Artist: Amy Helm
Hometown: Woodstock, New York
Song: “Sweet Mama”
Album: What the Flood Leaves Behind
Release Date: June 18, 2021
Label: Renew Records/BMG
In Their Words: “‘Sweet Mama’ was written by the wonderful Steve Salett and features killer harp by the one and only Phil Cook. This track is a rock and roll cut made for you, with love, in Woodstock, New York!” — Amy Helm
Photo credit: Ebru Yildiz
Artist: Abby Hollander Band
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York
Latest Album: Letters
What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?
I’ve always been a musician. Growing up in Woodstock, New York, with musician parents, brother, friends, it was just a natural part of life, the expression of self through song. I started picking out cartoon theme songs on the piano when I was 4, and kept learning and playing from there. By high school I’d sit in with my parents at their gigs, and I first did my own gigs (singing in a jazz trio) by college. It wasn’t until after I’d graduated with a BA in theater that I realized in order to be an actor you have to audition; but to be a musician, you just have to play.
What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc — inform your music?
My training as an actor has had a big impact on my music, especially when it comes to performance. When acting, you’re taught to always be in the moment, and that despite knowing what words you’re going to say you never know exactly how they’re going to come out, because you’re listening and reacting to what’s going on around you. That’s something I’ve tried to take with me into my music… even if I’m singing the same words or the same melody, a song doesn’t become stagnant because each time it’s sung, it’s being informed by the present moment. I also try to transport myself to the circumstances of the songs as I sing them. For example, “Still Got It Bad,” a John Herald song on this new album, is a heartbreaking story about never getting over an old love. That’s not my reality, but the way he wrote the lyrics is so relatable and so true that it puts me in a place where I can sing it honestly.
How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?
Actually, I’ve found myself writing too many first-person songs! When I was writing “Back When We Could’ve Been In Love,” I decided to turn it into a character and started saying “she” instead of “me.” It’s really still about me though probably. And now you know!
What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?
I try to be really dedicated about taking care of my voice, and that’s especially true leading up to a recording or show. Right after we released our first album, in 2015, I was diagnosed with polyps on my vocal folds. My voice didn’t sound like me, and I got hoarse after singing even just a few songs. I eventually had surgery to remove them, and through voice therapy I’ve learned how to take better care of my voice. I even went back to school to become a speech-language pathologist so I could work as a voice therapist and help others avoid these problems. It was an incredibly scary time (it’s what the song “Eyes of Loss” is about), and so these days I’m much more diligent about keeping my voice in good shape. That involves frequent warm-ups, vocal exercises, and being mindful not only when I’m singing but also speaking.
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
I don’t have one specific favorite memory, but every time I’m on stage and I’m singing with friends, or even strangers, if there’s a tight harmony that clicks in the right way I feel this current, this electric charge of life and joy, and that’s what it’s about for me.
Photo credit: Justin Camerer
Artist: The Ladles
Hometown: New York, New York
Song: “Pages”
Album: Springville Sessions
Release Date: April 16, 2021
In Their Words: “‘Pages’ talks about the experience of reading through an old journal and being confronted with your past self. In each entry, all your hopes and good intentions, your mistakes and your blind spots are laid bare in equal measure. It’s not a particularly comfortable experience, because you have the benefit of perspective and you know how it all works out. That confused and misguided relationship does fall apart. You did say the wrong thing and will have to apologize for it. However, I found that reading my own words from that time helped me to offer myself more compassion and understanding. It was a reminder that at any given moment, we only know what we know, and we’re all doing the best we can.” — Katie Martucci, The Ladles (guitar, vocals)
Photo credit: Liz Maney
Artist: The Antlers
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York
Song: “Porchlight”
Album: Green to Gold
Release Date: March 26, 2021
Label: ANTI-
In Their Words: “This song is a tribute to the person that grounds me, and the power of that partnership in my life. It’s about knowing somebody so well as to recognize when they’re lost, and helping them find their way back home.” — Peter Silberman, The Antlers
Photo credit: Shervin Lainez
Artist: Bridget Rian
Hometown: Long Island, New York; currently residing in Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Trailer Park Cemetery”
Album: Talking to Ghosts (EP)
Release Date: July 9, 2021
In Their Words: “While driving through rural Florida on a road trip, I saw the trailer park cemetery that inspired this song. Something about how death was so close to the living was fascinating to me. At the time I was also reading a book that mentioned kids meeting in a cemetery to party and it reminded me of my reckless teenage years. ‘Trailer Park Cemetery’ is much more a commentary on life than it is death. It’s about how I want to be close to the living and don’t want to miss out on opportunities, even in death. I think I have this fear of being forgotten, of not making a difference with my life, and this song was a way to kind of express that.” — Bridget Rian
Photo credit: Libby Danforth
Artist: Cole Quest and The City Pickers
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York
Song: “The Bitcoin Gambler”
Album Title: Self [En]Titled EP
Release Date: April 16, 2021
Label: Omnivore
In Their Words: “As a software engineer by day, a folk musician by night, and someone who lost a chunk of money in the Bitcoin crash of 2018, I felt I had a unique connection to this modern day dilemma. I wanted to write a song that would show the parallels of this moment to the gambling sagas folks have been telling for hundreds of years. First came the melody line written on guitar, and the rest of the song wrote itself in a matter of minutes. As the band laid down the tracks, I fell in love with the ending of the recording. You can hear how each musician found their own wonderfully unique voicing to this melody. As I was writing the song, I found myself reflecting on things that are important. Surely, gambling a few dollars was nothing to worry about, especially in contrast to the problems created by an ill-equipped fool in the White House.” — Cole Quest
Photo credit: James Salzano
Artist name: The Bones of J.R. Jones
Hometown: Manlius, New York
Latest Album: A Celebration
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): J.R./ Jonny, Jon Jon.
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
My favorite memories are the unexpected ones and I mean that in the most literal sense. Most nights on tour I take the stage exhausted and it takes a song or two for me to fall in rhythm. I remember one night in while on tour in England I took the stage after a 8-hour drive, traveling across three different countries, going through customs and after getting a speeding ticket… my mood was sour, to say the least. The first song I played knocked me over. The crowd knew every word and sang as loud as my guitar was ringing. It turned out to be one of the best shows on that tour. That’s the magic of the stage, for that hour or so… reality disappears.
What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc. — inform your music?
I think I am most moved and inspired by dancing. I am always in awe of the control and discipline dancers have… something I like to strive for in my music, but feel I never truly achieve because I let my emotions take the song away from me, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but not always where I want to go with my music. The beautiful thing about art is that one discipline often informs and adds to others. I often think about this while watching a dancer and how the music chosen or written for the piece is just as important as the choreography. The same goes for film and the visual arts.
What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?
I don’t think I knew it at the time, but I remember listening to Springsteen’s Born in the USA when I was young and feeling so completely invested and overwhelmed by the songs. It struck me deep and resonates with me till this day. The heartbreak, the hurt, the feeling like you are being left behind and the drive for recognition… all the while you are just doing the best you can with the hand you are dealt. Every time I step into a studio that album subconsciously shows up in the strangest ways in my production.
What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?
Every song is tough. I mean it, every damn song. I have never been fortunate enough to have a song just flow through me. And truthfully the only reason a song is ever done is because I have to record it, ha ha. I try to tell myself that a recording is a song at that one moment. That a song is a living thing and tomorrow it will change on me again and we will have to find a new balance between each other.
How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?
Every time. I mean you have to. How else can you make anything feel relatable? You need to live it to a degree. It doesn’t need to be autobiographical, but it does need to be true.
Photo credit: Christian Harder
Artists: Jimbo Mathus & Andrew Bird (former collaborators in Squirrel Nut Zippers)
Song: “Sweet Oblivion”
Album: These 13
Release Date: March 5, 2021
Label: Thirty Tigers
In Their Words: “Up until meeting Jimbo, all my musical heroes were dead. Jimbo was anything but and just oozed musicality of a kind I thought was extinct. Had I not met Jimbo, who knows, but I think my music would have gone on a much more cerebral, complex trajectory. He is an enigma, a walking contradiction: wild yet refined, worldly yet colloquial. He represents his own branch of the American musical tree. It’s been my dream for years now to make this record with Jimbo. Just guitar, fiddle and our very different voices. I wanted to make sure you can really hear him as if for the first time.” — Andrew Bird
“Musically speaking, Andrew challenged me early on. As I had the deep south rural musical upbringing but had yearned to know more of the Chicago and New York scenes of those early days of American popular music. Bird had schooled himself on that, absorbing the European strains of American music and theater, as well as the Chicago-based indigenous albeit transplanted African American musical heritage. It was a true mutual benefit society and we both pursued those goals to a final conclusion. At some point after Andrew had been on the road as Bowl of Fire, he began mutating his music and creating an entirely new form. In other words, he started to become the artist he needed to be at that time and so did I.” — Jimbo Mathus
Photo credit: Reuben Cox
Artist: Taylor Ashton (featuring Rachael Price)
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York via Vancouver B.C.
Song: “Alex”
Album: Romanticize
Release Date: February 5, 2021
Label: Signature Sounds
In Their Words: “Rachael and I traveled to On Deck Sound Studio in Connecticut to do a streaming show from their live room just after the new year, and before the show started broadcasting we filmed this stripped down version of ‘Alex,’ which is a song on my upcoming EP Romanticize (a companion to my album The Romantic which came out last year). The produced version is lush, with piano, electric guitar, drums, bass clarinet and synths, but I love the way this song feels just stripped down to the skeletal banjo part and the two voices. Rachael and I singing together has definitely been a hallmark of this quarantine time, since we would usually be too busy with our respective schedules to make it work. So the song ‘Alex’ and this stripped-down live video are a record of this time and this silver lining of an otherwise extremely weird year.” — Taylor Ashton
Photo credit: Shervin Lainez
Artist: Taylor Ashton (Featuring Rachael Price)
Hometown: Vancouver, Canada & Brooklyn, New York
Song: “Alex”
Album: Romanticize EP
Release Date: February 5, 2021
Label: Signature Sounds
In Their Words: “’Alex’ is a duet between two people living in a house with a bunch of other housemates and a thriving backyard garden. They’re both named Alex and they haven’t admitted their feelings for each other yet, and I don’t know if they ever will. These characters came to me in a dream, although I recognize in them aspects of myself and people from my past, and I imagine their house as some combination of all the ones I’ve lived in or stayed at over the years. Each time I imagine them, things change: they age forwards and backwards, their gender identities shift, and their reasons for keeping their feelings secret change.
“It’s a treat to sing this with the great Rachael Price, who I happen to be married to — we are roommates in a sense, but we definitely don’t have the same name and our feelings for each other are not a secret.” — Taylor Ashton
Photo credit: Shervin Lainez
