Tag: Interview

‘Acadia’ Expands Guitarist Yasmin Williams’ Creative Universe

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Oscar Wilde said, “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well. If it is worth having, it is worth waiting for. If it is worth attaining, it is worth fighting for. If it is worth experiencing, it is worth putting aside time for.”

Composer and guitarist Yasmin Williams can certainly relate to the sentiments in Wilde’s reflection. Williams – who went from New York University in 2017 to releasing her first LP in 2018 to performing across the world – says when she picked up the acoustic guitar, it was about “trying to become the best guitarist [she] could be.”

Though a straightforward aspiration, and one that Williams has pursued fervently between the release of her debut album and now of her third record, Acadia, Williams has lived through ups, downs, and unknowns of the music industry, which have shifted her goals along the way. Particularly between 2020 and 2024, when Williams wrote the songs that would become Acadia, the inherent nature of public visibility and the process of establishing herself in the music landscape led Williams to discern what exactly is worth doing, having, waiting for, attaining, fighting for, and experiencing as a musician. It’s this amalgamation of inner realizations and external escapades that make Acadia the compelling journey it is.

Listening to each piece is like exploring a miniature world. Songs like album opener “Cliffwalk” unlock the door to an event memorable to Williams and all the emotions that came with it – performing at Newport Folk Festival and writing most of the song the night before, with the rest unfolding as an improvisation on stage. Pieces like “Virga” and “Dream Lake” reflect the duality of positive and negative challenges that come with nurturing a career as a musician. The two tracks are fittingly written with this direct connection to the other in mind.

Acadia as a whole is brimming with collaboration, a potpourri of artists, instruments, and culture, songs like “Harvest,” “Hummingbird,” and “Dawning” speak directly to what can grow from embracing new friendships, communities, and the unique creative resonance that can be found therein.

Acadia may encompass a fixed window of time in her life, but much like the many meanings of its title and Williams’ own ethos for the album – a place of peace, a place where creativity can blossom – the project endures as an oasis, a reminder from the past thriving in the present that scatters new seeds for music in the future, as Williams continues to walk down a trail of her own design.

Speaking with BGS by phone before a tour that will take her across the U.S. and to the UK later this year, Williams talked about the value of empowerment and patience, the expectations of the music industry, insights that came from producing her own music, and more.

What was the evolution of your vision for Acadia like and how did things develop as you met new artists and had so many new experiences from 2020 to 2024?

Yasmin Williams: I wasn’t really envisioning the album being as expansive as it is. Back in 2020 and even before that, I was still focused on just trying to become the best guitarist I can be, trying to become more confident in my playing and more confident in my abilities.

When I played Newport Folk Festival [in 2021], it gave me the confidence and the encouragement that I needed to realize that I can actually do this for a living – be a professional musician. It definitely lit a spark and after that, I realized I should take meeting people more seriously. Not necessarily networking, but just trying to make friends with musicians that I’m meeting at these festivals since I keep seeing the same people. That’s kind of how the collaborations came about: Just me being not afraid to tell people, “Hey, I really like your music. I’d love to do something with you,” or people telling me that and me not being afraid to follow up with them because, I guess I dealt with some sort of– I don’t want to say, “inferiority complex,” but like, I feel like the musicians that are on the record have been doing their thing for long time. I’d be afraid to reach out to people and ask them to collaborate with me.

After 2021, I got over that fear, which helped immensely. That led to the collaborations and that led to me thinking, “My next record can be what I want it to be but, I can also invite people to do things that I cannot do.” Like, I don’t play saxophone, I don’t play drums. I’m not super comfortable singing on my music yet and inviting all of these people to do those things really created the atmosphere and the universe that I wanted for Acadia. I wanted it to be something that my other two records aren’t necessarily, which is a more expansive kind of universe.

How did you approach conveying themes, motifs, or emotions when writing music to include others versus writing for yourself?

Every song was different. As far as [asking myself], “How does this person fit into the theme or the emotion that I’m trying to present?” What I did was, I told the collaborator, “Here’s what emotion or mood I’m trying to evoke here. Does this make sense to you? Do you think you can do this? Let’s figure out a way to do it.” I gave them slightly free reign, but help if they needed help figuring something out.

Where does your dedication to informing folks about the social and historical aspects of music, and the prospect of personal responsibility around that, fit within your music career?

It took me years to figure out if I even wanted to be involved in making people aware of the historical aspects of the music that I was playing. I also had to learn a lot about music that I was playing and about folk music in general, because I didn’t really grow up listening to folk music at all or bluegrass or things like that. So I’ve learned a lot in the last five, six, seven years.

Things changed when I finished [my album] Urban Driftwood. Just remembering, going to protests up here in Washington, D.C. when George Floyd’s murder happened and seeing all of the political unrest and social unrest around here where I live, and obviously seeing it on the news everywhere else definitely made me change my mind. As far as being open about, for example, speaking about being a Black female guitarist, which is not something I really wanted to do in my late teens, early 20s. I definitely came around to it and now see it as a necessity.

To me, social media is a great tool to try to help educate folks, because there’s so much online at our fingertips that’s just factually incorrect. Anything I can do to try to help mitigate that, I think is good. I think it’s important for me now to be involved in the full scene in a way that’s positive and educating people – to just get involved in things or be involved in ways that I’m interested in. I’ve always been a history nerd anyway so to me, it makes sense now to do that, whereas before, I guess I just wasn’t mature enough to understand why I would have to be a musician and educate folks and have a social media presence. But now I don’t have a problem at all.

What would you describe as the most challenging aspect of making Acadia and how did you wade through that experience?

Figuring out how to finish some of the songs. I realized I have to let time pass and let it come to me. “Sisters,” for example, I came up with that melody like, two, three years ago now? And it was stuck being a two-, three-minute song for years. I thought, “This doesn’t feel done.” But I couldn’t come up with anything. Then, the night before my recording session, I came up with four extra minutes of material. For me, I can’t force the issue of finishing a song. It just kind of has to come to me. And whenever it comes, it comes. And these songs, some of them took a really long time to get finished. So that was probably the most difficult part of it.

What was the most interesting new musical technique or process you explored while making Acadia and why was it so meaningful?

Producing was the most interesting part of it; hearing what people heard in my music was by far the most interesting aspect of recording. Just hearing how people process it, then hearing what they do in response. Pretty much everyone grasped what I was trying to accomplish in the song that they’re featured on.

For example, “Hummingbird” with Allison de Groot and Tatiana Hargreaves. They both come from a more, I guess, old-time tradition, which is very different than [the kind of song] “Hummingbird” is. It took a little while for us to kind of get the song in the studio, because the song is very difficult, first of all, to play. But they absolutely nailed it. Hearing how they heard the timing and the syncopation and the melody, and the melodic aspects of the song, and how they thought, “Okay, I can fit in here and drop out here and harmonize here,” it was really interesting to see how people’s brains worked and how it’s so different from how mine works but it somehow fits together pretty seamlessly.

How did you discern your feelings when a collaborator might encourage you to try something new, versus deciding to stay true to yourself and your voice as a composer and musician?

I feel like I was more so bringing the collaborators to a different place that maybe they weren’t used to and pretty much everybody who’s on the record was willing to do that and go to somewhere new.

Once the recording process and collaboration process got started, it was really easy for me to just tell people, “Okay, I want this, this, and this.” And most of the time, people are just like, “Yeah!” With Darlingside and the song “Virga,” I made it clear that I actually wanted them to do lyrics and then we worked on that. They were open to it for the most part so for me it was easy. But maybe for some of the collaborators it was about getting them out of their usual music making mode and into a more open-minded mode.

Being ready to make an album like this, it took living life and having different experiences.

(Editor’s Note: Continue exploring our Artist of the Month coverage of Yasmin Williams here.)

Photo Credit: Ebru Yildiz

BGS 5+5: Wayne Graham

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Wayne Graham
Hometown: Whitesburg, Kentucky
Latest Album: Bastion

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

The enemy of creation, for me, is judgment. I often superimpose other peoples’ suspected judgments onto something I’m working on, before I’ve written anything down. The true work is in letting go of that fear. When I am in a good flow, I am like a child. I am totally swept up in imagining the possibilities and that ride feels like communion with something much bigger than myself. I hope that doesn’t sound grandiose, I am just left feeling very grateful.

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

Dave Prince – or Laid Back Country Picker – told me once that, “The world is real big, and real cool.” Trusting this to be true leaves a lot of room for pretty much everything to be OK. Not that there aren’t horrendous things happening everyday, but maybe most people are on the side of wanting things to be good and they’re just doing the best they know how at any given point. Maybe it’s naive, but it’s definitely not cynical.

Genre is dead (long live genre!), but how would you describe the genres and styles your music inhabits?

Genres are great if we’re looking to make broad categories that point to a recognizable aspect of a piece of work, but they start to lose their meaning when they come with their own dogmas. In other words, a genre should be used to contextualize a work, not as a frame to create a work within. That being said, we don’t discriminate along genre lines in what we listen to and draw from. We also hope our music is infused with the best parts of what we listen to, so hopefully we end up in a place we couldn’t have planned to go.

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

I think the songs that make the cut for us are the songs where we’re not hiding. But that doesn’t mean the “you” or “I” is always used in a first person way. Oftentimes the “you” in my songs is “me” and the narrator is someone with a helpful perspective. Sometimes we put on characters to inhabit a lesser known part of ourselves that may have something cool to say, sometimes we just write what’s on our mind without needing it to mean anything.

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

Our mom retired a few years ago from teaching at a public school. It’s a job that has so much impact, and is so thankless, and I have so much respect for the people who do it for the right reasons. Our mom took the job very seriously, and so I saw what a struggle it could be at times, but it is really the only other job I’ve ever considered.

Photo Credit: Hunter Way, Impact Media

Ruination & Revival: Our Exclusive Interview with Gillian Welch & David Rawlings

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

In the catalog lore of Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, it’s April 14 that’s known as “Ruination Day”— the historically resonant date marking the “Black Sunday” of the Dust Bowl, the Titanic’s sinking, and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Themes of hard times and disaster have long floated throughout the duo’s music, but they found themselves facing catastrophe with new urgency on March 2, 2020, when a tornado laid waste to their Woodland Studios in their home city of Nashville.

That studio, which the duo took over in 2001, has the unusual distinction of being hit by three separate tornadoes over the years: it’s an unassuming icon of ruination and revival that’s withstood decades of change in personnel, technology, and weather. It became foundation and the namesake for August’s Woodland, a collection of new, original material from Welch and Rawlings after two deliciously deep archival releases and a set of covers titled All the Good Times (Are Past & Gone).

Having rescued their tapes, guitars, and other equipment from calamity, throughout 2020 Rawlings and Welch set about rebuilding Woodland around its original mid-century imprint. The creation of the record and the reconstruction of the studio became two spiritually intertwined processes, the rooms rechristened with songs that excavate the nature of change; Rawlings wrote violin, cello, and viola parts that friends laid to tape in the room he’d restored to its 1960s-era use for recording strings.

Even with the substantial building project, the extended pandemic circumstances offered ample time for writing new material together and the duo amassed dozens more tunes than they could ever release as one record. They ruminated on making a double album for a while. “We had so many songs kicking around because we didn’t want anyone to feel shortchanged if we were both singing,” Welch says.

A single-album concept instead snapped into place around “Empty Trainload of Sky,” which opens Woodland with Welch’s reflections on an unsettling optical illusion. The two tussle with loss and weariness across the record, gesturing at questions of how to keep moving through life’s seasons without hammering into any hard answers. Woodland feels like a statement of renewal and endurance from Welch and Rawlings, the sort of subtle roll forward that’s set them apart from other songwriters for so many years. The musicians spoke with BGS about their new material, old ideas, and what they still feel like they have left to do.

Prior to Woodland, the two of you had spent a lot of time working with your archival material for the Boots releases in 2020. What was the relationship you had between spending so much time working with this older material and then focusing your attention on a new record?

Gillian Welch: Not to put the Lost Songs stuff down, because I’m really happy that we, one, saved it from the tornado, and two, at that point, decided, “Why did we save this? Do we think it has value?” We decided yes, so we put it out. We haven’t given people a lot of opportunities to connect the dots between our albums. Years tend to go by, and I don’t know if they think we’re just on vacation or what, but we’re always writing. I’m happy that stuff’s in the world now.

I still stand behind our decision to not make an album out of that stuff. We’re really album-oriented artists,and if we can’t find a narrative that at least we understand, then it’s not an album. Sometimes people will put out a record and four or five years later, maybe they’re playing one song off it, maybe two. Traditionally, if we put it out, we’ll keep playing it, so we really have to like the song a lot.

So, did that archival material influence this record? Honestly? No. It just reinforced our yardstick, the filter we have in place, like, are we making a record? And the answer for all those lost songs was, “No, we’re not making a record.”

David Rawlings: We were working on some of the songs in late 2020, early 2021, but in general, they are not close in my mind. A lot of the stuff either took more final shape afterwards, or a few of the songs were kind of in shape before. But boy, working on those 50 songs was an awful lot and didn’t leave a lot of space for other things around it. It was really important, because that was one of the first things I was able to do here at the studio as I started to bring it back to life, post-tornado.

You’ve talked about having enough material to make a double album, how did you narrow everything down to the 10 songs that made the cut? What did you feel held these together?

GW: They seemed, in a way, to address the present moment. They were the most clearly about now and because of that, they seem to all fit together. Even though there’s plenty of contradiction within the album, there are these crazy undercurrents of loss, destruction, resurrection and perseverance; sadness, joy, emptiness, and fullness. It’s ripe with contrast. That’s just how we were feeling.

DR: There were different ideas, but I didn’t realize there was that large of a group, that there was the collection of 10 songs that felt like they amplified each other. I think all of the records that we’ve made that feel the best to me, one song sort of affects the way you think of the next and the whole album has a feeling that you’re not going to get if you just listen to your three favorites. I think that that feeling is heavier, or better. That, to me, is the benchmark of what you’re aiming for when you’re trying to make a record. One hopes that these other songs – one that you love for this reason, or that reason – that they eventually fall into some group like that. Or maybe we just start putting out singles.

Gillian, to what extent did everything you went through with the tornado recovery change your relationship with the natural world?

GW: I’m not sure that it did. I’ve always been really comfortable with the fact that there are things larger than us that are out of our control. It’s always sort of been a great relief to me, because I try so hard to navigate and control the things I can. Dave and I are such perfectionists. I don’t know how else to put it, except that it’s a great relief to just give it up for the things that are completely beyond your control. So I don’t worry about it really. The weather is going to be what it’s going to be. Woodland’s been hit by three tornadoes. Every tornado that’s come through Nashville has hit Woodland, but it’s still there. So I think I’m just not going to worry about it.

How do you feel like you both still challenge each other?

DR: Well, I think it’s the same as it ever was. If there’s something that doesn’t hit one of us right about something we’ve written or played, we will eventually come into agreement about that. I think we have a kind of way of taking what the other does, seeing what’s good about it and what isn’t. And that kind of ping ponging back and forth with thoughts, ideas, structures, and everything is what leads us to the stuff that we end up liking the best, and, more importantly, that other people respond to the most.

GW: I think we’re both still completely committed to trying to write better songs. It’s really interesting, because decades go by –we’ve played so many shows, and your voice changes. It just happens with the miles and it doesn’t have to be for the worst. There are things we can do now that we couldn’t do when we were kids, and certainly there are things that we can’t do now that we did in our early 20s. But I’m just so glad that there’s still a lot to explore. Musically, topically – I definitely don’t feel stale or tired of this. I feel like we both have a crazy sense of adventure.

What are some of those things that you feel like you can do now that you couldn’t do when you were younger artists?

GW: I feel like I’m able to listen while we play now, in a more elevated way. I can both listen to the smallest nuances of what I’m playing and singing and I can listen to what Dave’s playing and singing. I can make all these micro-adjustments to our four instruments, but at the same time, I can hear the sum of what we’re doing. I can also just listen to the whole sound and adjust for the whole thing. I’m not sure I used to be able to do that, or it didn’t occur to me to do it.

It sounds like a mixing board of the mind.

GW: Yeah, it’s like that! There are things that I admire so much in other musicians and sometimes I can see little echoes of that stuff that I like in our music, that we’re now able to do.

Whatever happens, at the end of the day, Dave and I are always pretty confident in, “Well, we did our best.” We really don’t slack off. If we missed the mark, whatever. You’ve just got to say, “We really tried.” It’s very exciting to feel like we’re getting closer to the music that inspired us to do this in the first place. We have a couple songs that I know came from my deep love of Jerry Garcia’s music and the Grateful Dead.

Sometimes, when we’re sitting playing in the living room, we’ll hit a passage and I’ll think, “Oh boy, Jerry really would have liked that.” That’s a good feeling, and that’s always been a great motivator – to try to do stuff that you think your idols would approve of. “Barroom Girls” got written because I thought Townes [Van Zandt] would like it. He was showing up at our gigs and stuff, and so I wanted to write a song that I thought Townes would like.

David, when Nashville Obsolete came out, you talked about this idea of keeping a place for old ways of doing things when the rest of the world has kind of pushed them aside. The last few years have had so much change, so fast – how has that idea developed for you?

DR: All of this equipment [in Woodland], almost none of it is new. It’s all the same stuff. It’s taking it a step further and maybe optimizing it for our own purposes. We’re still cutting on two-inch tape, mixing to quarter inch tape, and going through all analog equipment. The final step of going digital is the very last thing that happens. It’s not a museum, in the sense that I use a computer system – we’ve designed a bunch of DTMF code and different relays and stuff to run a lot of the equipment that we’re using. I will use modern technology in any way that I can that doesn’t touch the audio, in order to have things reset to where they are, or to have the lacquers cut with a particular precision. I will design whatever I need to in that department.

So, the goal is never for it to be a museum. The goal is always, how can you make the best sounding art? How can you do any of the stuff as well as you can? It feels the same with songwriting and music. There are modern songs that I admire so much, that you look and go, “How is that put together?” There’s stuff that goes back to the dawn of recorded music, from the late ’20s and ’30s that I think the same thing of. You just look around and cast your net at what moves you and what touches you, and then try to use those things as a jumping off place to contribute yourself.

At this point in your career, what do you still want to do that you haven’t gotten to do yet?

GW: I could say something quippy, like I still want to write a song as good as “Me and Bobby McGee” or “Like a Rolling Stone” or “Blue Eyes Crying In the Rain.” I still want to write a song that people will be singing for a long time. I still keep trying to do good work. Each song that we write is something that hasn’t existed before. So each time we start a song, I want to fulfill that inspiration.

So, you know, it’s like breadcrumbs— “Oh, I haven’t done that,” and you take another little step forward. Where will it ultimately lead? I have no idea. I’m sort of inching forward. Dave and I have never really had a grand plan. We just keep wanting to make music, so that’s what we do.

DR: I just always think that I want to get good at this. I really love the process of writing and performing in front of people, and have since the very first time I was able to get up on stage and play guitar. That was winning the lottery. When we started writing our own material and having people respond to it, there’s nothing really better. It’s a question of longevity, how long can we keep doing things and keep thinking of things that people feel are meaningful in their lives? How long can we stay relevant?

I don’t think that I’ll ever have a feeling of arrival. It’s all pushing forward. How can I play guitar better? How can we write better songs? How can I sing better? How can we record things better? It’s the learning that’s fun, it’s not even necessarily about getting better. It’s about wanting to explore and the pleasure in that process and the doing of it. I’m not real goal-oriented, there’s never been a statue I wanted to win. We’ve gotten some lifetime achievement awards over the past few years, and I’m like, “Are you kidding? We’re just starting to do this! I don’t know what you’re talking about!” It’s not memoir time, and it never will be.

Photo Credit: Alysse Gafkjen

BGS 5+5: Max McNown

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Max McNown
Hometown: Bend, Oregon
Latest Album: Wandering
Personal Nicknames (or rejected band names): Almost went by Max Winter (Winter is my middle name)!

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

My pre-show rituals remain somewhat consistent from show to show. I stay hydrated throughout the day leading up to soundcheck and I typically take it easy on my voice while I rehearse the songs (because I haven’t warmed up at that point). Post-soundcheck, I rest in the green room and use a steam inhaler to clear my sinuses before letting my vocal cords cool down from the heat for at least 30 minutes. After that, I kill time until around 30 minutes before I hit the stage, occupying myself with iPhone games to distract me from the pre-show nerves. At 20 minutes before the show I do a 10 minute vocal routine. At the 10 minute mark I call a circle with my band and say a prayer of thankfulness, asking that whatever happens, we impact the crowd for good. Minutes before stepping on the stage I conduct a box breathing exercise to slow my heart rate, and I’m off to the races!

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

Growing up, I leaned on music to get me through some of my most difficult moments. If I could summarize my “mission” it would be to return that healing… To repay what music has done for me to those who hear my own songs.

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

Considering nearly all my songs are directly influenced by my own life, I hide behind characters often. I purposefully keep it vague when discussing which lines in which songs are fully “true stories.” Some of the most impactful films of my life are “based on a true story” and I take that knowledge into every writing room. Occasionally I take liberties when storytelling, but a lot of my work is pretty accurate to my own life journey.

Does pineapple really belong on pizza?

Considering Hawaiian-style pizza is one of my favorite foods, I strongly believe if you enjoy the taste, you can put whatever you want on pizza!

If you were a color, what shade would you be – and why?

If I were a color I’d have to think I’d be my favorite one, forest green… Simply because of my upbringing in the lush Oregon trees, my green eyes, and my love for nature!

Photo Credit: Benjamin Edwards

Andrew Combs’ Rootsy Refuge From the Modern World

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Forget the information age, we live in the age of hyper-stimulation. There seems to be less space to think – or to feel – than at any other point in human history, and music is not immune to that more-of-everything-all-at-once trap. But Andrew Combs’ sixth album Dream Pictures is your chance to take a break.

An acclaimed singer-songwriter with over a decade of work bridging country, folk, and pop songcraft, Combs is all too familiar with life on the run. He spent years trading his health and sanity for the precarious life of a traveling musician, but lately he’s been on a different program.

Born from quiet evenings of creative refuge, secluded in his garage after the kids went to bed, Dream Pictures finds Combs getting off the artistic treadmill and focusing on a sustainable life – one that includes a family and creative outlets not tied to a marketing calendar.

The result is a calming, relaxed fusion of roots pop and electronic folk, full of confessional character sketches and golden-hour contemplations that may require some slowing down to appreciate – but are well worth the effort. Basically, it’s the opposite of TikTok, and Combs spent one peaceful morning chatting with BGS about where it all came from.

It’s been about a dozen years since your debut album – how are you feeling about creativity as a job these days?

Andrew Combs: I feel more at ease and more creative and productive than I really ever have and I think that probably has a lot to do with just my schedule and having kids. I have no time to just sit around, so I don’t get caught in these periods of writer’s block or anything. I just don’t have time to do that.

Ok, that sounds pretty good!

Yeah, and I feel good. But I mean, the music industry is so fucked – especially for an artist at a lower level like myself. It’s just really hard. I’ve given up in a lot of ways trying to make a full money-making career out of it. I work a part-time job and I paint as well and I’ve decided that I want to do stuff that I want to do. That’s kept me going, and I’m actually happier than ever not being on the road all the time. I’m just doing things when they make sense and not looking at it as I have to go out on the road to make money.

That’s interesting. A lot of artists say that they do their best songwriting in periods of turmoil, but Dream Pictures feels very peaceful.

Yeah, I’d say the overall thesis statement about what the record is about is being content. And not to sound too “woo woo,” but just live in the moment and appreciate what is there around you. A year or two ago, I could easily fall into looking at Instagram and thinking “I should be doing that.” But for this record, I wrote all these songs in the evening after the kids went to bed in that sort of wind-down [stage]. … I kind of liken it to the golden hour of a summer night, just that quiet and calm time when my wife and I can interact as humans and adults and I can go to the garage and do my thing.

It is peaceful, but also patient. I was thinking like, “This is the opposite of TikTok,” and I mean that in a good way.

[Laughs] I actually chose this record to sign up on TikTok and try and put stuff on there and I’m just so lost. It’s so overwhelming when you open the thing, just like, “Bam!”

Likewise, back when you first started putting out records, Americana seemed like it was really exploding and growing, with a lot of new artists coming out. I’m just wondering, do you feel like the roots music scene has evolved in the last decade or so?

I don’t know if it’s evolved or de-volved. It seems like it’s just sort of an all-encompassing net for stuff that doesn’t work other places – which is great, and the cream of the crop is still amazing, but I do feel like there’s a lot of “genericana” going on. It’s just like I got a little bored with it and my origin into making music was electronic music, and then I drifted towards songwriting and Guy Clark, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, and Townes Van Zandt, that kind of stuff. I still really think songs are important and words are important, but I’m also more interested in exploring different melodic things and the sonic quality of recording. I guess for a selfish reason, it’s just to keep me interested.

I can hear that mix of electronica and songwriting on Dream Pictures. You recorded everything with your friend Dom [Billett], what do you like most about how it came out?

We didn’t know we were starting a record. Dom – who has played with me live a lot and done a lot of recording with me, but never produced something with me – over COVID he built out his studio and got a tape machine, and he was like, “I’m just trying to figure this thing out. Do you have any songs that we can try?” The first song that I brought was “Your Eyes and Me,” and that ends up being one of my favorites. You can really hear the progression of him learning the tape machine … because by the end, it just sounds like a good recording. So I like that. I also feel like Dom’s friendship shows, at least to me. We also had our friend Spencer Cullum record some pedal steel, and it’s just us three. I like collaborating – but I really like collaborating when it’s a core group.

I read that “Eventide” was dedicated to your wife. Are you writing a lot of songs about family these days? What are you feeling inspired by?

Mostly right now, it’s about that contentment and mindfulness. I think it’s important for me to get out as well as I think it’s a worthwhile message to be spreading. There are also songs on the new record that another journalist I talked to – and he meant it in a really a nice way – he said they’re “low-stakes songwriting.” Songs that are about love, or heartbreak. Those kind of songs I’ve been writing for a long time. And I’m still able to harken back to my 20s and go through those feelings. I can still feel them like they were yesterday. But it probably helps to not be in despair and look back with a clear head.

Tell me a little bit about “Mary Gold.” It has a nice, delightful little bounce to it, and I love that lo-fi pop feel. What’s that one about?

That’s just a love song, kind of a “low-stakes songwriting” song. Just a feeling of this girl who doesn’t know how special she is, but in the eyes of the beholder is special. Lyrically, I think there’s some good stuff in there, but I was really focusing on that bounce you’re talking about. That ’70s pop feel, I felt like the record could use something like that. A lot of the songs are really subtle and soft and serious.

I dig the premise of “I’m Fine” – and the falsetto hook. Is that about trying to convince yourself you’re fine? Or is that more of that feeling when somebody asks “Hey, what’s wrong with you?”

I mean, I think it’s the latter. That’s the only song I co-wrote on this record and I’ve had it for a long time. The guy I wrote it with, Burton Collins is his name, we wrote again around when I was making the record and that song was good, but it just didn’t quite fit. So I just went back through stuff we had done in the past and was like, “Let me fiddle around with that one for a bit.” It ended up being fun.

What do you like about Dream Pictures as a title? Is that a central theme for the record, or just a cool title?

Well, I originally wanted to call it Eventide, but there’s a guitar-pedal company called Eventide and all my friends were like, “Oh, the pedal?” And I was like, “No, the time of evening.” [Laughs] They were like, “I didn’t know that’s what that meant.” So then Dream Pictures stood out, and the idea of that golden hour, in-between time of chaos and peace, which can also be associated with sleep. I feel like a lot of my song ideas and painting ideas come from that time period of just falling asleep or just waking up.

Big picture, what do you hope folks take away from this one? What are you looking for in the next 10 years?

Well, I hope people find a bit of peace and quiet with the record, and I hope it’s enjoyable. It’s sort of selfish, but I’m just happy to put it out there and get a piece of me out there. I don’t know what the future holds. I could say I’m going to make a synth pop record right now, but it could turn out to be something totally different, so I really don’t know. I’m just going to keep writing and being creative and enjoying my time here on earth.

Photo Credit: Austin Leih

The Cactus Blossoms’ Modern-Classic Sound Blooms on New Album

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

With a sound that’s like rain in the desert for fans of early rock and country, the Cactus Blossoms let their modern-classic vibe bloom on their latest album, Every Time I Think About You. But with pair of big shows to help celebrate the launch, this band is living very much in the present tense.

Made up of Minneapolis-based brothers Jack Torrey and Page Burkum, the duo’s new project arrives August 30 and once again captures the full, timeless magic of spacious melodies, tasteful twang, and tightly-wound harmony. That night, they’ll mark the release with a long-overdue debut at the Grand Ole Opry – where they ought to find a few like-minded fans of keeping music’s traditional cool factors alive – and then head home for a milestone gig in St. Paul.

After a trio of well-received albums and more than 10 years of riveting shows, it’s the perfect setup for a duo who seem totally at ease blurring the American roots timeline – and who promise they couldn’t fake it if they weren’t.

“I don’t think we’re very good at striving,” Torrey says, speaking from the verdant midsummer shores of Lake Superior on a much-needed break from the road. “I do think [this record] has a comfort level, especially since we’ve been able to start touring again, and really hit it. It’s been feeling like we’re a unit and we can kind of read each other’s minds a little bit.”

Speaking with BGS ahead of the release of Every Time I Think About You, Torrey and Burkum filled us in on what that telepathic bond helped create, and where it’s coming from.

A lot of Every Time I Think About You features the “modern-classic” sound you have both made a calling card – like it would sound fresh a few decades ago and today as well. But is that dangerous territory for a band? You don’t want to be pigeonholed as a throwback, right? So how do you walk the tightrope?

Jack Torrey: I think there’s an interesting aspect of that from our perspective. I got super into Bob Dylan and Hank Williams and I was singing songs by both of those guys way back, 18 years ago or whatever. Page was into Jimmie Rodgers and those other super old country things. We start singing together and it’s like if you harmonize on a Hank Williams song, it kind of starts to sound like an Everly Brothers song. You’re kind of accidentally falling into that and getting into territory that people went into 60 years ago – but it’s new for us and I think that has kind of kept happening. We’re not recreating or trying to do anything like listening to records and imitating it. It’s almost like we’re carving our own mini canyon, that resembles some of the other ones from the past.

Page Burkum: I was kind of thinking about this as a way of summing up our style and influences: The Band, The Traveling Wilburys. Those are like my four main food groups or something. I love where all those guys are coming from – a little Roy Orbison, a little Bob Dylan. They balance each other nicely. And I was thinking, when that’s your diet, you’re going to make something that comes out [like Every Time I Think About You]. … But we love other totally different kinds of music outside of that realm too, and I hope a little bit of that gets in there, too.

Where is the title track, “Every Time I Think About You,” coming from? It’s got that lovely, warm-and-fuzzy feel of a mid-century romance ballad to it, but maybe something more, too …

JT: That one is kind of a love song to losing a friend – it’s kind of a heartwarming grief, where you’re almost being consoled by the memory of someone. And that’s where that song came from. The way we wrote it, I just had a couple lines, and then Page jumped in and started singing the beginning of the chorus, and then I sang back the next line, “Every time I think about you …”

PB: Sometimes Jack and I have made fun of biopic movie scenes like in Walk the Line, where it’s like Johnny and June or whoever sit down with a guitar and they’re just writing a song in real time. Like, they sing one line and then pause dramatically, and then sing another line and then it cuts to them playing it for a thousand people or something. But in a funny way, that was kind of the closest to that. [Laughs]

JT: I was like, “I didn’t ask you to jump in and work on my song … but that’s pretty good idea. Let’s do it.”

The album kicks off with “Something’s Got a Hold On Me” – which almost has a Southern rock swagger to it. Where does that come from? Is that your Tom Petty influence showing?

PB: When I first had the idea for that one, the very original idea that set it off was actually a weird little piece of a Jimmie Rodgers song. So, I stole that line and that melody, which is about two notes or something, but it kind of inspired the whole song in a weird way. To me there’s some blend of Lead Belly and The Beatles or something in my mind, but then it ends up just sounding like a country-rock two step. That’s just what happens. It’s fun to roll with stuff. … I threw in another Jimmie Rodgers line, that “T for Texas, T for Tennessee,” to kind of keep that tribute going.

Oh that’s right, I should have known. Why did you end up finishing on “Out of My Mind (On Sunday)”? Is there a reason that seemed to wrap things up?

JT: It wasn’t a big dramatic decision, but it seemed like a nice bookend from “Something’s Got a Hold on Me” to end with being a bit of a crazy person. [Laughs]

PB: To me it actually kind of leaves the door wide open. I don’t know if you want to cap things off with the sweetest, most-concise thing you have, you know? There’s something about it that’s a little bit out there to me.

You’ll make your Grand Ole Opry debut the night this album drops. Then you’re having a big hometown party with show at Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul [on September 13]. What does that mean to you?

PB: We’ve got one of our favorite local bands, Humbird, joining us for that [St. Paul] show, so that’ll be really cool. We’re trying to get some of our collaborators to be involved too, if we can spice it up with an extra ensemble beyond our regular band. So we’re trying to get a piano on stage or something. I mean, it’s a theater show, so it’s a little different. And it’s our first time playing our own show at this theater. It’s a really beautiful building and I never thought I’d play there when I was a kid.

JT: It’s where [A] Prairie Home Companion used to be back in the day. Page and I actually played there when we were first getting started, which was a special time. So it’s cool, and should be fun. Some people can come that don’t like to stand, since we play a lot of clubs. [Laughs]

Photo Credit: Aaron Rice

BGS 5+5: Kate Prascher

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Kate Prascher
Hometown: Hudson Valley, New York
Latest Album: Shake The Dust (out August 30, 2024)
Personal Nicknames (or Rejected Band Names): Kate or Katie. I go by my middle name, which I have always thought of as a Southern thing. Growing up in Tennessee, it was not uncommon to go by a middle name or even a family nickname and it has taken some explaining over the years. Especially when I moved to New York.

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

I like to move some way or other, I will often practice yoga and try to get out of my head a little bit. I also warm up my voice and hands, drink tea, and run through whichever songs are new or have parts that need attention. I try to practice the week before a show and avoid day-of practicing whenever that’s possible, especially when there is new material. I have also started working with visualization this year. It is a thing I’m trying, so that I can see the audience in my mind before I meet them and give my brain a roadmap for how the next performance will go.

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

Books are a huge part of my life and a big part of my songwriting practice. I read all the time, all different kinds of things. I think of reading as stuffing my brain with words that are then (hopefully) at my fingertips when I sit down to write. Reading so much has given me a clearer picture of what good storytelling can be, the moves a writer can make to hide, to expose, and to captivate. And it has taught me about characters. I do the same kind of gathering with music, I pack my mind with good songwriting – or bad – and try to name the things that work or don’t work, things that I find interesting, and ideas or themes I would like to filter through my own voice. Also, I find myself asking: What’s fun and intriguing? Why do I love this song so much?

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

I am lucky to live in the Hudson Valley now. This after years of city living. I see the mountains every day; a privilege that I do not take for granted. There is something about this area, the Shawangunk Ridge and the Catskills, that cradles a person and whispers of things I’ve never known. I go walking or for a hike and usually return with a more rounded perspective. These old beings, these mountains, offer some kind of magic to us who live around here. They have seen things that they keep secret, but maybe also transmit in some silent way. I know at least one song of mine has come from a walk through the mountains, over a railroad trestle near my house.

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

I love the Cranberries. Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? was on heavy rotation in my preteen years. I love Dolores O’Riordan’s voice and the intensity that she could hammer across, but then release to tenderness. Love and love. Also, who doesn’t adore Snoop Dogg? Watching him at the Super Bowl in 2022, the charisma he threw out in that giant arena, surrounded by other huge stars, reached past the fireworks and through the screen. He. Is. So. Good. But you didn’t need me to tell you this.

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

I would very likely be a writer. I am word nerd at heart and not sure I could ever really let go of that part of myself. Maybe an actor? I thought I was going to be an actor for a while, even majored in theater. I am sure the actors and writers who have worked tirelessly and sacrificed daily to master their craft just love hearing this casual statement from me!

I do have a day job, as an elementary school teacher, love the kids, love the work, I learn something every day from teaching. It is a part of my life I am very proud of.

Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez

The Value of Letting Go: Ani DiFranco Steps Out of Her Comfort Zone

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Releasing a new album is stressful enough for most artists, but releasing an album, a documentary, and a book almost simultaneously – while singing and dancing in a Broadway musical? That sounds crazy even to Ani DiFranco, who released her 23rd album, Unprecedented Sh!t, in May, while performing as Persephone in Hadestown, reprising the role she sang on the same-titled Anais Mitchell album that became the folk opera. (The album was released in 2010 on DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records label; the show opened on Broadway in 2019 and won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Original Score.) DiFranco wrapped her nearly five-month acting debut on June 30, just after performing at the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of director Dana Flora’s documentary, 1-800-ON-HER-OWN, filmed as DiFranco recorded her 2021 album, Revolutionary Love.

On August 27, DiFranco will release her second children’s book, the timely and inspiring lyrical narrative, Show Up and Vote, illustrated by Rachelle Baker. (Her first, The Knowing, was released in 2023.) For most of these endeavors, including Unprecedented Sh!t – only her second album produced by someone else (BJ Burton) – DiFranco did something she’s not used to: giving up control.

Who decides to be in a play, release an album and a book and have a documentary premiere at the same time?

Ani DiFranco: No one would decide that. That’s fate just laughing at me, just fucking with me. But it’s exciting. It’s exhausting. And my hamstrings may or may not hold me up through it all. [Laughs] But I wouldn’t be anywhere else.

Obviously, you’ve spent time in front of audiences. What’s different about doing it in a musical?

I’ve realized that performance has, at least for me, two big components. One is improvisational; it’s of the moment. It’s interactive. The other is putting on the show. I’ve always leaned into the interaction and improvisation. This is very much leaning in the other direction. Doing the same shit every night, eight times a week, for months, is a whole other approach. … What I think I love most about this super unique experience, besides the work itself – Hadestown is such an epic work, and I couldn’t think more highly of it – I’ve never done something where it’s such a group effort. I really have been amazed by [the] collective experience. Like we all became one organism, sort of this collective energy field.

Do you think you would get involved in another production like this?

I’m pretty open to anything. I’m most enamored by the new and terrifying, so I have no idea.

I would think a documentary is exciting, too.

Yeah. Yes …

You don’t sound so sure.

I’m just going with exciting as the adjective. [Laughs] For me, it’s very disconcerting.

In what way?

I actually haven’t seen it and I’m not sure if I will. It’s a lot, to show yourself.

That’s got to be a challenge. But you have led what I consider to be a singular life and have had a really impactful career. It seems like it would make sense to put that onscreen.

It’s not a career-defining, expansive retrospective. Of course, there’s some historical context. But it’s just a walk in the shoes of a woman who’s trying to be an artist in the world, and also a mother and have a relationship and be accountable to everyone that wants her to be at any given moment.

Let’s talk about the voting book. I’m so charmed by the concept, because it’s such an important one to teach. What inspired you to do that?

Exactly what you said. I feel like young people being inspired to vote in this country, in this moment, is the difference between having a democracy tomorrow and not. So when I was invited to make a book for children, I thought, “Hey, maybe I’ll try to talk to some future voters.” It’s from a kid’s point of view about going to vote with her mom. The book is a tool with which parents can engage their kids about voting.

I’m somebody who takes my kids with me to vote so that they see it modeled, so that they understand it as a part of being grown and a member of a society. But even more than a teaching tool, I hope that it will inspire kids, that it will get them excited about this thing that they get to do when they’re grown up, because they’re part of a democracy. It’s a really important, empowering, profound thing that connects them to everybody else, and is a way that we take care of each other, a way that we express our love for each other, and all of these really cool things. I guess I most hope that it lights a fire in a kid.

That brings me to the album. I noticed that “The Thing at Hand” and “The Knowing” seem to share similar concepts, but the latter one apparently was describing the ideas to a child. Is there a connection?

They are very related, but “The Knowing,” I wrote specifically to a child. When I was faced with making my first children’s book, I was having a hard time, and the only way I made it through was to pick up my guitar and make a song that was also a book. And “The Thing at Hand,” those themes of identity and ego, and the vast realms that exist beneath that or beyond it, are themes that run through the record.

I totally caught that, and I loved the lyric, “I defy being defined”; that sums up a lot of your career – and your life. How hard has it been to maintain that stance in a society and music industry that seem to be all about definitions, and judging based on them?

It’s been really hard, every step of the way. People want to define and describe you in very finite terms, and they’re often very reductive. Holding onto a sense of myself as this ever-changing field of infinite possibility, so to speak, is a hard thing to do. There are pressures from every direction to be something very concrete, that thing that this person or that person or the other wants you to be or insists that you are. It’s been a real dance of negotiating that all the way along.

What do you do when it gets really frustrating?

I’ve had to just develop this – I mean, I’m as thin-skinned as the next guy, when it comes right down to it. I am as lost in seeking affirmation from the world around me instead of from inside myself as the next guy, so it’s a constant challenge to go beyond all of that and to keep yourself at a distance, no matter what the world is saying about you. I’ve learned that you can’t rely on the world to tell you that you’re worthy and you’re good and you’re great and you’re wonderful, which sometimes it does, because then when it turns around and says you’re unworthy, you’re terrible, you’re horrible, you’re a sham, your whole premise of yourself comes crumbling down. So it’s still a challenge that I am trying to rise to, to self-love. The older I get, the more I believe that the ways that we harm each other all come home to our lack of self-love. So it’s not some kind of trite endeavor; it’s not self-centered or indulgent. It is extremely important to peace on earth that we learn to find our inherent worthiness within ourselves in order that we not turn our self-hatred on each other.

Back to the concepts you address in these songs. “New Bible” sounds almost like a manifesto; there’s so much to unpack there. In other songs, you just allude to an idea; for instance, in “Baby Roe,” you say, “I think we might be wrong about all of that,” which raises the question, wrong about what?

That’s another song that is interrelated on the theme of ego and identity; it’s … stepping back from this debate about abortion and reproductive freedom and going, this is ridiculous. Like, projecting your ego onto a potential human; it’s like, I am a being of light. I am consciousness and that’s what you are. And this is one of many, many lives and manifestations of this unified field of consciousness that unites us all, that we are coming from and returning to infinitely, that we are all one within. This idea that consciousness need be born right now, into this exact body, in order to be manifesting, is really silly. The whole premise of forced reproduction is based in this very stunted understanding of what we are and what life is and what death is. I think a lot of the traps that we fall into that are entrapping us more and more, sociopolitically, environmentally – it’s all ego-based delusion.

In many of these songs, you sing so sweetly, and yet there’s these undertones, like in “More or Less Free.” I was surprised to read that was about somebody in prison; I thought of it as possibly directed to oppressors.

“More or Less Free” is intentionally open-ended, but yes, it’s written from within prison walls, as a free person inside a prison, visiting and having very human moments and connections with people who live in cages all the time. But it’s a tricky business to talk about songs and what is this about and what is that about? I hate doing that, because songs are supposed to reach you the way they reach you and you’re supposed to hear what you hear, or not. And that’s not for me to say, really. They’re about what you decide they are.

But you know what I’m saying. Technically, that’s where it comes from, but it is very much about being born into a society, that dichotomy of – we are all born free, as my friend Utah Phillips would say, and then you wait for somebody to come along and try to take away that freedom. He always said the degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free. So yeah, we are all born free, and yet, we’re not. That’s all that it’s about.

What was different about doing an album with somebody else calling the shots?

Everything of this particular record and process was unique. The remote thing, for one, which is just how it worked out. He and I would have loved to have spent endless hours in a room together vibing off each other, but we did it interacting through many levels of machines. In retrospect, that’s maybe exactly apropos for a record where I was really trying to bring the machines in. BJ, of course, is the one with the machines and the facility to be intuitive and creative with them, but we sort of worked vicariously with each other.

Because I was not in the room with him, I couldn’t say, “Ooh, a little to the left. Oh, a little louder.” It was like, I record the songs, he fucks with them royally, and what comes back is – I mean, we had a little back and forth, but really, it was overwhelmingly a process of giving over. Just saying yes to his artistry, like he was saying yes to mine. I was not prepared to do [that] at 20 or 30 or 40, and with album one or six or 10. But this is album 23. I’m 53 years old, and I’m more than ready to say yes and really delegate.

People have gone back and redone previous albums. Maybe 10 years from now, you might decide that you want to redo it.

Well, I’ve been in this music game and song-making game for 30-plus years, and one thing that I’ve learned from experience is that songs have long lives. And, that even when I was in charge and doing everything “the way I thought it should be done,” which was most of those other records, I don’t necessarily “get it right,” or the album version is not the definitive version of any song of mine, necessarily. In fact, I have no memory of making any of them. And sometimes when I hear them, I’m like, “Whoa, what?” because the song as it’s lived onstage and in the world is not necessarily that moment. When I had misgivings about BJ’s tendency to turn my guitar into some other sound, or eliminate it altogether, or sort of deconstruct what I sent him or something, I would think, “Whoa, is this cool?” And then I was thinking, “Well, who cares? That’s just how it sounds on this little piece of vinyl.” The song, it’s like a snapshot of a human; the human has many faces.

I love the line in “Unprecedented Sh!t,” “the bigger the heart, the more it bleeds.” But it also sounds like there’s an attempt to ignore that [i.e., “I got a lot of heart/ But I can’t afford to let it bleed”]. Sometimes, for example, with animal rescue, I have to stop myself from reading another story about this poor …

Oh, yeah. Dude. That’s all I’m talking about there, is how much we have to numb ourselves to survive being surrounded by pain and suffering and feeling helpless, if not being helpless, to stop it.

It’s a shame that we have to numb ourselves, but on the other hand, do you ever feel like that character in The Green Mile, where it’s just all going into you, and it’s too much to hold sometimes?

Yes, very much. I think anybody whose heart is not dead inside their chest is trying to deal with that.

That’s what I got from “New Bible,” too. There are some really pessimistic statements in there, but there’s also some real optimistic ones, a sense of, yeah, you can let this stuff overwhelm you, or you can look for ways to do something. That, to me, is a really good thing to put out there.

Yeah. Which brings us back around to the children’s book. The tools of nonviolent revolution are right there in our pocket, actually. What do you know? What do you know?

Photo Credit: Anthony Mulcahy

Ben Sollee’s Renewed ‘Long Haul’ Perspective on Earth, Life, and Music

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Seven years have elapsed between Ben Sollee’s last studio release, his 2017 album with Kentucky Native, and his new one, Long Haul (arriving August 16). Much has happened in Sollee’s life since ‘17. His family has grown by two children. He worked on a number of soundtracks, even winning an Emmy Award in 2018 for his score on the ABC special, Base Ballet. The Kentucky born and based singer/songwriter/cellist, who has long been an advocate for environmental and other social causes, also helped launch a nonprofit named Canopy, which helps businesses in his home state positively impact people, the planet, and the future.

When COVID hit, it hit Sollee hard. “I was one of the early folks to get COVID in fall of 2020 and it stuck with me in a way that didn’t stick with other people.” During his prolonged recovery, he had to change how he ate, what he drank, how he slept, and how he exercised. “It turned into a journey of inward exploration and changing my external life. I really changed pretty much everything… It wasn’t until I started emerging from long haul [COVID], I was like, ‘Oh, I think I’ve got something to say about this.’”

While this album grew out of Sollee’s personal health crisis, it also was greatly affected by the death of his close friend and long-time collaborator, Jordon Ellis, who died by suicide in early 2023.

Always ready to blur genres, Sollee felt more free to expand his sonic palette on Long Haul, which includes a gospel-style choir, a Little Richard-inspired rock ‘n’ roll rave-up, West African rhythms, and Caribbean grooves. He purposely wanted to have lively, rhythmic melodies to balance deeply thoughtful lyrics.

“The same way,” he explained, “That Michael Jackson would have these big statements in the middle of these dance songs.” Sollee also recorded a special Dolby ATMOS Spatial Audio version for this album – a first for him – to underscore Long Haul’s immersive sound quality.

Part of what the title Long Haul refers to is your serious battle with long COVID and it also addresses life as being a long haul. How did the two interrelate for you, personally?

Ben Sollee: [COVID] definitely put me in relationship with my body in a way that I had never been before and once you start that relationship with your body, you realize just how interconnected everything is. I mean, we’re all on this long haul together… and I realized that maybe the most radical thing that I could do was to care for myself. That really shifted how I think of my live performances and really my purpose for being out on the road, [which] is to help people connect with themselves. Because once they connect with themselves, then they can have the capacity to be in relationship with nature, other people, animals, you name it. How I be in the world has shifted. It’s subtle from an external view, but internally it’s pretty profound.

How did this all affect your approach in making this album?

I realized that I had a very exploitative relationship with my creativity over the years, where it was just like: Here’s a project, just make stuff. And that was just really eye-opening.

I took a couple of different approaches in the making of this record. The passing of my friend and musical collaborator, Jordon, in the process of writing this record was really profound, because he was such a keystone to my creative process. It kind of forced me to think about how I was approaching music-making in the record without him.

So, I tried a couple different mantras, and one of them was “follow the resonance.” If it said something to me, I didn’t need to figure out why it said something to me, even if that is Polynesian flute playing or this sort of strange Tejano Caribbean groove – just follow it. In the past, I would kind of hedge; like I would hear something, I’d be really into that sound, but I wouldn’t feel like I could, for whatever reason. Like it’s not part of my cultural heritage. I would come up with a reason to be like, I shouldn’t make music with that sound or influence.

Another mantra was “show our fingerprints.” The way that we recorded the record – it was about hearing the hands and the strings and hearing the breath. I chose instruments that would really feature those human aspects of breath and touch. We incorporated woodwinds, which you can hear prominently on the first single, “Misty Miles.” We incorporated choirs in this record for the first time, because I really wanted that breath and sound. Much of the percussion is hand percussion. It’s a very tactile record… very high touch record.

You produced Long Haul. What was the recording process like?

It was a very intuitive, collective approach, and it meant that not only did the music turn out as a surprise to me and others, but it also meant that it was a very engaged, emotional journey. Adrienne Maree Brown [author of the book, Emergent Strategy] is really the inspiration for this – instead of having a singular artist’s vision, you really bring together a group of people in a facilitated way.

It made me maybe a little bit more brave and confident that wherever things went, we could execute that… I mean, musicians left the sessions crying, because they had such a good time and they felt seen and heard. And that, to me, means as much as the music that came out.

Did your experiences composing film soundtracks serve at all as an influence?

[Film work] also inspired me to explore Atmos. I really wanted this record to be an immersive experience, kind of like a sonic film. In keeping with that, there are a few songs that actually have sound design incorporated into them. It’s the first time I’ve done it in such an intentional and immersive way where we’ve got cars driving by with “Hawk and Crows.”

There is a real stylistic diversity to the sound of this album, like “Under The Spell” is one song with a funky dance groove to it.

[Laughs] I wasn’t trying to make a dance track. It started with that cello lick that you hear at the beginning. And it’s sort of this hypnotic West African loop of a lick that really began as kind of me trying to figure out some old-time banjo, like clawhammer music, on the cello.

The words are referencing this kind of duality… dealing with identity and self and how often we are under the influence of the stories that people tell of us. Every time I have this ambition, desire, and even just like the idea of me having something, it sets me down a path of being unsatisfied, which causes a lot of harm to other people and myself in the world. So, the words can go as deep as somebody wants to, but it’s also if people just want to release and have some sort of existential-like dance experience – then let’s go, let’s dance!

It touches on an evolution that I don’t expect anybody to notice in my music and career. My early records had a lot of direct social and political statements in the song. I realized that they were a little bit superficial and surface-y. They weren’t really getting it to the core of those issues. So, I’ve kind of moved into, I guess what I would call like a “post-activist” stance. My music has moved away from direct political commentary most of the time to more of a foundational, fundamental idea of togetherness, of connectedness.

“One More Day” stands out as a key song too.

I guess the original seed of that song emerged as I was beginning to travel again after Jordon had passed away – to places where he and I had traveled so many times. I started thinking about what would I have said had he called me in that moment of decision before he took his life? But the only thing that I would have really said to him is, “Listen, I hear you, I respect your decision, but what’s the rush? Like, if you’re going to do it, you’re going to do it, but you don’t have to do it right now. Just give it one more day, give it one more sunrise. Just get one last look.”

I think that’s what I would have said to him. And the song makes that case through different vignettes of our time together on the road. And, it does it over this Caribbean, Tejano groove that must have come from some jams that he and I did together. It must have. It just feels like a very Jordon groove. What I love about that is it has this real joyous, almost like early Police kind of vibe to it. There’s some really tough content in there and I just love the idea of people dancing at a festival – and just saying, “Give it one more day.”

The closing song, “When You Gonna Learn,” features a rousing gospel-style choir and addresses following your inner voice. It launches the listener out of the album and into the world in a very uplifting way.

I wanted to end with that message, because as a father I watch my four- and six-year-old who have yet to really settle into a sense of self or identity, and they are just so connected to their world and just basic truths about caring for things and protecting things and love and justice. And I think that it’s just more proof to me that there are things we know that get taught out of us. This song just is like: When are you going to learn that you already know?

You address a lot of tough issues on the album, but do so with a sense of humanism and spirited music that offer a hopeful way out of these challenging times.

I often reflect on that “Pale Blue Dot” image that Voyager took looking back at Earth and it’s just black and there’s just one little, tiny dot. And that dot really says it all, because it’s all there, as Carl Sagan says: every love, every heartbreak, every war, every church, it’s all on that one little dot.

So, we got to make it work here. And I think that’s the biggest challenge that we have right now. How do we make this work? I get that we’re going to make some big mistakes along the way. I sure have in my life. That’s where the grace comes in, but we got to make it work here. We don’t have another spot.

Photos courtesy of Big Hassle.

Oliver Wood Gets “Weird” On Second Solo Album, ‘Fat Cat Silhouette’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

As the frontman/guitarist of The Wood Brothers, Oliver Wood is well versed in the art of roots experimentalism, but even that genre-blurring trio can’t satisfy all of his curiosity. With his second solo album, Fat Cat Silhouette (out now), the singer-songwriter set out to reach a new creative plane of existence.

Featuring nine playful, untethered tracks exploring pure sonic adventurism, the set became a case study in songwriting for songwriting’s sake; it’s a joyful mix of folk, jazz and free form pop. Recorded analog to tape by Wood Brothers percussion polymath Jano Rix, it features guest appearances by Katie Pruitt and Los Lobos saxophonist Steve Berlin, and some of the most irreverent, open-minded musical journeys ever taken. Each day, Wood would wake up, grab a coffee and sit down in a comfy chair, looking out the window to write whatever crossed his mind. The result was musical mood-shift, just a refreshing as it is insightful.

Ahead of another Wood Brothers tour, BGS talked with the artist about clearing his creative mind and getting “weird.”

It seems like you were purposely expanding your horizons on this second solo record, right? Why did you want to open up the floodgates?

Oliver Wood: I don’t know, it just felt like time to do that and time to experiment. … The Wood Brothers, we put out an album last spring and when we were done, I guess I was just still writing tunes. But also, I’ve always just liked in the last few years to make it a point to collaborate with some people outside of the band. And then production-wise, I felt like we’ve just done this album with The Wood Brothers a certain way, and a lot of times we react as artists and as writers. You sort of react to what you did before, and you try to be different, even though there’s not necessarily an exact sound in mind. It’s like, “What can we do that’s weirder?”

I love that idea of being a little weird, because why not, right? But the funny thing is that as a band, The Wood Brothers does not exactly seem limiting in terms of creativity.

No not at all.

So was there just still more in you, that had to get out creatively, or what?

I think so, yeah. And I’m sure there’s a subconscious part of me that wants to figure out what is my musical identity. I know what it is within The Wood Brothers. That’s sort of our bread and butter, but when I do my own thing, I feel like I can do whatever I want. … Maybe nobody will even hear it, so why don’t I just do get as weird as I want to get?

In the album bio, you talk about practicing songwriting without self-judgment and I think that’s a cool idea. Can you explain what that is to you and how you go about getting there?

Yeah. I think that is, first of all, almost impossible. However, maybe putting myself in a frame of mind that I was under less pressure to make something that people would like helps get there. It’s all subconscious, but when we’re with The Wood Brothers, even though we’re not trying to please anybody but ourselves, we do have to make our living, so in the back of our heads it’s like, “Oh, this song will sound good at Red Rocks or the Ryman Auditorium.” In other words, “People are going to love this.” I can’t help but think that in the back of my mind probably. But as far as writing without judgment and what that looks like? I think it looks like trust. I think it looks trusting that oftentimes your first instincts are right.

You don’t have to fix something or change something. You can trust that your soul and realness is going to come out if you just let it, and you write something down or play something, rather than going over it and editing it. I feel like I did that a lot with lyrics on this record. I wrote some things and I was like, “That doesn’t make any sense.” I caught myself thinking that, and then I was like, “Screw it. I trust that that’s what my subconscious told me to write. And it’s real.” I don’t think you really have to try to do that. In fact, the more you try, the less authentic it might be.

What came out is these nine tracks that to me are really playful and enthusiastic. What do you like about where the sound went? You definitely took some leaps.

Well, I talked with [album producer and fellow Wood Brothers member] Jano a lot about maybe being a little bit less on the drum set side, a little more on the percussion side. He is my favorite drummer ever, but sometimes I get tired of drum sets. I mean I love classic rock ‘n’ roll and R&B drums, all that stuff. But sometimes when you think about it, it sounds like everything else. So it was like “What if we didn’t have that?” There was one point where it’s like, “Jano, why don’t you do that percussion part vocally?” With the song “Whom I Adore,” not only did he play the Sitar and the tambourine, but he also did this weird shaker part with his mouth. Sometimes when you avoid one thing, you have to innovate to replace it with something else. And that was kind of the idea.

I use this really dull, rubber-bridge guitar on a lot of the songs, so there’s some more atypical guitar sounds. And of course, Steve Berlin and the bari-sax was a really cool thing. There was one section where we were wishing we had a horn section and instead Jano and I just sang all the parts. That was for “Star In the Corner,” and we just sang them like idiots – like fake opera singers! It’s kind of silly, but it was like, “That’s cool. And we haven’t done that before.”

That to me was the way to go to be non-judgmental, to be like you called it, playful. Sometimes you feel like you can control something and make it just perfect. But the opposite of that is letting go and trusting that if you try something, it may or may not turn you on, but when it works, it’ll surprise you and delight you. And that’s so much more fun than trying to control something and never quite being happy.

Tell me about the track “Little Worries.” This contains the album title, Fat Cat Silhouette, which is so fun. How does that song speak to the project overall?

Some of the themes, I feel like bloomed from that song. I have a ritual where I’ll go downstairs in the morning and have a cup of coffee in this armchair, which is right by a window facing my front yard. And I usually go down there and I write and sometimes I just write in a notebook, just sort of freeform. Sometimes it’s working on a song, but it’s wide open and several of these songs kind of started that way.

The idea of the Fat Cat Silhouette was really just an actual thing. I’m sitting there in that chair with my cup of coffee and I have these semi-transparent sheer curtains, and there’s a cat sitting there looking out the window. Sometimes for me – and I’m pretty sure for a lot of other songwriters – you don’t know what you’re going to write about, but you may see something that gets you started. And so the beginning of that song is literally me describing sitting in the chair with my cup of coffee and there’s a fat cat silhouette in the window.

That sort of observation, oftentimes if you write it down, can lead to a story. The first song on the album, “Light and Sweet,” happened the same way, sitting in the same spot looking out the window and there’s a sparrow. I started the song and then I started fantasizing. He’s on the phone with his lawyer talking about his divorce with his soon to be ex-wife.

[Laughs] You don’t hear many songs about bird law.

Exactly! But with the “Little Worries” song, I think writing that song and writing in general every morning is a good way for me to deal with anxieties and overthinking things. And that kind of turned out to be what that song was about.

How about “Yo I Surrender.” This is another track about giving up control, but also I think the most fun on the record. I love how you said it has the worst guitar sound ever. Why does that work for you?

That’s one that Jano and me and [bassist] Ted [Pecchio] were warming up one day, and we just started playing that groove. We just had fun playing that groove and I saved it on my phone, and then Steve Berlin from Los Lobos was in town with his bari-sax, and we invited him to come into the studio, help us finish writing that song. So the four of us sort of arranged the music and parallel to that, I was starting to think about the lyrics. I was also reading some cool books that were giving me some cool vocabulary words that I was like, “I just want to use that word. I don’t even care if it fits. I don’t even care if it makes sense.” It was definitely one of those things where it was musically such a group effort, and then lyrically one of those things – let it be weird, let it be ambiguous. I think some of my favorite songs that I’ve heard over the years are always a little bit ambiguous.

Photo Credit: Alysse Gafkjen