Tag: North Carolina

Closer to Self-Acceptance: A Conversation with River Whyless

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Bands grow. Styles evolve. Lineups shift. Genre identifiers morph to accept those changes while the music industry holds certain expectations for reinventions and reimaginations. It’s refreshing, then, when you happen across a band that isn’t bogged down by those precedents, choosing to just follow their songs and their true selves wherever they may lead.

The folk-pop outfit River Whyless finds themselves on this trajectory with their third album, Kindness, A Rebel. The product is not gratuitous, heavy-handed, or obvious, and it never stumbles or attempts to assert that “the old River Whyless is dead,” because true reinvention is never about demolition and rebuilding. It’s about finding the skeletal structure that was already there and allowing it to shine on its own, set apart. Drummer Alex Walters jumped on the phone to unpack the integral aspects of self-acceptance and self-celebration that blossomed on this beautiful testament to allowing oneself to just be.

This record seems to be as much about personal growth for each of you individually as it is about changes for the band as a whole. Why do you think those two things coincided here?

Alex McWalters: I think those things are always connected in some way. Whenever you make a piece of art, your life is always factored into that, there’s always growth. [It’s partly] because we’re now in our early 30s and feeling really lucky that we’re still able to make music and be a band. With that, there are a lot of adjustments you have to make as you head into the next phase of life. Ryan [O’Keefe] just got married, my girlfriend and I just bought some property and we’re working on building a house, and Halli [Anderson] moved to Oregon with her sweetheart. A lot of big life things are happening.

I guess this is a record about grappling with how to be a band in a different phase of your life. It’s honestly a little more challenging when you have more responsibilities outside of a band. Whereas, when we were in our 20s, it was like we were homeless. We lived on the road. Our whole lives were the band. It’s a much different way of operating professionally and creatively than it was 10 years ago. It’s exciting, but also challenging to continue doing it in this way.

How do you all feel that growth comes through the music, overtly? I hear it in “The Feeling of Freedom” and I hear it in “Another Shitty Party” — which I feel echoes my own personal growth through young adulthood — but how do you feel that perspective comes through?

I think “Another Shitty Party” is a great example. I hold this new record up against the one we did before, two years ago, in terms of the way it feels — I sort of have an inside view as to how it was made, so it’s a little hard to convey to someone who wasn’t there. It feels like we sort of embraced whatever came out of us this time and didn’t try quite so hard to be a certain way or accomplish a certain thing with the music. There were a lot more growing pains in the last record, as far as figuring out how to make three or four songwriters coherent.

This time we just went with it. We just let the songs be the songs. With that, the idea of “Another Shitty Party” is sort of connected to a bigger idea of coming a little bit closer to self-acceptance and trying to be honest with who you are in the world. The idea of going to a party and walking away from that feeling like, “There’s no reason I had to be there!” is a metaphor for the larger feeling of being in a band and trying to be cool. Let’s just stop trying to be cool and just be us.

Something that we aren’t necessarily taught as kids or teenagers is that sort of self-acceptance, that acknowledgement, is such an integral part of what we refer to as “maturity.” It’s getting to a point of being able to accept yourself as whomever you are, having been morphed by all of the factors of our lives. What brought that to the surface for you?

I’m not sure if it was conscious. Maybe it was also having reached some level of, I guess, gratification in terms like, “Oh, the last tour we did went really well.” I think part of maturity is you have to learn what works and what doesn’t. Some people aren’t as lucky to reach that point of self-acceptance to where you can say, “No, I don’t want to partake in this.” Or, “I don’t agree with that and I’m not going to do it.” It can sometimes require a lot of work to get to the point where you’re able to be mature. Some of that was just us being a little more confident than we were before.

Also, it’s just hard to avoid the elephant in the room as far as the current political situation and feeling like we didn’t say or do enough. Not that we could have done anything [specific], or that we even knew what to do, or maybe we shouldn’t have done anything, but we had that sense of, “Oh man, what just happened and how do we go forward?”

Taking responsibility of that and taking it onto ourselves is also a very mature idea.

Precisely.

And kindness really is a rebellious act right now. I think that was one of my biggest takeaways from the album. Like, “Oh shit, yeah, being just a kind human being at this point in this weird political, divisive period, is rebellious.”

Absolutely. You hit that right on the head.

I hear you reckoning with that on “Born in the Right Country.” This is something that I think about a lot right now, about how we can address these sort of personal perspectives we have while we also acknowledge our own privilege and our own complicity, too. How did you reconcile that conflict with yourselves and through that song?

The song was written by Ryan and I think it’s interesting, because, like I said, we all had a very intense reaction to the election. There’s a lot to have to work through once you realize that Donald Trump is your president. We are four white people in a band and our life has been pretty peachy and, for the most part, is continuing to be pretty peachy, so anything we say about Donald Trump or the people who voted for Donald Trump has to be self-aware. You have to go through a process of recognizing where you’re coming from when you speak and how you sound and what your actions actually say without you realizing you’re saying it.

There was a point at which that song was introduced to the band and we all wondered if we even wanted to go there. What does this mean? How will it be interpreted? What good does it really do? What is this song really going to accomplish besides sounding like four white people complaining about Donald Trump? And maybe it still does, but I think an important part of it was trying to get into that three-minute song a part about us having a certain responsibility that we have to figure out how to own, as far as being who we are and what we could or could not have done more of.

Personally, I thought 100 percent that he was going to lose, so I was very complacent and complicit in terms of the whole thing. That alone says to me that I was kind of blind. There was a whole lot I wasn’t seeing or that I was refusing to see. And what does that say about my situation and how removed I am from the pain that people are feeling?

Talking about growth and maturity as a band, there’s an expected trajectory in these roots genres for bands to go from string band into more pop-influenced sounds. You guys seem to be on that track. But your music seems to be on this trajectory because it feels like this music is song-driven first. Why do you think that is?

I don’t know if I have a very concrete answer, but I think some of it has to do with the organic evolution. On our first record, we had a different bass player, so we introduced a new player to the band and that inevitably has an effect on how it sounds. With that, there’s also a shift in the power dynamic of the band, for lack of a better way of putting it, where one lead songwriter’s vision isn’t steering the ship anymore — at least not totally. That has a lot to do with how the evolution has happened.

Again, also just letting go. Just letting what comes out come out and not trying to steer it any direction, genre-wise or sound-wise. We obviously have influences and things we’re into and that’s what influences the sound of the moment we’re in, but outside of that I think we just kind of let go of what we want to be and just let it be what it is. It’s so much easier said than done.

Another outgrowth of self-acceptance.

I would say so. I never really thought of it like that, but now that you say it…

Photo credit: Shervin Lainez

WATCH: Balsam Range, “The Girl Who Invented the Wheel”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Balsam Range
Hometown: Haywood County, North Carolina
Song: “The Girl Who Invented The Wheel”
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

In Their Words: “I’m a fan of great lyrics and great writers, and Adam Wright’s ‘The Girl Who Invented the Wheel’ is a creative example of taking a song subject such as relationship struggles to a new and engaging place. A fun and upbeat song, ‘The Girl Who Invented the Wheel’ portrays a masterful character in the art of breaking up and like her previous partner, you must appreciate and recognize her skills while she leaves you wanting more.” – Buddy Melton, Balsam Range

Photo credit: David Simchok

New Freedom Blues: A Conversation with Town Mountain

Posted on by Editor

The very first instrument you hear on “New Freedom Blues,” the new single from Town Mountain, is a kick drum. Wait, what?! As the title track of their upcoming album (out on October 26), it’s a mildly, slyly defiant poke at bluegrass tradition (or, more precisely, one interpretation of that tradition) before the full band piles in behind Robert Greer’s gruff, wry lament from a guy who just can’t win for losin’. (Stream the song below.)

Yet as a conversation with banjoist Jesse Langlais makes clear, the members of Town Mountain are more determined than ever to dish up a different take on the bluegrass legacy—one that hearkens back to some of the greatest work by some of the music’s greatest masters during their times of greatest creativity. That should come as no surprise to those who have followed the independent-minded group since they first attracted attention in and around their hometown of Asheville, North Carolina, more than ten years ago.

For while it’s easy to hear the individual progress they’ve made as players, singers and songwriters, and the collective progress they’ve made as an ever more confident and tightly-knit band, their unrestrained energy and freewheeling approach were there right from the start. Whether you’re talking about their shows or about their growing body of recordings, they’ve always had one foot in the honky-tonk and one foot in the jam band world, all the while following the rambunctious roads paved by the King of Bluegrass, Jimmy Martin, as well as his best-known banjo man, J. D. Crowe.

That’s a powerful combination, and it’s taken Town Mountain on a unique journey—one that’s found them as much at home in muddy festival fields filled with energetic dancers as at ground zero for traditional bluegrass, Nashville’s World Famous Station Inn. Still, they’re like almost everyone else when it comes to trying to figure out the 21st century music business, and that’s where our conversation began.

Twenty years ago, it was clear what making a record would do for you as a band: you’d sell it, and hope to get some airplay, so the writers at least would make some royalties. But there was a much bigger economic component to making records back in the day than there is now. So what motivates you guys to make a record?

You’re completely right about the business. I don’t know, it’s just to get that stuff out. The record sales are not what drives the reasoning behind an album for bands at our level anymore; financially, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. The bulk of the material that gets sold is such a small percentage of the music out there. A lot of independent artists are just trying to get people to come to their shows—and one catalyst to do that is to release music. And personally, it’s also gratifying, just to be able to have that tangible object with which you as an artist can say, this is my material.

You guys pretty much write all your own material?

Yes. Phil Barker and I tackle the bulk of the material, Robert contributes a couple of songs here and there, and then we sprinkle a couple of covers in. But yeah, that’s been the premise of the band from the beginning: let’s utilize the songs. And really, for the longest time, songs would come to the chopping block and we would say, well, how bluegrass is this song? And that would be the parameters for how we would choose our material; we succumbed to the ways of the bluegrass world. That was almost dictating the material that we would choose, and all the while, there was all this other material that you’re turning the page on, so it’s just sitting in song notebooks, which we finally realized. So our last album and previous albums are much more of our brand of bluegrass, while I’d say half of the new one is more of a departure from that, but still maintaining the Town Mountain sound.

That’s funny, because it sounds very much like a bluegrass album to me. What are the ways you feel like these songs are less bluegrass than in the past?

There is some bluegrass material on this album, hands down. But if you sit down and analyze the songs musically, you would probably understand a little more of what I’m saying. I would say one thing is that we’ve got a full drum kit in there, which changes the feel immediately. Adding a snare in a bluegrass band totally works, and sometimes you bury it in the mix and can’t even tell it’s there. But with a full kit, it allows some of these tunes to breathe a little bit. We just said, OK, let’s not chop these songs at the chopping block because they don’t fit the mold; let’s move forward with them. And I guess that still maintains some bluegrass integrity, which is good to hear.

It’s not imitative but it reminds me of what the Osborne Brothers were doing, or what J. D. Crowe was doing, in the 1970s—the Starday album, You Can Share My Blanket, the Keith Whitley stuff. And then I notice you hit that low C note on your banjo more than a lot of other banjo players I hear these days, and that’s kind of a throwback thing to Scruggs, J.D., and Sonny. It sort of skips back a generation.

That’s the highest compliment we could be paid. I don’t think anyone could say anything that would make us feel more proud. If you’re getting that vibe of the Osborne Brothers and J.D., that’s totally what we’re going for. Everybody in Town Mountain just loves that ‘70s music so much; My Home Ain’t in the Hall of Fame, anything that Crowe put his stamp on is like the best stuff ever in my opinion, and I know Robert and Phil and the other guys feel the same. Now, I am a huge Osborne Brothers fan; not everyone else in Town Mountain is a huge Osborne Brothers fan, but I am. I’ve personally always loved the mix of hardcore country and the hardcore grass sound—and yeah, collectively Town Mountain is trying to emulate and bring some of that sound back into the scene.

One of the things about the classic bluegrass band creation pattern was that people played in somebody else’s band, went through an apprenticeship, played with people older and more experienced, and then went off to do their own thing. And around the turn of the century, something new started to happen—bands began more like garage rock bands, where people heard the sound of bluegrass and wanted to do it, but they didn’t go through the apprenticeship. How did Town Mountain get started?

None of us grew up in the ranks of the bluegrass community, doing what you’re describing. None of us have. Did we all play in other projects prior to Town Mountain? For sure. But they weren’t products of that hardcore bluegrass environment. Robert and Phil and I were all in bands based out of Asheville, but they were more like pick-up bands—buddies playing music. I’ll say, there’s nothing wrong with what you describe but it does create parameters when everyone’s coming through the same sounds and is being taught how to play the same way—I’m generalizing—and it creates this precedent and guidelines to adhere to, and all the musicians and bands end up kind of getting into that sound. I dig that sound, I get it for sure, and it’s a lifestyle and a way of music and a genre, and totally cool. But developing in that garage rock kind of way allows for a little more outside influence, a little more of a creative approach to the music. And that is how Town Mountain started, for sure.

One of the implications of that is that you have to be more deliberate about learning the older stuff. How’d you guys find your way through the bluegrass canon? How’d you get into that Crowe stuff?

Digging, lots of digging. Personally, my foot was put in the door through Old & In The Way. But as soon as I found out Old & In The Way, I found out who Flatt & Scruggs were, the Stanley Brothers, Jimmy Martin, Jim & Jesse and Bill Monroe. And I found a banjo teacher who would tell me to check out stuff. So then, for five to seven years, the only thing I would listen to was classic bluegrass, or bluegrass in general. I dug in full force. Because at that time in my life I had no idea what it was. I grew up in Maine; it wasn’t part of my life. So I immediately immersed myself in it. And after that period, I could cover so much of the bluegrass canon; I knew by then who J.D. was, and the sound that I love. And then, when I moved to Asheville and met Robert and Phil, it was like, oh, these guys would love Jimmy Martin, too. You know how everybody loves everybody, but this one’s a Monroe guy, this one’s a Stanley guy? We were all Jimmy Martin guys. So our musical taste in bluegrass was very similar from the beginning of the band.

When I look at the band’s recording career, you self-released, then you signed with Pinecastle—that’s a hardcore bluegrass label—and then you made your way kind of back out of the bluegrass mainstream. I look at the variety of material on the album, but right in the middle there’s a very straightforward bluegrass instrumental. I looked at your schedule – you’re playing a lot of clubs and music festivals, but then you’re playing mainstream bluegrass events like Festival of the Bluegrass or Joe Val. Do you feel like you’re in a balanced place between the bluegrass world and all the other stuff?

That’s something we’ve always toiled with, making sure that we’re maintaining a foot in all these different scenes. But we’ve always kind of been a fringe band within the bluegrass world. I don’t think anyone’s ever looked at Town Mountain and said, “There’s traditional bluegrass.” So we’ve always kind of been right where we are right now. We maybe used to do more bluegrass festivals. We made a conscious decision to balance that out with other, all-around, eclectic music festivals. But we hope to get some play on the bluegrass radio stations, and that that will help to keep us in that scene. We certainly want to be part of that music scene as much as it wants us to be part of it.

 

Photo credit: Sandlin Gaither

LISTEN: Reed Turchi, “Just a Little More Faith”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Reed Turchi
Hometown: Swannanoa, North Carolina
Song: “Just A Little More Faith”
Album: Just A Little More Faith
Release Date: July 20, 2018

In Their Words: “Just a Little More Faith” is a gospel song I first heard on the Mississippi Fred McDowell album Amazing Grace, sung with his wife Annie Mae. This record is all about harmony and voices rising together, and there was no better way to start it off than this tune inspired by the musician who first led me to learn slide guitar.” — Reed Turchi

 

Photo credit: Alysse Gafkjen

Traveler: Your Guide to Western North Carolina

Posted on by Editor

Western North Carolina is a vast landscape of blue mountains, peppered with small and charismatic towns. From Boone to Wilkesboro to Asheville, most of western North Carolina is a blue bubble in a red state. The Blue Ridge Mountain communities defy Appalachian stereotypes in some towns and feed them in others. Doc Watson started MerleFest — a holy ground for traditional bluegrass — on the campus of Wilkesboro Community College 31 years ago. Wilkesboro is a small town which intermingles with Boone, so we’re covering Boone, too. (This guide is not comprehensive of all of western North Carolina, but is intended to help those making the pilgrimage to the east coast for the grandfather of bluegrass festivals.)

Getting There

Getting to the Boone/Wilkesboro area is a beautiful trek, especially in the spring. If you’re flying, Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) is closest at one-and-a-half hours. Asheville’s regional airport (AVL) is two hours away and Raleigh’s airport (RDU) is two-and-a-half hours. Any drive you take will be scenic.

Where to Stay

Troutsong

There are a few hotels in Wilkesboro which get booked pretty quickly, so your best bet is to camp, bring your RV, or book accommodations in Boone. Wilkesboro is nearly bone dry for places to stay during MerleFest. Boone is a 40-minute drive from Wilkesboro (beware of cops along the way, as this area is notorious for doling out tickets). Airbnb and VRBO have options in both areas, plus Asheville is two hours away.

What to Do

Beacon Heights. Photo credit: Randy Johnson

Bluegrass abounds in the Appalachian high country. In fact, legend has it that Old Crow Medicine Show got discovered by Doc Watson while they were busking on King Street in downtown Boone. From festivals like MerleFest to buskers to impromptu jam sessions at local bars, bluegrass is abundant. Boone Saloon hosts everything from string to jazz to punk shows in the heart of downtown. Legends (an on-campus venue at Appalachian State in Boone) hosts musicians from Mipso to Dr. Dog and beyond, and musical greats like the Punch Brothers are known to have visited the Schaefer Performing Arts Center in Boone.

Besides it’s rich musical history, Boone and Wilkesboro’s vast, rolling landscapes make them a playground. The Blue Ridge Parkway intersects the highway between the two mountain towns, and getting lost on the parkway is encouraged. Along the BRP, we suggest hiking Rough Ridge, Beacon Heights, and the loop trail around Julian Price Lake — a beautiful mountain lake.

In Wilkes County, Stone Mountain State Park features a giant granite dome, trout fishing, and advanced level rock climbing. Some of the best mountain biking in the Southeast can be found along the shores of the W. Kerr Scott Reservoir, outside of Wilkesboro. This lake is home to more than 35 miles of single track trails.

Eat & Drink

Our Daily Bread

Rich with veggie options, Boone’s food scene leans toward healthy and fresh. Stroll down King Street and you’ll hit the best sandwich shop in town, Our Daily Bread. Try their chipotle turkey press washed down by one of their many local brews.

Hidden behind King Street in a back parking lot is Espresso News, simply known as “e-news” to locals. You can’t go wrong with their organic drip coffee or a dirty chai latte, and it’s a quirky, quiet hang. The star of the show in Boone’s food scene, according to us, is Wild Craft Eatery (formerly Hob Knob Café). Their flavorful Buddha-style bowls, unexpected flavor combinations and plantains with mango sauce are crave-worthy, and made us go back twice the first trip we visited.

Appalachian Mountain Brewery. Photo credit: Watauga TDA

Coyote Kitchen is in the same creative vein as Wild Craft, specializing in southwestern bowls featuring ingredients like sweet potatoes, black beans, sautéed tempeh, plantains, and chipotle sauce. To find local hops, head to Appalachian Mountain Brewery, Boone’s first brewery, and a locally loved spot for beer, music and trivia.

MerleFest Tips

Americana Stage. Photo credit: MerleFest

MerleFest, nestled at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains, is one of the grandfathers of bluegrass festivals. This isn’t your hip, old weed-smoking alternative grandfather. (We’re looking at you, Telluride.) It’s your traditional, ball cap-wearing, newspaper-reading, fisherman grandfather who likes the music audible, but not blaring loud.

MerleFest is a microcosm of the bluegrass community, getting back to the roots and getting rid of distractions from the banjo pickin’. It’s a straight-edge festival with all of the raw, seasoned, and unseasoned bluegrass talent of your dreams. Not only is the music center stage, but classic Appalachian traditions like clogging and songwriting are also featured at the fest.

Midnight Jam. Photo credit: MerleFest

Parking is free and shuttles are provided to the front gates of the festival. April is a tricky month in the mountains, so bring layers and rain gear. MerleFest starts early and ends late, so pace yourself. One of the highlights of the festival is the MerleFest Midnight Jam on Saturday night, which the BGS just so happens to host. Stay tuned for artists we’ll be hosting for this late-night jam you don’t want to miss.

Lede photo credit: DJANDYW.COM on Foter.com / CC BY-SA

A Sadness and a Sweetness: Hiss Golden Messenger in Conversation with the Weather Station

Posted on by Editor

North Carolina figures prominently into the music that Tamara Lindeman and M.C. Taylor make as the Weather Station and Hiss Golden Messenger, respectively. Its musical traditions as well as its current scene have shaped their songs …

Taylor moved to North Carolina about 10 years ago, following the demise of his band, the Court & Spark. Music became more than a hobby but less than a full-time job, and he wasn’t necessarily thinking about a career in the industry when he started making music with a few friends as Hiss Golden Messenger. But then he made an album whose failure ensured his success.

“I made an album called Poor Moon at the request of a small record label in London, and they didn’t like it!” Taylor says with a laugh. “That was a blow to my ego, and I thought, ‘What am I gonna do now?’” Full of lively country-folk songs with imaginative arrangements and hard insights on the nature of faith, the album was finally released by a North Carolina indie label called Paradise of Bachelors. “When Poor Moon came out, it was a surprise to a lot people that I even lived in North Carolina. I had lived there for a couple of years, but nobody really knew who I was.”

The record left a big impression on Lindeman, whose own music career was just getting started. “I was invited down to Raleigh to play the Hopscotch Festival around that time,” she says. “I was shocked to be invited. It was the first time anyone had asked me to play a show outside Canada. I was only there for a couple of days, but basically all anyone talked about was Poor Moon. I went to a radio station to do an interview, and they were playing that record. I went somewhere else, and it was playing there, too. It was the talk of the town.”

Lindeman had never played outside of Canada before. “I played a show with Hiss Golden Messenger and the Mountain Goats, and that’s when I met all these musicians. They were like, ‘Come down and make a record with us!’ They were very convincing.” While in town, she recorded songs for an EP with Taylor and other regional musicians. Eventually, she. likewise, signed with Paradise of Bachelors.

Both found the region a warm and inviting place to make music, and both have spent the ensuing years touring and recording almost nonstop. As the center around which Hiss Golden Messenger revolves, Taylor writes incisively and movingly about the joys of music and family, the South as its exists and the South as he imagines it. His latest, Hallelujah Anyhow, finds reasons for celebration amid the wreckage of America in the late 2010s. Similarly, Lindeman’s new album, simply titled The Weather Station, is a vivid account of a year in her life; it’s a collection of songs that burst at the seams with words and ideas. The pair remain avid fans of each other’s work.

I always hate the word “autobiographical” or even something as vague as “personal,” but these two records do feel like they’re from very fixed perspectives.

Tamara Lindeman: For sure. My record was all finished, and I was thinking a lot about what it meant to me. This record is my way of expressing an understanding that things will not be okay. It’s my way of realizing that, somehow, you figure out how to be okay when things are not okay. It was funny: When I saw your record announcement and saw that the title was Hallelujah Anyhow, I was like, “Oh man, that’s a perfect title! I wish I’d thought of that title myself for my record!” That gets at something that I was trying to express.

M.C. Taylor: Yeah, I have a handful of people in my life who were like, “Damn, that’s a good album title!” [Laughs] Let me say, I think your record is so brilliant. I am just like totally in love with it. It has a sadness and sweetness, at the same time. Anyone that can figure out how to speak sadly and sweetly at the same time is always going to have my heart. That’s a language I am so curious about, and it’s a realm that I’m trying to work in. That has almost been my entire mission with Hiss Golden Messenger — how to convey light and dark at the same time, how to encompass as much richness of emotion in three to five minutes. And your record does that so, so well. There’s a certain propulsive, almost breathless feeling to some of the songs, like you’re trying to get more emotion in than the song can quite allow, which I find really, really moving. How did you make this record? How long did it take you to make this, and what was your process with it?

TL: It was actually pretty simple, in a way, because it was the first time in a long time that I just had a plan and a vision. I came home from my first tour in Europe and I just started writing songs. They were totally different from anything I’d ever done. And I was like, “Alright. This is going to be a record, and it’s going to have this kind of bass playing, it’s going to have this kind of drums. It’s going to have strings. So we’re going to have to write string arrangements.” I just had to go through all of these studios until I found one that felt right and picked the musicians.

We recorded in Montreal at a studio called Hotel2Tango, which is a classic — all the Godspeed You Black Emperor! and the early Arcade Fire stuff was done there. It was honestly quite simple: I just went in and recorded it as a trio, and then we did overdubs and strings and mixed it and mastered it. It wasn’t really a wild scenario of recording.

MT: It’s nice when it works that way.

TL: Totally. That hadn’t happened in so long, where I just knew the vocal sound I wanted, I knew the guitar sound I wanted. It was a matter of learning to not listen to all the other voices around me. I had to tell myself, “Alright, this is what it’s gotta be.” And that’s not something that I’ve ever known how to do before, so it was a funny battle. It was like, “Great idea, but I’m not gonna listen to it.” That kind of thing. How was your record made? You seemed to make it really quickly.

MT: It was the same, pretty much. We set aside a week to do the main recording and as many of the overdubs as we could, and then we had a couple more days to add all the minute stuff we didn’t realize we were gonna want in the first week. Then we mixed it in three days and mastered it. The whole thing didn’t take more than two weeks. Fortunately, various versions of the band had played most of the songs a bunch of times. We had been on a bunch of tours and were starting to creep new songs in, because we knew we wanted to make this new record. Honestly, by the second day of that first week, all of the basic tracks were done, which I was surprised by. I think it’s a testament to the people in the band — and also a testament to Brad Cook, who produced this record with me. He had a very optimistic vision — more so than me, I would say — about how much we could accomplish. And we did it!

TL: Amazing.

MT: There’s really something huge to be said for making a record quickly, following your first thought, and living with the moments you put to tape. I’ve watched friends and peers struggle to make the “perfect record,” and they’ll take anywhere from three to five years to do it. That really has a detrimental effect, I think. I wanted a different feeling. Because you just can’t make a perfect record! That’s not even something that should even cross your mind. But the options are so unlimited now that it gives us the illusion that we can put everything in its right place.

TL: Absolutely. If you listen to any of the records that we all love, especially when you’re in mixing mode, you’re like, “Oh, man, if I was given the track, I’d bring down the backing vocals, change the drum sound.” That sort of thing. The records you love, they’re always so imperfect.

MT: Totally. What we really changed, when we went into the studio, was that we tried to really understand the sound each person was making. We knew what those sounds were at the front end of the process: I knew what guitar was going to work on which song; we knew what Darren Jessee’s drums sounded like. I think that’s why we were able to mix the record in two or three days: We didn’t do anything other than mess with levels. There are definitely some moving parts and some arrangement things that we did on the record, but all of it was meant to serve the song. So it’s transparent in that way.

That’s how I feel about your record, too. When I really started listening to arrangements on your record, I realized there’s a bunch of stuff on there — string arrangements, piano lines — but when I am just listening with my unconscious mind, it’s a super straight-ahead record. Everything the band is doing on your record is following the lead vocal melody. It’s almost like the rhythm section is chasing your voice around, which I love. Your rhythm section is so fucking good! Is that Ian Kehoe playing drums?

TL: Ian plays with me and is my favorite drummer, but because he’s my partner, I was really anxious about having to be the boss. I’d never been the boss of a band and not screwed it up. But I knew I had to be the boss. We wound up talking it through, and I told him I didn’t think I could have him be the drummer because it’s too much emotion in the room. It’s too many feelings because he’s my partner. I just needed to go in with this different way of being as a person that’s uncommon to the way I am in life. So I wound up using a fellow named Don Kerr, who is amazing. He’s in his 50s and he’s been around every block there is to go around. He’s produced records, he’s written records, he’s played on records, toured. So he wound up being a really great presence in the room with the maturity to be patient with me, when I was making a mistake or forcing us to play a song for the 30th time. That wound up being the right decision and, since then, Ian and I have gotten to a place where I think we could make a record together. We weren’t ready then.

MT: It sounds like maybe he has listened to your other records to get that sort of galloping thing that you’re very good at. It’s a very specific type of drumming.

TL: It is, yeah. We talked about this a lot, too. I did play with a few different drummers, but I realized I didn’t want modern drums. I didn’t want a modern drumming style or sound. When we were making the record, I was obsessed with this Impressions record and I kept thinking, “More tom fills!” I became obsessed with tom fills. In the ‘60s, people played tom fills constantly. If you listen to a Bob Dylan record, the drummer is literally just constantly playing fills and barely playing cymbals.

MT: No cymbals! That’s definitely a big thing with us, too. We don’t play any cymbals. There are some times when we take the cymbals out of the room entirely. Everybody that plays in Hiss is very no cymbals. It’s a thing. Too much cymbals can really destroy a record.

TL: And it’s hard to record them, too, and get them to sound good without them taking over the rest of the band. Something I was thinking about: Rhythm is so important in your music. It feels like it’s almost more rhythm over melody.

MT: I don’t know exactly where that came from. I always thought of my dad as someone that had really good time, and I was always just really fascinated with rhythmic music. When I was a kid, there was this moment when my friends had to pledge allegiance to either heavy metal or rap, both of which were kind of new at the time. “Are you into rap or into heavy metal?” It never occurred to my friend group to just be into both. All of my friends got into metal, and I was like, “You guys are crazy! Rap is clearly so much better! Metal is lame! There’s no rhythm to metal.” This is what I was thinking when I was like 10 or 11 and, if I’m being totally honest, I still sort of feel that way. It was something important to me, just that backbeat.

TL: Listening to your music, of course it would be rap and not heavy metal. The groove is there, for sure.

MT: It feels very clear to me. I’ve grown and changed and all kinds of stuff, but there’s still a clear connection to the early backbeats I heard when I was a kid. That’s still stuff I love, and that’s the foundation of my musical brain. If I hear a record, no matter how brilliant the writing or the melodic content is, if it doesn’t have a clear rhythmic identity, then it’s almost guaranteed that I’m not gonna connect with it. I always feel like a rhythm section has to have a purpose. They can’t just be in a band because bands have bass players and drummers. To my thinking, the rhythm section is the most important part of the band, so they have to carry something really integral.

TL: Right. Lots of music is very rhythmic without drums or bass. But it’s funny you like my music because, as a musician, I have terrible rhythm. It’s something that I’m working on and thinking about a lot, and I have so much respect for rhythm. My rhythm is very strange. What I hear as being straight is totally not straight. And, to me, if the song doesn’t speed up or slow down, it sounds wrong.

MT: That’s not really what I’m thinking about when I’m thinking about rhythm, though.

TL: You said purpose.

MT: Purpose, yes. There’s a confidence to the way a song steps that is rhythmic to me. And that’s why I would maybe push back on you thinking that you don’t have good rhythm, because I don’t know that we would be talking, if you didn’t have good rhythm, honestly. I’ve always thought that your records have incredible rhythm.

I’ll second that. I was listening to “Thirty” today, and it made me feel like I was seeing a magic trick. I kept wondering, “How did she do that?”

TL: Well, that song starts out at around 100 beats per minute and it ends up at 120. It speeds up so much. That was the take where we went in and weren’t really sure of the song yet, so we just played it too fast. But it felt like it had this great spirit of discovery. The other takes just didn’t have that.

I want to double back to something that was said a minute ago about sweetness and sadness. I think that contrast applies to both of these albums, but I wonder how that affects the song and how you live with it over a long period of time. Does that mean that there are still things to discover about a song, even after you’ve toured it for a few years?

MT: Definitely. I don’t think I’ve ever put a song on a record that I knew everything about. I’m only really interested in ongoing work on songs that I don’t fully understand. Part of that might be feeling like the lyrics are a little unfinished, but I can’t quite think of the exact thing. Over time, it’s that ambiguity that leads to new understandings. The relationship with a song has to be an interesting and an ongoing one, in order to sing it every night in a way that feels genuine. And I need an emotional richness to a song to be interested in singing it every night.

TL: Sometimes, if I look back, I can see that I’m always trying to out-run myself in writing, because there’s a part of me that’s a perfectionist and wants to write a perfect song. But if I wrote a perfect song, I know I would hate it. I need the mystery, like you’re saying. The songs that stick with me are the ones that I don’t fully understand, or they speak to something in my life that I don’t fully understand, so they have this mystery about them. Those are the ones that pull me in.

MT: I agree.

TL: And in further answer to your question, I was thinking yesterday about ambivalence — about how I don’t even know that it’s my worldview, but my song view tends to be ambivalent in that I like to present sadness, joy, or whatever is happening and put equal weight on everything about the situation. I’m trying to present everything equally. In my lyrics, I never really make value judgments. It’s the opposite of a protest song, where you’re presenting some ideas and you’re also presenting how to feel about them. There’s a part of me that is just so drawn to a different perspective: “Here is darkness and here is sweetness and here is everything in between, so you can make up your own mind about how you feel.”

MT: I hear what you’re saying. It’s complicated because, sometimes, I can understand your personal perspective in the way you sing the words. Maybe that’s something that you do intentionally, or maybe it’s something you don’t realize you’re doing. But with a song like “Thirty,” I feel like I have a read on the character who’s singing the song, if that character is not you. I feel like I actually do have a slight read on your position about being a woman and being older and everything that comes with that. That makes it more interesting to me, because there is this rub between you trying to present all the facts and the way that you sing it. “Complicit” is another one that works in the same way.

TL: Maybe what it is, too, is that, in presenting all the facets of something, I’m often trying to get at the truth of something that I might not know. I might not know the truth of how I feel about something, and it’s in writing the song that maybe I do come to understand it. Maybe by embracing the aspects of something that I don’t know or feel ashamed about or afraid to express, you come to a truth about it.

It’s like writing to find a question as opposed to writing to find an answer.

TL: Or not writing about how I wish felt. Writing trying to figure out what it is you feel under all the layers of what you wish you were and the way you wish the world was. Which, to me, is uplifting. When I hear your music, it’s uplifting to me because there is a darkness to it. I don’t feel uplifted by music without a bit of sand in it.

MT: As I’ve become an adult and realized that I’m gonna carry these songs with me, I’ve realized that the songs have to be durable enough that I don’t mind singing them. Maybe that’s the weird, backhanded benefit of always flying under the radar: I’ve never had a song that I had to sing. I’ve never disappointed a crowd by not singing a song, I don’t think. And I do sing these songs differently — I mean, you have to, because you change as a person.

TL: That was the lesson I learned when I was playing shows for All That Was Mine, because there was just no way to play the shows other than to play them alone. So I was trapped in my biggest fear, which was to be alone in front of an audience with an acoustic guitar. I’m not a very good guitar player, so I would only play that half-hour of material, those 10 songs, and I wouldn’t play any other songs. So I was just sort of trapped inside this box of this one record. I realized right away I only had myself and my songs to rely on. If I was in a bar and people were talking and it sucked, then I needed to find a way to connect to that feeling of annoyance and then connect to the songs in that reality. Then maybe I could find something very real every night. Those songs had enough complexity to them that I could do that, and I could find how that song was true for that day. And that was how I started to know that they were good songs, because they had enough breadth to hold up.

Photo credit: Rui Oliviera (The Weather Station)

A Minute In Wilkesboro with the Kruger Brothers

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Welcome to “A Minute In …” — a BGS feature that turns our favorite artists into hometown reporters. In our latest column, the Kruger Brothers take us on a tour of Wilkesboro, North Carolina, from a courthouse to a courtyard.

We make our home in Wilkesboro, the county seat of Wilkes County, North Carolina. This county is known as “the heart of American folk music.” Wilkes County lies the northern area of the Yadkin Valley, on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains. We were drawn here by the music, and then fell in love with the people and the beautiful landscape.

Blue Ridge Parkway. Photo credit: RD Hill Photography

BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY: This is a very diverse region of the Blue Ridge. Of course, we love the sounds of roots music and the many festivals in the area. When we’re not playing music, we enjoy the apple orchards and vineyards in the area. There are so many recreational opportunities, such as W. Kerr Scott Reservoir’s camping, boating, bird watching, hiking, and mountain biking trails. The Yadkin River runs between the towns of Wilkesboro and North Wilkesboro, offering miles of rippling water for kayaking and canoeing. This area is also popular for trout fishing.

Carolina in the Fall. Photo credit: Wilkes Chamber of Commerce

CAROLINA IN THE FALL MUSIC AND FOOD FESTIVAL: We are proud to host this annual event which features some of the world’s best folk, bluegrass, and roots artists. As Uwe sings in his song, “… in the hills of Carolina, folks have opened up the door and, for the first time in my life, I’m not a stranger anymore.” There are no strangers here as we get together for two days of food, music, and more. Food trucks from around the region bring their unique offerings and compete for the Food Truck Championship trophy. Regional vineyards and craft breweries provide a taste of the area’s best beverages. Also included are the North Carolina Banjo Championship (a favorite for Jens, of course), the Chad Lovetts Memorial Trail Run and Ride which supports the American Cancer Society, and a silent auction supporting an afterschool music program. The festival also includes Contra and clogging dance classes, artist workshops, and nightly jam sessions at the Yadkin Valley Event Center.

Doc Watson Mural. Photo credit: Kruger Brothers

DOC WATSON MURAL: When Doc Watson passed unexpectedly in 2012, the world lost an amazing and inspiring talent, our community lost a hero, and we lost a treasured personal friend. We were pleased when students in the Wilkes Art Gallery’s annual Summer Honors Art Program participated in the creation of this mural depicting Doc along with Stone Mountain, the Yadkin River, and W. Kerr Scott Lake. Doc would’ve loved this program which pairs professional artists with talented, local high school students to create works of public art. The brightly colored mural was designed by local artist Wes Gregory and covers the entire east façade of Royall Custom Framing, a building located at the corner of Main and Bridge Streets.

Early morning MerleFest main stage. Photo credit: Kruger Brothers

MERLEFEST: And speaking of Doc … ! Our friend continues to be honored annually on the last weekend of April at the festival created to remember Doc’s son, Merle. The four-day MerleFest, on the campus of Wilkes Community College, features music from all over the world, and we are always honored to play this special festival. It was, after all, playing MerleFest that first introduced us to this town that we now so proudly call home. The history of performers since 1988 reads like a “who’s who” of the entire world of music. Uwe took the early morning photo on the first day of MerleFest this year, hours before the gates opened. There was an air of anticipation in the misty morning light, with rows of chairs so neatly placed in expectation of the crowds to come. It is one of the premier music festivals in the country, yet MerleFest still retains that special feeling of a family reunion for fans and for those of us who perform.

Wilkes Heritage Museum. Photo credit: Kruger Brothers

WILKES HERITAGE MUSEUM: The Old Wilkes County Courthouse, built in 1902, has been restored and houses the Heritage Museum for Wilkes County History. It is a beautiful example of classical revival structures. Inside is a rare collection of artifacts and images that tell stories of early settlers, military history, industry, agriculture, and so much more about the history of our town and county. Behind this building is the old Wilkes County Jail, now a museum, as well. It is one of the few remaining mid-19th century jails. One of its inmates was Tom Dula or Dooley, famous for the 1866 murder of Laura Foster, and made more famous by the old North Carolina folk song “Tom Dooley.”

Open air market. Photo credit: Kruger Brothers

OPEN AIR MARKET: Downtown Wilkesboro is enjoying a revitalization project that includes a new performance stage in the Open Air Market. The Wilkesboro Open Air Market is held on Fridays, from May through September, providing local and regional farmers and artisans the opportunity to sell fresh farm products and handcrafted items. There is also live music throughout the market season. The stage will be used for many of the festivals and events in town, and we’re looking forward to playing here.

Raffaldini Vineyards. Photo credit: Wilkes Chamber of Commerce

RAFFALDINI VINEYARDS: This is a favorite escape just outside of Wilkesboro in Rondo, North Carolina. Raffaldini Vineyards & Winery is a surprising winery that will make you feel as if you’ve stepped out of the Yadkin Valley and right into Tuscany. They have delicious wines made from authentic Italian varietals. The 102-acre estate is surrounded by the serenity of the Yadkin Valley and the Blue Ridge Mountains. The patio is a perfect place to enjoy lunch, a glass of wine, and the picturesque countryside. It is also an ideal place to relax and reconnect with our lovely wives when we are not on the road.

LISTEN: David Childers, ‘Collar and Bell’

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Artist: David Childers
Hometown: Mount Holly, NC
Song: “Collar and Bell”
Album: Run Skelton Run
Street Date: May 5, 2017

In Their Words: “Shannon Mayes, a school teacher from Gallipolis, Ohio, sent me some lyrics he had written a while back — those lyrics pretty much told the story in this song. I had trouble finding a way to convey what I wanted the listener to feel from the story, but after a couple of years of trying different approaches and re-writing a lot of the words, I found an enjoyable way to play and sing it. It’s about a man and a dog going hunting in a deep snow. Shannon is a hunter and he brought elements and details into the story that I would not have known to use.” — David Childers

Counsel of Elders: Lee Fields on Walking the Positive Line

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Singer and incontrovertible soul man Lee Fields can’t help but emanate positivity. It’s not the annoying kind, the sickeningly sweet — almost naïve — approach to life that willfully ignores the world’s more deleterious moments in order to pretend everything’s hunky dory. Fields’ positivity exhibits a greater degree of realism. It’s a choice to recognize the bad while finding ways to work against it. To lead, in other words, with love.

Music helps do much of that leading. Since putting out his first album in 1969, the North Carolinian has dedicated himself to writing and recording songs tasked with spreading a little light. Arriving last November, his latest album, Special Night, co-written and recorded with his band the Expressions, offers an array of feel good songs at a time when that very purpose has become as necessary as ever. But Fields doesn’t pen escapist fare. “I’m trying to say what people do,” he says. “I’m trying to write what people actually do.” On the titular track, Fields found inspiration in his 47-year marriage and, specifically, how he and his wife make time to appreciate one another, thereby making every night a special night. It could edge toward mawkish territory, but Fields isn’t being blasé about his relationship. It takes work and mindfulness and gratitude. With that underlying sentiment informing the lyrics, “Special Night” takes on an edifying note.

I’ve heard you talk about your intention to spread positivity with music, which seems like something we need now more than ever. But how do you stay positive?

Through prayer. I truly believe that my spiritual self is more important than my physical self because I think the spirit continues on and everything else is temporary. My spiritual beliefs keep me intact, keep me going.

It’s so easy to get bogged down in the daily grind and forget there could be something more beyond this existence.

And thinking that way keeps me grounded because, as they say in the Bible, “What good is a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” The spirit is the most important thing a person has.

On “Make the World,” you say people can improve the world by working together, but the country seems more divided than ever. What’s your take on how people can overcome that division?

If we love the spirit of God with all our heart and soul and mind, and if we love our neighbor as ourselves — in other words, do to people exactly how we would want to be treated — those two things right there. If we did that, we’d be promoting the product of love. When you have concerns about others, you’re not selfish. “Make the World” came to me in a dream. Actually, it was a nightmare dream. I dreamed I took a trip in the future. In the nightmare part, I saw so much pollution: The water, the air, the fish were dying and there was anarchy. The air was so polluted, it was like a fog. I woke up out of that nightmare gasping and then, when I realized it was a dream, I went back to sleep. In that dream, I was going down the same road that I went over before in the nightmare, but this time, it was green and pretty, the water was clear and pristine, people were getting along, helping each other, and everything was just absolutely beautiful. Matter of fact, I could’ve stayed there.

I don’t blame you. I would’ve wanted to, as well.

Yeah. [Laughs] When I did awake, it came to me that those two roads were what we could take. We could take the bad road with the pollution and the anarchy, or we could take the good road. We could do things to prevent that bad situation. With love, that can be achieved. If we love and care about mankind, we’ll find a way out to solve the problems.

But caring about mankind means first recognizing everyone as equal, and that has been a hard point to make across history. How do you encourage humanity and kindness when some people look down on those who are different?

Well, people who don’t see things the way I just described. They’re very materialistic. A person has to be materialistic to a certain point in reality, but being totally materialistic brings out the beast in us. You see a dog with a bone and another dog comes along and starts growling. It makes people hostile. We need to have faith in a higher power and we should encourage the young ones to be more humane. See, what it is, as long as we worry about ourselves — being selfish — that breeds hate. Everything that you feel gets taken away from you. You hate it. Love is the panacea, and we are born in a time where we can actually make the world better. We can do that.

There was a sign recently outside a Quebec church that read, “If you have more than you need, build a longer table not a bigger wall,” which speaks to your point. It strikes me that you’re doing more than spreading positivity through your music — you’re almost being prophetic.

Yes, it’s a bit. But that dream, I felt, came to me for a reason, so I put it in music and hopefully somebody hears it and can be a catalyst to make the world better. So I pray that that will be the consequence of the song, more so than even profits for me. I pray it will put people in more of a loving state of mind. I’m hoping, through music, that I can give some sort of relief. That’s the reason I write the songs I write, like “Special Night.” My wife and I have been together for 47 years…

Congratulations!

Oh, thank you. That song was based upon the way I see things between my wife and myself. Every night can be special. Everybody is changing as time unfolds; we’re changing physically and we’re changing mentally, and that’s because of what we learn. You’re not the same person you were five years ago because you know more than you knew five years ago. And you’re not the same person that you were five years ago because you’ve changed physically. But every night can be a special night of appreciating these changes of your better half. Every night is special because, although you’re with the same person, you’re with a better model of the person you first met because the person is growing.

That’s how you grow together instead of apart? Appreciation?

Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about exactly. So that song came about trying to give that message. We have another song, “Coming Home,” and, you know, everybody works hard and some people have extremely demanding days and, matter of fact, I’m quite sure everybody has said at one time or another: “Oh man, the boss nearly worked me to death today.” So you get home to your soul mate and now you’re away from that place and you’re so glad to be home in the company of that person.

Okay, on that note, you say at the end of ‘Special Night” that, essentially, listeners should go find someone special if they’re lonely. But it seems harder than ever to make a special connection, especially with dating apps providing people with endless options. What’s your take on successfully enacting what you say at the end of the song? I guess I’m asking for dating advice.

[Laughs] I think, nowadays, when you meet someone of interest, I think you have to allow things to be natural. A lot of people today are so … it’s probably more difficult today because you have more people into the “me, me, me” thing. Show really genuine concern about that person that you may have interest in, but if that person is all about the “me me me” thing, then you got to count your losses.

Walk away, in other words.

“Let me move on.”

That is smart.

But I do believe that love is out there today, true genuine love, and I think a person should always keep that in mind. Stay positive.

I like that. Well, lastly, is there anything that still surprises you about your drive and ambition?

Well, my drive is still what it is because I enjoy when people tell me, “Oh, I really love this song” or “My wife and I met over your music.” Those stories like that. That is the icing on the cake; that makes me feel so wonderful to hear. In Spain, we had three people on one tour propose onstage.

Oh my goodness! You’re like a love ambassador.

Well, I don’t know, that kind of puts things up there, but it makes me feel good that my music is a positive thing.

I think it all comes back to appreciation. You’re spreading appreciation through your music and it comes back to you.

Oh, I never thought about it that way, but that was beautifully said.

Well, let’s end on that note then.

Photo credit: Sesse Lind

Hillbilly Soul: An Interview with Darren Nicholson of Balsam Range

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For some reason, North Carolina has long been the cradle of the Americana vanguard. In 1945, Earl Scruggs’ banjo sound created a rip-roaring hot rod of a genre called “bluegrass” (with Bill Monroe’s help, of course). In the ’60s, Doc Watson popularized a new guitar style while giving the folk revival a welcome dose of Southern authenticity. The “newgrass” boom of the 1970s owed a lot to a North Carolinian named Tony Rice, who became his era’s most important acoustic guitarist and, in turn, influenced a younger generation of fans, including Béla Fleck and Alison Krauss. Now fast forward to the 2010s and consider a Carolina string band called Balsam Range from a small mountain community in Haywood County, North Carolina.

If you approach Balsam Range with a discerning ear for key bluegrass ingredients, you won’t be disappointed. Great vocal harmony? Check. Killer instrumentalists? Check. Southern themes of home and hearth, with an accent to match? Check and check. But they also have something — a very important something — that an academic understanding of the genre tends to miss: They’re groovy. Balsam Range reminds us that bluegrass can be dancing music, hip-swinging music, backbeat music, as rhythmically hypnotic as all the plugged-in genres that formed in its wake. “It’s hillbilly soul!” says mandolin player Darren Nicholson. “It’s hillbilly funk and it’s hillbilly rock ‘n’ roll.” Not what you’d expect from the hills and hollers of Haywood County.

But Haywood County is just a stone’s throw from Asheville, after all, and maybe it’s not as culturally distant from that bohemian mecca as you’d think. Like so many hipster bourbon joints, whether in Asheville or Brooklyn, Balsam Range is playing with intriguing questions: How does Southern heritage fit into the present day? What can we learn from Appalachian traditions, and how can we carry them forward? Unlike these predictable bacon- and mason jar-themed bars, however, their approach to these questions shows some real originality, not to mention a deep knowledge of Southern music and a reverence for the richness of Appalachian culture as a whole — something they call Mountain Voodoo.

So y’all just put out Mountain Voodoo. I’ve been listening in the car. It’s a great record.

Yeah, it’s hot off the press. We’re really proud of it. I really feel like it’s the best thing we’ve ever done.

It’s clear right off the bat that you have your own style, your own sound. But I thought it was interesting that the description of Mountain Voodoo on your website mentions specific songs as if they’re different genres. It says there’s a “Tony Rice-style vocal song,” a gospel song, a honky-tonk tune, and others. How do you stay conscious of all those different styles and genres, but also just make something that sounds like Balsam Range?

Well, when you’re fan, when you truly love music, it’s like ice cream: You don’t like just one flavor of ice cream. So we can do a honky-tonk country song, we can do straight-ahead bluegrass, we can do a gospel tune, but the reality is that it’s always the five of us. You’ve got to get comfortable enough in your own skin to realize that, no matter what song you approach, it’s still us five.

I think that’s true. The whole thing sounds like one cohesive band.

Well, I hope so. We like traditional bluegrass and progressive bluegrass. We love the Americana stuff. We love playing to different crowds. We love playing to not just hippie crowds, but to any young crowd that has an open mind to music. And we try to express ourselves through different styles of music, but the reality is it’s going to sound like us. You could get George Jones to sing a Merle Haggard song, and it’ll be a Merle song, but he still sounds like George Jones! So, once you get comfortable doing your own thing — that’s the awesome part — it’s always going to sound like us.

So that’s what Balsam Range is doing, right? Focusing on having your own thing, not trying to be pigeonholed?

You’ll hear elements of all of our influences, of course. You’ll hear elements of Tony Rice or traditional stuff, but it’s about making the best music you can and being yourself. Bluegrass is like a curriculum. When you grow up playing bluegrass, it’s like learning your ABCs. You learn all that stuff, so it’s a part of you and it comes out sometimes, but that’s not what dictates who you are. You can show your roots, but you also have to do something that’s uniquely your own. Learning how … that’s a maturity thing. Once you realize how to blend that together, it can be a lot of fun.

That must be one of the hardest things to do in any style of music. You can learn the licks, you can learn other people’s songs, but how do you learn to sound like yourself?

I think that’s a problem with a lot of young musicians. Same as the problem with mainstream radio. They go with whatever is trending. You know, Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley or the Beatles didn’t just go along with whatever was trending. They stayed true to what they did. George Jones, Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs … they did their own thing. If you believe in it, then you keep hammering it out. It may take 20 years, it may take 50 years, but you have to stick with your thing.

It seems like some people treat bluegrass as a collection of licks that are supposed to be memorized and played in a certain way.

Well, the early generation really got it. Some of the newer bluegrass guys don’t — they’re trying to copy Tony Rice or J.D. Crowe. The first generation — Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, Jim and Jesse, the Osborne Brothers, the Stanley Brothers — they all wanted to sound different. Then, if you’re doing your own thing, you’re not in competition with anybody else, even within your own genre. That’s what we’re trying to do in the modern day. We find songs that we like, a sound that is identifiable as us. And people like that.

People who really know bluegrass are aware of the history, about Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, and the Stanley Brothers, like you’re saying. But when you’re playing mandolin, are you thinking, “This is a bit of what Bill would do?” Are you conscious of drawing from the history while you’re doing it?

There are elements of that, but, you know, I try to play what fits the song. If it’s a traditional-sounding song, I may put a Monroe twist on it. If it’s a modern, edgy kind of song, I may let the rock ‘n’ roll side of me come out. If you try to back up the singer and play to the song, you can never go wrong. If you get stuck in “I only play this style” or “I only play traditional bluegrass” or “I only play progressive bluegrass,” then you’re really limiting yourself. You’ve got to have an open mind.

So there shouldn’t be any problem combining Bill Monroe with rock ‘n’ roll energy?

He’s in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! People forget this. He was an innovator. He was playing rock ‘n’ roll 20 years before Elvis. He influenced Chuck Berry. So he was part of the mountain music thing, the old timey fiddle music, but there was also a Black blues guitar player he grew up listening to named Arnold Shultz. That’s what makes bluegrass great. That’s what makes it uniquely American. Nothing was off limits to him.

People who are die-hard traditional Bill Monroe fans, they want to manipulate him into representing what their beliefs are. The reality is that he was open-minded. He’s the only guy in the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Bluegrass Hall of Fame. That was the cool thing about the old generation: Whether it was Frank Sinatra or the Beatles or Bill Monroe, they all realized they had to do their own thing. Now, when there’s a hit, they try to make 10 others that sound just like that hit. They conform to whatever is trending. Those guys didn’t give a damn about trending. They wanted to be unique.

You mentioned all the influences that combined to form bluegrass music in the early days. Taken all together, how would you sum up what bluegrass is? What is it that you love about it?

It’s soul music. It’s hillbilly soul music! It’s hillbilly funk and it’s hillbilly rock ‘n’ roll. The things that I love about a great funk band or a great rock band or a great country singer are the energy and the heart, when somebody really makes you feel something. When a great bluegrass band hits the stage and melts your face off and makes you say “WOW,” it isn’t just a bunch of guys busking with a washboard — it’s the real damn deal. It high-octane music with some real substance behind it. And when there’s substance there, that overtakes everything else. Great bluegrass gets down to the raw power of music.

I’ve heard other musicians say that, when they watch a killer funk band, they’re watching the bassist. Or when they see a tight rock band, even when there’s a great vocalist, they’re watching the drummer. When you’re listening to a great bluegrass band, what are you listening for?

It depends on the band. There are some bands I like because they’re not polished. It’s that raw thing that I love. There’s other bands I appreciate because it’s so clean, so polished. Our band tries to bridge the gap. The way I see it, whatever the band, if someone is truly good, you feel something when you hear the music.

My son is a huge Beatles fan. I mean obsessed. And that’s awesome. I love the Beatles. So, this Summer, we went on vacation and stopped off in Cleveland and took him to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Bill Monroe is in there and Hank Williams is in there, as well as a lot of Black blues musicians. You can see the roots of where it all comes from. Monroe is in there all over the place. If you listen to his early stuff — there’s a song called “Bluegrass Stomp” — you can hear it, man! It’s like Chuck Berry 20 years before Chuck Berry. It’s clearly rock ‘n’ roll. So I was thinking, you know, you can’t move forward unless you can look backward at the early guys.

You think something’s different now? You think we’ve lost some of that early spirit or energy or whatever it was?

Yeah, it’s seems too commercial now, too focused on repetition. If Miley Cyrus has a hit, they want the next 10 singers to have a hit that sounds just like her hit. They don’t realize that competition is what makes it great.

I love that we’re covering ground from Bill Monroe to the Beatles to Miley Cyrus.

There you go! You know, American music from the ’30s to the ’70s, I just don’t think we’re ever going to see a period of creativity like that again. The machine of selling stuff has now gotten away from that.

 

How old were you when you got into bluegrass?

I’ve got pictures of me on stage at 18 months old. I’ve been around it all my life. My dad played old-timey music, country music. The people who grew up in Western North Carolina, Eastern Kentucky, Tennessee, we’re very fortunate to be a part of that Appalachian music tradition. Mountain Voodoo — that’s not just the title of our record; it’s what happens when you’re exposed to it. There’s a magic in this music that gets passed down from generation to generation. That’s what we hope to carry on. I can’t remember not being into music and I can’t imagine doing anything else.

I started learning guitar, including a lot of old folk tunes, Doc Watson tunes, when I was about 10. I have other friends who discovered bluegrass when they were 25. And then there’s your story — on stage at 18 months. Is there something different between growing up on it and learning about it later? What do you think it gives you when you’re really reared on it from a baby’s age?

Well, we all end up getting to the same watering hole. But how you appreciate it or respect it, that’s a different thing. It becomes a part of your blood. It’s not just something you do when you get off work on Friday — “Oh, I think I’ll go see a show at the Orange Peel.” Those folks enjoy it, but we wake up every day thinking about it, getting the instrument out of the case, and working at getting better, rather than something you do for fun on the weekends. It’s in the fiber of our being, a part of us. For some folks, it’s an outlet, and they enjoy it on that level, but it’s a question of what level you take it to. It’s like throwing a baseball in the yard versus working hard enough to be Greg Maddux. We all love and appreciate it. The question is, “Is music a part of your life or is it your life?”

Do you have a particular memory of being moved by music as a child and realizing you wanted to pursue it?

I remember getting a Louvin Brothers record — Charlie and Ira Louvin, early country music — and I would sit in my room when I was 10 years old and listen to these records. They were singing about dying, about working in the cotton fields, losing loved ones — nothing that I’d experienced — but I would just sit there and cry. I was just emotionally overtaken. They were singing so good, they were playing so good, and they were being genuine about what they were singing. That’s why I can’t get fired up about what’s trending in L.A. or Nashville. It feels forced.

Y’all are from the mountains of North Carolina, and it seems like that’s a big part of who you are. I’d love for this interview to help explain to people who don’t know tons about bluegrass how to place Balsam Range within the genre. Does being from North Carolina, or from the mountains, affect the way you play bluegrass, the way you relate to the music?

Sure, what we play is Carolina music. Also it’s mountain music. Bill Monroe, of course, was from Kentucky, but it didn’t sound like bluegrass until Earl Scruggs came into the picture. He was from Shelby, North Carolina. And there is a magic that happens here in the mountains. That’s the voodoo. It grows here, you know? So when we make music, we’re paying homage to the people who came before us. There’s a sense of nostalgia, sure. But, from our perspective, we’re just keeping in mind all those who influenced us and just trying to keep the bar high.