rock and roll Archives - The Bluegrass Situation

Ringo Starr and T Bone Burnett in Conversation

Posted on June 24, 2026June 24, 2026 by Justin Hiltner

On a sunny day in late April, I stood outside an ad hoc interview room at the Sunset Marquis in West Hollywood waiting for my turn to speak to Ringo Starr.

Sporadic laughter boomed through the door as the hazy afternoon light danced on the doorknob hanger. Instead of the usual “Do Not Disturb,” this one simply said, “Peace.” The verbiage, apropos for Ringo, served as one part levity and one part beta-blocker as I prepared to speak to a Beatle.

When the door opened, I was surprised and delighted to come face to face with Phil Rosenthal (of Somebody Feed Phil). The unabashed smile on his face foreshadowed the similar joy I would feel taking the same steps through that door just 25 short minutes later.

And yet another revelation unfolded as I walked in the room to find both Mr. Starr and T Bone Burnett, producer of Ringo’s newest album, Long Long Road. The ensuing discussion covered their relationships with genre, synesthesia, and inevitably bobbed and weaved across the rich musical history of these two icons.

Do I get both of you today?

Ringo Starr: Yes!

Excellent!

T Bone Burnett: Only if you want.

RS: Hi. I’m Ringo.

Ha! Yes. The man of the hour. How are you?

RS: Good. Excellent.

Thank you so much for having me.

RS: Oh, it’s our pleasure.

TB: Her dad is a great songwriter, a great guitar player from Muscle Shoals.

RS: We were just talking to someone else about that today.

Really? You were talking about Muscle Shoals today?

RS: Well, we didn’t actually mention it, but we were talking about the music that, for me, started with Johnny Ray and people like that. I was a teenager, and then it went up to country music, and then I got into blues music, and then I got into pop of the day music.

I love country music. And he’s the country boy [as he points to T Bone Burnett].

That’s a fantastic segue to my first question. So as we mentioned, I grew up in Muscle Shoals, and I had this record player that was a little battery-operated blue Volkswagen bus. Do you remember these?

TB: Yeah, I do!

It would ride around the record, and it had a little speaker in it, and I would lay on the ground, and I’d listen to Abbey Road. But it was also around the same time that the video for “Act Naturally,” the duet with Buck Owens, came out. So, for me, you were very genre-fluid from a very early age. I’m curious about a couple of things genre-wise, and T Bone, please jump in on this too.

TB: Okay, I’ll jump in, and I’ll say that the Beatles probably invented what became known as “country rock.” You know, with “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party.”

RS: And what were the two that were Carl Perkins?

TB: “Honey Don’t” and “Matchbox.”

RS: “Honey Don’t” was the best line I ever heard.

TB: Yeah, it is a killer title.

RS: “Matchbox” was a blues song, really.

TB: Well, “Matchbox” was an old Blind Lemon Jefferson song.

RS: Yes. The interesting thing is I did those in the ’60s, and we just found a Carl Perkins tune that we’d never heard, and we’ve done it on this record. “I Don’t See Me in Your Eyes Anymore.”

I love it.

RS: It is so beautiful and he was just a cool guy. You know, I was a teenager when I first heard him, and it was like, “Oh yeah!”

T Bone: Yeah, he was cool. He, [Carl], had heard “Matchbox” or his dad had heard it by Blind Lemon Jefferson, but they could only remember a few words of it, so he rewrote it as a rockabilly song.

So you knew of country music when you were growing up, you were aware of it.

RS: I did. I was aware of country music. I loved it because it was emotional, and I was a teenager. That’s what we are at that age.

[Ringo singing:] “ Well the wife is dead and I’m leaving home. I got no money for the jukebox.”

Perfect for teenagers.

When I say the words “country music” to you now, what do you think of? Who or what or how do you think of it?

RS: I still think a lot about the people from yesterday, who I came in with. You’ve got to say Willie. I mean, he’s magical and still out there. Thank you, Willie. And who used to open for Willie?

TB: Waylon?

RS: Waylon! He was great. I have to think back.

TB: Well Hank Williams…

RS: Well, no, Hank was where we came in. And Hank Snow. No one mentions him. He was Canadian. Patsy Cline. There’s too many really.

I was talking to someone the other week and they asked, “What is your all-time favorite record?” I couldn’t answer. There is too much that I love. “Who’s your favorite artist?” I start with Ray Charles. And Stevie, and down that line. But I can’t answer it. We were on TV, and I stopped it. I said, “I just can’t answer.” There are too many in my life to say, “That’s the one.”

Plead the 5th.

Do you ever feel constrained by genre? Or inspired by it? What is your relationship with the idea of it?

RS: I’m a pop-rock music drummer. I’ll play whatever you’re gonna give me. If you want it heavy, I’ll hit the cymbals. Heavy metal has some great acts going down. We would jam sometimes and be that.

TB: Oh, well, I mean, the Beatles invented heavy metal, really.

RS: Yeah. It’s just playing the same shit, but heavier.

TB: “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey” or “Helter Skelter.”

RS: “Helter Skelter” was a jam. We had no song, nothing, we were just jamming, and then Paul came in with, “Hey! Helter Skelter.” Like “Say It’s Your Birthday,” there was someone in the newspaper who we knew, and it was their birthday, and we were jamming. Paul stepped up again, and we got another song. We were like that. You could jump in, any one of us could jump in. I’ve got odd lines we aren’t gonna talk about on certain tracks.

[A publicist chimes in to say:] “T Bone you have five more minutes before you have to leave and then you’ll go and he’ll stay in.”

RS: And then I’ll go and then you’ll stay in. [Laughter]

Well, let’s go back to the Volkswagen.

RS: Let’s get back to it.

Because I have a little bit of synesthesia, I think.

TB: I have that, too.

RS: What have you got?

TB: I see colors when I hear music.

RS: Oh, great!

So, “Octopus’s Garden” was very purple for me. “Act Naturally” is very orangey gold. I’m curious if you’ve ever experienced anything like that. And if it’s not colors, if there are certain textures that you’re looking for in a song, when you’re casting songs for an album? And T Bone, this question’s for you too, since you have it.

RS: T Bone will give me a lot of songs, and I listen to them and I picked my six at the beginning. There were only three I didn’t use. That’s how we started this. In the end, we were talking in my little studio and I said to him, “How many songs have you got?” And he had nine. It gave me the courage to ask him if he would produce the record. All the songs were not on my mind; we were just hanging out like two guys. But it turned into a fellowship.

TB: Well, I can tell you that the Beatles stuff that first came out was very dark blue, all of it. “Don’t Bother Me” especially was the most dark blue of them. It was interesting that the album cover that first came out over here [in the U.S.] was dark blue. So it all sort of coalesced, I think.

That was one of those blessed moments that happen occasionally on earth, you know? Where everybody heard the same thing at the same time.

Absolutely.

RS: I never saw colors. I mean, I did see colors some days… You know what I mean?

[All laugh]

RS: When I listened, it’s how I felt. A sad song, a happy song, a rock song– some of it will move you, and some of it moved me.

TB: Well, I’d better go. But thank you, great to see you again.

Yeah, you too. Nice to see you again.

[As T Bone got up to leave, his wife entered the room and chatter ensued, but he added before walking out the door:]

TB: By the way, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was very dark blue.

Well, you know, what’s funny is, I had a synesthesia question for Ringo about you, because I didn’t know you were going to be here. But I was going to say that your musical color and texture is exactly like what you are wearing, to me.

TB: Oh, is that right? That’s wild. Thank you! Nice to see you all.

RS: God Bless, peace and love!

Tell me about what it is like for you working in Nashville? Tell me what it feels like working with those players.

RS: I did have experience in the early ’70s when Pete Drake invited me to come, because we were working on a George Harrison record. You know, we keep talking about the steps we take, the moves we make. And I was there with George, and I’m playing for him and he’d called Pete – I didn’t know Pete. Pete had landed at Heathrow, and the car George was sending broke down, so we sent my car. And then he arrived. “Hey, hoss, I see you like country music.”

“Yeah, yeah, I do. How do you know?”

He said, “All those cassettes in your car.”

And then a few days later, he’s saying, “You should come to Nashville.” And I thought, “I’m not going to Nashville. I’m doing stuff here. I don’t have a month or six weeks to go to Nashville.” He said, “A month? Six weeks? Nashville Skyline took two days.” And I said, “I’m coming.” And I went, and we did the same thing.

On the first day, five songs were picked in the morning. Between us, we listened to them all. Five songs were recorded, and five songs were finished. And the next day, we picked five songs. Anyway, it went on the same way, and it was finished. And it took two days, so that was great.

Well, Ringo, you have one of the finest reputations in the music business.

RS: As a drummer or else?

EM: As a drummer, as a human.

RS: Or as a tall person?

The tallest around.

Just for being so kind to people and emanating peace and love, obviously. And you’ve been such a beacon of that for so many decades. Especially in the last couple of weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about that, after finding out that I was going to talk to you. I was curious, I’m sure it’s mostly innate, but do you ever feel like it’s a responsibility – in terms of how you are in the public, in terms of what songs you’re picking? I’m particularly thinking of “Choose Love.”

RS: I just do my best, you know, to pick the songs that give you some movement, and you say, “Oh, I’d like to sing that.” That’s what I’m with these two country songs with T Bone. I mean, I don’t really do it in a political way, that it says this or that. It’s usually peace and love. If I write it, it’s always peace and love – I don’t know what the question was.

Just wondering if it ever feels like a responsibility to you.

RS: You know, I’ve had many a good year, but some years I’ve made really bummer mistakes. It’s like that’s when your brain wins. I mean, even on this record, I’ve got the lines about “let the stuff come in, but let it go.” And I’ve been pretty good at that for a long time. Not that it’s every second of my life. Sometimes it gets in. And it stays in your thoughts. Then you’re in hell. I’m blessed that that doesn’t happen half as much anymore. I can just dump the thought that comes in and deal with whatever it is.

I was going to ask you about that line in particular, because I think it does this beautiful job of talking about a meditative quality of finding peace without being preachy or telling people “how to” and I really love that.

RS: I meditated this morning. I meditate every morning, this time since ‘92. You know, we went to the Maharishi in India with the boys. And I was worried, you know, “Am I doing it properly?” I was talking to him [Maharishi] and he says, “Ringo, even if you fall asleep, you must have been tired.”

And it taught me a great lesson. I was into like, madness and stuff, you know, “It must be this. It must be me. What’s the problem?” And now I get quite calm.

That’s wonderful. Yeah. It comes across on this album. You’re talking about your own experience and that’s–

RS: What else can I talk about? I can’t talk about yours, you know? But thank you.

Tell me about the band that played on this record.

RS: T Bone’s whole band is great. The rest of Nashville is so great. They all came out to help me. To be there. It is in my heart.

Last January, when I was there and back three times. And every time when I’ve played at the Ryman… I’ve been playing there for the last 15 years with the All Stars, but when I go on that stage, I feel all the guys and all the gals who stood on that stage.

And then what happens? The Grand Ole Opry invited me to do three songs. And I go on that stage that has the Ryman circle that the singers stand on. It is magical. For me, coming from England, it was really magical to get on that stage. And the people are great. It is built for music coming out and hitting everybody, because it was a gospel church. I’m still moved. I get on the stage, and I have to go through a minute of, “Wow, wow!”

Photo Credit: Dan Winters

Haylie Davis is Keeping Laurel Canyon Sounds Alive and Well

Posted on June 22, 2026June 22, 2026 by Justin Hiltner

California dreaming has become a sonic reality once more. An affinity for 1960s and ‘70s Laurel Canyon sounds is alive and well, including acolytes from onetime Brooklyn punk-rockers across to Los Angeles-based former pop and R&B singers turned country-rockers. A new cohort of such artists based in Tovaangar (the traditional lands of the Tongva, the region including Laurel Canyon and all of what is now called LA) follows Jonathan Wilson’s coronation as “the New King of the Canyon,” and the historical book round-up Canyon of Dreams published at the end of the 2000s.

Influenced by Gram Parsons and other period icons, Northern California-born-and-raised singer-songwriter Haylie Davis is a shining star of this current Laurel Canyon wave. Her debut album Wandering Star – released June 5 on Fire Records – situates her well in the cosmic American music pantheon.

Davis has circled the Los Angeles music scene for a spell with previous musical incarnations being as one-half of country duo Will & Haylie (with Will Worden); the folksy Lady Apple Tree; and under her given name, Haylie Hostetter, contributing vocals to projects of her Canyon-rock peers. Davis descends from the sonic lineage of Jackie DeShannon, whose trailblazing 1968 Laurel Canyon presaged Ladies of the Canyon. Her other key foremothers are Mary McCaslin (Mary Noel Singing Bear, Kiowa Apache) – who got her start at the Troubadour Monday Hoot Night in the late ’60s, often plying imagery of old-timey California and the Wild West – as well as Wendy Waldman, who wrote incisive songs about the tangled love affairs of hip LA.

Davis’s pellucid soprano ascends to the stratosphere, displaying that she has the voice, sounds, and image of a singer-songwriter transported to an LA canyon of yore (she did live in Topanga) – and of a singer-songwriter that could be a big star in 2026. Indeed, Wandering Star, showing a young woman artist with mythopoeic songs with quiet thunder and heartfelt illumination, could be enshrined as Carole King’s Tapestry for a younger generation.

What was your musical upbringing like in Northern California?

Haylie Davis: I was fortunate. My high school had a really good music program, so I was able to take vocal ensemble. But guitar, I would say to this day, I’m not the best at guitar. I mostly just write with guitar. I picked guitar up when I was 16 and have since just been kind of figuring it out.

Do you figure out your songs by ear or do you read music from that teaching?

I don’t know how to read music. I don’t know, honestly, much about music theory. I’d say it’s mostly just by ear. I’ve tried to learn more in-depth about theory, but I feel like my brain has a hard time understanding it. It’s still kind of mysterious. I feel like I learned singing best from just mimicking and singing along to songs consistently.

So, how did the songs from Wandering Star flow to you?

I think it’s just kind of a sequel or it’s just a continuation of my first project, which was Lady Apple Tree. I have one album out under that name, and that album was very much a naive, youthful take on music, just kind of starting out. And I think that Wandering Star is kind of a progression of that into something a little bit more mature, a reflection of more time spent in Los Angeles, the people I’ve associated with, and just a little bit more of a growth, you know? I didn’t sit down and just write the whole album as is; I think songs just kind of trickle in as time goes on. And so those were just my favorites from that passage of time.

What was your approach to producing as you did on the new album? How did you find the studio that you used for it?

So, most of the songs were recorded at my friend’s studio named Ian Doerr. He’s not at the same place anymore, but at the time he was in Highland Park in Los Angeles and he has an all-analog studio called Love Magnet.

And I partnered up with Sam Burton, who was my partner at the time as well, and I would say he was probably one of the biggest influences on the sound. He was kind of like my confidant, someone I’d always be asking for his input and advice and his guidance. He’d been in the music industry longer than I had at that point so he had a lot more insight. I just thought that he has a very, very good ear for production, and I think he’s really good at nailing what a song needs. I call it a partnership just because I feel like he took the lead on most of it, but I also have a very specific way that I want things to sound, certain instruments I want on certain things, and certain drum beats, so I participated in that as well.

How do you command your stage?

I feel like that’s definitely been developed over the years, and it depends on if I’m by myself or with band. I was opening for this band called Nude Party, and they were, at the time, a six-piece or seven-piece band of all dudes. And they were kind of rowdy, you know? I showed up by myself. At first, it was kind of hard wrangling a crowd of people who were there to see a full band just playing by myself. I feel like I was almost catering toward them, trying to win their attention over, and it was hard. I was struggling. And then by maybe the third or fourth show, I remember just being like I don’t care. I’m over this. I’m just gonna go up there and play the songs for me and feel them as deeply as I can. And that show literally just switched the energy; people were receptive.

I learned a lot through that experience. I think I learned that it was about communicating the songs as best as you can. You have to go up there and be strong and be unapologetic.

What is the story behind my favorite of the album’s songs which is “Country Boy?”

I actually wrote that song a long time ago, when I was playing with the first band I toured with which was Sylvie and we were all playing together. And I just came up with this melody, chord progression, and words, and I didn’t do anything with it for maybe two, three years, at all. Then, all of a sudden, the rest of the song kind of came together when I was living in Altadena. I feel like most of the people and men I’ve interacted with in the music scene and just in Los Angeles have been transplants from the Midwest or the South and trying to make it in California.

On the topic of California, how do you feel about previous reviews linking you to the Laurel Canyon scene lineage? Do you identify with any of the artists from that history?

Identify is a strong word. I definitely listen, and I feel like they’re all very much close to my heart, you know, I listen to them quite a bit, and I feel like they’re very formative in my music and also how my life progressed. Linda Ronstadt, and Neil Young, and Joni Mitchell, those figures I feel like musically were very inspiring to me. So, I don’t mind comparisons; I get it. Obviously, my goal is to not replicate but make something of my own.

I saw that you’re a fan of Gram Parsons. Do you have any specific influence from him?

Oh yeah, most definitely! I love him. He’s probably one of my top artists as well. I just think that song “Hickory Wind” is maybe my favorite song. Every time I hear that song, I’m just blown away. He’s huge for me; I’m very inspired by him. I was lucky enough to stay at the hotel room that he passed away in, in Joshua Tree, for a couple nights on New Year’s 2026 – which was really special.

I really think Wandering Star could be an equivalent of Tapestry for your generation. I don’t know if you relate to that statement or not?

Thank you! Oh, wow!

Love. Well, it’s hard. I feel like it’s hard to be completely self-aware of […] it’s hard to see yourself how others see you, you know? I’m just like me, and I’m just out here trying to make it, trying to survive. But I appreciate that; it means a lot. Because it takes a lot of work. I like Carole King as well. But I will say, it’s interesting because I do think that there’s been a kind of exodus out of LA at the moment. I’ve moved to Brooklyn.

Since you’ve moved across Turtle Island do you think the “California Dream” is dead for artists?

I think that there are energy hubs, like New York, LA, certain places that I don’t think it’ll ever fully go away. But I do think that there are seasons for places in cities. And I think that, at least for this specific niche that I’m a part of, I think that it’s a little bit in a low season over in LA. I think that it’s swinging over to New York right now.

Speaking of California dreamin’, I heard that you made pictures previously with my friend the photographer Henry Diltz. Do you think what he shot is like the ones that he did for various legends?

I actually took those a few years back. I was dating this guy named Will Worden who plays music. He lives in LA and I don’t know how he got Henry Diltz’s info, but he did. [Henry] came by and just shot us and it was really, really cool. Like, obviously, he’s a legend. I haven’t really posted any of those photos, so maybe I’ll look back and check them out.

Are there some albums that you find you listen to in emotional times that help you through?

There’s some things I always go back to, but right now, I haven’t really been listening to Joni Mitchell that much. I feel like she’s someone that I can listen to at any time. Right now, I am going through a breakup, and it’s crazy, but I’m surprised by the music that I’ve been listening to… I’ve been really into the first Gipsy Kings album – the second song on that record, it just really hits. I’ve been really feeling it. I love Elliott Smith; I’ve been listening to him.

Oh, I’ve been listening to Anita Ward lately, too. She does “Ring My Bell.” You know that song? And she also has a song called “Spoiled By Your Love” that has been on repeat.

What else about Wandering Star do you want known?

One of the reasons why it feels special to me is because of the people who were working on it, just like how much dedication they shared and it means so much. Just a lot of care from people who didn’t have to do that, but they did. It’s like a nice pin in all of our timelines. It’s coming to a point where we’re all kind of moving in different directions in a lot of ways. And I’m happy to have this shared moment.

I’m just grateful for everybody who participated because honestly it couldn’t have happened especially as I was broke. I didn’t have any money to really do it, and everyone just kind of showed up and was there for it. That doesn’t always happen. You don’t always have people around like that, so I really, really appreciate them for that.

Photo Credit: Sarah Ward

Keyland’s Friends in Low Places Playlist All About Tulsa

Posted on June 8, 2026June 8, 2026 by Justin Hiltner

The music scene in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is alive and well. If I’d thought otherwise at any point in time, it wouldn’t take long for a stranger in an Austin dive or a songwriter in Nashville to remind me – and they have. I’ve called Tulsa home for 10 years and gladly claim and evangelize her as often as I can. This little-big town’s reputation of producing quality singer-songwriters and musicians is justified, however biased I am.

Come with me, Keyland, on a little walk through a Tulsa-Mixtape journey. Before we begin, I’d like to offer a few important listening notes:

1) I regret that I will inevitably leave some folks out, merely due to the limitation of brevity. My sincerest apologies. But I’d like to point out that this list is composed of my personal friends in the Tulsa music scene. Beers on me at the Mercury Lounge to any friends I leave out here…

2) This is a list of current artists. The Tulsa music scene is often associated with only a handful of eclectic deceased writers and musicians. God bless them – but Tulsa has changed a lot in the last 50 years or so. My friends included here do an amazing job of looking ahead at what the future holds.

Let’s jump in! – Kyle Ross, Keyland

“Dripping Coffee” – Ramsey Thornton

Ramsey is one of my best friends and most likely the very best musician I know. He plays drums and sings harmonies in my band, Keyland, and he is an incredible guitar and banjo player. In the best way, this album is more a composition than anything else.

“Stranger” – Wilderado

This is my favorite band. I so respect the way these guys approach rock and roll with a blue-collar “dad” mentality. It’s truly inspiring, and the way I want to approach music as a career.

“Coyote” – Ken Pomeroy, John Moreland

This is a two-for-one selection: Ken and John are both powerhouse songwriters and singers. Both these artists are gifted in very special ways and I’m glad they make music.

“Get to You” – Micah Felts

Micah Felts is hilarious, a fantastic songwriter, and an all-around great dude and friend. He is also a stellar acoustic guitar player.

“Better If Worse” – HAFFWAY

Sam Westhoff is slipping in this Tulsa music list, because I sure as hell wasn’t going to leave him out. He is one of my best friends and has produced all of my music. He lives in Nashville now and is famous (rightfully so).

“Comanche Moon” – John Ferrell

John Ferrell is one of the most rawly talented players and singers I know. I met John while we were both in college and he learned to play guitar better than me and all my other friends in like three months.

“Marigold” – Chris Bo Jones

Also sneaking in this Tulsa list is OKC rockstar Chris Bo Jones. Lineman by day, rock star by night, Chris is one of my favorite singers.

“Outside” – MORE&MORE, Beachfriends

Brady Ballew (the happiest person I know) used to play professional soccer. Now his band MORE&MORE and Keyland like to sell out shows in our favorite Tulsa dive, the Mercury Lounge. I’ve listened to this song 10,000 times.

“Call Me Anytime” – Sports

Christian introduced me to nicotine toothpicks and Australian beer one time after a HAFFWAY show. These guys produce a lot of cool stuff in Tulsa. And Sports is like a huge band.

“Bullfighter” – Joleen Brown

Joleen Brown is Tulsa’s sweetheart. Her voice is crazy good and she is the sweetest, coolest person you will meet.

“Wishes” – Travis Linville

I’m new to Travis’s music and I’m so glad I found it. This is like a Tom Petty song in the best way. I don’t know Travis super well, but it seems like he has a really grounded view on the reality of what it means to be a musician in 2026, and for all the right reasons.

“More” – Kalyn Fay

Kayln Fay just put out a really cool record that highlights and honors her Cherokee culture and roots.

“This Damn Funky” – Johnny Mullenax

Johnny plays guitar 1000 miles per hour. Johnny’s band plays their music at 1000 miles per hour also. The live show is insane.

“South and Pine” – Zach Bryan, King Cabbage Brass Band

I have not met Zach yet, but I have drank one million beers at 5 or 6 of his concerts. The horn section in this new record of his is a Tulsa band called the King Cabbage Brass Band and it is physically impossible to not have fun at a show of theirs. And they also do really cool work in our community by teaching band camps for kids – they recently held a concert at Cain’s Ballroom and their band camp kids absolutely crushed a song on the main stage.

“Cowboy Song” – BC & the Big Rig, Jacob Tovar

This is another two-for-one selection: Brandon Clark was one of the first people to ever believe in my band, Keyland, and let us play our first real gig with them. Jacob Tovar has a buttery voice and one of the funniest people you could give a microphone to. You can catch both of these gentleman holding down separate residencies at local dives – Tonkin’ Tuesdays with Tovar and BC’s Sunday Service – you guessed it, at the Mercury Lounge.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

Another New Chapter Begins for 49 Winchester

Posted on June 4, 2026 by Justin Hiltner

One of the most heartwarming stories in roots music over the past decade has been the emergence of 49 Winchester. The group of high school friends-turned-roommates – then bandmates – emerged from the hollers of Southwest Virginia to become an ACM Award-nominated group and a future household name, off the back of songs like “Hays, Kansas” and “Russell County Line.”

Now, on their new album Change Of Plans, they’re ready to take big next steps, enlisting help from someone who’s frequented that kind of territory to do it. Released on May 15, the group – Isaac Gibson (vocals), Bus Shelton (lead guitar), Chase Chafin (bass), Noah Patrick (pedal steel), Tim Hall (keys), and Justin Louthian (drums) – teamed up with Dave Cobb for the project. It’s their most expansive to date, as it navigates everything from honky-tonk (“Bringin’ Home the Bacon”) to Southern rock (“Pardon Me”) and 2000s alternative (“Heavy Chevy”).

The album is not only the band’s first with Cobb, it’s also their maiden venture with Cobb’s imprint, Lucille Records. (It’s being released in partnership with MCA, where Cobb was named Chief Creative Officer in 2025, and New West Records, 49 Winchester’s label home since 2022’s Fortune Favors The Bold.) Isaac Gibson knew that Lucille would be a good home for the band because he was confident that Cobb would grant them creative freedom. Which he did.

“I don’t think there’s anybody else in the world that has quite the same brain as him,” remarks Gibson. “He’s hyper-efficient and unbelievably tasteful with what he does. Because of that, there was a lot less overthinking than usual. It was very instinctual, like catching lightning in a bottle.

“We also tracked it live for the first time, which is always something we wanted to do. The best way to experience 49 Winchester has always been at a live show, so we wanted to capture some of that energy while also utilizing some of the tools only available in a studio. The result is a version of the band on steroids,” Gibson continues, laughing.

Ahead of the album’s release, Gibson spoke with BGS about the studio time with Dave Cobb, paying homage to Ozzy Osbourne, the band’s trilogy of law-breaking songs, and more.

Tell me about the decision to record the album in only eight days – was that a “Dave” thing?

Isaac Gibson: Previous records have taken a whole lot longer for us. There’s some really great records that have been labored over and over, and other ones that were like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. It was cool to have a different experience this time around where we just focused on doing the thing that got us here in the first place, which is playing and singing and saying things that resonate with us and make us feel good.

But doing things so quickly wasn’t a conscious decision either. It was just the first block of studio time we had available when we weren’t touring and happened to get things done fast. There was a lot of cohesive idea sharing, which was one of the most beautiful things about the entire experience.

One of the most intriguing moments to me came with the inclusion of “Changes,” a Black Sabbath cover that marks the first such tune to ever appear on one of the band’s studio albums. Why was this record and moment the right time to make it happen?

Ozzy’s death is definitely what lit the spark. I remember first throwing the idea for it out to the guys while we were eating lunch in a fellowship hall next to the church in Savannah where we were recording with Dave. We’d been tossing around ideas for dream 49 covers in a group chat for years, so when we decided to actually include one on the record, “Changes” was the first mentioned. We immediately went to record it, not even waiting to finish our lunch. [Laughs]

Once we started tracking it we wanted to grab hold of the raw emotion of it and send it home. It wasn’t even rehearsed – we talked about arrangements and song structure, then cut it. It was a really cool way to pay homage to not only Ozzy but also Charles Bradley, who died in 2017 and performed an awesome soulful version of the song that our version leans toward.

Would you say that “Changes” – both sonically and lyrically with the line “I’m going through changes” – is reflective of the band’s evolution present on this album?

That’s why we chose the title we chose, which is taken from a line in the song “Bluebird.” We’ve all grown so much since starting this band and seen a lot of change in our lives, but through it all 49 has remained steady. But right now has been a distinct season of change for us. We all started this band as kids just out of high school, and now we’re all grown up. This record is just as much about a new chapter for the band as it is new chapters for us individually. We’re all trying to be the best we can be every day, which is what a lot of this record is about.

Regarding “Bluebird,” is it a song about having a plan or vision for how you want a scenario to play out, only for something entirely different to happen instead?

You’re spot-on, and it’s something I’ve recently lived through, too. It sounds cliché, but I always want to write songs as honestly as I possibly can. I think the best thing you can do as a songwriter is give people a little bit deeper glimpse into your life than is sometimes comfortable for you. That’s also an example of what “Slowly” was for me, too. It’s me thinking I’ve got it all figured out, only to have circumstances change that make you rethink everything you thought you knew.

Whereas “Bluebird” focuses on plans not materializing as you’d hoped, it seems “Slowly” focuses more on personal growth and the process of trying – and sometimes failing – to get better?

That one’s not very abstract at all – it’s very direct. When you’re writing about your life sometimes you’ve got to commit to write about it all – the good, the bad and the ugly. Getting better and showing myself more grace through the ups and downs is something I’ve improved on a lot over the years, but I still have more to learn.

With that in mind, the writing on Change Of Plans feels in many ways like your most personal yet. What was the catalyst for that?

It was just a natural order of things. When you’ve only ever relied on your own experiences and feelings for songwriting, you have to find more ways to connect with folks as time goes on so you can get that little bit extra out. You can only write about love, breakups, and drinking so many times before it gets stale and you start wondering what you have left in the tank creatively. This record proved that we’re still able to dig in and continue to do things our own way while staying creatively fresh. As I write more I find myself getting more and more in tune with what I want to say, and this record is the culmination of that.

Jumping back to “Bluebird” and “Slowly,” there also seems to be a bit of yearning for a person on those songs as well. Which is also the case on “Oh, Savannah,” too, albeit with a more positive tone. Are there any other connections between them?

“Slowly” and “Oh, Savannah” were actually written on the same day. “Slowly” was a song I almost had finished before bringing to a [writing session] I had with Jessie Jo Dillon and Chris Tompkins to flesh out. After that we started working on something completely new, which wound up being “Oh, Savannah.” Jessie Jo knew we were making our record in Savannah, Georgia, and said she’d always wanted to write a song about the city, but painting the picture as if it were a girl instead.

As opposed to being something introspective or very personal to me, that one became more of a story song in the vein of “Damn Darlin’” that contains references to very Savannah-y things like the sand dunes and the Cherokee rose. It’s one of these places that aesthetically inspires creativity. There’s a vibe and age to it that I love being around, which made for some cool moments both with this song and the record in general.

Similar to the connection you just made between “Oh, Savannah” and “Damn Darlin’,” I can’t help but notice the ties between “Bringing Home the Bacon” and another track from Fortune Favors The Bold, “Hillbilly Daydream” – only the former is about running marijuana and not moonshine. Tell me about it.

That’s right! It’s part of a trilogy [with “Long Hard Life” from 2020’s III] of hard times and illicit substances being used as a way out of them. We wanted a real honky-tonker on the record and that song was one I’d sat on for about eight years. I had it finished at one point but couldn’t remember anything beyond the first verse, so we brought Aaron Raitiere in to help knock out the rest. He was the perfect guy for that particular song because he leans so hard into that humorous storyteller role like a modern-day John Prine. There’s always a nugget of something to crack a smile or chuckle about in his writing, and this song is no exception.

Are there any other songs on this record like “Bringin’ Home the Bacon” where the origins stem back years?

The first verse of “Heavy Chevy” was also something I sat on since before [recording 2024’s Leavin’ This Holler]. But those were the only two on this record that had been in the tank already without the chance to grow up yet. [Laughs] Songs are like that sometimes – they don’t come to fruition until you least expect it. Most of the songs I’m really proud of have happened very quickly and write themselves in an hour or two. But other times they don’t, and if you keep something of value for long enough then it’ll eventually turn into something else. Getting to breathe new life into something that was dormant and underground for a bit is super cool.

The band has been growing into bigger and bigger venues and straying farther and farther from Southwest Virginia with each passing year and album. Considering this, how has your perception of home changed since the band’s inception?

It’s difficult to say because our home is so linked to who we are. At the end of the day, you can take the boy out of the holler, but you can’t take the holler out of the boy. We’ve gotten to travel the world now and play music for people who don’t even speak our language, which is incredible. Doing that has actually made me appreciate where I come from even more. As I’ve gotten out and seen more, it’s also made me realize just how rare and difficult it is for us to do what we’ve done coming from where we did. In the early days we were still proud to be where we’re from, but we didn’t understand what it meant to be somebody paving the way for others and doing something no other band in Southwest Virginia had done until now.

What has the process of bringing Change Of Plans to life taught you about yourself?

Making this record got me to fall in love with all this again. We’ve worked really hard the past decade, which is good because there were a lot of cool opportunities coming our way, but a doldrum had set in on me that I was able to finally shake off working on this record. It really reignited my spark for the whole thing. My love for the live performance has always been there, but the act of touring can be so grueling. However, I now feel like I have so much left in the tank that I still want to say. This music is going to be our legacy long after we’re gone, so it’s important to stick to it and keep the pedal to the floor.

Photo Credit: Daniel Prakopcyk

The Working Songwriter: Joe Pernice

Posted on May 29, 2026May 29, 2026 by Justin Hiltner

Our guest on the Working Songwriter this week originally hails from Boston, Massachusetts, and now makes his home in Toronto. Joe Pernice got his musical start, though, in Northampton, Mass. At the time, it was a hot bed of indie music creativity. His band the Scud Mountain Boys built a loyal following in the 1990s with a string of critically acclaimed releases. He’s recorded for Sub Pop, One Little Indian, Team Love, and New West Records.

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Over the years Pernice has collaborated with a variety of blue-chip songwriters such as Aimee Mann, Neko Case, Norman Blake (of Teenage Fanclub), Jimmy Webb, Rodney Crowell, and Jim White. He’s also a man of many talents; his novel It Feels So Good When I Stop was published by Penguin Books in 2009. NPR calls him “a workhorse of a songwriter who delivers hard truths with the softest of whispers.” Brooklyn Vegan declared, “Few songwriters today imbue frustration and anguish into the sweetest of melodies as Joe Pernice.”

I got a chance to catch up with him a few months ago to hear about his musical journey so far.

Photo Credit: Colleen Nicholson

The Expansive Universe of Hiss Golden Messenger

Posted on May 13, 2026May 15, 2026 by Justin Hiltner

Next year, singer and songwriter MC Taylor will have been leading Hiss Golden Messenger for two decades. For most of that time, critics and listeners have relied on a few familiar narratives about Taylor: that he is a singular figure, for example; or that his move from California to Durham, North Carolina, marked a formal shift from punk to Americana; or even that he thinks slightly more than he feels. Talking to Taylor, from his home in Durham (well, there was a Zoom call involved), I found these cliches about his practices were limiting, factually accurate but emotionally untrue.

Instead of laser-focusing on one narrative, on telling the same stories over and over again, listening to Taylor speak, I encountered a new understanding of his practice, one which placed Taylor in the background and moved his bandmates and genre-play into the foreground – shifting from the centrality of a singular figure to a greater emphasis on generosity and expansiveness.

That the new album is called I’m People is the first clue that Taylor wants to expand the perception of his music; it’s a title that considers mutuality as central to the enterprise of musicmaking. So, how does one expand this thinking – one could consider him geographically or complicate these tales of origin, or think about who is playing on this record, or even refuse the standard narratives of genre.

Instead of focusing on the fact that Taylor began playing in hardcore bands in California, think about the other influences: that he played in a band named after Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark, an album marked by an urbane distrust of other people’s desires. Or that, around the time he was carefully listening to Mitchell, he was also following that most American portable utopia, the Grateful Dead. Or think about his move to Durham, not strictly to play in a band, but to study folk music academically.

Or, consider how this album was recorded – at least partially – in upstate New York. A more cynical writer would note that Taylor borrows from Dylan’s Nashville Skyline, and that album itself was the foundation of a more isolated, lonely understanding of tradition after abandoning folk music, seeking a slightly more commercial understanding. Recording this in the Hudson Valley could be considered a pilgrimage or homecoming.

I don’t think that it is a homecoming just for Taylor; the record sounds lush, expansive formally, too. Perhaps because the people who sing or play on this record play in a collective of other bands, including Rhett Miller, the Mountain Goats, Bonny Light Horseman, and the Hold Steady.

The expansive nature of the band is not only connected to the history of music they listen to, or the other bands that they play in, but also more unexpected influences like Sade. The idea that Taylor is the band is false, and it is not even that Hiss is the band. Taylor expands the possibility of Hiss, but Hiss itself pushes the possibilities – because of where they come from, their other projects, and even the possibility of geography. Not because Durham is magically a place where music coalesces, but because for a long time it was a college town where rent was relatively cheap and lots of people liked playing music together.

When addressing genres, the promotional material calls the album Americana – but Americana is a useless category, one which might be country or folk or something else entirely. I’m People has a kind of intense richness that is neither of these genres. Listening to the LP, something happens where the expansion or fracturing of those playing on this record becomes its own kind of post-genre.

There are a lot of reasons not to love America right now, but emphasizing the American instead of Americana allows us to consider this album as a consequence of the totality of American music – Taylor addresses the improv nature of jazz as part of this, or traditional folk music, or even 1970s easy-listening. He speaks fondly of the detective novels of Elmore Leonard, and on at least one of his early albums the photography of William Gedney became a powerful totem.

I think of I’m People as a kind of ebbing and flowing for and against tradition, part of that decades-long wrestling with aesthetics and history. Consider the last song, “Depends on the River,” is another of his great songs about waterways. In a 2016 profile of Hiss, New Yorker critic Amanda Petrusich wrote about Hiss’s long tradition of river songs and how it fits into a century of metaphors from blues singer Geeshie Wiley to Joni Mitchell, working this tradition. Petrusich writes: “Taylor frequently evokes river imagery in his work; the river, of course, can be understood as its own kind of road, a direct line to somewhere else, far away.”

I don’t know if that’s wrong, but I also think about rivers as they turn into oxbow lakes, rivers which flow into swamps – literally bogged down – rivers that flow into oceans, and rivers that dry up depending on the season. Hiss’s meandering, deepening quality depends on that river, both the direct line that Petrusich talks about and the larger metaphor, one where Taylor literally talks about whether he dares to cross it. On I’m People, he not only crosses it and crosses it again, but brings along a whole community of other performers. And, an audience who is hungry for the difficulty and ambivalence of so much time playing – and thinking – with him, to the other side.

I know you have a degree in folklore studies, I also noticed that in the last few years there has been a cluster of second- or third-generation performers who have some academic training in folk traditions (see also: Jake Blount, Jake Xerxes Fussell, Willi Carlisle, etc.). Can you talk a little bit about the kind of intersection of formal and informal folk studies and also about your relationship to people who are making this kind of work? I’m thinking about the line on the song “Mercy Avenue” where you talk about the “boys on the corner knowing more than those with PhDs.”

MC Taylor: Well, it’s been a really long time since I was in the academics here. And that universe was one that I feel like I passed through briefly. I wasn’t destined to be in that realm forever. So, I’m not sure that I can totally speak to [that]. Like the place of academic/creative work.

I will say that my time in that space was a really good time for me, when I was restarting my brain and re-centering myself. School was a good way for me to step away from whatever I had been doing previously. I did a lot of field work at that time. I interviewed a lot of people, and I think that it made me a much better listener.

I think that, more than anything else, [that] is what I came away with, this feeling that people really, really like to be heard. So I think I just really tried to develop my listening skills.

Can you talk a little bit about working with a band – especially this band – and about how the bandmates are part of their own creative worlds? Is there a kind of politics there, or a kind of community making?

The basic tracking of the album was done with JT Bates playing drums and percussion, Cameron Ralston playing bass – both electric and upright – and Josh Kaufman, who was producing the record with me, playing guitars, mandolin, piano. My friend Chris Boerner was engineering the record. He plays guitar.

The road version of Hiss Golden Messenger, you know, [are] involved in a whole variety of things. JT, Cameron, and Josh play in Bonny Light Horseman. All three of them have also at various times been members of Hiss and have toured with Hiss. And in fact, that’s where those guys met – playing in Hiss. All of us have known each other for many, many years, so I consider those guys really good friends.

But we’ve never made a Hiss Golden Messenger record before. … They’ve worked on [other] records [together], but we never came together to create a Hiss Golden Messenger record together. It was this funny and unique situation in which we were already old friends, doing something that felt new and fresh. It didn’t feel like a complicated record to make for me. I think Josh Kaufman maybe would say the same thing, but Josh was performing sort of a different task than I was in the situation. It was a complicated record to write, but that was something of the solitary endeavor that took place over probably a year or a year and a half.

I really love those guys and I am delighted that they could be there to play on the record. I think of them as absolute top-tier musicians, every one of them. Cameron is currently playing with the Mountain Goats, he plays all kinds of jazz, he plays in the Spacebomb House Band. JT Bates plays drums with Big Red Machine, which is Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon. And [he’s] just a legendary drummer in Minneapolis. Josh Galvin plays with everybody.

There are some songs on this album about hope and I wondered about making work about hope in this specific social and political moment? “Shaky Eyes” or “Heavy Worlds,” for example.

[I am interested] in how we [have] the energy to get through the messiness of life. And not only this particular time that we’re living through – although that is the most depressing. But just like life in general. I don’t think that we can do – or I don’t think I can do – life alone. So, in a way this record is me writing to myself. Maybe now [about] how important other people are.

I think I realized that the most important part is moving through, and needs to involve being around [other people]. Over the past few years, just speaking personally, the idea of community has felt like a more and more important part of it.

Thinking about that – and how dense/lush the production here is – though you are marketed as “Americana,” I wonder about how you view genre. And also how your band does – I’m thinking about background vocalist Annie Nero’s bio for radio: “She loves to find the common thread between musical ideas and genres…but also break free of genres because life’s too short to limit ourselves based on perceived taste!”

I listen to lots of different stuff. I think all of that stuff finds its way into what I’m doing. It’s a little tricky. I used to have a stronger stay-in-your-lane [attitude] about the term “Americana,” but I just don’t think that I care very much anymore. It’s not a word that I generally use. But I understand why it exists. Many of my favorite songwriters exist in that world.

What would you call your genre then?

I mean, I wouldn’t. I guess that’s what I’m saying.

Like, if I was at the dog park and I was talking to a stranger, and they said, “Oh, you’re a musician? What kind of music do you play?” I’d probably say, “Kind of rock and roll.” I generally am not describing my music in terms of genre, I guess. If I told someone that I played rock and roll, and they asked me to extrapolate on that, I would say something like, “Rock and roll that’s really swinging.” I try and concentrate on the rhythmic elements. I love singer-songwriter type music from the ’60s and ’70s. I like really oddball stuff. I love Bruce Ruffin reggae; I love free jazz. There’s a lot of music that I have inside of me. There’s a lot of music that Josh, Cameron and Chris – [that] we all have inside of us. I think it’s just a question of how we get it out and put it into use in a way that feels genuine and not forced. …

Thinking about the tension on this album between distinct geographical spaces and a more universal emotions – for example on “Seneca (Time is a Mother, Baby)” or “Mercy Avenue.” And also that becomes a larger theme of your work, thinking about how Amanda Petrusich writes about your decades-long commitment to writing about rivers. There’s even the river song on this album. What do you think your relationship is to the land, to rivers – especially. when you sing “Depends on the River.” Or is there specifically one river?

On previous Hiss records there are specific geographical places like city names mentioned. And not only are those places part of the fabric of the story that I’m trying to tell, but they sort of served as poles, maybe? What I’m trying to accomplish is sort of like a poetic travelog of my life growing up in America. I’ve been traveling as a musician since I was 18. I have been, it seems like, everywhere in this country – more than once or some places 10 times. I’ve been all over every highway. So, maybe the dimension of place names throughout is sort of like carving my name on a tree or something. It’s just kind of like, “I was here.” “This is where we are in this song right now.” “This is where we are in my life.” And then, “Now we’re over here.”

In terms of rivers, a river is always flowing, always changing. A river can kill you if you’re not careful. It can keep you alive and get you to the next place if you treat it with respect and understand its rules. The coda on that song, [“Depends on the River”], the last thing that we hear on the record is “the line depends on the river exactly.” I guess the meaning depends on what river of life we’re talking about. It depends how lucky we get.

I’ve always been impressed by the wide range of your reading, listening, and looking. For example, your careful thoughts on the photos of Gedney. What are you reading, what are you listening to, what are you looking at these days?

Well, you know what I’m reading right now? I’m like about 200 pages into this Gary Stewart biography. Gary Stewart, the country singer. It’s called I Am From the Honky-Tonks. Gary Stewart actually was someone that Chris Smith from [record label] Paradise of Bachelors turned me onto like 15 to 16 years ago. Those of us that are obsessive about him all knew that this book was coming. It’s finally out and yeah, if you’re Gary Stewart fan, it’s kind of like you can’t believe it exists. I’ve been waiting for it.

In terms of what I’m listening to, I’m always listening to all kinds of stuff. I just bought this record [that’s] The Sun Ra Arkestra doing Disney themes. It’s so beautiful, really makes you think about those compositions in a different way, [about] actually how deep they are. I’ve been revisiting some Ted Lucas. I’ve really been liking this McCoy Tyner record called Asante. It’s a 1974 record; might be my current favorite. It’s very deep in the zone with like Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders – that era. Oh, it’s beautiful. [I’ve been listening to] some Paul Brady from ‘78. He’s amazing! I’ve been listening to Welcome Here Kind Stranger. [Also] a record that I was checking out for a while [was] by the Universal Liberation Orchestra. It’s kind of this weird, very minimal– I guess it would be jazz.

Photo Credit: Graham Tolbert

Cole Chaney is
“Anti-Machine”

Posted on May 7, 2026June 11, 2026 by Justin Hiltner

While many young talents, willingly or hesitantly, bow down to music industry boardroom suits who promise stardom if they’ll follow a professionally curated path, Cole Chaney takes a hard pass. He knows exactly who he is, what he does, and how he wants to get there. He creates songs, not content. He’s a career musician, not a brand. And the only thing he hopes to influence, maybe, is someone, somewhere, who wants to make music for all the right reasons.

Chaney grew up in Catlettsburg, Kentucky, surrounded by the legacies and storytelling of his elders. After graduating high school he worked as a welder, uncertain of his career path, but already fueled by his passion for music. Today, he keeps one musical foot in the bluegrass traditions of his Appalachian roots and the other in guitar-centric, amplified bands like Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice In Chains, and Stone Temple Pilots.

His debut album Mercy and subsequent OurVinyl Sessions reflect his love of acoustic music and showcase his leanings toward introspection and melancholy. In the Shadow of the Mountain, released last fall, takes that darkness to a new place, balances it with moments of light and leans into the aforementioned rock influences, while never losing the origins of his sound. All of this shines at peak level onstage, captured by Western AF on a Live AF Session.

Sitting outside at home on an April morning, drinking coffee and surrounded by the sounds of birds and a breeze, Chaney spent a couple of hours on the phone with Good Country. He spoke candidly about his music, faith, values, mental health, and the intertwining of inner peace and inner turbulence that make all these things uniquely him.

When you were ready to do this professionally, you went to Lexington. Most songwriters would have chosen Nashville. Was yours a deliberate decision or a natural one?

Cole Chaney: To understand that decision, you have to look at who I was looking up to at the time – and still do – and what drove that decision. When I was in high school, probably around my freshman or sophomore year, 2014 or 2015, I started getting into this band called Sundy Best. They’re from Prestonsburg, Kentucky, which is just down the road from me. This was pre-Tyler Childers. At the time, in Eastern Kentucky, these guys were the biggest thing coming and going. They leaned heavily on being from Kentucky, the same way I do, and they moved to Lexington to get a foothold.

That was my early example, watching those guys. I knew they weren’t going about it the traditional way, which was to go to Nashville and pray somebody picks you up. They did it in Lexington. A couple years later, Tyler Childers comes along – another super-influential figure in my musical upbringing. Of course, he’s anti-Nashville – not the city, but the machine, if you will. I’m pretty sure he lived in Lexington, or at least around the area in the scene, for a while. So did Sturgill Simpson. The list goes on.

I was like, “What business model makes more sense to me? Do I go to the place where there’s more songwriters than the rest of the entire planet or somewhere where people will actually understand what I’m saying and I can maybe build myself a little bit of a foundation?”

The way I saw it is if I started building a sort of fan base or if I had enough ticket buyers, places like Nashville or Denver, these big music scene cities, what choice would they have other than to book us? That’s the way I looked at it.

And it worked.

It did work. It’s a simple business model, but the difference between that model and the other is you’re not sitting around waiting for something to happen. It’s on you to go out and make your own connections. It’s a very grassroots and organic way of doing it and that’s the way I like to do things. I’m anti-machine. Even though I work with some bigger companies, I keep it as limited as possible. That’s so I can play pretty much wherever I want, whenever I want, and they understand that.

On the Whiskey Riff Raff Podcast you said, “Music found me.” Would you mind expanding on that just a bit?

It did. I never would have dreamed at 16 years old that I would be doing this as my full-time job at 25. That was never on the horizon for me. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I knew I was going to weld for a little bit, see what happened, and maybe try to start my own business. And I did. But I really didn’t think it was going to end up like this.

I started realizing that people liked to hear me play and sing around the same time that COVID hit really hard. That gave me an opportunity to sit down, write some songs, and think about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

I’m very much a subscriber to the Bible, and I think the Lord has a mysterious way of working. He put me on a path without me even realizing it way back then and I do my best to stay on it now. I think my job while I’m here is to create as much good stuff as I can, stuff that means something, get it out to the people, and get out in front of them and play it for them. As somebody who enjoys going to shows in their free time and watching my favorite bands perform live, I know how that feels, and it’s truly a privilege to be able to offer that same service to other people.

There is music in your bloodlines, not professionally, but family members who played in church and at home. You obviously assimilated the sound of the area, and also this wider scope with bands like Alice In Chains and Stone Temple Pilots. When did all of that begin seeping into your songwriting?

We listened to the radio when I was growing up. I didn’t get educated on music or how to play until I started really getting into it. To this day, I’m still being educated and learning how to play on a daily basis. Part of what keeps it so fun to me is how much I don’t know and constantly learning about things.

Mercy was my first album, and I had access to what was around me. I had just moved to Lexington and I was really into bluegrass. There’s a band called the Wooks that, to this day, Glory Bound is one of my top three favorite records of all time. I was infatuated with that sound and that was what I wanted Mercy to sound like, or at least as close to it as I could get. A lot of the Wooks ended up playing on that album, plus Michael Cleveland. It was crazy.

Alice In Chains has been a mainstay in my musical taste since I was probably 15 or 16 years old. Since I first found them, I was very drawn in by the tone of Layne Staley’s voice and the weight of Jerry Cantrell’s guitar. It feels like you could bite it and chew on it. I don’t know how to describe it.

I’ve also always loved bluegrass, so it was [figuring out] how to bridge the gap of what I listen to and where I want to go with my writing without completely abandoning that sound. And bringing the alternative rock sound into the folk realm, where you have mandolin, upright bass, fiddle, acoustic guitars, and drums. The biggest change in the sound has been the addition of drums over the past two years, navigating that and seeing how it fits into the whole equation. It opened up a lot of avenues for me as a songwriter.

You began playing guitar at 13 or 14. Did you always play acoustic?

The thing about electric guitar, for me, is that it’s such a deep realm of gear and a deep dive. I’ve always been attracted to good-sounding acoustic guitars and players like Tony Rice, so I felt my effort was best spent getting really good at playing the acoustic guitar.

That will carry over whenever I decide to pick up an electric guitar, more so than if I only played electric guitar and tried to write some bluegrass-style acoustic lines. It would be a tougher transition to come over from light gauge strings on an electric guitar to .013s on a dreadnought and trying to play “Blue Railroad Train” or something like that.

Do you have an electric guitar?

I have several electric guitars. I’ve got a ’57 reboot Stratocaster, an American Professional Telecaster, my old Paul Reed Smith that I learned how to play electric on, and a nice Vox amp. I don’t know all that much about electric guitars. I still have a lot to learn.

Prior to this interview, you sent over your touring rig: a Gibson J-45 Banner in standard tuning with a K&K Pure Mini pickup, and a Breedlove sitka/rosewood Custom Dreadnought in drop D/double drop D, with an LR Baggs Element VTC pickup. Also two Grace BiX DI’s and a Lampifier Model 711 cardioid mic for lead vocals.

Those are my road guitars. They aren’t the ones I recorded everything with, but those are what you see at the shows.

In addition to the Gibson and Breedlove, do you have other acoustics?

I have two Gary Cotten guitars. [On] OurVinyl [Sessions, that] was my first Cotten I recorded with. On In the Shadow of the Mountain, many of those songs are my newer Cotten, which is sinker mahogany and an Adirondack top. “Alone?,” “In the Shadow of the Mountain,” “Into,” “Feels Like Rain,” and “Spirit” [were all recorded] on the Cotten.

That guitar sounds huge. It’s an outstanding guitar. I don’t tour with it because I’m scared something would happen to it and it’s too special to me. And Gary’s a great dude. He’s always taken really good care of me, and I want that guitar to stick around for a long time.

I don’t have any electronics in it, either. It’s a very traditional style, it’s a dovetail, and I want to keep it as traditional as I can and keep as much weight out of it as I can, because the more weight you add, sometimes it makes them sound worse.

What makes the Gibson and Breedlove right for touring?

They’re super-versatile and they both sound fantastic plugged in. That Breedlove is the longest-standing guitar I have that I’ve consistently played shows with. I got it in 2019 from 4 o’clock Rock Guitar Shop in Ashland [Kentucky]. It’s a custom dreadnought that they shop-ordered and it’s got the LR Baggs VTC Element in it. It has always sounded so good plugged in. I mean, all guitars sound bad plugged in, but it’s a matter of how much of the original sound can you actually preserve when you plug it in.

I’ve gotten to the point where I am almost starting to desire a little bit of that direct input texture. Maybe it’s because I’m listening to too much MTV Unplugged, but I’m starting to desire that kind of cardboard bad sound.

The Gibson, I put a K&K Pure Mini in and it sounds really close to what it sounds like not plugged in. Man, that Gibson is a beast. I love that guitar. It’s been to every show with me since I bought it last year.

I still have a Paul Reed Smith acoustic guitar and it’s a damned good little guitar. I’ll probably end up using it again on some stuff. It’s one of those that you plug in and it sounds great, too. But when I got into the whole bluegrass thing, I knew I needed something with a little more body.

Sometimes you use a pick, sometimes fingers. Either way, your attack is strong. How did your technique develop?

It’s one hundred percent out of necessity. I had a really bad injury in 2015 and I damn near cut my index finger completely off at the knuckle. I can’t wholly bend my index finger and I can’t feel the picking side of that finger. If you watch some of my older videos, my index finger is flailing around all the time. It’s because I’m picking with my thumb and middle finger, and that’s where I’m holding the pick. That took me long enough to learn how to do.

In recent years I’ve learned how to use my middle finger to lock my index in place and be able to hold a pick. It looks normal, but if you could see how the sausage is made, it’s not that pretty. I wish I had that dexterity in my finger. The takeaway message from that is, “Take care of your hands, y’all.”

Let’s talk about the through line from bluegrass to bands like Stone Temple Pilots and Alice In Chains. You blend the genres seamlessly and it all makes sense. Did you always feel that connection?

If you listen to any playlist I’ve had, I’ll go from Ralph Stanley to Chris Cornell in a heartbeat. Obviously the music is different, but there are common themes between the two. Mountain folk music, hard rock, and that era are very dark and brooding, and they can be heavy in their own ways too.

What is heavy? What makes a song heavy? You’ve got people drop-tuning their guitars, but it’s still not as heavy as Pantera or Black Sabbath or something like that. So it’s not necessarily the sound that makes it heavy. It’s the vibe of the song.

I feel like a salesman a little bit, trying to sell this idea that this stuff can be brought together and related in an authentic capacity. Let’s take [Stone Temple Pilots’] “Big Empty,” for example. To do a cover of that and be looked at as a folk artist or an Appalachian artist, or some people will even say country – which I disagree with, but whatever – it always seems like somebody will start into a cover of this great song, but then they’ll get hokey with it and it loses all its purity.

That’s not at all the intended purpose for me. It’s to say, “This is a fantastic song and it fits the vibe that we’re all going for in this realm.” A lot of people probably didn’t know that a mandolin or fiddle sounds great on “Big Empty,” but now they do, because it fits. That’s the way I listen to that kind of stuff. It’s just how to pull that off without being cheesy or coming off in a capitalistic way. More so in a way of, “I love this song and you guys should listen to it.”

Was it challenging to find musicians who understand going from bluegrass to Stone Temple Pilots and back again?

The band, I think through a lot of prayer/manifestation, has come together and, as you hear, they’re fantastic. They can play anything in any style. Ella [Webster] and Kyle [Kleinman] come from a more traditional folk music side of things. Kyle is a bluegrasser and Ella is an old-time fiddle player. Lars [Swanson] and James [Gooding] are jazz cats, so they have infinite vocabulary when it comes to music. If you can play jazz, then you’re going to be all right. If you can pull off that stuff, you don’t have anything to worry about when it comes to my type of music. Stone Temple Pilots is a walk in the park for you.

In our van, the most listened-to bands between us are Soundgarden, Pantera, whatever James’s choice of jazz is, and Alice In Chains MTV Unplugged. That’s a really good piece of music. But yeah, they’re a great band and they can play anything.

Did Lars and James know each other before they joined your band? To lock in a rhythm section…

No, they didn’t. Once you start playing with a jazz drummer, you need somebody who can comprehend the stuff he’s laying out and answer that on the bass. To have those two sit in a room and jam is really something to witness and listen to, because they speak a language to each other that I don’t understand. But I love when they do it, and it’s great to hear.

I’ll be playing onstage, singing and doing my thing, those guys are behind me and I’ll hear them back there, talking to each other while we’re doing this thing, and it’s awesome. They’re special. Those two dudes – they’re incredible. They’re the unsung heroes of music in general. That’s your metaphorical offensive line right there. If you don’t have a Lars and a James, then your quarterback’s getting sacked all the time.

This is you in 2025 on The Western Side, talking about Shadow: “a lot of darkness and an equal amount of joy in other songs. It’s a good depiction of where I’ve been for the past two years. A tumultuous and chaotic time period, but also great. And I’m still here.”

Then, In 2021, on With A View: “I load the pressure on. It’s how I operate. My brain lives in constant turmoil.” In 2020, talking about “Fever Dream,” “a song about trying to keep it all together. … the way I deal with this is isolation. And when you isolate yourself, you don’t have much of a choice but to hash some things out in your head.”

You are no stranger to the dark place.

Hearing those things, I look at that younger version of myself almost as I would look at a younger brother. Part of me wishes I could put an arm around that kid’s shoulders and be like, “You’re going to be all right, buddy.” Times got a little tough, as they probably should for anybody at points in their life. You can’t really enjoy the great parts of your life without having a little bit of adversity to overcome or deal with. The darkest part, for me, was maybe just growing up and gaining a new understanding of the way the world actually operates and how hopeless that can be at times, but also how beautiful it can be in the same stroke.

What I’ve realized is you get out of this world what you pay attention to, because whatever you want to find, you can find it. It’s there and it’s aplenty, whether you want to find the negativity and suffering, or whether you want to find the positive and the good. I don’t have the answer to where folks are supposed to operate and live, but I think it’s good to help people who are in that suffering side of things. But you can’t let that dominate your existence, and for a little while, I was maybe dominated by the darker side of life.

I try to be as empathetic as I can, but with that comes feeling a lot and also accidentally hurting people sometimes. That’s really tough, because then you have this cycle of guilt that you deal with trying to make it right in your head. As I’ve gotten a little older and maybe figured a couple things out, I try to have a lot more grace for myself. What I’ve learned about the pressure is that it’s really just perceived pressure and none of that exists, and you should just care less what people think.

Obviously, music is where you go during those times.

Absolutely. If something is eating at me that I’m having a hard time getting out in a linear fashion, a lot of times I find myself writing about it without even realizing it. My mom is an abstract painter, so I grew up with an understanding of what “abstract” means and abstract concepts. That’s how I materialize a lot of that stuff, because some of it is things I would never come right out and literally write down, for multitudes of reasons, but things you want to indirectly address. That’s when [abstraction] becomes a great tool for addressing those kinds of things. Metaphors.

It seems, when it comes to expressing those things, you’re in the balance between the emotionally open world of Cornell, Cobain, and others and the world of bluegrass, country, hunting, fishing, and those stereotypes of “manly men” – and not so much emotional transparency.

Not necessarily. I don’t know about the whole “alpha male” personality type. It’s always seemed to me that a lot of times the guys who are trying to be perceived as macho are probably the ones who need a hug the most. Now it’s everybody else’s problem because their dad didn’t do it, and that sucks.

As I’ve emotionally developed a little bit, I’ve really started to respect individuals like Chris Cornell. If you look into him as a person and watch some of his interviews, he’s intelligent and seemingly self-aware. I respect the way he conducted himself, especially in interviews, and the way he made sure to pay attention to people and make them feel seen. The only way you can empathize with people like that and make sure of those types of things is if you’ve been on the other end of that stuff and you’ve felt looked over and brushed off.

I may not be the best at answering Instagram DMs, and I definitely don’t stay on the internet because I think it sucks, but if I talk to somebody in person, I always try my best to give them that and be present in the moment. Somebody else that does a fantastic job of that is Nicholas Jamerson, the frontman of Sundy Best, who’s a mentor, friend, and hero of mine.

Have you ever felt any hesitation about publicly ripping off the mental health Band-Aids? Or, conversely, is there a feeling of opening the door to people having these conversations?

Sure, there’s hesitation about a lot of things. There’s a lot of decisions about, “How do you want to portray yourself in a public light?” But my main goal is and has been to just be as authentic as I can, as representative of how I feel about things as I can, and to be accepting of people and understand that they come from different places and have different perspectives.

With that hesitancy, there’s also much more in the way that when we were talking about 20-year-old Cole, the way I want to put my arm around that kid and comfort him, that’s what I want my music to do for people that feel the way I was feeling at that time.

Listening to you, I’m reminded of something Charlie Daniels said to me during an interview years ago: “Music is too precious for me to prostitute it.”

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And, too, Charlie Daniels is one of the greatest country musicians ever. I want to go on record saying that.

The way I look at it is, could I see my heroes, people I look up to, going online and being like, “Comment what song you think I should release next”? No, I don’t think I could. When I see someone who has musical and artistic integrity, that’s how I’m going to operate. I’m going to try my hardest to uphold my integrity and not do the TikToks and the really cheap stuff.

You absolutely will suffer financially for not playing the game and if you don’t kiss the right ass, but, to me, that suffering is not negative suffering. I’m honored to be able to suffer like this, because if my options are suffer or have to watch Country Central’s “Hot Take Tuesday,” then give me suffering all day long, because I’m not paying attention to that bullshit. It’s ridiculous. I don’t care who’s beefing and I don’t care what dude is playing cowboy this week.

That’s why I’m trying to get out of the country scene. It’s becoming so fake and there’s so many people trying to be carbon copies of other people. There’s no authenticity. Everybody’s full of shit. We went through this period where people like Tyler [Childers] drove the spear through the heart of this mainstream country thing and it was akin to when Nirvana came on the scene and effectively killed hair bands for a while. But then the Nirvana copycats came along and garnered a lot of the same attention.

I’m not saying that just Tyler Childers is responsible for this. People like Sturgill, and a lot of smaller artists in their own scenes, are responsible for the turning over of the dirt, if you will. But it’s getting stale. It’s past getting stale. It is stale and it’s bad. There’s a lot of really shitty music being put out right now and I don’t want any part of that.

If I’ve got to step away and back off and be out of the internet eye, then fantastic. That doesn’t bother me one bit. If it means a few less people know who I am, then so be it. But I hold out hope that people will eventually realize how cheap and bad a lot of the music is that is being promoted right now, and there’ll be another turning of the dirt soon.

Yes, art is subjective, but art is subjective. Not this corporate bullshit that they’re trying to push. That’s not art. That’s six dudes in a room trying to come up with a song that’s going to sell on the radio or sell on the internet, or “We’re going to put thirty tracks on this album” so they can set streaming records. It’s like, “Man, y’all have lost the complete plot of the whole thing.” There’s nothing interesting about that to me. I’m all about authenticity. I want to believe the person on the other side of the microphone from me, and if I don’t believe you, then I’m out.

Photo Credit: David McClister

Basic Folk: Dawes

Posted on April 16, 2026April 17, 2026 by Justin Hiltner

We are so excited to kick off our Interviews at Sea series with DAWES! We had the chance to talk to brothers Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith aboard Cayamo: A Journey Through Song in front of a packed audience during the music cruise’s 18th voyage in March 2026. The guys have been performing as Dawes since 2009, but the band has been a duo since their 2024 album, Oh Brother.

The Goldsmiths have been singing and playing together their whole lives inspired by their musician father, Lenny Goldsmith, who toured as the lead singer of Tower of Power in the 1980s. Taylor was never told it was hard to play guitar or sing, so he just did it. He always knew he wanted to be a professional musician. We talk about the ways his musical career turned out as not quite what he had expected. We also touch on how their singing has evolved over the course of their lives together.

Both Taylor and Griff are fathers, so of course we asked about the freedom that comes with priorities changing in their lives and careers – as well as what toys they may have regretted ever letting their kids have.

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One thing following Dawes around for the past year is the aftermath of the January 2025 Eaton Fire in Los Angeles. Both brothers and their parents suffered immense loss due to the flames sweeping through Altadena, California, destroying thousands of homes and causing over 30 deaths. Griffin’s son was born two weeks after the fire, a month early. Dawes became the musical face of the disaster with an emotional performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and opening the GRAMMYs with Randy Newman’s “I Love LA” with a veritable supergroup: Sheryl Crow, Brad Paisley, Brittany Howard, St. Vincent, and John Legend. The brothers get into what the experience taught them about healing and reaching a place where this tragedy does not define them. We hear a bit about Taylor’s love of collecting first editions and his fear of the comment section and we wrap up with a fun “Which One?” lightning round. Thanks to Dawes!

Photo Credit: Joel W. Parks

Melissa Etheridge: Rock and Roll and Resilience

Posted on April 13, 2026 by Justin Hiltner

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Melissa laughs]

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

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

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

Can you tell me some wonderful things about Linda?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo Credit: Candice Lawler

The Band of Heathens Leave Nothing on the Table

Posted on April 10, 2026May 15, 2026 by Justin Hiltner

Don’t be fooled by their name, as the Band of Heathens actually give us something to believe in.

Coinciding with their 20th anniversary as a band, their new project Country Sides is equally feel-good and philosophical. The band’s co-founders and songwriters Gordy Quist and Ed Jurdi called in to Good Country from their homes in Austin and Asheville, respectively, to talk through their inspirations for the album, their writing (and rewriting) process, and how banjo fits into their house of music.

Just a few weeks after our visit, Country Sides and the single “Take the Cake” topped the Americana Music Association’s album and singles airplay charts simultaneously, a new feat for the well-established group.

“We have been really fortunate as an independent band,” Quist says. “We’ve never been on a label or been a part of the machine, and we just have a lot of gratitude for the 20 years we’ve had together as a band.

“This record is like a message of gratitude for all that we do have. And as much as we love making records, the live show is certainly my favorite part of this career. That’s what’s special about this band. When we get on stage, I feel lucky to be a part of this thing that really is fun live, so I would encourage people to check out a live show if you haven’t done it.”

As I was listening to the album, I was picking up a lot of messages of encouragement. It feels like a positive record to me. Is that a fair statement, do you think?

Ed Jurdi: Yeah, I think so. It’s like the musical retrospective of the band, in a way, sort of our history as an entity. Maybe in the background, with the realization that we’re making it 20 years at this point, there’s a little bit of a celebratory nature. I don’t know about Gordy, but in my writing process, I tend to almost have the opposite reaction to everything going on around me, outside in the world. If everything’s really negative, and the messaging is really negative, and there’s a lack of hope – maybe it’s a form of escapism for me, but I tend to lean into that [opposite reaction] a little bit more in my messaging.

And insofar as sharing music with people, it’s almost like the internal pep talk that I’m having with myself turns itself into the art and into the lyrics and something to share as a message with other people. We’ve never really been ones for beating people over the head with the message, but things are pretty wild and wooly – and not in a good way out there, in a lot of ways. So, I think some messages of community and togetherness and rallying around a common good – we could certainly use more of that.

Did you have a certain sound in mind as you made this record?

Gordy Quist: I think we talked about trying to make a country soul record. We were listening to some of the early Dobie Gray records and thought, “OK, what if we took a mix of soul music and country music melodies and textured it…” We put more pedal steel on this record than we probably ever have on any record. And that was intentional. From the beginning we knew we wanted to do that. I guess it was intentional to try to make a country soul record. Whether we did that or not, I’m not sure. But that’s how we arrived at whatever we did.

I like the spirit of fellowship in the song “High on Our Own Supply” and there’s a lyric in there about hearing the banjo playing soft and slow, like a stereo. This being the Bluegrass Situation (and Good Country), I’m curious, do you often reach for the banjo?

EJ: I do. I’m a terrible banjo player. You know, my buddy Graham Sharp in Steep Canyon Rangers is an amazing banjo player. So if I need a banjo on a record, I’d probably call him.

I think writing “High on Our Own Supply,” it was almost like we’re building a house of music. You know, if you were to go into any room in that house, there might be this different scene going on. You open the door and there’s someone in there playing the banjo, and it’s so good, it sounds like it’s just coming out of the stereo.

The song “Pleasing People” reminded me of soul music from the ‘70s and I wondered about that soul influence. How does that show up in your music?

GQ: I guess there’s two elements. I think the rhythm section is the foundation of soul music and the groove. That was something on this record we really tried to dig into. The band right now – Clint Simmons on the drums and Nick Jay on bass – are a deep and heavy rhythm section, so that lends itself to a style of American roots music that leans into soul music. But also, simplicity. Lyrics that sound conversational and simple but have some depth to them. It’s hard to do that well. That’s part of what makes soul music great – that it’s simple but it’s good.

It takes skill to make it look easy or sound simple. What’s your editing process and your rewriting process like for you?

EJ: It never really ends. Even after we record these songs, I definitely change lyrics to songs as we play them live. The cool thing about these songs, especially making a recording, it’s a snapshot in time. But songs, I think of all the artistic mediums, they kind of move with you through time in a really special way. What a song means to you at 16 can mean something completely different to you at 40. You’ve piled up life experiences and you view the world in a little bit of a different way. So that’s always fun, but editing is constant.

I would say Gordy and I both are doing a lot of lyrical editing and we’re doing a lot of musical editing, too. When we get together and make records, it looks something like Tuesday morning, 10 o’clock: “Hey, Gordy, what do you got?” You know, Gordy grabs an acoustic guitar, sits in the middle of the room… And I’ve [already] heard these songs we’ve worked on, the two of us, but that’s the first time that Trevor Nealon (our keyboard player) and Nick and Clint have heard the songs.

So it’s like, “Hey, OK, first impressions? Go!” and then we start filling the canvas up, taking stuff away, adding stuff, changing colors, all these different things, until we’re at a point where we feel like we’ve edited something down to a nice, presentable format. So, it’s a work in progress, always. To your point, the more you can tolerate the editing, the better things become. It certainly is the most challenging part of the job, but it can also be the most rewarding.

“Take the Cake” has a great vibe. I’m sort of a workaholic, so it’s a nice message to hear, to hit pause and go do something fun. What were you hoping to convey in that song?

GQ: I think I was playing with the idea of giving versus taking, in life. I’ve been working on that song and editing that song for a couple of years actually. I’ve had it for a while. You know, there’s a weird juxtaposition of giving and taking. If you are always taking, in theory you should have lots of things because you’re receiving them. But in reality, you usually end up empty, whether it be friendships or whatever.

The opposite is true also. If you’re always giving and generosity leads, in theory the fear side of you thinks you’re going to run out of stuff. But the opposite actually is true. And that’s kind of what I was playing with, just the idea of letting go of that consumerism or just the [mentality of] “I need to keep what’s mine.” And being cool with letting go of that and letting generosity be the leading force.

As you mentioned earlier, this album is like a 20th anniversary celebration of the band. Are you enjoying this period of your life? You still have a lot of years ahead, but you’ve got 20 years of experience behind you too.

EJ: Yeah, I think it’s a good vantage point. I’ve heard Gordy describe it as standing at almost the peak of a hill. We’re all dads, so we can look down and look at our kids and remember being their age. Looking the other way on the hill, we see our parents, and we remember our grandparents being that age. So, it’s kind of a trip to be in this middle age of life. We still have the energy of young people. I think the fire is still there. There’s no lack of commitment or of energy or passion to what we’re doing. But we’ve assimilated a little bit more wisdom, and we have a few more tricks up our sleeve, a few more shortcuts. It’s fun exploring those things and trying to share them with people.

GQ: Talking about this phase of life that we’re in, I have this feeling like, when we were young, making our first records, we would put everything into it and the goal always was, “I hope this is good enough that we get to keep making records and make another record.” At the end of every record we’ve made I felt like, “Man, that’s the best thing we’ve ever done and I don’t know how we’re ever going to top that.” Whether it is truly the best thing we’ve ever done or not each time, that’s not for us to decide, but it feels that way to us.

EJ: We’ve always left nothing on the table when we’ve made a record. Now we’re just a little bit more conscious of our surroundings and what our intentions are. Again, I don’t think there’s ever been a lack of effort, but now there’s maybe a realization like, “Hey, every time we get on stage, every time we sing, every time we make a record, it might be the last time we do, so let’s make sure we’re doing it with everything we got. Let’s leave it all out there, because at the end of the day, that’s all you got.” You can feel good about that in the rearview mirror.

Photos courtesy of the artist.