The Righteous Gemstones Keep “Misbehavin'”

Halfway through the first season of HBO’s megachurch comedy The Righteous Gemstones, the show devotes an entire episode to a flashback, showing how the family of Bible-thumping televangelists came to be so hilariously dysfunctional. The episode culminates in a live performance of a song called “Misbehavin’,” by siblings Aimee-Leigh (played by Jennifer Nettles) and Baby Billy (Walton Goggins). They’d been a child singing act years ago, and this countrified tale of juvenile hijinks was their biggest hit. They still remember every lyric and every dance move decades later.

The song would pop up two more times during the season, in different arrangements from different times: one from the 1960s, another from the ‘80s, and finally one in the present day. It threads through the series to present a very basic moral to the story: When you misbehave, bad things happen. But this version with Goggins and Nettles is the one that ended up going viral, a hit among fans of the show and newcomers alike who couldn’t get it out of their heads — especially that line about “running through the house with a pickle in my mouth.” It’s arguably the greatest moment on television in 2019.

“Misbehavin’” was written by the show’s creator Danny McBride, actress Edi Patterson, and composer Joseph Stephens, whose attention to detail ensured that many viewers would think the song had been around for ages. A North Carolina native who briefly studied classical guitar before discovering rock & roll as a teenager, Stephens took film classes in college and scored his friends’ student films.

“I’ve never had any formal training in music, outside of when I was a kid learning classical guitar,” he says. “I never took piano lessons or anything like that.” That approach, however, has kept him versatile. He plays an array of instruments for a diverse range of projects — many of them starring his old friend McBride, including Vice Principals and The Legacy of a White Deer Hunter. “I pride myself on being somewhat versatile, and over the years I’ve taken on jobs that asked for a lot of things that seemed outside of my wheelhouse. But that’s fun for me.”

For our latest installment of Roots on Screen, Stephens spoke to the Bluegrass Situation about writing music for church, using clog dancers as percussionists, and, most importantly, never scoring the joke.

BGS: The Righteous Gemstones is set in a South Carolina megachurch, where of course music is going to be very prominent. How familiar were you with that kind of setting?

Stephens: I went to church as a kid, and I was fascinated by big organ. I went to a Methodist church that had this massive organ built into the room. I would go back to that as a touchstone for Gemstones. I actually started using a big church organ, playing with some of the bass pedals in ways that sounded cinematic and less traditional. I was using different plug-ins and effect to mangle the sound and change it around so that it sounds big and gross at times and other times sounds really pretty and maybe spaced out. I wrote a bunch of music that I gave to Danny and the writers as they were putting the show together, just kind of formulating ideas. Danny knew he wanted to do some choir stuff, so I was exploring that as well.

Joseph Stephens

Music seems like a big part of what McBride does. There are always unexpected music cues in his shows that suggest a very deep knowledge.

Technically, these are comedies we’re making, but we both tend to gravitate toward treating it like dramatic material. So I rarely ever score a joke. I’m always trying to score the drama of the situation and letting the absurdity of what they’re doing carry the comedy. The music shouldn’t point at the joke. We treat it like a Coen Brothers movie or something heavier.

In Vice Principals we would literally score a comedic scene with ‘80s horror movie music, just to play with the unusual side of what music can do for comedy. Danny pushes me to do something different all the time, but it’s rarely ever like, “Let’s make comedy music.” It’s more like, “Let’s make music that we find interesting.”

That points to something I’ve been thinking about regarding Gemstones and how it walks a really fine line. You’re finding humor in this setting, but you stop just short of making fun of the characters’ faith. You’re not exploiting the church for cheap laughs.

When Danny first pitched me the idea, I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out. It’s dicey to make a show that’s set in this heavily religious background, especially when you’re filming it in the Deep South. It seemed a little risky. But I had faith that they would find a way to do it right. And when I started reading the script, I was so pumped because it turned into something different. It turned into this absurd family drama.

The show is about this family and the degree to which the wealth and success they’ve enjoyed have turned them into monsters. It’s not really about their religious background. That’s just their job. It’s not about what they do. It’s more about what they’ve become and how they got there. I think John Goodman’s character in particular had better intentions, and we’ll see how much of that gets touched on in the future. I don’t think they knew how to handle their success — or losing their mother. The glue that held them together was lost, and now they’re just coming apart. No one’s there to give them much guidance, so they just turn into beasts.

Walton Goggins and Jennifer Nettles in The Righteous Gemstones

And a scene like “Misbehavin’” seems to carry some of that weight, despite being hilarious. It really speaks to how those two characters relate to each other, and there’s something desperate in the way these adults perform this juvenile song.

Danny and I always say that “Misbehavin’” became the soul of the show, because it captures everything the show is about: Doing bad things can lead to trouble. But it’s playful. You’re supposed to feel that these siblings are enjoying themselves and having fun with the song. It’s supposed to feel innocent and joyful, but also weird and a little left-of-center.

It also had to sound legit. It had to feel like it’s something that actually existed in the world at some point. Once we created the song, it just overtook everybody. When they filmed that scene with them singing it, everybody was singing along off-camera. It became a mild obsession for a lot of us.

And those two actors — Walton Goggins and Jennifer Nettles — have so much chemistry. What was it like recording with them?

They really did kill it. The sessions were a lot of fun, even though they didn’t do them together. Jennifer is such a pro, so she did her part in minutes. She banged it out and that was that. But Walton was way more methodical and really wanted to get into character. And then he had to shift gears and do a different version of the song when his character is much older. He and Edi did their version together, which is very different from the ‘80s version.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

There are many more blessings to come 🙏

A post shared by The Righteous Gemstones (@therighteousgemstones) on

What kind of research did you do for the song? Were you going back and finding older examples of juvenile Christian music?

When I was thinking in terms of instrumentation and when I recorded all the music, I was constantly referencing the Carter Family and Johnny Cash. It was fun to explore the way their vocals were mixed and the way their instruments were mixed. I was listening to a lot of their music just trying to figure out how they got a particular sound or whether they were putting autoharp and guitar in the same channel, just hyper-analyzing all of it.

But in terms of writing, there wasn’t really any research. I knew it was going to be somewhere in the world of Johnny Cash, with a traditional chord structure, two minutes long, two verse and a chorus and an instrumental break. The structure was going to be pretty standard. It all came together pretty fast and very easily. But I didn’t really reference any children’s music at all. It was always Johnny Cash and the Carter Family, and maybe the Collins Kids. But it wasn’t a children’s song – more like a country song that had been made famous by kids.

And there are three versions: There’s the version the kids recorded in the ‘60s, the version we see them perform in the ‘80s, and another version from the present day. Was it challenging to rearrange the song three different times for three different eras?

It was definitely challenging the whole way ‘round. We had to audition a bunch of kids and then go out to California to record them. That version had to sound one way, and then we have another version that needed to sound somewhat authentic to the ‘80s, like a live band on a church TV show would sound. And then we had to do a modern bluegrass version. And they had to be fast so they could do some legitimate clogging during the interludes.

That was tough to work out knowing that it was going to be filmed live and needed to be convincing. We didn’t want to do it in a way that was too on the nose, though. For the ‘80s version, we knew we didn’t want it to sound like Fletch or something. It couldn’t be too ‘80s. But it’s really something you’re not supposed to notice. It’s just supposed to feel inherently legitimate.

Dance is such a big part of that first performance of the song. I feel like clogging in particular so rarely portrayed in any kind of mainstream media.

That became a big part of Walton’s character. We had a choreographer that came up with their dances, and when we were recording, I brought him and his wife in and set up this wooden stage. I had them clog and do some of the routines they’d rehearsed. I kinda orchestrated them, had them do different tempos to the click and record a bunch of sounds. A lot of what sounds like percussion on the show is actually them clogging. I used it in some of the score pieces.

There’s one cue near the end of the first season when the Gemstone kids are wondering what happened to Walton’s character. As they’re talking about him, you hear this percussive sound come in. It sounds like percussion, but it’s clogging. I wanted to remind the audience of that character, so that he would be kind of hanging around some scenes even though he’s not really on screen. That was fun because I was using these percussive rhythms that I wouldn’t normally go to.

A lot of viewers thought this was an actual song that had existed for fifty or sixty years. That sounds like maybe the biggest compliment you could get.

Totally. When the song first appeared on set, apparently a lot of the crew were confused about it. They couldn’t find it on Spotify and it didn’t turn up online. They were convinced that it was something that had existed before. And that’s when we were recording the version set in the 1980s, before we’d even unveiled the original version from the ‘60s. That version ended up getting posted online illegally, and someone sent it to my wife as proof that they had found the original. He thought he had found this old recording of these two kids singing it. He was like, “This is the original!” And my wife had to tell him no no no, that’s the “original” they recorded for the show.


Photo Credit: Fred Norris/HBO

Tom Brosseau’s ‘In the Shadow of the Hill’ Illuminates the Carter Family Catalog

The impact and legacy of the Carter Family is a story that has been told many times, but we gain a new viewpoint from the mouth of a seasoned troubadour like Tom Brosseau. After decades of defining himself as one of this generation’s most insightful songwriters, Brosseau now takes a moment to pay homage to the Carter Family with his latest album, In the Shadow of the Hill: Songs from the Carter Family Catalogue, Vol. 1.

Volume 1 was recorded and produced by Sean Watkins with guest appearances from Dominique Arciero, Tristan Clarridge, and Sara Watkins. It features themes of love, loss, jealousy, and joy alike. An email interview with Brosseau uncovered from where this album sprouted, how the Carters influenced his own songwriting, and more.

BGS: Describe the experience of making this album. What are some things that stuck out to you as particularly memorable, challenging, or rewarding?

TB: In the Shadow of the Hill came about over a period of years. I don’t really know when it all started for me, but it’s in my blood now. When I was first beginning in music one of the songs I learned was “Wildwood Flower.” I copied the lyrics out by listening to the original recording: “Pale and the leader and eyes look like blue.” I must’ve listened to “Wildwood Flower” a hundred times over and over again, wondering if I’d gotten that line correct. Years later I discovered Wayne Erbsen’s book, [Rural Roots of Bluegrass Music] and while Erbsen lays out the origin of “Wildwood Flower,” I still wondered what it’s all about.

The process was the same with In the Shadow of the Hill as it was with the other albums Sean and I recorded; Grass Punks in 2014, North Dakota Impressions in 2016. I bring the bones of the song, Sean gives it form.

What role has the Carter Family played in influencing your own songwriting?

Carter Family songs never go beyond three minutes in length. While 10″ and 12” discs at 78 RPM (the recording medium of the day) only allowed for three to three-and-a-half minutes, what more could the Carter Family express if given extra time? Anyone who studies 78 music will learn about the art of brevity.

How did you prepare for the making of this album? Was research involved, and if so, what are some things you learned?

In the Shadow of the Hill came about because just enough time had gone by. Like how kernels of corn pop after sitting a little while in a hot, oily kettle. One day I woke and felt like I was part of the Carter Family. I read a number of biographies. Some were good. Ed Kahn’s liner notes to On Border Radio. Sara Watkins gave me a copy of Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? and said, “Here, read this!” My favorite is Janette Carter’s Living With Memories. Castor oil solves a lot of problems.

Lou Curtiss, a musicologist and record-store owner in San Diego who died in 2018, had a rare tape of when he visited Sara Carter in Angels Camp, California, in the 1960s. Mostly it was her second husband doing all the talking, Coy Bayes, but it was still fun to hear since Sara Carter’s voice lords equally in tone during conversation as in song. What was it like to have been rocked to sleep by a mother with a voice like that?

Is there any song on this album that particularly resonates with you?

Sean and I recorded several songs not included on In the Shadow of the Hill. “While The Band Is Playin’ Dixie” is one of them. There’s a verse in that song that I often think about: “They found within his pocket a blood-stained little note/ A bullet hole had pierced it through and through/ It began with ‘Darling Mary, if I don’t come back again/ Just remember that my last thoughts were of you.’” People can just be so thoughtful sometimes.

Learning Carter Family songs is one of my passions. Eighty out of three hundred I know by heart. There’s a lot of repetition within the catalogue. The songs are three minutes in length. There’s three chords. There’s a lot about love, loss, heartache, death. I’ve picked up a few extra little shimmers of sentiments, though. One is about when nature smiles upon you, a feeling that we are not alone in this world envelops us. What a comfort that is.

If you were to play these songs for Janette, Joe, A.P., and Sara Carter, what would you want them to take away from your performance? What would you want them to remember, feel, think, etc.?

A college professor of mine, a writer, once told me that his hope was that his book would make it into the public library. I think we all wonder who’s going to remember us when we’re gone. I’m among the many who carry the flame of folk music. My hope is to light a few candles along the way.


Photo credit: They Went Rogue

BGS 5+5: Bug Martin

Artist name: Bug Martin
Hometown: Philadelphia, PA
Latest album: GUTTERBALL
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): formerly known as Dead Bugs

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

Undoubtedly there have been a select few at different points in my life and work, but I’ll say Will Oldham has been a notable influence on me. He occupies a very specific corner of folk, or Americana — or “new weird America” or whatever you want to call it — that can be hard to pin down (as evidenced by the game of horseshoes I just played with genres there). [He] always takes on the task of exploring sound in unique ways.

The first record of his I ever heard was I See a Darkness, the title track of which Johnny Cash later did a version of with him. I listened to I See a Darkness at the recommendation of a friend and didn’t like it for a long time. I’d walk around at work with it playing in my headphones just having an all-around bad time; but there was something about it that continued to draw me back. I’d be thinking about what that unnameable glinting thing was way too much while I was listening to it. Eventually I learned to lean back and appreciate the joy of not knowing the answer.

Years later, I got to meet Will and heard him give a lecture to a very intimate crowd, maybe only 30 people, about topics like what songs are, the songwriting/recording process, and live performance. I asked him a question I had been pondering a while and he gave me an unsatisfying answer. Brought me right back to where I’d originally found him and that initial journey of un-learning and for that I’m forever grateful.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

In the town I grew up in there were lots of loud and lively bands. It’s the common plight of the up-and-coming acoustic act; show up to a bar or venue and play your heart out while folks zone out or talk over you. I always saw all these electric bands come through town that tried to command attention through volume and were also unsuccessful and it got me to thinking.

The next time I played, I brought a few power strips and as many electronics as I could fit in the car — I’m talking toasters, Christmas decorations, a TV looping a muted Looney Tunes VHS while I was playing… pretty much anything that I had in my house at the time to spare. I plugged all of it in around me and turned everything on while I was playing. It was probably the quietest that place had ever been as a room full of people collectively tried to figure out what was going on.

A thunderstorm rolled in and the whole room was pretty much dark and silent except for the glow of all these unnecessary electric props and what I was singing. After the set was over, people came up and talked to me about things they had just noticed in those same songs that I had played a dozen or so times in that same venue. I was glad they were able to be mindful of something going on in front of them and connect with live music. I was gladder still that I didn’t short out the entire fuse box mid-set.

How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?

My job is to be a conduit for whatever stories the ghosts around us have to tell. When I’m presented with an idea from wherever it is thoughts come from, I can give my opinion on it in a song but that doesn’t mean I can claim any ownership or that the story is mine. Thoughts don’t belong to or define the thinker.

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc — inform your music?

My partner is a very talented abstract painter, so our studio space and home are full of visual works. In the past we’ve collaborated on work where, say, the title of a song will be the inspiration for a painting or I’ll meditate on a piece of theirs and try to capture feelings that the colors or forms stir up. It’s a great exercise to shake up patterns you fall into as an artist.

Besides that, I’m a film buff and a fairly avid reader. I had the pleasure of working recently with a friend of mine who is a dancer to create choreography to a song off of GUTTERBALL. Basically I have no allegiance to any specific medium of expression and recognize that inspiration is everywhere if I have the good sense to accept it.

Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?

Living? I’d happily make brunch for Alice Gerrard any day she’d let me. All-time? I’d take the Carter Family out for ice cream.


Photo credit: Mia Fiorentino

WATCH: The Chuck Wagon Gang, “Somebody’s Boy”

Artist: The Chuck Wagon Gang
Hometown: Knoxville, Tennessee
Song: “Somebody’s Boy”
Album: No Depression In Heaven, The Gospel Songs of The Carter Family
Release Date: August 30, 2019
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

In Their Words:: “The Carter Family began singing about the same time frame as the Chuck Wagon Gang. Both groups shared not only the last name Carter but a very similar style of singing. We felt it would be an honor to put together an album that would pay tribute to their gospel songs. Filming this video at the Carter Family Fold was such an amazing experience. There was something so special about being out there in the humble, yet beautiful location where it all began for the Carter Family.

“The song ‘Somebody’s Boy’ is actually not considered a gospel song, but is more what the old-timers call a heart song. Its message is one that speaks to the desires of a mother’s heart for her wayward son, and, though it dates back to 1894, is as relevant today as when it was penned. The Chuck Wagon Gang has recorded other heart songs over the years, like ‘Church in the Wildwood.’ Our hope is that ‘Somebody’s Boy’ will become as meaningful for our fans!” — Shaye Smith (the alto singer who is also the granddaughter of The Chuck Wagon Gang’s original alto singer)


Photo credit: Sandlin Gaither

LISTEN: The Nell & Jim Band, “Dime in My Pocket”

Artist: The Nell & Jim Band (Nell Robinson and Jim Nunally)
Hometown: Bay Area, California
Song: “Dime in My Pocket”
Album: Steel
Release: February 15, 2019
Label: Whippoorwill Arts

In Their Words: “‘Dime in My Pocket’ was written as an exercise in songwriting, and inspired by the book Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone?, the story of the Carter Family. I wanted to try to write a song about A.P. Carter and his feelings about Sara that I gathered from the book. I borrowed a melody, like Woody Guthrie would, which was ‘Rollin’ On’ from the Monroe Brothers, which I recorded with the David Grisman Bluegrass Experience. I changed a few notes of the melody and a couple chords and there you go. I put the words to that and there you have ‘Dime in My Pocket.'” –Jim Nunally, The Nell & Jim Band


Photo credit: Jay Blakesburg

A Conversation with Filmmaker Beth Harrington on Her Carter Family Documentary

For those who appreciate a good movie about music, the name Beth Harrington stands at the top of many lists of excellent filmmakers. The Boston native’s 2003 documentary, Welcome to the Club: The Women of Rockabilly, was nominated for a Grammy Award and applauded at numerous film festivals around the world. The last dozen or more years have been dedicated to completing her latest film, The Winding Stream: The Carters, the Cashes, and the Course of Country Music. Now living in Vancouver, WA, the one-time member of Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers talks about how her passion project is progressing.

So, how long has been since we've had coffee? Two years?

I bet it's been more than that. I don't think I had any hope of finishing the film the last time I talked to you.

Really?

Well, I didn't think there was any real clear-cut path to the end. There was so much money to raise. I had enough money to make a film, but if I finished it and didn't have the music licensed and the archival footage licensed and the photos licensed, I couldn't show it to anyone.

It's been a long and arduos road, it sounds.

Yeah, it has.

The soundtrack has an interesting mix of music, both old and new. Were the new songs commissioned for the film?

Some of them were. While we were making the film, there was an album being recorded that was a tribute album to the Carter family. So we filmed some of that. And we were allowed to use the stuff we filmed. So when we made the soundtrack album, that stuff got released again.

Which ones specifically?

The John Prine one (“Bear Creek Blues”).

… which is one of the ones I like.

Absolutely, I love that one. The George Jones one (“Worried Man Blues”), the Sheryl Crow song — which is in the film but not on the CD. Rosanne [Cash] did the title track.

So, the challenge you were facing from the music licensing standpoint had to do with the original Carter Family material?

Yeah. [The CD] just scratches the surface of what we used in the film. We had lots and lots of Carter Family songs — 30 or more tracks that were mostly original recordings, or radio recordings, from when the Carters were on Border Radio. That stuff largely belonged to Sony, so Sony had to be paid.

Gotcha. They weren't up to negotiating, were they? [Laughs]

We're glad that they let us license the music … let's put it that way. [Laughs]

That's terribly cynical of me. We'll just make sure that, in the interview, that comment is clearly attributed to me and not to you. [Laughs] There’s one tune on the CD with an introduction of the family and then there’s a little snippet … they only sang a few bars.

That’s their theme song, that’s why. “Keep on the Sunny Side” was their theme song, so they sang it on every show. And then they went into another song.

You know what I found striking? I’ve heard the Carter Family’s song countless times, as we all have. Maybe not these exact recordings, but we’ve all heard them to some degree. What was most striking to me is how youthful they sound in these songs.

I never thought about it that way! It’s funny, because I always think of Sara as having this very gothic sound. Even as a young woman, she was very authoritative sounding. It was really a strong voice. To me, that’s an older person’s authority. But even then, she was probably only in her 30s. I think they were kind of youthful. And Maybelle was younger than them, so she was energetic and inventive, and she found all these new things to play. That’s fresh and youthful sounding, I think.

It becomes even more interesting when you have what sounds fresh and youthful in its delivery but sounds old from a stylistic and technological standpoint. What inspired you to do this film?

I had made another music documentary called Welcome to the Club: The Women of Rockabilly and, in making that film, I had met a whole bunch of women who were contemporaries of Elvis Presley.

Like Wanda [Jackson].

Wanda, Janice Martin, the Collins Kids, Brenda Lee, a bunch of others who didn’t make the cut but are mentioned in the film. A lot of them talked about what they grew up with and, of course, a lot of them grew up with the Carter Family. The ones who were in the film toured with Johnny Cash and Maybelle and the sisters. There were very strong connections there. Plus, Rosanne Cash narrated that film, so the whole time I was working on it, I was connecting these dots in my head. I knew who the Carters were. I knew Johnny Cash, of course. I was growing up when the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band album came out with Maybelle and Doc Watson and all those people on it.

I don’t know that there are many people who fully grasp what the relationships were between all these names. Everyone knows the name June Carter Cash — if you know Johnny Cash you know that name — but I don’t think people fully appreciate who she is and where comes from and what that’s connected to … unless you’re deeply into roots music, like BGS readers are. But a lot of people don’t know. I thought it might be useful to connect those dots for people and tell that story because it’s a big saga and a really interesting family. They influenced people, not just in country music, but in folk music and country-rock or whatever you want to call it in the '70s. And they still continue to influence people in Americana today.

I thought it would be cool to do that. I never imagined it would take as long as it took, but I certainly thought it would be interesting to people. The cool thing is, one of the best compliments I get for the film is when people say, "I don’t even like this kind of music and I like your film."

Nice.

So I think, "Cool, my work here is done." Because I just want people to know there’s this underpinning in American music. It’s a thread of the bigger fabric of American music that I think people should know. As was said in the film, "People should know who they are like they know who the first president of the United States was." Maybe a slight overstatement, but I think there’s something to that.

Well, it’s a statement from someone who’s in the front row, the front pew. There’s no need to preach to him. He’s basically standing up and turning around to the rest of the church and saying, "Listen, they’re up here." So I totally get that. How long has it taken up to this point?

Twelve years.

Twelve years!

Well, we’re into the distribution part now, so I’ll have been working on this for probably about 14 years by the time I finish. I never expected it would take this much of my life. 

That’s a lot of patience.

It’s a lot of something. I don’t know. [Laughs] Stubbornness, maybe. I don’t know if it’s patience. It’s definitely stubbornness.

So tell me briefly: Where am I going so see it and how’s it being distributed?

It’s being distributed all over the country right now. If people go to Argot Pictures, there’s a huge list of places it’s showing. It opened in L.A. last week. It’s going to be playing in New York in December for a week. It will be in Boston, at some point. It’s booked in over 40 places right now.

Is there hope for distribution via a streaming service of some kind?

Yes, we have a deal for that, but we have to wait until the theatrical release runs its course.

So, while you’ve been doing this for the past 14 years, what’s been in the back of your head to do next?

Honestly, this was so trying that I thought some days this might be the last film I do. The landscape of documentary filmmaking is so difficult right now … especially if you’re doing a music documentary.

Because of licensing.

Half of my budget was licensing. I could have made two films for the price of this one film. And, whereas I’m happy to pay musicians, I’m less interested in all the other business parts of it. I’m one little person who lives in Vancouver, WA, making a film. I’m not Steven Spielberg.

I think that when people hear that you’re making a documentary with Johnny Cash in it, somehow they think that you’re rolling in the dough. That’s just not the reality. So, I haven’t made plans to do anything yet. I have thoughts.

Oh, do tell! We’re not going to hold you to it. But if it’s in print on the Internet …

I know! This is the problem. You’re going to dog me no matter what I do. [Laughs] I think there are other music docs I’d like to do. I think there are some great stories out there. There are certainly stories from my own life that have to do with bands that I was in.

Like Jonathan Richman …

I would have to explore it with Jonathan, and he may or may not be interested. But I think it’s a really great story about the pre-punk era, with some great people in it — including people who launched some of the new-wave and punk stuff. Jerry Harrison from the Talking Heads, David Robinson from the Cars … these are people who were in the original Modern Lovers. That was a very influential band even though it’s not very well-known. I think there are a lot of cool stories there.

It’s really about the story, right?

It’s gotta be about the story. I’ve seen lots of music documentaries where I think, "Well, that’s great footage … but is there a story?" So, I think about that. There are some other things I’d love to do. I might do something narrative with music in it because I need, like, a mental palate cleanser after doing documentaries. Being a journalist — as you know — being accurate and being faithful to the facts, which I strive to be, is very difficult when you’re trying to make something that’s entertaining. That’s why most biopics that you see have no relationship at all to reality! [Laughs]

Exactly! [Laughs] Right, because reality is boring, and we need a story!

Of course!

He didn’t have a mistress, but we put one in just to make it more interesting!

I think that some of that stuff seems really liberating. Like, you could just make something fictitious and fun.

Semi-fictitious? Or completely fictitious?

Well, completely fictitious. If I was going to do it, I would make it completely fictitious. But then you’re right back into the rights issues and the image and likeness of the person. I just think it would be fun to do a music film with musicians that reflected the life of a musicians but wasn’t steeped in the particulars of one musician. I’ve certainly got a lot of content, from doing all the research I did for this film. It goes back to the 1920s and all the way up to the present. I’ve had a lot of time to think about that trajectory and the many influences that this one family had. I think there’s some spin-off of that that might be interesting as a fictional piece.

In the back of my mind, I’m thinking Spinal Tap Goes Americana! [Laughs]

[Laughs] Totally, totally. Spinal Tap and The Godfather — still my two favorite films of all time.

LISTEN: Elouise, ‘Shadows of the Pines’

Artist: Elouise 
Hometown: Altadena, CA
Song: “Shadow of the Pines”
Album: Deep Water 
Release Date: July 15
Label: Landslide Records 

In Their Words: "‘Shadow of the Pines’ was recorded as an homage to bluegrass royalty, the Carter Family. The Carter Family version, 'In the Shadow of the Pines,' was recorded in 1936. It is filled with lyrical loneliness, heartache, and despair recalling the overwhelming sorrow of a lost love that is so intense, the landscape acts as a witness and grieves with lines like 'the moon looked down on you and me' and 'the pine trees sobbed in pity o’ er my head.'

Our interpretation of 'Shadow of the Pines' — with its raw, lonely vocal and weeping cello — is the closest musical utterance to actual bluegrass on our debut album, Deep Water. In a project that has been called blackgrass (raw, primitive, angsty folk), it is the most beautiful and fragile musical expression on the record and a reminder that darkness and beauty often go hand in hand. When we stumbled upon the lyrics, we were so moved that we did not listen to the original until after we had recorded our version. We wanted it to be an honest and heartfelt translation.” — Elouise Walker