Normally, when singer-guitarist Nick Hexum plays a gig, it’s fronting legendary hard rock band 311, performing for massive audiences in huge venues around the globe. But, on a recent evening in Knoxville, Tennessee, he was backed by Americana/bluegrass act Water Tower in front of a small crowd at the Open Chord, a cozy space on the west side of the city along Kingston Pike.
“I’ve always been drawn to music that has energy, and there’s so much energy in flatpicking, the banjo, the tremolo picking of the mandolin,” Hexum tells BGS backstage. “This stuff has rock and roll energy that predates rock and roll.”
For Hexum, this deep dive into bluegrass, country, and Americana of late has become something of an intrinsic mission from within. It’s the current soundtrack of a 55-year-old rock star carefully aiming to dig up and examine the melodic roots of his past – these existential anchor points needed to move forward.
“This whole experience is just bringing it really full circle, like a home,” Hexum says. “My mom is from Nashville, so this is me getting in touch with [memories of] when we used to go to visit my great aunt Margaret in Gatlinburg and she’d play the autoharp.”
Retracing old routes, both geographically and sonically, was no more apparent for Hexum than when he and Water Tower appeared at Americanafest in Nashville. The stop in Music City was part of a larger tour throughout the Southeast in an attempt for Hexum to not only reconnect with his past, but also create an opportunity to break new ground for his craft – especially outside of the hard rock juggernaut that is 311.
“I’m just grateful that fans are showing up and are open to seeing me do something completely different,” he says.
During the intimate set in Knoxville, Hexum and Water Tower crowded around a single microphone, weaving in, out, and around each other in a whirlwind of acoustic instruments and Hexum’s signature vocals. The show ran a gamut of material, whether it be classic 311 numbers or selections from Hexum’s latest solo record, Phases of Hope and Hollow.
“The intimacy [of the show], it’s wonderful to be so up close. It’s totally different [for me] from a technical situation – it takes silence,” Hexum reflects.
This project is the brainchild of Hexum and Water Tower’s Kenny Feinstein. Water Tower is a rising ensemble from Los Angeles, one which initially started as an old-time/punk group, only to lean further into becoming a high-energy string band. They raised more than a few eyebrows when they performed at the recent Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Colorado.
“We’re walking into another side of Nick,” Feinstein says. “311 is all about bringing people together through unity and different styles of music, so this is another slice of Nick’s personality.”
For Feinstein, working with Hexum has been this surreal experience, personally and professionally. As a millennial growing up in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Feinstein was a huge 311 fan, so much so he vividly remembers their video for the smash hit “Amber” and seeing 311 guitarist Tim Mahoney sporting a mohawk haircut.
“My friend and I saw the video and [decided] we needed mohawks,” Feinstein reminisces with a laugh. “So, all three of us went to a party [that night] and got our heads shaved into a mohawk.”
This latest musical chapter for Hexum and Water Tower happened serendipitously through the sober community both Hexum and Feinstein are part of in Los Angeles. Leading up to their crossing paths, Hexum had been heading down the rabbit hole of an Apple Music playlist that featured singer-songwriter Faye Webster. His ear perked up.
“I really like her songs, the pedal steel [sound], and the beautiful arrangements,” Hexum says of Webster. “And then, I reached out to Drew Vandenberg, who produces her music. We started talking about working together and one of the things I wanted to do was learn some of those instruments. So, I bought a pedal steel and took some lessons.”
Making space in his studio for the pedal steel, Hexum wanted to add a few more instruments into his creative arsenal, including the mandolin. Cue Feinstein. Meeting him through the sober community, Hexum asked Feinstein if he would teach him how to play the mandolin.
“I had [Kenny] over and I was like, ‘Let’s do something that sounds like [Faye Webster],’” Hexum says. “And he was just a cornucopia of ideas.”
At that juncture in his career, Hexum “mostly had played six-string guitar,” with these other instruments “a new world” for the artist. And yet, even though he was just learning how to play them, he was already well-versed in the sounds of bluegrass and country.
“Nick saw a dulcimer on my wall and I was really impressed that he knew what that was,” Feinstein recalls. “He told me about his heritage and [growing up] in Omaha and how he loved country and bluegrass. Then I said, ‘We should jam sometime.’”
That initial jam session between Hexum and Feinstein resulted in the duo writing five songs right out of the gate. Soon, Feinstein brought in Water Tower banjoist Tommy Drinkard and wrote several more.
“And now we’re on tour. It’s so special to see the humility that [Nick] carries, the gratitude and appreciation for all of his fans after so many years of doing it,” Feinstein says. “It just inspires us to have gratitude for where we’re at now, and to know the journey we’re on is about continuing to lessen the suffering [of others through music].”
“There’s so many people out there in the crowd crying, really taking it in,” Drinkard adds. “These are very intense subjects and Nick does a good job of explaining where he’s coming from with the songs he’s writing.”
For Hexum, this recent journey into the bluegrass realm has become this incredibly cathartic experience. He found himself not only dissecting his past and that of his parents, but also that of his ancestors going back generations.
“My mom is from Tennessee and my grandpa was a Southern Baptist minister,” Hexum notes. “Half of my family does have these southern roots, so when I hear bluegrass, it just feels like part of my DNA.”
Beyond the new music itself, Hexum views this ever-evolving project as part of his ongoing quest to find himself through this vibrant kaleidoscope of sound and purpose. It’s about stripping everything down, focusing on the essence of a particular melody, and always being aware of the beauty of the sacred platform that is live performance. Turn off the amps, pick up the acoustic guitar and huddle around a lone microphone, together.
“It has gotten to a point where I’m like, ‘All right, time is limited here, and I want to make the most of the time that I have now,’” Hexum says humbly. “I mean, when you see your kids get older and get their driver’s license and stuff like that, you just feel this passing of an era. And so, for me, it’s getting into a different mode of songwriting – really focusing on sincerity and simplicity.”
Artist:The Unfaithful Servants Hometown: Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Latest Album:Fallen Angel (released October 17, 2025) Personal Nicknames (or rejected band names): Quince/Quincy; Cobby; Dyl/Dilly; Cuss
(Editor’s Note: Answers supplied by mandolinist Jesse Cobb.)
Which artist has influenced you the most – and how?
Sam Bush, both solo and with New Grass Revival, Strength in Numbers, and many others. When I first started playing mandolin, I learned old-time fiddle tunes from the likes of Gus Ingo, Blind Kenny Hall, Bill Monroe, Bobby Osborne, and others all from LPs, by ear. I also had a few books around – Jack Tottle’s mandolin book, fakebooks, and some others. I recall going to the library in Superior, Wisconsin, and checking out albums/tapes of many artists.
Among the picks one time was New Grass Revival’s On The Boulevard. I was likely 10-12 years old and pretty new to playing at the time. I remember putting on the record and just being blown away by the overall intensity, sound, clarity, timing – everything seemed so leveled-up compared to the bluegrass and old-time music I’d been listening to. Sam particularly caught my ear as a mandolin player. The tone, attack, intensity, rhythm, changed my whole view of a mandolin’s role in a band. I still get this feeling every time I hear Sam’s music or get the opportunity to play with him! A real game changer for me.
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
My first time on the main stage at Telluride Bluegrass. I had been listening to recordings/watching videos of that stage with the house band, New Grass Revival, and others for literally my whole childhood! When I first played there with The Stringdusters, the feeling of looking over the massive crowd and up to the mountains in the distance was very special. It felt like a dream being there at that time and was a very emotional affirmation that all the time, sacrifice and hard work was worth it.
Genre is dead (long live genre!), but how would you describe the genres and styles your music inhabits?
The Unfaithful Servants draw from such a deep well of influences: old-time fiddle tunes to Vulfpeck; Doc Watson and Townes [Van Zandt] to Rush; Edgar Meyer to Jaco Pistorius; The Band to Polyphia; Bach to the Flecktones! Given our varied influences and our span of four decades in ages, we try to put this all together to inform our sound.
In my mind, the closest genre that encapsulates this is Americana. I think that we have more in common with artists like Sierra Ferrell and the Avett Brothers than with traditional bluegrass bands, although that influence/drive is incorporated as well. With the intensity of the Stanley Brothers and the technical aspirations of Punch Brothers, the groove of classic funk and lyrical depth of Neil Young, we try to create our own sound encompassing them all!
What is a genre, album, artist, musician, or song that you adore that would surprise people?
I really like ’80s rock music – think Steve Vai, Damn Yankees, Warrant, Def Leppard. I grew up listening to old-time music almost exclusively and working very hard to live up to the feel and sounds I was hearing in that. I recall being at a soundcheck at a theatre in northern Minnesota one time, probably around 13-14 years old. Walking into the venue for soundcheck, the crew was ringing out the room with the most exciting thing I’d ever heard. The song was “Peace of Mind” by Boston and I was blown away, very similar to the way Sam Bush hit me! I recall asking the crew, “What is this?” This started a long infatuation with ’80s hair bands, electric guitar shredding, and the crazy vocalists in the genre. I know a surprising amount of lyrics to ’80s hair bands and love to karaoke them when I can, for better or worse!
Does pineapple belong on pizza?
While I can confidently answer no for me, it’s kind of like asking, “What is bluegrass?” except without a point. I don’t like the flavor of pizza sauce and pineapple together, personally, but that doesn’t make it wrong for everyone! Much like trying to define genres, it’s completely up to personal taste.
A few years back, we put out an album called Modern Old-Time Sounds for the Bluegrass and Folksong Jamboree. The title was a nod to that 1960s trend of naming records in a way that tried to cover every possible base. It was tongue-in-cheek, but it still sums up what we do – and what you’ll hear on our latest Lonesome Ace Stringband album, Big Wing. We don’t really play old-time music so much as make a modern old-time sound, and that’s exactly what this playlist is all about
Up here in Canada, we have a wealth of traditional music – distinct regional fiddle styles from coast to coast, songs and ballads that reflect the multicultural makeup of our country, and Indigenous music that predates all of it. Even with this abundance of homegrown music to draw from, many of us have found ourselves charmed by the traditional “old-time” sounds of the American South.
Being far away – geographically and culturally – from the source of the music you love presents some challenges, but it also affords a certain freedom. The first step is always to understand where the music comes from and its history; eventually, though, we all need to find our own voice within it. That’s sometimes easier to do when you’re removed from entrenched scenes and long-established communities.
One way I see this playing out in the old-time music coming from Canada is that writing original tunes and songs seems to come naturally and early in the journey. Whether it’s composing new tunes in the tradition or letting the sounds and themes of traditional music color our lyric writing, we’ve developed a wealth of modern old-time sounds up here – and I’m excited to share a few examples in this playlist. – Chris Coole, Lonesome Ace Stringband
“Maggie At The Door” – Arnie Naiman
Arnie Naiman has been playing old-time music longer than anyone else on this list. When I first met him in the early ’90s, he’d already been playing for around 20 years. Back then, he was mostly on fiddle, but sometimes he’d pull out the banjo at the end of the night and share some of the original tunes he always seemed to be writing. This led to us making a couple of albums together – and to me becoming a lifelong fan. “Maggie at the Door” is a great example of how he can write a banjo tune that also works on the fiddle – not as easy as it sounds. It was written for his dog and it’s probably the most badass-sounding tune ever written for a golden retriever.
“Lonesome Song” – Rube & Rake
Rube & Rake are Josh Sandu and Andrew Laite. Both live in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and are writing beautiful songs while touring hard. We ran into them in the UK last year and were instantly taken by their deft playing and the “low lonesome” sound of their harmony singing. “Lonesome Song” is a moody example of all that.
“Platform Four” – The Slocan Ramblers
The Slocan Ramblers are Canada’s bluegrass band – at least as far as I’m concerned. Although Frank Evans no longer plays full-time with the group, I chose this tune to remind everyone that while he’s mostly known for his three-finger bluegrass playing these days, he’s also on another level as a clawhammer player. There are a few licks on “Platform Four” that he’ll probably take to the grave.
“Narrow Line” – Mama’s Broke
Mama’s Broke are another duo from Eastern Canada (Nova Scotia). We crossed paths with Lisa Maria and Amy Lou Keeler at the Baltimore Old-Time Gathering a few years ago. They put on a riveting show and blew us away with their singing and playing. The arrangements on their records are so imaginative – they capture the spaciousness of their live sound while layering on subtle textures. “Narrow Line” is an excellent example of this and one hell of a song.
“White Horse Plains” – The Red River Ramblers
The Red River Ramblers feature the music of Douglas Richard Sinclair, a Red River Métis musician whose last album, Reverie, showcased original tunes inspired by the Métis fiddle tradition. “White Horse Plains” highlights Douglas’ tuneful guitar playing and answers the question: What would Norman Blake have sounded like if he’d been Métis?
“Saint Elizabeth” – Kaia Kater
Kaia Kater’s 2016 album Nine Pin made a lot of folks take notice of this exceptionally talented songwriter. Kaia is a perfect example of someone who’s really tried to get to the roots of the music; she studied Appalachian traditions at Davis & Elkins College in West Virginia. She’s taken what she learned there and carried it to a creative place that defies genre or categorization. “Saint Elizabeth” is a perfect example.
“New Caledonia” – Pharis & Jason Romero
Pharis & Jason Romero probably need no introduction to anyone here. They’re old friends of ours and we’re big fans of their music. It almost seems remiss to share a song that doesn’t feature their beautiful singing and lyrics, but we’re always enchanted by Jason’s tune writing, backed by Pharis’ always-right-on-the-money guitar playing. “New Caledonia” is one of those tunes that instantly takes you somewhere. It manages to say a lot without a single word.
“The Wheels Won’t Go” – Hannah Shira Naiman
Hannah Shira Naiman comes to the music honestly. She grew up learning fiddle and banjo from her dad, Arnie Naiman, while listening to her mom, Kathy Reid-Naiman, sing the songs of Jean Ritchie, the Georgia Sea Island Singers, and the Delmore Brothers. Hannah has taken it all in and made something uniquely her own. “The Wheels Won’t Go” is the title track of her 2022 album.
“Wellington” – Allison de Groot & Tatiana Hargreaves
Allison de Groot is one of our most treasured banjo exports – clean, hard-driving, and full of tone. Best known these days for her work with Tatiana Hargreaves, she’s also a fine composer. “Wellington” is one of her own tunes, a reminder that she’s as creative as she is technical.
“Mama’s Boy” – Lotus Wight
Lotus Wight (AKA Sam Allison) is best known for his work with Sheesham and Lotus & Son. He’s a beautiful banjo player, a lovely jaw-harpist, a rock-solid bassist, and even plays the contrabass harmoniphoneum. I didn’t know until his last album that he’s also a moving songwriter, somewhere between John Hartford and Leon Redbone. “Mama’s Boy” tells the story of the three men who were fathers to Sam over the course of his life. I can’t remember the last time I heard such an honest and tender song.
“From Silence” – Daniel Koulack
Daniel Koulack hails from Winnipeg, Manitoba, where he’s been making music and teaching banjo for many years. (Allison de Groot is one of his students.) Daniel has always been game to take the clawhammer banjo to new and unexpected places – which might explain “From Silence,” possibly the only clawhammer banjo and saxophone duet in the known universe.
“At the Airport” – Old Man Luedecke
Old Man Luedecke is one of the crown jewels of Canadian singer-songwriters and he also happens to be one hell of a clawhammer banjo player. He’s written most of his songs on the banjo (at least the early ones), which gives them those unmistakable twists and turns – in both phrase and melody. And he has that rare gift for putting a bit of hope into everything he writes, whether the song is sad, funny, or introspective. “At the Airport” is a perfect example.
“May Day” – The Andrew Collins Trio with The Lonesome Ace Stringband
The Andrew Collins Trio (Andrew Collins, James McEleney, Adam Shire) collaborated with us on “May Day,” a tune Andrew and I wrote together many years ago. These three are next-level players who are always pushing the boundaries of what’s possible on their instruments. Known for mixing new acoustic bluegrass with classical and jazz influences, we had fun diving into some weird old-time with them on this track from our new album.
The last time Mipso were our Artist of the Month it was 2023, in the run-up to their release of Book of Fools. At that time, I wrote our article unveiling the group as our artists-of-honor with the central conceit of that writing a straightforward but relatively groundbreaking plank in the band’s foundational mission as musicians:
“…[Mipso] aren’t defined by their ambitions; and their ambitions don’t seem to ever be conflated with conquering anything. Instead, this is a band building something.”
Over 13 years, six studio albums, hundreds of millions of streams, and more than 1200 shows, that fact remained true. No matter the shifting sands of their music making, industry successes, and the natural ebb and flow of more than a decade touring and creating together – even in moments of uncertainty, growing pains, and stress – it was always clear, at every juncture, that this band wasn’t just trying to climb industry and corporate ladders toward success. They were building something, not just building towards something.
A few months ago, the group of Wood Robinson, Libby Rodenbough, Jacob Sharp, and Joseph Terrell announced their Farewell For Now Tour and a deliberate and intentional stepping away from the band that was the gravitational center of their lives from their college days into their 30s. Fans and peers around the globe were devastated and saddened. But, with that stalwart keystone at the center of their artistry, it was immediately clear Mipso aren’t abandoning anything. Or walking away from something that will wither, wilt, or die away without them. The “something” they’ve been building has, gratefully, been built to last without themselves or their egos at its core. Their songs, their mission, and their impact are structurally sound, unwavering in the face of the purposeful uncertainty of the band’s next new era.
Mipso perform with Sean Trischka on drums and percussion and special guest fiddler Stephanie Coleman in NYC during their Farewell For Now Tour. Photo by Elliot Crotteau.
Mipso’s final studio recording, the gutting, emotional, and convicting “Singing Song” (released in August) wasn’t originally meant to be such a well-fitting final track from the group. But, whether coincidentally, fatefully, or aptly, it finds in its crosshairs the exact pathway through which Mipso’s legacy can and will live on with or without the band acting as their own life support system.
“Singing Song” imagines a not so far-fetched reality in which songbirds are going extinct in the accelerating climate crisis and humans are assigned birdsongs to help keep alive by singing, refusing to let their avian melodies die, go silent, or be forgotten. It becomes the role of the community itself to hold memories, together, and move into the future with our pasts to help guide and inform of what’s to come.
This is what Mipso have built for us. And they have built it for the eons. Their music will live on in each of us, as we carry their melodies – “Louise” and “Carolina Rolling By” and “People Change” and “Coming Down the Mountain” and so many more – with us into our collective uncertain future. Mipso were never building a mine or a factory or a quarry by which they could extract all the resources they could from us. No, they built us a home. Joist by joist, shingle by shingle. And now, though they may be moving out for a time, we’ve all been invited to maintain this idyllic Carolina mountain shack they’ve gifted to us.
A parting such as this begs the question, “Who will sing for Mipso?” but the answer is immediately obvious and indelible: All of us. Because this band, this impeccable string folk foursome, has never been solely about the people who make it up. It’s always been a community far greater than the simple sum of its parts or only made up of the folks on stage.
Midway through their Farewell For Now Tour, BGS connected with Mipso via Zoom for an in-depth round-table discussion about their decisions to put the band “on the shelf” for a little while. Our conversation was full of intention, nostalgia, and a remarkable variety of ways to look into the future for redemption and renewal.
I wanted to start by having y’all talk a little bit about how you feel about how your mission as a group – prioritizing art and community and building something instead of going somewhere – has informed this decision to pause the band. Whether it’s been stated overtly or has been the undercurrent behind what you’ve all done, that mission is clearly informing this decision as well.
I think some people see this farewell as a switch being turned off and a new thing happening after an old thing goes, but I don’t see it that way at all. I see this as an extension of what you have always been doing, being intentional and deliberate with the group and its purposes. So I wonder what your reactions might be to that, or if you have thoughts about that as we’re talking about this next era that you’re entering together?
Libby Rodenbough: Yeah, I agree with that. I feel like what we’re trying to do here is protect intentionality rather than letting this slow creep of unintentionality take over what we’re doing. It almost feels like that’s the natural inertia of the world, to let anxiety run things for you.
I see this as trying to protect the preciousness of how we’ve done it for so long from an anxious orientation, which I really feel is just like the way the world wants you to think about everything.
Joseph Terrell: That was a beautiful way to put it, Justin. Thank you. And also thanks for being one of our friends and pals and loved ones in this corner of the world for so long. I appreciate the way you’ve just explained us to us. That’s actually very helpful.
I think there are all kinds of “supposed tos” that we allow to rule our lives and tell us what to do next. And this decision, I think, for us to put the band on the shelf for a while is very much a deliberate decision that comes from years of conversation. It’s an attempt to do what we really want to do, on purpose, based on our love for each other and what we’ve built together – as opposed to what’s expected of us or what we are “supposed to do.”
Jacob Sharp: I think there were moments where we did make decisions based on what we thought we should do. We had the benefit of being able to trust each other when we heard from one or many people that it didn’t feel right. Like, we flirted with Nashville, we flirted with content creation and all these things that people are telling us you need to lean into in the industry, you need to lean into online.
There’s an element of this decision right now, of us having realized that something that used to feel really good and obvious was less so in the current version of it. Looking around, I’ve said in different ways that it’s like it’s a blessing to feel full and to be content with that.
All of us are very full on what we’ve been able to do and how we’ve been able to do it. And as we, over the last year and a half, talked about this in different ways and tried different things, it was easy to imagine how it would be irreversibly not good if we kept going down the path that didn’t involve us – in some of this vision that you’re recognizing that has been in different ways at our core throughout.
Wood Robinson: I think that, as we’ve let this decision percolate over [time], we’ve thought through this idea of putting it on the shelf for a little while – probably the first time we genuinely talked about it was on our Europe tour from hell, and there have been many different feelings at many different times. …
You might as well have a really fulfilling and intentional process of arriving at a conclusion that you actually feel good about. And the beautiful thing about music is that it isn’t as if we’re going away. Everyone has links to our entire 15 years of music making on their phones at any time.
When you remove the impetus of an end goal, it immediately becomes so clear that none of this is a zero-sum game, right? None of this is black and white or binary – “We’re done now. We can’t ever do that again.” … These songs, this catalog, this thing that you’ve created together, it has a life that isn’t dependent on all of you continuing to do this the same way that you’ve always done it. And that longevity, that we’re foregrounding right now, I think that is gonna be built on that same foundation of intention.
WR: I’m currently working in conservation and over this past weekend I drove down from Salt Lake City to Zion [National Park], around it, and then back, which was a lot of driving. That’s neither here nor there. I’m very used to that. But I re-listened to the most recent season of Scene On Radio about capitalism. My favorite episode of that is really talking about that [Donella] Meadows book from the ‘70s, The Limits to Growth. It was a very poignant moment of thinking [about how] the growth virus infects everything.
If the only way of thinking of a future for any entity is for it to grow indefinitely, even if you don’t know what it’s supposed to grow into, that’s cancer. If the primary goal of a group is to make music together, is to make beautiful art together, putting it away for a while does nothing to impede that. Maybe the growth mindset really infects that. I was chewing on that when I finished the series and it weighed heavy, but it also reinforced my feeling really good about this decision.
LR: I don’t know if it’s coincidental, Wood, or if we talked about it, but I just finished that season of Scene On Radio as well and I loved that episode. It makes you wonder then, what’s the alternative to growth? To infinite growth.
I feel like the world shows us that it’s death and rebirth. Like death is the natural way for things to go. I think we have a culture that – in a way [is] not unrelated to this cancerous growth mindset – is really afraid of death. Really afraid of talking about death, thinking about death, having rituals about death. Not to be like dramatic or morbid about what we’re doing, but death happens in the natural world every fall.
It’s not necessarily tragic and it’s not world-ending. Conversely, it’s essential for life. I think that saying goodbye to something – I said this at one of our shows in this first little run – but saying goodbye to something is a really good practice, because it’s how I want to go through my life, generally. It’s how I want to relate to life itself, too. That death is part of what makes things beautiful and meaningful.
I didn’t even need to say what I was gonna say, ’cause you just said it! [Laughs] How helpful it is to think about infinite growth as being unsustainable through the lens of nature and ecosystems – what an excellent model. Looking out the windows, stepping outside, literally grounding ourselves in our natural surroundings shows us how stasis, maintenance, renewal, all of those things are equally productive as working 40, 70, 80 hours a week and driving thousands of miles. Just “being” is a lesson that we can all learn.
This connection, the death and renewal of nature and the seasons, it’s making me think of “Singing Song” and it’s making me think of the contours of “Singing Song” being about nature, about environment, and about the Rachel Carson of it all. But also how the song applies to where y’all are at with Mipso at this stage.
Talking about the infinite growth mindset and how it’s pretty well antithetical to how the earth actually works and how we all work as biological beings, the way that y’all draw on nature and the environment to convey the message of “Singing Song” feels so apropos. Can you talk about the song a little bit and can you talk about how, for y’all, if it bumps into or up against any of these things we’re already talking about here?
WR: Obviously, “Singing Song” is about a not-quite-hypothetical world in which all of the birds die and everyone is tasked with singing the song of a bird so that their memory lives on as a ghost among us forever and ever. It wasn’t intended to be quite so on the nose to be the last song that we released before we went away and people were tasked with singing our memories forever and ever. But it really worked out to be a little on the nose there.
I think that there is a real beauty in memory and in the fact that every person is just a little spirit that enters the world and then leaves. Then there are little wisps of that spirit in memories, in people that continued after them until those people’s memories go away. That impermanence becomes permanent in a very poetic way. We haven’t really talked so much outwardly about how that song really worked out well for this moment, but I think that in the context of what we’re talking about now, the conclusion of something, gives it a lot more meaning.
Sometimes I think about how I really love the Marvel universe because it never ends. [Laughs] That feels like a drug to me. I don’t like that I like that. But the world just keeps on building and building and it feels like there’s no intention, because it can’t be let to rest. The reason that it can’t be let to rest is the very growth that we’re talking about.
And sometimes I think about bands who keep on being on tour for 60 years playing the same songs and that just can’t not be sad to me. Always wanting to relive the moments of the past that somehow, like a little bit of morphine, give us meaning in a moment.
JT: I think, at our best, we were doing something we’ve done together that is beautiful in its uniqueness, four people making something that we couldn’t have made on our own together. I’m really proud of us that we’ve never phoned-in the live shows. While it’s easy to be cynical about the music industry part of stuff nowadays, I don’t think we’ve ever been cynical about music making. I really don’t think it’s a stretch to say that concerts, at their best – not just ours – but the spaces that we can create with other people live together in a room, human bodies sweating together. It really is a sacred thing.
Partly this is us being able to say, “Hey, this has been so special and I love you guys and I love what we’ve built. And we wanna do other stuff for a while now.” That attitude has allowed this tour, I think, to be a place where we can really be appreciative and grateful.
We did a few acoustic shows on the last run, just the four of us on stage, and it was really fun. We haven’t done that in a while. We’re standing close together and we’re listening to each other. I like playing with all kinds of people and I love [that] every time I play with new musicians, I’ll learn something. But also, with these four people together, I have this kind of home feeling of just rightness and intuition that I really love. I’m glad we’re able to celebrate that.
“Singing Song” also makes me think of “Who Will Sing For Me?” and the idea of, “Who will sing for Mipso?” Who will carry on the songs of Mipso now? It’s such an easy question to answer, because so many of these songs are so important to so many people.
This tour is a bit of a family reunion, you guys have had some really great special guests, you’ve had and will have some really great openers. You talked a little bit about that feeling of home, never wanting to phone it in for the live shows, and doing the acoustic sets – how has it felt on the Farewell For Now Tour so far? How are audience reactions and what are the takeaways for y’all as you are going through this tour?
LR: It makes me think about how I feel ambivalent about the idea of having a wedding, but if I was gonna have one – I’m single by the way [Laughs] – but if I was gonna have one, I think a lot of the motivation would be to get people together. So, in some ways, I see this tour as just an occasion. It’s an occasion for getting together, an occasion for thinking about the past together. And it’s been an occasion for me to look through all my old photos and try to make sense of my many overlapping memories of tours, of the same cities in geographic regions, and certainly an occasion to get our friends together and play songs.
When you’re doing tours interminably, it doesn’t feel like you can really make an ask of people as easily. But if you’re like, “Hey, this is maybe the last time we’re ever gonna play,” it’s kind of a trump card on people’s schedules. [Laughs] In the same way as getting married, we at least maintain the fiction that it only happens once in every life.
JS: One funny thing, Justin, was we have known this was coming for a long time and our fans have, too. We announced it a number of months ago, but night one of each of these shows is really specific. Like, to what city and what venue we’re playing. There’s a reason.
Night one [of the tour] was in Seattle, a place that we all really love and have had great times at Tractor Tavern, one of our favorite venues. We came out loose, joking, irreverent. And our fans were so sad. Not all of them, but they were having this moment of sadness. It was one funny thing that we have talked about in the intervening days, is we need to try and rectify the difference between where our emotional space is and where certain crowds are, because there is an element of this where it’s a gift to ourselves and also we hope it’s a gift for our fans.
‘Cause we know what it feels like or what it would feel like to know you weren’t gonna see your potentially favorite band again. If we are that for anybody, we want them to have this moment to commune one more time with us and the other people in their community that connect with the music and with the songs themselves.
It’s been funny to feel this emotional responsibility of occupying both the reality of where we’re at with it emotionally and also where we might imagine other people are – both in the music and the presence and how we talk about it. But it is that nature of it being, to Joseph’s point, the sacred space that we’ve gotten to occupy together a lot more than we could have ever imagined. It is like this final gift that we’re giving to ourselves of getting to do it within a very definite and intentional manner for this final month.
Maybe I’m putting carts before horses – never done that before in my life – but as you guys are looking to the future, what is Mipso potentially gonna look like over the next 13 years? Is it maybe going to be like Nickel Creek or Bonny Light Horseman or boygenius? We get a record cycle maybe once every few years, a sold-out tour.
As you are looking to the future, do you have any sort of sense of what the models are that you’re looking at or what sort of rhythm you might picture as a best case scenario for how Mipso might be a part of your individual constellations of creativity as you move forward? Have you had any discussions about that?
JS: Yeah, we don’t know. I think the point of taking a break is to be able to see that question clearly, because when you’re so in-the-rhythm as we were, it was a given that there was always another tour and it was a given that you prioritize Mipso creatively, timewise. That was the spoken and unspoken contract for the majority of our adult lives.
I think of it now as like Mipso became this drug, like our phones do. I want to be rewired from that, I want to be away from it long enough that I can know why I’m picking up the phone, why I’m picking up the Mipso, why I’m thinking about these songs. And for that answer and the meaning behind it to be the “why” of if we would ever do it again.
But of course, it’s funny, as soon as you announce a farewell tour promoters are like, “Great, can we add something next weekend? What about this festival next year? Here’s a reunion tour.” We think we need a pretty long break to know if and why we would do it again.
JT: I’m proud of us for not having figured that out yet, because it wouldn’t be a true stepping away if we had that plan in place.
The one idea I do [love] is that if we get The Onlies and like Palmyra and a couple of other groups that, on a rotating basis over the next 10 years, we can always have an active Mipso going made up of some of them and they could just kinda keep it going on the road without us.
WR: Yeah, I feel like if we had an answer to that [question] it would be destroying the point of the tour itself, at least for my own part. I think the point is to be open to it, but not planning anything. I don’t think that any of us are absolutely adamant that we never play music together as the four of us in a public setting again. To say that we’re putting it away, but we’re actually gonna start a festival next summer, would feel disingenuous to the people that are having strong emotions about it right now.
LR: I would say honest openness – an honest relationship with the lack of control that we have over the future – that’s becoming central to my life. Philosophy has become central over the last few years. It’s not only that I like being open, I do like the feeling of it. I like relinquishing control, but I also believe that it is true. And I also believe that a great deal of unhappiness comes from people trying to exert control over things they have no control over. They wanna control outcomes. That’s not possible. I don’t think that’s a human ability. So I think we’re really trying to love our humanness and not try to impose superpowers that we don’t have.
Mipso take a bow after the close of their NYC stop on their Farewell For Now Tour. Photo by Elliot Crotteau.
I know all of you have been working on other projects, other music – other projects in your lives that aren’t music as well. As we’re thinking about what’s next, as we put Mipso away for a little while, what’s filling you up? What’s exciting you? When you wake up in the morning, what is the thing that you’re ready to pour yourself into, bring to the world, and have that energy reflected back at you – in the same way as when you were getting Mipso up and running and started?
LR: I think, when I wake up here at Rare Bird [Farm], where I have a cabin where I live on my own, I usually don’t have to do anything first thing in the morning. I just start strumming the guitar and singing lines. It just feels like there will never be an end to the pleasure of doing that.
And I think I might even love it more now that I’m not thinking about an album cycle at all. It’s very motivating to me to just think all I’m doing, like the whole cycle, is contained in this moment. Something filtering through me and I sing it and it goes out into the ether.
JT: [To Jacob and Wood] Come on, you guys have really obvious answers to this.
JS: Okay, Wood and I both have wives that are pregnant, Justin!
Oh my god, congratulations! We’re gonna get Mipso second gen.
JS: Thank you!
Yeah, what’s next? My year has been so defined by change – unexpected, forced, and then chosen – that I’m excited for stability and for building a home in my former home, North Carolina, again, but in a very different way. And for the first time ever to not be looking at multiple years of calendars filled with tours and the ideas of tours.
I’m welcoming all the insecurities that have already started to creep up because of that. And I’m looking forward to finding answers about how I’m different than maybe I thought I was in the absence of this ecosystem, this rhythm of life, and with the baby in tow and how that changes the type of music I wanna make. And with whom.
I imagine letting the moss grow over the rolling stone that is not rolling anymore. Like what a novel feeling. We’ll watch it grow.
LR: That sounds so soft.
Wait, what is my identity if I’m not traveling constantly? If I don’t live in airports and hotels? Will people care about me? Will I be remembered? And then, you see the little inchworm on the moss and you’re like, “Oh, that’s all that matters anyway.”
JS: Yeah, you don’t have to answer those questions when you’re always filling the space with something else. I’m eager for some answers in that space.
JT: I was just outside while you’re asking that question – I’ve never had a dog before. I’ve never lived with an animal that I took care of. I love her so much. My other three bandmates have all done that, been through that phase a little bit more than I have. But I just moved back to North Carolina, too, and I’m feeling a little bit of that homey warmth. I’m so excited to plant some persimmon trees and to finish building this house that I’ve been working on for a few years.
That really does get me so excited to wake up and work on that. That’s the place that I can make music and have people over and really feel at home. It’s a version of that homey life that we haven’t really had as much of an opportunity to do for whatever, 12 years.
WR: I’m in a similar space to Jacob with there being a crazy amount of changes. But one thing that I have really come to terms with, that I recognize about myself, is that I really like being exhausted at the end of the day from a lot of work. From a lot of either physical or emotional work that feels like I made not forward motion in the sense of going for growth like I said, but forward motion.
So in conservation [work] I feel very fulfilled, because there is a tangible aspect of protection and feeling like I’m fighting a deliberate and pronounced fight for the future of that. Hopefully my kid inherits that. I always knew that I liked being tired at the end of the day, but I’m really excited to recognize a sort of routine that is within a smaller world than Mipso inhabited, but with a real, pronounced, and just fight that I’m fighting within it.
I feel a lot of gratitude right now for getting to be a small, small star in the constellation of Mipso in so many different ways over the years. And honestly, it will always be one of the things I’m most proud of to be misattributed as a Mipso member in 2017 by the Raleigh News & Observer. Huge moment for us all. [Laughs] That’s going on my bio for the rest of my life!
JS: Justin, I would say likewise to you. Now that we’re actively in the present nostalgia of saying goodbye to different cities and songs and motions together, the thing that’s hardest for me to imagine fully saying goodbye to is the built-in excuse of seeing this wide community that’s spread across the world. That we’ve built together with frequency and getting catch-ups on your life and hearing reflections on how you understand things that have happened to us that you’ve heard about or seen in the music or the shows.
That’s something I value so much and you’ve been a treasured part of that, so thank you. I really appreciate that.
JT: Totally. Thank you, Justin. One of our most trusted narrators over the last many years. Thank you for playing that role for others.
Photo Credit: Photos courtesy of Mipso, shot by Elliot Crotteau.
Artist: Cole Quest and the City Pickers Hometown: Brooklyn, New York Latest Album: Homegrown Personal Nicknames (or rejected band names): CQCP, incorrectly called: Cole West and The City Slickers. Holding out for Cold Cuts and The City Pickles.
(Editor’s Note: Answers provided by Cole Quest.)
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
One of my favorite memories was from our inaugural tour to Germany in 2023. It was a 20+ day adventure and for many in the band it was their first time traveling internationally. I was beyond excited – and equally nervous – leading up to and during the trip, running through the millions of things that could go wrong along the way.
But as we traveled, we were met with packed venues, heartfelt appreciation, and as close to “fandom” as we’ve ever experienced. It was unforgettable.
We closed the tour with four days in the small German town of Rudolstadt, which had swelled to 90,000 visitors and over 20 stages for the Rudolstadt World Music Festival. We played several sets and gave a handful of radio interviews, each appearance building momentum as more fans and followers came out to support us. Our final performance was the big one. Right before we walked on, I gathered the band into a circle and shared a heartfelt moment to thank them for everything that led to us being there. With tear-filled eyes, I stepped on stage just as the emcee finished our introduction to a billowing applause and a spontaneous rendition of “Happy Birthday.” It was my birthday – and I couldn’t have imagined a better way to celebrate it.
What other art forms – literature, film, dance, painting, etc. – inform your music?
I often find it hard to tell where others’ art ends and mine begins. We’re all products of our surroundings and, in my case, those surroundings have always been steeped in art.
My parents had a modern dance company for many years. My grandmother was a founding member of the Martha Graham Dance Company. My grandfather was Woody Guthrie. My great-grandmother, Eliza Greenblatt, was a Yiddish poet. My late aunt Ann Cooper was a painter. The list goes on – and that’s just on my mother’s side.
In our house, many hours were spent discussing what creative expression looks like and the different forms it can take. Having these conversations growing up really pushed my creative boundaries and ways of thinking. I often attribute sounds to colors (chromesthesia) and wonder if that came from these open discussions. I believe all of the art forms influence everything about my life all the time, including my music.
How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?
I find I actually do the opposite – and quite often. I find myself writing about “me,” putting myself in someone else’s shoes. I find I often use songwriting as an excuse to shift my own perspective – not necessarily to a “better” perspective – but more as exercise to deeper understand things from different angles. For example, “Plane Wreck At Los Gatos” or “Jolly Banker.”
I’m heavily influenced by my grandfather in that way. Growing up, it’s something I’ve always noticed about many of his writings and grew up understanding that to be the norm. It made sense to me, to use songwriting as a tool for greater understanding and gaining a broader perspective.
Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?
I’m not much of a food connoisseur, but I am a fan of good company and good conversation over a slice of cheesecake or a latke. My dream meal would be showing up to downtown Brooklyn’s famous cheesecake establishment, Junior’s, for a late night slice with Stevie Wonder.
To set the scene, Junior’s is basically a classic NYC diner including bright Broadway-style lighting outside, brown and orange vinyl booths, and your food order comes with the best-in-town complimentary beets, coleslaw, and pickles. The main difference is its exceptional desserts and historic presence. Because its location is a central hub of Brooklyn, it’s a true “mosaic of Brooklyn” according to the third-generation owner. The late-night crowd often includes folks coming in after seeing a concert nearby, locals looking to put a few back, families who missed “dinner time,” or the seasoned regulars appreciating a delicious milkshake.
I can’t think of a better spot to sit down and pick Stevie’s brain about all of his songwriting, his lyrical prowess, his thoughts on love, social issues, and anything part of the human experience.
If you didn’t work in music, what would you do instead?
I’ve spent many hours of my life as a computer programmer – and still do – but deep down, I’ve always wanted to drive what I call “the big square.” I want to drive big vehicles: coach buses, school buses, 18-wheelers, and RVs. It’s not that I crave the long hours behind the wheel, which is why I’ve never made it a profession; part of me wants to just spin the big steering wheel and navigate these oversized boxes in narrow and small spaces. I have no idea why.
Between other jobs, I’ve thought about getting my commercial license, but it just hasn’t happened yet. For now, I live vicariously through the 18 Wheeler: American Pro Trucker arcade game.
Artist:Grain Thief Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts Latest Album:House of the Dog (out August 1, 2025)
Genre is dead (long live genre!), but how would you describe the genres and styles your music inhabits?
We’ve sort of faced the “genre-bending” thing throughout our career, so by now you’d think we’d have a good idea of how to summarize ourselves and our music. The beauty is, though, that we don’t really have to put ourselves down for a genre for anything more than maybe a drop-down menu or an intake form.
We’re from Boston, Massachusetts, an area that’s not typically known for its bluegrass scene (think Aerosmith, Dropkick Murphys, and Marky Mark). But through playing together in the early stages, we landed on this instrumentation that would be typical for a bluegrass band. So, does that make us a bluegrass band? Not really.
We welcome our individual musical backgrounds into our collective creative process. Alex (fiddle) went to school for classical music while Mike (bass) played drums in a punk band. Zach (mandolin) grew up in the PNW old-time scene while Patrick (guitar) studied English and developed a knack for songwriting. Tom (resonator) is a hell of an electric guitar player and is ready at the drop of a hat to play any iconic lead guitar riff that you might’ve just made reference to. We’re a mess. Sometimes, it’s a beautiful one.
What this all translates to is that we have a wide range of musicality within our crew and we allow all of that into our creative process and see what we come up with. Sometimes that could be called bluegrass or maybe even derivative of classical. Sometimes it’s lyrically poignant while other times it’s an angsty punky notion. Sometimes it’s, “This bridge kind of sounds like Weezer!” Thankfully this process has allowed us to grow a wide audience and allows for opportunities that are inside and outside of the bluegrass genre.
What other art forms – literature, film, dance, painting, etc. – inform your music?
We’re a group of friends who are all just about the same age, so we’ve all grown up along the same cultural timeline – regardless of the fact that we all first met in our 20s. When we’re making any kind of cultural references together, whether satirically or literally, things generally land with the other band members. We all watch similar series and movies and someone might make a reference from childhood that’s stood the test of time. Other times we’re in the van looking for things to talk about and someone asks, “Hey have you seen Dune 2 yet?” while the odd-man-out immediately goes straight to “earmuffs” mode.
We’ve got hobbyist photographers and not-so-hobbyist visual artists within the group, so we share our work and inspirations with each other which leads to art direction brainstorming for band projects (album art, merch, etc). Many of us enjoy literature and some of us can barely read music. Not bad! While we haven’t necessarily organized the thought before, we certainly draw inspiration from other art forms and that spills into our music and our relationships together as bandmates.
What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?
Prior to making a record we generally go away for a few days (as much as time allows for) while we are on a break from playing shows to take a creative writing retreat. This has taken place now before our albums Gasoline (2020) and House of the Dog (2025), which are the two from our catalog of the past few years that are complete original compositions. This time together allows us to get away from the outside world and work distraction-free and it allows a significant amount of time for creative collaboration or to bring works to the group for arranging. This time together also acts as an opportunity to share meals together, check in, strengthen friendships, and generally just appreciate the role that we collectively play in each others’ lives.
If you didn’t work in music, what would you do instead?
Sadly we all have other jobs, too. Yay music industry life of 2025! Among us are skilled computer programmers, web developers, carpenters, general contractors, bartenders, sound engineers, CAD engineers, teachers, and more. Is anybody hiring for those positions? It’s literally no rest for the wicked. Yet here we are and we are grateful that there is still a place for being a professional musician in our lives at all.
We try to really make it count when we get to do this, and it has never felt like something that we have to do.
Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?
We’ve all got excellent taste in both food and music, so it’s going to be hard to pick a single pairing that would apply for all of us. Sometimes we can’t all even decide on the same place to eat on the road. But, I’ve got two words that are abundantly clear with this one: “Jerry” and “Dogs.” So, probably a night of grilling hot dogs to the soundtrack of Grateful Dead bootlegs.
Photo Credit: Lead image by Toan Trinh; alternate image courtesy of the artist.
You know what you need? You need a roundup of brand new roots music!
In this edition of our weekly collection, Andy Leftwich kicks us off with a frequent fiddle contest selection, “Tom and Jerry,” giving an appropriate Texas swing treatment to the classic tune. It draws from his childhood growing up performing and competing at contests. A couple of Leftwich’s labelmates on Mountain Home Music are included below, as well. North Carolina’s Unspoken Tradition call on Danny Paisley, Jason Carter, and Bronwyn Keith-Hynes to guest on “I’ll Break Out Again Tonight.” Below, the group’s bassist Sav Sankaran gives us some insight on who inspired their cover of the track and how they chose their special guests. Plus, bassist and singer-songwriter Vickie Vaughn, also on Mountain Home, releases her most vulnerable original track to date, “Mama Took Her Ring Off Yesterday.” Written with Deanie Richardson, who produced Vaughn’s upcoming solo debut, it’s a song about grief, loss, and how life always marches on.
In a similar sonic space to our bluegrass selections, Old Crow Medicine Show have pitched in for John McCutcheon’s upcoming album that pays tribute to the seminal 1925 Mountain City Fiddlers Convention to mark the year of its 100th anniversary. The album, Long Journey Home: a Century After the 1925 Mountain City Fiddlers Convention, was produced by McCutcheon and features an incredible varied roster of artists and pickers rendering songs that pay homage to the important East Tennessee gathering. OCMS perform “Whatcha Gonna Do with the Baby,” which McCutcheon has set to photos from the album’s star-studded recording sessions.
Also below you’ll hear Amanda Pascali combine cultures and sounds from Sicily and the American South on “Amuri,” a brand new song from her upcoming album, Roses and Basil. It’s a delightfully cross-genre track, with touches of cumbia, Latin folk, Texas, Sicily – of course – and beyond. You won’t want to miss new music from Queen Bonobo (AKA Maya Goldblum), either. “Waiting Tables” is the indie-alt-folk artist’s Saturn Return song, about manifesting success and chasing dreams.
It’s a lovely collection of new songs and videos and you know what we’re gonna say… You Gotta Hear This!
Andy Leftwich, “Tom and Jerry”
Artist:Andy Leftwich Hometown: Carthage, Tennessee Song: “Tom and Jerry” Release Date: July 25, 2025 Label: Mountain Home Music Company
In Their Words: “This song brings back so many memories for me. I grew up competing in fiddle contests all around the southern region of the United States where I met some of the best fiddlers of our day and was introduced to the style of Texas fiddling. ‘Tom and Jerry’ is an anthem and you’ll hear it played in just about every fiddling contest and Texas jam session there is. This arrangement is a development of those experiences and pays homage to my upbringing, reminding me of where I started. It’s hard to describe the feeling you get when you play these tunes with those incredible passing chords along with the Texas swing feel. It’s just so much fun!” – Andy Leftwich
Track Credits: Andy Leftwich – Fiddle, mandolin Byron House – Upright bass Cody Kilby – Acoustic guitar
Old Crow Medicine Show, “Whatcha Gonna Do with the Baby”
In Their Words: “Old Crow Medicine Show probably wouldn’t be a band if it weren’t for the time we spent around Johnson County, Tennessee, in the late ’90s. It was there that we learned to love the plain affairs of simple living in the hills, where country music was born. Fiddlers like JB Grayson were an early inspiration to us and the legend of the 1925 Mountain City Fiddlers Convention loomed large, even 75 years later. Now 100 years have passed since this, the first of the big national old-time music conventions, and we are mighty proud to have played a role alongside the great John McCutcheon in bringing this album to fruition.
John first approached me a year ago with the exciting news that he was embarking on a tribute to the Mountain City Fiddlers convention, the event that was so instrumental to the development of the Upper East Tennessee region’s identity as the national headwaters for hillbilly music. I immediately jumped in headfirst, bringing along Old Crow as the first act to sign up for the project. Many of the recordings we helped John make at our own Hartland Studio in East Nashville and now we are honored to finally be able to express our gratitude to Johnson County, Tennessee, an inspirational community for our band.” – Ketch Secor
“I first heard about Mountain City, Tennessee, as a teenager just beginning to play the banjo. I heard the Folkways album Old Time Music at Clarence Ashley’s and it changed the way I thought about the banjo and music as a whole. When I was finally lucky enough to get to Mountain City – doing a concert – I realized how important this little town and its heritage was. When the centenary of the 1925 fiddlers convention was rolling around, I called a bunch of my musical pals and invited them to join me in celebrating this event and, at the same time, benefit the fledgling arts center the town had started. My only request of the musicians was: Don’t make these museum pieces. Own them. I want to hear your fingerprints all over the music. And it turned out way cooler than I ever imagined.” – John McCutcheon
Amanda Pascali, “Amuri”
Artist:Amanda Pascali Hometown: Houston, Texas Song: “Amuri” Album: Roses and Basil Release Date: July 23, 2025 (single); September 12, 2025 (album) Label: Amanda Pascali & the Family/Missing Piece Records
In Their Words: “‘Amuri’ is the first song off my new record, Roses and Basil. The song opens the album with a Leonard Cohen-esque guitar part and a stanza of ancient Sicilian verse: ‘Amuri, amuri, chi m’hai fattu fari? M’hai fattu fari ‘na granni pazzia.’ (‘My love, my love, what have you made me do? You’ve made me go mad.’) These centuries-old lines, interpreted by many artists over time, tell the story of someone so overtaken by love that they forget the way to the church. In my version, that sense of losing the path becomes a metaphor for drifting away from what once felt like absolute truth, all in the name of love.
“The song quickly shifts from that quiet opening into a vibrant cumbia rhythm, inspired by the Latin sounds I grew up with in Texas. A spaghetti western-style electric guitar, 1960s and ’70s Italian lounge piano and vibraphone, and the figure of the priest reimagined as a Southern preacher man all come together to bridge my two worlds: Sicily and the American South.
“Though ‘Amuri’ borrows its opening from the past, the song itself is entirely my own. It sets the tone for the album: anchored in tradition, but reimagined for today. How strange and beautiful that something so old can still feel so relatable.
“The album was recorded at Niles City Sound in Fort Worth, Texas. The day before we recorded this song, my producer Robert Ellis came over to the place where I was staying, with a second-hand nylon string guitar he had bought that very same day. He sat at the table with me at golden hour and as the sun shone through the windows, he played the song in a way that resembled Leonard Cohen’s ‘Master Song.’ The wheels started spinning at that moment.” – Amanda Pascali
In Their Words: “‘Waiting Tables’ is my Saturn Return song. It’s about envisioning how I want my life to be and letting go of all that’s not serving me. I’ve been in the service industry since I was 14 years old and this song is my slightly sassy and soothing way of manifesting success in my music career. We all deserve safety, peace, and for our dreams to be actualized.” – Queen Bonobo
Track Credits: Maya Goldblum – Guitar, vocals, producer Joe Kaplow – Drums, percussion, engineer Joel Ludford – Stand-up bass Kyle Knadinger – Pedal steel Neil Burns – Keys
Unspoken Tradition, “I’ll Break Out Again Tonight” featuring Danny Paisley
Artist:Unspoken Tradition Hometown: Western North Carolina Song: “I’ll Break Out Again Tonight” featuring Danny Paisley Album:Resilience Release Date: July 25, 2025 Label: Mountain Home Music Company
In Their Words: “‘I’ll Break Out Again Tonight’ was one of the first bluegrass songs I ever learned, largely inspired by the captivating rendition of the song by Danny Paisley & The Southern Grass. It has long been one of my favorite old country ballads to sing and to honor my Mid-Atlantic bluegrass roots and collaborate with Danny on this song is a dream come true. Danny is my all-time favorite bluegrass vocalist, and has been an inspiration to me since I was a child. I’m so excited to have Unspoken Tradition’s version of this classic out in the world, and even more excited to share the track with my bluegrass hero!” – Sav Sankaran
Track Credits: Audie McGinnis – Acoustic guitar Sav Sankaran – Bass, lead vocal, harmony vocal Tim Gardner – Fiddle, harmony vocal Zane McGinnis – Banjo Ty Gilpin – Mandolin Danny Paisley – Lead vocal, harmony vocal Jason Carter – Fiddle Bronwyn Keith-Hynes – Fiddle
Vickie Vaughn, “Mama Took Her Ring Off Yesterday”
Artist:Vickie Vaughn Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Mama Took Her Ring Off Yesterday” Release Date: July 25, 2025 Label: Mountain Home Music Company
In Their Words: “I was having lunch with Mama at a Mexican restaurant in Paducah, Kentucky, one day about three months after my father’s unexpected passing. In her charming and sneaky lil way, she wiggled the fingers of her left hand past the chips toward me. (She’s always had a soft/sweet way of breaking strange news to me and my brother.) I saw that her wedding ring was off, a final signal to me, my brother, and her that life goes on after tragedy. The whole situation struck me so much that I had to write this song with Deanie Richardson about the day we found out Mama took her ring off.” – Vickie Vaughn
After a quarter century fronting the frenetic bluegrass and jug band outfit Old Crow Medicine Show, Ketch Secor is finally breaking out on his own with his solo debut Story The Crow Told Me. The retrospective record looks back on the past few decades, from his own journey to stardom spurred by a chance encounter with Doc Watson to the certified platinum hit “Wagon Wheel,” through the lens of a soundtrack that’s equal parts bluegrass and contemporary country.
“Because the band [recently] celebrated 25 years, I was already in the mindset of a retrospective look,” Secor tells BGS. “I was thinking about everything that’s happened and transpired over that time and started writing about it. In fact, at first I really thought it was going to be a spoken word record before the music eventually took over.”
Talking over the phone, Secor spoke about the timing for his debut project, its connections to both Old Crow and contemporaries like Dierks Bentley, becoming the new host of Tennessee Crossroads on Nashville PBS, and more.
You mentioned this album was initially envisioned as a spoken word compilation. What led to its transformation into a fully realized album?
Ketch Secor: I was working with Jody Stevens. We had written a couple songs that were largely based around spoken word and others we were looking to add background sounds on. Those sounds started getting more and more like what I already do, which is writing songs with choruses and verses and hooks. It just evolved out of the beat poetry version of the album, which was probably a little less listenable but closer to what I was striving for. The musicality of it is a bit of a compromise to be like “Well, I’m going to make this an actual record people might want to listen to” because the spoken word records I enjoy are not highly listened to.
I recently was trying to find them again since my record collection got lost in the 2010 floods we had in Nashville. I went on Spotify, which I’d never used before, to find all these songs in my head like Amiri Baraka’s “It’s Nation Time” or Moondog – a 1950’s renegade beat poet from New York – in trying to get an understanding of how the spoken word music I heard as a kid was being utilized today. It quickly became clear that nobody listens to that stuff anymore. [Laughs] So it seemed like making it musical would make it more fun for people.
It seems a bit ironic that you had to look up all these songs – many of which would be considered part of the Great American Songbook – on a digital streaming platform like Spotify. Talk about two very different worlds colliding!
I talk a little bit about that phenomenon on the song “Junkin’.” A lot of the experience of making music with Old Crow, especially in the beginning when we were still developing a canon, was about music’s physical form. When the band first started the internet was still new and we were still selling cassettes. The last time I made a solo record was on tape, the band didn’t have a website and none of us even used email when all of this started. It meant that searching for the physical was really important.
There’s another song on the album called “Thanks Again” that highlights the personal relationships that you develop out on the road – these chance encounters that are very much real and put the wind in your sails. There’s something to be said about having to come of age in a time when information was so tactile and often involved a human touch.
With the emergence of the internet and things like streaming and social media it really is an entirely different world for artists to navigate nowadays.
I realized that I had a kind of time capsule in my mind I had yet to crack open in the days before going in to make this record, which was done quickly and often with me writing the songs as we were recording them. Opening it up was really cathartic and essential for me to process and move past because the experience of coming to Nashville when we did and the kind of band we were in was, at times, slightly traumatic. It was a very intense quest similar to a military deployment, being a minor league ball player fighting your way through the ranks or even being a teenage whaler in Moby Dick. You end up leaving everything else behind in search of this one pursuit.
It’s not unique to come to Nashville to make it big, but what made our experience unique was that we were trying to do it with these traditional sounds in an era in which technological changes were happening as we were doing it. It was almost like we were going against the literal tide with our choices and artistic motivation.
You just mentioned writing these songs as you were recording them. Is that something you’d done before?
That was a very new way of going about things. I understand that record-making has changed a lot since we first started – our most popular Old Crow records that gave us a career were the early ones we made with Dave Rawlings on analog tape that we cut with a razor blade. Making a record the way Gillian [Welch] and Dave do is very studious, labor and time-intensive. But now the technology exists to do it super fast.
This record almost felt like a throwback to the seminal recordings of the 1920s and ‘30s that are the headwaters of our sound. Those records were made in three minutes oftentimes without knowing what the arrangements would be. Three minutes wasn’t the time frame of hillbilly music until the record company said it was – they just sat there, watched the light turn on and played. Writing a song and building a track like that actually felt really on par with what it would have been like going to Camden, New Jersey, in 1928 on a train when you’d never left your county before that. The challenge is keeping one foot in the past and one in the present. When you play fiddles and banjos and blow harmonica for a living the instrument kind of does it for you.
You name dropped Jody Stevens a few minutes ago. How’d y’all come together and what was it like working with him?
We met through my publishing company. I was going to do a co-write with him and knew he’d written a lot of songs for contemporary country artists, so I brought my bag of tricks that I bring out when I try to pretend I’m going to write the next big, top 10 country smash, except for this one time with Darius [Rucker]. I love country music even though I feel that in the past 25 years I have a whole lot less in common with it than I did when I was a kid, in terms of what it sounds like today in its mainstream output versus when I was singing along to Jo Dee Messina when I was 19. It was interesting to circle the wagons with Jody because he brought such a unique perspective in record making that comes from contemporary country music even though his roots are in hip-hop.
The other thing that brought us together was that Jody had seen Old Crow a lot, especially in our early days from 2000-2005, which is the sweet spot I try to explore on this record. He’d been there at the Station Inn and the festival Lightning 100 used to do downtown and some of these other places that have since been replaced by high rises. The fact that he had been a first-account witness to the band was really helpful to bounce ideas off of. His sister was also a big Old Crow fan and even though I’ve never met her I thought about her as my target demographic – someone who saw us back in 2001 and wanted to know what that time capsule looked like.
The fact that Jody had done all this work with people that rapped – only to find that 25 years later the tapes and demos he’d made with Jelly Roll were now part of a pop culture consciousness that hadn’t been there when he first started working on them – gave him a similar orientation to country music that I have about Americana. When I got started there was nothing called Americana and nobody lived outside of contemporary country music unless you were alt-country. Coming into this period of time in Nashville where it wasn’t yet determined that anyone with a banjo could make it that wasn’t bluegrass is another place where Jody and I shared commonality. The rap game has since become a massive component to contemporary country music similar to how Americana has become the tastemaker for anything roots-related.
In terms of the sound on this record, the way you move between more Old Crow-esque bluegrass and those pop country flavors reminds me a lot of Dierks Bentley, another person who excels at showcasing the best of both sides of roots music.
I came up with Dierks and remember witnessing his arrival. Before [“What Was I Thinkin’”] came out there was an issue of CMA Up Close that had a story about us on the page opposite one about Dierks and I thought to myself, “Well, if a guy named Dierks Bentley can make it, then probably a guy named Ketch Secor can, too.” Surely Nashville has the appetite for two oddly-named boys. [Laughs] Then I went on and took a moniker that wasn’t my name. Because of that I feel very much like a brand-new artist now and have developed a strong sense of empathy for the young guns who are out there trying to put their stuff out for the first time, because it’s so much harder now than when I was a kid.
What are some of those major hurdles you’ve noticed for new artists today compared to what you first encountered with Old Crow?
Now the way you stand out in a crowd is through visual means that often require the least amount of artistic acumen and the most amount of social media acumen. So far, I’m not sure it’s helping the cream rise to the top, though. The skill set should be how good can you pick a banjo, not how good can you pick the keypad on your iPhone, even though you have to do both to be successful today. When I was a kid it was about making these connections with people, knocking on doors so many times that every time something good came to me [it did] on account of me showing up and being in the right place at the right time.
Seeking a viral moment has an undue effect of potentially limiting the number of new entrants into the arena. For one generation, what was once divinized is now digitized. I’m sure that if there’s a God above that He or She can use the binary code to reach people and connect their children. I can pick up The New York Times and feel like there’s a closeness with the loss in Texas right now, which is only amplified by me having swam in the Guadalupe before and having a personal connection to the area. If you’ve plunged in the waters yourself then you’ll share something so much more vital with those who are experiencing the loss.
It’s really a metaphor for how we all have a shot at playing the Grand Ole Opry or going from the Station Inn to the Ryman like I did. There’s a turnstile in front of that and I want to see it spinning wide so that artists of all stripes can find their way up to that stage where they belong. As a steward of those stages, I want to see the people show up who have found music as the great connector that, regardless of the speed of the computer in your pocket, the speed of music breaks all other forms of sonic barriers.
In terms of personnel, what motivated you to bring in past and present Old Crow members like Willie Watson, Critter Fuqua, and Morgan Jahnig to record these songs with?
I really wanted to have all the past members of Old Crow on the record, because it felt like a bit of an offering to the gods to say “thanks.” So I really wanted a little bit of all their spirits on it. Not only that, but I read through a lot of old journals and called up some people I’d met hitchhiking, but hadn’t talked to in 25 years. I went and visited the guy who coined the term “Wagon Wheel,” because that song was always called “Rock Me Mama” until I met James Sizemore – a wonderful rascal and drug-dealing Vietnam vet.
I went to see him on his deathbed and recorded phone conversations late at night with old friends. While none of that stuff is necessarily on the record in its physical form, it all went into the process of trying to bake something that really felt like I was living in the past and bringing it to the present through these songs. I think a lot about cairn stones that the Inuit people up north call inuksuit, which are like sign posts that tell you where to turn, but they’re also spiritual. So imagine a road sign that could say “300 miles to Memphis,” but also told you the ancestral route of the settlers who first brought buffalo down 7,000 years ago, sort of like the duality of a time signature.
That duality of time reminds me of one of the album’s songs, “What Nashville Was,” which highlights how much Nashville has changed over the decades while also highlighting how no matter how many venues are replaced with condos, music will always be the city’s heartbeat.
A lot about the way Bob [Dylan’s] record Nashville Skyline had a way of pointing out Nashville for the first time to anyone who didn’t live in the South or listen to country music. He was really pointing to Nashville from a unique perspective and certainly Bob Dylan’s Nashville was the kind of Nashville that I was looking for when I first started playing on the street corner there in 1996.
Similarly, I was also looking for Dolly Parton’s Nashville. I wanted the Nashville that Dolly got when she stepped out of the pickup truck and married the first guy that honked his horn at her, the kind of Nashville where Willie Nelson was laying down in the street in front of Tootsie’s thinking he’s gonna kill himself because nobody wants his songs.
I used “Girl From The North Country” as the template for a love letter to a changing place and a cityscape that has gone on to do so much stuff that it itself is largely oblivious to the price it pays for its constant reinvention. And the price is that who we’re ushering in … is probably because you were on a reality TV show more consistently than because you had a song that people couldn’t stop singing at summer camps. Not that those things are good or bad, they just change. But we’re at a point now where the legend and lore of Nashville has grown so much that we’re at risk of the bubble bursting and it being something like Seattle after grunge or Austin after it wasn’t weird anymore – which is a glass, monolithic, industry executive business center. Oftentimes those forces stand in opposition to the ability of songwriters, hucksters, showmen, and the survival spirit that goes into creating the next Bob Dylan of a generation. I’m hoping that we, the architects of Nashville, can endeavor to build a place that still allows a hearty hero or heroine to come through the gates just like Loretta Lynn or Jack White did.
You were recently named the new host of Tennessee Crossroads on Nashville Public Television. How’d that opportunity come about and what’s it mean to you?
When PBS called me about this unique role that had come available with the sudden and sad loss of Joe [Elmore] – who ran the show for 30 or so years – it only made sense to find someone else to step in who’s also run a business for around 30 years that’s similar to Tennessee Crossroads. Old Crow Medicine Show has been criss-crossing the American south getting inspired by quilters, gee-haw whimmy diddles, carvers, and folks that plant by the lunar signs – those are the kind of folk heroes that go into our music. They’re also the same kind of stories that this show loves to tell.
I love public broadcasting and care a lot about access to it in this country. I made my television debut on our local PBS affiliate up in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia when I was in fifth grade. I fell in love with my own backyard because Ken Burns showed me what was so rich about it and so frightening and tragic, which was the bones of the Union and Confederate armies right here, just past the fence. Ken Burns really illuminated that for me and ever since I’ve been the biggest fan of public broadcasting.
What has the process of bringing this record to life taught you about yourself?
I was born about 35 miles outside the birthplace of Walt Whitman and always wondered why I like the guy so much. Then I recently rode my bicycle there and thought, “God, this guy’s place is really popular!” There were people sleeping on a stoop and waiting for a free sandwich in the parking lot. And it turns out where Walt Whitman used to live is like the center of the drug-addled corpse that is parts of Camden, New Jersey. It looks a bit like the Dickerson Road corridor, at least as it was in about 1999.
I feel like Walt really said it best when he said he contains multitudes on “Song Of Myself, 51.” I feel as a picker of banjos and fiddles and guitars and dulcimers and auto harps; and a blower of jugs and juice harps and harmonicas; and a singer of ballads and lamentations pretty songs; and [an attender of] corn shuckins, frolics, and cotillions, that I am like you, a container of multitudes.
A long weekend requires great music on the speakers, doesn’t it? Here are a handful of brand new tunes to add to your playlists for the festivities – You Gotta Hear This! This week, our roundup includes bluegrass from the Carolinas and from across the pond, too.
Below you’ll find fun-filled Irish bluegrass and string band JigJam enlisting Lindsay Lou for their new track, which releases tomorrow, called “Running Back to You.” It’s a delightful, traditionally-crafted song of love, longing, and life on the road.
From the foothills in upstate South Carolina, husband-and-wife duo Benson – Kristin Scott Benson (the Grascals) and Wayne Benson (IIIrd Tyme Out) – are joined by their friend from just up the mountains, Woody Platt, on a song written by Grant Williams. “Lover of the Road” continues in a similar vein to JigJam’s new number, lamenting the haunting and nagging feelings of being gone from the people you love while off traveling.
Rounding out our collection this week is Ashby Frank, Nashville-based North Carolinian mandolinist, singer, and songwriter, who’s assembled quite the band for his latest, “Everybody’s Got Their Nine Pound Hammer.” Frank found the song through Tim Stafford, one of the track’s co-writers, and was immediately drawn to the universality of its central sentiment.
It’s a mighty trifecta of bluegrass sampled from across this genre’s spectrum of sound – and geography. And you know what we think… You Gotta Hear This!
Benson, “Lover of the Road”
Artist:Benson Hometown: Boiling Springs, South Carolina Song: “Lover of the Road” Release Date: July 4, 2025 Label: Mountain Home Music Company
In Their Words: “I’m really happy with how ‘Lover of the Road’ turned out. It was written by my best friend from college and we were so lucky to get Woody Platt to sing it. I’ve enjoyed the heck out of getting to play some shows with Woody and he sang this song perfectly. His vocal embodies the haunting, nagging feeling any of us can experience when trying to maintain relationships while traveling.” – Kristin Scott Benson
“Here’s a song by Grant Williams, who also wrote ‘Sleeping with the Reaper’ for the Grascals. The first time I ever heard Grant’s material was when he recorded a demo at our house, 20 or 25 years ago. He’s an eclectic writer and it’s been fun to watch him take an interest in bluegrass and see how appropriately he writes for us. We’re always trying to wisely pair songs with vocalists and Woody Platt did a great job delivering this one. Woody is well-known for good reason and we were really happy when he agreed to sing it.” – Wayne Benson
“I’ve long admired Kristin and Wayne Benson for their individual brilliance and their powerful partnership in shaping bluegrass music. Their influence on the genre and the industry is truly remarkable. It was an absolute honor to record ‘Lover of the Road’ with them!” – Woody Platt
“There’s something in me that loves being out on the road, but more than that, I love being at home with the people I love, my dog, and my bed. This song was what I imagined it would be like if those two loves traded places in priority in my heart.” – Grant Williams, songwriter
Track Credits: Wayne Benson – Mandolin Kristin Scott Benson – Banjo Woody Platt – Lead vocal Cody Kilby – Acoustic, harmony vocal Kevin McKinnon – Bass Mickey Harris – Harmony vocal
Ashby Frank, “Everybody’s Got Their Nine Pound Hammer”
Artist:Ashby Frank Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Everybody’s Got Their Nine Pound Hammer” Release Date: July 4, 2025 Label: Mountain Home Music Company
In Their Words: “I was immediately drawn to ‘Everybody’s Got Their Nine Pound Hammer’ when my good friend Tim Stafford shared a work tape with me. He co-wrote it with Eric Gibson and Greg Cornett. I loved the way it focuses on the everyday struggles we all face and it really has that traditional bluegrass feel. To bring this song to life, I brought in some incredibly talented musicians, including Matt Menefee on banjo, Seth Taylor on guitar, Jim VanCleve on fiddle, Tony Creasman on percussion, and Travis Anderson on bass. I was also honored to have Tim and my friend Kelsey Crews add those high and lonesome harmonies. They truly made the tune come alive and gave it a timeless quality. I’m really excited for everyone to hear it!” – Ashby Frank
Track Credits: Ashby Frank – Mandolin, lead vocal Seth Taylor – Acoustic guitar Travis Anderson – Bass Matt Menefee – Banjo Jim VanCleve – Fiddle Kelsey Crews – Harmony vocal Tim Stafford – Harmony vocal
JigJam, “Running Back to You” (Featuring Lindsay Lou)
Artist:JigJam Hometown: County Offaly, Ireland Song: “Running Back To You” (Featuring Lindsay Lou) Release Date: July 5, 2025 (single)
In Their Words: “I wrote this song on the road last year. Constantly being on the move going from hotel to hotel after shows isn’t easy when you’re away from a loved one. Having that someone to go home to after a tour can keep you going when the going gets tough and that’s where ‘Running Back to You’ comes from. Knowing there’s someone waiting for you at the end of a tour makes it a lot easier and worthwhile. The recurring fiddle tune part came to me first one day as I was on the I-55 from Chicago to St. Louis and the song was pretty much built around that tune. We thought Lindsay Lou would be a great fit for this song. We’re big fans of Lindsay’s music and her vocals have really complemented the track in both lead and harmony roles throughout. It’s a lively number and one we really enjoy playing at live shows!” – Jamie McKeogh
Photo Credit: JigJam courtesy of the artist; Ashby Frank by Melissa DuPuy.
Artist:You, Me, Everybody Hometown: Ngaruawahia, Waikato, New Zealand Latest Album:Southern Sky (January 2021) Latest Single: “Heart of Stone” (June 3, 2025) Rejected Band Names: Captain banjo & the Bluegrassketeers
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
I remember playing a gig on Valentine’s Day way back in 2013 at Matterhorn in Wellington. There was a huge crowd there and at some point, towards the back of the room, there was a major kerfuffle. Medical staff were on the scene, but the band just kept on playing, having no idea what was actually going on. At the end of the show it was revealed to us that somebody had actually gone into labour, giving birth just outside the venue. I believe that my music had a hand in creating life and am disappointed that the baby was not named in my honour. – Rob, bass
Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do they impact your work?
I have been ocean swimming for about six years now, after decades of not being a swimmer at all. My wife and I each have a swim buddy and we go year-round. The blast of cold water has been a welcome grounding for us both as we lost our son a few years ago. I made it through with water and music: the cold Pacific ocean for clarity and sanity, the band for the transcendent moments of joy that only music can bring. – Nat, banjo
What’s the most difficult creative transformation you’ve ever undertaken?
Playing music from such a young age has meant I have gone through many musical changes. The hardest change in my music career has been going from spending all my time playing music through my teen years to working a full-time job. Transforming my mindset to find balance has been tricky and still is, but music will always be a very big part of my life. – Sam, mandolin
What is a genre, album, artist, musician, or song that you adore that would surprise people?
I am a big-time house music appreciator, so as a bluegrass musician and fan, I think people are surprised to find this out. The two genres don’t really share any instruments in common, but if you strip them back they do have similarities, which is why I think it really resonates with me. Who knows, maybe I will try adding some Roland drum machines to the next YME next bluegrass hit! – Laurence, guitar, vocals
If you didn’t work in music, what would you do instead?
I’m a teacher, Rob’s a teacher. We all have jobs outside of music. For a long time I thought that meant that I couldn’t call myself a musician, but I’ve long ago stopped making excuses about this. So many musicians need other jobs to pay their bills. I taught drama and I’ve found more and more that the creative processes I’ve undertaken with my students now really plays into my writing process and the collaboration we do as a band. We work really hard to try everyone’s suggestions before saying no to something – you don’t know it won’t work until it actually doesn’t. All of my skills tend to come out in everything I undertake. – Kim, guitar, vocals
Photo Credit: Ebony Lamb
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.AcceptRejectRead More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
