you go back to what Theory ends with, it’s a song that kind of descends into questioning things about life and maybe has a bit of a somber attitude to it. And if you were to go straight from that song into Practice, I think the feeling would continue. Then, as you get through Practice, you get to “Falling” and there’s a tinge of hope. If you go back to Theory from there, it begins with a song called “Better is the End,” which is maybe the most forward-thinking, hopeful tune in the whole collection. So maybe I’m connecting dots that aren’t necessarily there, but honestly, the song order sort of fits with the idea of it being cyclical.

JL: Yeah. We’re just trying to get people to listen to the EPs on repeat forever. [Laughs]

Don’t miss TopHouse performing on the BGS Stage at Bourbon & Beyond in Louisville, KY this September.

Photo Credit: Electric Peak Creative

Authenticity & Collaboration

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

The mercurial husband/wife duo The War and Treaty are now riding a wave of success with an outstanding new LP, Plus One. Their fourth album, it’s out today, Valentine’s Day, on Mercury Nashville. They are also about to embark on a 30-city tour in March.

Two words recur throughout any conversation with Michael and Tanya Trotter, as they did during our extensive phone interview: Authenticity and collaboration.

“We titled it Plus One, because it’s really all about collaboration,” Michael said, getting things started. “That’s really been the key for us, especially since we came to Nashville and began working with the country community. They have been so open and willing to work with us, to listen and to hear what we have to say when we’re writing or when we’re in the studio.”

“For us, it’s really always important that we be true to who we are and what we do,” added Tanya. “That’s really been what we strive to do and the audiences really seem to enjoy it.”

Indeed, the pair earned multiple standing ovations during the opening night of a recent three-night engagement at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville. Backed by the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, they went through a powerhouse nearly 90-minute performance, doing both fresh material from Plus One along with tunes from their earlier LPs such as the masterful “Blank Page,” as well as the glorious “Can I Get an Amen,” and a host of other numbers. They even performed a trio of Ashford & Simpson compositions, among them “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing.”

“Working with the Symphony was really inspiring, but it was also different for us,” Michael said. “They were so great and we just had to make sure that we were on pace in terms of timing and keeping things going.”

“They were really fantastic,” added Tanya. “They really give you a lot of energy and they were so great playing behind us.”

It’s been quite a ride for the Trotters ever since their debut album, Love Affair, was released. Prior to that, from 2003 to 2007, Michael was in the United States Army. He was a Private First Class assigned to the 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division and served in Iraq and Germany. During his deployment, his unit was encamped in one of Saddam Hussein’s private palaces, which had a piano in its basement. Michael learned how to play the instrument when his company commander, Captain Robert Scheetz, encouraged him to toy around with the piano knowing he had a passion for singing. Scheetz was killed on a mission shortly after, and Michael wrote his first song in Scheetz’s honor and sang it at his memorial. He then began performing at the services of other fallen soldiers.

When they began working together the couple were initially known as Trotter & Blount. A year later, with their new name the War and Treaty, they released an EP, Down to the River, which was a superb combination of multiple idiomatic references. It had blues and soul feeling in the lead vocals and harmonies, the intensity of gospel in the performances, and the storytelling charm and acumen of country in its lyrical treatments.

Yet, it also identified the one characteristic about the War and Treaty’s music that has proven perplexing. Because they are so naturally eclectic in terms of musical choice and performance style, they were immediately embraced by the Americana audience. Later they were subsequently welcomed by the country market. But they’ve never been able to generate much momentum or traction within the urban contemporary (what was once termed the soul or Black) market. Despite having a sound as soulful as it gets, and being deeply entrenched in traditional Black music (both popular and secular), that market has been slow, at best, to recognize and welcome their music.

“Well, we know who our tribe is and we accept that,” Tanya said. “Certainly we want to reach as many people as we can, and we clearly want to have our songs played on those stations. But we also understand how the industry and marketplace work, and those are things we have no control over.”

“I’ll say this, when we go to our concerts, we have all types of fans,” Michael added. “They’re across the board, old, young, Black, White, Latino, just people who love good music. We really stress being authentic and staying true to what we do and love. That’s all you can do. But I will add that if these stations would play our songs – [and] play songs by people like Kane Brown, Mickey Guyton, Jimmie Allen – I think they’d find a receptive audience, because there’s an authenticity and feeling there that transcends things, yet also is very much a part of the Black experience.”

That’s been the mission since their 2018 debut release, Healing Tide. They quickly became a sensation in Nashville with their second LP, 2020’s Hearts Town, which included a dynamic collaboration with the great Emmylou Harris on the single “Five More Minutes.”

Two years later they were signed to UMG Nashville. Their first effort for the label, Lover’s Game, was in 2023. That same year, they graced a Top 20 hit, “Hey Driver,” a collaboration with Zach Bryan. It led to them being the first Black duo to be nominated for both the Country Music Association and Academy of Country Music’s Duo of the Year awards. It was also an indication that they had been accepted into country’s inner circle, something that hasn’t always been the case with Black performers.

“From the beginning we’ve never received anything other than respect, kindness, and first-class treatment from the country community,” Michael said. “I know that there are some other acts out there who can’t say that, but that’s really been true for how we’ve been treated.”

“Oh yes, everyone’s been so wonderful,” adds Tanya. “I can’t say enough about how great we’ve been treated and what a thrill it’s been working with people like Emmylou Harris, Chris Stapleton, Zach Bryan.”

That theme of joining forces and working together permeates the War and Treaty’s latest, Plus One.

It’s an 18-song masterpiece recorded at the legendary FAME studios in Muscle Shoals and co-produced by the Trotters along with A-list names like John Shanks, Jesse Frasure, and Jonathan Singleton. There’s a host of notable numbers, among them the poetic and inspirational “Love Like Whiskey,” co-written with Miranda Lambert; “Drink From Me” which also spotlights guitarist Billy Strings; as well as the aforementioned “Can I Get an Amen,” “Called You By Your Name,” and “Carried Away.”

Frasure, Strings, and Jonathan Singleton are among the other contributing writers, but much of the material was co-penned by the Trotters. “Some of these go back a ways, while others are recent,” Michael explained. “We really had about 50 songs by the time we finished and we had to cut it down.”

“I think we’ve got the best of the ones,” added Tanya.

With a biopic now in the works that chronicles their storybook rise to fame, the War and Treaty are looking ahead to the tour and future projects. There’s actually one thing they haven’t done yet that they’d like to do.

“We want to do a bluegrass album some day,” Michael says, in conclusion. “We think there’s a lot of material in those old mountain songs, both the gospel and the secular, and we’d like to try our hands at doing them our way. ”

“I think our fans would be delighted,” added Tanya. “They really enjoy some of the other older type material we do, and I think there’s a lot of good material there that really fits what the War and Treaty’s all about, doing strong and good songs our way.”

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Photo Credit: Sophia Matinazad

John Mailander’s Improvisational Forecast Says ‘Let The World In’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Whether or not you know it, you’ve likely heard John Mailander music. Chances are he’s even worked with one (or some) of your favorite artists, from Bruce Hornsby to Billy Strings, Noah Kahan, Joy Williams, Lucy Dacus, Molly Tuttle, and many more.

No disrespect to his work with the Noisemakers (who he’s toured with since 2018), or Strings’ GRAMMY-winning album Home, or any other projects, but it’s Mailander’s original works where his musical wizardry glows brightest. On his latest effort, Let the World In, his abilities are stronger than ever as he combines the influences from everyone he’s worked with into an adventure of orchestral bliss guided by trance-like, open-ended jazzy jams.

Helping Mailander to paint these soundscapes across nine tracks and 35 total minutes of run-time are his longtime band members in Forecast – Ethan Jodziewicz, Chris Lippincott, Mark Raudabaugh, Jake Stargel, David Williford – who he first started playing with during a Nashville residency at Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge in 2019 to celebrate the release of his debut album of the same name. Through eight instrumental tracks (and a cover of Nick Drake’s “Road”) they send listeners on an introspective journey throughout Let the World In that brings the jazz leaning work of Hornsby and jam-fueled tendencies of Phish together, showing just how far he and Forecast have grown and evolved since first coming together.

“The first record was a blueprint, the second was settling into and discovering who we are, and this record is the most confident statement of who we are,” Mailander tells BGS. “Harmonies, colors, melodic themes, it can all be tied back to the first record in some way.”

Mailander spoke to us ahead of the album’s release about how all of his prior collaborative experiences set the stage for Let the World In to shine, writing on the piano, reality checks from recording, song sequencing, and more.

From your work with Billy Strings and Bruce Hornsby to your own music, you’ve always had a very collaborative way about you and this new record is no exception. What are your thoughts on the significance that played in the process of bringing this album to life?

John Mailander: Collaboration and improvisation are some of the most beautiful parts of being a musician. I love working with the widest variety of artists that I can. It’s a great way to become closer on a human level with the people you’re working with.

Initially, when I was starting this Forecast project, I envisioned it as more of a collective of musicians where we could all bring our own original tunes to the table and improvise freely. However, over time it’s formed into a more regular lineup with the six of us, allowing for the group to grow together as a unit.

Is the album title, Let the World In, meant to be a nod to that collaborative nature and outside influences that loom so large on the project?

Absolutely. The title has a lot of different angles to it. I hesitate to say everything it means to me because I don’t want to put it into too much of a box – I want to leave room for the listener to imagine what it means for them as well. It’s a follow-up to the last record [Look Closer] that we made in isolation during the pandemic.

While that record was very introspective, this new one is much more expansive, because of the world opening up more now and having this constant flood of information coming at us from all directions. It’s an overwhelming time to be alive, so this album feels like a companion piece to the last one, almost like the other side of the coin.

The title track also features the “Let the World In Sound Freedom Expressionists” – Hannah Delynn, Maya de Vitry, Gibb Droll, Ella Korth, Lindsay Lou, and Royal Masat. What was your intention with recruiting them for that one track, and what do you feel they brought to it that it may not have had otherwise?

They are a collection of very dear friends in Nashville who have been there for me in my personal life through a lot. It felt really important to me to credit these friends on the record in some way. That manifested into this collection of sound bites from each of them including poetry, sound effects, singing, and field recordings, which I put together into the sound collage you hear in the track. I love knowing that all of their voices are in there. I hope with each listen you can tune into different elements of it and hear new things.

In terms of outside influences on the record, I know Bruce Hornsby played a big role. What tricks and lessons from him did you implement into these songs?

Bruce is one of my greatest teachers. He’s been really encouraging over the past few years to pursue this project, grow into a band leader, and becoming more confident on the piano. I’m very rudimentary, but I’ve become obsessed with learning the piano recently, in large part thanks to Bruce and watching him play it so much. Everything on this record – except for the cover, “Road,” and the improvisational tracks – were ones I wrote on the piano, which was a huge change in direction for me.

I’ve also tried to incorporate elements of how he leads a band, like having dueling conversational solos rather than individual ones or weaving in and out of and finishing each other’s lines, into what we do with the Forecast as well.

Process-wise, how did the construction of these songs on the piano differ from when you’re composing on fiddle?

Going back to the title of this record, the piano gave it a wider scope compositionally for me, because I was thinking a lot more about bass lines and counter melodies and other things that as a fiddle player aren’t as prevalent. With the fiddle I think much more melodically – it’s kind of the top voice – which makes it harder for me to compose that way because even though it’s my primary instrument it’s hard to get a full picture with it. On the piano it felt more like writing for an entire ensemble rather than just writing a melody in chords.

You ended up knocking out the recording for this album during four consecutive days last year. What was it like doing it all rapid-fire like that compared to the more conventional, slow and steady approach?

It was intense, and we even recorded more than just what made it on the record. A lot of the work in post [production], for me, has been crafting everything we recorded into something that tells a story, which would’ve been tough to do across multiple sessions with the band over time, given that they’re all touring musicians as well. It felt good getting together with everyone from basically 10 to 6 every day and working our butts off as much as we could. It was the most concentrated and focused time we’ve ever had together as a band, as well as a reality check about things in the band we needed to work on.

It’s like putting a microscope on everything because we’ve been playing live at Dee’s every month for a few years, but now we’re in this hyper-focused environment where we can hear and analyze every minor detail. It opened up a lot of rabbit holes that I ended up going down later, but I think we really grew as a band through the process of making it this way.

You mentioned the time being a reality check for what you needed to work on as a band. What were some of those things?

It was like putting a microscope on how the particular instrumentation and individual voices on our instruments really blend and work together, revealing sonic and dynamic things that worked or not. It revealed some habits we’d gotten into through playing live that we discovered didn’t always translate to a record. The sessions were an awesome and intensive way to grow as a unit.

You’ve produced all of the Forecast records thus far. Is that something you plan to continue doing in the future?

Actually, the next record we do I’d like to have another producer. I love producing, but I’m realizing that for my own music I’d like to get another perspective in the room next time we do it. It’s really tough taking on both of those roles, but I’m really proud of what we did and grateful for producing it again this time around.

One of my favorite elements of the record is how well the songs flow from one into another – if listened through in order it presents almost as one long, 35-minute track. Tell me about sequencing this record and the importance for listeners to digest the full project from start to finish?

I’ve always been a nerd about sequencing records. I think it’s a really important part of the experience of listening to music. With this one I put a lot more attention into connecting the tracks. Some of them blend into one another, which is something that my mastering engineer Wayne Pooley – who I know through the Bruce Hornsby world – and I spent countless time laboring over the microseconds between every track to make sure each one hits you in a very intentional way.

Only one track on the album has lyrics – your cover of Nick Drake’s “Road.” Why’d you choose it, and what do you feel it contributes to the overall narrative you’re striving to present on the record?

[Nick’s] been a huge inspiration for years. Even as more of an instrumentalist I’ve always been drawn to his writing. But in terms of that song, I’ve known it for a while and love the entire record it’s on, Pink Man. About a year and a half ago – just before work on Let the World In began – I brought the song to the band. Nick Drake’s version is around two minutes long, but I thought it would be cool to use the song as a tool with our band to improvise and jam like we do at our live shows. We did just that by stretching it out to over nine minutes long. Lyrically it fits with the themes on the rest of the record, but it’s not heavy-handed either. It’s still open to interpretation, which is what I really value in it.

Initially I thought about having a guest vocalist on it, because on our last record we had a couple guest singers. But as we got closer and closer to the studio sessions I realized that it was important for me to sing this one myself, and I’m really proud with how it turned out.

If you could collaborate or have a jam session with any musician past or present, who would it be?

My hero, Trey Anastasio. It would be a dream to play or collaborate with him someday.

What has music, specifically when it comes to the creation process for Let the World In, taught you about yourself?

It’s allowed me to connect with my bandmates on a deeper level than I know how to do any other way. Through that I’m able to tap into those energies that exist between us as people, which is a type of connection I practice and strive to achieve every day.

Photo Credit: Michael Weintrob

BGS 5+5: Shane Pendergast

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Shane Pendergast
Hometown: Corran Ban, Prince Edward Island, Canada
Latest Album: Winter Grace

Which artist has influenced you the most – and how?

I’ve really spent a lot of time studying the music of Gordon Lightfoot. From his lyrics to his intricate melodies to his fingerstyle picking, I keep coming back to him for inspiration. He was able to create strong music over a long period of time. I admire his work ethic.

What has been the best advice you’ve received in your career so far?

Al Tuck told me, “Stay humble, stay serene, keep instigating.”

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

I live on a small island where the ocean is always close by. Whether it’s the rhythm of the waves or the salt in the air, I think it impacts my songwriting. I’m always thinking about how location impacts arts and culture. In terms of storytelling through song, I find myself writing a lot about things like fishing, rum-running, and the romance and ferality of the sea.

What is a genre, album, artist, musician, or song that you adore that would surprise people?

I really enjoy songs from old musicals such as The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof and Oklahoma! There’s something about the playfulness and grand production of the songs that I can’t resist. Before I die I’d like to perform in a musical. Guess I’ll have to work on my dancing…

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

Maybe eating PEI oysters with Stan Rogers. If my uncle, chef Robert Pendergast, was doing the shucking it would turn into a great kitchen party.

Photo Credit: Justin Rix