Tag: The Show On The Road Podcast

The Show on the Road – Silvana Estrada

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, to help celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, The Show On The Road brings you conversation with a rising star in folklorico-pop hailing from Veracruz, Mexico: Silvana Estrada.

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Currently on her first tour of the United States opening for Rodrigo y Gabriela, Estrada has already made a name for herself in Mexico, renowned for her deft finger-picking on the Cuatro, and her ever-bending, darting vocal mastery. Songs from her first EP, including the soaring electronic-beat driven “El Guardo,” have been listened to over twenty million times and counting — and a collaboration with Mexican roots-rock hero Natalie Lafourcade came last year too.

At only 24, Estrada, the daughter of two instrument makers, is just coming into her own as a songwriter, dipping into her love affairs and private passions with a true, clear-eyed, poet’s pen. Singles off her debut album Marchita for Glassnote Records have already landed to great acclaim, and she’s the label’s first Spanish-language signing ever. Look no further than the heartbreaker “Tristeza” for a first taste of her rustic, primordial sound.

Photo credit: Sofía López Bravo

The Show on the Road – Lera Lynn

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week on The Show On The Road, we bring you a deep dive with silky-voiced, southern gothic-folk songwriter Lera Lynn. Lynn has recently gained notoriety for her mysterious and lushly cinematic sound, as heard on her haunting 2020 LP, On My Own (on which she writes, produces and plays every instrument on each song) and in the music of HBO’s True Detective (produced by T-Bone Burnett) — she became a cast member in Season 2.

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We’ve all had our dark moments during this last year. For Lera Lynn it was figuring out how to put out a new album, which she had painstakingly made herself in isolation (see also: Springsteen’s moody and homemade Nebraska), right as her first baby was on the way without any family being allowed to help shoulder the load. At times, the burden seemed too much to bear, but what emerged was a touchstone set of songs that unintentionally seemed to pinpoint the exact center of our collective dread — and the flickers of hope of a new beginning that can come out of a such a societal time-quake. Searching, reverb-y rock standouts like “Are You Listening?” seem to be calling out into a void that we never knew we had, perhaps reminding us again how much we need human touch, friendship, family warmth, and true soul connection.

While we are currently emerging into the light-filled end of this COVID-19 tunnel, it’s important to note that this interview was conducted back in 2020 in the thick of the harshest lockdowns (the taping footage was lost, then finally found). Songs like “Isolation” hit the exact pain point for many artists like Lynn, who once thrived on bringing live-music’s unique sweaty joy to strangers in a new town each night. Her rising calls of “Is anybody out there?” ring like echoes from a very recent bad dream. A dream, of course, that is still very much a painful reality across this country and around the world.

Coming out of the fertile roots rock scene of Athens, GA, Lynn’s earlier records — like the intimate and country-inflected Have You Met Lera Lynn? from 2011 and its pop-forward follow ups The Avenues (2016) and Resistor (2017) — focused mostly on her endlessly warm and rich voice and the fury and frustration she was processing having grown up an only child of an alcoholic dad. But it was her guest-star-laden LP, Plays Well With Others (2018), where Lynn began to realize the extent of her gifted arranging and vocal powers together. Teaming up with a murderer’s row of Americana artists like Shovels & Rope, John Paul White of the Civil Wars, and Rodney Crowell, the album may be the most high-spirited of her works — like a basement party jam session going off the rails in all the best ways.

The tough year at home did make Lynn come to appreciate how far she’s come since those early days — maybe it took a decade of hard-won acceptance and practice to be able to create On My Own without any help from other musicians or producers. The result is a wonder to hear. Now if she could just play it for an actual live audience. Stick around to the end of the episode to hear Lynn introduce her favorite broken-romance number, “So Far.”

Photo credit: Alysse Gafkjen

The Show on the Road – Low Cut Connie

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, we call in to Philadelphia for a conversation with the highly-theatrical pianist and tireless, much-adored performer Adam Weiner, who for the last decade has gained a cult following around the world fronting his soulful bizarro-rock outfit, Low Cut Connie.


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Some artists have retreated into obscurity during the pandemic shut-down, some have turned lemons into personalized, livestream lemonade. But Adam Weiner took it to another level when he launched his often twice-weekly vaudevillian interactive web show “Tough Cookies” in March. Charging around his small home stage like a schvitzing piano preacher, often losing clothing along the way, Adam has learned nearly six hundred covers in the last eight months alone — from Barry Manilow to Cardi B’s “WAP” to Macho Man to an entire Little Richard set, which he performed to honor his hero after his passing. He then interviews anyone from Beyonce’s dad to members of Sly and the Family Stone. In short, it’s a rollercoaster every week — one that you kind of have to watch to believe.

Alongside his 2020 LP Private Lives, Low Cut Connie’s heartfelt and sweat-dripping sets have gained Weiner some famous supporters: Elton John for one, fellow New Jersey-born hero Bruce Springsteen for another. Up-and-coming playlist presenter Barack Obama unexpectedly placed Low Cut Connie’s defiant cabaret rocker, “Boozophilia,” on his must-listen list. Indeed, this taping, which often showed Adam jumping from his piano to his guitar to play favorites (like the Kinks-esque, “Revolution Rock N Roll”) initially had to be delayed so he could play an inauguration event for new president and Philly-piano lover Joe Biden.

While Weiner is basking in some much-earned attention, it hasn’t always been an easy road. He readily admits to scraping by on side jobs into his mid-thirties, for years playing around dim New York City piano bars as his sequined alter-ego, Ladyfingers. If Low Cut Connie has learned anything during this strange era, it’s that people desperately still need live music. In all its spur-of-the-moment, sweaty glory. One of the more moving stories he tells is seeing groups of nurses in beleaguered hospitals taking a much needed break to watch his livestreams. Much like his role model and patron Elton John, Low Cut Connie’s songs can leap from intimate folk-rock to greasy soul to bombastic musical theater and back with ease and his relentless spontaneity keeps fans waiting for that he will do next.

Photo credit: Skylar Watkins

The Show on the Road – Jeremiah Fraites (The Lumineers)

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, host Z. Lupetin talks to one of the founding members of beloved folk-rock hitmakers, The Lumineers, drummer and pianist Jeremiah Fraites. After following his heart to Italy, Jeremiah dialed into the podcast from Turin, his wife’s hometown. Alongside juggling duties as co-songwriter and performer in one of the most successful acoustic groups of the last twenty years and raising his two-year-old son, Fraites released a gorgeous instrumental record called Piano Piano this January.

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Nearly fifteen years in the making, Piano Piano was created at Fraites’ former home in Denver during the height of the early COVID-19 lockdowns. His two favorite pianos lead the way, as main characters in a story that seemed to unfurl, as his wife would say in Italian, “step by step” — delicately, but with passion. First, he used a newer Steinway for the brighter, more forceful tones, and then a warmly creaky creature, that his piano teacher sarcastically named “Firewood,” for the most personal moments. Really, it’s the tiny imperfections that make this solo work shine: when you can hear the bench swaying slightly; his wife making dinner in the next room as the sustain pedal is pressed into the wood floor; when the aged instrument struggles to hammer out the final notes, but finally does; and when Fraites and the instrument seem to breathe and speak and cry out, together.

While certain smaller songs like “Departure” and “Chilly” are as intimate as fateful field recordings, other standouts like “Tokyo” and “Arrival” are more polished pieces, blooming from that same small space, but growing into masterful, orchestral, widescreen soundscapes with the help of violinist Lauren Jacobson (who often plays with The Lumineers), cellists Rubin Kodheli and Alex Waterman, and the 40-piece FAME’s Orchestra from Macedonia.

Fraites was born in New Jersey, where he grew up with Lumineers frontman Wesley Schultz. When they self-released their confessional and warm-hearted self-titled record in 2012, the two friends never imagined that they would have a chart-topping hit on their hands. Playing the scruffy bars around Denver before their fanbase expanded exponentially and their first record went triple-platinum, The Lumineers soon found themselves headlining international pop festivals, opening for U2 and Tom Petty, placing songs in The Hunger Games and Game Of Thrones, selling out Madison Square Garden (twice) and finally filling their favorite hallowed Colorado venues like Red Rocks. Before the pandemic slowed them down, The Lumineers were bringing their same acoustic spirit to a full-on arena tour coast to coast, showcasing their newest album III. If you’re reading this right now, you’ve probably found yourself singing along to their romantic, stomping ear-worms “Ho Hey” or “Ophelia” or heard them accidentally a thousand times in the last decade (both tracks have been streamed over 500 million times and counting), but all of that is paused for now.

What a perfect time for a peaceful piano record to clear our heads. As Jeremiah Fraites has gained confidence as a sought-after composer, songwriter, and unlikely pop performer, he’s given himself the space to finally create the deeply personal record he’s been hoping to share for decades.

Photo credit: Roberto Graziano Mora

The Show on the Road – Sarah Shook

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week on The Show On The Road, we catch up with acclaimed roots-rocker Sarah Shook. For most of the last decade, Shook has been making cut-to-the-bone country music of her own outlaw variety — first with her early band The Devil and now with her seasoned group of sensitive twang-rock shitkickers, The Disarmers.


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Homeschooled in deeply religious seclusion in upstate New York and North Carolina, Shook largely only heard classical composers growing up. As a loner, creative teenager trying to process her hidden bisexuality, she described hearing Elliott Smith and Belle & Sebastian as revelatory — finally someone felt like her and found a way to share it with the world. But it was after encountering the raw honesty in the songs of Johnny Cash that she found a purpose and a place for her achy-voiced folk songs.

With a little encouragement from her longtime lead guitarist, who saw how powerful her presence (and her songs) could be on stage, an openly reticent Shook took the leap and started playing professionally in 2013. She gained national attention with her stellar back-to-back albums Sidelong and Years, which caught the attention of famed alt-/outlaw country label Bloodshot Records (they signed her) and sent her on a relentless round of touring.

With confessional, lived-in songs like “Fuck Up” and “New Ways To Fail” Shook is a master of getting to the point, processing her tough transition to sobriety with grace, humor and wit. Much like her hero Johnny Cash, she suffers no fools when it comes to love and its tricky late-night detours. With her signature half-smile/half-grimace candor Shook sings about another love affair gone wrong: “I need this shit like I need another hole in my head.”

Stick around to the end of the episode to hear a live-from-home acoustic rendition of her deliciously twangy kiss-off, “Gold As Gold.”

Photo credit: Derek Ketchum

The Show on the Road – Mt. Joy

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week we feature a conversation with songwriter and singer Matt Quinn of jangly-pop phenomenons Mt. Joy.

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Much like host Z. Lupetin’s group Dustbowl Revival, Mt. Joy began thanks partially to some Craigslist kismet. After Quinn took the leap from PA to LA and reconnected with fellow guitarist Sam Cooper (who he used to jam with at their high school in Philadelphia), the band found their bassist Michael Byrnes, and Byrnes’ flatmate, producer Caleb Nelson, helped create their infectious breakout singles “Astrovan” and “Sheep.”

While most rising bands might shy away from writing extensively about addiction; or describing Jesus as a reborn Grateful Dead-loving stoner; or examining generational violence and brutality in Baltimore; with some deeper listening, it’s not hard to notice that Mt. Joy’s bouncy, arena-friendly sing-alongs are admirably subversive and often quite heavy below the pop shimmer.

A whirlwind of touring on some of America’s biggest stages followed the resounding streaming success of their first homemade singles, bringing the band from tiny rehearsal spaces and obscurity to the most hallowed festivals in America — like Newport Folk and Bonnaroo — and huge white-knuckle tours opening for The Shins, The Head and The Heart, and The Lumineers. By 2018 their joyous, full-throated rock sound had fully gelled with the addition of Sotiris Eliopoulos on drums and Jackie Miclau on keys. Their catchy and confident self-titled record arrived on Dualtone and seemed to go everywhere at once — with the acoustic-guitar led anthem, “Silver Lining,” surprising the band most of all by hitting #1 on the AAA radio charts.

But, as Quinn mentions early on in the talk, by the time the band released their much-hyped sequel record, Rearrange Us, in early 2020, the group of friends and collaborators were fraying at the seams. Relentless time away from loved ones caused breakups that were a long time coming, and trying to match incredibly high expectations had forced the band to ask themselves what they really wanted out of this new nomadic, whiplash life. Thus Rearrange Us dives courageously into darker shadows than its predecessor. In emotional standout songs like “Strangers” Quinn has an achy-voiced knack for pinpointing that exact moment when good love goes wrong — and how feeding off the endless adoring energy of the strangers he meets in every new town can only sustain him for so long.

In a way, the pandemic-forced time off coinciding with their record gaining steam was a blessing in disguise, allowing Quinn and the band to reflect and recharge. But of course, with a feverish fanbase from Philly to LA waiting, Mt. Joy wasn’t about to rest long. If you’re a fan, you may have noticed that they are currently playing safe, sold out drive-in shows across the East coast and Midwest with more on the way.

Photo credit: Matt Everitt

The Show On The Road – Aubrie Sellers

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week on the show, we catch up with a rising star in boundary-bending country and take-no-prisoners rock ‘n’ roll, Aubrie Sellers.


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What have you been doing since the pandemic hit in late February? Somehow Aubrie Sellers has managed to release a striking new LP of twisty, guitar-drenched originals on Far From Home (collaborating with her roots rock heroes like Steve Earle) while also pushing herself to make a EP of beloved covers on the aptly-titled, World On Fire. In rejuvenating a faded favorite like Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game,” she takes a song we all thought we knew and twists it around until it seems like a poisonous, reverb-zapped revelation that just arrived out of nowhere.

Sellers was prepared to make music earlier in life than most. Growing up, she often found herself in nontraditional school situations, doing her homework on tour buses, hanging out in green rooms, and getting her feet wet on stages in Nashville’s tight-knit country community; you might know her mom, twangy-pop icon Lee Ann Womack and her dad, Jason Sellers, had a few chart toppers of his own, writing for folks like Kenny Chesney and playing in Ricky Skaggs’ touring band.

Sellers made her major label debut in 2016 with the more straight-ahead, but tightly crafted New City Blues, and earlier sang on a compilation record with the late Ralph Stanley. But at only 27, Sellers feels and sounds like an old soul — one less interested in climbing the current country charts than mining thornier material like her history of anxiety and stage-fright. She harnesses the punky, poetic outlaw energy that more cerebral songwriters like Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams have become known for. And audiences are taking notice, as Sellers’ scorching duet with Earle, “My Love Will Not Change,” was recently nominated for the Americana Music Association’s Song of the Year.

Stick around to the end of this episode of The Show On The Road to hear an acoustic, live-from-home rendition of her tune “Far From Home.”

Photo credit: Scott Siracusano

The Show on the Road – Gary Louris (The Jayhawks)

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week on The Show On The Road, we feature a conversation with Gary Louris, co-founder and leading songwriter of longtime Americana favorites The Jayhawks — who launched out of Minneapolis in 1985 and celebrated the release of their harmony-rich, 11th studio album, XOXO, this July.


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Any band that has managed to stick together for a generation (their self-titled debut dropped when host Z. Lupetin was in diapers) clearly has kept a fervent fanbase intrigued; their signature shoegaze-y, electric roots has endured through personnel changes, bouts of addiction, and the upheaval of the music industry that often leaves fading rock and rollers behind. While Louris will be first to admit that for many years he didn’t think it would be “cool” to keep a rock band together this long, he has grown to appreciate the band’s defiant longevity.

Indeed, their newest collaboration, XOXO, doesn’t show The Jayhawks softening at all, even as they have become respected Americana elder statesmen. Instead it shows off some of their sharpest rock-guitar-inspired records yet — with tunes like the Uncle Tupelo-, sepia-tinted “This Forgotten Town” staying at the top of Americana single charts for months, getting near-constant radio play nationwide.

Seminal Americana records like Smile and Rainy Day Music in the early 2000s finally launched The Jayhawks into international notoriety — they played late night TV and enjoyed (or endured) packed bus tours across North America and Europe — but the success was often bittersweet and they never quite tipped the scale like other roots-adjacent groups like Wilco and Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit.

As host Z. Lupetin discovered while remote recording, Louris can now laugh about an infamous New York Times review of their album Smile that, despite being quite positive, lead with an unfortunate headline noting the band’s lack of widespread acceptance: “What If You Made a Classic and No One Cared?”

Louris is often cited as leading the charge behind the band’s shift from jangly alt-country toward a more catchy, rock-pop sound, but there are plenty of roots still showing — especially Louris’ noted love of British Invasion rock energy and 1970s AM radio layered harmony. After some years that took Louris away from the supportive twin city hub for other ventures (he was also in supergroup group Golden Smog) the band’s core group of Louris, Marc Perlman, Karen Grotberg, and Tim O’Reagan are now happily back together in their original Minneapolis home-base, grateful to still be creating new rock ‘n’ roll with a devoted audience that is waiting patiently for touring to open up again.

Stick around to the end of episode to hear Louris share an intimate acoustic performance of The Jayhawks’ all too fitting new song, “Living A Bubble.”

Photo credit: Sam Erickson

The Show On The Road – Nicole Atkins

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

This week on The Show On The Road, a conversation with Nicole Atkins, a singer/songwriter  out of Neptune City, New Jersey who has become notorious for making her own brand of theatrical boardwalk soul. 

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The Show On The Road host Z. Lupetin fell in love with Atkins’ newest, harmony-rich record, Italian Ice, which came out spring 2020 and was recorded in historic Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Both rumblingly ominous and joyously escapist, standout songs like “Domino” make the record a perfectly David Lynch-esque summer soundtrack of an uneasy 2020 scene that vacillates between fits of intense creativity and innovation and deep despair. Toiling below the radar for much of her career, Atkins is finally enjoying nationwide recognition as a sought-after writer and producer; Italian Ice was co-produced by Atkins and Ben Tanner of Alabama Shakes.

While some may try to shoehorn Nicole Atkins into the Americana and roots-rock categories, one could better describe her as a new kind of wild-eyed Springsteen, who also mythologized the decaying beauty of New Jersey’s coastal towns like Asbury Park, or a similarly huge-voiced, peripatetic Linda Ronstadt who isn’t afraid to mix sticky French-pop grooves with AM radio doo-wop, ’70s blaxploitation R&B and airy jazz rock like her heroes in the band Traffic. If you watch her weekly streaming variety show, “Live From The Steel Porch” (which she initially filmed from her parents’ garage in NJ, but now does from her new home in Nashville), you’ll see her many sonic tastes and musical friends gathering in full effect. Italian Ice features a heady collection of collaborators including Britt Daniel of Spoon, Seth Avett, Erin Rae, and John Paul White.

After playing guitar and moving in and out of hard-luck bar bands in Charlotte and New York — many of which that would find any way to get rid of their one female member — Atkins’ bold first solo record Neptune City dropped in 2007 and three more acclaimed LPs followed, including her twangy, oddball breakout, Goodnight Rhonda Lee in 2017 on John Paul White’s Single Lock Records.

Much like the tart and brain-freezing treat sold on boardwalks around the world, Atkins’ newest work is a refreshing and many-flavored thing and demonstrates that, in a lot of ways, the show-stopping performer, producer, and songwriter has finally embraced all the sharp edges of her personality.

Photo credit: Anna Webber

The Show On The Road – David Bromberg

Posted on by Chris Jacobs
This week, The Show On The Road features living folk-blues legend and underground guitar icon David Bromberg.


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Host Z. Lupetin got to speak with the now 74-year-old Bromberg in a hotel room before the pandemic shutdown, prior to Bromberg playing a show at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles back in February, 2020.

Coming out of the fertile Greenwich Village scene on the heels of Bob Dylan, Ramblin Jack Elliot and other shaggy troubadour-storytellers, Bromberg’s encyclopedic knowledge of American songwriting traditions made him a coffee house wunderkind who refused to be pigeonholed in one genre. By the age of thirty, Bromberg was the go-to guitarist for Dylan, Willie Nelson, John Prine and Ringo Starr, and he could be found jamming at dinner parties with George Harrison.

A man of many interests and talents, Bromberg actually stepped away from performing for nearly two decades at the height of his notoriety, moving to Chicago to learn how to build and then appraise violins. He became obsessed with identifying the best instruments just by sight, and even opened a respected instrument shop in Wilmington, Delaware called David Bromberg Fine Violins.

He returned after twenty two years off the road with the triumphant and Grammy-nominated Try Me One More Time in 2006, and has assembled an energetic band of friends that continues to join him on his new, high energy offerings.

Bromberg’s muscular and ever genre-bending 2020 release, Big Road pays homage to his heroes like Charlie Rich and 1930’s bluesman Tommy Johnson, but also injects heavy doses of swampy rock, horn-heavy funk, and good-humored, folk storytelling along the way.

Stick around to the end of the episode to hear him play a new acoustic tune called “Buddy Brown’s Blues.”