Tag: lgbtq

Vandoliers’ “10 Years of Peers” Playlist

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

If you ever wondered if your fav alternative country/folk-punk/Americana bands were allies, don’t worry, I’ve played with a ton of them and this list is nothing but top-notch punks, sweethearts, and buddies.

These are the songs I’m listening to as we ride around in a little red van across Europe. All of these artists have supported me and the boys through the grind of being a working band and my transition.

You have to give credit where credit is due – influential bands like Old 97’s, Flogging Molly, Mariachi El Bronx, and Lucero are all amazing groups who took us out on big tours and taught us everything we know. I’m also excited to show off some of our comrades the Bridget City Sinners, Skinny Lister, Katacombs, Mya Byrne, Nate Bergman, and old pals Summer Dean and Silverada. I even snuck some rock bands like Toadies, Bowling for Soup, and Frank Turner in there too, because genre is a construct and all of these artists deserve more airtime! – Jenni Rose, Vandoliers

“Big Brown Eyes” – Old 97’s

Old 97’s took Vandoliers under their wing right when we started. They were our main influence, being from Dallas and all. They gave us our first big festival show, our first tours, introduced us to Bloodshot Records, and helped me through my first sober tour. Thank goodness for the Old 97’s, forever grateful.

“What Are You Willing to Lose” – Lucero

So many doors opened for us after Lucero took us on a West Coast tour in 2019. This band consistently shows up, every song is exactly right, the show is organic and cathartic. Thanks to Lucero, we picked up a traveling fan base that sings every word every night.

“The Ol’ Beggars Bush” – Flogging Molly

On the cover of the first “album” I made in 8th grade is a picture of me in a Flogging Molly shirt. We owe so much to the band. After the pandemic, Flogging Molly took us to another level on two nationwide tours and a cruise. Flogging Molly taught all of us what it looks like to be a forever band who stay true to their roots. Can’t wait for the Salty Dog Cruise in October!!

“7 & 7” – Turnpike Troubadours

Another great band who gave us some big breaks. We opened both nights at Cain’s Ballroom when Turnpike reunited. They even had us open at the Ryman. It’s been awesome to see them sell out stadiums lately.

“I Come From the Water” – Toadies

Toadies have been supporting the band for years. Trey and I have personally been playing with them in the DFW music scene for most of our career. Super tight band, supportive in every way, and some of our oldest friends. They just took us on a five-week tour across the US and it was a blast!

“Ohio (Come Back to Texas)” – Bowling For Soup

As I write this we are driving into the UK; in 2023 Bowling for Soup introduced us to their fans across the pond. It was crazy to play the Hammersmith Apollo in London with them. Thanks BFS, we loved playing “Ohio” every night!

“I Still Believe” – Frank Turner

We met Frank on the Flogging Molly cruise and became fast friends while hanging out singing to all our favorite punk bands. Since then, he has always been a text away when I need advice. We are so excited he invited us to play Lost Evenings in Dallas this September.

“Tragedy in a Minor” – Skinny Lister

Skinny Lister are our folky family out of the UK. We met through the Flogging Molly community. Sitting in that sweet spot between folk and punk, we had such a wonderful tour with them across Europe last year! This song will get stuck in your head!

“Wish I Was” – Nate Bergman

Absolute monster singer-songwriter and a great guy to run around the country with. He is engaging, emotional, tough-yet-vulnerable. Total package. If you don’t know Nate yet, you should.

“Break the Chain” – Bridge City Sinners

My new favorite band and people after this European tour (that I am currently on). Libby and the boys instantly gravitated to us, and vice versa, in Spain at the Azkena Rock Festival. Their show is absolutely insane! Folk/punk/metal, I’m in.

“Old Fashioned” – Katacombs

Kat is opening for us in the UK and she is such a powerhouse, even if she doesn’t know it yet. I love her voice, her lyrical choices are perfect, and her musical talent is other worldly. Also a bonus is that she is one of the kindest people I have ever met.

“Revolution Girls” – Mariachi El Bronx

We travelled with the Bronx and Mariachi El Bronx in 2023 and 2024. Incredible humans and undeniably talented and the shows were always wild.

“Dance With Barbara” – Silverada

Our favorite road dogs, Silverada! We have been playing clubs, theaters, and festivals with these boys for a decade. They are some of our best friends and we can’t wait for our run in December! This song makes me dance every time.

“You Ain’t Gotta Die (To Be Dead to Me)” – Kaitlin Butts

She saw right through me from day one! She has always been one of my favorite gals in the Texas scene. Fun fact: I’m wearing Kaitlin’s jacket in the “You Can’t Party With the Lights On” video.

“Neon Cross” – Jaime Wyatt

What an absolute icon. It’s been amazing to watch her grow and glow around this scene over the years. I am constantly in awe of her. She has been such a great person in my corner since coming out, too. This song hit me right between her eyes when it came out. Love ya, Jaime!

“Yes Ma’am, He Found Me in a Honky Tonk” – Summer Dean

Summer Dean shared our van for a couple of dates on an acoustic run. She is a real deal cowgirl and one of my all-time favorite people in this industry. She can do it all. Merch, marketing, socials, drive the van, write a hit, and put on an amazing show. I admire her so much. We had fun playing with her again on the outlaw cruise this past spring.

“Devil In My Ear” – Mya Byrne

She opened for us right before I came out to my band. I loved the Rhinestone Tomboy record so much and I didn’t know how badly I needed to be around a trans person before I came out. Mya has been an amazing friend to me over the last two years and “Devil in My Ear” is a banger.

Photo Credit: Andree Brown

Jobi Riccio Believes Sensitivity is a Superpower

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

When it’s time to recharge her creativity or reconnect with herself, Jobi Riccio goes back to nature. The mountains and hiking trails of her native Colorado were integral to her childhood and adolescence. Today, the trees, plant life, and paths of Nashville help bring her back to center.

Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that all things natural life and climate factor into her songwriting. Personally and professionally, Riccio has become a spokesperson for our global environment and its future. “Wildfire Season,” from her latest release, Face The Feeling, addresses these issues. Written in the aftermath of the 2020 Colorado wildfires, the song stands out in its unfiltered message, while at the same time slotting in as a perfect fit within the album’s context.

Face The Feeling was produced and engineered by Riccio’s longtime friends and colleagues Jesse Timm and Isaiah Beard. The album leans on her folk and bluegrass roots while injecting them with her passion for indie and punk rock. Riccio takes on mental health, grief, self-doubt, past and present hurt, and the long road to recovery and autonomy. It’s a lot of what is now commonly known as “big feelings,” and entirely the only walk that she knows and wants to take. All of this is served up with a healthy dose of fierce guitars.

Riccio last spoke with BGS in 2023, following the release of Whiplash. Phoning in this time to talk about Face The Feeling, she was days away from a June 9 performance at Wolf Trap as part of Songwriters Celebrate John Prine joining Emmylou Harris, Margo Price, Patty Griffin, I’m With Her, Lucius, Allison Russell, Hayes Carll, Fancy Hagood, and Tommy Prine.

Riccio’s connection to Prine dates back to her early musical influences, reaching a high point in 2023 when she was awarded the Newport Festivals Foundation’s John Prine Fellowship. The Wolf Trap concert was in some ways bringing her full circle, sharing a stage with colleagues, each playing one original and one song of Prine’s.

“I’ve done some stuff in the past with the Prine family,” she remarks. “They have welcomed me into their circle and they’ve been really sweet. It’s been a real blessing of life in Nashville, that whole experience. I’m honored and excited to get to do that show.”

Let’s start a little differently. Tell us about your day so far.

Jobi Riccio: Okay. I woke up and had breakfast on my front porch. I just moved neighborhoods in Nashville – I moved to Madison, Tennessee, and I have a nice front porch now, so I’ve been enjoying coming out and having coffee in the morning. And then I went to therapy, I came back and had a meeting with my manager, we did some co-working stuff together over Zoom, I had lunch, and now I’m doing this.

This album was written between Colorado and Nashville. How did both environments and both communities help shape the new music?

In terms of the lyrics, I feel like I have a lot of references to nature in Colorado and western nature, mostly because I’ve been speaking that language and speaking those names longer. I’m just learning the names of the trees, bushes, daylilies, and all the stuff out here now. I’ve lived in Tennessee… it’ll be five years in September, so I’m just learning everything that’s here.

Any time I’m feeling reflective, I call upon my past, thinking about my family or where I’m from. It’s a big part of my identity. But I definitely identify as an artist both from Nashville and Colorado. Nashville played a really big role in the writing of this record. I started playing a lot more electric guitar when I moved here. I started spending more and more time in my room playing. I was listening to a lot of country electric guitar, but for some reason it became this more indie-rock singer-songwriter kind of thing.

I think I wrote about Nashville and the community more. You hear that on “Love of the Song,” just kind of struggling to find my footing here, because it does take a while to figure that out. I was really lucky to know a lot of people before I moved here. I say this in the song – I was set up in all the right places, with all the right people, and I still felt a sense of “Damn, do I belong here?” The impostor syndrome of doing music for a job is really hard and I think women and femme people in general really struggle with impostor syndrome and living in our heads and second-guessing ourselves a lot more than men do. I address that in the song “Doesn’t Matter,” which closes the album.

So I think it’s a record where I come into living in Nashville and am also like, “I am worthy of doing this job and this job is such a big part of what makes this town this town.” Despite all the new development and changes that everyone’s always talking about, Nashville is and will always be Music City, and the community is what makes it great.

Where were you, mentally and emotionally, when this creative process began, and where are you now?

I was in a hard place when I started – and in the middle of it. I think it’s a brave thing that you really have to do in life, whether or not you want to, which is to own up to your shit. It’s a very crass way of saying it, but basically I was trying to outrun some shadows, trying to outrun some trauma, trying to outrun things that needed to be dealt with that were coming out in my life.

I was still pretty young when I started writing this record and [when I moved] to Nashville. I moved here almost five years ago and I started writing this record about three years ago. It’s been such an up-and-down experience. I feel like it’s mirrored the experience I’ve had with getting my sea legs as a touring musician, too. They’ve been very much in tandem.

Despite what you see online, it’s not this constant upward, “Everything’s great and it’s always getting better all the time, the gigs are always getting better.” Some nights you’re playing for 3,000 people, opening for Lucinda Williams – which I got to do – and the next night you’re in Utah playing for 50 people headlining. It’s a total rollercoaster. It’s about learning how to find the tools to ground yourself. I really needed to learn how to do that intrapersonally first, for myself, and I’m glad that I did at the beginning of writing this record. But it definitely chronicles a long journey of growth. I feel like it’s a weird time to do this job. And also growth is… you’re never done. It’s not linear. So I’m always doing my best every day, and that’s all I can ever expect of myself. And every day is different.

Were the songs finished when you began recording?

Most of them were, but not all of them, which is a new experience for me. I’m used to having all of them done and buttoned up and being like, “Okay, here we are. Let’s go record them.” But when we first started talking about what this album could be, I had the song “Doesn’t Matter,” just the idea of it, the guitar part, and the beginning of it, and I was like, “I don’t really know if this is any good.”

I played it for my co-producers, Jesse [Timm] and Isaiah [Beard], and they were like, “This is really cool. You should finish the song.” They basically watched as I finished it. I was writing stuff down actively in the studio, which I’ve never had that experience. I wrote more songs, too, that didn’t make the record. Whether or not those will go on another project or ever see the light of day, I don’t know. But I was open to seeing what would come.

Tell us about your working relationship with Jesse and Isaiah. How did it begin and how has it grown over the course of your albums?

I met Jesse at Berklee. We met on the first day of college. We were in the same dorm. They’re from Northern California, I’m from Colorado, they’re from a weird hippie town, I’m from a weird hippie town – we immediately understood each other. I feel so incredibly lucky to have met them, because not many people get to have someone who is so encouraging of their music alongside them at any stage.

Not everything I wrote in college was very good, but they were always very invested in it and also [in] finding their voice as an arranger and composer and writing string parts. I would come up with a song and they’d be like, “Oh, I came up with a string part for it. Do you like it?” That’s such a spoiled experience to have, because it would be a gorgeous thing. We’ve played together and been collaborators and friends for ten years now.

I met Isaiah through Jesse. Isaiah also went to school with us, but I didn’t know him. He was a few years older and worked the same student job with Isaiah in project bands. It’s where kids have their stuff recorded for different school projects. They both did admin work for these project band things, so they became friends. I had a friend from the songwriting program at school who had a record produced by Isaiah in Nashville. He moved here a couple of years before me, and he said it was an amazing experience. I listened to it and I thought it was just the coolest thing ever. I heard so much creativity in the production and the mix. Also, Isaiah has his own solo project and he’s one of the most creative people I’ve ever met. I reached out to him and that’s how we ended up working on Whiplash. It felt like a very organic trio and through that we became really good friends.

I moved to Nashville, he lives close by, and I feel like I’m very spoiled for having people who love and understand both me and my music. I feel truly blessed. I don’t know how else to say it. I hear how all three of us have grown as musicians on this project versus the last project. I’ve grown a lot as a writer, the mixing and production work Isaiah did is outstanding, and Jesse wrote all the string parts. I can hear all of our growth and development as individual creative people. My name is on the record, but it does really feel like a collaboration.

You play acoustic, electric, and baritone electric on this album. Tell us about your guitars – which ones you play on the album, which ones are going on the road, any backstories you’d like to share.

I only have three guitars in my personal possession, but Isaiah had a lot of guitars lent to him by our friend Jake Byrne, who works at Carter Vintage Guitars. So nice of Jake! We had a vintage Mustang that Isaiah played on “Buzzkill.” He played some very Green Day-esque type things on that song. It was just the most fun little guitar.

Isaiah owns the baritone guitar that I played. He won it in a guitar raffle at a benefit concert that I played when the Asheville, [NC] flood happened. We had a big fundraiser here in Nashville. We collaborated with some folks in Asheville to raise money and a guy out of Asheville who ran a guitar store put together this raffle. I was one of the artists on the bill, Isaiah and his partner came and entered the raffle, and he won this baritone electric with a metal neck. It’s the craziest guitar ever.

I have a Martin D-35 from 1993 that’s my baby acoustic guitar that you’ll see me playing all the time. I bought it at the Pickin’ Parlor, an acoustic guitar store in Arvada, Colorado. I was with my friend Al out around Denver looking for a guitar. I wanted a dreadnought because I was really interested in playing bluegrass. I was in college, 21 at the time, and interested in digging into flatpicking. I was like, “I need a dreadnought. There’s no other way.”

I played a lot of different guitars, and other Martins, and I fell in love with this one. It reminded me a lot of a friend’s guitar that I had played throughout the years at this bluegrass festival, RockyGrass, I grew up going to. I was like, “Oh, this feels like the twin guitar to my friend’s guitar.” That’s why I ended up buying that guitar. I’ve written so many songs on it, and it’s interesting, now that I don’t play bluegrass consistently, it’s got this whole other life and character to it as a guitar for songs. Sometimes I start writing on electric, but oftentimes I still write on that guitar, too, and transition over to electric.

I have a Fender Telecaster that Jake at Carter Vintage helped me [rig] so that it takes the flatwound strings that I like. It’s a certain sound I really enjoy that I heard Margaret Glaspy champion back in the day, and I wanted to figure out how to do that. We’ve done a lot of little mods to it over the years. I love that guitar, too. I bought it in 2021 off of a guy on Facebook in Denver. It’s not worth a ton of money, but it has a lot of sentimental value to me.

I have a Gibson Songwriter that I got through winning the John Prine Fellowship. Gibson Guitars gave me a 2024 Songwriter. It’s a beautiful guitar that lives at home on my couch. My amp that I have at home is a Fender Blues Junior. I bought it from another Berklee student for $400 on Facebook Marketplace during my senior year of college because I needed an amp.

You’ve talked, in this interview and others, about how being outdoors is important to you. Do you write when you’re out in nature? Do ideas come to you then?

Absolutely. A lot of times, if I’m stuck on something, getting out is good. I think there’s some science behind this, too – the dual motion of walking is really helpful to our brains. So I definitely find myself coming up with ideas while hiking or walking. I’ve always been that way. I’m always writing things down on my phone. Or while I’m in transit on airplanes, trains, in an Uber, or someone else is taking me somewhere, some other vehicle, in the back of a van on tour. Looking out the window, watching scenery go by, can be a regenerative, reflective place for me as well.

I probably write the most when I have a guitar in my hands, but I edit a lot and I have a lot of lyrical ideas while I’m out in nature, walking.

Phone, voice memos, pen and paper?

All three. If I’m out and about, I use my phone. I grew up writing in my journals and then I went to my phone. Everything was in my Notes app for a few years and then I was like, “I want to go back to having a journal and having handwritten lyrics. I miss going back into my journals and looking at my embarrassing little couplets of lyrics from eighth grade.” I want to be able to do that when I’m older, and look back and have more tangible objects in my life. I don’t want everything to be owned by my phone and put into my phone.

So I got several different notebooks of different sizes. I have a little notebook for journaling and writing more personal things, I have a big notebook, I have a legal pad for writing lyrics, and I have a little gratitude journal that I keep on my bedside. I have journals of all sizes now.

Are you particular about your pens?

Yes. I really like this one pen, the brand is Lamy. It’s the best pen I’ve ever owned. You can easily and accessibly buy them online, but I found it at a pen shop in Stockholm, Sweden. I think the romance of that experience also made me fall in love with this pen. They sell a lot of fancy ones that you use for calligraphy, but the one I am obsessed with is their ballpoint model. Occasionally I meet other people who love this pen. I see them with the pen and we’re like, “Oh, you like this pen too?” There’s a little cult following.

I’ve been getting into pencil recently, too. I got these free pencils at an Americanafest event, I think, and I have to figure out what brand they are, because I really like them. I’ve been enjoying having the ability to erase versus just crossing things out. It feels good. Tactile.

You write and speak openly about climate, ICE, politics, the state of the world, and of course about being an openly queer artist. You have received media attention for “Wildfire Season,” which has been called a protest song. Some people think musicians should make their music, share their art, and keep their opinions out of the spotlight. Other people, including quite recently Joan Baez, believe in using that platform to take a stand on issues. Discuss.

In the hardest times in my life, and I think this is true for most people, I’ve turned to music to process things. That was always the hope for this new record – that it could be a processing tool for anyone who needs it.

There’s so much hurt being done to people systematically right now, and I don’t think I could not talk about it. I think it feels very cathartic to attend shows where it is addressed within the lyrics, or in the banter when the artist is talking between sets. My friend Nathan Evans Fox has a great new record and he had a release show here in Nashville. He has a lot of great political country music and I felt such a sense of exhale being in that room. There was so much energy. To be in a room where it felt like church, the catharsis of release, there was such healing. It gave me a feeling of strength.

It’s a really hard time. Harm is being done to so many of us. I know that no matter what side of the political spectrum people are on, I’ve heard it said around here that everything is too expensive for most people and it’s too hot every year for most people. People are feeling the change in the air. There’s a lot of climate denial that still goes on, and yet people know that something isn’t right. Even extremely wealthy people who think they’ll be able to escape the effects of climate change, trying to shield themselves away from it, are being touched by it.

Tennessee is such a gerrymandered state. If you’re familiar at all with the political climate here, it’s really bleak, with the redistricting of Memphis and the current events that have gone down here recently. But going to protests in Nashville, showing up, is empowering. Why shouldn’t music be a space for people to feel through what’s going on, or to at least feel a little bit less alone, to feel stronger, to feel braver, to feel angry, to let that shit out? Because if you don’t let it out, then you continue to let it happen.

I feel that music is one of the most powerful tools of healing and understanding ourselves. People deserve to not feel alone, and they deserve to feel connected. If it’s upsetting to some people that I speak out about politics, I would rather call in people who are really hurting during this time and give them comfort and strength. That matters more to me than alienating people who think I should just sing songs about whatever. I really believe in the power of political songwriting, songs that do work.

When we started this interview with “Tell us about your day so far,” your list included breakfast, went to therapy, came home, met with your manager on Zoom, had lunch. You said, “I went to therapy” as casually as someone might say, “I went to the gym.” Was it a process for you to be able to say it so openly? There’s still so much stigma around mental health.

I think it’s two things. I have been described as sensitive for as long as I can remember by everyone in my family, and that used to be something that made me feel so shameful and embarrassed. I went to therapy for the first time when I was very young. I was in middle school and I was embarrassed about it at the time because this was the narrative I had around it when I was a little kid and things were very different. It’s crazy how much has changed. I think the pandemic changed a lot of things around mental health for the better. Back then I felt like, “I can’t get my emotions under control, so I have to go sit in this office and cry for two hours and it’s so weird, because I’m the most sensitive person in the world. I don’t know what it is.”

I came to songwriting as a teenager, and I found this channel of, “I can put everything in this place, and sometimes I create something that is so bad, and sometimes I create something that’s kind of good, and sometimes I create something that is totally neutral.” I used to go home after school every day and write. It was my confidante. It was what I turned to in hard times and in good times. It was how I processed my life. Once again, music as a way of processing life. Songwriting and creativity was that for me as a young, really sensitive person.

Once I wrote what I felt was actually a good song, I felt brave enough to show it to someone, and I played my first gigs, I was like, “Oh, people connect with this.” I got older, I went to music school, and I was like, “Man, maybe I really have something to say and people want to hear it.” And I met Jesse – going back to talking about them – and they’re a very sensitive person as well.

I’ve always had this thing about sensitivity is a superpower. You’re in tune to certain things that other people miss. I think most people who write songs are keen observers of the world. Sometimes you’re observing more negative things and that’s really hard, it’s painful, it requires tending to, and that’s what therapy is. I think everybody is deserving of taking care of their mental health. Now I’m in a city of songwriters, and every single person I know is a songwriter who does therapy, so I’m very much not in a stigmatized place with it because it’s been normalized to me.

I’m so much older, but it took some time for me to get there. I remember being embarrassed as a child doing it. But it’s been so many years off and on that I have done therapy, and I have seen the gifts and the fruits of my labor. So many of my songs have come out of the work I’ve done in there and the growth I’ve had. I don’t know if my therapist listens, but there’s a lot of inspiration taken from things we’ve talked about, and realizations and connections. I’m proud of myself for being able to get to that place, and I’m proud of others in my life who have had to overcome stigma about it. I’ve seen it open them up, and that’s beautiful to see.

Photo Credit: Rett Rogers

BGS 5+5: Creekbed Carter Hogan

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Creekbed Carter Hogan
Hometown: I live in Saint Paul, Minnesota, but before that I spent most of my life living in Austin, Texas. I wasn’t born and raised in either, but they are the places that have shaped me the most and I think that counts for something.
Latest Album: PEASANTS REVOLT! (out July 24 2026)
Personal Nicknames (or rejected band names): Creekbed, Creeky, Peepaw Creekbed

Which artist has influenced you the most – and how?

Like a Catholic cliché, my life has been changed forever by two women named Mary.

The first artist is Mary Chapin Carpenter. Watching your mom sing along to “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her” with her eyes closed while she presses folded laundry to her chest, both wistful and hopeless… that does something to a person. In a family so Catholic, so conservative, so isolated – not just because of rurality, but also because of my difficult, isolationist father – Mary Chapin Carpenter was one of the few non-Christian rock-related musicians that scored my childhood, and her ferocious form of empathic songwriting has never left me.

The second Mary is Mary Gauthier. I remember the intersection I was stopped at in Austin, late at night, my now-girlfriend putting her on the aux. The first lines of “Slip of the Tongue” hit me like a gut punch: “Honey sit down, I got something to say/ Last night I drowned. I got carried away.” I remember gripping my girlfriend’s hand, crying and laughing and brimming with new, terrifying love as I listened for the first time to one of the few publicly queer Americana artists to really break through. Mary Gauthier made my life as a trans country artist possible. Nobody can see through to the soul of something like she can. It was an honor to release my cover of “Slip of the Tongue” this year, and it’ll be an honor for the rest of my life to know that my songs are in a lineage that includes her.

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

Man, I just really love art a lot. I’ll watch anything, read anything, listen to anything. I don’t think you need any special schooling or whatever to look at something bold and wrestle with how it makes you feel – you just need a lot of curiosity.

I’m putting out a new record in July called PEASANTS REVOLT! and in my liner notes I credit two books as inspirations: Fernando A. Flores’s Texan magical realist novel Brother Brontë and Julius S. Scott’s The Common Wind, a beautifully rendered examination of how word-of-mouth led to the Haitian Revolution, the most successful slave revolt in all of human history. Those two books gave as much to my new album as Hazel Dickens, Bobbie Gentry, Tracy Chapman, and ANOHNI did.

So did a whole library! The East Side Freedom Library in Saint Paul, which makes formerly private collections of union organizers, activists, thinkers, and artists available to the public. The Twin Cities United Performers, a musicians’ power org I’m a member of, helps me explore the art of organizing with fellow musicians for better conditions. Picket lines are an art form, and I remain inspired every day by the people who hold them. And my songs would probably sound completely different if I weren’t spending so much of my time watching movies like John Sayles’s Matewan and Cheryl Dunye’s Watermelon Woman and Abbas Kiarostami’s Close-Up.

Before I could leave my small rural community, art was a way of exploring the world. Now that I can live on my own terms, art is a way of understanding the world. As an artist, why wouldn’t I try as many forms of understanding as possible?

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

This is a long answer, but it’s a story worth telling:

This past winter, as ICE invaded the Twin Cities and abducted and killed our neighbors in our streets, I received a grant from the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis to write new labor and union songs. It was a jarring juxtaposition: how could I justify research and writing songs in my room when I needed to be out on the streets with a whistle in my hand, standing my ground with my neighbors against the federal government? But the truth is, I’d already cashed half the money and it had been a lean winter, so I had to make something to show for it. I went to the East Side Freedom Library, did a boatload of research, and then I wrote songs about regular Minnesotans who’d fought the government for dignity for all. From the 1910s miners of the Mesabi Iron Range to the Indigenous founders of the American Indian Movement in the ’70s to the Willmar 8 who held a two-year picket line every single day in every single kind of weather to an Appalachian-styled ballad that tied in the history of labor resistance to what we were all doing now to protect one another, as our own mayor and governor left us in the ice and the snow to fend for ourselves.

On February 20, I took the stage at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis with a four-piece bluegrass band and presented my grant work to 250 Minnesotans. I was terrified that what I’d written hadn’t done enough justice to this incredible place that had taken me in, given me lifesaving healthcare, and taught me new things about what it means to show up for your community – and even more worried that my performance wouldn’t be good enough to raise rent money for my neighbors who were trapped in their apartments, hiding from ICE. But when I started playing these songs, the reception filled me with awe. All 250 of these people sang with me, clapped with me, cried with me, felt pain and joy and despair and hope together, out loud, with me. After the set, we got a standing ovation – and then at the merch table, the line went out the door as neighbor after neighbor came up to me to tell me about the picket lines they were holding or had held, the Minnesotans they’d recognized in my lyrics, the pain they felt and the hope that sat right beside that pain that they could now feel because of what we’d just sung together.

I’ve played a lot of incredible shows to incredible audiences, many of them much bigger and “much bigger deals.” But that show on February 20 this year was the single most important performance of my life. It meant everything to me. And it taught me, again, why I’m still here, writing songs, doing something every single day to take my place in a lineage of resistance and make a new, better world for all of us.

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

Way before I wanted to be a musician, I wanted to be a nun. The nuns I’ve known work really hard for the liberation of all people, even from within the confines of a restrictive, colonialist, organized religion. The Sisters of the Holy Names were the ones who first taught me about protesting at the School of the Americas, for example, and the Catholic Workers movement introduced liberation theology to me,and taught me about fighting for a dignified life for every living thing. I’m not a Catholic anymore – Catholicism remains closed to me as a trans person – but then again, secular convents existed in medieval Europe for people who didn’t want to convert to Catholicism, but still wanted to live in community. So maybe being a secular, liberationalist nun is still an option?

What would a perfect day as an artist and a creator look like to you?

I would wake up and every single person in the United States would have universal basic income, healthcare that serves all of our needs, and the knowledge that our taxes are funding public services instead of wars and genocides and detention centers. I’d get up to eat vegetables from our garden and groceries I could afford, in a house I share with my friends that isn’t owned by a landlord or a bank, in a neighborhood where everyone has the housing they need. I’d pick up my guitar and head out the door to a park or a third space where other people would be playing music, sharing skills, and enjoying rest for free without fear of the cops or some arbitrary law that regulates who gets to rest where. And we’d all get to that space on free public transportation that runs well and doesn’t contribute to climate change.

We’d sing and play in the heart of a food forest and then we’d take a break to swim in water that’s clean in a park we all care for. I’d go to the library and read a book about moss or something, just because it sounds interesting, while people around me use public resources to sew quilts or study or listen to CDs, our phones nowhere in sight. In the evening, I’d go to a show with my girlfriend at a venue that receives funding from the government so they don’t have to rely on alcohol sales to make their business work, and I’d happily pay money that I know goes entirely to the bands playing that night. I’d dance and dance and dance, surrounded by all kinds of people who all have the basic things they need to thrive in the bodies they have, whose bodies are no longer regulated or targeted for state violence or kept out because of a disregard for accessibility. The bands would be shit hot, because they’d know they were making a living wage and that no one was gonna come into the venue to gun us all down.

And when I’d leave the venue with my girlfriend to get on our bikes and go home to sleep, the night air would feel clean. There’d be no wildfire smoke in the air. The stars would be out, and I’d be able to see them all. I’d pass neighbor after neighbor, grinning, happy to go home to a safe place, knowing that Palestine was free and Cuba was free and Puerto Rico was free and that “Land Back” had supplanted capitalism as our guiding principle and that every worker was treated fairly. And while nothing would be perfect, because there’s always work to be done, things would feel possible. Hope would feel tenable. Every living creature would feel valued. That would be one hell of a day, I think.

Photo Credit: Emily April Allen

River Shook Is as Disarming As Ever

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

After more than a decade fronting various alt-country bands – most notably the Disarmers – River Shook is now breaking out on their own.

The new chapter officially launched June 26 with the release of Shook’s self-titled debut. It’s stripped back instrumentally, but still features the same blunt songwriting and gritty vocals that longtime fans of the singer have come to know and love. As such, its 10 songs take listeners on a rollercoaster of emotions balancing equal parts sorrow and joy, ultimately reminding that we’re all stronger than we give ourselves credit for.

“This album is extremely dichotomous,” says Shook. “One constant is a theme of being able to hold two very contrasting emotions at the same time, which can be hard for many people and takes a level of self-awareness that I think we should all aspire to.”

Bringing the record to life was Shook’s bandmate and life partner, Blake Tallent, and together they produced the project inside their North Carolina home. That decision came after unsuccessfully shopping demos to record labels, then leaning on the guidance of friend and esteemed producer Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Waxahatchee, Mavis Staples), who stressed to them the need to build everything around the vocals.

“When he said that, my brain immediately went back to the times where we’ve made Disarmers records where I felt like vocally I was competing with the band and had to force my singing overtop of everything else,” explains Shook. “But with this album we wanted to figure out the vocals and build everything else around them. When we started recording we acted as if it was a demo, just me with an acoustic guitar, a mic and a click track in my ears. There’s still the rock ‘n’ roll people know me for, but it’s a lot more nuanced because we really wanted to make the vocals the North Star of this project. When I listen back to it now, I’m amazed at how natural my voice sounds – there’s no straining to break through the noise like before.”

Ahead of the album’s release, Shook caught up with Good Country to talk about disbanding the Disarmers, recording the new project exclusively at home with Tallent, why they opt to be so up front with pain in their songwriting, and more.

When did you first start planning for this solo project, and why was it important for you to effectively “kill off” the Disarmers before doing so?

River Shook: The Disarmers were together for about 10 years, but the last couple years of it we were dealing with the situation where we had all of these tours booked and my guitarist at the time, Eric Peterson, had to take a leave of absence because he was having some arm issues that were preventing him from being able to play. That started this weird cycle of having to bring in sub musicians and soon after everything fell apart. Our bassist ended up leaving followed by our drummer, leaving us in this mode of band-aid fixes since we had so many shows already on the books. We were so busy that we didn’t have time to even really be intentional about who we were bringing in, it was just a matter of “can they play the instrument well and are they available?” – there wasn’t any time to reflect.

I was also getting really burned out, and on top of that I’m a very introverted person, so it was really hard for me to get used to new people. Couple that with the fact that sometimes we would have people in the band that we just weren’t meshing with made it start to feel weird. I was constantly trying to hold together this thing that was determined to fall apart. Then in December of 2024 my other longest-running band member, Jack Foster – who had drummed with me for three or four years at that point – called me shortly after Thanksgiving and told me he could no longer commit to the band. Instead of the knee-jerk reaction that we’d all been having every time a band member left, I just decided to let go and move on. It wound up being a massive weight off my shoulders.

At the same time, I knew I [was] not quitting music, because it’s such a huge part of who I am, I just realized it was time for that chapter to come to a close. Immediately I began thinking about what’s next, not in a hectic or frantic way, but in a way that felt extremely liberating and inspiring. [I was] immediately inspired – like, I can take this wherever I want to.

You talking about feeling liberated has me thinking of the album’s opening track “Free At Last.” Was that your way of declaring you’ve broken free of what has weighed you down?

That’s absolutely what it felt like. That song is actually a reference to sort of a parallel storyline that was occurring at the time. I had to cut my parents off for a while, which is very hard to write a song about. Most people can’t relate to that, but I felt like if I can write this song about a divorce, that is something that so many people can understand. That – coupled with the fact that the Disarmers ending was very much a divorce in its own way – made this a song that I wanted to use to remind people that getting out of your shit is really hard to do. However, the freedom to do and pursue what we want on the other side is absolutely worth going through that heartache.

Speaking of your parents, you also sing about your up-and-down relationship with them on the record’s closing track, “Loving Me Is Like Rolling A Big Old Rock.” What was it like rehashing some of those memories and examining how your relationship has evolved with them over time?

I was working through a lot of stuff with all the songs on this record and trying to be more honest with myself about my childhood and my teen years, which were rough. I know my parents meant well and were coming from a good place, but it was a very controlling and authoritarian household where I experienced a lot of religious and gender-based trauma. In their minds I was born a girl, so I was only supposed to exist to be a wife, mother, and housekeeper. They’ve since come a long way with their beliefs and don’t think like that anymore, which I’m grateful for, but the damage had already been done.

More recently I was at a point where I [was] grappling with all this stuff as an adult and going to therapy to try to come to terms with it all. Therapy is a great tool, but it can only get you so far. There’s so much work that you have to do yourself and that’s part of what writing this record was, it was me therapizing myself. It was me having very honest and frank discussions with myself about what happened and what I need to do to have a healthier perspective of all of the bad things that I’ve dealt with.

So “Loving Me Is Like Rolling A Big Old Rock” is supposed to feel kind of mischievous and fun because it is touching on such heavy topics that unfortunately I think a lot of people can relate to. When most people become parents for the first time they’re not prepared, because their parents weren’t prepared to be parents either – it’s a tale as old as time.

You and your partner Blake Tallent produced this album yourselves inside your home studio in North Carolina. What led to that approach, and is it something you’d ever done before?

The first four Disarmers records were studio albums, but with my side project, Mightmare featured the only other record that I’ve made at home, although that was a completely different situation. That entire record was me, a MacBook with GarageBand, and a Scarlett Focusrite [interface] – it was very DIY. When I wrapped up the Disarmers, I had demos that our manager was shopping around. We were getting some interest but nothing more, and it got to a point where the timeline that I had with our touring schedule required that we release this in spring of 2026. That’s when we started making the record at home between just the two of us.

Blake is a killer multi-instrumentalist, so much so that it blows my mind. He lived in Nashville for a long time and still has a house on the east side. When he lived there he was producing records, playing instruments, and even mixing – he’s a fucking weapon! Our original goal with this record was to have a whole band on it and to capture it at Sonic Ranch, since that place has been on my bucket list for several years. When the things that you want don’t work out, you can get lost in the defeat and your emotions or you can notice it as an opportunity to do something else, and that’s how we chose to approach it. I’m so grateful that [Blake] was fully on board.

The Disarmers had a couple fly-out dates at the end of June 2025 and by July 1 we were hunkered down in the house and started making the record using Pro Tools. Blake taught me the basics of Pro Tools so that while he’s playing drums or bass, I can be running the session and he doesn’t have to multitask. It was also nice not running into that “too many cooks in the kitchen” issue, because both of our creative visions were 100% aligned. I can’t think of a single disagreement we had in the studio, which simply does not happen. Having a creative partner who’s also your life partner and being in alignment together on a project of this magnitude was incredible, and I think because of that our synchronicity really shines through on this record. It sounds very cohesive without any kind of dissonance or struggle.

How long has Blake been playing with you?

He joined the band as a sub in June of 2022, then we were seeing each other by August and fell in love on our first European tour together, completely unexpectedly. The story of how we met is told in “Running to Georgia.” It was a combination of crazy coincidences and planets aligning for us to have even met in the first place.

That’s funny, because the first time I listened to that song I assumed it was about you trying to get away from someone. How exactly did y’all find each other?

The Disarmers were playing the El Rocko Lounge in Savannah in October of 2021. When I walked in the venue I saw him across the room and immediately thought, “That’s my person!” It wasn’t like it was love at first sight or a sexual thing, it was just this acknowledgment and recognition. Then he walked over to me and held his hand out and said, “Hey, I’m your sound tech” and I was so embarrassed. [Laughs] I thought I’d made a terrible mistake, but then I ended up going out to a bar after the show to meet another friend who happened to be in town on tour and Blake was there. We wound up having this great night of hanging out with friends and talking, but the next day I was so depressed because I thought I’m never gonna see this person again.

Then a few months later we needed a guitar sub and my manager emailed me out of nowhere saying there’s this guy named Blake Tallent who knows all the songs and is available for all the dates, and my jaw hit the floor. It was destiny.

That’s lovely. I’m so glad you found your person!

The next song I wanted to ask you about is “Wildlands,” which was your first single as a solo artist but isn’t included on this album. Why is that?

“Wildlands” was a separate thing. When we made the record, the only instruments that Blake didn’t play were banjo and pedal steel. But immediately after we made it, he got a pedal steel and stated that he wanted to do it himself next time – which he did when we eventually recorded this song. At the time we were talking with a label and everyone involved was 99% certain that we were going to sign with them, but it ended up being an absolute fiasco. Initially we planned for the song to be a single leading up to the album singles, but when this label deal fell through I realized we had no option other than to self-release unless we wanted to move the album to the fall. At that point I’d already put a band together and promised people jobs so that wasn’t going to happen, but I still really wanted to get the song out since I knew fans were hungry to hear what this new project is gonna feel and sound like.

In that sense it was like revenge putting this out. I didn’t know if we were going to find another label or distribution partner – or what-the fuck-ever – but [“Wildlands” was] going to be a standalone thing, which I think was very symbolic. In the end, that single is 100% independent – I own the masters, the publishing, and the songwriting. We were very fortunate to find a distribution partner for the record, but I think that song is really special and has its own thing going on.

In lieu of not landing a record deal you released the album under your own imprint, Blackberry River. Mind telling me about the origins of its name?

I’ve been working on a memoir … When you’re having to really rethink your childhood and the things that occupied your time– one big thing for me was summer, because winters in Western New York are absolutely brutal. It’s like six months of winter and gray sky, so spring and summer have always been my favorite seasons. My favorite thing about summer was our backyard, which was pretty big and had these amazing blackberry bushes that my older sister and I would go out to with baskets to fill up while also eating them right off the bush. The wild nature of blackberries – not as a thing that’s an agricultural commodity, but something that is just literally wild and free – is something I relate to so deeply. So Blackberry River is just a nod to my 8-, 10-year-old self that was barefoot running through the yard with purple blackberry hands. [Laughs]

What has bringing this record to life taught you about yourself?

I learned that less is more sometimes and that I can be a very hyper-focused type of person, which sometimes means I need to step back and take in the bigger picture. I’m just now developing the ability to step back and see things more as a whole than as individual parts. Doing that gave me a lot more perspective on how to make this album really shine.

Photo Credit: Jillian Clark

Andrew Sa Knows His Debut Album Is Yours, Too

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Andrew Sa’s musical career can be traced by a series of loops. The California-born, Chicago-based singer-songwriter first fell in love with music as a small child, listening to classic rock and country stations with his father, a retired touring musician. A few years later, he’d transition from listener to performer at his mother’s karaoke bar, where he’d charm crowds with Patsy Cline covers.

His broadening musical interests would lead him away from country in his teenage years, something he also attributes to feeling out of place as a queer person in an outwardly conservative, queer-unfriendly genre. The musical community he encountered in Chicago, where he landed after a stint studying theater in college, challenged the notion that there was no place for Sa in country. Immersing himself in that community led Sa to meet another musician who would be pivotal in his life: singer-songwriter Patrick Haggerty, who performed as Lavender Country until his death in 2022.

Sa tells Good Country that it was Haggerty, in particular, who offered him a sense of permission to make country that encompassed both his queerness and his love of the genre. And that permission emboldened and inspired Sa, who released his debut full-length album, American Rough, via Bloodshot Records on June 26.

American Rough takes the hallmarks of great country – intimate storytelling, colorful characters, a reverence for the emotive possibilities of the voice – and makes it Sa’s own, thanks, in part, to producer H.C. McEntire, who imbued Sa’s songs with a timeless quality utilizing unfussy arrangements with subtly countrypolitan flourishes.

Below, Good Country catches up with Sa to chat about signing to Bloodshot, losing Patrick Haggerty, and finally releasing a long-awaited debut album.

You made a big announcement in March, sharing that you’d signed a record deal with Bloodshot Records. How did that come about, and what does it mean to you to be on the roster of such a storied label?

Andrew Sa: I had heard records from Bloodshot Records, like the Justin Townes Earle records and Neko Case records and the Sarah Shook & the Disarmers records, but I didn’t know about Bloodshot as a label until I met a good friend named Kelly Hogan. Kelly has been on Bloodshot and she’s a part of a couple of other Chicago bands, but she’s a dear friend. She’s currently backup singing for Mavis Staples on tour, but she’s like a Chicago/Atlanta legend locally. She sang backup for Neko for many years and sang on a bunch of her records.

When I met Kelly – gosh, maybe 2018, 2019 – she was the one who had started talking up Bloodshot Records to me. But it wasn’t until we began shopping the record for a little while that Bloodshot approached us. Bloodshot, over the last decade, they have been going through it, and so they have what we would call the “new” Bloodshot. They’re owned by an umbrella company called Exceleration that also owns Kill Rock Stars, Yep Roc, and a bunch of other independent labels.

We were chatting with the folks at New West, and that didn’t go where we wanted it to go, but one of the guys from New West – he was very supportive of the record – he said, “I’m going to send this over to my buddy Howard at Bloodshot.” So, it’s funny how it went around to come back to Bloodshot, because Bloodshot is in Chicago. And then it was just kismet, honestly. Once we started talking with Howard, it just seemed right on the money. Alt-country – let’s do it, you know?

It sounds like American Rough was many years in the making, and that some of these songs are older than others. Was there a moment when you realized you might have a record on your hands, or when everything clicked into place?

Other than two songs – one of the singles, “Under You,” which was written for me by my friend Liam Cazar and then the song “Gorgeous Things” – other than those two songs, all of the other songs were written for the record. I’ve been dreaming of having a debut record for a decade now, and maybe more, but when I was a beginning songwriter back in 2011/2012 I would write song after song and, between the two of us, none of them were very good. But I would compile the list and I would say, “This is going to be the record, and I’m going to title it this.”

So, to answer your question, I probably got all of that out of my system before this actual record happened. Most of the songs, as I said, were written during the window of time that we were working on the record, ever since I started chatting with our lead producer and one of my co-writers, H.C. McEntire of Durham, North Carolina. That would have been about 2020 and the record was finished in 2024. Then, we finally hooked up with Bloodshot in 2025. The characters across this album are within the last five, six years of my life, so yes, it is something that spanned quite a long period of time, but the record itself took a long time to make. We really took our time making it, so the songs themselves, while they are new to everyone else, they aren’t necessarily for me.

Yeah, I’m not sure the average music fan realizes how much time artists often spend sitting on their music and waiting on a release date. Given what you just described, what are you feeling in advance of finally getting to drop a proper debut project?

I feel like this is very surreal. For lack of a better expression, at the risk of sounding cliché, it’s certainly my dreams coming true. I’ve been so excited to get these songs in the ears of people, and especially these recordings. I had such a deep, fulfilling experience making all of this with my co-producers and all of the players on the record, and I’m just so excited to share it.

My excitement grows with every single that I’m releasing, because people – at least the people that are in my sphere – are really enjoying it. It’s also unnerving. I do find myself anxious at times, just because you do all of the work and then you put it out there, and then it’s not necessarily mine anymore. It’s everyone else’s, and it’s up to them to love on it or not. I didn’t think that it would take me so long to have a debut record, but I really think that I did it the right way, for me. I’m kind of a late bloomer of sorts and taking my time has always really served me. I hope that that is reflected in the work for other people when they hear it.

To me, there is definitely a positive side to being a late bloomer. You’ve accumulated life experience and wisdom, and I would assume you would also have a stronger, fuller sense of who you are and what you want to make. Does that resonate with you?

Yeah, I grew up as a music lover, and in high school I started doing theater as a way to express myself. I went to college for theater and, while I still was interested in music, all of the skills that I developed as an actor didn’t set me up as the person who writes the story; it set me up as someone who could interpret a story. The reason I bring this up is because it took a lot of time and a lot of work – and, I would say, even failed attempts – to develop my voice as a songwriter and to really figure out what it is that I want to say and how I want to say it.

Then, along with that, I was developing my vocal instrument and understanding what is the true voice that I want to share, as opposed to all the voices that I’ve played throughout my past. A lot of the education that I got in acting and the experience of acting really helps me as a performer. I know that to be true. It’s just taken a long time to develop my voice – both singing and as a songwriter – and my unique voice that wasn’t me playing a character.

A moment ago you mentioned the singles you released ahead of the record, and one of those is “Lavender Cowboy,” a tribute to the late, great Patrick Haggerty. Talk about someone who knew their own voice! I know that Patrick was a mentor to you and it sounds like he was an important figure in your life. I would love to hear about the writing of that song and also what comes to mind when you consider his legacy, both as an artist but also as someone who was important to you personally.

Are you familiar with his music? Did you ever get a chance to see him perform?

I did, and I actually got to interview him once, years ago. It’s one of the true highlights of the work I’ve been able to do over the years. It really meant a lot to me.

Then you know just how kind and present he was. Patrick has a vast, loud legacy of his activism, which was always so inspiring to me. However, Patrick and I seemed to connect over tenderness, for lack of a better word. Humbly, I’ll say one of the things I consider to be one of my superpowers is my ability to be tender, to convey tenderness, to encourage tenderness, especially at a time like now in the world. That was something that we certainly aligned on.

I didn’t have many supportive male figures in my life growing up, especially when it comes to my queerness and uniqueness in that way – and thus my voice, my perspective. Patrick would often say, “I am your stepping stone to lift you up.” He was always affirming me. I didn’t realize just how much I craved that and needed that from, especially, someone like him, of his age and his experience in life. We don’t have a lot of our gay elders because of a lot of things, but specifically the AIDS epidemic. I often felt very lucky that we still had Patrick for as long as we did, considering he was such a slut back in the day. [Laughs] Country music was hugely important to me until I was a teenager and then it was no longer necessarily cool to me, and I went in search of other things and found a lot of inspiration in many other genres and artists. But when I met Patrick – I was asked to open for him – witnessing him and his stage show gave me permission to return to country music.

“Lavender Cowboy” was the last song written for the record. I knew I wanted to write a song to remember Patrick. I imagine that the reason that I like writing elegies is because of my affinity in my teen years for Rufus Wainwright, because he does that so well. I’ve written a few now. I wrote a song called “Dark Phoenix” about my first boyfriend, my high school sweetheart, who’s no longer with us. I wrote a song, even, about the fictional character Jack Twist from Brokeback Mountain.

In any case, the idea is to keep these characters, these people, alive after they’re dead or gone. Every time I sing “Lavender Cowboy,” I’m able to talk about Patrick. He is alive and with us in the room, if only for that three-and-a-half minutes. I knew I wanted to write a song to keep his memory alive. I also knew that I wanted to write something that wasn’t just sad. I wanted to write something that people could hear and feel pride. I wanted them to feel lifted, and I think that H.C. and I accomplished that.

Just to be nerdy, I write a lot in 3/4 or 6/8, so I really wanted to write an up-tempo song in 4/4. I went to his celebration of life, which was out in Bremerton, Washington, and I brought my tenor guitar out there, because I was gonna have some downtime in my hotel. I wrote the first verse out there and then I wrote the pre-choruses back in Chicago at the Old Town School of Folk Music, then [H.C.] and I wrote the chorus together, right before the day before we were going to record it.

You shared how Patrick was able to show you that there is a place for you in country music, and I know you’ve had a lot of involvement with the Cosmic Country Showcase and the country scene in Chicago. How does that community factor into where you are now, on the cusp of releasing your record?

I am forever grateful to the Chicago music community, both the fans of Chicago local music but also very much so the players in the community. I don’t know what the cultures are like in other cities, but Chicago is such a supportive place. Even though we are always going to be competing for certain opportunities, we’re not competitive with each other.

I do need to mention that I got my start in Chicago by making my start, and it’s something that I would encourage more people to do if they can find the opportunities to do so. My friend Dylan Matracia – he lives in New York now and goes by Matracia – we met working in a restaurant in Boystown, Chicago, and we both wanted to break into the music community. We were both young songwriters, baby songwriters, so we decided to start our own queer music acoustic night in Boystown at a bar where we knew the owner. That ran for two-and-a-half-years, and it was called Second Date with Dylan and Andrew. The reason I bring that up is because it really gave me the confidence to go out and try to get other opportunities, and it also gave me a platform that people could come and witness me at my earliest stages. It’s really hard to imagine how you get your first step into anything … especially as a queer folk artist.

When I started doing the Cosmic Country Showcase, that was the same year that I first opened for Patrick, and my return to country music was the year that Cosmic Country started. I remember asking Sully Davis – who’s one of the organizers of that event and currently my manager – he was the one who was booking the Hideout at the time, who booked me to open for Patrick Haggerty. I’m actually forever grateful to Sully for so many things. I said, “Hey, I know you’re doing the Cosmic Country Showcase. I’d love to sing like a Reba song or a Wynonna song or something.” Within a couple of years, now I’m the host, or one of the hosts. I was really searching for a queer audience for so long, and it wasn’t until the Cosmic Country Showcase that I realized that my audience was broader than that. I’m so grateful to that community who comes out to Cosmic Country for giving me that, showing me that.

Speaking of engaging the live music community, you have a string of shows planned for this summer, like the release day show at Union Pool in Brooklyn and then a late June show at the Hideout in Chicago, which you just mentioned. What do you most look forward to as you anticipate these performances?

It’s likely obvious that, since I’m sharing these songs, I’m very proud of them, so that’s one of the reasons I’m really excited to play them. I think that they concisely capture who I am, and hopefully they are open enough for folks to see themselves in them and make them their own as well. That’s what I love to do with music. I’m very excited to play places that I’ve never played before, because the few short tours that I’ve been on, just the sheer experience of meeting new people in new places – and seeing that what I do works there, too – is one of the most fulfilling, life-affirming feelings.

I’m very excited to play New York, specifically, because I’ve always had a love for New York, but also a fear of New York. And I dreamed of having a physical record to sell for so long. I’m very excited about having it in my hands, to give to someone else, of course.

Photo Credit: Alexa Viscius

The Other 22 Hours: Heather Mae

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

We often look at an artist’s career through the lens of industry accolades: the tours, the streaming numbers, the awards. But what happens when you intentionally dismantle your creative ego to build something focused entirely on collective liberation? Heather Mae is an award-winning independent artist, the founder of Singing Resistance Nashville, and a prominent voice in organized musical activism. Following a viral arrest at the Tennessee State Capitol while protesting anti-trans legislation, Heather sits down with The Other 22 Hours to discuss the profound impacts of communal singing, navigating trauma as a neurodivergent and queer creator, and how to balance radical empathy without completely burning out. It’s an expansive, deeply human conversation about moving past the modern traps of artistic productivity to discover what it truly means to be of service.

LISTEN: APPLE • SPOTIFY • AMAZON • MP3

In This Episode:

– Heather Mae
– Ysaye Barnwell
– Sweet Honey in the Rock
– The Song School (Planet Bluegrass)
– National Organization for Women
– Singing Resistance Nashville
– Tennessee Equality Project
– Melody Walker
– Justin Jones
– Gloria Johnson
– WMOT
– “Just More Love”
– Alex Pretti
– Folk Alliance
– Crys Matthews
– Etta James
– MusiCares
– Music Health Alliance
– Carl Jung
– Ep 97 – Fancy Hagood

Go Deeper: 

Watch: View this entire conversation above or on YouTube.
Explore: Find similar conversations in these themed playlists.
Connect: Join the conversation on Instagram.

The Other 22 Hours is hosted by Aaron Shafer-Haiss (producer, mixer, musician) and Michaela Anne (songwriter, artist, creative coach). More about Aaron’s work. More about Michaela Anne’s work.

Produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss. Original music written, performed and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss.

Photo Credit: Laura Schneider

Melissa Etheridge: Rock and Roll and Resilience

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Few people have experienced the highs and lows of the music business to the degree that Melissa Etheridge has. Since releasing her self-titled debut in 1988, she has won two GRAMMYs (and been nominated for many others); been hailed as the second coming of Janis Joplin; won the Gibson Award for Best Female Rock Guitarist; become a mom several times over; been a social activist both for the LGBTQ+ community and for people addicted to opioids; written a memoir; and performed a one woman show on Broadway. Not bad for a kid from Leavenworth, Kansas.

That said, Etheridge has also suffered more than her share of setbacks. She has weathered a couple of high-profile divorces, battled breast cancer – who can forget her duet with Joss Stone at the 2005 GRAMMYs when she took the stage bald after undergoing chemotherapy – and, in 2020, lost her son Beckett to addiction.

The one constant throughout all these ups and downs has been her music, a brand of heartland rock that manages to be personal and universal at the same time. Etheridge is nearly as popular with blue-collar men as she is with lesbians, owing to her raspy vocals, formidable guitar chops, and unpretentious persona. And she’s racked up an impressive list of hits over the years including “Come To My Window,” “If I Wanted To,” “Ain’t It Heavy,” “Similar Features,” “I Want To Come Over,” “Bring Me Some Water,” and “I’m the Only One.”

2026 is shaping up to be a big year for Etheridge. She returned on March 27 with Rise, her first studio album in five years. On the eve of its release, she and her band kicked off a six-week tour in Detroit. And for the first time, Etheridge was nominated for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year.

Rise was recorded in Los Angeles with co-producer Shooter Jennings and includes 11 songs. While they’re diverse musically, the album as a whole feels like a complete statement. It’s a testimony to resilience, to sticking with life through all its ups and downs.

The title track and “Bein’ Alive” (which opens the disc) are both life-affirming rockers. “The Other Side of Blue” is a contemplative duet with Chris Stapleton. The playful “If You Ever Leave Me” puts an Americana spin on Mental As Anything’s ‘80s hit, “If You Leave Me (Can I Come Too).”

The shuffling, midtempo “Matches” was inspired by Johnny Cash’s 1970 concert at the U.S. penitentiary in Etheridge’s hometown. But the two final songs on Rise are also its most personal and poignant. “Call You” is a moving tribute to her son Beckett, while “More Love” was written for her daughter Bailey when she got engaged.

BGS recently had the pleasure of catching up with Melissa Etheridge for a Cover Story interview.

Let’s start with Rise. This is your first new album in five years, which is a significant amount of time. But you’ve been very busy in the last five years; I read your book and saw your show on Broadway. So it’s not like you’ve been sitting around! What do you get out of recording an album that you might not get from doing theater or writing a book?

Melissa Etheridge: Even though I haven’t had an album out in five years, the [last] album I put out, One Way Out, was a previous recording that I’d done seven years before that. So it’s really nine years since I’ve written. And I’ve lived so much of life – from loss to the pandemic to just growth. That’s the part about making a record. I knew that I could create a collection of songs that would make an album.

I love the art form of an album. You know, 45 minutes to be with the listener and take them through an emotional journey. That’s my favorite part; the real crafting of it was the writing. And it was about a year’s worth of pulling things together and then writing [in] December of ’24 and January and February. Then going in the studio [last] March. Going in, it’s so much fun with the road band that I have. It’s like putting on a favorite pair of jeans. Then getting Shooter Jennings to produce it! His studio, Sunset Sound, is so amazing. So it was a pleasure recording there.

It really does flow as an album, but it touches on a lot of different moods. Listening to it as one piece, I felt a sense of renewal and also resilience.

Yeah, that’s something I wanted to get across. There’s so much I experienced through the loss of my son five years ago. That’s about the most devastating thing you can go through. Having gone through that loss, [I] decided that I wasn’t going to drown myself in guilt and shame, I wasn’t going to die – that I was going to experience this, heal with my family, keep loving ourselves, knowing that everyone makes their own choices. I could not save him, he had to make the choices for that. And then making art from that – you know, loving yourself enough to be able to say, “God, I love being alive.”

Writing those songs – especially in this day and age when I find such negativity – if you start believing that, then that’s what you’re gonna see. So I wanted to put [out] positivity without being patronizing or [using] platitudes. You know, lifting people up. Going, “Yeah, you’re gonna fall sometimes. You’re gonna taste the dirt. You’re gonna rise.”

[“Rise”] came after the LA fires. That was something I went through with my family. We had to evacuate. It came right up to our neighborhood. I gotta tell you, LA firefighters are heroes. Every single one of ‘em. They were able to keep it from our neighborhood. But there was a moment, when we were watching the fire reports, where it was like, “Okay. There’s a good possibility that we might lose everything.” I was in a hotel with people who were losing everything. To experience that and then say, “They’re just things. We’ve got our health, our family, our pets.” You know, you’re gonna still rise. There are gonna be these things that knock you down, but man! You’re gonna be stronger and better for it. It’s hard to hear but it’s so true.

I was gonna ask you why “Rise” was the title track but you kind of just told me!

The second to last song on the album is “Call You,” which is really moving and I know you wrote about your son. I don’t have children, but two months ago I lost two of my best friends, one to suicide and one to early onset Alzheimer’s. So I’ve been struggling the last couple of months with a lot of existential stuff and wanting to call my friend Mark – and I can’t. So that song really resonated with me. I guess I wanted to share that with you.

Yeah. Life is full of loss. It really is. You’re not living if you don’t have some loss. And the older you get, the more you’re gonna see it. That’s when the existential stuff [comes in]. I am more than just my body, I am a separate soul here experiencing it. The greater part of me is that non-physical place that I’m connected to – that source that everyone is [connected to].

In “Call You,” I tried to simplify that. Because to me, the times when I miss him the most are the times when it’s like, “I wanna call you!” Even my father who died 30 years ago, you know? When I was nominated for the Rock Hall, I was like “Oh, I just wanna call my dad!”

[“Call You”] was actually the first song I wrote for the album. I knew I had to get that emotional experience down. I had to write that song first.

I also wanted to ask you about “Matches.” When I spoke to you last, you told me about Johnny Cash playing in Kansas when you were just a kid and how one of your thoughts was, “Prisons must be the place where you find entertainers.”

[Melissa laughs]

Tell me more about that and maybe your thoughts about The Man in Black.

Well, growing up in a small town, Leavenworth, we have no places for big artists. Kansas City is 45 minutes away. But our town, in the ‘60s, that just wasn’t a thing. All of a sudden, in 1969, he came to the prison. He came to our town! “Oh my god!” Someone who I’d only seen on his television show or [heard] on the radio and was such a cultural icon – he’s in the same space as me! That really kind of said to me, “Whoa. Maybe I could do that.” It felt close to me. [Cash] always made a big impression on me. I always loved his music, his individuality.

“Matches” was supposed to be a scratch pad song for me. I had just come from the I’m Not Broken [docuseries]. I did a concert in 2023 at the Kansas Women’s Penitentiary. So I was still sort of playing off of that and singing. Scratch songs for me are songs [where] I’m writing for fun and it starts the juices flowing. I kept writing these verses and I played a little bit for my wife, [Linda]. And she said, “You have to put that on! What do you mean that’s a scratch song?”

Can you tell me some wonderful things about Linda?

[Laughs] Yes, I can! That’s easy. For 12 years we’ve been married. We were together four years before that. And before that, we were best friends for 10 years! I married my best friend.

She is… everything I needed or wanted or dreamt about. The only way you really get someone like that in your life is to understand your needs and wants. And to have the love for yourself that you are looking for in other people. The minute I really got in contact with myself and understood what I wanted and loved, I was able to see the best kind of love for me. And she was it.

There’s just a constant partnership that is astounding – a love and desire that never goes away. And it’s because I’m not looking for her to fix me or make everything great. I’m looking for her to be by my side as we both make our choices and walk through this world together.

Tell me a little about “The Other Side of Blue” and what it was like duetting with Chris Stapleton.

Ah! Chris Stapleton is just a national treasure. His soul and his talent and his mind and his heart are so beautiful and so rare. He’s such a unique talent and an incredible man.

I really didn’t know him at all, I just was a big fan. And I didn’t really want to do a duet on this album. But I remember telling my manager, “If I ever did do a duet, I would love it to be with Chris Stapleton. Maybe ask him if he wants to write a song together.” So my manager sent out the request. He said yeah, and that made me so happy. I went down and we wrote the song.

We were writing in RCA Studio A in Nashville, which is where Chet Atkins [recorded]. A massive, huge, historic studio! I just walked in and, “Hello, hello.” We sat down and had guitars in hand. We were just talking and five minutes go by and he asked me about my kids. I said, “Well, I had four but I lost one.” He said, “Oh, I’m sorry.” And I said, “No, no. He was my greatest teacher.” He looked at me and he goes, “You talk in song.”

That was the first line: “Sometimes, I listen when she talks in song.” We were writing within 15 minutes of showing up. It just appeared – every line. It took us maybe an hour and a half to write that song.

You mentioned being nominated for the Rock Hall. Tell me how that feels after all this time.

Well, I was eligible for about 12 years. [Laughs] I was like, “Don’t think about it! It’s not a comment on your music.” I didn’t make my music so that I would be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, that’s not what it’s about. It is lovely and feels really good to be recognized by your peers – by a group of people in the music business who say, “Your contribution to rock and roll has meant something.”

I’ve been on the voting body for exactly 10 years now. Obviously, certain things are subjective, but I thought this year there were a lot of good nominees. More diverse than last year’s group.

Yeah, I love Sade. I love Pink. Lauryn Hill I think is a good one. And then Iron Maiden, come on! It’s time, guys!

I always like to ask you about one older song. My favorite, which I’ve already asked you about, is “Ain’t It Heavy.” Is it okay to ask you about one of the really popular ones? I try not to ask the same things everyone asks. But I am curious about “Bring Me Some Water.”

Oh, that’s good! At least it wasn’t “Come To My Window.” No, “Bring Me Some Water” – that’s fun, that’s an older song.

I’d been playing women’s bars in Los Angeles for five years and a lot of record companies came and turned me down. But Chris Blackwell [finally] comes in and signs me right on the spot, for Island Records. Bam! I’d never made a record and I had no idea [what to do]. So my manager gets this producer, Jim Gaines, from San Francisco. This is 1986. It’s the middle of the ‘80s sound – that sort of Steve Miller, Journey [thing]. We made this record and I play it for Chris Blackwell and he hates it! Because it doesn’t sound like the girl he saw at the bar. It sounds overblown – lots and lots of keyboards and my voice way at the top. He hates it and I’m like, “Oh my God, he hates my album.”

I convinced him to give me four days to try it again in the studio. But in between the time that I finished the first album and went into record again – which became the debut – I wrote “Bring Me Some Water” about this relationship I had with a lovely woman named Kathleen. We lived together and we had this open relationship – which is just a mindfuck! [Laughs] I wouldn’t advise anyone to do that.

This is her being gone and me sitting at home in the middle of September, in Los Angeles. I’m living on Melrose and it’s hot. It’s so hot! So I sit down and I’m like, “Okay. I gotta get back to traditional blues stuff.” I’m just playing [the riff], it’s old Muddy Waters but it’s speeded up. I’m singing about, you know, the foul air. I’m just hot and uncomfortable and I’m mad. So, I wrote this song and Chris Blackwell loved it.

Photo Credit: Candice Lawler

MORGXN: Home Is Where Your Heart Hangs Its Hat

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

“I don’t know when I became an activist,” MORGXN admits. “I’m just a human being who sings from the heart, but my heart is very broken by the world that we are currently living in.”

The singer-songwriter lived in Los Angeles for 10 years before moving back home to Nashville in 2022. “The minute I came back to Nashville, I ran into a guy once. He was like, ‘I only see you at the Capitol singing,’” he recalls. “When I moved back, they were trying to ban drag queens. They were trying to ban women’s access to health care.”

Most recently, he took to the Tennessee State Capitol to protest bills against same-sex marriage. “This is how rights get tested: one state, one bill, one ‘exception,’ and suddenly the floor moves under all of us,” he wrote on Instagram.

“I don’t even think about it as activism. I think about it as humanity. We are more alike as human beings than the media, the news, and politicians would want you to believe,” he explains. “It breaks my heart. If you have listened to this album, there are songs about love and the human experience. The album is for anybody bold enough to live as who they are in the middle of the heartland.

“That is what I hope people get from this album. I hope they feel less alone in their activism… I wouldn’t even use the word activism. I hope they feel less alone in their humanity, period.”

On March 6, MORGXN released a deluxe edition of his album, HEARTLAND, and while it pulls from country music, he wouldn’t exactly label it as such. “I don’t care what genre you tell me it is. I care that I’m speaking something that is true to me, and that’s how I make music,” he says. “I don’t make music outside in.

“I make music inside out. I find what’s inside, and I try to bring it outside,” he continues. “And the heartland is a place that is normally not reserved for people like me and you. And yet, living in the heartland, I see that everyone belongs in the heartland. The heartland is a space for everybody, and I want to reclaim the heartland for everybody.”

Good Country hopped on a Zoom call with MORGXN a week before the album’s release and chatted about collaborations with Tenille Townes and Maggie Rose, the meaning of community, the political divide in country, and the hardest lessons he’s learned since coming out as gay at 19 years old.

What are some of your favorite lyrics on the album?

MORGXN: “GOD CODED” is maybe the most important song I’ve ever written, whether or not most people hear the song – it’s not a radio song. But it is probably the most important song I’ve ever ushered into being. I have no problem with god or religion. I have a huge problem when people use god and religion as a weapon of their hate.

“WILLOW” I wrote for my friend’s daughter who has cerebral palsy, so that she knows that she is a bright light. Already that song has inspired other people, which really means that she has inspired other people. It’s hard for me to choose… “MIGRATION” is about losing my dog. I don’t have a favorite lyric – it’s like choosing a child. [Laughs]

Okay, here’s my funniest favorite line, “EVERGREENS.” The first line: “Tell me your sign/ And I’ll tell you mine/ And I’ll tell you if we’ll be okay.” I think that’s funny, because if I’m dating somebody, I will be like, “What is your sign?” And I’m going to decide right away if we’re even going to be compatible, which is maybe absolutely chaotic, but I love it.

With the deluxe edition of HEARTLAND you have several collaborators, including Tenille Townes, Ruby Amanfu, and Maggie Rose. How did you choose who you wanted, and what did they bring to the table?

Collaboration is like water to me. You know, I have many liquids here on my table. I am a gay man, so I have tons of liquid everywhere around – iced coffee is always a yes. Collaboration is also like breathing to me. When I think about making music, “the bible” to me is Willie Nelson and “On the Road Again.” The life I love is making music with my friends, and I can’t wait to get on the road again. That is how I think about music.

When I moved to Nashville, there were voices that I saw popping up that were saying really important things, like [Tenille Townes’] “Jersey on the Wall.” They were saying messages that really resonated with me inside of a space that is still not reserved for people like me.

I came here in 2022, which was 11 years after this manager told me I would never make it in music as an openly gay person. In Nashville, there was a thing bubbling up, but it was like you were reserved for this sideshow experience. You can be gay, but only during June, only when there’s a tent for you to stand under. That’s not how I believe in love or life or humanity. I reached out to several people wanting to create. Truth be told, I have people in my DMs who are massive artists, who love what I’m doing, but who can’t align with who I am because it will hurt their fan base. That’s insane. That’s 2026 for you.

But artists like Tenille Townes, Maggie Rose, Ruby Amanfu, Katie Pruitt – who’s obviously a queer beacon – and Langhorne Slim, they were people who were brave enough to collaborate outside of what is the norm for them. I’m really honored that they’re helping me create this version of the heartland where everyone gets to live.

With Tenille, “HEAVEN KNOWS” was the first song we ever wrote together. It was actually the day we met. The song has this sort of inner child: Why do we even keep trying in a world that feels so hard? Why do you love when your heart has been broken so many times? Why do you keep making music when it feels like the music industry is as crazy as ever? And why do you keep being a good person in a world that is hell-bent on trying to make you feel like you are an abomination? I try because I care. I love so deeply, you know.

Having grown up in Nashville, what did community mean to you then, before you came out at 19?

The one thing I’ll say about being queer in America – maybe anywhere in the world – is you’re forced to create community, and sometimes family, when that is not a given for you. I was very lucky that my family was… more confused and scared than they were not accepting. But my husband’s journey with his community – he grew up evangelical and his community kicked him out. He was going to be a pastor, going to seminary, and once he came out, he was kicked out of the church. I didn’t have that experience … but family to me widened the moment I came out. The idea that family was not just the people you were born into, but it is the people and friends and lovers who you collect along the way that were missing for me as a kid. Growing up here, I had a hard time fitting in, because everything I did stood out.

I played the Bluebird [Cafe] last night with Molly Tuttle, Maggie Rose, Liz Longley, and Ketch [Secor] from Old Crow Medicine Show. I’m sitting there singing “MY REVIVAL” – and I’ll cry thinking about this, but it’s like I’m sitting there singing [that song]. My husband is over here and the whole room is singing along with me. I have painted nails, singing my song at the Bluebird with legends. I’m the co-chair of the diversity committee for the Recording Academy in the Nashville chapter. I don’t know if I’ve “made it,” because I don’t think making it is even like the goal here. I want a career and a life, not a moment in time. That’s “making it” to me. For the closeted gay boy who was scared to ever reveal who he truly is, that’s my revival. There’s retribution. There’s deep healing, and there’s tons of gratitude, as well.

The divide in country music right now between people who are willing to sacrifice a fan base and those who aren’t is always widening. It’s cool to see who has come forward to make their voices heard.

Country music is three chords and the truth. That’s still the bible, but it has lost its way. There is a real ricochet happening where people are afraid to be truthful, because truth can sear and truth can be very quiet but very powerful. Nashville is at a breaking point. It’s a small town. We are growing by leaps and bounds. There’s a real deciding line between: do we make this a city for everybody or do we make this a city for the select few? That’s the same for country music, folk, Americana, and gospel.

“HEARTLAND,” the song, definitely pulls on gospel, folk, Americana, and pop, for sure, but it also pulls on country because it’s a story. I thought I’d see my name in lights. I thought that my life would be this flashy thing. It’s not. I fell in love with a man, and we have a farm, and we’re building a life together. That’s love to me. It’s a story. It’s my story. It’s real. So, it’s country; it’s folk; it’s Americana; it’s gospel. Now, will any of those genres accept me? I have no idea.

But the people on my album have accepted me for who I am and love me for who I am. And that, I think, is what the heartland is all about. You know, love thy neighbor. What happened to that?

You turn 39 this year, which happens to be 20 years since you came out. Was there any significance in releasing HEARTLAND (Deluxe Version) this year?

It’s funny. Titles of an album are like mystery buckets. I actually have a title for my next album and I’m so excited about it. Prince once said that he’s like two albums ahead of whatever’s commercially released. And I love that for him. I’m one album ahead of what is commercially released. Album titles visit me like a fever dream. Even HEARTLAND – the song, I gotta call out Josh Dorr, the co-writer on that song, who had a number one with Blake Shelton this year with “Texas.” He’s a legitimate country songwriter. Not even legitimate country songwriters would take a session with somebody like me and it takes guts to do that.

I haven’t thought about how it’s 20 years since I came out, but it makes a lot of sense. I have a song called “home.” When people were like, “Where is home?” I would be like, “Well, anywhere but Nashville, Tennessee, because that place would never accept a person like me.” Now, to be making a life here, building a farm, hosting Pride on our farm, there is something beautiful in that. It may have taken 20 years, but I’m home. It’s beautiful. I hadn’t really thought about time like that.

When we wrote “HEARTLAND,” I wrote it on the piano that I grew up on. There’s always ghosts in the bones of old instruments, but it’s safe where my heart lands. It’s the heartland, but it’s also where my heart gets to land safely. That’s the kind of love and belonging I wish for everybody. I’m not somebody who believes that you have to be in a relationship to be happy, or that you have to be married to be happy. That’s bullshit. That’s heteronormative, capitalist nonsense. You can find belonging amongst community, friends, and lovers. Does your heart have a place to hang its hat? That’s home.

What have been the hardest lessons you’ve learned over two decades?

The thing that comes up in my head is: it’s not over ‘til the fat lady sings. I’ve been a fat lady so… [Laughs] It will fall apart, and that’s okay. The true story is what happens when you pick yourself back up and keep going.

I’m far less interested in talking to somebody who’s never moved across the country once. I can’t really relate to you. If you’ve never sold all your belongings and moved somewhere at least twice, we might not have a lot of similar things to relate to. It doesn’t have to be grand moves. My husband has lived in a bunch of places in Nashville, has not left Nashville, but he’s lived a lot of life. You have to have lost everything once, probably twice, and hopefully that’s it. But it’s really about how you pick yourself back up at the bottom, and keep trying again.

Whether you think it’s good or not, it won’t last, and that’s okay. There’s beauty and grace in that. I have a friend, Kristen Griffith[-VanderYacht], who’s a [floral designer] – I think he’s now in Detroit – and he’s gone through a lot. He was on the Drew Barrymore Show, and the guest host was asking, “How do you keep flowers alive for longer?” Kristen grabbed his hand and he was like, “Here’s the thing, lean in close, I want you to hear this: they’re not meant to last. They’re meant to be beautiful for the moment that they’re there, and you’re meant to appreciate them in all their glory, and then you’re meant to let it go.”

That is really hard. That is maybe [informing] some of the themes about my next album, actually. It’s loving and letting go. Life is not linear. It’s not meant to be. Cherish all of the beauty, because nothing lasts forever. And there’s a ton of freedom in that sentence.

Photo Credit: Gabriel Starner

Basic Folk: Naomi Westwater

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Something you might notice about Boston musician Naomi Westwater is that they have both sides of the brain on lock. They are very good at community organizing, grant applying, advocating, and other “left-brained” activities. However, they are also a creative, deeply spiritual, open-hearted person, traits typically associated with the right brain. That’s not always something that goes hand-in-hand, but it is a beautiful thing when it does!

Westwater, who identifies as queer and Black-multiracial, grew up on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, where they never felt like they fit in. Thanks to their parents, there was a lot of music being played: reggae, jazz, funk, classic rock and ’70s feminist folk. There was always a deep connection with nature, which plays into their spiritual practice and their songwriting, two areas they previously kept separate.

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On their album, Cycle & Change (released May 9, 2025), Naomi made an effort to fully embrace her identity as a songwriter and a witch. She shares, “Each song ties back to its seasonal context, weaving a story that spans spring’s hopeful beginnings, summer’s vibrancy, autumn’s introspection, and winter’s quietude…” Right in the final stretch of preparing to release the album, all these very hard things happened: the sudden loss of Naomi’s father; they went through a divorce; and they relocated. It was as if, with the album, they had created the blueprint for remaining grounded during these challenging life changes. We get into all of this on Basic Folk, as well as navigating self-advocacy while struggling to get their endometriosis and adenomyosis diagnosed and treated and the impact their father’s death had on their creativity.

Photo Credit: Ally Schmaling