Tag: rock and roll

LISTEN: Saints Eleven, “My Home Is”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Saints Eleven
Hometown: Denton, Texas
Song: “My Home Is”
Album: This Town EP
Release Date: March 27, 2020

In Their Words: “‘My Home Is’ is basically an apology to my son. I’m not even sure that he was aware of what was going on or why. He’s been around my ‘music career’ all of his life. It was just something Dad did. Maybe I just felt guilty the night I wrote it, in a hotel room, on the road. I’m so passionate about what I do, I sometimes forget what’s really important. This song was more for me I think. I wanted to let him know that even though music has consumed most of my life, he’s still the most important thing to me…. With that being said though, I wouldn’t change a thing. I think you have to stay focused on the goal in order achieve success…. I’m probably wrong, but it’s how I feel.” — Jeff Grossman, Saints Eleven

Photo credit: Texas Red Photography/Melissa Arnold

LISTEN: The Mammals, “Radio Signal”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: The Mammals
Hometown: Woodstock, New York
Song: “Radio Signal”
Album: Nonet
Release Date: March 27, 2020 (single); May 22 (album)
Label: Humble Abode Music / Soundly

In Their Words: “The day of the 2017 Charlottesville riot I got a text from our friend, Vern, reading: ‘PLEASE for the song that kills fascists.’ ‘Radio Signal’ was written in the next 10 minutes. Where is the hope in our twisted culture? Bob Dylan says it’s in the wind. Daniel Quinn described a sacred ‘blaze of life’ that connects all things. Pete Seeger showed us the power of many people making small contributions: the ‘tea-spoon brigade.’ Each verse of ‘Radio Signal’ is a nod to one of those three great teachers, melodically informed by the beautiful old folk song, ‘Shenandoah,’ and transformed into the anthemic rock song we share with you today. ‘And I roll, and I roll, down the backroads of my soul. Lookin’ for light like a radio signal…'” — Mike Merenda, The Mammals

Photo credit: Tom Eberhardt-Smith

Dave Simonett Offers Clarity and Community on Solo Debut, ‘Red Tail’

Posted on by Editor

Dave Simonett has proven himself to be a man no genre can hold. Some days the Minnesota-based singer/songwriter is fronting prominent Duluth string band, Trampled by Turtles. Some days he’s playing with a full rock band behind him as Dead Man Winter. Now his latest project comes in the form of his first full-length solo album, Red Tail. In a phone conversation with BGS, he discussed his freedom from expectations, the project’s emotional clarity, his love of musical diversity, and more.

BGS: Tell me about making this album. What’s memorable or special about it for you?

DS: Well, I started out just making it by myself. That was kind of what I had in mind for the whole thing, initially. I have a studio in Minneapolis and I was working there. I recorded pretty much all of the songs that ended up being on the record and thought I was done, but at the end of that process I thought I’d like to expand a few of them with some other players.

So I ended up going down to Pachyderm Studios outside of Minneapolis with a small band and re-recorded about half of it down there. Still used some of the stuff from my studio, some from Pachyderm, and just kind of smashed it together. This happens to me pretty often. I’ll have what I think is a concrete idea of what I want to do at the beginning of a project, and then it evolves from there. I’ve learned over the years to let that process happen.

You mention that Red Tail benefited from a freedom from expectations because you recorded it without really knowing if anyone would ever hear it. How do you think that freedom helped flavor the album?

I do think there’s a freedom to that and I think it’s the first time I’ve ever done that. Normally when I started to record anything there was an end product in mind: “We’re going to go make a Trampled by Turtles record,” or something like that. That carries with it a certain amount of pressure, which this didn’t really have. I just had these songs and I wanted to record them. I didn’t know what it would be, I just wanted to record them. So I had a little bit of time on my own doing it, and then I thought, “Well, let’s see what they sound like with the other people and a little bit of time in the studio.”

The whole time I was thinking, “You know, this could be something or not. Maybe this is just demos for another band.” But as the process went on, it started to fuse together into something that felt like a record to me. It ended up being a really easy and natural feeling, and that came from the thought process at the outset when I thought, “This doesn’t have to be anything.” I didn’t have a deadline. I didn’t have anything like that. It was really open, and in a weird way it took away a lot of stress.

From the point that you realized this album was something that you’d be releasing, did the songs change in any way from an arrangement or textural standpoint?

Yeah, definitely. Both of those. They even changed from a lyrical standpoint, and I think that a lot of times when I’m working on a record it will do that throughout the process. It’s something as simple as adding some different people in there. That in and of itself just changes it so much.

We recorded everything pretty much live, which is how I generally like to work, so there wasn’t a whole lot of forward thinking in that way. It was more like, let’s get these guys in a room and see what happens when they play the song however they feel like it. And then maybe a couple little adjustments, but that was really all of the arranging we did. Just the fact that there were other people contributing stuff from their own creativity was enough to change it quite a bit.

You say that recording this album was the best you’ve ever felt in your personal life while recording. Do you think that helped give you the clarity to better examine some of the darker subject matter on the album?

Yeah, and I generally get the same vibe from other writers that I’ve talked to. I think that maybe depression, or hard times in general, get a little bit romanticized in music. It might be like the whole Townes Van Zandt myth or something like that; that you have to be super messed up to write music. In my life, in periods where I’ve been like that, I can’t make anything. I feel like creativity and the drive to go make something are at their peak when I’m feeling good.

I think that’s a pretty simple equation when you think about it. Sometimes it’s hard to get out of bed, let alone go to a studio and write all day, along with all of the stuff that goes into making a record. I do think that “clarity” is a good way to put it. Everybody has rough patches in their life. Being at a point to look at some of those and examine them, I think the best way to do that is from a different place. For me it is.

A healthy mindset keeps you from being sucked down an emotional rabbit hole that can end up impacting the entire album and recording process.

Yeah, that’s a good point. You can look at it and almost have a sense of humor about it instead of taking it, and yourself, too seriously in that subject matter.

You talk a lot about how special it is when the listener can apply a song to their own life. At the same time, this is your solo album and sort of a vulnerable look into your life. How do you write in a way that’s specific enough for these songs to mean something to you, but also broad enough that any listener can apply it to their own lives?

I have no idea. [Laughs] I don’t think it’s very intentional. I feel like most of the time I’ll just write, and once in a while I’ll see a line and recognize that from some experience in my life. Instead of thinking about an experience and writing towards that, I just write and then I can look back on it and say, “Oh, I know what that was about.” Most of my work has been that way. It starts like that for me. It starts kind of ambiguous.

It all comes from inside. All the stuff that’s jumbled up in my brain comes out as this, so it’s by its own nature personal. I’ve never really been good at writing stories about things that didn’t happen to me. Some other people are really good at that, but I can’t do that. It all comes from me, but very rarely does it get very specific, and I think that’s just my general style. Maybe a comfort level thing.

“There’s a Lifeline Deep in the Night Sky” strikes me as one of the purest representations of the community and fellowship that surrounds roots music. For somebody who may not know anything about this music, what would you want them to know about the community that surrounds it?

I don’t know if I can think of anything that specifically applies to roots music. This might be a roundabout way to say it, but when I started playing music in Duluth with Trampled, and a couple other bands before that, the music community was really tight. It was also really diverse. There wasn’t another string band in that town. The scene was small and creative enough to sort of only allow for one or two bands who sounded similar, and then nobody else would want to start something like that because it’s already being done. So my sense of musical community comes more from the diversity of the scene.

[Trampled by Turtles] didn’t really start out in an Americana scene. We’ve grown in that world since then, but I think community applies to music in general. I think a lot of people divide stuff up into genres a little too harshly. The people who came down and sang with me on “There’s a Lifeline Deep in the Night Sky” were just a gathering of people who happened to be at the studio. These were people, a lot of them musicians and a lot of them not, who were from all over the place musically. It was more like, let’s all get in a room together and sing a song. I feel like you could probably find that in hip-hop, metal, or anywhere. I hope so, anyway.

I felt really lucky to grow up musically in Duluth in the early 2000s. Every show we played would be with two or three bands. It would be us and a punk band, a hip-hop band, a straight-up rock ‘n’ roll band, but we were all friends. It was celebrated that we were all different from each other, and that’s why we were all doing this together. That’s one of my favorite things about local music scenes across the country. Finding that stuff. You’re right, we do have a great roots and Americana scene around here in the Midwest, but there’s great everything. When people get too caught up in one thing it can get a little poisonous. I feel like music itself brings communities together.

Recording a song like “There’s a Lifeline Deep in the Night Sky,” we recorded it with one microphone onto a cassette player. It was about as informal and unrehearsed as it gets. It was just fun. Nowadays, especially with the modern recording process, it’s easy to make a perfect song. You can make the tempo perfect, the pitch perfect, and everything. Still nothing compares to getting a bunch of people in a room and playing a song live. Embracing the little imperfections that happen as part of the uniqueness of the recording.

Playing with punk bands and metal bands, how does coming from a place like Duluth impact your scope? Does coming from a scene with so many different types of music open your borders and give you some freedom to explore new ideas?

Absolutely. If nothing else, it helped me get out of my own head. If I wanted to go see some live music I would see so many different kinds of music. It wasn’t like it is in some places, where I could go see a folk act every night. I can’t go see a bluegrass band every night in Duluth. It forced me, and hopefully a lot of other people, to celebrate all these different bands.

To me, the genre doesn’t matter at all. A song could be on a banjo or a laptop, but if the song connects with me then I’m into it. I don’t really give a shit which instruments are played. It’s about the song, or if you can see some kind of art in the performance that you really connect to. To me, that’s the most important part. That’s what I want to celebrate. When I record, this is how I like to do it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to go see Atmosphere some time. Just because I can’t play that music myself doesn’t mean I don’t love it.

I try to be honest with myself in the recording process, where if something comes up that I want to try I’ll give it a shot. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. But to your question, I really am thankful for that diversity in my music growing up. That’s helped me keep an open mind. I feel like the older people get, and the older I get, it’s even more important to keep your mind open.

Photos: Zoe Prinds

The String – Ron Pope

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

Ron Pope is a case study in good indie art and commerce. He’s an admired songwriter with an avid following for his cathartic, detail-laden songs and his wide-ranging command of roots and rock and roll genres.


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Over more than a dozen albums, Pope has steered his own ship in a business partnership with his wife/manager, Blair, and their label, Brooklyn Basement Records. The newest project is the sweeping album Bone Structure. A Georgia native, he got his career moving in New York and then moved to Nashville, where he’s raising a daughter and keeping the songs flowing. Also in the hour, a radio field trip to Nashville’s shrine of analog recording, Welcome To 1979.

The Hurt Behind Nathaniel Rateliff’s ‘And It’s Still Alright’ (Part 1 of 2)

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Nathaniel Rateliff’s And It’s Still Alright retains much of the soul and swagger of his work with his band the Night Sweats, but its subtler arrangements and sparser atmosphere offer more room for Rateliff to showcase his introspective side as both a songwriter and vocalist. Songs like the title track, which chronicles the aftermath of unexpected loss, and the poignant “Time Stands,” hark back to his salad days as a solo singer-songwriter while also marking his immense artistic growth over the past decade.

As his first full-length solo album in seven years, And It’s Still Alright comes on the heels of two acclaimed albums from Rateliff and the Night Sweats, both of which released via STAX Records and found the Missouri-born artist digging deeper into rock-influenced soul and R&B music.

Rateliff originally planned to make the new album alongside friend, frequent collaborator, and beloved producer Richard Swift, who died unexpectedly in July 2018 at the age of 41. Swift’s passing is a heavy presence across the LP in myriad ways, including Rateliff’s decision to record the bulk of And It’s Still Alright at Swift’s National Freedom studio in College Grove, Oregon.

Below, read part one of our conversation with Rateliff, held in the weeks leading up to And It’s Still Alright‘s release.

BGS: You’ll release And It’s Still Alright in just a couple of weeks. What are you feeling as you anticipate having this new music out in the world?

Rateliff: I’m excited. I’m excited to share it. This is kind of the first time that me and the band have done real rehearsals. [Laughs] I feel like with the Night Sweats we’d be like, “Oh, we know these songs,” and just kind of rock through them. These songs have such a different intention than that, and there’s so much more subtlety in performing them live together. It’s been an interesting yet fun challenge to figure that all out together.

Having been a few years since you last put together a project that wasn’t with the Night Sweats, what was behind your decision to move forward with another solo album this time around?

When we were making the last Night Sweats record, I had a lot of these songs that I was working on. I was sharing them with Richard. We had intended to make this record together before he passed away. So I guess I followed through on my commitment to him in making this record. We tried to do it the way we thought he would do it.

What did those early song ideas, as well as those early conversations with Richard about what you envisioned for the album, sound like? Was there a moment or a song that made the project feel like it had clicked for you?

I remember playing “All Or Nothing” — I had the chord progression for it, and some of the words; it wasn’t really done yet — and I was kind of sharing it with Richard and he was like, “Man, I love this. You can’t be too Nilsson, man.” And so I would say, “OK. We’ll see how Nilsson we can get.” That was one of the things I wanted the record, or at least some of the songs, to have, that feel and similar approach to Harry Nilsson’s. Then a lot of the songs had a lot to do with Richard passing away, and some of our similar struggles that we shared in our personal lives and in our friendship together. So it seemed fitting to follow through and make a record.

Would you be open to sharing a bit about what you were feeling after he did pass, and when you made the decision that you were going to follow through with the album? How did doing the work feel in the wake of his passing?

It’s devastating, still. I still think about Richard and miss him most days, you know? He had this amazing ability to make the people around him feel very loved. As far as a creative partner, he was my favorite person to really work with. I really hadn’t intended on working with anybody else. So a really big part of the process of making this record was to go back to his studio. It has such a sound and feel to it there, so it kind of made me feel like he was with us in some way…

The band and I had all worked a lot with Richard and kind of new some of his tricks, which he was super open and willing to show us when he was still around. We really tried to approach it like, “What would Richard do?” song-by-song. Then there’s always that point in the process when you listen to the songs and say, “OK, what is there too much of here?” and kind of strip it back. Then we added a bunch of things to it. [Laughs]

The title track is so powerful and is one of several songs I’ve found myself returning to often since first sitting down to listen through the album. What was the experience of writing that song like for you? Did it bring about any healing for you?

I had a bunch of songs that I was writing with Richard in mind. When we were in Cottage Grove making this record in March, I’d had that song and was sitting at the kitchen table having coffee in the morning and just kind of instantly wrote it all out. At first, when you’re listening to it, the words came out so naturally that you don’t really take the time to question or examine what you’re trying to express personally. There was a moment in the recording process when I was like, “Oh fuck, I can’t believe I’m writing about this.” It’s heartbreaking at first but there is an element of healing to it. Sometimes to relinquish things you just have to say them out loud.

Read Part two of our interview with Nathaniel Rateliff.

Photo credit: Rett Rogers

How the Wood Brothers Made an Album out of a Print Shop Jam Session

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The Wood Brothers have been together as long as they were apart. For fifteen years or so Chris and Oliver Wood pursued separate careers — Oliver out of Atlanta as a blues/rock guitarist and singer, and Chris out of New York as the bass player with the uncanny jazz/jam success story Medeski, Martin & Wood. Then they sat in together and felt a pull energized by family ties and musical curiosity, and their folk duo was born, about fifteen years ago.

Chris jokes that over seven studio albums and uncountable miles on the road, they’ve been on “a slow rise to the middle” but that’s far too self-deprecating. Their last opus, 2018’s One Drop of Truth, was nominated for a Grammy, and not long after it was released the band headlined the Ryman Auditorium and Red Rocks Amphitheatre (their hometown shrine, as they grew up in Boulder, Colorado). In September, they released their fourth live album, culling songs from a two-night stand at the Fillmore in San Francisco, where their highly developed musical telepathy — between the brothers and with drummer/keyboard player Jano Rix — was on vibrant display in a warm sonic atmosphere.

Newly minted is Kingdom In My Mind, an 11-song collection inspired largely by the feel of a new studio. The band and their sound engineer Brook Sutton had to move out of the old church-like studio where they’d made One Drop of Truth, but they found a new place nearby on Nashville’s west side. The brothers spoke to BGS about how that new destination shaped the sound of their latest project.

BGS: I understand that shaking down your new recording space produced proved unexpectedly productive?

Oliver: In our downtime we’ve always had some sort of rehearsal space, whether it was Chris’s basement or something, where we would just improvise and come up with musical ideas. I think all of us enjoy the art of improvising and playing music without thought and without purpose. We’re not trying to write a song. We’re not trying to sound good even. We’re just trying to play something new. Chris and I will react off each other, or off Jano, and do that musical communication that can happen if you just listen. We’ve always done that. And we’ve always recorded it on a phone or on a laptop just to remember. Whereas this time we set up and did the same process but we had a professional studio and an engineer miking everything up so it was usable.

Chris: Yeah, we didn’t know what we were doing. We didn’t know this was going to be the beginning of a record. We’d got a studio and put a lot of work into getting it up and running and sounding how we wanted it with baffles and things like that. But then it was, well, this is a huge room. Where do you set up? Where do you put the drums? Let’s put them over here. Let’s see what that sounds like. And we set up near each other and threw some mics up intuitively. I think we were struck immediately as soon as we heard playback. Even with that haphazard setup, it sounded great. Something about the room made us play a certain way. It felt magical and inspired. So immediately we looked at each other and said, “Maybe this is how we make this record.” So we did maybe five sessions where we set up and improvised in different parts of the studio. There’s a big A room, which you could almost fit an orchestra, and then a smaller, dryer room. So we had fun with all kinds of different variations.

Can you give us a visual and the background of the place and why it became home?

Chris: It’s an old print shop. So what we call the B room is smaller. It’s probably where people came in and got stuff photocopied.

Oliver: And then the back room — after it was a print shop and before we got it — was a dance studio with a dance floor and high ceilings. It was probably a warehouse at some point. This is not a fancy building. It’s cinder block.

So you had to look at this print shop/warehouse/dance studio and imagine a plan?

Chris: It was easy, and it had to do with the layout. It was very clear immediately. The control room goes here. From that room you have access to both tracking rooms. There’s even a lounge. There’s a room with a loading dock that can also be an isolation room. And it’s all in a circular layout. Everything about it was easy to imagine how we could be up and running quickly once we got our stuff in there.

Oliver: It was luck. And it was cheaper than we expected. But I’ll add to that process that Chris was talking about. The improvising we like so much, almost never can you use that stuff on an album. Normally you perform songs to make albums. So Chris got really good at editing these improvs. These are just jams, maybe in the key of A for 20 minutes. Maybe we switch chords every once in a while. Maybe we don’t. But Chris started chopping them up (in audio software). And we realized that we could arrange these improvisations.

And the beautiful thing — which usually gets lost — is your first impression of things. Like when you’re inspired. You play something, and you’ll never do it again. But we actually captured those moments and were able to use them on the album. And so the things that all of us love about albums are these anomalies, little mistakes or weird things that bleed together — things that if you were thinking about a song you’d never have played. To us, that had a freshness that Chris was able to chop up, and we were able to write lyrics over these new collage-y things.

Chris: Like Sly Stone said, there’s a rhythm when you don’t know what you’re doing. And we really take that to heart. I think that’s why a lot of musicians who have been doing this a long time really cherish first takes. Because before all the musicians really know the song, they’ll play things that they’d never play once they really know the song. For a lot of us, I mean for me certainly, it’s always a red flag when we do a take and I feel like I really nailed (it). It’s almost a guarantee that that’s not the take. Not the good one. The good one was the one before, when I was searching and didn’t quite know what was happening next.

Oliver: Discomfort is good.

Chris: A little bit, yeah. You don’t want to know too much.

Right out of the box on “Alabaster” there’s this over-driven sound like a Rhodes piano and I wonder if maybe that was just an accident that worked?

Oliver: Absolutely. That was recorded the first day we set up. Jano was playing drums and keyboard at the same time. He had this keyboard rig with a crappy little amplifier and it just sounded like that. And again, we weren’t thinking about a song at all. We were all in one room in a circle, and it just happened to be cool.

Chris: We were thinking sounds more than anything. Oliver had this great Stella guitar that he recently got set up. I’m sure Jano played that sound on purpose because he liked it. It was very intuitive and in the moment. So he didn’t have to worry if it was fitting a song or not. He just liked the sound. That’s kind of what we were going for.

You both come from improvised music backgrounds, one jazz and one blues-based. When I heard these tracks, I felt like the Medeski, Martin & Wood approach and the Wood Brothers approach have never been closer. Also, Jano plays with even more freedom. This feels like a jazz record in many ways.

Chris: I absolutely agree. This is the most meshed those worlds have ever been. It was definitely a long-term goal to get to this point. Little by little, not only integrating the MMW background with the songwriting, but also, just as you said, Jano is such a talent and can do so many things. Great drummer. Amazing keyboard player, percussionist. Great singer and producer. So to integrate all of his talents into what we were doing as a duo took some time, you know?

I think that’s why it works. When you improvise, all your knowledge, all the music that’s inside you, can come out. It’s not restricted by a song that’s been written already. Jano’s drumming and all of our playing is featured more because we were improvising to create the source material for the songs and were able to keep that. In the past I loved all the songs, but there’s a lot more that we can do. Improvising is a way to showcase that.

Oliver: It does inform how you play live too. We learned that you don’t always have to be right on the money. It’s fun to pretend like you’re in a punk band for a minute or something and kind of let loose and try something different.

Here it is about 15 years into this journey. Maybe it’s been an even bigger force in your lives than you thought. What have you learned, as musicians and family?

Oliver: I bet we take it for granted doing it all the time and being busy with it, but certainly in the last 15 years I feel like Chris and I were slightly estranged in that we were living in different places and playing with different people. We had sort of lost touch. So initially, yeah, the music brought us back together and we were able to combine our shared interests and experiences. That was awesome, and it was how we reconnected as brothers. And it’s nice to have a family business, especially a creative one, where we get to do that together and make a living too.

Chris: Yeah, people usually frame the beginning of this band as if it must have been a casual side project. But I never thought about it that way. It was exciting from the beginning. And for both of us, in different ways, coming full circle. We grew up with our dad playing music live around the house, you know, folk songs. Playing and singing. And that was, we realized, a huge influence.

I always liked singing when I was younger and ended up in Medeski, Martin & Wood, an instrumental band, for 20 years. I hadn’t been singing, so it was scary, but it was something I was really excited about getting into again. And just the way we write songs and composing with my brother is really fun and different. Whereas MMW was, as you said, a lot of improvisation, I also like writing. It was nice to get into that too.

Pulling back, MMW was a band that took real jazz to the jam band audience. And I feel like there are bands that hover between the world of the jam audience, which loves freedom and surprise, and the songwriter audience, which focuses more on the lyrical emotion. And maybe those bands never quite get totally accepted by either camp. How have you all mapped that?

Oliver: That’s well put, and I think we ride that fence, and enjoy it for the most part. It’s a nice balance. Personally I like to hear somewhere in the middle. I like to hear a good song, but I also like to hear some musical interplay. I think a balance of those things is really cool.

Chris: Yeah, one of the things that can be amazing about music is when there’s some mystery. You don’t quite understand what’s happening up there but it still is engaging. And how do you do that? There’s no formula. Nobody knows. Which is why we never get tired of this job. You know, you can’t figure it out. You stumble upon it sometimes, but it’s not always obvious how you get to that magical balance between the two.

Oliver: It’s always a fun challenge for us to take a good simple song but set it apart and give it its own sound. So use a weirder guitar. Use a broken thing. But make it something you haven’t done before and you haven’t heard somebody else do before. That’s kind of what we’re always doing.

We talk about this all the time. Sometimes we’ll write a song and use just cowboy chords and write it like a country song. Then [we’ll] mess up the music completely and make it our own thing somehow. So it’s a combination of all this classic stuff we love. And then, how can we make a new classic?

Craig Havighurst is host of The String from WMOT Roots Radio in Nashville and a longtime journalist covering roots music.

Photos: Alysse Gafkjen

Aubrie Sellers Lets Her Music Breathe in ‘Far From Home’

Posted on by Editor

With her new album Far From Home, Aubrie Sellers is living up to its title. Raised in Nashville as the daughter of musicians (Jason Sellers and Lee Ann Womack) and now living in Los Angeles, she absorbed bluegrass and country while still exploring genres with a harder edge. That spectrum of influences is apparent in her new music, which ranges from the softer sounds of the title track to the electrified vibe of “My Love Will Not Change,” a duet with Steve Earle.

Adding another meaning to “Far From Home,” Sellers wrote much of the album in Texas, and she’ll launch her national tour by opening for Tanya Tucker in New York City. BGS caught up with her just before she hit the road.

BGS: You recorded Far From Home at Sonic Ranch in Texas. What made you interested in working there?

Sellers: I was listening to a lot of what I call “desert music.” Tarantino soundtracks and The Ventures and stuff like that. I had taken my camper out to Marfa, Texas, and wrote some of the songs on this record there. I was very inspired by that vibe. My whole family is from Texas, so that kind of feels like my home.

Also I wanted to get outside of Nashville and I loved that idea that the whole band stays there while you’re recording. You immerse yourself in the making of the music. It’s really important for me to focus on making a record and having a cohesive experience. I feel like all that stuff tied together.

Why did you feel like you needed to get out of Nashville, do you think?

It’s nice to have no distractions. It’s nice to have a new environment. Your environment affects what you’re doing and I felt like it was important to have that vibe, since that’s what was in my brain already. It’s just nice to escape and make sure that you’re really focusing on making the record, and focusing on the music, and doing something different.

Is that the reason you moved to L.A. as well?

Yeah, I grew up in Nashville and I’ve been around that scene my whole life. It felt important for me to get out of there and experience some new things, and surround myself with a totally fresh energy. Also I went to acting school growing up and I’ve always wanted to do that. I find the film industry here really inspiring. I tried to come here when I was younger and I wasn’t quite ready, so this time it stuck.

You draw on a lot of influences and genres in your sound, but where do you think country music comes into your musical vision?

For sure I think my songwriting is country. I think it’s a little of that personal touch — and you don’t find that as much in other genres. There’s a simplicity to it, in a good way hopefully! And then sonically, steel guitar is one of my favorite instruments. I don’t want to make a record without steel guitar on it.

I listen to a lot of traditional country but I also really love that era of country with Steve Earle and Dwight Yoakam and Lucinda Williams. I love Buddy Miller — he’s kind of on the fringe of country. Buddy and Julie Miller have been a huge influence on me. All of those, and of course, classic country like George Jones and Merle Haggard. Those were my biggest country influences.

Are you a fan of bluegrass?

Yeah, I play the banjo! I thought for a while when I was in high school that that’s what I was going to do. I love bluegrass. Ralph Stanley is my favorite singer. My dad grew up playing with Ricky Skaggs so I was around it a lot. I’m really inspired by bluegrass. On this record, I did “My Love Will Not Change,” which was written by Shawn Camp, but I knew the Del McCoury version. For me, there’s just a similarity in the intensity and the drive behind some bluegrass and rock and blues music. It’s got a simple, emotional feel to it, to me. All of those things connect in my brain and my heart. I love bluegrass.

What was your entrance point to Ralph Stanley? That’s a big catalog to navigate.

I guess just listening to old Stanley Brothers records. Fortunately I grew up in an era where I could explore all music on the internet, you know? So I would go into a bluegrass rabbit hole and listen to that. And then of course, I love the banjo. I think it’s like the electric guitar of bluegrass.

You co-produced this record, too [with Frank Liddell]. What kind of textures did you hope to capture?

I don’t bring in references or anything like that when I’m making music. I think it’s more important to have a vision in your head and make sure you’re bringing in the right players, putting them in the right environment, and having the right songs. Let it evolve, take your time, and let it breathe.

It’s the same with writing and choosing songs. I try not to make it like a factory. I try to let it happen organically. I think it’s making sure you’re putting together the right people in the right environment. You know, I had four guitar players on this record! Sometime it’s about having someone sit out for a song. Letting everything have room to breathe is my philosophy.

Photo credit: Chloé Aktas

Artist of the Month: Nathaniel Rateliff

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One of the most powerful artists in roots music, Nathaniel Rateliff has a solo album coming out in just a couple weeks, and as a preview, he’s released a music video for the title track. The evocative video mirrors a song with a lot of weight and meaning behind it, a trademark of Rateliff’s style. A simple song — voice accompanied by galloping guitar and a swirl of ambient textures — “And It’s Still Alright” has a beckoning quality that is matched with a grainy film aesthetic, shot in black and white with a splash of washed-out color.

In 2019, Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats scored a platinum single with “S.O.B.” and a gold record for their self-titled album. Now the pieces are in place for the next installment of Rateliff’s music as And It’s Still Alright is slated for a Valentine’s Day release. Tour dates are filling in, including a stop at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, as well as multiple shows in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, and Minneapolis. His European tour kicks off in April.

To hold over the anticipation for the new record and our upcoming Artist of the Month coverage, enjoy our BGS Essentials playlist.

Photo credit: Rett Rogers

LISTEN: Trigger Hippy, “Full Circle & Then Some”

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Artist: Trigger Hippy
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Full Circle & Then Some”
Album: Full Circle & Then Some
Release Date: October 11, 2019
Label: Turkey Grass Records/Thirty Tigers

In Their Words: “‘Full Circle & Then Some’ was one of the the first tunes we had for the album. Nick [Govrik, bassist/vocalist] brought it in, and we all thought of it as a great rock ‘n’ roll tune about a relationship that’s been around the bend but managed to survive. But as the album came into shape and focus, the song took on a meaning about Trigger Hippy as well. Nick and I have been chasing this idea for over a decade, through and awful lot of starts and stops. The completed album felt like a new beginning to a long standing vision, and the song seemed to perfectly encapsulate all of that. I’m generally opposed to naming an album after a particular track, but in this case, it made perfect sense. But far more important that any of that, the song just rocks and rolls and makes me feel good.” — Steve Gorman

Photo credit: Scott Wills

The Rails Meld Folk Roots, Rock ‘n’ Roll Cred

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Couples don’t get more folk-rock than The Rails. On one side of the hyphen you have Kami Thompson, whose parents are Richard and Linda, one of the most famous couples on the British folk scene in the 1970s. On the other, you have James Walbourne, who has been guitarist to rock ‘n’ rollers from Jerry Lee Lewis to Shane McGowan to Chrissie Hynde. They have been playing together ever since first becoming an item, and the now-married couple brought out their first album, Fair Warning, in 2014. Now Cancel the Sun, their new record, is showing their fans exactly who they are.

BGS: Your latest album couldn’t be more different from your first. That one was stripped back, bare, traditional — this one’s absolutely rocking out! What’s behind the evolution in your sound?

Kami Thompson: With Fair Warning we set out to make a folk record within certain parameters, because we really liked the ‘70s folk sound. We were writing to that, and using traditional songs…

James Walbourne: My rock ’n’ roll background and Kami’s folk backgrounds have melded together on this one. All our influences came together and this time we weren’t trying to be anything — it was just a true representation of what we are.

Kami: I think of it as us at our noisy best, playing the music we like to listen to.

So what kind of music do you listen to together?

Kami: Well, we don’t listen together. We’ve got quite different tastes. But we both grew up with the same music around us as teenagers, that inescapable ‘90s alt rock and Americana and Britpop. I listen to mainstream pop — PJ Harvey and Elliott Smith were my faves growing up. James is more the tastemakers’ tastemaker…

James: I don’t know why she keeps saying that! I was just a music fanatic really.

Kami: His dad took him to see Link Wray when he was, like, 8.

James: He’d take me to see everyone from Frank Sinatra to Johnny Cash and Miles Davis and Jerry Lee Lewis. That was the biggest influence for me, and his huge record collection. My big hero was Elvis and that’s who I wanted to be. Who doesn’t? So I never thought about doing anything else but be a musician. And now I’m screwed because I can’t…

Kami, your biological parents are Richard and Linda Thompson – were you always destined to express yourself musically?

Kami: My father left my mother when she was pregnant with me, and they didn’t speak to each other until I was much older. So I was raised by my mum and a fantastic stepfather and our house was actually music-free. I would go to festivals with my father when I saw him on holidays and on the odd weekend. That was where I experienced live music, but it was the ‘80s and folk was so uncool to me then. My stepfather is an old-school Hollywood agent from Beverly Hills who used to represent Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif and Richard Harris, so as a kid I went to film sets and I thought that was the coolest part of show business.

Talking of cool… James, you’ve played with Jerry Lee Lewis, The Pogues, and you’re currently Chrissie Hynde’s lead guitarist in the Pretenders. Which of those gigs has been the wildest ride?

They were all wild in their different ways. The Pogues was probably the wildest because you never knew what was going to happen, ever. But I feel very lucky to have been able to play with all these legends.

And the pair of you owe a debt to novelist and music critic Nick Hornby, for introducing you…

Kami: We have to make sure we send him our records whenever one comes out as due deference!

Did you feel any nervousness about making music together?

Kami: Not really. When we were in the early days of going out we’d drink too much and get our guitars out and noodle. It just seemed an obvious thing to do. We were both looking for a creative partner as well as a romantic partner so those two fell into place simultaneously really well.

James, you previously had a band with your brother – who’s it easier working with, a brother or a wife?

That’s a good question! My brother lives in Connecticut but he’s visiting the UK right now so I’ve got to be careful… but it’s pretty similar. You learn what to say and what to leave out. When to shut your mouth, really. Being in a touring band is like that – it can be hard to not fight. We’ve come up with a solution for now, we have to separate the work from the relationship to a point. Otherwise it takes over. We did that with the songwriting as well… we had to figure out a way to make it work, we weren’t very good at it before.

Kami: The last record we made we weren’t getting on professionally and relationships were frayed. We had to find a different way to work this time and we thought and talked about it a lot. James quit drinking a year and a half ago which has had an incredibly beneficial effect on how we get on. We found a way of writing lyrics and tunes independently from each other, then hashing out what we had in properly delineated office hours.

Are you ever tempted to take holidays alone?

Kami: Oh god yes! We’re both difficult to live with, if we take a big step back and a truth pill. We have to work at finding time apart the way other couples have to put work into spend time together.

James: She just went to New Orleans only this year! And I’ve been away with the Pretenders a hell of a lot in the last three years, a couple of months at a time.

What about the mood of this album? There’s a common theme to a lot of your writing, a world weariness, a pessimism…

Kami: Yeah, we’re a right laugh to go to the pub with! James is more of a storyteller, more of a narrative writer, but I can have a dark view of things. It’s not my only view but my positive thoughts don’t always make for good music, it’s so hard to write a cheerful song that doesn’t sound trite. It’s easier to be grumpy.

James: The same things irritate us, I think. We have a kinship over the world’s irritating stuff! But our singing together, too, is telepathic now. We don’t even have to think about it, which makes things a lot easier.

And which of the songs on the album are you current favourites?

Kami: I love “Cancel the Sun” because it’s that tip towards the psychedelic rock and James’s wigged-out guitar solo at the end makes me really happy.

James: I think it hints towards a different direction, a bit chamber pop Beatles. It points to more possibilities down the road. The other song I really like is “Ball and Chain” because it was one that came straight down from the heavens. It was very quick to write and to finish, and that’s always a good feeling.

Photo credit: Jill Furmanovsky