A Simple Daily Practice Brought About Liv Greene’s ‘Deep Feeler’

For Liv Greene, music is all about showing up.

The Nashville-based singer-songwriter just released her sophomore record, Deep Feeler, in mid-October and she wrote and recorded the LP guided by a simple but powerful ethos: Show up for the craft of songwriting and it will show up for you, too. In Greene’s case, that looked like committing to a daily writing practice and finding external sources of accountability – like writers’ groups and online communities – as well as learning to work through days when access to her writerly brain felt blocked.

“A lot of the songs came out of just showing up for the practice, like, ‘Okay, what is there to play with today?’” she tells BGS, calling from her home in Nashville. “‘What’s coming out of my brain today?’”

Though some days only yielded frustration, Greene soon found herself with an album’s worth of material, the bulk of which draws heavily from a concurrent stretch of curiosity-fueled introspection, during which she considered her life as a queer person as well as the quirks and habits that make her who she is.

Greene recorded Deep Feeler at Nashville’s famed Woodland Studios, the East Nashville outpost that serves as home base for David Rawlings and Gillian Welch. She and GRAMMY Award-winning engineer Matt Andrews co-produced the LP, pulling together an ace band that includes acclaimed singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Sarah Jarosz, whom Greene considers a musical hero. Highlights on the record include “Flowers,” a gentle and optimistic celebration of treating oneself with love and care, and “Wild Geese,” which draws inspiration from the late poet Mary Oliver.

Below, BGS catches up with Greene about her daily writing ritual, her experience producing Deep Feeler, and her decision to take a gamble on her artistic vision.

You just released a new record, Deep Feeler. What can you share about the project’s origins and how you conceived its initial vision?

Liv Greene: Most of the songs came out of a dedication to showing up for the craft, whether or not I had an idea when I sat down. I was almost forcing myself to write, but in a way that felt like cultivating a more consistent writing practice. Given that it was during the pandemic, it makes a lot of sense that many of these songs came out of that time. I had a few things to hold me accountable, too. There was a writers’ group I was part of, where I was writing a song a week for the first half of 2021, and a songwriting workshop where I wrote “Flowers.” I also led some workshops myself and participated in the exercises I’d give my students. After moving to Nashville, I wrote “Deep Feeler” and “Wild Geese,” and then the rest of the album took shape from there.

I love the idea of showing up for the craft. It’s not easy to sit down and write when you don’t have an idea at the ready. How did you begin those sessions? Do you have a ritual that helps you shift into that writer headspace?

When I’m in a writing season – which I’m always trying to get back to, though sometimes it’s just not the time, if I’m busier with other parts of my career – it’s usually marked by time with my instrument, just improvising. I’m most inspired by windows or outdoor spaces. Sitting on a porch or in my room looking out the window, just a lot of improvisation. That’s really the core of my songwriting: spending time seeing, maybe speaking in tongues, seeing what comes out in terms of gibberish, and then noticing what starts to stick. There’s something to that diligent practice of making things up consistently, even if you hate what you make up.

Tell me about choosing “Deep Feeler” as the title track. What does feeling deeply represent for you?

The album concept came out of a self-aware period of recognizing patterns in my life and seeing that I was the common denominator. I was in a lot of situationships. While the heart of this record is about the heartache and missteps of my early 20s, I hope it resonates with people beyond that scope. I’d come out, accepted myself, and allowed myself to feel desire and joy and all of these deep romantic feelings for the first time. This record is a lot of me sitting with myself and embracing the way I’m wired, trying to find a healthier self-awareness around it. I’m working on drawing boundaries with myself, but also being proud of my wiring and how it makes me a good storyteller and a good romantic.

As I was preparing to talk to you, I found a quote from you about making this record that really stuck with me. You said, “Now, rather than an escape from myself, songwriting is communion with myself.” Could you elaborate on that?

When I started writing songs in middle and high school, I was at an all-girls Catholic high school. I went to Catholic school most of my life. Being queer, I didn’t feel like I had much representation in my world, so I felt pretty lonely in high school. I didn’t have much of a musical community in D.C., where I grew up. Guitar was always my escape. I’d come home from school, play for hours, and write. As I got older, I had to form a bit more emotional intelligence and really sit with the person I wanted to be. I realized I couldn’t keep running away from parts of myself and that those parts were actually wonderful and something I should embrace. Songwriting became a different vessel for me to explore myself, rather than viewing it academically, as a hobby, or in a scholarly way.

You got to set up shop at Woodland Studios to record the album. Woodland is such a beloved part of Nashville’s music community, and it sounds like you had an excellent roster of musicians in the studio with you. What did being in that environment open up for you creatively?

The core of the record was made in one day in July at Woodland and it was just myself, bass, and drums – no headphones, live in two adjoining rooms, live onto tape. It was very high-pressure. We did six songs that day and just fired them off, trying to keep the authenticity of a live performance at the heart of the record. The studio days were some of the scariest of my professional life, but in a good way.

There were so many nights beforehand where I’d get the Sunday scaries and think, “Oh my God. Sarah Jarosz, who’s a hero of mine, is going to come to the studio tomorrow, and I’m producing. What if we don’t have time to do everything we need to?” It was an immense amount of pressure to be in the producer’s chair for my own project. But musicians put a lot of money into their records because it’s expensive to record. So I viewed the record as, like, “Okay, this is sort of like grad school.” Friends had asked me to produce their stuff before and I’d said no because I didn’t have the experience. Now, it’s baptism by fire, and I’m my own guinea pig.

You have some shows coming up, including a couple here in Nashville. Have you gotten to play much of this material live yet, or is that still to come?

Some of the core songs on the record have been in my set list for a while, at least around town; friends already know all the words to “Wild Geese” and some other “hits” from the record. But yeah, especially the B-side songs, a lot of those will be pretty new to my live show. I’m excited to hopefully do a lot more touring in the next year and see how the songs are landing out in the world. I haven’t really gotten to do that. My last record was a pandemic record and I never really toured it, so I’m really excited for the record to come out soon and then to get out there, meet people, and reconnect with those who resonate with it.

Are you still engaging in your daily writing practice? Do you have other new material on the horizon?

I’m hoping to go into the studio again soon to do a couple of songs. I’m just taking my time getting to know different producers around Nashville. I think this winter is going to be about doing one song here and one song there. I feel like I’m about halfway toward another record, so I’m getting excited to be in the studio again. It’s my favorite place to be.


Photo Credit: Joseph Ross Smith

Ruination & Revival: Our Exclusive Interview with Gillian Welch & David Rawlings

In the catalog lore of Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, it’s April 14 that’s known as “Ruination Day”— the historically resonant date marking the “Black Sunday” of the Dust Bowl, the Titanic’s sinking, and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Themes of hard times and disaster have long floated throughout the duo’s music, but they found themselves facing catastrophe with new urgency on March 2, 2020, when a tornado laid waste to their Woodland Studios in their home city of Nashville.

That studio, which the duo took over in 2001, has the unusual distinction of being hit by three separate tornadoes over the years: it’s an unassuming icon of ruination and revival that’s withstood decades of change in personnel, technology, and weather. It became foundation and the namesake for August’s Woodland, a collection of new, original material from Welch and Rawlings after two deliciously deep archival releases and a set of covers titled All the Good Times (Are Past & Gone).

Having rescued their tapes, guitars, and other equipment from calamity, throughout 2020 Rawlings and Welch set about rebuilding Woodland around its original mid-century imprint. The creation of the record and the reconstruction of the studio became two spiritually intertwined processes, the rooms rechristened with songs that excavate the nature of change; Rawlings wrote violin, cello, and viola parts that friends laid to tape in the room he’d restored to its 1960s-era use for recording strings.

Even with the substantial building project, the extended pandemic circumstances offered ample time for writing new material together and the duo amassed dozens more tunes than they could ever release as one record. They ruminated on making a double album for a while. “We had so many songs kicking around because we didn’t want anyone to feel shortchanged if we were both singing,” Welch says.

A single-album concept instead snapped into place around “Empty Trainload of Sky,” which opens Woodland with Welch’s reflections on an unsettling optical illusion. The two tussle with loss and weariness across the record, gesturing at questions of how to keep moving through life’s seasons without hammering into any hard answers. Woodland feels like a statement of renewal and endurance from Welch and Rawlings, the sort of subtle roll forward that’s set them apart from other songwriters for so many years. The musicians spoke with BGS about their new material, old ideas, and what they still feel like they have left to do.

Prior to Woodland, the two of you had spent a lot of time working with your archival material for the Boots releases in 2020. What was the relationship you had between spending so much time working with this older material and then focusing your attention on a new record?

Gillian Welch: Not to put the Lost Songs stuff down, because I’m really happy that we, one, saved it from the tornado, and two, at that point, decided, “Why did we save this? Do we think it has value?” We decided yes, so we put it out. We haven’t given people a lot of opportunities to connect the dots between our albums. Years tend to go by, and I don’t know if they think we’re just on vacation or what, but we’re always writing. I’m happy that stuff’s in the world now.

I still stand behind our decision to not make an album out of that stuff. We’re really album-oriented artists,and if we can’t find a narrative that at least we understand, then it’s not an album. Sometimes people will put out a record and four or five years later, maybe they’re playing one song off it, maybe two. Traditionally, if we put it out, we’ll keep playing it, so we really have to like the song a lot.

So, did that archival material influence this record? Honestly? No. It just reinforced our yardstick, the filter we have in place, like, are we making a record? And the answer for all those lost songs was, “No, we’re not making a record.”

David Rawlings: We were working on some of the songs in late 2020, early 2021, but in general, they are not close in my mind. A lot of the stuff either took more final shape afterwards, or a few of the songs were kind of in shape before. But boy, working on those 50 songs was an awful lot and didn’t leave a lot of space for other things around it. It was really important, because that was one of the first things I was able to do here at the studio as I started to bring it back to life, post-tornado.

You’ve talked about having enough material to make a double album, how did you narrow everything down to the 10 songs that made the cut? What did you feel held these together?

GW: They seemed, in a way, to address the present moment. They were the most clearly about now and because of that, they seem to all fit together. Even though there’s plenty of contradiction within the album, there are these crazy undercurrents of loss, destruction, resurrection and perseverance; sadness, joy, emptiness, and fullness. It’s ripe with contrast. That’s just how we were feeling.

DR: There were different ideas, but I didn’t realize there was that large of a group, that there was the collection of 10 songs that felt like they amplified each other. I think all of the records that we’ve made that feel the best to me, one song sort of affects the way you think of the next and the whole album has a feeling that you’re not going to get if you just listen to your three favorites. I think that that feeling is heavier, or better. That, to me, is the benchmark of what you’re aiming for when you’re trying to make a record. One hopes that these other songs – one that you love for this reason, or that reason – that they eventually fall into some group like that. Or maybe we just start putting out singles.

Gillian, to what extent did everything you went through with the tornado recovery change your relationship with the natural world?

GW: I’m not sure that it did. I’ve always been really comfortable with the fact that there are things larger than us that are out of our control. It’s always sort of been a great relief to me, because I try so hard to navigate and control the things I can. Dave and I are such perfectionists. I don’t know how else to put it, except that it’s a great relief to just give it up for the things that are completely beyond your control. So I don’t worry about it really. The weather is going to be what it’s going to be. Woodland’s been hit by three tornadoes. Every tornado that’s come through Nashville has hit Woodland, but it’s still there. So I think I’m just not going to worry about it.

How do you feel like you both still challenge each other?

DR: Well, I think it’s the same as it ever was. If there’s something that doesn’t hit one of us right about something we’ve written or played, we will eventually come into agreement about that. I think we have a kind of way of taking what the other does, seeing what’s good about it and what isn’t. And that kind of ping ponging back and forth with thoughts, ideas, structures, and everything is what leads us to the stuff that we end up liking the best, and, more importantly, that other people respond to the most.

GW: I think we’re both still completely committed to trying to write better songs. It’s really interesting, because decades go by –we’ve played so many shows, and your voice changes. It just happens with the miles and it doesn’t have to be for the worst. There are things we can do now that we couldn’t do when we were kids, and certainly there are things that we can’t do now that we did in our early 20s. But I’m just so glad that there’s still a lot to explore. Musically, topically – I definitely don’t feel stale or tired of this. I feel like we both have a crazy sense of adventure.

What are some of those things that you feel like you can do now that you couldn’t do when you were younger artists?

GW: I feel like I’m able to listen while we play now, in a more elevated way. I can both listen to the smallest nuances of what I’m playing and singing and I can listen to what Dave’s playing and singing. I can make all these micro-adjustments to our four instruments, but at the same time, I can hear the sum of what we’re doing. I can also just listen to the whole sound and adjust for the whole thing. I’m not sure I used to be able to do that, or it didn’t occur to me to do it.

It sounds like a mixing board of the mind.

GW: Yeah, it’s like that! There are things that I admire so much in other musicians and sometimes I can see little echoes of that stuff that I like in our music, that we’re now able to do.

Whatever happens, at the end of the day, Dave and I are always pretty confident in, “Well, we did our best.” We really don’t slack off. If we missed the mark, whatever. You’ve just got to say, “We really tried.” It’s very exciting to feel like we’re getting closer to the music that inspired us to do this in the first place. We have a couple songs that I know came from my deep love of Jerry Garcia’s music and the Grateful Dead.

Sometimes, when we’re sitting playing in the living room, we’ll hit a passage and I’ll think, “Oh boy, Jerry really would have liked that.” That’s a good feeling, and that’s always been a great motivator – to try to do stuff that you think your idols would approve of. “Barroom Girls” got written because I thought Townes [Van Zandt] would like it. He was showing up at our gigs and stuff, and so I wanted to write a song that I thought Townes would like.

David, when Nashville Obsolete came out, you talked about this idea of keeping a place for old ways of doing things when the rest of the world has kind of pushed them aside. The last few years have had so much change, so fast – how has that idea developed for you?

DR: All of this equipment [in Woodland], almost none of it is new. It’s all the same stuff. It’s taking it a step further and maybe optimizing it for our own purposes. We’re still cutting on two-inch tape, mixing to quarter inch tape, and going through all analog equipment. The final step of going digital is the very last thing that happens. It’s not a museum, in the sense that I use a computer system – we’ve designed a bunch of DTMF code and different relays and stuff to run a lot of the equipment that we’re using. I will use modern technology in any way that I can that doesn’t touch the audio, in order to have things reset to where they are, or to have the lacquers cut with a particular precision. I will design whatever I need to in that department.

So, the goal is never for it to be a museum. The goal is always, how can you make the best sounding art? How can you do any of the stuff as well as you can? It feels the same with songwriting and music. There are modern songs that I admire so much, that you look and go, “How is that put together?” There’s stuff that goes back to the dawn of recorded music, from the late ’20s and ’30s that I think the same thing of. You just look around and cast your net at what moves you and what touches you, and then try to use those things as a jumping off place to contribute yourself.

At this point in your career, what do you still want to do that you haven’t gotten to do yet?

GW: I could say something quippy, like I still want to write a song as good as “Me and Bobby McGee” or “Like a Rolling Stone” or “Blue Eyes Crying In the Rain.” I still want to write a song that people will be singing for a long time. I still keep trying to do good work. Each song that we write is something that hasn’t existed before. So each time we start a song, I want to fulfill that inspiration.

So, you know, it’s like breadcrumbs— “Oh, I haven’t done that,” and you take another little step forward. Where will it ultimately lead? I have no idea. I’m sort of inching forward. Dave and I have never really had a grand plan. We just keep wanting to make music, so that’s what we do.

DR: I just always think that I want to get good at this. I really love the process of writing and performing in front of people, and have since the very first time I was able to get up on stage and play guitar. That was winning the lottery. When we started writing our own material and having people respond to it, there’s nothing really better. It’s a question of longevity, how long can we keep doing things and keep thinking of things that people feel are meaningful in their lives? How long can we stay relevant?

I don’t think that I’ll ever have a feeling of arrival. It’s all pushing forward. How can I play guitar better? How can we write better songs? How can I sing better? How can we record things better? It’s the learning that’s fun, it’s not even necessarily about getting better. It’s about wanting to explore and the pleasure in that process and the doing of it. I’m not real goal-oriented, there’s never been a statue I wanted to win. We’ve gotten some lifetime achievement awards over the past few years, and I’m like, “Are you kidding? We’re just starting to do this! I don’t know what you’re talking about!” It’s not memoir time, and it never will be.


Photo Credit: Alysse Gafkjen

3×3: Escondido on ELO, Red Wine, and a Serious Lack of Toothpaste Loyalty

Artist: Tyler James (of Escondido)
Hometown: Nashville, TN
Latest Album: Walking with a Stranger
Nicknames: TJ Cinnamons: People sometimes call me TJ and, years ago on tour, we discovered Arby's serves "TJ Cinnamons" brand coffee … thus it began.

Who is the most surprising artist in current rotation in your iTunes/Spotify?
Obsessed with Jeff Lynne / ELO … His new record is perfection.

Who would play you in the Lifetime movie of your life?
Dances with Wolves-era Kevin Costner, obviously

If the After-Life exists, what song will be playing when you arrive?
Ennio Morricone's "The Mission"

 

spent the weekend in west Tennessee writing songs w/ our long time bud @kateyork ❤️

A photo posted by ESCONDIDO (@escondidoband) on

What brand of toothpaste do you use?
I have no toothpaste loyalties.

What's your beverage of choice?
Coffee, Old Fashioned, all red wine.

What's your favorite TV show?
The West Wing

Star Wars or Star Trek?
Star Trek has many intriguing complexities, but nothing touches the original Star Wars trilogy.

Taylor Swift or Ryan Adams?
Ryan Adams … his first record, Heartbreaker, was recorded here in Nashville at Woodland Studios and it's incredible.

Coffee or tea?
Coffee