Tag: nirvana

MIXTAPE: Rainbow Girls’ ‘HAUNTING’ Inspirations

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Hey BGS! Erin from Rainbow Girls here. Our new record, HAUNTING, just came out October 13th and we put together this Mixtape of reference tracks that inspired the writing or making of the songs on our record. We ended up choosing one reference track per song. Got some help from Caitlin and Vanessa for a couple of these and we ended up creating an awesome playlist. Hope you enjoy! – Erin Chapin, Rainbow Girls

“Sadness as a Gift” – Adrianne Lenker (for “sixth grade girlfriend”)

I’ve always been so inspired by Adrianne Lenker’s style of guitar playing. There’s an intricacy and an intimacy that lends itself so perfectly to the lyrics; the guitar and the poetry of the words stand like a power couple, instead of one falling into the background as support. “Sadness as a Gift” is this beautifully poignant song about losing a relationship, but still wanting to hold the memory in your hand like a moth – it just breaks me. – Caitlin

“Let It Be Me” – The Sweet Inspirations (for “paying my tab”)

The Sweet Inspirations’ 1967 version of “Let It Be Me” inspired me to write a song with a similar groove. I heard that simple intro and it immediately grounded me. Griffin Goldsmith from Dawes played drums on our song, “paying my tab,” and he took this reference track and ran with it to the moon and back.

“Cold Little Heart” by Michael Kiwanuka (for “you must not feel the way i do”)

“you must not feel the way i do” was written after we had already started recording for HAUNTING, but we knew it was the single. We had all the vocals and main instruments recorded, but it needed a hook to open the song. I kept demo-ing this weird sound with my voice we were calling the “vocal theremin” – this ghostly, half-human/half-instrument sound. I knew it would sound too crazy for anyone else in the band to get excited about, so I sent them Michael Kiwanuka’s hit, “Cold Little Heart,” to exorcise any doubts. Thanks, Michael.

“Running Down a Dream” – Tom Petty (for “loser”)

Nirvana loomed large when writing the chord progression for “loser,” but it was a Petty classic that kept rearing its head and ultimately snuck its way into the lyrics. “Running Down a Dream” takes us on a journey that winds towards aspiration. The road is wet and laden with obstacles, but it’s the act of surmounting those blocks that makes accessing the dream so much sweeter. – Vanessa

“Song for Prine” – Jordan Smart (for “how to deal”)

Caitlin wrote “how to deal” the day John Prine died. Part of it is a response to our friend Jordan Smart’s “Song for Prine,” which is about all his attempts to see John Prine perform live, which ultimately he never got to do. But life goes on.

“The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot” – Brand New (for “if i saw you now”)

The progression and mood of “if i saw you now” was inspired by Brand New’s “The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot.” Brand New has a way of holding the morose and appalling within their songs that few other artists can capture.

“Ageless Beauty” – Stars (for “ageless beauty, pt ii”)

When we first met and started playing music together in college, “Ageless Beauty” by Stars was on repeat. It was one of the first songs we ever sang together. Our song “ageless beauty, pt ii” reflects on our experience at that time and the beginning of Rainbow Girls.

“Fake As A Dream” – Rainbow Girls (for “sms to the void”)

“Fake as a Dream” is one of our songs, off our record Rolling Dumpster Fire. We had asked our friend Chris Lynch to arrange a string part for it, but what he sent back was so much more. It took the song to another dimension. When we decided that “sms to the void” should be more than an a cappella song, we knew Chris was the person to take the reins. And he did it again – the string arrangements, the piano. It’s both subtle and heartbreakingly gorgeous.

“Last Night” – The Lostines (for “a subtle f u”)

I heard the song “Last Night” by The Lostines and realized there was an entire element of “haunting” missing from our record. Their song opens up with this sweet-yet-spooky melody on an ambiguous keyed instrument and the sound conjures memories of classic ’90s Halloween-esque movies and tv shows like Hocus Pocus, Nightmare Before Christmas, Goosebumps, and Are You Afraid of the Dark. I knew we needed to have a layer like that somewhere on HAUNTING and our song “a subtle f u” won the draw.

“Subterranean Homesick Alien” – Radiohead (for our cover of it)

A cover of one of our favorite Radiohead songs. Alien contact, abduction, insanity. Everything you could ever need from a spooky social commentary.

“motel” – Hot Brother (for “spread me thin”)

We were in the studio recording our song “spread me thin” when we realized that we had 3/4ths of the band Hot Brother recording on the track with us (Nick Cobbett – drums, Ben Berry – bass, Jeremy Lyon – guitar). We decided to ask the 4th (and really first) member, Brittany Powers, to sing on it and that ended up transforming the song into a duet between two women singing about their community. Brittany performs with several other artists in the Bay Area and her voice is an iconic part of the music scene in Northern California. “motel” is the first song off her/Hot Brother’s upcoming record and it is a sheer banger.

“I Want Jesus to Walk With Me” – Mississippi Fred McDowell (for “dead ringer”)

Our song, “dead ringer” is a slide-heavy, minor blues song about being buried alive. It is musically inspired by Mississippi Fred McDowell’s 1959 version of “I Want Jesus to Walk With Me.” The vocal melody parallels the slide guitar’s melody interchangeably throughout the song, creating an eerie, almost trance-like soundscape.

“Cinnamon Tree” – Marty O’Reilly & the Old Soul Orchestra (for “goodnight angel”)

The last track on HAUNTING functions as a sort of secret track, though not-so-secret in the age of streaming platforms. “goodnight angel” is a lullaby we often sing to our friends at the end of long, inebriated nights that was actually a drunken, collective-consciousness co-write with our friend Marty O’Reilly while on tour together in the UK in 2013. We used to play shows together all the time when we first started out and “Cinnamon Tree” was one of our band favs from his first release.

Photo Credit: Kory Thibeault

From “Ghost in This House” to “O Death,” Our 13 Favorite Boo-Grass Classics

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Ah! There’s a chill in the air, color in the leaves, and a craving for the spookiest songs in bluegrass — it must be fall. Bluegrass, old-time, and country do unsettling music remarkably well, from ancient folk lyrics of love gone wrong to ghost stories to truly “WTF??” moments. If you’re a fan of pumpkins, hot cider, and murder ballads we’ve crafted this list of 13 spooky-season bluegrass songs just for you:

The Country Gentlemen – “Bringing Mary Home”

THE bluegrass ghost story song. THE archetypical example of “What’s that story, stranger? Well, wait ‘til you hear this wild twist…” in country songwriting. (Yes, that’s a country songwriting archetype.) The Country Gentlemen did quiet, ambling — and spooky — bangers better than anybody else in bluegrass.

Cherryholmes – “Red Satin Dress”

Fans of now-retired family band Cherryholmes will know how rare it was for father and bassist Jere to step up to the microphone to sing lead. His grumbling, coarse voice and deadpan delivery do this modern murder ballad justice and then some. 

One has to wonder, though, with so many songs about murderous, deceitful women in bluegrass — the overwhelmingly male songwriters across the genre’s history couldn’t be bitter and misogynist, could they? Could they?

Zach & Maggie – “Double Grave”

A more recent example of unsettling songwriting in bluegrass and Americana, husband-and-wife duo Zach & Maggie White give a whimsical, joyful bent to their decidedly creepy song “Double Grave” in the 2019 music video for the track. Just enough of the story is left up to the imagination of the listener. Feel free to color inside — or outside — of the lines as you decide just how the song’s couple landed in their double grave. 

Alison Krauss – “Ghost in This House”

Come for the iconic AKUS track, stay for the impeccable introduction by Alison. Equal parts cheesy and stunning, if you haven’t belted along to this song at hundreds of decibels while no one is watching, you’re lying. Not technically a ghost story, we’re sliding in this hit purely because a Nashville hook as good as this deserves mention in a spooky-themed playlist.

The Stanley Brothers – “Little Glass of Wine”

Ah, American folk music, a tradition that *checks notes* celebrates the infinity-spanning, universe-halting power of love by valorizing murdering objects of that love. Kinda makes you think, doesn’t it? Here’s a tried and true old lyric, offered by the Stanley Brothers in that brother-duet-story-song style that’s unique to bluegrass. What’s more scary than an accidental (on purpose) double poisoning? The Stanley Brothers might accomplish spooky ‘grass better than any other bluegrass act across the decades.

Missy Raines – “Blackest Crow”


A less traditional rendering of a folk canon lyric, Missy Raines’ “Blackest Crow” might not feel particularly terrifying in and of itself, but the dark imagery of crows, ravens, and their relatives will always be a spectre in folk music, if not especially in bluegrass. 

Bill Monroe – “Body and Soul”

The lonesome longing dirge of a flat-seven chord might be the spookiest sound in bluegrass, from “Wheel Hoss” to “Old Joe Clark” to “Body and Soul.” A love song written through a morbid and mortal lens, you can almost feel the distance between the object’s body and soul widening as the singer — in the Big Mon’s unflappable tenor — objectifies his love, perhaps not realizing the cold, unfeeling quality of his actions. It’s a paradox distilled impossibly perfectly into song.

Rhiannon Giddens – “O Death”

Most fans of roots music know “O Death” from the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack and the version popularized by Ralph Stanley and the Stanley Brothers. On a recent album, Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi reprise the popular song based on a different source — Bessie Jones of the Georgia Sea Island Singers.

The striking aural image of Stanley singing the song, a capella, in the film and on the Down from the Mountain tour will remain forever indelible, but Giddens’ version calls back to the lyrics’ timelessness outside of the Coen Brothers’ or bluegrass universes and reminds us of just how much of American music and culture are entirely thanks to the contributions of Black folks.

Johnson Mountain Boys – “Dream of a Miner’s Child”

Mining songs are some of the creepiest and most heartbreaking — and back-breaking — songs in bluegrass, but this classic performance from the Johnson Mountain Boys featuring soaring, heart-stopping vocals by Dudley Connell, casts the format in an even more blood-chilling light: Through the eyes of a prophetic, tragic dream of a miner’s child. The entire schoolhouse performance by the Johnson Mountain Boys won’t ever be forgotten, and rightly so, but this specific song might be the best of the long-acclaimed At the Old Schoolhouse album. 

Oh daddy, don’t go to the mine today / for dreams have so often come true…

Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch – “Didn’t Leave Nobody But the Baby”

A lullaby meets a field holler song on another oft-remembered track from O Brother, Where Art Thou? The disaffected tone of the speaker, in regards to the baby, the devil, all of the above, isn’t horrifying per se, but the sing-songy melody coupled with the dark-tinged lyric are just unsettling enough, with the rote-like repetition further impressing the slightly spooky tone. It’s objectively beautiful and aesthetic, but not… quite… right… Perhaps because any trio involving the devil would have to be not quite right? 

AJ Lee & Blue Summit – “Monongah Mine” 

Another mining tale, this one based on a true — and terrifying — story of the Monongah Mine disaster in 1907, which is often regarded as the most dangerous and devastating mine accident in this country’s history. AJ Lee & Blue Summit bring a conviction to the song that might bely their originating in California, because they make this West Virginia tale their own.

Jake Blount – “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”

“In the Pines” is one of the most haunting lyrics in the bluegrass lexicon, but ethnomusicologist, researcher, and musician Jake Blount didn’t source his version from bluegrass at all — but from Nirvana. That’s just one facet of Blount’s rendition, which effortlessly queers the original stanzas and adds a degree of disquieting patina that’s often absent from more tired or well-traveled covers of the song. A reworking of a traditional track that leans into the moroseness underpinning it.

The Stanley Brothers – “Rank Stranger”

To close, we’ll return to the Stanley Brothers for an often-covered, much-requested stalwart of the bluegrass canon that is deceptively terrifying on closer inspection. Just who are these rank strangers that the singer finds in their hometown? Where did they come from? Why do none of them know who this person or their people are? Why are none of these questions seemingly important to anyone? Even the singer himself seems less than surprised by finding an entire village of strangers where familiar faces used to be. 

For a song so commonly sung, and typically in religious or gospel contexts or with overarchingly positive connotations, it’s a literal nightmare scenario. Like a bluegrass Black Mirror episode without any sort of satisfying conclusion. What did they find? “I found they were all rank strangers to me.” Great, so we’re right back where we started. Spooky.

From Homemade Tapes to Hip Hop, Black Pumas Share Their Influences (2 of 2)

Posted on by Editor

Heading into the Grammy Awards this year, Black Pumas are competing for three trophies, two of them in high-profile categories. Their breakout single, “Colors,” is up for Record of the Year, while Black Pumas (Deluxe Edition) will vie for Album of the Year. Their third nod, with “Colors” in the Best American Roots Performance category, reflects the duo’s affinity for soul and folk music, as well as the way they blend genres without losing the groove or the message. The recognition also follows their 2020 win from the Americana Music Association as Emerging Act of the Year.

From their home base in Austin, Texas, Black Pumas’ Eric Burton and Adrian Quesada caught up with BGS by phone, speaking about the music that shaped them, trusting their instincts, and the message they’d like to send out in 2021.

Editor’s Note: Read part one of our Artist of the Month interview with Black Pumas.

BGS: One of my favorite songs on this album is “Fire.” To me, it has a message of encouragement. What sparked the idea to write that song?

Eric: “Fire” was one of the tracks that Adrian first sent me. Adrian has such a brilliant way of making music that feels almost visual and vivid, almost cinematic, so when I got it, I couldn’t help but be moved to allow the song to inspire lyrics. At the time I was living with a girlfriend who was going through some health issues. She had an autoimmune deficiency and I was encouraging her to call on me. That you don’t have to feel like you’re overbearing or too much was the message that I made universal on the song “Fire.”

And lastly, with that song specifically, the funny thing was, before this I had never sung to another man on the phone. But this was one of the first songs that I was inspired to write lyrics to. When I get an idea, I like to show my friends almost right away. I called Adrian right away, not even meeting him yet. I called him and I said, “Hey, man, check this out!” I turned the song up and I started singing the melody and a few lyrics here and there, showing where it was moving, so I could integrate the space. It was really interesting to show Adrian that, and I was glad we were able to finalize the idea.

Adrian, what was going through your mind when you heard Eric sing in person, in the same room at the same time?

Adrian: Goosebumps. Trying to play it cool and not get too excited. I tried to play it off, but yeah, I knew that it was going to be a special thing, but I hadn’t heard it in the room. There was obviously a spark there, so it was just a matter of containing my enthusiasm and not getting too ahead of anything — until I finally broke down and said, “All right, man, we have to play this stuff live. Are you into doing that?” And he was like, “Yeah, let’s do it.”

It seems like you guys are in tune with your instincts. How important has that been to the success of Black Pumas?

Eric: It’s hard to put too much pressure on ourselves regarding what others are going to think about us. As opposed to trusting how easy it is to know what moves you first. It’s much more of an easygoing experience making music if you’re doing it to move yourself, knowing that what moves you has a really good chance of moving someone else. As Adrian mentioned earlier, when we started making music together, it was to have fun. We really dug what we were doing and we just kept doing it, and it turned into what it is now. Regardless if anyone was listening to the music or not, we would probably be making music every other week or so, because we enjoy doing it together. Hopefully like what we having coming up next, but if not, I think we’ll still be making music. It won’t crush it.

Adrian, who are some of your favorite guitarists?

Adrian: I personally have gravitated more toward rhythm players, and the finesse and nuance that goes into something like that. Recently I’ve been getting into Cornell Dupree, who played on thousands of recording sessions. He was in Aretha Franklin’s band for a long time and played with Donnie Hathaway and all the classic soul recordings. He’s an unsung hero of the instrument, and of the genre, too, because he didn’t always get all the shine. I don’t know if you saw that Aretha movie, Amazing Grace, from a few years ago that finally saw the light of day. I saw him playing on there and it was like, “Oh, man!” He never got that much attention, but I just started going down the rabbit hole of looking up YouTube videos.

Eric, I read that you grew up listening almost exclusively to gospel music. Is that right?

Eric: Not necessarily. My family comes from the church, and my grandparents were missionaries, so it was part of what was around, but for the most part, my family are also very artistic – musicians and writers. I would listen to my uncle write songs. He would pull out tubs and tubs of little tapes, and I would pop in one of his tapes once in a while and listen to his songwriting process. As a young kid, that was one of my toys, if you will. That’s pretty much how I learned to write music, listening to an uncle who had a really heavy hand in raising me, bringing me up, especially as an artist. For the most part, I would either hear whatever was on the radio in California, but most intimately it was through my uncle’s songmanship and his songwriting.

Adrian, who did you grow up listening to?

Adrian: I grew up listening to whatever was on MTV. I was really influenced by that. I was an only child and I was home by myself a lot. I grew up in South Texas and didn’t have a lot of places to get music from. So, when I discovered MTV, it turned me on to a lot of stuff, everything from hair rock bands to Nirvana and that whole sound. But the one thing I was really into, that had the biggest influence, is hip hop music, which I discovered through one of my neighbors who would always be playing stuff outside when they would be playing basketball. … I don’t know exactly what it was about the sound of hip-hop, but as I discovered the source of a lot of it, there was jazz and soul and funk at its core. And later on, I started getting into that music. I realized there was *that* underneath, hiding there for me to discover.

Looking ahead, what would be the best-case scenario for you in 2021? What would you hope that this year brings for you?

Eric: That we get to continue to create time and space to do exactly what we really love to do, which is to create music. We’re very fortunate that we’re seeing the opportunities we’re seeing now because people are buying the music and supporting us. Individually I look forward to creating more with Adrian, one, and also I just bought a house so I look forward creating somewhat of a studio set-up to can get into production myself.

Adrian: Yeah, I’ll second that — just the opportunity to put some new music to tape and get some out this year.

Eric: Lastly, I’ll speak for both of us briefly and say thank you [to our fans]. Thank you so much for listening to our music, for supporting us. We miss you guys, we love you guys. You guys fuel our passion and we look forward to continuing to be honest in the studio, together, that we may take what comes from our heart to allow it to move you guys’ heart.

Photo credit: Jackie Lee Young

BGS 5+5: Elliott BROOD

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Elliott BROOD
Hometown: Windsor, Ontario
Latest album: Keeper

Answers provided by Casey Laforet

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

I’m not sure there was ever really a moment for me, to be honest. I started playing guitar in high school (because of Nirvana like so many other kids of that time) I always liked playing, but I never really considered a career at it as a viable option. I’m still not sure that it is! For the first few years of the band as a duo, it was all just for fun and we both worked full time jobs. Things started taking off for us and we had to leave full time work to tour. I think I knew it was going to be a career on our first tour of Europe. That made it all seem very pro.

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

Some songs seem to just fall out of you and others are definitely harder to pull out of the air or wherever the ideas come from. The song “Northern Air” was a tough one as it involves the death of a friend. The song (chords, melody, etc.) was already written as a breakup song called “Goodbye” about an ex-girlfriend with different lyrics, but at some point it mutated into “Northern Air” which is the story of an annual camping trip taken to visit the memorial spot of a very dear friend. Twenty years ago we brought a mailbox (which was involved in the car accident that killed him) up into the forest in northern Ontario. Over the last 20 years we’ve gone up there to visit him. It took a while to get everything right with that song because of the personal subject matter. I agonized over it probably more than any other song thus far anyways…

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

It kind of depends on the show. One thing I don’t do is eat within 2-3 hours of a show. I play better when I’m hungry. I usually take a post-soundcheck walk for about an hour to check out whatever town we’re in. A lot of times I’ll go find some random bar and grab a drink and hang with some locals for an hour. Those can be fun and informative times. I actually bought a folding bike I’d like to use someday if touring ever comes back.

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

That’s a pretty good question. I can guarantee it would be a Mexican restaurant, that’s for sure. It goes Mexican, Vietnamese, Italian in my book. As for the musician, my number one would be Levon Helm. He’s probably my biggest musical hero. I’ve read and watched everything there is to read and watch about the man and he just seems fascinating to me both as a musician and just as a person. I had the opportunity to see “The Ramble” at his farm in Woodstock the year before he died. Garth Hudson was the special guest that night. That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. Tequila and tacos with Levon would be my pick.

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

I think I do that a lot. I think we always try to be as universal as possible. We like to leave it up to the listener. I definitely draw from my own life and experiences but it’s never direct. A lot of times a song may seem biographical but is actually put together from a lot of unrelated experiences. We’re more of a storytelling band. I’ve always loved that kind of songwriting like from The Band or Dylan or Neil, just being able to become different characters and be their voice. That’s always the goal in our book even if the songs are personal ones.

 

BGS 5+5: Carolina Story

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Carolina Story
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Latest album: Dandelion (to be released September 4, 2020)
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Ben – Big Ben, Kingfish, Burly; Emily – Emmy, Em, Merley

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

This is a toss-up between Neil Young and Kurt Cobain. When I was a kid, my dad and I used to go fishing south of town from where I grew up in Arkansas. I’ll never forget the day he put CSNY’s 4 Way Street cassette into the tape deck. I was impacted by it all, but once I heard Neil do “Cowgirl in the Sand” I was hooked. I’ve been trying to play the acoustic and harmonica like him ever since. As far as Kurt goes, once I heard “Smells Like Teen Spirit” I begged my mom to get me a guitar and lessons so that I could start a band as soon as possible. – Ben

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

If I’m feeling uninspired I will turn to any outlet that brings me a way to be creative. I have taught myself how to macrame, which is ropes tied in tedious knots to make a beautiful wall hanging. I always have canvas on hand to paint using acrylics and watercolor paper for watercolors. I love interior design and really spend a lot of time creating an aesthetic that is pleasing to the eye but also relaxing and inspiring. Most of what I find for our home is from hours of me at antique or thrift stores to find pieces that weren’t made in mass productions. Last fall I took my first pottery class and look forward to when I can sit in another class again. And most recently, I have taken an interest in woodworking. We have a pile of scrap wood and I am determined to make some sort of wood sculpture. All that to say, I would love to go to art school someday. – Emily

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

In the summer of ‘97, once I had discovered Nirvana, Oasis, Stone Temple Pilots and many others, I started guitar lessons. I was 11 years old. After I had taken four or five lessons, I quit and just stayed in my room most of that summer with my ear glued to my jam box learning new songs. I took “Wonderwall” and made up all new words and played it in my 6th grade talent show and got some great applause from my peers. It was called “Another Night Downtown.” (I know, I know. What in the hell does a 6th grader know about a night downtown, much less another one?) That was definitely a defining moment for me. – Ben

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

About a year ago we moved just outside of Nashville. We have about three acres of land with two small children so the outdoors has become a dear friend. We spend a lot of time outside our own home saving turtles crossing the road, burying a blue bird who looked to have fallen peacefully from the sky, or removing a snake on its way to eat bird eggs. But also just down the road from us is our family farm, Harpeth Moon Farm. We spend a lot of time there helping harvest and pack produce for the upcoming farmer’s markets or spend relaxing days canoeing down the Harpeth River. This lifestyle has helped give us some major mental clarity and to really treasure the things that matter most. – Emily

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

Unfortunately my ultimate meal pairing with a musician will never happen. I would have loved to have written a song with John Prine and see if we could get it finished before they ran out of meatloaf that day at Arnold’s Country Kitchen here in Nashville. But to take that a step further, the cherry on top would have been to have John and Anthony Bourdain over to my house outside of town for a Nashville Pt. 2 episode of Parts Unknown. I would have smoked an 18-hour brisket and made collard greens fresh from Harpeth Moon Farm. We would have all had one or two too many vodka and ginger ales. – Ben

Photo credit: Chrissy Nix

Jake Blount Looks Deeper into the Black Traditions of Old-Time Music

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It is long known that Black artists in the twentieth century who spoke out against white supremacy often paid for it with their lives. As a Black man and a queer person, Jake Blount is intimately familiar with this history. In the liner notes of his new album Spider Tales, Blount predicts “escalating patterns of violence and ecological crises that threaten the survival of our species.” In the same breath he urges us to remember the ancestors who felt “the same grief, powerlessness, and fury” — and found a way to survive through wit and wisdom.

Spider Tales features a band of mostly queer artists, with Blount on banjo and fiddle. His tune and song choices introduce us to musicians long ignored. Familiar songs are reinterpreted, their fangs reinstated. Through this process, he takes us on a journey of rage, revolution and muffled voices made louder. We are the better for it.

BGS spoke with Blount, who grew up in Washington, D.C., but is now based in Rhode Island, about Spider Tales and his focus on the marginalized among us.

BGS: The title of Spider Tales is a nod to the trickster of Akan mythology, Anansi, who as you stated in your liner notes, weaponizes his wit and wisdom against oppressors more powerful than himself. And that’s what Black folks have had to do since the Middle Passage. Everything had to be subversive as a matter of survival. Can you speak about your process and musical choices in bringing that subversion to the forefront on this album?

Blount: For me the tricky part of bringing out these kinds of hidden meanings, and the mass significance of a lot of these songs, was that I had to pick songs that spoke in metaphors but put them together in a way that the metaphors became obvious. Finding a way to be loyal to the art form and not just be totally explicit with what was being said, but still make the message apparent to people, was really difficult.

I think a lot of that came down to how I framed things in the liner notes, but also the songs that I picked. Picking some things that were more familiar, some things that were not…some things that are more explicit and more direct and some things that are not. Being mindful of the track order helped tie things together and, I would hope, clarify the common thread between all the songs.

I want to ask you about your arrangement of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” by Leadbelly. I hear this song a lot at jams. Some people refer to it as “In the Pines” and it’s often framed as being from one embittered lover to another. Your version of the song has this kind of bereft energy, almost frightening. What drew you to interpret this song in the way you did?

It’s partially an artifact of the fact that I first heard the song from hearing Kurt Cobain play it… I’m sure there’s some Nirvana energy lingering from middle school Jake in this recording. [Laughs] But even aside from that, when I listened to the Leadbelly version, I heard that song in a vacuum before I was ever involved in traditional music in any particular depth. I never really thought of it as a love song. It’s spoken, ostensibly, from one romantic partner to another sure, but it seems like it’s about disappearing and dying.

To me, you’re losing somebody — somebody is going away from you. That resonated because I grew up hearing stories from my dad about how there were people who just disappeared. I think we have this picture in our heads of racial violence in the south as lynchings; that of course did happen, but also there’s this other narrative of people just vanishing in the woods, and everyone would kind of have to assume what had happened.

I wound up connecting to that strongly because I came up during high school and college working with LGBTQ advocacy groups, volunteering my time and organizing with other youth. Doing that, you see a lot of people lose their homes, get kicked out of their houses, get incarcerated. You see a lot of people die. That song spoke to me on that level of “these are people who are just going away.” It reminds me of all the times that a friend would just drop off the map. A week or two later, you realize “Oh, I haven’t seen this person.” That kind of thing happened frequently when I was younger. It definitely still happens to people in that age group now, so that’s where my interpretation of the song comes out of.

This version of “Boll Weevil” is one of the best I’ve heard. I always knew it as coming from Tommy Jarrell, but I read in your liner notes that he learned the tune from a Black woman at a festival backstage. He never saw fit to credit her, which is why she’s still unnamed today. Reading that made me feel some type of way about the manner in which Black people — and Black women — have been forgotten by history, forgotten now. I wonder if it was a similar feeling for you. How did you deal with emotionally processing what you were learning while you were researching these tunes?

I think I’ve been so immersed in the ephemera of old-time fiddle music for long enough that it almost doesn’t surprise me anymore, which is sad, but Tommy Jarrell is someone who has a pattern of doing that. I feel like there are multiple older source musicians from that generation who would reference having learned from Black people but wouldn’t name them or wouldn’t give a complete name.

“Brown Skin Baby” is another tune like that on the album. Jabe Dillon learned it from an older Black fiddler and the only name he gave was Old Dennis. You can’t Google “Old Dennis.” There’s very specific information that oftentimes [white musicians] give with other white sources. But Black sources don’t get treated the same way.

Part of the reason I was so meticulous about the liner notes here is to avoid doing that a second time, because it still sometimes happens where people don’t credit the sources or sometimes don’t look up the sources. I’ll be the first to say that you don’t have to learn everything from a source recording — that’s not necessarily honest to the way the tradition has worked throughout history either. But I think it’s important to have a relationship with the musicians who cultivated the music we are now enjoying.

Yeah, I think especially with people like Cecil Sharpe and [John] Lomax, it’s like, Cecil Sharpe made his way through West Virginia. In his diaries he was so obsessed with this purity of old-time music, and white people, and actively refusing to record anyone else. It must have been such a sliver of what was going on at the time and of the knowledge that could have been passed down.

Exactly. Even like the later folks, there are folks who made a lot of recordings of Black people and were like “I need to find the Blackest music that I can so I’m going to go to prisons!” and it’s like, “You’re only really Black if you’re in jail for it.” [Laughs incredulously] That’s the mentality that carries through in that sort of scholarship and even today.

I always think it’s best to focus on the most marginalized among us and it’s really important that the working-class traditions be emphasized and accepted and made part of the canon. But I also think it’s really important for today’s Black people to know that there was prosperity in our communities going back that far. The Black middle class, which was ascendant at the time many of these first recordings were being made, never got examined by the folks making the recordings. It’s a tremendous loss to me because you would get to hear from people who were maybe articulating the experience of navigating how to become, in a capitalist sense, successful for a Black person in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

What would have been the songs about the Greenwood District in Tulsa? There are all of these really incredible things that happened and these really horrifying ways that white supremacists would crack down on Black people for attaining that level of success that are part of the story and ought to be told. Because we focused so narrowly for so long on Black musical traditions that were coming out of super rural country places, even though a lot of Black people had moved to the city by that time — I feel your pain that there is a great deal that is lost when we focus so narrowly on this thing that fulfills our stereotype notion of what we should be looking for.

I love the last song on the album, “Mad Mama’s Blues,” which comes from Josie Miles. That first line, “I want to set the world on fire,” is so great, the melody is flirtatious, but the lyrics are furious. Can you talk about why you chose that song as the album closer?

I feel like the album couldn’t have been timed better if we’d known about what was going to happen in Minneapolis. My whole mission with this album was to show people that this has been coming for hundreds of years. There’ve been warnings and people have been trying to speak on it and they haven’t been heard. I think putting [this song] as the closing note on the album felt perfect to me because it is very explicit in its emotional expression and what it gets across to the listener — but at the same time, it is masked in this jumpy upbeat, sort of silly presentation. It’s like the 1920s “Hey Ya!” [Both laugh] It’s like a bop, and you’re like “Yes Queen!” and then you’re like “Oh, he’s killing people.”

I think that’s a really valuable part of the Black musical tradition. To me it provides us an interesting lens to look back on the fiddle tunes. For so many people when they hear fiddle and banjo, they’re like “Oh this is a happy song! I’m going to start dancing now” and really there can be so much hidden inside of that.

People are sometimes more concerned with their expectations for what a piece of music is going to be than what it actually is. Putting this song at the close is saying: “Your musical assumptions about the content here would not be correct.” You then have to go back and examine the other [songs] with the idea in mind that perhaps you need to look more deeply than you otherwise might in order to understand what’s being said.

Editor’s Note: Blount will be featured in the Bluegrass Situation Presents: A St. Patrick’s Day Festival at New York’s New Irish Arts Center, participating in an opening night jam session with clawhammer banjoist Allison de Groot, fiddler Tatiana Hargreaves, and traditional dancer Nic Gareiss on March 17 as well as a headlining performance with Gareiss on March 18.

All photos: Michelle Lotker

Them Coulee Boys Find Their Muse

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The tendrils of Them Coulee Boys’ bluegrass roots have often reached out into the realms of punk, rock ‘n’ roll, and beyond. Die Happy, the newest album from the Eau Claire, Wisconsin-based string band, is a beautiful and introspective journey toward finding community in our human imperfections. Produced by Dave Simonett of Trampled by Turtles, the project stands out for its sonic consistency and deeply personal, yet relatable lyrics. A phone interview with lead singer Soren Staff revealed the story that Them Coulee Boys wish to tell with the record.

BGS: Describe the experience of making this album. Were there any particularly challenging, rewarding, or memorable parts?

Soren Staff: Well, we recorded at Pachyderm Studios. The whole history of that place is insane. We made the record 25 years to the month from when Nirvana was in there making In Utero. Seeing pictures from that time and it looked exactly [the same]; in the middle of January, so a bunch of snow. That in and of itself — and hearing about the other people who recorded there — brought a certain weight of, “This is something completely different.” We’ve recorded in living rooms, and farm houses, and small do-it-yourself studios so this was definitely a whole different thing for us.

Explain the band’s relationship with Dave Simonett. How was creative control shared between the band and the producer?

I would say there’s a little bit of both [taking control]. The reason we really wanted to work with Dave was that he’s made all of those great records with Trampled by Turtles being the bluegrass band, which is where we started, and he’s also made some great rock ‘n’ roll albums with his Dead Man Winter project. We try to straddle that sound a little bit and made sense to have that on there. He has experience with both of those sounds so when we wanted a little more of “this” or a little bit of “that,” he knew what we needed. I think the big strength with Dave’s production was giving us some agency over our own work.

We’ve always been confident in what we wanted to do. We’ve always had a big vision for what we wanted to make, but you get in a studio with a guy like Dave, who, we had met him in the past and had nice interactions with him, but he’s still the dude that I once waited like six or seven hours in line to see. It was one of those kinds of things where I think he knew that we saw him in a certain way, and he used that to inspire a little bit of confidence in us.

Once we got to that mode we became really comfortable with him, like an idol turned to a friend. It was a cool energy, because we obviously had tremendous respect for him. It was hands-on, in that he knew when to assert himself, but also hands-off in that he knew what we wanted was what the project needed.

Was this album written in a condensed time span, or over a longer, drawn-out series of experiences?

I would say it was more condensed. Our first record was just everything I’d written up until that point, then the second record had leftovers from that record and a few others I had written to add it all together. But with this one, I had gone through a breakup … and was searching for something.

Before this album was called Die Happy, we were going to call it “My Anxiety & Me,” which is the last track. It’s framed as this journey. The first few tracks are alluding to, “I’m going to win somebody back. I’m going to get to this place and get us back to where we need to be.” With this record the whole writing process started as me processing this relationship and processing what happened, and it came more to an acceptance of myself and my mental illness. Trying to come to grips. And not in a negative way, but in a positive way that, “This is me, and this is a part of me that I can navigate.”

It was definitely a record that was all written in this one point in time and that definitely shows through a little bit. All the songs have references to each other, and it’s all that same moment for me.

Did that theme evolve throughout the process of making the album?

This is the most I’ve ever planned what I was going to talk about. I write about what comes to mind at the moment when I’m trying to write, but when I started writing for this one I was noticing a lot of common themes and a lot of common ideas. I did want it to be about that self-acceptance because that was something that I was working on personally in my life. Trying to get to that point of being OK with what I was and what I am. It started as trying to be a collection of those kinds of songs, and then sonically we had some fun stuff going on, so we wanted that theme to come through in the music as well. We’ve always wanted to be this kind of band. I don’t think we were capable of it in the past, but I think we’ve grown into what we wanted to sound like.

Is there any particular song that you believe sums up the message of the entire album?

The last one, [“My Anxiety & Me”]. … It’s not a single and we recorded that song with just one mic and the room mics. It doesn’t have that shiny production or the sound of the rest of the album, but lyrically that’s what we were getting at. That song is about accepting who you are and realizing that a lot of those low points are going to help you get to where you need to be. I wrote that while we were recording. It was the only thing that I hadn’t written [yet], because I knew that was going to be the last song we recorded, so I wanted to live in that moment and write in that moment. It summarizes a lot of what I’m trying to say.

Has the new album changed the dynamic of your live show?

We’ve gone to full-time having drums. In the past we toured as a four-piece: banjo, guitar, bass, and mandolin. So now we’ve actually gotten a little louder live, but we also try to strip it all down because you play those rock songs and then strip it all down to nothing and play songs like “My Anxiety & Me” or “5’6” Monument.” Putting those in the live show has given us a different wrinkle. We’ve always had those kinds of songs but haven’t really played them because we’ve always been hired to play the big, fun, exciting stuff. It’s fun to show a different side of us every once in a while.

If you could pick one setting in which to listen to this album, where would it be?

There’s this bar in Eau Claire called The Joint. It’s this townie bar where all the musicians hang out, all the art kids from the university, all the old fogies. It’s got the cheapest beer and they’ve got this 25-cent jukebox. I would love for that to be the first place I actually listen to it. I think that would be such a great place to finally sit and take it all in, because it’s a place I love.

It’s a record, that, while it’s a personal journey, it’s asking — like in that first song — “Is it just me … or does everyone else feel this way?” It’s about seeking community in the stuff that we keep to ourselves, so I think being in a space like my favorite bar would be a perfect place to listen to it.

How has your sound evolved between this album and your previous one, Dancing in the Dim Light?

We’re more conscientious of our tone and how it all fits together. We’re louder now in some moments because of the drums but we’re quieter in other moments. We care a lot more about the tones of what we’re doing and how it all fits together than we have in the past. This is a much more cohesive sound. I think that’s the biggest change. We care more about it all fitting together than “let’s get as many great songs as we can.” Not that these aren’t great songs, it’s just that we wanted them all to fit together more.

Photo credit: Kyle Lehman

Brandi Carlile: An Interview from Doc Watson’s Dressing Room

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Give or take, it’s about 2,800 miles from Brandi Carlile’s native Seattle, Washington, to Wilkesboro, North Carolina, home to the renowned music gathering known as MerleFest. (See photos.) And as the Saturday night headliner this year, the award-winning singer-songwriter took to the Watson Stage during the 32nd annual MerleFest, surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains and an overzealous audience in the neighborhood of 30,000.

Backed by her rollicking Americana/indie-rock band, which includes founding members Phil and Tim Hanseroth (aka: “The Twins”), Carlile held court during an unforgettable performance that led to one of the festival’s finest moments — Carlile around a single microphone with North Carolinians Seth and Scott Avett for an encore of the Avett Brothers’ “Murder in the City.”

But a few hours before that performance, Carlile found herself standing backstage alone in the dressing room of the late Doc Watson, the guitar master who founded MerleFest. Gazing around the small square space, she looked at old photos of Watson and other legendary Americana and bluegrass performers that have played MerleFest over the years: Earl Scruggs, Alison Krauss, Peter Rowan, Rhonda Vincent, Tony Rice, and so forth.

Carlile smiled to herself in silence, truly feeling humbled in her craft and taking a moment to reflect on her wild and wondrous journey thus far, all while possessing a once-in-a-generation talent — something broadcasted across the world during her staggering performance of “The Joke” in February at the Grammys, and amid a standing ovation from the music industry. Remarkably she also picked up all three Grammys in the American Roots Music categories.

We met Carlile in Watson’s dressing room before the show for our interview and surveyed the steps she’s taken from Seattle to the MerleFest stage.

BGS: It seems as big as your career has gotten, the humble nature of where you came from still remains within you, as a headlining performer now.

Carlile: It does. Part of that reason why I feel that is part of who I am is because of the people that I’ve surrounded myself with — The Twins, our families, our kids, and our folks. They’re not going to let anybody get too heady or too ahead of themselves. Everybody puts you right back in your station if you’re getting there.

Growing up around Seattle, was Kurt Cobain’s songwriting or specifically the Unplugged in New York album by Nirvana ever a big influence on you as a performer?

It was later in life. It’s so funny, like when you live in the [Pacific] Northwest, the intensity that was directed towards country music for me was big because I didn’t have proximity to it. I was so far away from it. People in the South, I think so often they love country and western roots music, bluegrass, folk, and Americana music. It’s not that they take it for granted, but they don’t realize sometimes that they’re so close to it — it’s right here. And we don’t have that proximity, so I think we love it a little more intensely in the Northwest.

Because you’re seeking it out maybe?

Yeah. And [it’s] even more concentrated in the [United Kingdom]. I mean, if you want to meet some of the most potent country music fans, you go to the UK. And Seattle is kind of that same vibe. So, when I discovered grunge music and rock ‘n’ roll music, it was after it had already happened in my city, which had its own grief period with it, but also kind of an intense celebratory thing because I had missed it. I wanted to know everything about what happened in my city. And what I came away with was realizing we came up with something new. We didn’t repeat anything. We didn’t throw back to an era. We didn’t put on a Halloween costume. We did something brand new.

So, how does that apply to where you are today, in terms of what you want to create with your art?

I’m kind of a hybrid thinker, in general. I like putting ideas together and posing thoughts, things like that. I’ve never really been a great or very successful genre person.

You don’t want to be pigeon-holed…

It’s not that I don’t want to be pigeon-holed, it’s just that I don’t know if I’m able to be. Unfortunately I’ve always wanted to fit in, but I don’t know if I ever will.

Well, to that point, this last year, at least from an outsider’s perspective, has seemed like a whirlwind in your career, with the trajectory it’s on now. Has it been a slow burn to this point or is this a whirlwind, and how are you dealing with all of that?

That’s a good question. It’s both. It’s been a slow burn to this point. I’ve been working for a long time. But it was a really big change. That Grammy moment changed my life, and in a really, really big way. I can’t even catch up to it yet — I don’t even know how to catch up to it yet.

Or if you even want to embrace it. I mean, how do even wrap your head around something like that?

No, dude, I want to embrace it — I love it. I’ve always loved everything about music and the music business since I was such a little girl. I sat in my room wanting the biggest and the best of opportunities for myself, my family, and my friends. And so I’ll find a way to embrace it. And I want to — I’m really insanely grateful for it.

What do you remember from that moment? I was thinking, the stunning way your voice and the energy was going up and down, any frustration, any love or sadness you’ve experienced was put out through that microphone at that moment…

Yeah. I think I’m going to live to be 100 because that is how I do it, you know? I just let it all out. And in that moment, I don’t know — I was just so ready for it. I’m 38. I’m not a kid anymore. I’m not going to get too nervous or too excited and come undone. But, I am going to enjoy it while it’s happening. Like so many big things in your life you don’t really get to enjoy it.

Or maybe in hindsight you realize how important it was…

Yeah, man. Like loving everything in retrospect, enjoying everything in retrospect. And I was just so right there, right in the moment at the time — more so than maybe ever before while performing.

So, does that mean you subscribe to the idea of “the now,” to learn to be present, rather than worry about what was and what could be?

Yeah, but I’m horrible at it. But for some reason, that day I was able to get there. And I think it’s because I had been so nervous and then I won those three [Grammys]. I was like, “What do I got to lose? I’m just going to do this. I’m just going to show everybody [who I am].”

What is the role of the songwriter in the digital age, in all this chaos that is the 21st century?

To try to be as permanent as you can in a temporary environment.

In all the years you’ve created and performed music, traveling the world and meeting people from all walks of life, what has it taught you about what it means to be a human being?

Well, it’s taught me so much. I think you need to travel, in general, in life. You cannot stay put and not see the way that people live and then try and create an assumption about the way the world works. Travel, in general, has taught me so much about social justice and empathy. It’s enhanced me spiritually as a person, and that’s the thing I think I’ve garnered the most out of it. But I’ve met some really wise and special people as well. And to get to meet your heroes, people that you’ve admired – to find out if you were completely wrong about how much you admire them or being completely right — has been so enlightening.

And what about being in Doc Watson’s dressing right now, being at Merlefest?

Being in Doc Watson’s dressing room is really moving. I’ve been looking around at the pictures and the gravity of it. And when you’re here at this festival, you feel the reverence and you understand what it’s all about. And it’s something I’m coming to later in life. Just like I missed the greatest rock ‘n’ roll genre of all-time — grunge — in my very own city, I missed this experience, too — and I’m looking forward to diving in with both feet.

All photos: Michael Freas

WATCH: The East Pointers, “In Bloom”

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Artist: The East Pointers
Hometown: Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada
Song: “In Bloom”
Release Date: March 6, 2019
Label: The East Pointers

In Their Words: “‘In Bloom’ has always been a favourite of ours — it’s such a great song with a very unique chord and melody vibe. A few days before playing Lee’s Palace in Toronto last year, we were chatting about how Nirvana played the same venue almost 30 years earlier. This was our acoustic tribute to them that night!” — The East Pointers

Photo credit: Jen Squires

BGS 5+5: New Reveille

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Artist: New Reveille
Hometown: Raleigh, North Carolina
Latest album: The Keep
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): “We never really discussed names, New Reveille is a name I gave the project before it became a band.” – Daniel Cook

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

I’d say my favorite New Reveille show was our first, even though I’d slipped on the ice and gotten a concussion about 30 minutes earlier. My wife said it sounded like a watermelon breaking on the ground. I said, “Well maybe it’ll make me better at banjo.” It didn’t. Anyway, one of the main reasons that show stands out was that it was our singer Amy Kamm’s debut performance with a band. We were unsure of how she would like to be in front of a crowd since she had never sung outside of church. But she was an absolute natural. Stunning. The harmonies really got people’s attention and Autumn, George and Kaitlin lit it up as well.

The show was at this cool little venue called Deep South the Bar in our hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina. We had a sold-out crowd and people were singing along with some of our songs, which was really surprising because it was our first show. It was a great feeling for all of us. We had our friends Ryan Jernigan on bass, Dan Blaisdell on pedal steel, and Max Palmer on drums joining us. Eight people squeezed onto a tiny stage. Autumn’s violin bow kept almost taking my eye out. That still happens all the time. I need to stay out of her way when she gets into it.

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

I’ve been a video editor by trade for about 15 years. I direct sometimes as well. Outside of music, editing is still a passion of mine. It was through music editing that I got into non-linear video editing in college. I realized that it was such a powerful art form. Editors get little recognition, working behind the scenes, but they really have a lot of control over how a film comes together. It’s pretty amazing—the way you’re able to bend and stretch time, find and build moments of tension, play with nuances to create emotional subtext, and sometimes even create an alternate sense of reality—and it never gets old.

It’s not unlike songwriting for me, in that it’s a constant, no-holds-barred experiment. I never really know where I’ll end up when I first sit down with a piece. I think Walter Murch—editor of Apocalypse Now, among many other films—said it best: “Editing is not so much a putting together as it is a discovery of path.” The same applies to songwriting, for me at least. There are time-tested structures and rules. But it’s the discovery of path that excites me and makes me want to keep going. I sometimes say that if I knew what I was doing, I wouldn’t be doing it.

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

When I was about 14, an encounter with a classical guitarist named Julio interrupted my plans to dominate the NBA. I was down the street playing basketball at a friend’s house when this guy came out and started fingerpicking on the porch. I recognized the tune. It was Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” but an interesting finger-style interpretation played on a nylon string guitar. I stopped playing mid-game and walked over to him. I asked him some questions, but he didn’t answer. He just smiled and kept playing. I went home that night and said, “Hey Mom, I wanna play guitar.”

My mom told me that my sister had this old toy guitar up the attic. I immediately went up there, brought it down, and started trying to pick out melodies. I remember that I accidentally figured out a single-note version of Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’” pretty quick. That got me excited. So, being the cart-before-the-horse type that I am, I went and built a “studio” in my Dad’s shed. I made a drum set out of Tupperware, assembled some milk carton maracas, and rounded up some other neighborhood kids who reluctantly agreed to join my new band, which I called “Burnin Snowmen.”

I made an album cover for our cassette tape using construction paper. They disapproved. The band split a few days later, realizing lessons were necessary. But Mom soon got me a good acoustic guitar and I learned a bunch of Lynyrd Skynyrd songs from my uncles who played guitar, which is crazy because Lynyrd Skynyrd are now our labelmates. Funny how things come full circle.

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

This is a very interesting question because, as much as I like to eat, and as much as I love music, I can’t recall a single time that I’ve ever watched a show, or even listened intently to a song, while eating. I’ve never even thought about that. Chewing makes noise, so obviously I’m not going to chew while I’m trying to hear a song. I’ll even pull my beanie off my ears to listen, even when the music is really loud and it’s cold outside. I also hate it when people talk over music. There is no such thing as background music as far as I’m concerned.

But now you have me thinking about it. Maybe I should give it a try. Eating and listening. Seems mutually exclusive to me. I really like beef brisket and you’ve caught me at a time when I’m very hungry. And I was just listening to Sylvan Esso. But somehow, I don’t think of brisket when I think of Sylvan Esso. I could eat a brisket at a bluegrass jam. Or something with grease dripping off. But I don’t have access to a brisket or bluegrass band right now so maybe I’ll crank up Foo Fighters and eat a sausage dog.

But next time we go back to Nashville, Amy and George and I will almost certainly go back to Hattie B’s Hot Chicken. Autumn and Kaitlin don’t eat meat. I’m not sure what kind of music I’d eat beans or salad to. You’ve stumped me here, and quite frankly made me hungrier.

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

Oh, I do this all the time. I’d even go as far as to say that when I write in second-person, I’m talking to myself about half the time. It’s usually subconscious, though. I’d say there’s even a little bit of that in “Hounds,” talking about karma or getting what you deserve. So, it’s no surprise that when Amy sings it, I sometimes feel like the antagonist in the song. It’s pretty haunting. But I guess it’s true that writers will often hide their own demons in other characters, even unintentionally. Or sometimes you’re literally just talking to yourself on the page.

For example, “Abide” was sort of a rally cry to myself at the time: “Brace that sand upon your shore, ‘cause hard days are coming Lord.” A similar process happens sometimes when I combine things about myself with things I know about other people in my life to create fictional characters. Again, it’s not intentional. It just happens that way. And I usually only realize it after the fact.

“Miracle” is one that was inspired partially by several people I’d met who had lost children or siblings prematurely, and partially by my own contemplating life and death and trying to find the meaning of it all during a hard time. Where the song finally landed through that “discovery of path” was, in the end it’s all about the love we give while we’re here and the love we leave behind. And when Amy sings that song, it’s special for a lot of reasons that are personal for me as well as her. But yeah, that’s another one where I’m hidden in there, although maybe not as a “you.”

Photo by Jeremy Danger