Tag: john osborne

House of Worship,
House of Pain

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

If you’ve spent enough time within the sacred walls of a sanctuary, chances are you’ve witnessed or experienced church hurt – the trauma foisted upon others, by others, under the guise of scripture. Logan Simmons – a woman of deep faith and former worship leader who grew up in the church and cultivated her powerhouse vocals in the sanctuary – knows this too well. Together with her best friend and musical other half, Malachi Mills, Simmons channeled her wounds into The Band Loula’s single “Running Off The Angels,” an unfiltered exposé of damage done in the name of religion. Reaction has been overwhelming, as both song and video cut deep into listeners who recognize their own stories in the song.

This isn’t the first time the songwriting team of Simmons and Mills has made a bold statement. Tackling and confronting dark subjects usually swept under rugs and stuffed away in family closets seems to be their comfort zone. “Marshall County Man” began as their take on the traditional “murder ballad.” However, with its challenging lyrics and graphic video, the song quickly pivoted to an outcry about domestic violence and generational trauma, speaking loudly to systemic treatment of victims/survivors.

All is not grim in the world of The Band Loula. Far from it, in fact, as evidenced on their debut EP, Sweet Southern Summer, which was produced by Brothers Osborne’s John Osborne, with additional production by Greg Bieck. The six songs – “Running Off The Angels” among them – are a slice of life reflecting Simmons and Mills’ experiences growing up in Gainesville, Georgia, up to the present. The two attended school and sang in church together and became best friends along the way. At one point, their paths diverged. Mills pursued music full-time, including an American Idol audition (fun fact: Luke Bryan voted him a firm “no”), a solo career, and writing for and working with other artists, while Simmons built a successful photography business.

Music, however, had the strongest hold, bolstered by their enduring friendship. They launched The Band Loula in 2020 and officially debuted as such in 2022. They independently released singles recorded at Ivy Manor Studios, where they worked with close friend, co-writer, and guitarist Gary Nichols. Universal Music Publishing Group discovered, auditioned, and signed them in 2023; Warner Music Nashville did the same the following year. They spent 2024 on the road with Brothers Osborne, Ashley McBryde, Paul Cauthen, Brent Cobb, and Elle King.

This year, The Band Loula and their band – Gary Nichols on guitar, Jamie McFarlane on bass, Justin Holder on drums, and Diana Dawydchak on fiddle – are spending the summer touring with Dierks Bentley and Zach Top. When they spoke again with Good Country, they were weeks away from a date at Madison Square Garden and from their Opry debut, and equal parts overjoyed, incredulous, and grateful for all that has happened and is yet to come.

Let’s begin by having you introduce each other to readers.

Logan Simmons: I’m Logan, I’m half of The Band Loula, and Malachi is the other half who leads us very well. He’s been writing songs and playing music since he was 16 or 17, and we’ve been friends since we were 14, so I’ve gotten to watch that whole journey. He had his own career going, added me into the mix once we found that we had some magic, and we created The Band Loula. We bring different things to the table. He is an incredible singer and guitarist, and he’s the planner of the group. He’s got all the logistics underway. He knows what everybody’s doing and at what time. I’m pretty much the opposite of that. I’m very Type B. He keeps us together. He’s definitely the glue of the band.

Malachi Mills: I’m Malachi, and as Logan mentioned, we met when we were 14 years old. When I first saw her, she was performing a skit onstage with her cheerleading squad doing a Justin Bieber dance. We were friends through high school, went to church together, and sang together in church a handful of times. I also got to watch Logan’s career as a photographer. She started when she was still in high school and now she is critically acclaimed. Along that journey she learned so much about visual arts, marketing, and things that are a major part of her role in The Band Loula. She is the brains behind our social media and she’s an absolute visionary. Big visions, big emotions, a great songwriter, and obviously an excellent singer. Half the time I’m just trying to keep up with her vocally.

Logan, is it correct that you first heard Malachi sing at a Relay For Life event?

LS: Yes. It was the same event he’s referring to. We both signed up for karaoke, essentially. I saw him first. He was onstage singing “When a Man Loves a Woman” by Percy Sledge. I did not see him when I was onstage in my Justin Bieber outfit, with Ray-Bans on, because I couldn’t see much of anything! But yeah, that was the first time I ever saw him. That’s how we met.

 

Universal Music Publishing Group came to see you at a gig in a Gainesville parking lot. What, exactly, is the story?

LS: In April 2023, we got an email from Ron Stuve at Universal Music Publishing Group. We had plans a few days later to play under a little pop-up tent by the lake in Gainesville. It was a Food Truck Friday event. Ron came to Georgia with his family and saw us play there for the first time. We didn’t expect this at all. At first, we thought the email was spam because we didn’t have any followers. We were a very small band. But Ron came and he believed in us.

How did he find you?

MM: Ron was on his iPad early one morning and saw an Instagram video of our song “Getting Clean.” He didn’t know how to save it, so he left his iPad open on the charger, for hours, after he had woken up, so he could step away! Thankfully, we were still there when he came back. He submitted a form on our website to email us. We only had that video at the time. It had about 10,000 views, which, when you’re a small band, is a lot. But in the grand scheme of how many views happen daily in the world, that was pretty small odds, so we definitely think it was meant to be.

It’s quite a jump from a food truck gig to Madison Square Garden. Can anything prepare you?

MM: There’s nothing we could have done to fully prepare for the mad rush that has happened over the past two years of our career. It’s been a very quick rise, a lot of opportunities that came fast, but in a weird way we’ve had peace about it the whole time. With our separate journeys, we’ve been able to build the skill sets to come together and be ready for the opportunities that have been given to us. All that to say, stepping out onstage at Madison Square Garden … you can call us back in a couple weeks and see if we feel the same!

LS: There’s nothing to prepare you for something like that except thoughts, and prayers. We’re not even halfway up the ladder. It still feels like we’re babies and a lot of what happens to us doesn’t really hit us until it’s happening or after the fact. We don’t expect anything. We just put our heads down, work, hope that what we believe in is connecting with people, and we’re really thankful when it does. We’re grateful for all the opportunities we’ve been given.

How did your separate journeys help lay the groundwork for the band?

MM: I’ve always had a strong love for songwriting. I looked at the artist side of it as supplementary to that. It’s given me an outlet. I never felt I had a place as an artist until The Band Loula, because there’s so much identity and chemistry in what we have together. All that experience came into play when we started to really commit to this, for sure. You learn what to do and not do, and I was able to bring a lot of what we probably shouldn’t do on our journey as artists, because I had lived and learned in some of those areas.

LS: It taught me a lot about life in general. I shot my first wedding when I was 14 or 15. My dad drove me. One of my cheerleader friend’s sister asked me to shoot her wedding, which is a very important thing. I couldn’t believe she asked me to do it. I learned a lot over twelve years of doing it professionally. You can’t replace the connections you make in that kind of business, where you deal with people of all ages and from all walks of life every day. At one point I was traveling every week, meeting new people, driving across the desert in a podunk car, and sleeping in the car, just to make it to the next shoot. It’s life lessons and learning about yourself.

Now that we’re in the music industry, I find myself using those tools. The photography world is a lot of people-pleasing and deadlines. It tests your strength and emotional intelligence, which is a real skill that you can use in every industry. I feel like I have mastered some corners of that, of being emotionally intelligent, reading people, making real connections, and how that can get you to the next step. Every milestone and opportunity we’ve gotten as the band has been a product of how well we treat the people around us and how we reciprocate the love that’s given to us. I’ve learned how to master that because of all the people that were put in my life during my photography years. I’ll never forget what I learned and the people I met. I [recently] had some backstage guests at a show with Dierks Bentley and it was two people I shot a wedding for in Maine a few years ago. Watching those people become our fans is irreplaceable for me.

What were your goals for Sweet Southern Summer?

MM: Our main goal was to show our listeners a different side of us. A lot of the tracks we’ve put out so far have done a great job of showing a more emotional side. Usually, people don’t come in off the bat with emotional songs. They come in with lighter or more topical songs. We came in with a pretty heavy side of us, and I think that’s why our fans appreciate us. But we wanted to show our fans that we also have songs that are a little less gothic and more bluesy and rocking and soulful.

LS: With this EP and beyond, the goal is to show a different side of us each time, so our fans feel like they are learning more about us, and the relationship gets deeper and deeper. But we also are keeping the common thread of who we are and who we’ve always been. This EP is so exciting because it’s fresh and different, but it is obviously working toward a goal of a debut album. I think these songs will maybe surprise people and keep them on the journey. We really believe in this EP and we hope it connects with folks.

You’re both very open about your faith. How does that guide you and keep you grounded?

MM: A big hinge point in faith is being grateful. Whenever you’re grateful, you’re reminded where opportunities and things in life come from. To think that we could have put all this together with our own two hands would be egotistical. We’ve worked very hard and intentionally, but we believe that if we take care of the small steps, put one foot front in front of the other, and stay grateful for the opportunities that are coming, God will continue to bless us with those opportunities and take care of the big picture.

LS: I agree. Malachi has been a really good leader in that way to point us toward the bigger picture, which is having faith and believing that God will get us where we need to be. I led worship for a long time, but I had a falling out with church and a large moment of my life that was hard to believe that something … I don’t know. It’s a lot to chew on. For the past few months it’s been lovely to watch Malachi lead our band in prayer and keep God and our faith at the center, because I was not previously doing that. I had a really hard time getting past some church hurt and realizing that God is the reason why we’re here and why we’re doing this. That is what I believe now, and that’s what I’m getting back to after a lot of trauma, a lot of hurt, and a lot of figuring things out.

Thankfully, that’s why God put us in a duo – because we’re two different people and we’re able to lead each other in different ways. I’ve continuously been watching Malachi lead in that way and help me regain faith. We like to keep that at the center of our band. I can’t walk onstage without him praying for us now. We both believe we’re not here because of us or something we’re doing with our two hands. It’s a lot more divine than that, and it’s a beautiful thing.

Church hurt is an inconvenient truth mostly swept under the rug, which speaks to the overwhelming positive response to “Running Off The Angels.” Did you also experience blowback?

MM: We don’t ever want to be divisive in any way. Our main goal, without being too specific, is to promote love first. We don’t want to promote judgment. There’s a lot of judging people before you even get to know them, and I think our songs do a good job of reminding people of that reality. I think the ones who get frustrated might be actively judging in that way, or maybe they’re coming to grips that they’re ready to change for the better.

LS: “Running Off The Angels” has been interesting for us, because we weren’t a hundred percent sure we were going to put it out when we first wrote it. It was very specific to my experience and it crosses some lines. We got a wonderful response. We went out on a limb a little bit and were like, “Let’s just post this on social media and see what happens,” and it went viral. There was a lot of blowback, too. On social media, in the Facebook world, people like to talk. They like to hide behind their keyboards. So we did get people who didn’t enjoy the song. But at the end of the day, you can write about experiences that don’t necessarily encapsulate who you will be forever.

When we wrote, “I quit church and never went back, sang my last red-covered hymn,” that isn’t necessarily completely true to me now. But the song has so many truths to it, and it’s something that needs to be said, because people are struggling every day with church hurt and trauma, and it’s not talked about enough. There are wonderful communities and people and churches out there, and I’m thankful for that. And then you have wonderful churches that have people in them with bad intentions or who don’t understand how to treat people. We hope that people always turn toward love, if they can. That’s all that song is about. But it was wonderful writing it, recording it, teasing it, releasing it, and gaining new fans from it.

One of your social media posts says, “Songwriting is an ugly truth. It makes you dig through trauma with your hands, open up an emotional filing cabinet that you locked away and somehow come out on the other side with something you’re proud to sing in front of folks.” How does music help you heal that trauma and protect your mental health?

LS: Music is everything. I’m very much an empath, so music and songs that make me feel something shape who I am and affect me in different ways. That sentiment has amplified now that I’m a songwriter, because I get to create the music that is helping heal me. It’s not just I hear a song that pertains to me and takes me to a place. Now we get to write music that is about what we are feeling and what we experience. That’s therapy. It has deeply affected who I am. It has healed me in many ways. Most of the trauma I went through was recent, in my twenties, so this career choice, leaning into this passion and into music, happened exactly when it was supposed to happen, because it has helped pull me out of some deep, dark places.

MM: I agree. Songwriting and music are very cathartic. The fact that there is a song in my heart, in my brain, inside of me, and having the ability to get it out into the world, is very healing. Also, when you’re able to say things that other people don’t feel they have the words or the song inside of them to say, that is very special, because it makes you feel like you’re really making a difference.

Photo Credit: Sara Katherine Mills

Jett Holden’s Dreams Come to Life on ‘The Phoenix’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

For years, Jett Holden dreamt and dreamt about making a living through music, but everywhere he turned he was met with doubt, subtle prejudice, and closeted racism that left him running on empty and searching for something new.

Following a journey to rock bottom, Holden is back stronger than ever on The Phoenix, a 10-song collection that catalogs his rise from the ashes and spotlights the community that embraced him when it seemed nobody else would. Told through a mix of countrypolitan, rock, punk, metal, and R&B sounds, the record is proof that there are no boundaries to who, where, and what good music can come from – and that we all benefit from everyone having a seat at the table, sharing their stories and perspectives.

“This album reflects who I’ve been throughout my entire life,” Holden explains to Good Country. “It’s been really cool to look back on when and where my different influences come from while bringing these songs to life. For example, ‘Karma’ is definitely Paramore meets Stapleton, while ‘West Virginia Sky’ harkens to my Tracy Chapman and Jim Croce influences.”

Fresh off a move to Nashville, Holden spoke with GC over the phone about the doubt and prejudice he’s faced along his musical journey, his work with the Black Opry, using music to heal past trauma, and more.

There’s a lot going on in your song ‘Scarecrow,’ from exploring your family’s reaction to coming out to masking the crippling weight of other’s doubts of what you’re capable of – along with a slew of Wizard of Oz references to the scarecrow, tin man, and cowardly lion. Mind sharing how all those ideas coalesced into one?

Jett Holden: It’s the first song I finished for the album. I wrote it back when I was 25, and at that point my family and I didn’t really have a personal relationship. It had gotten to the point where I came out 10 years earlier and wasn’t sure where I stood with them. I wasn’t disowned, but I also didn’t have anyone to turn to – they all pretty much told me they didn’t want to hear about it. I didn’t want to keep living in limbo, so a few years later I skipped town and moved to East Tennessee, which is where [Black Opry founder Holly G] found me in 2021.

You also had a brief stint living in California around this time that left you on the brink of quitting music for good. What all transpired out there?

I moved out to Long Beach after dropping out of community college. I was in talks about a development deal and during the “get-to-know-you” phase I let it slip that I was gay and they responded by saying that I wasn’t marketable as a Black, gay man doing the kind of music that I wanted to do. Things fell apart from there, which is why I left California and moved back to Virginia before eventually relocating to Tennessee.

Aside from that moment, were there any other circumstances that contributed to you feeling so defeated about your music prospects?

When I first moved out West, there was a very steep trajectory that isn’t common for most people, but it quickly deteriorated after I mentioned being gay, making for a really high peak and a really low low. When I returned to Virginia things got stagnant and didn’t progress at all, even moving backwards at times. It was a frustrating time of trying to figure myself out that culminated in the move to East Tennessee where I was roommates with a close friend before coming home one day after she committed suicide.

Another of my friends got cancer around the same time and just recently passed too, so those were very traumatic years for me.
By 2020, I just couldn’t do it anymore, so I started going to therapy right before the pandemic hit and the world shut down. Suddenly [music] was just too much to deal with, so I stopped making it. Being online was toxic so I shut down, got a stay-at-home job with AT&T, and accepted that as my future, working my way up in the company.

Then Holly — and the Black Opry — came around?

Exactly. I’d already called it quits when she found me on Instagram through a video I’d posted of my song “Taxidermy.” I only had that and a couple other covers posted, but it was enough for her to take interest and slowly pull me back into the industry. A couple months later she launched the Black Opry as a blog and it’s crazy to see where things have gone since then.

Within a year I’d gotten to tour all over the country, appear on The Kelly Clarkson Show, and I recorded my first single and EP through a grant I received from [Rissi Palmer’s] Color Me Country. Holly has made so many things possible that had been unavailable to me for my entire career until then, fighting for me in ways nobody else had before. She took chances because she wasn’t an industry person, but rather a flight attendant who was just a fan of country music and wanted to feel connected to it and the artists she was listening to, which is something a lot of others were in search of as well.

When I went to the first outlaw house she threw at Americanafest in 2021, I was expecting a bunch of Black country fans to show up, but it was also the queer community, the Latin community, and the women in country music that didn’t feel like they were getting a fair shake of things. Everyone who felt “othered” in country music showed up and it felt like immediate family. Seeing the excitement around that is what drew me back in.

Speaking of your song “Taxidermy,” I remember you being brought to tears while singing it during a Black Opry panel at Americanafest that same year. What’s that song meant to you, both in its message and what it’s meant to your career?

That song relaunched my career essentially, because I wasn’t chasing music when I wrote it. In fact, when I posted it online I only had one verse and the chorus. Despite it not being complete, Holly still sent it off to Rissi Palmer and got me the grant and I finished writing it the day we recorded. It’s a song of frustration that I didn’t expect many people to watch when I posted it, but Holly really connected with it, spread it around, and helped it blow up into something bigger than I ever imagined.

I was just singing about my frustrations with what was going on around our country at the time concerning police brutality, which was a big reason why I quit social media and music altogether in 2020. Instagram was the [only] online account I had when Holly found me. That song allowed me to vent about those things, but it also helped me gain the community I needed to break myself out of the news cycle that we were constantly absorbing, because we had nowhere to go. The song came about out of all that negativity, but had a huge positive impact on me that I never expected.

In addition to the support you’ve received from the Black Opry, you’ve also got a helluva team behind you for this record including the folks at Thirty Tigers, [producer] Will Hoge, and collaborators like John Osborne and Charlie Worsham (“Backwoods Proclamation”), Cassadee Pope (“Karma”), and Emily Scott Robinson (“When I’m Gone”). I imagine that, after everything you’ve been through, having folks like that working alongside you is incredibly validating?

Definitely! Emily was the first person I asked, since she was a very early supporter of the Black Opry. We both connected over “When I’m Gone” and our similar stories [around] suicide, so it was a no-brainer to have her sing with me on it. Holly ended up reaching out to Cassadee after I mentioned wanting someone similar to Hayley Williams featured, and she nailed it. It’s very cool seeing all these people I’ve looked up to legitimately wanting to work with me. I still haven’t met Charlie or John, but it’s wild knowing that they’ve heard my song and wanted to be involved in it.

Regarding “When I’m Gone,” is that a reference to your friend in East Tennessee that you walked in on after committing suicide? If so I’m sorry for your loss, but I love how you used the song to memorialize them and bring attention to the plight of suicide. It’s an awful thing to experience, but putting your feelings from it to song is a great way to bring beauty to an otherwise unimaginable situation.

You’re completely right. When I play songs like “When I’m Gone” or “Scarecrow” live I always have people coming up to talk to me about them afterwards, whether it’s someone who’s come out, dealt with religious trauma, or a person who’s just lost somebody close to them. There’s something very cathartic and heavy all at once that’s led to a lot of crying, but more importantly a lot of growth. It’s been great feeling like I’m not going unheard – which I did for over a decade – and having interest in what I’m doing where there wasn’t any before.

We’ve talked about a lot of the trauma captured in these songs, which brings me to the album’s title, The Phoenix. Is that reference meant to reflect how your life — specifically your musical dreams — have been reborn in recent years?

That was the intention. It was about the resurrection of my career, plus I also referenced the phoenix in “West Virginia Sky,” so it felt appropriate. Then, weirdly enough, just after recording the album I had a friend, also named Holly, give me a phoenix bolo tie for Christmas. It was a very kismet occurrence and a sign that that was the correct title to move forward with on the project. It makes for the perfect project, one where I have creative control and wrote every song (besides co-writing “Backwoods Proclamation”). I put my heart and soul into it, and am really excited for people to hear it.

If you could go back in time to speak with yourself when you were about to call it quits, what would you tell them?

Prioritize the relationships you build, because those are the people that will help you get to where you are supposed to be.

(Editor’s Note: Sign up on Substack to receive even more Good Country content direct to your email inbox.)

Photo Credit: Kai Lendzion

“Guitar Prodigy” Doesn’t Quite Resonate with Grace Bowers

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Boasting an Instrumentalist of the Year nomination at the 2024 Americana Music Association Honors & Awards (held September 18), Grace Bowers may be one of the most exciting new guitar players on the planet – with extra emphasis on “new.”

Still in her teens, the Bay Area native has made a splash with soulful-beyond-her-years playing and the enthusiasm of youth, but she’s proving to be more than just a six-string specialist. Now leading a funky blues-rock outfit called The Hodge Podge, Bowers dropped a strutting, co-written debut single – “Tell Me Why U Do That” – and has a cosmic follow up to come. Plus, she’s not afraid to speak her mind.

Already using her platform for positive impact, Bowers will host the 2nd annual An Evening Supporting Love, Life & Music benefit concert at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl June 10. Founded to support victims of the Covenant School Shooting and now benefiting Voices for a Safer Tennessee and MusiCares, the show will feature Bowers and The Cadillac Three, Devon Gilfillian, Caroline Jones, Meg McRee, Jared James Nichols, John Osborne, Lucie Silvas, SistaStrings, Brittney Spencer, and Butch Walker, as the rising star looks to leverage her “prodigy” label attention.

BGS caught up with Bowers just as the summer festival season kicked into gear, getting to know an exceptional breakout talent who seems primed for a long career to come.

After blowing up on social media during the pandemic, you’ve done a lot in the last few years – but, you still have a few months before you turn 18, right? How have you managed to balance this music career with growing up and just being a teenager?

Grace Bowers: It’s definitely a weird balance, and especially since I don’t go to school anymore. I started doing [school] online a year-and-a-half ago … and I don’t miss homework, but I definitely miss being around people my own age and just a normal experience. But at the same time, I’m getting to do this stuff that I love almost every night, and I would take that over anything. Some people look at it like I’m doing it too fast, or someone’s pulling strings for me, and it’s not true. This is what I love and I can’t imagine doing anything else.

What drew you to guitar in the first place? I know people like to compare you to the female guitar greats, like Bonnie Raitt or H.E.R., but I feel like it doesn’t have to be just women. I hear a lot of Prince’s style in you, or even Derek Trucks.

Yeah, I love all those players that you just mentioned! The first time I was drawn to a guitar or just to music in general was when I was 9 years old, and I saw Slash on YouTube. Which is kind of a basic answer, but that’s how it happened. I was watching the “Welcome to The Jungle” music video.

Really? So did you just rush right out and say, “Hey, mom and dad, I need a guitar”?

That’s pretty much how it went. I think I tried almost every other hobby there was. I got kicked out of soccer, hated Girl Scouts. I’m pretty sure I got kicked out of softball, too. I was not good at gymnastics. I tried everything and my parents tried everything. So when I came to them and said I wanted a guitar, they were like, “We’ll get you a guitar.”

Were you ripping leads within months, or how long did this take?

Oh, no, no. People call me a prodigy a lot and it’s entirely not true, because for the first three years I was so bad. I was awful, and I wasn’t even really passionate about it. It was just kind of something that I did. I never really practiced or dug into other music styles.

But when I was 13 and COVID had just started, I heard B.B. King for the first time – “Sweet Little Angel” – and that song starts off with three notes. I was so hooked on that, and it was a sound I had never heard before, because I didn’t grow up around music. I don’t have any players in my family, so it was a completely new thing to me, and that’s what really made me passionate about it. I started actually learning things on guitar, but it was not an immediate light bulb moment for me.

I think that’s actually a good message for people, because it’s easy to get burned out trying to learn an instrument.

Yeah, it takes time.

Was it a shock to get this Americana Music Association nomination? You’re up for Instrumentalist of the Year, right?

Yeah, I forgot. I didn’t even know I was nominated, to be honest with you. I had no idea. I opened Instagram one day and I was tagged in the post. I’m like, “Holy shit, this is insane.” Because the year before that, I was in the audience at the Ryman watching the Americana Awards. So now that I get to be there, that’s insane.

Tell me about getting the band going and working on songwriting. You’re known for your guitar playing, but it seems like you’ve been trying to diversify. Does that come natural?

Songwriting was a bit of a learning curve for me, but it is something I’m very, very much into these days. I feel like people just look at me as a guitar player, but I don’t really feel like I’m just a guitar player. And even at that, I’m not some bright virtuoso guitar player. I wouldn’t consider myself that at all. I lead this band, I wrote all the songs or co-wrote them. So I think that that’s something that a lot of people don’t realize when they’re leaving hate comments online.

Your band sounds amazing – I love how much funk and soul is in the mix. It’s also cool you present yourselves as an ensemble. It’s not just Grace Bowers and then some people behind her.

That was my goal, because like I said, I don’t want to be known as just a guitar player. If you think of Derek Trucks, you think of Susan [Tedeschi], too. Tedeschi Trucks Band would not be what it is without one another, and I love that. And since I don’t sing right now, I want to be known for this amazing band.

The first single, “Tell Me Why U Do That,” came out a little while back. It’s super funky and light – what did you write that about?

It wasn’t written about a single person. It sounds like it is, but I wrote it with John Osborne and his wife Lucie [Silvas], and honestly, we wrote it in an hour and we were kind of just bullshitting lines. … Normally I’m like, “Well, the lyrics have to mean something.” But I kind of let that go for this one. It’s just a fun song.

Does that speak to the other stuff you’re doing?

For the most part, the lyrics were very intentional. My second single that’s coming out is called “Wine on Venus,” and this one has a cool story behind it. It was written about my Nana who passed away a bit ago. I’m from California, so we went home for Christmas this year and it was the first year not having her at Christmas. Everyone was talking about her, and my uncle said she always told him that when she died, she’d be drinking wine on Venus. It’s the brightest star.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, and I thought that was such a cool thing to think about. So I brought it back here and I was writing with Ben Chapman and Meg McRee, and I told them this story, and this song just flowed right out of us.

Your grandma sounds like she was awesome.

Yeah, she was kind of crazy, but there were some good nuggets in there from time to time.

John Osborne is producing your work, and he’s an amazing guitarist in his own right. Does that have an impact on what you’re doing?

Absolutely. I don’t think enough people are talking about how good a guitar player John Osborne is. He’s on a whole ‘nother level, and I don’t hear his name mentioned when people are talking about great guitar players, but I can’t imagine doing it with anyone else. I think he just completely understood my vision and the sound I was going for, and I’ve worked with producers before who have a sound and they’ll try to mold you into their sound, and John wasn’t like that at all. I mean, he gave us direction and some really great ideas, but really let me and the band lead the ship on where it was going. So I really appreciated that.

Tell me about the benefit you put together for June 10 – An Evening Supporting Love, Life & Music. Why did you want to do this so early in your career?

This is my second year doing it, and the first year I put together after the Covenant School shooting. I have two little brothers in school, and I remember the day it happened, they were texting me like, “There’s a school shooting.” And at first they didn’t tell me what school, so my heart dropped thinking it was at their school. They eventually told me, but that brief moment of panic I had – I can’t imagine if you were a parent with a kid at Covenant on that day. Just to even think about that is awful. And it really upset me seeing how much of a divide there was, because coming from the Bay Area in California, we have different viewpoints.

I don’t know, it just upset me that it seemed to be such a divided issue, and really I think there’s a lot of common ground to be found. The first year I did it, the money went directly to the school and MusicCares, and it went amazing. So much so that the school is no longer accepting donations. They received so much support. So this year we’re donating [proceeds] to an organization called Voices for Safer Tennessee, and they’re non-partisan so it’s not political in any way, and they’re advocating for safer gun laws – which Tennessee needs some of that. I’m just doing all I can to support something that I’m passionate about, and I want to see some change.

Photo Credit: Cedric Jones

On “Muskrat Greene,” Brothers Osborne Prove Their Instrumental Prowess

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Country music’s band of badass brothers found themselves in a precarious situation like many artists last year; they released a new record in 2020, but weren’t able to tour it. The lack of performing meant few chances to gauge the reception of the Brothers Osbornes’ new album, Skeletons, but this showcase for NPR cements what fans of the band have known since the record’s release — it may be the group’s best work yet.

For this Tiny Desk (Home) Concert, TJ and John Osborne deliver the title track “Skeletons,” an uplifting tune in “Hatin’ Somebody,” and the blistering “Dead Man’s Curve.” But it’s the fiery instrumental “Muskrat Greene” that quickly sets the tone for the show. Even without their regular regiment of touring and performing, the brothers and their band sound as tight as ever, with instrumental prowess taking more of the limelight in this new body of work while still building on the rock, country, and blues blend that they are known for. If you haven’t yet familiarized yourself with the new record, you may be able to get out and hear the new music live on their current We’re Not For Everyone Tour — named after a track that’s also included in this set.

Photo credit: Eric Ryan Anderson

This Is What We Love: A Conversation with Lucie Silvas & John Osborne

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It felt like a lucky break to catch singer/songwriter Lucie Silvas and her husband, Brothers Osborne’s John Osborne, while they were in the same room. After all, 2015 saw the independent release of Silvas’s first full-length since 2007, Letters to Ghosts, and all of the promotion whirlwind and touring that came with it. Meanwhile, Osborne had been touring, recording, and working toward the January release of Pawn Shop, Brothers Osborne’s debut full-length, while watching their single “Stay a Little Longer” climb the country charts. (The duo even nabbed a Grammy nomination for “Stay a Little Longer.”)

Even with their individual pursuits and shared influences, it's clear just how intertwined the couple's successes have become. It was difficult for either musician to get a word in edgewise as they poured praise upon one another, remembering the way their relationship began and running over the influences, creative environments and shared passions that allowed the last 12 months to be some of their most eventful.

Since I’ve got you both, let’s start with the way you first wrote together and got to know each other. I know you met when Lucie was first in Nashville in 2007. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Lucie Silvas: Well, you know the first time we wrote together I think we were both — well, I’ll speak for myself — I was nervous. I was in a new place, and I was excited. I was trying to impress in lots of ways and just keep my cool. We just had fun collaborating. We did it a lot over the years; sometimes it was something we’d be put into, like a co-write with a third person. But sometimes we’d just sit there in the house. We’ve written a couple of songs I’m really proud of, over the years, and it always seemed easy. I don’t think all couples find it that easy to write together, but we seem to.

John Osborne: I wasn’t there to write a song as much as I was there to meet Lucie and somehow not make a complete ass out of myself. I kind of can’t even remember what the song was about …

LS: I can’t remember the song.

JO: It wasn’t even about the song. I had ulterior motives. [Laughs] But, since then, we’ve always had an amazing working relationship. There’s such a mutual admiration there. Lucie’s such a powerful singer and songwriter. I come from more of a musical, instrumental side of things. It’s great — her strengths support where my strengths are, and they don’t necessarily overlap. They really complement each other very well.

Letters to Ghosts is definitely a great example of that, what with John working on the record as a producer.

JO: Lucie needed to put out music. Anyone that’s as gifted as she is, at singing and conveying a song, needs to be heard. It would be criminal for her not to be heard, for anyone at her level to be silent. I kind of got the ball rolling: “Let’s just do this. We’ll worry about the rest later.”

We just did it piece by piece. We didn’t over-think it. As a producer, it’s really difficult if the artist isn’t great. It’s almost impossible if the artist isn’t good. But, with Lucie, she’s so amazing as a vocalist and as a conveyer and as a songwriter that it makes your job kind of easy. You let the songs steer you in the right direction. You let the singer steer you in the right direction. All I was hoping for was to not screw it up. It was so much fun because her music is quite different than the music that I play with Brothers Osborne. It was a lot of experimentation and a lot of work. We did it over the course of months, so we were able to really experiment with sounds and get some cool stuff and re-record a lot of things.

LS: John has always been really encouraging to me, just as a friend — let alone somebody who I was with in a couple. The creative process can’t be anything but exciting and inspiring when you’ve got someone with such enormous musical ability and such a laid-back nature. It makes it very easy to be fun. We also had no constraints on it. We were just sitting there having a blast in the studio. It’s nice to know we’re there for the right reasons and we’re having fun with it. John was doing all of this around a crazy schedule. He’d come home and he’d have no time to himself whatsoever, but he loves music so much that it just is a joy to him.

Every time I’d get frustrated and say, “How are we going to do this? How are we going to pay for this?” He’d be like, “Let’s just get resourceful — let’s just get our heads down and get our heads in the right place.”

JO: Sometimes not having a huge budget forces you to be creative. It doesn’t let you be lazy. It doesn’t let you rely on money. That, a lot of times, leads to really cool, new fresh things. It certainly did with this record.

Lucie, you’ve talked a lot about your interest in learning the mandolin and how that came through on Letters to Ghosts. John, you’ve got a lengthy guitar solo in “Stay a Little Longer,” and your reputation precedes you as a player in Nashville. Tell me a little bit about how instrumentals can change a song.

JO: I love playing long-winded solos. It’s fun for me. It’s exciting. But, at the end of the day, you have to service the song — that’s the most important thing. You have the melody and you have the lyric. And then you have the person that is singing them. That’s the most important part. Everything around them needs to complement that. I believe the long solo on “Stay a Little Longer” works; it has this kind of emotional thing. It’s this drawn-out moment between a man and a woman — or, like in our video, a man and a man — that seems to last forever. You’re not sure if you’re in love or out of love or what’s happening. It works within the context of that song.

LS: It really does.

JO: I f you listen to the rest of the songs on our record, there aren’t a lot of solos like that. On “Pawn Shop,” specifically, there’s kind of a hooky, licky part … I don’t think guitar solos should be gratuitous. They should support the song. A session guitar player told me, when I moved to Nashville, that the end goal is to be able to mute the lyrics and mute the vocal of the song and still kind of know what the song is about.

LS: That’s a really interesting question, though. It’s got my brain ticking. In “Stay a Little Longer” [the guitar solo] is the climax — it’s where the song is ending up. The frustration in the lyrics, the temptation that the song is talking about: you hear that. It goes and it goes and it goes, until you reach this sort of euphoric, heavenly moment with the guitar solo. That’s how love is; you get yourself into that headspace and you just acclimate from there. I think a lot of the songs on Pawn Shop do that. You get the feeling that the guitar is the song. John’s very good at, stylistically, adding what he does to make the song supported even more.

I think back to a lot of the Motown songs that I love — some of the Marvin Gaye stuff or Otis Redding or Stevie Wonder. Some of those musical riffs are the songs. They are the most identifiable moments in a song, regardless of the lyrics or even the voice, which is always phenomenal. They created the sound of the song, and that musical part of the song is also really important.

Brothers Osborne has a bluesy, rock edge that you don’t see in as many mainstream country songs. Lucie, your music has been embraced by some country stations, despite it not necessarily being bound to a particular genre. What do you think about the state of country and Americana music right now? Are the boundaries changing?

JO: It’s a really interesting time for music, in general. People don’t necessarily subscribe to one genre anymore. The iPod generation started that with the ability to shuffle the songs and make a playlist. The line immediately got deleted. On the one hand, it’s a slippery slope because it can muddy the waters of what makes a genre distinct. On the other hand, it has led to a lot of opportunity for artists that might be in the grey area like Brothers Osborne and Lucie.

It’s actually a really good time for music — especially country music — because people seem to be a lot more open-minded and willing to hear new sounds and new styles and new songs and new singers. They’re hungry for something fresh and original and genuine. Country music goes in and out of being genuine, but when it is genuine, it’s the most genuine genre of music, I think, that there is.

LS: And it’s exciting, because country music is on a world stage like it’s, possibly, dare I say it, not been in the same way before. It’s not kept separate like it might have been in the past. There’s room for good music and not necessarily these very tightly wound compartments or genres that can’t be broken. Music isn’t supposed to be about that. Music is supposed to be about feelings and emotions, making you feel something. I don’t care what genre something is; I just want to hear something good that touches me. I feel like things are becoming that way, and that’s extremely exciting to me.

Definitely. John, I’ve seen you say in interviews that Brothers Osborne was able to release Pawn Shop at the perfect time, and that makes sense, especially with what you guys are saying now. Let’s talk about that record.

LS: Oh my God, there’s so much. I’ve seen it take shape over a long period of time. They’ve been on this crazy, crazy ride, just traveling all the time and writing every chance they get and making this album. Like every album, it’s a challenge because you try not to feel … it’s not pressure from the outside. We put ourselves under so much pressure. It’s not that it’s not fun, because we have an absolute blast, but we just … it’s an amazing thing to be making an album, and we just want it to be great.

I got to sing on some of the album, which was a brilliant moment for me, just because I genuinely love the songs. John is very spontaneous when he does things, but he also takes a lot of care. He really does not do anything by half — he will sit there and do it until it’s a thousand percent finished. Somehow doing it like that, being very patient and methodical, has not gotten in the way of the passion you hear in his playing and on the album and in TJ’s singing and the whole thing. It’s very inspiring for me to watch and to witness them doing what is, I think, an exceptional album. It’s very exciting.

Okay, you go, John. [Laughs] We’re actually eating garlic bread, and we just reached for the same bit.

JO: We’re so in sync! [Laughs]

LS: John, did you want to add to that?

JO: I mean, our album definitely comes from a place of honesty and originality, the same place that Lucie’s album comes from. We never had a conversation about what was working on the radio. We never had a conversation about what songs were successful. We never had a conversation about what the masses would like. All we did was make music that we like. And it’s the same for Letters to Ghosts; it’s the same for Pawn Shop. When you listen to those records, even back-to-back, you’re going to hear a collection of songs and sounds that are unique to us. There’s no reason why any artist should put out something that’s already been done. As a listener, I wouldn’t want that. I want to listen to Thriller because I can only get those sounds on Thriller from Michael Jackson. I want to listen to a Willie Nelson record because I only get songs and sounds like that from Willie Nelson. A lot of artists, lately, copy what’s successful. You’re not going to find anything like that on Pawn Shop or Letters to Ghosts.

LS: You have your influences. There’s gonna be stuff you’re inspired by, and you can hear that in the music. Brothers Osborne, even though they’re signed to a major label, they have this thing where they’re thinking, “This is scary, because we might not fit in anywhere.” And we think that’s a good thing. But, in music — in the music industry — that can be a real challenge for artists. Because, if you don’t fit in, the chances are that you might not be put in any category.

Luckily, we’d rather do nothing or do something else than ruin the integrity of what we’re doing. It’s pretty much, “This is what we love, and we can’t compromise that.” We’ve both taken a long time to get to this point in our lives, and there’s a reason behind that. There’s a reason behind not releasing music just for the sake of being out there. We waited and we worked hard because it meant something to do something that was completely genuine, and didn’t worry about what was going to happen to it.

You talk about influences — tell me about those. Do you share a lot of the same heroes and influences, musically?

LS: We love something when we know it’s genuine. For me, growing up, that was Motown. It was Jackie Wilson and the Jackson 5 and, in some cases, the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac. As I got a bit older and was a teenager, it was all about Prince and Sheryl Crow. It was always these really strong characters. Whether it was their music or their personalities, some sort of power came from them and it was very inspiring. When I met John and saw him play, you could see there was a bond there over soul and blues. At times when we weren’t actually making music, we’d sit in the house and he’d play and I’d sing. We definitely had a connection there, in the type of music we gravitated toward. It’s just a coincidence that we had feelings for each other and we also had so much in common musically.

JO: The first time I heard Lucie sing, I heard so much soul and passion behind it. That’s one of the things that I deem most important, when it comes to singing and performing and playing instruments, is soul — that’s where it all came from. If you listen to rock music and soul music and R&B, it’s all stemmed from the blues. I feel like, in some cases, that the soul and the passion is missing; people are just singing or performing.

There are a lot of great singers out there, but that doesn’t make them great artists. I grew up playing a lot of blues music — I loved B.B. King and Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughn and bands like the Allman Brothers, with Duane Allman and Dickie Betts. That just all are 100 percent heart in their playing. So that’s what I’m used to hearing, and the second Lucie opened her mouth and started singing I knew — I was like, “Yes, that’s exactly what singing should sound like. That’s what music should sound like.” Music should come entirely from the heart — only access the brain when needed. But it should start from the heart. That’s what my favorite music is like and that’s what Lucie’s favorite music is like.

 

I love this woman more than blueberry pancakes. @luciesilvas (photo: @tjosborne)

A photo posted by John Osborne (@jinglejohnosborne) on

What about the reverse? Is there a song that one of you really likes and the other really hates? What do you disagree on,musically?

LS: Um, I’m trying to think … We usually agree on many things, but we also have a lot of … we’ll tend to think the same thing about the song, and there’s a reason why we don’t like it. I’m trying to …

JO: We disagree on 1990s alternative rock music.

LS: Oh my God. Yes.

JO: When I was in middle school and high school, all I listened to was grunge and Seattle rock stuff — all the popular stuff, but like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Sound Garden, Stone Temple Pilots. The list goes on and on. I love that music — still, to this day, I absolutely love that music. Scott Weiland dying was a big heartbreaker for me, because I was such a big fan of STP. That’s the only thing we disagree on.

LS: Hey, I love Nirvana, and there are a few things I really love about Stone Temple Pilots. But it is a general genre that I think missed me. [Laughs]

JO: At that time, we were listening to such different things.

LS: Yeah. I think I went through my Prince phase at that time. I’m also older than John. So I guess there were certain things I was listening to in school … I was really into Prince, really into Michael Jackson, really into Motown still. And I definitely got on the Nirvana thing. If John and my sister had met at that time, they would have been best friends, because she had the exact same taste in music.

But, you know what? Even if we disagree on that, I think it’s good. You can’t agree on everything, or there’s no challenge there. When we disagree on something and I hear him speak about stuff that he either passionately loves or passionately hates, it gives me more insight into how his brain works. That’s pretty cool. Then we’ll just agree to disagree [Laughs] Or, I’ll go away thinking I’m right.

Is there anything you feel like you’ve learned recently?

JO: Every time you’re in the studio, you learn something. You learn something about yourself. You should always be evolving, you should always be willing to try new things. If you’re a creative person, that’s what you do best, is to search and to create and find something new that hasn’t been done before. I guess that’s art in general — it doesn’t matter if you’re a painter or a guitar player, that’s what you’re trying to do. In the studio, you’ve gotta have an open mind. You have a blank canvas, and you have yourself and the people around you that are helping you play. You have a vocalist and you have musicians and you have the engineer and all that stuff and, as a team, you work together to create a piece of art. You have to be willing to be open-minded about it. There’s no reason to surround yourself with yes-people. You want to surround yourself with people who challenge you and bring up ideas that you’d never thought of. When you put all those things together, you create something original … hopefully. Every time I’m in the studio, I learn something. I learn a lot about myself. I learn about my strengths; I learn about my weaknesses. It’s a very eye-opening experience, I think. By the end of the record, it’s emotionally draining. I think it should be. The process is always … it should be that way. By the end of it, you’ve learned a lot. Almost too much, sometimes, but it’s always a good thing.

LS: Yeah, it is. I think that’s a good point: Every time you do anything, or even start a day in your life, you’ve got to hope that you can start at a very neutral place — start from zero. You never know how you’re going to surprise yourself. There have been many times where maybe I’ve had a bad day and I’ve gone into the studio thinking that, really, all the songs in the world must have been written already. [Laughs] I mean, there are only so many notes on the piano, so many notes in the world. And yet, you go in and you just think, "Well, I know the things I can do, but I’ve got no idea how many more things I can or can’t do. I’m just going to see."

Hopefully, you’re in a room with a person who helps to teach you that, to teach you something. John and I are both people’s people. We love meeting people, we love being around people. Because, you know, it’s always a fascinating experience — everyone’s got a point of view. Everyone’s got something to give and something you can learn from them. I absolutely believe that all people have to be equal in any collaborative situation or any musical situation. You go in and you respect the people around you, because you just never know what they’re going to teach you. You have to all be open-minded. If one person isn’t like that, it changes the course of the day. It changes everything about what you’re doing. You really can’t learn anything, if you’ve already decided something.