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
