In the latest episode of Finding Lucinda, Ismay drives to Nashville to share the incredible never-before-heard tape they found during their road trip journey with friend Buddy Miller. Miller is known to have contributed essential parts to Lucinda’s breakthrough, Car Wheels On A Gravel Road. Ismay reviews the commonly told story about the making of this record, how fraught it was, and realizes that there actually is important history to uncover – history that reveals a more interesting and unexpected truth about why this record was so challenging to make. Ismay discusses Lucinda’s history in L.A., where she met a critical collaborator Gurf Morlix and subsequently made her albums Sweet Old World and Lucinda Williams.
Produced in partnership with BGS and distributed through the BGS Podcast Network, Finding Lucinda expands on the themes of Ismay’s eponymous documentary film, exploring artistic influence, creative resilience, and the impact of Williams’ music. New episodes are released twice a month. Listen right here on BGS or wherever you get podcasts.
Finding Lucinda, the documentary film that inspired and instigated the podcast, is slated for release in the fall. Both the film and podcast showcase never-before-heard archival material, intimate conversations, and a visual journey through the literal and figurative landscapes that molded Lucinda’s songwriting.
Credits: Produced and mixed by Avery Hellman for Neanderthal Records, LLC. Music by Ismay. Artwork by Avery Hellman. Nashville Recording: Recorded at Hummingbird Hill Studio. Sound Recordist: Rodrigo Nino Producer: Liz McBee Director: Joel Fendelman Co-Director & Cinematographer: Rose Bush Special thanks to: Mick Hellman, Chuck Prophet, Jonathan McHugh, Sydney Lane, Don Fierro, Jacqueline Sabec, Rosemary Carroll, Lucinda Williams, and Tom Overby.
Find more information on Finding Lucinda here. Find our full Finding Lucinda episode archive here.
For Texas country star Cody Jinks, his latest album – the fiery and rough-around-the-edges, yet poignant and sorrowful In My Blood – is a liberation of sorts. Not of sound or scope, but of self.
It comes from the eternal quest to find balance within the body, mind, heart, and soul of a singer-songwriter, one trying to understand just what it means to be human in the modern, chaotic world – which is why “Better Than the Bottle” was purposely placed as the opening track on the record.
“Been layin’ things down one habit at a time/ Never thought we’d get old…” Jinks rumbles through the melancholic number. “Now we’re damn sure tryin’/ And makin’ the most of the time that we have left.”
With his sobriety in recent years, Jinks has been taking a hard look at what he sees in the mirror. It’s not about having regrets or cringing at one’s past. Instead, it’s taking personal accountability and professional inventory of the wisdom gained from your existence in real time, all while the calendar on the wall seemingly changes faster and faster each year.
Now 44, Jinks is more focused on what’s just around the corner than continually looking back over his shoulder at the ups and downs along his life’s journey. It’s about a clear head, a keen focus on what matters most – family, friends, fellowship, the freedom to create and perform.
It sounds like you’re in a really good place right now.
Cody Jinks: Yeah. Well, whenever you’re a late bloomer like me, it takes you [til] later in life to figure things out. It’s a practice. I mean, obviously the last couple years I’ve been trying to work on myself, work on my family. And I think it’s helped a lot creatively, as well. None of it’s been easy. It’s not like anything’s ever peaches and cream or roses or whatever. The music business is tough, and if it was easy, everybody would do it. I spent much of my marriage while I was on the road. Having been off the road the last four or five years, [not touring] as much as I used to be, I’ve learned that being a great husband and father is even harder than being in the music business.
And it all ties into everything though, because that creative side is also a big balancing act, where you need that outlet in your life.
Well, not only the creative outlet, it’s that I used to think that I was writing songs that are being vulnerable and they actually came across as being angry. There was an edge to [the older songs], where this new record really sounds like a guy that’s 45 years old that got tired of the fighting system. You get tired of just fighting everything. And I’ve obviously been fighting the music business my entire career. It’s kind of what I built my thing on.
And, at the same time, you know, I had started bringing the guy in the music business home – that’s who my wife and kids had to live with, as well. So, we’ve been correcting some stuff like that. I’ve been getting some really vulnerable songs out of it. You never stop coming of age. No matter how old you get – when you’re in your teenage years, when you get in your forties – life is a continual movement, man. And if you are not moving forward, you’re going backwards. So, vulnerability is a strength to an extent.
How does that play into the album? I would surmise that the opening track [“Better Than the Bottle”] was purposely placed there.
I was actually going to speak to that track specifically, because that was the second to last song written on for this record. I wrote it with a friend, Tom McElvain. We both quit smoking cigarettes. We quit doing recreational drugs. We’ve written together a lot over the years. I’ve got several songs with his name on it, but [“Better Than the Bottle”] was a real conversation.
He came over one morning, and in 20-plus years of friendship, it was the first time we had ever been around each other stone cold sober. We were talking about how we used to live versus how we’re trying to do things now and who we’re trying to be now for ourselves and for the people that we love, the friends that we lost along the way that didn’t pull out of it. We’re old enough to have friends that have died from it now. That song made its way to the first slot because it was everywhere – that song’s true. Tom was over here that morning in January and you talk about two grown men in their 40s and 50s just laying all out, teary eyes. Dude, we fucked a bunch of shit up in our lives and there’s a lot. At this point, we’re trying to atone for a lot of things.
That’s one of the beauties about getting older – perspective. There’s this kind of weird intrinsic value to hitting this age, where you still have mobility and your wits about you, but you also got some road miles on the tread.
[Laughs]. Yeah. At 40, I tell people the “check engine” light comes on. It’s not usually that serious, but you gotta change some things. It might be time to trade in the Lamborghini and get an F-150, slow down a little bit.
You have a family, as well, with these personal responsibilities and people that want you around for a long time.
That was really the big player. I quit smoking for my kids. I’d still probably be smoking cigarettes if it weren’t for my kids. I quit drinking for myself and for everybody around me. But, the cigarettes, I finally got that licked about five, six years ago. That was the one my doctor said, “Your kids are gonna thank you.”
This year also marks the 10th anniversary of your breakout album [Adobe Sessions]. I don’t know if you’ve been thinking a lot about the last 10 years, who that person was when you broke into the national scene and then who you are right now.
[I’m] a lot more patient [these days]. It’s been 10 years, [and back then] we’d been [playing for] 10 years by the time that breakout record came out. [I] still have hunger in this business, I just put in a smarter, more calculated manner these days.
I also found it interesting that you’ve mentioned Ray Bradbury as an inspiration for In My Blood. Can you speak to why that is and what he represents for you?
Yeah, absolutely. The focal point of the record, it’s a travel life, right? That’s where the record takes you, on this up and down journey of life. And, in that life, in everyone’s life, every fork you come to in the road, you take one way or the other, which leads you to another fork in the road. By the time you’re done, you’ve taken a bunch of forks, you’ve taken a bunch of different roads, and hopefully you took more good forks than you did take the bad [ones].
We planted a Ray Bradbury inspired song (“Something Wicked This Way Comes”) right smack dab in the middle of this damn record, because it was the perfect frickin’ spot for it. It’s the only song that was snuck in the record that wasn’t really based on my life. If you’ve read the [Bradbury] book Something Wicked This Way Comes, it’s part of a series called the Green Town Trilogy. They’re all really good [books], but that one stands out. It’s my favorite. It’s a brilliant book. It’s good and evil.
We all have the same wants, needs, desires. What’s good for us? What’s not good for us? Is it good for me if I try to do this to obtain this or achieve this or to be this or to look like this? And those are the decisions that we make every single day. I had just read the book and I came up with this really badass little blues riff. It feels like a carnival ride.
That also plays into one of the things about getting older, which is that you choose to keep moving forward. When you’re younger, you might feel the pressure. And as you get older you realize that there’s a lot of things that you don’t need to worry about.
Yes. My parents had told me, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” And then, when you’re at the age we’re at, the big stuff you thought when you were 20, 25 years old, you’re [now] like, “Well, that’s small stuff.” And then, by the time you get to our parents’ age, they’re looking at stuff we’re worried about in our 40s and they’re thinking, “Oh, that’s small stuff.” We’re gonna get to the point, hopefully, where we’re looking at [things] going, “Ah, man, why was I worried about that?”
Case in point, the other night we had a very mild water leak in the upstairs [of our house]. My daughter came downstairs at two o’clock in the morning and there was dripping on a custom turntable in our living room. This was nobody’s fault. And I got upset about it. We stopped the leak. We dried the water up. I woke up the next morning and there’s flooding in Central Texas and there’s like a hundred families who have lost their children. Let’s not sweat the small stuff, man. Some people got real problems.
There’s probably a lot of weight that’s come off your shoulders in the last couple years, whether it’s personal or professional. Obviously life’s a continued journey. Whether you want to participate in it or not, that’s up to everybody on their own. But, it feels like you’re kind of leaning into life in a really good way right now.
Yeah, I’m living it more, as opposed to getting up and butting heads with [life] every day.
How do you square that with the outlaw image that the media puts on you? Because there’s stereotypes that get equated into that. At your core, you’re a singer-songwriter, you’re a country musician.
You know, my whole career, they’ve been calling me [an “outlaw”]. Look, I know they need an “outlaw,” whatever. I’ve never called myself an outlaw. That was something the media called me, and I just agreed. I’ve kind of gone with it. It’s okay. It’s easy to call me that. I’m not an outlaw, dude. I’m a punk.
And underneath all of that is still your punk rock and metal blood.
Yeah. It’s too big a piece of me. It’s just who I am. It’s the way I run my organization. It’s a family. It’s us against the world. We don’t belong with anybody, so we belong to everybody.
Olive Klug and I recorded this interview in my closet while they were in Portland, Maine, to play a show. Along with their band Cori, Haley, and Payton they stayed with us and it was a real pleasure to be around them for a few days. You can tell that Olive is at their best around their band and it is a true collaboration on stage. Shoutout to the whole crew for leaving such a remarkable impression on me and my wife and for assembling some baby furniture while they were staying at our house.
In our conversation for Basic Folk, Olive takes us on a journey through their musical upbringing, exploring their childhood influences, including their father’s eclectic taste in ’60s and ’70s rock and folk. Olive discusses their love for Joni Mitchell and Taylor Swift, which inspired them to learn guitar and develop their own musical tastes. They provide insights into their early internet presence on platforms like YouTube and Tumblr, and how these shaped their creative expression and online identity.
Olive also touches on their experience of transitioning to a music career, going viral on TikTok, and the emotional and practical challenges that come with it. Additionally, they delve into how their psychology background and neurodiversity inform their songwriting, live performances, and day-to-day life. Our conversation wraps up with thoughts on the productive chaos of touring, the importance of community in the folk world, and their aspirations for long-term, sustainable growth in the music industry. Everyone belongs at the Olive Klug show. They leave their glow wherever their travels take them.
@oliveklugThe gay cowboys keep leaving nashvillea title=”♬ original sound – Olive Klug” href=”https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-7519310944065817375?refer=embed” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>♬ original sound – Olive Klug
Raised by a creative writing teacher and a music-playing biology professor who occasionally picked with Joan Baez, Oliver and Chris Wood were both destined for careers making music. Following time apart in the ‘90s – Oliver in Atlanta playing with King Johnson and Chris in New England staying busy with Medeski Martin & Wood – the Wood Brothers came together in the early 2000s during a co-bill between their bands in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
And they haven’t looked back.
In 2004 the Wood Brothers – their trio rounded out by multi-instrumentalist Jano Rix – officially arrived. Two years later came their debut record, Ways Not To Lose, and with it signature hits like “Luckiest Man” that over two decades later continue to stand the test of time, even as the trio’s sound shapeshifts. That sonic evolution is front and center throughout the band’s latest effort, Puff of Smoke, which features everything from boisterous horns to slippery synths and a bevy of world influences stretching across multiple continents.
Wrapped up in the 11 songs’ American-rooted and globally influenced aesthetic is a feeling of mindfulness that ranges from serious (“The Trick”) to comedic (“Pray God Listens”) and borderline cynical (“Money Song”). A prime example also lies within “Slow Rise (To The Middle),” an autobiographical ballad about the band’s methodical rise to making and maintaining a stable living from their music – as opposed to an overnight rise to stardom that oftentimes fizzles out in the most dramatic fashion.
“The lyrics are pretty abstract, but they’re pretty specifically about all the people who had the meteoric rise and died because of a plane or motorcycle crash or even an assassination – as was the case with John Lennon,” explains Oliver. “We were thinking of very specific people in rock ‘n’ roll who burned out and died young when they were at the top of their game. With that in mind, it’s almost a song of real gratitude that that didn’t happen to us.”
Ahead of the release of Puff of Smoke Chris and Oliver caught up with BGS to discuss the band’s roots, trajectory, experimental nature, mindfulness, and more.
(Writer’s Note: The following includes two separate conversations combined into one and edited for clarity and brevity.)
What was it that brought [Oliver and Chris] back together after over a decade apart to first form the Wood Brothers?
Oliver Wood: Having lived apart so long and played in different musical circles we were somewhat disconnected – both musically and and just as brothers – but we did stay in touch. In Medeski Martin & Wood’s early days they used to come to Atlanta and sleep on my floor before they blew up. I was always interested in the music [Chris] was making and he was interested in music I was making, but we just weren’t close.
At one point, it just happened that we played a show together where my band, King Johnson, opened for them – I believe it was at a place called Ziggy’s in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. We ended up having the best time and then they asked me to sit in with them on guitar on a few songs. [Medeski Martin & Wood] didn’t have a guitar player and I wound up fitting right in with what was going on [that] night. During it we stood next to each other and felt like we could just read each other’s minds, like we had this uncanny psychic (and obviously genetic) connection, musically.
In spite of the differences in the music that we were playing there was a lot of overlap. Both bands were really into traditional American music like blues and funk and jazz. It was like a musical conversation that went really well, so from then on Chris and I made efforts to play and write music together when we visited our family or had gatherings purely out of joy.
We had this thing in common, were all grown up, and had shed some of that brotherly baggage that family bands who’ve been playing together since they were kids sometimes have a harder time shaking, because they don’t never get a chance to form their own identities and feel like they’re their own person. It made it especially exciting to join forces and see what kind of recipe we could come up with everything we’ve learned over the years.
Chris Wood: One thing that’s not obvious looking from the outside in is how much overlap there was with [Medeski Martin & Wood] and what [Oliver] was doing with King Johnson. MMW formed in New York City in the early ‘90s in a very particular music scene where we were always trying new things and mashing together genres and finding new ways to play instruments. We operated with a fringe set of influences that included field recordings from West Africa and all kinds of other weird things that were out there compared to contemporary classical music, but when King Johnson opened for us in the early 2000s and Oliver sat in with us there was an immediate connection. In a way, it almost felt like I was watching myself playing because I could relate so well to his musical choices and approach to playing. He was a natural fit, leading to a moment that sparked the thought about doing something together that has lasted for over 20 years now.
It sounds like the time you guys spent apart has been critical to the bond you have, both as brothers and as bandmates, now over 20 years into the band’s life.
OW: Exactly! And I would say it also contributed to the unique sound that we were able to create because we were bringing some pretty different things to the table. I was really into blues and roots music and Chris went more of the jazz route, but he always said, “Well, what if you mixed Charles Mingus with Robert Johnson or Willie Nelson?” So the idea was to fuse together some things that you haven’t heard yet.
I feel like Puff of Smoke, with its barrage of horns and synth-heavy moments, is a prime example of that fusing together you speak of. What led you to incorporating more of those sounds on this album?
OW: Well, I think that’s always our goal, trying things we haven’t done yet. And a lot of times the metaphor for me is that we’re just trying different recipes. I’m still going to play guitar, Chris is still going to play bass, Jano is still going to play drums and keyboards. There’s going to be singing, there’s going to be familiar sounds, but we think of all these ingredients. There’s Calypso and African music and Chicago blues and gospel and a bunch of other things. These ingredients aren’t uncommon, so what makes artists unique is what they come up with from those sounds.
Oftentimes when we go in to make a record, it’s not conscious like, “Oh, we’re gonna make this kind of record.” We just know that we’re not going to do what we did last time or what somebody else is already doing, if we can help it. We’re trying to find something new that excites us and what that looks like is sometimes having a song written and ready to play, but going into the studio and saying, “I’m going to use this weird guitar that kind of sucks and see what it does.”
There’s an infinite number of combinations and ideas you can apply in the early stages of recording that really influence how different it ends up being. Our philosophy is to create a new recipe each time, which is why it’s so hard to pigeonhole us. That’s not good for business sometimes, but at the same time that’s what we’re going for because we’re trying not to fit in.
CW: We never know what we’re gonna do. What we end up doing is always based on what we’ve done in the past, which is wanting to push boundaries by continuing to evolve and try things we haven’t done before. Over the years we’ve surrendered to the fact that good things happen with the music when we’re not in control and we’re just paying attention to what’s happening and following each other’s lead instead of having a hardened idea of what things should look like. Usually that’s what kills the creative spirit, so relinquishing that control has always been a big theme for us.
We all have a lot of respect for each other and our opinions. Creating artistic things can be a rabbit hole that you get lost in quickly, so being around people you trust can prevent you from doing that in favor of encouraging you when something is really working that you couldn’t even see yourself. When we bring a song we’ve written into the studio, we have absolutely no idea how it’s going to turn out because even though there’s lyrics (and maybe even a key) we make a lot of very spontaneous decisions about what kind of guitar to use or which drum set should there be. Every little decision like that leads to a new spontaneous reaction to how that instrument is sounding. That in turn makes us play a certain way, then by the time the songs are on tape we’re all blown away at how differently it turned out than we would have ever thought.
A big theme throughout these new songs is mindfulness. Can you tell me about how y’all practice that, both in your daily lives and your musical pursuits?
OW: For any artist, whatever’s going on in your life or the world around you makes appearances when you’re writing music – it just seeps in there and gets baked in you. Over the years, all of us in the band have been trying to live a certain way by learning methods and tricks to finding peace and fighting depression and the scary changes going on in the world while continuing to stay connected with people. I’ve always written like a cheerleader for myself, like “The trick is not to give a damn,” but by no means am I a master of any of that stuff. It’s a reminder to myself and others to always keep that on your radar. But on “The Trick” I follow that line with “Good luck,” so there’s a little bit of cynicism there too. Another song, “Pray God Listens,” is meant to be a little humorous and a little cynical of God, but also hopeful. It’s also about wanting to believe that God is listening and that I’m skeptical, but haven’t given up.
CW: [Mindfulness is] a constant recurring theme for us, even going back to [2023’s Heart Is A Hero] and the idea of remembering to remember. I think the hardest thing about presence and mindfulness and being an agent of your own emotions is just remembering it’s even an option. We get so carried away by the constant churning of our minds that you forget it’s even an option to not take that stuff seriously. There’s lots of references in our music about that – this weird storytelling device that we have between our ears that never shuts up and how to live with it – and the idea of control and surrendering to the fact that the only thing we can control is to be present. A lot of our anxiety stems from not knowing what to do, but if you just pay attention to your environment it tells you what to do.
This becomes really useful for us when we’re on stage in front of a bunch of people and the part of your mind that takes credit for and wants to be good doesn’t want a slow rise to the middle but instead wants a meteoric rise to the top and will start fixating on how to be great at something to the detriment of not paying attention to what’s happening around you. For me to play a good bass line I don’t need to listen to myself, I listen to the drums and guitar and those tell me how to play. That’s what presence is for us – it’s allowing our environment to tell us what to do, not trying to figure it out alone.
Another way of describing the themes on this record is impermanence. Things happen and then they’re gone. We have very little control over most aspects of what happens in the universe, so really all you can do is just sort of pay attention, trust that you’re going to know how to react to all that craziness and surrender to the moment.
What about this record stands out to y’all from the rest of your catalog?
OW: For me personally, I feel like there’s more and more freedom to just do whatever the hell I want. We have our own label, so we’re doing things quite independently without the structure of a label or A&R or anything like that and we’ve been doing that for a long time. We’ve always joked that the band’s career trajectory has been a slow rise to the middle as opposed to a meteoric rise to the top. There’s a song by that name on the record that’s a bit tongue-in-cheek as we make fun of ourselves and how it took us years to land at a sweet spot in our careers where we play to around 1,000 people a night – which isn’t a lot compared to Phish or Springsteen – but enough to feel like we can make a living and be a little weird in what we do rather than always taking the conventional route. We can be a little more subtle and aren’t beholden to any one thing, freeing us up to experiment without the worry of needing to write another hit.
As far as this album goes … we really tried to combine our creative visions to see what we could make and we’re all really proud of the result. It was a very organic thing that took over 20 years of experience to make happen.
CW: Between the three of us, we have a lot of influences. When you first begin as a band you’re trying to find out who you are and what your sound is. With both the Wood Brothers and Medeski Martin & Wood we waited to introduce electric bass to the mix even though I play both because the electric bass signifies certain sounds.
For instance, with MMW in the early ‘90s having electric bass with instrumental music that was danceable made you think of jazz fusion, which wasn’t a category we wanted our music to fall into even though it was instrumental music that was sometimes danceable. Once we established our voice as a band we began to branch out, which is the same thing happening with the Wood Brothers.
We have so many influences that don’t fit into the genre boxes that a lot of people put us in in our early days, which was Americana and roots music. We have influences from all over the world, especially on this record. On this record we explored more of the Caribbean, Cuban, and Latin influences we have. Oliver and I are also into these great African guitar players that there’s a lot of overlap with in his fingerpickin’ blues. Throughout we try to find different ways to introduce those influences to the Great American Songbook-like material on this record. Jano is a very good salsa dancer and obsessed with Latin music of all kinds, and I’ve always been into that music as well. One of my favorite bass players is Cachao, who is like the Duke Ellington of Cuba and invented “the mambo.”
There’s things like that that you’re sometimes hesitant to put into the music you’re putting out, but over time as you establish your voice it’s like “why not?” Let’s have fun using those influences even if it’s not “American,” per se. This is the melting pot – we’re supposed to be able to use it all here.
What’s your biggest joy of getting to make music together?
OW: Both Chris and Jano are like titans of music. They’re both virtuoso musicians who are not only monster players, but very creative too. Medeski Martin & Wood was a very experimental band that made great efforts to do what we’ve been talking about, which is to not sound like anything else and really be themselves and allow their musical identities to come through without trying to. Sometimes in instrumental music and in the jazz world, it’s about technique and technical prowess and those guys were just pure artists. They were really trying to make beautiful sounds and odd sounds and dissonance. Sometimes you could dance to it and sometimes you just had to take it in because it was real trippy. And so Chris brings that spirit of virtuosity and creativity, as well as Jano. We first hired him as a drummer because he was such an amazing drummer and percussionist and had no idea he could play keyboards just as well. He’s like two guys at once.
No matter what I throw at them, they can throw something cool back at me, enhance it and make it better. We’ve been talking about the sort of mindfulness theme in some of the music, and it really is a way that we try to operate as a band and as players. It’s about staying connected with yourself and with other people. If we have a musical disconnect it’s because we’re not listening to each other. Music is always a conversation where you listen and you respond or you hear something and you react to it, so if you’re only listening to yourself you’re missing the point. It’s detrimental to the music, so we make sure that we’re listening to each other, and in doing so, we get into this mindful, sort of meditative trance where we’re just listening and having a conversation and not trying to fill all the spaces. It makes us a very cohesive unit and able to be ourselves.
CW: Learning how to be present – as cliché as it sounds – that’s where the joy is. The joy is finally learning that it’s not me, it’s everything else that tells me what to do. Every time we play music it’s amazing, even a song that we play night after night with that approach feels like it might as well be the first time. The hardest part about this idea is remembering to remember, so my way of practicing that is trying to remember throughout the day to ask myself a simple question.
It’s like a challenge – can you enjoy yourself right now? And sometimes it’s easy, because things are fine and you’re not in pain or there’s no drama going on, but it’s the most fruitful moments when there’s something difficult or boring like doing the dishes and I ask if I can enjoy myself? Do I have the ability? What does it even mean to enjoy myself right now? And the practice is that if I can do it enough in those times, then I should be able to remember to remember to do that on stage too. From that point on everything is obvious – I’m able to relax and listen to the drums play me. All the pressure just goes away because you realize you trust yourself to react to the environment, and that never gets old. It’s useful for both your daily life as well as on stage or in the studio or any time we’re creating music together. We’re always trying to make every experience joyful, which isn’t always easy but can be done with practice. It’s like a game, it’s playful – even if you don’t always have a smile on your face.
He might be a renowned lyricist and self-proclaimed songwriter-singer (not singer-songwriter). His typical sound may simmer with a supremely chill mix of country, blues, and soul. But Brent Cobb got his start with the crunchy thunder of guitar-driven rock ‘n’ roll and his seventh album takes him back.
Tapping the raw rage of garage rock, the distorted domination of ‘70s proto-metal, and more, Ain’t Rocked In a While finds this GRAMMY-nominated master of phrase returning to a world where the guitar riff is king – his first love as a musician. Co-produced with Oran Thornton and recorded live, 10 songs combine Cobb’s laid-back style with the immortal edge of bands like Black Sabbath, Metallica, and heavier inspirations still. But while old metalheads do tend to get rusty, this project is razor sharp.
Speaking with Good Country, Cobb explains the change of pace, as well as his abiding love for the rock ‘n’ roll spirit and new appreciation for classic-rock lyrics. Plus, the long-haired country boy explains how Ain’t Rocked In a While could fairly be considered “dad rock.”
I want to get the story behind this record. Ain’t Rocked in While is one of those projects that really seems to do what it say it’s going to do. How much of a creative release was this for you?
Brent Cobb: Well, this project was cool because I was focused more on riff and just really digging back into the foundation of what I grew up on. My first band was a rock band with my best friend Justin, who played guitar. He was real into Pink Floyd and AC/DC and Black Sabbath, and had me learning all those songs to sing. So when I was writing riffs and lyrics for this album, I sort of went back and was rediscovering those songs that I grew up learning.
Back then, even though I was learning the lyrics, I was just learning them to sing it. I wasn’t really paying attention to what they were saying and I didn’t think of those songs as very lyrical songs. I just enjoyed the groove. With this go ‘round, it really took all the pressure off of trying to write a lyrical song – which in turn made the lyrics come way easier. It also made me aware of just how lyrical those old classic rock songs were.
Oh, right!
I didn’t notice it or I didn’t appreciate it, but I don’t guess you would as a teenager. So that was the whole process – I was just trying to write a riff album and wanted to rock a little and show the audience a reference for a live show when they came, but wound up writing lyrical songs anyway.
I guess you just can’t help it. You’ve always been known as a storyteller and a songwriter first, and you even did a gospel record just a few cycles ago. Where does hard rock fit into your listening habits?
It all has always coexisted in my little world. My mom’s from Cleveland, Ohio, and my uncles – her brothers – they were all rockers into Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, and just the classic stuff. But then here, my dad was in a band with his brother – my other uncle – and my dad would cover the early ‘50s and ‘60s rock ‘n’ roll and my uncle would do classic country. So I grew up around that, but if you looked at any of my playlists, it’s just always been real eclectic that way for sure. For this album, Master of Reality [by] Black Sabbath was probably the biggest influence and the one that I would keep returning to for inspiration. And not just in riffs, but in the way that they structured that album to ebb and flow.
This might be a hard question to answer, but how heavy do your tastes get? What do you think would be the hardest hitting band in your collection?
Oh man. Well, [for] modern [artists], I’d probably say the band Sleep. Have you ever listened to much of them?
I don’t think so. I’m going to have to check that out right after this.
It’s like stoner metal. That’s probably the hardest stuff that I’ll listen to right now. But I don’t know – I mean, Sabbath is so hard still to this day. Those first five albums are unreal. … With Sleep, that’s some heavy stoner metal.
Yeah, I’m looking on Spotify right now. They’ve got songs like “Marijuanauts’s Theme.” [Laughs] That’s an awesome title.
Dude, I know! But that stuff is like, you can go find sections of old Sabbath songs and it’s kind of like [Sleep] built a whole sound on little sections of Sabbath songs. But then if you go further, it’s all blues – that’s all it is.
For any true rock record, the recording itself is so important – trying to capture the energy. I know you recorded live-to-tape and that seems like the rock ‘n’ roll dream, right? Was that experience different from digital recording?
Well, honestly, each of my albums have always been recorded to tape except Keep ‘Em On They Toes. But with that said, it is a modern world and we still record to tape and then dump all that into Pro Tools to where it’s easier to edit, then take that and dump it all back to tape. You get the original physical, sonic difference that is recording to tape when each tape is completely different, because the needle’s hitting different, the amp was hotter, or whatever. But then we fast forward to the modern world to where we can just really be quicker and more efficient.
I think we had 10 days blocked off to record, and then I got sick on the first two days. And then Oran [Thornton], my co-producer and head engineer, he got sick for two days. And so we wound up recording in seven or eight days.
That is a plus of the modern age for sure. In any case, it came out sounding really tight – you recorded as a band, right?
That’s right. It’s the touring band [The Fixin’s] I’ve had for a while now. … The studio we recorded at in Springfield, Missouri, was this little bitty, almost broom-closet size live room, and they were all in the main live room together. I did want to isolate myself, so I was in an even smaller little isolation booth with a window where we could still see each other. … I obviously am not as experienced in singing those type songs and playing those type riffs at the same time, so I knew I was going to screw up some lyric phrasings and I didn’t want to mess everything else up. So I was the only thing I isolated.
Where’d that title track come from? “Ain’t Rocked In a While” – this definitely has that Black Sabbath feel, stretching out to five minutes.
Straight up. It started because I had bought my son a little drum kit for his fourth birthday a couple years ago. He just loves the drums … and then I would set my amp up and get my guitar out and we’d just be jamming in his room. One day he was like, “Dad, play some rock ‘n’ roll guitar.” And I’d hit a little lick and he’s like, “No, no, rock ‘n’ roll.” I’d play another little lick. And he said, “No, dad, like Mattman” – which is [the Fixin’s guitar player] Matt [McDaniel]. I was doing the best I could, really just trying to prove to him that daddy could rock.
That’s funny!
So I came up with that “Ain’t Rocked In a While” riff and then it turned into me proving to my son, “I have rocked before, boy. It just ain’t been a while.” I thought it would be funny, but I also thought, “Well, all of us are sort of that way.” I’m nearly 40 and a father of two, so you could definitely consider this album Dad Rock, but all our kids don’t know. We all had some rock eras, whether that be in life or musically or whatever it is.
Well, you still got the hair, so I think it’s easier to make that case.
[Laughs] Hell yeah. It’s funny you say that. My mama just yesterday, she used to be a hairdresser and had her own business, and she was like, “You need to let me cut your hair.” And I was like, “Look, I’m going to keep it growing until it don’t grow no more.” I’m barely gray and I ain’t thinning too much yet. Until that happens, I’m going to keep rocking the long hair.
A little earlier you mentioned how [hard rock is] all blues at the bottom, right? I think that really comes through in a song like “Do It All the Time.”
Man, I’m going to have to give my son some co-writing credit on this album, I guess. That riff did come out very Skynyrd-esque, but … I was actually trying to do my best James Gang feel with the riff, the melody, and the double vocals on that chorus. That early James Gang stuff is so badass – but I think Skynyrd also was probably trying to do their best James Gang on some of their stuff.
Anyway, the idea of that song is from when [my son] Tuck was even younger, we’d be like “Oh man. Look dude, you ate all your food!” And he would say, “I did it, and I do it all the time.” So I always had that. I started saying “I do it all the time!” And then I don’t know how much I should say, but sometimes when you’re parents, you and your other half may not be on the same page. … You’re just both sleep-deprived and sometimes it’s hard to see. And so I think we were having a little moment of that and I was going, “I tried then and I try now and I try all the time. I did it and I do it all the time, babe!” So that’s where it came from.
Okay, one more thing here. For fans who come out and see you live, do you think this is going to change the shows? Are you guys going to rock out more or what?
I mean the only way that we’ll rock out more is we just have more songs to rock out to. But no, in every album that I’ve ever put out all the way back to 2006 with No Place Left to Leave, there’ve always been rock leaning songs in my catalog – including songs that others have recorded; some of the Whiskey Myers stuff, or The Steel Woods stuff. For a little bit there seemed like a disconnect, because I don’t think [people at my shows] were aware of that rock stuff, but it’s just a funner show to me and for us especially.
Now we just have more to pull from, and for people who show up, it’s the same show. I try to do songs from every album and I’ll take requests, too. I don’t turn those down. But now, I think people will show up and they won’t be taken by surprise at all if it does drop.
Jackson and the Janks, we started in a living room in New Orleans. Piano and guitar playing old gospel songs and trying to make a dance band. First there were two, then a third came in to use the bathroom – he was living in his van out front at the time. He sat down and played along after nature’s call. Over a year it grew from there, adding bass, saxophone, and steel guitar. We started playing shows in New Orleans, sweaty dance shows, and we didn’t have a name other than “the garage gospel band” (officially, Sam Doores’ Garage Gospel Band). We’ve branched out now and adopted New York janks into the family.
The Janks as a name came up, describing all things Janky. An old time, do-it-yourself way of playing, inspired by New Orleans R&B, rock and roll, honky tonk, and of course the sacred songs.
This playlist is a mix of sounds that influence the sentiments of Jackson and the Janks. Rollicking dance music, garage band approach, songs of love and lost love, sweet and sour, irreverent. – Jackson Lynch, Jackson and the Janks
“My Journey To The Sky” – Sister Rosetta Tharpe
There’s something wrong if Sister Rosetta is not in the conversation. True muse and queen progenitor of rock and roll, she kills me with her gospel.
“Rockin’ Bicycle” – Fats Domino
The great Fats Domino. I picked this because it inspires an approach to songwriting that gets overlooked. Have fun with the lyrical content and make fun music.
“Unchained Melody” – The Fleetwoods
I don’t take baths, but listening to this tempts me to try it out. The harmonies do it to me. My favorite version of this song.
“No More Tear Stained Makeup” – Martha & the Vandellas
This one has that lyricism and rhyme that I love. Taking a simple theme and so cleverly making it heartbreaking, don’t see it coming. Smokey Robinson at his best.
“Young Boy Blues” – Snooks Eaglin
New Orleans for real songster Snooks Eaglin played everything. Country blues, jazz, and pop songs of his day. That’s the job: play what people want to hear, do it good, and make it your own.
“Let’s Leave Here” – Jackson and the Janks
It’s about trying to not be the last one at a party that’s going under. Nothing’s happening, but you gotta leave before something does. “Gates are dropped, the service stopped, at the shop on the corner…”
“I Got Loaded” – Keith Frank & the Soileau Zydeco Band
This is a great zydeco version of a swamp-pop party song. Keith Frank (son of the famed Preston Frank) and his whole family make some of the best music I’ve ever had the privilege to dance to.
“Sweet Nothin’s” – Brenda Lee
Sugar, spice, everything nice.
“Sitting on my front porch, well do I love you? Of course,” Brenda growls and tucks me in.
“Who Will The Next Fool Be” – Charlie Rich
This speaks for itself. Just listen to how Charlie Rich sings the word “Who.”
“Life Is Too Short” – Benny Spellman
A great ballad deep cut from the man who gave us that deep voice on “Mother In Law.” Operatic. ”
We do big things in a hurry/ Let’s do what’s right to live…”
“Immigration Blues” – Duke Ellington
This secular hymn is my favorite shit. Early Duke’s orchestrated pieces like this make me regret and hope, sad and happy.
Equal parts old soul and trailblazer, Western Kentucky singer-songwriter S.G. Goodman explores rural belief systems with a forward thinking, synth-heavy, swamp rock aesthetic on Planting By The Signs.
Released June 20, the record is the first for Goodman since 2022’s critically acclaimed Teeth Marks and sees her diving into tales of love, loss, reconciliation, and grief. The ancient Appalachian concept it draws its name from subtlety influences all aspects of rural life from farming to self-grooming. According to Goodman, the idea to center her fourth album around this idea came in late 2022 after stumbling across a section about planting by the signs in Foxfire, a collection of books first published in 1972 that delve into Appalachian philosophy and ways of life.
“When I got to the passage about moon planting or planting by the signs I started having all these memories of hearing about [moon phases and zodiac signs] throughout my childhood,” Goodman tells Good Country. “My family and a lot of the people in rural areas like Western Kentucky have been taught these things but don’t think or talk about them in everyday conversation.
“For instance, my brother cuts his hair by the signs and I remember old people saying to never pull a tooth when the signs are in ‘the head’ [an area of the sky attributed to Aries]. I was weaned by my mother to the signs, potty-trained even. It’s an old belief system that I wound up immersing myself in and felt a responsibility to pass on.”
We spoke with the Americana Music Association’s 2023 Emerging Artist Of The Year ahead of the release of Planting By The Sign via Zoom. Our conversation covered the inspiration for the album’s concept, the themes of grief and reconciliation within its songs, the sonic evolution of the singer’s sound, and more.
What was it like taking the concept of Planting By The Signs and making it a reality? Did it turn out to be everything you envisioned?
S.G. Goodman: There were elements that were given over to studio magic. Sometimes the circumstances of recording force you to try different things you weren’t planning on, but for the most part I had a pretty clear vision of what I wanted this album to sound like before the songs were even written. This project leans toward a rougher sound that really hones in on the human element of the music. I also wanted to push myself sonically and add in new instruments that I normally don’t have in my music just to see what it would feel like.
In terms of trying new things, “Satellite” is a song that stands out. Is that a bunch of synths added to it or something else?
“Satellite” not so much. It sounds like synth, but it’s actually a little $150 makeshift Kent baritone guitar with a really wild, natural sound being played through a Fender Champ amp. There were a lot of synths elsewhere, but I’m just so ignorant when it comes to keys that I couldn’t tell you what they were. [Laughs] But I had [The Alabama Shakes’] Ben Tanner, a wizard on keys, come in to lay down and experiment some on organ, Wurlitzer, and other things.
For instance, because I do like an organic sound from my amps instead of using a bunch of pedals, we wound up playing along with the tremolos on the actual amps and ran the keys through that. But even with that, I’ve never had a record where there’s been keys on the majority of the songs, until now. That’s mostly been for economical reasons – I’ve been just a rock outfit with a lead guitarist, bass, drums and occasionally pedal steel, but it takes a minute before you can afford to not only have another player with you, but also a vehicle big enough to carry another person and their equipment. I was always leery to have songs focused around that, but with this album I was able to do it and shift around what kind of utility musician I wanted on the road with me and I’m really proud of it.
You mentioned working with Ben Tanner on these songs, but you also recorded down in Alabama as well. Tell me about what that experience was like?
Yeah, I was down in the Shoals, specifically the Sheffield area where Jimmy Nutt’s studio, The NuttHouse, is. It operates out of an old converted bank and felt really familiar to the small town I grew up in, where you could stand out in the middle of the road and pretty much bet a million dollars you wouldn’t get run over, because you’d never even see a car.
When you’re in the studio I’m not so big on doing destination recording, because in my opinion you should just be in a room working on music and not out seeing the sights. This was the perfect balance of not feeling like you’re missing something outside the room, but if you did walk out there it would be a calm environment.
Another sonic element on this album I wanted to touch on are the conversational audio recordings interspersed on tracks like “Heat Lightning.” What purpose were you trying to serve with those?
Going back to my mindset heading into this record and my desire to write about planting by the signs, I was really interested in the way that beliefs carry on and evolve over the years. We either accept, adapt to, or even stop telling these stories and letting them die, so [that was] one thing I wanted to showcase, either in a long narrative form or by adding elements you mentioned like the field recordings. I wanted to add those in because it’s another style we’ve used to capture stories and keep them alive. I’m a big fan of Alan Lomax’s field recordings – there’s a massive musical and oral history tied to them – so it was important for me to pay homage to that storytelling medium.
I even sought to do that through the album layout and artwork, too, by incorporating flash tattoos. Tattoos are a way that we have planted stories on ourselves and applied meaning to. Even its color scheme with red, yellow, and black – I don’t know if you’re ever heard this saying, but, “When red touches black you’re OK Jack, but when red touches yellow you’re a dead fellow.” That’s a sign from nature [about venomous snakes], so every element around this album, from allowing myself to write a nearly nine-minute song [with “Heaven Song”] while keeping this cohesive storyline to retelling a story from my youth in “Snapping Turtle.” I really wanted to showcase the history and art of passing down a story and drawing attention to that.
Someone whose memory you’ve preserved within these songs (as well as on older tunes like “Red Bird Morning”) is your longtime mentor and father figure Mike Harmon, who tragically passed away recently during a tree cutting accident. What kind of influence has he had on you, not just with this new record, but also on you as a person?
As far as Mike’s influence on my music goes, he was a huge encourager of me throughout the years going back to my days with The Savage Radley. I also played with him in a local Murray, Kentucky, band called The Kentucky Vultures. He was their bass player and we became fast friends and at one point even neighbors. He served as a father figure that I could bounce ideas off of musically, but more than anything it was his wisdom and support that impacted me most. He was such a go-getter and always an amazing person to have on the road with you.
One time I needed someone to help me get my van back from Boston, Massachusetts, to Western Kentucky, because the band and I had to fly out to Portland or Los Angeles in the middle of our tour before resuming the run a few days later in the Midwest. Mike simply asked when and where he needed to be and followed through. He was always down to help and be a part of things. It’s hard to wrap up exactly how meaningful his presence was during those early years. He was so proud of me and the boys when we were able to do this in a more professional way and regularly flew out to see our shows. In fact, in early 2023, he was supposed to be on tour with me in Austin for a sold-out show that I was particularly excited to have him at because he’d previously lived there for a time before losing his housing, only to die a week and a half later in a tree accident.
I continue to find myself thinking that Mike is still providing me with a lot of gifts and wisdom. When he passed away I was able to reconnect with my longtime friend and music collaborator of over 10 years, Matt Rowan. At that point we had a rupture in our friendship and musical relationship and hadn’t spoken in a couple years, but with Mike being the confidant, he was very aware of Matt and my falling out. [He] was always supportive around that and believed that we’d eventually reconcile with each other.
And that reconciliation is what you’re exploring on the song “Michael Told Me,” correct?
Correct. It’s a song that speaks to both Matt and Mike and kind of gives a snapshot of evolution and the processing of Mike’s death, but also the exact moment that Matt and I spoke after a few years of not.
You’re also singing with Matt on the album’s title track. What was it like getting to reunite in the studio with him for that?
Matt is also a co-producer on this album with me and Drew Vandenberg. He’s obviously been a longtime collaborator, so I thought it’d be interesting if he had an even bigger role on this album. I wasn’t wrong in my expectations of it working out really well.
Circling back to “Satellite” for a moment, lyrically the song seems to talk a lot about modern technology and human connection, or a lack thereof, in modern day society. What inspired you to explore those themes and how do you feel they fit into the record’s larger concept of planting by the signs?
I actually wrote most of the song in the studio. I didn’t start it there, but wasn’t expecting to have it on the album either. It’s something that came to me during the creative process of recording, which is not uncommon. When I was writing it I realized that one important thing for me to tie into talking about an ancient belief system was my curiosity of how that applies to our real, modern world. A lot of questions were coming up for me around that that I also tried to showcase within this album and my approach to talking about it with people. If Planting By The Signs revolves around paying attention to messages from nature, what does it mean for us as a society when we’re putting things between us and being able to see those signs?
For instance, we’re talking to each other right now through Zoom and are living in a world where more and more importance is being put on having more filters between us and nature – and even convoluting it. What are we gonna be [at] when I die, like 20G? [Laughs] How many satellites are going to need to be shot up into the universe to accomplish that?
Right now as a person, I’m in that weird land of [having been] a child in the early days of the world wide web when my parents got their first computer with dial-up internet. I didn’t start texting until I was 18. Nowadays I can pull up a waterfall on YouTube and hear the sounds of it in my living room without ever going somewhere like Cumberland Falls. Or I can go to a bar in public and not talk to a single person, because I’m just staring at my phone. I’m definitely a grandma when it comes to communicating with people.
I’ve noticed in the last 15 years that people are very hesitant to get back to a real human connection. There’s so many barriers nowadays to us having tangible connections with other people and nature. With that comes implications with AI and in the media, so it’s no wonder that a person who’s been watching the same creek bed over the course of 20 years evolve and cut differently and rise and fall may have a better idea that the weather patterns have drastically changed than a person who’s only receiving their information through technology.
Is “Nature’s Child,” which you sing with Bonnie Prince Billy, also touching on those themes?
That’s actually the one song on the album that I didn’t write. It was written by my friend Tyler Ladd. I first came across it over 10 years ago at an open mic in Murray and was floored by its lyrics. Everyone has different opinions on what makes a good song, but for me it’s really simple – a good song is one that you remember after hearing it.
Not long after that night, Tyler took off hitchhiking across the United States. Then years later I got a message from him saying that he was in Europe traveling and was writing to me from a hospital bed in Germany after getting his guitar stolen and beaten up pretty badly. I told him to get on home and about a year after that he showed up on my front porch in late 2016. I had him sit in my living room and play that song to me before asking him if I could start playing that song too and making it my own.
I’ve covered it live for years at this point, so when it came time to begin writing and thinking about this album Tyler’s lyrics and emotion he evoked in that song were a placeholder for me. He was gracious enough to let me record it. The song encapsulates everything this album is about.
Through the process of bringing Planting By The Signs to life, what is something that music taught you about yourself?
With each album you find yourself at a different place in life. I don’t necessarily have a lot of people ask me about my process of writing. It’s not linear and I’ve always held the belief, even though I’ve doubted it at times, that a story’s gonna go about its business. That was told to me years ago by a writing mentor, and a song does the same thing. Through that process one thing I’ve had to come to terms with with the fact that being an artist in 2025 is having pressure to keep churning out content and material, which has never been natural for me. I’ve never written that way, so being OK with and waiting for something to be in place where you feel you’ve said everything you need to say and not just succumbing to the pressures of putting something out while also being genuinely proud of what I created is a testament to the fact that I let this come when it was supposed to.
Today’s Only Vans guests are one of the coolest and cutest bands in Austin, Texas! We get to talk with Kelly, Jace, Cody, and Violet of Madam Radar about palindromes, The Goose on Lime Creek, band names, and family bands, about The Finishing School, female musicians, genre lines, and their new album, Motel.
Madam Radar is a band made up of two married couples: Kelly Green on lead guitar (y’all, she slays!), her husband Jace Cadle on rhythm guitar, Kody Lee on drums, Violet Lea on bass, and everyone sings and writes. Kelly and Kody are also brother and sister, so this band has really amazing chemistry and the coolest vibe. They’re all good at everything (except for math, Kelly jokes at the beginning if you don’t catch that).
They did end up selling out their album release party at Empire Garage in Austin, Texas this past May for their new record, Motel. Their producer Steve Berlin is a member of the band Los Lobos, but also has been a session musician in the studio for many amazing artists such as Sheryl Crow and R.E.M. We also talk former projects like The Texas KGB (which is where I first saw Kelly and fell in love) and current projects like PAACK (an all-female supergroup that plays weekly at our favorite The Saxon Pub). We give a shoutout to HAAM – for providing Austin musicians with health insurance and so much more – Swan Songs, and Dave and Rebecca at The Goose on Lime Creek for providing the amazing space in which to record this podcast.
Dallas Ugly is not a country band. Except that they are?
More than a decade ago now, college classmates Eli Broxham, Owen Burton, and Libby Weitnauer began playing together as a new acoustic band, bluegrass and old-time chops combined with jazz and jammy virtuosity. Eventually, via COVID pandemic cloistering together, they crafted a collective identity as Dallas Ugly, a vibey and tight alt-country group built around original songs that made a splash with their 2022 debut, Watch Me Learn.
On that album you can hear bluegrass grit, the tenderness of folk and indie songwriting, influences of Southern rock and pop, and dashes of Texas twang – perhaps supplied by confirmation bias thanks to their moniker. On their latest album, See Me Now (released in April), the trio are abandoning any and all claims to Americana and country. But this collection – one of the best roots albums of the year – still listens like so many classic artists and albums at the intersection of indie, country, and the vast musical horizon.
When you ask the Nashville-based band how they’ve landed in this new, borderless, agnostic genre territory, they seem as surprised by their own chosen style markers and aesthetic vocabulary as their audiences. “It’s an accident,” says Weitnauer – with delight. “We don’t know why we sound this way. We’ve been able to loosen up more, build on the experience we’ve gotten just as musicians. … With this iteration, I feel like it shows a full development of our sound.”
In truth, however See Me Now and Dallas Ugly strike your ears, it’s quite a straightforward task to trace their journey through genres. (Though it’s not the most straightforward to discuss!) The trio simply follows each song down their own individual creative rabbit holes, trusting the music and each other to find or carve out sounds that encapsulate the feelings, textures, and stories that they craft together. They don’t lead the songs, the songs lead them. As a result, Dallas Ugly alchemically transform barn burning old-time fiddle, endless country twang, deep honky-tonkin’ pocket, earnest, sentimental songwriting, and pop-informed sweet tooths into smooth, artful, endlessly interesting indie rock.
Dallas Ugly’s brand of roots music – if you can call it that – is downright beautiful. We spoke to the group via phone between tours in May about making the album, claiming genre (or not), and the sometimes passive, sometimes overwrought process of shepherding these songs into the world.
I wanted to start with getting the genre conversation out of the way, as it were. Y’all have been very forward with communicating that this isn’t really a country album; that you don’t really see yourselves as a country band. You call it indie, indie-pop-rock. I hear you as decidedly Americana and country, personally. Obviously you have those indie-pop touches – plus, we know you have string band bones as well – but can you talk a little bit about your relationship to genre and how you intentionally stepped into this much more free, borderless sonic space with this project?
Libby Weitnauer: It’s funny, because as I’ve had more conversations with people since the album’s come out I’m like, we definitely marketed it wrong. [Laughs] The other way we could’ve gone – everyone is like, “Do you ever listen to Sunbelt?” “Do you ever listen to Wilco?” “What about like The Breeders?”
But you asked what were the intentional steps that we made – and I would say there have been no intentional steps towards any genre. Which is why we are having trouble pinning it down, because I think we decided to market it the indie route. Honestly, the Americana world seemingly wants to have nothing to do with our music. [Laughs] So we were like, “Okay, then, I guess it’s not Americana, I guess it’s not country.” Every time we bring it to those people they turn it away.
I would say our relationship with genre is very passive. When we’re making decisions and writing songs, genre isn’t a consideration. It’s always been that way. When we started playing together as the very goofy band that we were before this band, that was a sort of attempt at new acoustic music. It was the same thing, we just make decisions [based on] things that we like, or think we’re supposed to do sometimes, or sound good. Then it comes through this Dallas Ugly Eli-Libby-Owen filter, no matter what.
We’ve honestly tried so hard to fit into a genre. Where we’re like, “Okay! We’ve done it this time. You guys, we made a song that sounds like something else that exists.” Which is a funny thing to aspire to. Just trying to create stuff that we like and then it’s, “Oh, nope, nevermind. There it is. Just as weird as ever.”
Do you feel like the songs are what’s guiding you in that passive way? That you’re just trying to give the songs the treatment they each want or are asking for or deserve? Do you feel like it’s taste? Or is it just how it ends up is how it ends up? What do you think is the process for how it ends up being borderless and amorphous and not quite any one thing?
Owen Burton: Yeah, I think those are all in there. I think it isn’t as if we’re striving when we’re writing, it’s not like we’re intentionally pointing to a specific genre. There’s just things that we don’t realize are so genre-coded that are kind of inescapable about our musical voices. When we are asking how to start a song it’s, “Let’s do a fiddle kick.” It’s not, “Let’s do a country thing.” It’s just, “I feel like a fiddle kick would make sense.” And then, on the other end of that is people being like, “This is a country record now!”
It’s fair enough. But I think with this record, too, [as] I’ve learned with our first album – which we were like, this is a country record – I feel like we learned, in how it was received, how actually regimented the Americana style is. And how we weren’t within certain signifiers that are pretty regimented. Indie rock is way more broad, in terms of what it tolerates stylistically.
So the next one, this one, certainly can fit in that big tent. Now, the way it’s been perceived that way too, [I’ve realized] indie rock’s pretty regimented in ways that I didn’t understand, too. Mostly about singing. I think just none of us sing like indie boys. [Laughs]
LW: Or country voice. That’s the thing, I think what it comes down to is if different people were singing our songs, maybe it would be clearer. But I think, especially Owen and I, we have acquired taste, stinky cheese voices. [Laughs] It’s definitely not for everybody. Eli, obviously he doesn’t sing quite as much, but weirdly I would say Eli has the most familiar voice.
I happen to love stinky cheese.
LW: Exactly! Me too.
How does Justin Francis play into the genre paradigm here as your producer, as somebody who effortlessly walks between those sonic worlds? Can you talk a little bit about working with him and having him in the control room?
OB: He understood what we were going for. When we started, we intentionally controlled less variables going into the studio for this one. It’s not as if we had a strategy meeting about what kind of album this was gonna be before we started, making creative decisions on it. The songs were vaguely written before we went into the studio, but not arranged and not figured out like across the band ahead of time.
I feel like even just that process– I guess that’s a bit of a question, is that more of an Americana process or more of an indie rock process? I see that as more of a rock process; I feel like rock bands often go into the studio with songs not even written and they just write it in the studio. With [Justin] on board, he had all kinds of ideas when we were writing in the studio, little bits of studio vocab that we don’t have ourselves. [He] pushed and pulled in different genre directions, for sure.
LW: Part of the reason that we worked with him is we did these two singles with him, “Big Signs” and “Born Crying” just to try working with another producer and see what happens. I don’t even know that we were really [thinking] we could make an album with him, because honestly, he’s the real deal! We were like, “He’s famous, so he probably won’t make an album with us, but let’s just see what these things will sound like.” It was so effortless and he let us do our thing on those two. I feel like those [songs] are just as unhinged as anything else that we’ve made and he was right there with us with the ideas.
I would say, generally, working with him was really effortless. That’s the word I would use. The whole time, even the pre-production meetings.
Let’s talk about some of the music. My favorite is “Bad Feeling.” I know the lyric may say, “It’s a bad feeling, I don’t like it at all…” but I do like it. I like “Bad Feeling” a lot. I heard you guys play this song live a bunch before the album, too, but can you talk about the origin of it, its writing, how it came together in the studio?
LW: That’s the one song I think on the whole album that we had been performing [before recording]. Maybe “You Can Leave,” but it changed a lot. “Bad Feeling” we had been performing pretty much as it is, for the most part. I’m glad that you like it, because that was the song I was like… not disappointed in, but I had so much trouble breaking out of the live arrangement that we had. We had played it so much that I felt like the track suffered a little bit from how attached we were to the live arrangement.
But the making and the writing of that song, I feel like I wrote it [because] I’d been listening to a lot of Judee Sill. I guess I was inspired by that and was trying to capture how some of her songs, the chords move with the lyrics a lot. I didn’t end up really sounding like her at all, but some of the original harmonies we had for that song, played [off of] some of the harmonies in her music.
I feel like that song is like the epitome of my writing style, which is pretty autobiographical. Every time I try to write like feathery stuff, it sounds really goofy. And so with lyrics, I just try to find the most straightforward way I can say something. Usually that ends up being the most poetic, from my voice.
How do you know when you have a hook or you have the bit of the song that’s gonna be what everybody shouts along with? To me, it doesn’t feel like any of you are writing songs because you think they’re gonna be a hit. But at the same time, when I hear a really hooky song or a really catchy song – like basically this whole album – whether it’s “Bad Feeling” or “Sugar Crash” or “Circumstances” or “See Me Now,” I can picture a “light bulb moment” when you find that hook or line that ends up being the sing along.
LW: When I’m writing, I don’t really consciously think about hooks like this. That being said, a lot of my songs start with either a phrase or a melody. I’ll be on a walk or doing something in the kitchen just singing little thing. Like “Circumstances” – “I put a letter in the mail…” – that just happened in my brain when I was doing something. Then usually I’ll grab onto that and write the song around whatever little melody piece comes to me. I guess what ends up being the hook, a lot of the time, is what comes to me. And then I find myself singing it and I let it take off and do what it’s gonna do.
Eli Broxham: I feel like something that comes up, a question we end up asking ourselves that I’ve heard Libby ask a bunch of times is, “Is this super cheesy?” [All laugh] Which, we definitely ride the line of cheesiness, but at some point, you have to just be like, “I don’t know. I like it. And that’s good enough.” If it’s borderline to me, maybe it’ll be over the line for somebody else, but clearly, within bounds for another listener.
At some point, trust your instincts and be like, “It might be cheesy, but that’s okay.” And yeah, I think melodically is where I have my surest footing [writing hooks]. I still feel as a songwriter, if I hit the mark, it’s maybe by chance or something.
I also want to talk about “See Me Now,” because it’s the title track, because it’s a great song, but also because I feel like it epitomizes the journey y’all have been on, from Watch Me Learn to this album. Not just musically and creatively, but also genre, and also politically and socially. This song is “of the moment” in a really interesting way, because you can listen to it down and it’s a love song and it’s a song about seeing and being seen, but it’s also about perception and, “Is my existence valid?”
All of that is really deeply resonant, but if you zoom out and view the song in the context of the band, it changes its meaning. If you zoom out yet again and you view it in the context of y’all really coming together during COVID to do this project as Dallas Ugly, being friends for more than a decade, it changes the meaning of the song again. It’s a tesseract of a track where you guys are writing in four dimensions – it’s not too intellectual or conceptual, but it has endless depth. How!?
OB: I actually wrote that very quickly, because Elise Leavy was having like a songwriting circle. I hadn’t written a song terribly recently, so I was just gonna write something real quick for this. That was the song I wrote and at the time – this is years ago – I was very into that Kacey Musgraves album, Golden Hour, and the lead track, [“Slow Burn”]. That acoustic intro thing, I was messing around with that, because the chords are really simple, but the voicings are so interesting.
Those two things – “hurry up and write a song” and the somewhat new vocab I had just learned – came together. That first draft of it was soft, crummy – plus those lyrics, it’s hard to say what they’re about, because I wrote them very quick. Sometimes this spiel I give on stage is:
It’s three people meeting each other after some kind of apocalypse. In the universe of the apocalypse, because nobody has anything anymore, it’s very hard to [determine] what status anyone was before the apocalypse. It’s three different kinds of people with different former social status, wishing that people they interacted with could tell what status they used to have. People are very comfortable in their status, I feel like whether it’s high status or low status, people find comfort in both. Personal comfort in your own status and the comfort in feeling like you know how to treat people once you derive their status.
I feel like audiences never understand that spiel and it’s maybe too heady to be worth anything. [Laughs] Maybe that’s also why it feels like there’s so many different reads you could have of that song.
I think the most interesting thing about it – and maybe I’m projecting y’all – is the sentiment, “Can’t you see me now? I want you to see me.” Maybe that’s just the millennial condition. All of us having nostalgia for something that never existed, generationally, and being like, “I need you to see me. I need you to perceive me. But also I’d rather you perceive me from the golden era, from the before times. From when things were right.”
Also the “Can you hear me now?” reference of it all feels very millennial, very of the 2000s in a great way. Again, is this cheesy? No, of course not. Listen to it! But also, yes it is.
OB: Yeah, that’s where we live.
LW: That’s where we live! And I would say, before this, before the version that’s on the album, it had a very different flavor. I can’t even remember how it sounded exactly, but it was definitely more country – almost like country rock – and that was over the line. I’m glad we found [this style] and Justin helped us find that. Just pulling it back to the other side a little bit, because yeah, lyrically and melodically, it’s so solid and awesome. But we had to go to the drawing board a few times to get the setting right for it.
EB: That one is like the musical ideas are blocks that are put in place. I remember when we were doing this – after some of the drawing board stuff that Libby was talking about – but I was listening to that Mac Miller album, Circles – which I think is maybe the best Mac Miller album. I was listening to how the elements didn’t change, they just turned on and off to make the song, which I feel like is pretty common in pop and rap production. But often, especially in this band or in Americana and rock, things tend to sneak in and out and evolve.
But for that song in particular, the bass line just turns on, then turns off for a little part. It turns on and turns off. There’s different parts of different sections, but they are like binary, which I think is an interesting approach – and a first for us, in that sense. Somehow, that takes it out of the realm of cheesy country and accentuates the lyrics in a nice way. Even that final chorus, where it’s just a big pause and then the chorus turns on.
LW: That’s interesting that you say that, ’cause I feel like for my fiddling, that was the approach I took on this whole album. Honestly, until we got to the pre-production meetings I was like, “I don’t even think I’m gonna play fiddle on this album.”
I took more of [an approach like] I’m a sample of a thing, rather than being a fiddle in a band. Like even on “You Can Leave,” which is the more fiddle-y of the tracks, in the verses I’m not doing traditional fills. I’m doing this one rhythmic hook every time this comes around and that’s what I’m playing on this song.
It was the idea of turning things on and off rather than trying to be part of the whole song. And I let myself punctuate things and not feel like I need to play the whole time.
Tone: it’s the Holy Grail for musicians, and it’s the cornerstone of Sho-Bud, the iconic pedal steel guitar company founded in 1955 by Harold “Shot” Jackson and Buddy Emmons. When Emmons moved on, Jackson continued with sons Harry and David, handcrafting instruments integral to the sound of country music.
In the early 1980s, Sho-Bud was acquired by Fred Gretsch. In 2005, after twenty years away from the business, Harry and David Jackson, joined by David’s daughter, Dawn Jackson, resumed building instruments. As Jackson Steel Guitar Company, they introduced new pedal steel, lap steel, resonator, and slide guitars.
In December 2024, the third generation of Jacksons, siblings and co-CEOs Dawn and Will Jackson, reacquired the company name and family legacy. “We knew that the name carried a lot of weight,” says Dawn Jackson. “It’s our heritage, and we wanted to bring it back while Dad and Harry were still building.”
“I want to acknowledge Fred Gretsch, his wife Dinah, his family, and his team,” says Will Jackson. “A lot of people approached him to acquire the Sho-Bud name over the years, and he didn’t do it. He saved it for us. We very much appreciate what he did in terms of preserving the name, keeping it intact, and not selling it to someone else. We’ll be eternally grateful to him for that.”
Sho-Bud relaunched this year with new and classic gear, plus several projects across platforms and generations. The reach stretches from traditionalists devoted to the classic instruments they saw on the Opry stage, to young musicians incorporating steel in everything from country to metal.
Central to all of this, of course, are the instruments, which include the high-level, traditional, maple cabinet Pro V; bender-equipped, stand-up SlideKing LS lap steel; and best-selling Maverick II.
“It’s not the Maverick of old,” says Will Jackson of the Maverick II. “The original Maverick was designed to be a low-cost, entry-level, beginner guitar. With the Maverick II, our objective was to build one of the sweetest-sounding guitars. We developed a front and rear extruded aluminum panel that has a hard rock maple soundboard that sits between them. On top of that, the one-piece aluminum neck now binds the key head and tail plate together.
“When you sandwich all that together, this particular guitar, as Dawn describes it, cuts through all the other noise. It’s distinctive, it’s clear, it rings and resonates. It has that Nashville sound because we still utilize the exact same pickup design that Shot developed back in the ’50s. When you marry that to this modern design cabinet, it is incredible. The Maverick II definitely stands out in terms of its tonal qualities. It’s pretty much unmatched. It’s quite an advancement in terms of pedal steel guitar technology.”
Sho-Bud plans a reissue of the signature Lloyd Green model, the LDG, which the Jacksons describe as “a continuation of the original classic design,” and a limited-edition LDG, cut with modern components and updated mechanisms, each one signed by Lloyd Green, David Jackson, and Harry Jackson. Other reissues will follow, including Jimmy Day’s Blue Darlin’.
Sho-Bud co-CEOs and siblings Will Jackson and Dawn Jackson.
“Relaunch,” in Sho-Bud vernacular, is all about name recognition, product reputation, and upholding a decades-old legacy. “We built steels for the past twenty-five years under the name Jackson Steel Guitars,” says Dawn Jackson. “So the relaunch, for us, circles around the Sho-Bud name.
“What’s happened in the months since we secured the name again, the outpouring of support from the guitar industry in general has been overwhelming,” she says. “That lends itself to the weight this brand carried around the world, and how throughout the years of its ‘dormancy,’ it maintained a true following, and not only from older generations. Younger people love the brand too. When we mention Sho-Bud, every door is open. So that’s really the relaunch. We maintained building these amazing instruments during our Jackson Steel era, but the [Sho-Bud] brand itself has the leverage and momentum behind it.”
“A lot of people have asked, ‘Is this just a rebranding of Jackson Steel Guitars?’ Definitely not,” says Will Jackson. “We’ve been sitting on a few patents that we’ve obtained over the last couple of years. They’ve got about fifteen years or so left on them while we fine-tune these components.”
Those components include a tunable vibrato, on-the-fly D Drop, The EDGE® multi-bending system, and Core-Over™ strings, all of which they’ve introduced to Sho-Bud artists with positive response.
“When a traditional, fretted-instrument guitarist is, say, holding a chord, when they use an old-school vibrato — let’s say a Bigsby, for example — when they hit that thing, all those strings are falling out of tune,” says Will Jackson. “Our tunable vibrato doesn’t destroy the chord. When they’re holding a chord and they go down, all those strings fall in tune now.
“We’ve got a Drop D tuner that allows an artist, again on a fretted instrument, to simply roll their E down to a D while they’re playing. They don’t have to take their fretting hand off and adjust anything on the key head. They don’t have to stop and tinker around with their picking hand to adjust anything. They’re able to use the palm, the heel, of their hand, roll it right down to a D, and roll it right back up to an E. So it’s very novel, very easy to use.
“With our Core-Over strings, we take the winding off up to where it passes the bridge and on the pickup side of the nut, so it’s just the core of the string going across those two touch points. It creates incredible amounts of sustain. The sound profile of the string is much rounder, bigger, fuller. It’s amazing.”
(L to R) Kyle Ince, Bob Sheehan, Slash, Ted Stern, Andrea Whitt, Skunk Baxter, Dawn Jackson, Pavel, Hexx Henderson, Mark Tucker, Rocco DeLuca, and Will Jackson pose for a group photo at the Sho-Bud Showcase Live at the Desert 5 Spot in Los Angeles.
On April 24, in Hollywood, the company celebrated the return of Sho-Bud Showcase Live, national concerts spotlighting steel-centric artists in all genres. The series kickoff, Sho-Bud’s first live event in over forty years, included, among its many participants, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, Robert Randolph, Andrea Whitt, Rocco DeLuca, Hexx Henderson, Hatfield Rain, Shooter Jennings, and Slash.
Sho-Bud Music is a record label and publishing company originally established by Dawn Jackson to release an album by her band, the aforementioned Hatfield Rain. “Around that time, I started working with Dad and Harry on Jackson Steel and never did anything with the [album] mixes,” she says. “It’s getting ready to come out after all this time, so I’m super-excited.” Along with that recording, Sho-Bud Music is promoting other Sho-Bud artists.
Coming soon is Shot Jackson’s Sho-Bud Showcase radio program, which will now become a podcast featuring music, interviews, and over 150 digitized reels from the original 1970s and early 1980s WSM broadcasts. “We have all the reels and we’re going to start releasing them,” says Dawn Jackson. “The podcast will also include interviews with today’s Sho-Bud artists and, of course, our dad and Harry.”
Harold “Shot” Jackson built Sho-Bud on a foundation of superior instruments, customer service, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty. Those values remain at the core of Dawn and Will Jackson’s goals, whether putting instruments in the hands of internationally renowned musicians or newcomers learning their way around pedal steel.
Sho-Bud CEO Dawn Jackson poses with Slash and a Sho-Bud Steel Guitar.
“These instruments are not like traditional fretted instruments,” says Will Jackson. “Fretted instruments don’t have moving parts per se. But these do. Because they have those linkages and mechanical pulling mechanisms, as they’re used, they wear. Anytime you make a change to these instruments, you have to be careful, because in the interest of trying to maximize performance or life on one end, you can impact tone on the other end, and that is something we can’t sacrifice.
“Sho-Bud has always been known for that Nashville sound, the tone that we got. The story I recall as a kid was Shot sitting there on a pickup-winding machine, which was made out of an old sewing machine motor. He had apple bushels next to his workbench. He would wind a pickup, plug it in, and if it gave him the tone he was after, performed the way he wanted it to, it went in the keeper bushel. If it didn’t, it went into the discard bushel.
“That is how our family has built these things. There are no Rhodes Scholars over here or MIT graduates in engineering. These guys developed these instruments through pure trial and error and using their ears to develop that tone. Again, we can’t sacrifice mechanical advantages over tone. Some guitar companies do, but we cannot do that. For us, it is about tone, tone, tone. We live and die by that.”
“We’ve always maintained the tradition and look of our guitars — the beautiful cabinets, our certain inlays, the finishes,” says Dawn Jackson, “but aesthetics are second. Tone has always been number one for us.”
“These instruments require maintenance,” says Will Jackson. “If there is a nut, a screw, a bolt, it will get turned by someone. When these things leave the shop, they’re set perfectly. People will start adjusting things, and that’s what they’re for. You need to fine-tune things ergonomically to make it fit. But, because these things can be very sensitive, sometimes they overdo it, or they have trouble chasing the tuning back to where they wanted it.
“We are here to support them in terms of Zoom calls, where they can show us exactly what they’re doing, what the instrument is doing, or what it’s not doing that they would like it to do. We can help walk them through that, using a blend of modern technology to help them fine-tune some of these traditional instruments. We’re always looking for ways to make it easier for them to keep these guitars maintained.”
As a family-owned and operated company, versus a multi-department corporation, the Jacksons are front and center when phones ring, texts chime, and emails arrive – no call centers, AI assistants, or being transferred through a half-dozen departments and hold times. They field calls, walk customers through setups, stay active via social media, keep up with forums, provide instructional videos, and cherish human-to-human relationships.
Slash plays a Sho-Bud Steel Guitar.
“Will and I have been a team since we were kids playing football in the backyard,” says Dawn Jackson. “We really believe in team efforts, and that’s why we’re so big on using the words ‘Team Sho-Bud.’ The dynamics between us, our father, and our uncle – we’re all creators and passionate about the things we do.
“We have the same objective in mind, which is to maintain our family heritage,” she says. “I am so proud that Sho-Bud is still a family business, and that people love and respect that. We work together, play off of each other, and it just works and works well.”
“I’m proud of my family – our dad, our uncle – for the sacrifices they made over the years to build these instruments, and to deliver the tone and the sounds that everyone enjoys,” says Will Jackson. “I’m very proud of the work they put into this, and of Dawn for rolling up her sleeves and helping them. I’m proud of the way Sho-Bud has evolved. It’s fun to be a part of the rebirth of Sho-Bud. These instruments, these new components, are going to be total game changers. I’m very proud to represent these products and wear the old brand. It’s exciting times.”
All Photos: Ashley Marie Myers, courtesy of Sho-Bud. Lead and alternate images: Slash plays a Sho-Bud pedal steel guitar.
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Sho-Bud co-CEOs and siblings Will Jackson and Dawn Jackson.
(L to R) Kyle Ince, Bob Sheehan, Slash, Ted Stern, Andrea Whitt, Skunk Baxter, Dawn Jackson, Pavel, Hexx Henderson, Mark Tucker, Rocco DeLuca, and Will Jackson pose for a group photo at the Sho-Bud Showcase Live at the Desert 5 Spot in Los Angeles.
Sho-Bud CEO Dawn Jackson poses with Slash and a Sho-Bud Steel Guitar.
Slash plays a Sho-Bud Steel Guitar.
