festival
CMJ Music Maration 2014: Bombay Bicycle Club at Terminal 5
By Andrew Kase
As the lights came on, shadows of the members of Bombay Bicycle Club appeared in the background. The show commenced as the music started on this rainy Wednesday night in New York City at one of the larger of CMJ’s list of venues — Terminal 5. As I listened to the crowd roar as band members rose up to the stage, it was obvious I was to become witness to an experience and event far greater than your average concert.
The assorted crowd instantly sang along to hits like “Shuffle,” “Lights Out, Words Gone,” and “Your Eyes.” With each song, the crowd was cheering more and more powerfully, as their fellow attendees jigged and danced along to the indie/alternative rock group’s eclectic tracks. This three-story venue housed the band’s massive screen backdrop, full of bewildering images of skeletons and album art, and released an exciting tangle of indie, folk, blues, and even a bit of electronic sounds throughout this radiant performance. Crowd-member and New York native, Roozbeh Ghanadi commented “My first impression was that they are an amazing band and they’re very lively!” The band played an extensive set list of songs, which included “How can You Swallow So Much Sleep,” “Feel,” and even several throwback songs. Lead singer, Jack Steadman, prefaced “Always Like This,” reminding us that they were going way back — a fitting introduction to a track from their 2009 album, I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose. Their varied set list pleased every kind of listener — from the long-time fan to the BBC newbie. “It’s been a good show. We both have listened to them before and I know some of their songs already, and heard a few new ones tonight,” said David Turner, another New York resident.
BBC approached the end of their night with a terrific digression, as member, Suren de Saram, sang a soulful, crowd-engaging cover of Robyn’s “With Every Heartbeat,” soon followed by a close to their much anticipated CMJ performance set. After a thunderous round of applause, which was certainly appropriate for the night, the group returned to the stage for an encore, and closed out their performance with their huge hit “Carry Me.” “I thoroughly enjoyed it,” said Haifa Barabri — Barabri was born and raised in London, and moved to New York. Barabri continued, “They really engaged the audience and I feel like I had a little dose of London in New York City.”
All the Right Reasons: An Interview with Joe Fletcher
Joe Fletcher and I decided to save our interview for post-AmericanaFest, so that we could extend our discussion to the next stop on his festival trails and delve into his 3rd (but 1st solo) album, You’ve Got the Wrong Man, just before its October 7th release.
We spoke mid-day Monday, while Joe was still in Southern California, subsequent to his performance at Way Over Yonder on Santa Monica pier. As a devoted attendee of Newport Folk Festival, but only a far-off admirer of their sister festival (Way Over Yonder), I was excited to hear how the weekend was spent. Joe reflected on the camaraderie and spirit backing all Newport Folk events, some performers that us East coast folks should be tapping into, and the prospect of embarking on next year’s ultimate cross-country adventure — Newport Folk Festival to Pickathon — back-to-back weekends, back-to-back fun.
In anticipation of his upcoming solo release, we interviewed Joe about everything from his 10 years as an English teacher, white lighter superstitions and word selection for his record title in attempt to avoid iTunes and Google search confusion, to carrying on the music and memory of David Lamb.
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Lauren Jahoda: Hey Joe! I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.
Joe Fletcher: No! I was just in a thrift store…one of my weaknesses.
Me too (laughs).
(laughs) And I’m in a rental car and I don’t have a lot of CDs with me, so I was just stocking up on some music for the rest of my trip.
Cool! Did you get anything good?
I got some old favorites — a Jim Croche Greatest Hits CD that my dad always used to play, I got PJ Harvey To Bring You My Love, which is one of my favorite records…these are sadly all CDs that I have at home, I think every one of them, but they we’re really cheap so…I got Achtung Baby by U2, which really brings me back to my senior year in high school and there’s one more…Paul Simon’s The Rhythm of the Saints — this is a real trip back to my high school years. A mid-life crisis or something (laughs).
That’s awesome. Where are you headed?
I just got on the highway in San Diego and I’m going back to Los Angeles. I spent a few days already. I flew into Los Angeles, I was there Tuesday and Wednesday. and went to Joshua Tree to play. Where are you located?
In New York, on Long Island.
I saw that you were at AmericanaFest. Did you have fun down there?
Oh yeah! How about you?
Yeah, I sure did. That’s where I live, so it’s pretty awesome when something like that comes to your town, especially when you get to be a part of it.
Yeah. It was actually my very first time in Nashville.
Did you leave with a positive impression?
Definitely. I can’t wait to go back. I could see myself living there. Everywhere you turn there’s someone who can help you in some way. Everyone is connected through music.
Yeah. I noticed that. I visited it for years and I toured there a lot, 6 or 7 years before moving there and I caught the bug early. I wanted to move there for a long time. I just moved there a year ago, actually on October 1st, it will be exactly a year that I’ve been living in Nashville.
That’s great. Are you happy that you made that move?
Oh yeah. I’m on the road 6 or 7 months of the year, so it’s amazing to me that it’s been a year. I’m really happy with it.
Do you live outside Nashville?
I live in East Nashville. I don’t know if you made it over there while you were there.
We did. We went to the Groove a couple of times.
Oh yeah. I’m about 3 miles from there. Tucked away in a little neighborhood.
I interviewed Jonah Tolchin in East Nashville. You probably know Jonah, since you both come from the Rhode Island music scene.
Yeah, we had a breakfast the following Monday!
Jonah had a lot of wonderful things to say about you. He’s such a great person.
He is. Very warm and open.
Yes. You performed at Way Over Yonder this weekend — how was it?
It was actually fantastic — not that I expected otherwise — but I didn’t really know what to expect. Newport Folk is involved and I’ve been involved with Newport Folk for 3 years now and I had a feeling it would be a pretty top-notch operation. It was just really cool. I couldn’t really picture the scene, the way it was — it’s actually on the pier. It takes place actually on the wooden boards of the pier. The audience, the stage, the backstage…everything. And there’s one main stage, that Jackson Browne, Lucinda Williams and Chris Robinson played on. Then there’s the Carousel Stage for the smaller acts. Just two stages. The stage is literally in the carousel. The horses are right there in front of you.
Wow, that is certainly unique. Did you feel that Newport spirit there, despite it being so far away?
It is very, very different than Newport, but the one similarity that I noticed was just the vibe among the musicians, ya know, friends reuniting and just meeting a lot of new people. I saw a lot of cool bands. A lot of the bands that I had not heard of were from California or more specifically the Los Angeles area. Just bands I wasn’t aware of before. The Far West — who I actually saw, they played in Nashville the Sunday before AmericanaFest — my friend JP Harris threw a record release party in East Nashville and they were on the bill. They were out touring, so I saw them and their name looked familiar to me but I couldn’t figure out why. I eventually figured out that it was because I kept seeing it on the Way Over Yonder poster too. They blew me away in Nashville and they blew me away again at Way Over Yonder. It was nice getting to spend time with a group of musicians who you like their work. I felt the same with a girl who I didn’t know before, her name is Leslie Stevens. We had a lot of mutual friends who put us in touch in advance and she came up on Friday and sang a song with me and I sang a John Prine song with her during her set on Saturday. So I just made a lot of friends in a short period of time. I was able to connect with people. It was just a pleasant atmosphere surrounding any event that Newport puts together. There’s no real ego among the artists and everyone’s just kind of in it together. Whether you’re in Newport or on Santa Monica pier, you’re in an idyllic location and it’s just hard to be in a bad mood.
I can understand that completely. Way Over Yonder is a lot smaller than some of the festivals you might be used to playing.
Yeah it is. Newport Folk is only about 10,000 people a day, which usually blows the minds of people who have never been there before. Because it has such a name and such a history, people think of it as being bigger. It’s just not, and I think that’s one of the reasons it’s still around. They could try to move it to a different place…I mean they sell out every year before the line-up is announced, these last few years…so they could obviously sell more tickets, obviously they could make more money, but the history and the location is really important to them and I really admire anything these days in the music industry that isn’t based upon the financial bottom line. It’s rare.
I feel the same way. It’s that commitment — to the history, to the location, to the fans and musicians — that brings me there every year. I went to Pickathon Music Festival over the summer for the first time…
Oh yeah…that’s my girlfriend’s favorite festival. She wasn’t there this year, but she’s been there the past few.
I can’t imagine not going back every year for the rest of my life. It’s that good.
Yeah, it was killing her to miss it. She had been at Newport Folk the weekend before and she couldn’t make it. She works for a company called Live & Breathing. They do really top-notch, high quality video sessions usually in really cool locations. They go to Pickathon every year and they have an area called the Pumphouse where they set up shop.
Oh I know it well (laughs). What’s really incredible about Pickathon, that a lot of people don’t know, is that they cap the festival at around 3,500 people.
Wow, I gotta make it out there. Hopefully I’ll be playing next year.
Yeah I hope so too! I know that Newport is the weekend before and that makes things tough. I actually met Jay Sweet while I was at AmericanaFest and this was the first summer I couldn’t go to Newport because I arrived early for Pickathon and I was worried that he was going to ask me if I was there this year because it was the first weekend in a long time that I wasn’t. And of course he did ask, and I said no because I was at Pickathon (laughs). And he said honestly if you said any word other than Pickathon, I would have yelled at you (laughs). For those who know about it, there’s a lot of respect for Pickathon.
When is it?
They are back-to-back weekends. Newport is the last weekend in July and Pickathon is the first weekend in August. My goal is to get both done this year somehow.
Yeah, yeah. It’ll be worth it.
You weren’t born and raised in Rhode Island, but you did live there for a long period of time, correct?
Yeah, most of my life. I was born in St. Louis, Missouri and moved to Rhode Island right before kindergarten. It’s kind of a long story but I moved around a lot when I was in elementary school, but from 5th grade ’til about a year ago, I lived in Rhode Island, except for one year while in college. But yeah, basically not born but certainly raised in Rhode Island.
Nathaniel Rateliff, who I interviewed during AmericanaFest and who was also at Way Over Yonder, is originally from Missouri.
Leslie Stevens is from St. Louis, Missouri too. It’s nice to see these Missouri kids making good.
It certainly is! Small world. I also read that you were an English teacher — is that true?
That is absolutely true. I was a teacher for 10 years.
When did you start teaching?
I started in 2001 and I left after the school year that ended in 2011.
Pretty recently then.
Yeah, three years ago. I was playing music and touring…I played music all year round but I would tour over summer vacation, February vacation and April vacation. It was a really good job for trying to launch a touring lifestyle because of the amount of time off was really conducive to getting out and losing money. You had a job and you didn’t really have to worry too much about making money. Once I figured out how I could make money, then I had to let it go. But it was a really wonderful experience. It definitely shaped who I am in a number of ways. Definitely a very valuable experience. I’m glad I did it.
What ages were you teaching?
I started out the first couple of years in middle school and pretty much went on to teaching high school. It was a charter school k-12 campus, so there was some flexibility straddling middle school, but then I think the second to last year I had high school classes, except for one 8th grade class, that I did as a favor (laughs).
I actually went to school for teaching English, grades 7-12, and received my certification.
Oh yeah?
Yeah. I remember reading that you said you taught your students about Robert Johnson and some others.
The school let me invest in an American roots music elective, it was separate from my English classes, but for 3 or 4 years I taught this elective and was able to propose things that were my genuine interest. I had a good audience of musicians and music fans, who wanted to know where the music was coming from. I had a really wonderful experience with that class. We put on a concert at the end of every year and by the time we got to the end of the year and you had kids arguing over who was going to the Johnny Cash song or the Robert Johnson, that’s when you knew…kids were walking away with an expanded musical mind. I think it’s important to have a frame of reference. There are so many things these days…the White Stripes are a perfect example because of a lot of the kids in the class were fans of that band and so much is drawn from early country blues and roots musicians, there are a lot of references. It’s important to know where that stuff comes from.
Yeah. I also read that with the new album, you had asked your booking manager to book your tour throughout Alabama and that is what ultimately inspired You’ve Got the Wrong Man.
Yeah, that was a tour I did right after I left teaching, in the fall of 2011. The previous album was already out, so I was touring on behalf of White Lighter at the time, but I happened to be out on this solo trip and yeah, I had asked the guy who was booking me at the time because I’m really interested in the traditional American styles and I’m a big Civil War buff. At that point in my career, there were only a handful of places that people were asking me to come to so I’d go where I’d want to go and set up a tour around the historical sights I wanted to see. Now it’s a little more complicated because you have to hit this city and that city, but I still do a lot of stuff during the day, in between shows. I get up early and go to museums, Civil War battlefields, especially if I’m out on the road alone. That’s one of the reasons I like touring solo.
There are a lot of references to Alabama. The Hank Williams Museum, which I visited for the first time. It was a really moving experience. Florence, Alab. was just something I kind of began imagining while I was down there. Florence, Alab. is not mentioned in the song but it’s the title of the song. Something about that trip was a turning point in my life. I had two weeks worth of shows in Alabama and that was my first trip totally alone. That trip was actually supposed to be a duo tour but the guy coming with me quit the band the day before we were leaving. I had never been on a long two-week trip on my own before. Ya know…am I going to be able to do all this driving? What if something happens? What if I get a flat tire in the middle of nowhere? I just thought of all the things that could happen. But what actually happened is that it was one of the best experiences of my life. Ya know, him quitting the band, although very upsetting at the time, it was probably the greatest gift he could have given me. It put me out of my comfort zone — something I was afraid of, but now something that I cherish.
Yeah, leaving your comfort zone is almost always necessary and traveling alone is an extremely rewarding experience.
I love it. I’m out in California and I’m out here another week by myself and then my girlfriend is flying out. That’ll be fun too, but being alone is a beautiful way to see the country because you don’t have anyone else to talk to. I’m a bit of a shy person by nature but when your in a club in San Diego, which is a town I hadn’t been to before, it kind of forces you to connect with people and meet with people. If you were traveling with the band, you kind of talk to the people you know, even if you don’t like them so much (laughs). Not that I don’t like my band (laughs)…you just tend to gravitate towards what’s comfortable. I was talking about that with a guy who was in the band I was playing with last night because he was asking me about traveling alone and I said I probably wouldn’t be sitting here having this conversation if I had three guys with me.
Yeah, that’s so true. I’ve traveled alone before and it’s so amazing because you take advantage of all that is around you. You just absorb every opportunity because you can and because you should and because you’re alone.
Yeah. It’s a good thing. You learn a lot about yourself and what you’re capable of…how far you can drive in a day (laughs). Farther than you probably think.
I realized that the titles of your records aren’t named after songs within them — where do your titles come from?
I did actually write a title track for White Lighter that came out after the album came out. So there is a song called “White Lighter,” it’s just not on White Lighter. It’s not on any record. The reason I called it “White Lighter” is because I grew up in an area where a white lighter was considered very, very, very bad luck and a lot of people know that and a lot of people don’t. It seems to vary by region. Some places know it and some have no idea what that refers to. I just like the sound of it as well and I read a little more about it and it has a lot of connotations from the witch world, which I’m not into in any way, shape or form, but a good witch is a white lighter and I just thought it was an interesting pairing of words and it meant a lot to me from being a college student. I know it’s something that signified bad luck.
Yeah me too. I remember everyone refused to use white lighters.
Yeah, I would be at parties and if they asked you for a light and you pulled a white lighter out of your pocket, they’d take it and throw it off the deck and into the woods…just like get that out of my house, what were you thinking bringing that in here…don’t you know?
Yeah. It’s really interesting.
Originally when I was writing for the record, there was a song called “You’ve Got the Wrong Man” that kind of fell by the wayside. I knew it was going to be a solo record. My band is Joe Fletcher and the Wrong Reasons, so one of the reasons was that my first record came out under the name “Wrong Reasons,” my second record came out under “Joe Fletcher and the Wrong Reasons” and this being the solo record, I had no choice but to call it “Joe Fletcher,” so technically if you’re looking on iTunes, it’s a nightmare because it’s three separate bands. It sucks. I’ve tried like hell to get them to fix it but it’s like trying to walk to Oz. The kingdom is impenetrable (laughs). So I was playing with titles that had either “wrong” or “reason” in the title so that people might see and be like oh that is the same guy…that’s funny I know Joe Fletcher, that’s Joe Fletcher from Joe Fletcher and the Wrong Reasons. So I figured if it had one of those words in the title, it might help. It’ll probably help in a Google search too. “You’ve Got the Wrong Man” is a song that I nearly finished that I abandoned a year ago that I really liked at the time but it’s part of my process to sit with it for awhile — to get really excited and then the next day, week, month or year later, I see the flaws in it and I disappear it (laughs). I liked that title and I felt it fit the record. It was going to be that or Just One Reason and I think I made the right choice.
And if you had named it Just One Reason, you would have “Reason” to link to “The Wrong Reasons.”
Yeah, exactly. And instead of the Wrong Reasons, it was a solo record so that’s “just one reason.” Yeah. It started to feel a little bit corny to me, but I still like this one.
(laughs)
The track “Oceanside Motel” — is that one of the songs you recorded in a motel?
I recorded a lot of songs in hotels, but none of those actually made it onto the record. I recorded in a lot of places but only 3 of those locations are actually represented on what I ended up keeping for the record. I was traveling around and touring when I was making this record and I had a very mobile recording unit, it only takes about a half hour to set up, but then you have to play with it to see how the room reacts to the microphone, ya know. So it’s not the kind of thing you want to do every night after a show because it’s a little involved just to get the right sound. If I was going to be in a hotel for a couple of days, if I had some off days, I’d get a room for a few days and record something. I did that a handful of times, but I ended up keeping stuff I recorded in my old apartment in Rhode Island before the move and then in the meantime, I spent a lot of times at this property outside of Athens, Georgia and that’s where the bulk of it was recorded. This old farmhouse from the mid to late 1880s…right after the Civil War…1867, 1870…somewhere around there. And then the last 3 or 4 songs were done in my new house in Nashville. Any song that has guests on it was recorded there. I recorded everything alone up until then. We just threw a party and before things got too out of hand, we moved everybody into a couple of rooms and arranged them by the loudness of their voice. It was all recorded by just two microphones. Everything on the record is live…playing and singing at the same time. It’s just supposed to be sitting in a room, listening to me play by myself.
What kind of equipment did you use to record?
I have a relatively new, nice tube microphone that is the main mic and then I have one other condenser mic set up and an old, I don’t know what year it was made…probably the late 80s…a Tascam 4-track cassette unit, it just takes regular cassettes. It can layer up to four things and you can do it any number of ways. When I was in college, a lot of people had these and then that was all replaced by digital. But on most machines, you can record on all tracks at the same time, if necessary. I think there’s something to be said for working within limitations and deciding what the important things are. What are these four tracks going to be? For this record I only used two tracks. I just played the songs into the two mics and those mics were in different places in the room. And those difference places I recorded were as important as the equipment, they are as much a part of the sound as the equipment. When you really listen to it, you’ll hear the sound of the songs change. So sometimes my voice sounds far away, there’s a lot of reverb on it but no effects, it’s just the placement of the mic in the room. For instance, in the house in Georgia, there’s a room with a really high ceiling where if you clap your hands it echoes for a few seconds.
I can tell, almost every song sounds a little different.
The only two songs recorded under the exact same circumstance were the two with the background vocalist because we recorded those back-to-back. The place in Georgia was just a wealth of possibilities. You could be in the double parlor or in a secret stairwell or in a closet. I just had the most fun moving it around. I recorded a lot of songs under a lot of different circumstances — just trying to see what fit the mood for the song. It was a lot more involved than it sounds, when you say “I recorded my new album on a four-track.” A lot went into it. It was a hell of a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.
I have to talk to you about the song “Mabel Grey” for a number of reasons — I want to talk about you covering Brown Bird’s song but before I do, I want to address the lyric: “We landed our ship in Malta…” I’m Maltese and I couldn’t believe it when I heard it because many people have never even heard of Malta before or just know very little about it. Is David Lamb the original writer of that song?
He is. He actually co-wrote it with another friend of mine.
Do you know the background of that song?
I do know it was an actual ship. From what I’ve read about the ship, it does not sound as though the song was written about that particular story. It was a shipwreck. It was kind of a well-documented shipwreck. I haven’t read anything about it in a long time. I was covering that song, beginning when Brown Bird stopped being able to play live, when Dave was basically going through treatment and then recovering and I had decided that way before the situation changed that I was going to put it on the record. Dave heard that version of it but I wish now that I would have asked him more about the song. I mean I loved it, I heard him play it for years but I never really inquired any more deeply, but he had a great imagination. He was very interested in sea stories, just like I am and he worked in a shipyard until he stopped working fully to concentrate on the band. I have a feeling, if I had to guess…I could ask MorganEve about it, she would probably know. I still close my shows with that song every night…for awhile now. I just can’t see not doing that any time soon. He had the opportunity to hear me play it and hear the recording that is on the record — that was done in February of last year and I had already asked his permission to put it on the record, but he didn’t know I was going to have all the guests on it, so I sent him the recording as soon as I could. It was a lot of our mutual friends who showed up to sing on the song. It was a strange turn of events because I started it as a tribute to keep their name out there when they couldn’t be on the road and then the situation obviously changed for the worse.
What is it like playing that song in his memory?
It’s different every single night. I try to make it very much a sing-a-long, with the chanting parts at the end. I show everyone how to do that and then I switch to sing Dave’s part and so while the crowd is doing the la-dee-dahs behind me, it’s a flood of ya know, different emotions and mental pictures…never the same but sometimes it chokes me up pretty bad and other times it makes me smile. It’s kind of about where you’re at and what the situation is, but the one thing I can say is that it is different every day.
What made you choose “Mabel Grey”?
I like crowd participation. I’ve seen Brown Bird a lot and I like how they always got the crowd going and Dave closed with it a lot. There are many songs I love and I’m definitely going to introduce more of them in my sets but that one is just…I can’t think of one that you can get the participation on. Especially when I am out playing alone. People don’t always get excited seeing a guy take a guitar out of a guitar case and I try to debunk a lot of the stereotypes of the sad man with the acoustic guitar.
That’s my favorite kind of musician, by the way (laughs).
(laughs)
Since the first two albums were recorded with your band and this one is solo, what is that like? Do you think you will continue solo for the next album?
No. I have a lot of songs for the next record and it’s definitely going to be a band affair. Undoubtedly.
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You’ve Got the Wrong Man comes out on Tuesday 10/7/14. In the meantime, you can stream it here.
You can pre-order the album from iTunes and it’ll also be available via Amazon, Google Play, etc. on Tuesday! Find out more information at www.joefletchermusic.com!
Be Here Now: An Interview with Jonah Tolchin
Since discovering and writing about Jonah Tolchin‘s Clover Lane in early July we’ve stayed in touch and agreed to schedule an interview when our schedules would permit. It had been quite some time since our first contact and upon realizing that we both would be attending AmericanaFest mid-September, Nashville was the obvious choice for where we would finally meet.
After Joe Purdy’s spellbinding set at the Mercy Lounge (see the pre-show interview below), the Heartsrings crew and I crossed 8th Ave. and headed over to Jonah’s 9 PM showcase at Third Man Records–Jack White’s extraordinary studio. We had been there the night before, as witness to amazing back-to-back sets by Frank Fairfield and Gregory Alan Isakov. Frank captivated the audience — a capacity crowd which included Gregory Alan’s fiddle player, Jeb, and Bob Boilen — founder of NPR’s All Songs Considered. It was the third time I’d seen Gregory Alan play in an 8-week period, and his performance, once again, simply astounded and enthralled. We were also fortunate to meet with Gregory and his band after the show (see Gregory Alan’s earlier interview below). For those of you who don’t know, Third Man Records is the location where Neil Young recorded A Letter Home, on Jack White’s 1947 Voice-O-Graph — the only one available to the public in the world (find out more on KEXP’s exclusive interview with Jack White here). Give Jack a call. You can record on it too, if you like. The elephant-head taxidermy which the American Pickers found for Jack (I watched that episode when it first aired), was hanging on the wall to the right of the bar, just in front of the elevated control room. Third Man is a special place indeed.
Tonight, as I mentioned, we were here to see Jonah Tolchin and his band. As they took the stage, (even before the very first note hit the air), we already knew that they were worthy to be counted among those who can say they have performed upon these hallowed grounds. One of my traveling companions, singer-songwriter, Bill Scorzari, commented on the ability of Jonah’s phenomenal guitarist, Danny, to seemingly effortlessly evoke the legendary Derek Trucks and even at times appear to channel Master, Duane Allman himself (yeah…Danny’s that good). It was also clear, from drummer Michael’s performance, how Michael’s formerly “temporary” position with the band (as a “sit in” for a prior performance) instantly became a permanent position. As for Jonah…well, 100 percent pure emotion exuded from every single pore of his body. In fact, I think I might have actually witnessed a split-second moment when just one single pore tried to catch it’s breath, only to have Jonah instantaneously identify and coax it back into service. The trio is a fascinatingly well-oiled machine. The absence of a bass player–a fourth-man (see what I did there?)–was only visual, not sonic. The additional instrument was unnecessary, as Jonah, Danny and Michael had it all covered somehow. This night was clearly made for Jonah Tolchin and his band, and it was as magical and profound as it gets.
That Friday night’s show was followed by a mid-day performance on Saturday during Americanarama in the courtyard outside Grimey’s/The Basement.The sun was at its peak, but Jonah and his band played as sensationally in the open air as they had the night before, inside Third Man’s blue-lit, cool-aired studio.
We spoke with Jonah after the Grimey’s show and walked with Danny to get some of that greenish kiwi lemonade from the “Mas Tacos” truck– a staple vendor that provided mobile sustenance throughout AmericanaFest (especially at The Groove the day before–where we had mucho Mas Tacos). Before leaving Grimey’s, Jonah suggested we reconvene outside The Wild Cow, a delicious vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free restaurant in East Nashville. We met Jonah, Danny, Michael and Blue (Jonah’s wife) there, and laughed about the weird looking Mexican restaurant across the street, with the sign outside that read: “No one loves Kanye as much as Kanye loves Kanye.” We walked to a quiet grassy area near a large rock pile and sat, comfortably getting to know each other better–which I found to be incredibly easy and pleasant, surrounded by this most inviting group of kind and genuine friends. Oh, and they were really funny too.
♦
Lauren Jahoda: Jonah, where are you from in New Jersey?
Jonah Tolchin: I grew up in Princeton, NJ.
LJ: That’s where you had your Clover Lane release party — how was it?
JT: Yeah. It was a lot of fun, like the dentist was there and my parents. The mailman, the mail woman actually (laughs). It was really nice. We’ve been on tour with Black Prairie and they just did…it wasn’t quite a CD release, but it was a show in Chris Funks’ hometown in Indiana. It was like the same thing, so it was cool. I like that home vibe.
Michael: And they’re great people. They’re super friendly. Nate, their bass player, has been sitting in with us and he’s amazing. They played last night. Same time as us.
LJ: I know it took 3-5 years to create Clover Lane. How do you write songs? Do you collaborate or is it more of a solitary act?
JT: Yeah. I would even say that writing Clover Lane was sort of a life-long process for me. There were ideas that I had many years before I recorded it that I sort of put together. And for me, songwriting until pretty recently has been a solitary thing. I like to go into a room where it’s quiet and it doesn’t really matter where it is and usually what will happen is I’ll get a feeling. A song for me is a feeling and that’s why I listen to music. It’s all about feeling. it’s all about emotions. What I’ll try to do is capture that feeling as best as I can through music and words. That’s the most important thing to me — the feeling. I wouldn’t consider myself a great lyricist by any means, but I strive to be good at capturing feelings and it’s definitely a learning process.
LJ: That definitely comes across when listening to your music — that feeling transfers to your listener effortlessly. Although it took a long time to create and release Clover Lane, I also read that you recorded it in just 4 days.
JT: (laughs) Yeah.
LJ: I can relate to that in some way, to finish my Master’s degree, I was required to write a thesis…
JT: Congratulations! That’s a lot of work!
LJ: Thanks! The process was very similar — I spent 6 months researching, reading book after book after book, but when it was time to write the paper it took about a week. It’s a strange feeling committing to something so wholeheartedly and for so long, and then to release all of that energy in such a short amount of time. What was that process is like for you?
JT: Yeah. It’s hard to describe. I mean, it’s the same thing when you’re ordering dinner at a restaurant and you’re waiting around and then your food comes and it’s gone in about 12 seconds (laughs).
LJ: That’s probably the best comparison I’ve heard yet.
Michael: …Especially at Wild Cow down here in Nashville (laughs).
JT: For me, it was a strange process because I actually finished a lot of the songs right before. Literally the week before, I got some of the songs ready and we went and recorded it in only 4 days. A few months later, the record got picked up and then there was this waiting period of about a year and a half. So since then, I’ve actually written a whole other record that’s about ready to go. But it’s interesting trying to keep these songs fresh while on the road because these songs have been on my mind and been played on the road for a few years now. Last night I played some newer songs and we’re just really feeling those right now because they’re new. Everything always changes. As people say, the only constant is change so we try to keep playing these songs that we’ve been playing for 4 or 5 years, whatever it is, and it gets kind of old after awhile, ya know. And you want to stay fresh.
LJ: I know the meaning behind Clover Lane is really strong, with the connection to and story of your parents’ home on Clover Lane — what is guiding you in terms of the new record?
JT: Yeah. About a year or so ago I thought of an idea to write and record an album that was based around the book Siddhartha and so there was about a year of time that passed and I didn’t do anything on it. I read the book and sometimes I’d think about it but not really. And then one day, this inspiration just struck and again, I wrote all the songs in a few days, all the songs, and now it’s just ready to go.
LJ: What’s your plan for the new album? Do you have a time frame in mind, in terms of release?
JT: As far as the release, I can’t really say. But for recording, I hope to record this December. Maybe in a church in Western Mass.
LJ: You have a place in mind?
JT: Yeah. There’s a studio that I’m going to check out at the end of the month and we’ll see. Hopefully, it’ll be the spot.
LJ: That’s awesome. Bill (Scorzari), who I manage, talked about recording some songs in this church that was built in East Orange, New Jersey in 1868. He’s building a studio in New York and for seating he bought some antique pews that the church had removed, and it sort of inspired this idea of recording there.
LJ: I know that your spirituality is a big part of who you all are, and everything you do.
JT: I guess the way I think about it is that it’s all there is. For me spirituality is reality and I’ve grown a lot as a person from being around Danny, who has his own path as well, and I’ve been really lucky that our paths have become one in some ways. Same with Blue. I’ve learned so many things from being with Blue because she’s very connected to what’s going on. I consider spiritually to be reality in the deepest sense of that word. Ya know, being here, right now, which we never are, ya know what I mean? And it’s been amazing because Michael’s been on the road with us and because, until recently, we’ve been playing with other musicians who aren’t. They’re not as focused or centered on who they are and they struggle, but with Michael, and from my experience, he’s just going, and he’s always here and now. And to be in the car with all these people who are just going and trying to live a healthy life and a conscious life, really is inspiring. It makes it a lot easier to be healthy and conscious. Ya know? Because if you have one negative polarity in the car or on the stage, it can bring down the whole ship. So it feels really good to be traveling with these guys and spending time together.
LJ: Yeah. You guys seem pretty lucky to have found each other. You really are so nice. It’s as simple as that.
JT: (laughs) You guys are as well.
(laughs)
LJ: I read somewhere that you’re a big fan of Game of Thrones. Are you all GOT-obsessed?
Band: (laughs) Yeah! (laughs)
Michael: Not me (laughs)
Danny: We’re getting him ready for Season 5.
JT: We gotta prep him (laughs). Well the three of us are living in a house in Bar Harbor, Maine, so when it came out every Sunday, we’d all watch it.
LJ: I do the same thing. How about True Detective?
JT: Ohhh yeah. True Detective.
Danny: What’s funny is everyone in the house would be like “Oh my god! It’s 9:30. Let’s go watch Game of Thrones!!”
LJ: It’s a bonding experience!
Danny: Oh yeah! And sometimes we’d be like WTF! Because we get so into it.
(laughs)
LJ: When I wrote about you a few months ago, you made a lot of effort to spread the article around to your friends and on your Facebook. Thank you for that. It’s nice that you give back to those who are writing about you.
JT: You’re welcome. Thanks for writing it. I definitely do my best to always do it. I guess these days with social media it’s kind of complicated. Say you get Three pieces of press that come out the same week or even the same day and you post them all that day, sometimes people will be like you’re talking about yourself too much, on your own facebook page. So sometimes you have to stagger things so I’ve been learning about the best way to do that. But yeah. Of course, I love to support people that support me. Ya know, we’re all in this together and doing it for the same reasons.
LJ: How did you end up in Rhode Island? Were each of you there as well?
Blue: Yes, after we graduated…I’m from Rhode Island…and after we graduated, we started living together so we moved there for a bit. We traveled a lot the first year after high school but yeah, that was our base for awhile and we just started doing open mics. The thing about Rhode Island that we always say that because it’s so small, there’s only one degree of separation, so anyone you see in Rhode Island, you know someone the same. So as far as stating out there, it was great because we were one person away from anyone in the state that we needed to know.
LJ: Michael, you hadn’t joined at that point yet right?
Michael: Not yet. We were playing some of the same places, but I was with a different artist at the time, so it all really came together this summer.
LJ: Can you tell me about some of your first monumental experiences in Rhode Island, either meeting someone or playing somewhere?
JT: Yeah. I think one of the coolest things that happened was we went to the Low Anthem CD release concert of Smart Flesh…I think it was the first time we saw Brown Bird…that was so incredibly inspiring. And we got to see the Low Anthem play..that was just ridiculous. That was definitely in the top 5 I would say. Then going to Newport Folk Festival was obviously pretty big for me, to be able to spend time there. And I just did a lot of open mics in the beginning. I just tried to play one every day, all the time. I did a lot of open mics (laughs). The way that I work is that I have hyper ADD about some things sometimes but if I just put my focus on one thing, I’ll just go and that’s all I’ll do. So when I decided I wanted to play music as a career, that’s all that I thought about and that’s all that I did and I found a healthier balance now, that the ball has started rolling down the hill. What I feel like is that I pushed this ball up the hill and now the work is all starting to pay off and I can relax a little bit.
LJ: Yeah. Everyone has their different moments of when they realize and decide to fully commit to that career. you figured out at a very young age that this is what you wanted to do, right?
JT: Yeah. Danny and I were in a band together at our high school. He was a senior and I was a freshman. So that was a really powerful experience for me, to be a part of something like that and to just be playing music a lot with friends. And I think it was after that probably that I got this passion and felt this confidence because you know as a freshman and coming into high school and being taken under the wing of a senior, is a pretty big deal, at the time. So that was really cool. It was a confidence boost thing. So I was getting all these signs about it and I decided to blow off school and play more music and not take the SATs and knew that I was going to do this. There was never a question. It was almost subconscious in some ways, like I never had anxiety about it or anything like that. I was just like, oh yeah, that’s what I’m going to do.
LJ: Danny, what was it that brought you to Jonah? Or did he find you?
JT: I think I bothered him quite a bit (laughs).
Danny: Yeah (laughs). It was really funny. So the year before Jonah came on a Sunday to the school to visit the school, to stay a night or two in the dorms and I had just got back from my parents house over the weekend and I was in my dorm room playing my guitar and my friend Tyler walks in and is like “Oh there’s this prospect student coming and he’s a guitar player.” So Jonah comes in and I think, I don’t know if he asked me if he could play my guitar or if Tyler told him he could play it, but I guess I gave it to him, but I really didn’t want to. I was thinking “Get out of my room you little twirper” (laughs). But um, then he played and I was like, cool…
LJ: …Alright maybe we’ll keep him around (laughs).
Danny: (laughs) Yeah, and in September, when school came around, for the first two weeks, Jonah would knock on my dorm room, because I would play guitar after school every day, and Jonah would knock on my door and say “Can I jam?” (laughs). For the first week or two, I didn’t really know what to think of it, but something happened where one afternoon i was playing and Jonah was in the library pretty far away on the whole other side of the campus and somehow he just knew I was playing and ran over and that’s when stuff started cooking. i mean, Jonah and i in high school both had an affinity for blues music from our dads and that’s a rare bond that you don’t find, especially when you’re a young teenager.
LJ: Yes. At that age, it is unique. As a young teenager, I wasn’t listening to this stuff yet.
Danny: The thing is, Jonah used to be, and always is like… he’ll surpass or get interested in something so much and then share those interests with everyone around him, at least in music. It becomes a collaboration of music styles, I guess.
LJ: A favorite question of mine comes from photographer/blogger/creator of Humans of New York: If you could give one piece of advice to a large group of people, what would it be?
Danny: Whatever you believe is your reality.
Michael: Remind yourself that your perspective isn’t the only perspective. If you can stay mindful of that it can help you out in a lot of situations.
JT: I just have so many things. They’re really all the same thing. I feel like there are so many people in the world that are trying to change the world. They’re trying to solve people’s problems and do all these external things to try to make the world a better place, but from my perspective, the only way to do that is by changing yourself, focusing on your own reality, your own mind, your own body. It’s all about interconnection, this universal mind, this universal consciousness. The only way we can really understand that is by meditating on that and caring about each other, but the only way you can do that is by caring about yourself. I think there are so many people who have this self-loathing and so many problems, and they don’t focus the lens inwards–that’s really the beginning of changing the world, by everyone changing yourself.
LJ: You can’t work on others until you work on yourself.
JT: You really just have to be the change you want to see.
Bill Scorzari: Yeah. I agree with that, and would add a lyric from one of my songs: Nothing can outlast patience and time.
LJ: Well, I can’t thank you guys enough. I want to hang out all night.
JT: Yeah, we’re around! (laughs) We’re going to Joe Fletcher’s show tonight at midnight.
LJ: I plan to be there too. I’m so glad I got to connect with you all.
JT: Likewise.
♦
Just before we parted ways, I noticed the tattoo on the inside of Jonah’s forearm. I asked Jonah about it and he explained:
“This is an idea that came to me, well, the triangle and the heart and the infinity sign just popped into my consciousness one day when I was sitting at a picnic table in New Hampshire, and then Blue sort of drew it all out for me because I’m terrible at drawing, and she made a cohesive piece and added the three triangles. The words are a reminder that I need to “BE HERE NOW.” It’s all I really need to remember…What’s that fucked up movie, is it Memento?…I kind of feel that way about being present.”
“The words are from the book title “Be Here Now” by Ram Dass…Of course these are just three very simple words that no one man has ownership over.” – Jonah Tolchin
Photo Courtesy: Jonah Tolchin
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Don’t miss Jonah Tolchin and Mandolin Orange at the Mercury Lounge in NYC this Thursday (Oct. 2)! Get your tickets here.
Close Knit Rockers: An Interview with Israel Nash and His Band
When I interviewed Greg Vandy, of American Standard Time and host of KEXP’s Roadhouse, I had asked him: “Who and what kind of music is currently playing on your iphone, ipod, radio, or in your car on your own time?” His response, simply and immediately, was “Israel Nash’s Rain Plans. Best album of 2014. If you like Neil Young at all…” As most do, I take Greg’s recommendations and leisurely listenings very seriously. I quickly turned to Rain Plans, the album I kept on hearing about, and fell under that 70s-inspired, yet modern and irresistible spell. Vandy was right — if you want to relive your Neil Young past time, Israel Nash is your ticket to reminisce, while also engage in what is distinctly current and trailblazing. Therefore, I jumped at the opportunity to interview them.
I met with Israel Nash at The Hatchery, located on the second level of the 4-story Acme Feed & Seed in Nashville, TN. We were joined by his band members, including Joey McClellan (guitar), Aaron McClellan (bass), Eric Swanson (pedal steel) and Josh Fleischman (drums).
The entire second floor is one enormous room with several bars and multiple groupings of comfortable, eclectic seating, from church pews to living room couches to high-back restaurant-style booths, and more. The decor is rural/industrial, if you can imagine it. The walls are covered in old metal printing plates with varied subject matter, pieced together like a mosaic. Old windows hang like pieces of art from the ceiling. It was a bright and comfortable setting for our meeting. We grabbed some refreshments from the bar and settled our large group into one of the booths. I was eager to speak directly with each of the band members to discover their personal thoughts and experiences during their time at AmericanaFest and beyond.
♦
Lauren Jahoda: What I love about this album is that it has the versatility to be played either really gentle or really soft, but when you’re live you have the ability to blow it out and play really loud. Do you agree with that? Is this intentional?
Israel Nash: That’s cool. Um. There is such a difference between making a record and playing live. They don’t have the same energy. I think it’s two different things, ya know. I mean live, we are louder, a lot louder than we are in the studio.
Band: At heart we’re all rock and rollers, so we all want to tear it up live.
LJ: Do you all come from a rock and roll background?
IN: Yeah! Classic rock, 70s era … these ideas of albums and legendary shows or whatever that is, we all kind of have a deep obsession with that.
LJ: That inspiration definitely comes through on the albums and during your shows.
IN: Yeah. Before we made the record we were obsessed with old records and had conversations when listening to those old records, like, “How do you make it sound like that?!” A lot of it is also comfort in a studio and being an artist and an understanding of how all this works. That changes a lot, ya know, from being a kid playing the guitar and making albums in a serious way, when it’s a committed project, ya know. So I think it was about discovering all these albums that we all liked and figuring out how to make it all come together somehow and in some way. We recorded the album to a 16-track Studer tape machine we got. We’re very much about the session. We all stayed at the house for two and a half weeks and just lived there and made the album.
LJ: So you just live and breathe the album for that period of time?
IN: Yeah and that’s how the guys used to do it. When you had these big legends who can just rent out these big spaces. And I feel like now in studios, you get your 10 hour block and you go back home and I like the idea of committing to it being all about the project. So that’s what we did.
LJ: Where did you record Rain Plans?
IN: In my house in Dripping Springs, Texas.
LJ: Did you build a studio?
IN: No. We did it in my living room. We basically just took all the furniture out. It’s a really big living room with tall ceilings and stuff and our engineer is in the room with us, Ted, and so we had a lot of gear but it looks like a studio…in the pictures and stuff (laughs). But, it was the house. The kitchen was behind a big tapestry that we put up. The idea was that we could all be there and chill out, it’s out in the country.
LJ: That’s great. I’m sure devoting that time together and creating the album makes the experience that much more meaningful. You recorded your second album, Barn Doors & Concrete Floors, in a barn in the Catskills, correct?
IN: Yeah.
LJ: We’re from New York, so we’re familiar with the area and love the Catskills.
IN: Oh really?
Aaron: It was right on the border of where Pennsylvania kind of bumps into New York. Right near the town of Liberty.
IN: I know that was a small town close by.
LJ: Yeah. Right by Route 17, I know it well.
IN: Yeah! The diner over there…what is it? The Liberty Diner?
Band: The Roscoe Diner.
IN: Yeah! The Roscoe Diner — it was probably only just a few miles from that place. Yeah, we found it on Craig’s List and it was just a house that had an old barn. We went up to the studio, or the house, with the engineer and we were like “we can make a record here.” So we just got all the stuff together and just lived there. So that was the first experience that I had with that. It was all these guys, except for Josh (laughs)…he’s forgiven me…but that was the first time to get into that for us.
LJ: Recording and being in an unconventional space like that…
IN: Yeah. It’s very serious to me. Ya know, I don’t care too much to be in the studio to make a record. I feel so much more comfortable in that setting. I feel the comfort. The comforts you have individually and shared…it goes into that. The spirit and good time. Making good music and being at ease.
LJ: I agree. That’s important. You will probably never do it the other way again.
IN: No way. Like “Joey’s gonna come in and lay guitar parts down at 3 or 4 o’clock!” – I know people make great records like that, but it’s just not me.
LJ: Since having done one album in a barn in the Catskills and Rain Plans at your home in Dripping Springs, TX, do you think you will do the next one in your home again or somewhere new?
IN: No. I’m going to build a studio on the land. That’s the plan for the next few months.
LJ: What kind of vision do you have for that studio?
IN: Well I don’t have very much money, so I’m building the cheapest building I can. There are these quonset arch buildings that come in kits, you can make one for 12 grand or something and all you need is a slab of concrete and a bunch of guys.
(laughs)
Band: (laughs) We’re still looking for those.
IN: The plan is to build a studio space that you could live in and eventually it would hopefully become open to other artists as well. We like analog-type studios that have places for people to live and we have 15 acres in the hill country, so just to be there for a week or whatever, and make records.
LJ: Israel, you’re originally from Missouri. Where are the rest of you guys from? How did you all meet?
Band: We’re all from different areas but we all lived in New York at the same time. That’s where we met. The three of us have all known each other for a long time, we’re from Texas originally…
IN: (joking) They used to be brothers.
Joey: We’re still brothers.
(laughs)
Band: Then we all moved to New York and we met Israel. We needed a drummer and that’s when we met Josh.
IN: It was close knit and ya know, these guys were all from Texas originally and we had played SXSW a few years ago and I just really liked the weather and the vibe. There comes a point when you’re in New York when you’re like “What do we do now?”…ya know. All of us had the same idea originally…like, we’re going to go to New York, live in the big city, which was great at the time.
LJ: Was your move from Missouri to New York spontaneous or planned?
IN: It was very short-planned (laughs). It was fairly spontaneous. I mean, we had enough time to plan for a garage sale and a few other things. So yeah, it was.
LJ: Did you feel there would be more opportunity for you in New York?
IN: Yeah…
LJ: You did find your band there.
Joey: We all had a fantasy of New York. Bob Dylan and all of the bands we loved were there…that’s like the pinnacle…New York is the place you want to be. It’s mysterious and all that so, we all kind of had a vision of what New York was.
Eric: It’s magnetic. I never had been to New York until 3 months before I moved there and I went there and I was like okay, I have to be here.
IN: I mean, it is a cool place to be, especially during that period of my life. Especially after you’ve been there for awhile, you know the city and you’ve developed friendships and that’s the most rewarding thing…developing the friendships and relationships that I’ve had the opportunity to get close to people you know and love. It kind of makes everything else easier.
LJ: We’re you guys on the first two albums as well?
Band: Not on the first album, but on the second one, yeah.
LJ: I watched your performance on KEXP and I remember that you were picked up by a small label in Holland and that the reception of your first two albums was a lot stronger in Europe than in the US. And with Rain Plans, there has been a tremendous and positive response from the US. Why do you think that is?
Joey: It’s like the age-old question – no one really knows the answer. We played in another band and we did well in Europe and we had the same issues as well. It’s like, ya know, you always want to make it in America.. it’s like the big prize. I don’t know why it is.
IN: I mean I think partially for what we’ve been doing, the team was evolving in Europe. There wasn’t really a team evolving in the states. There’s always the other side of what we’re doing, ya know, it’s not just playing music and writing songs, there are so many other people involved in Europe that had a team that hadn’t been developed in the states until the second album. I was just like, well, I got work in Europe and I play music for a living so I’m going to go there. I’m hoping to play a little more in the states and get a little work and I’ll be alright.
LJ: It definitely takes patience.
IN: There’s not much left (laughs).
LJ: (laughs) Well, you’ve played AmericanaFest so I feel like that’s pretty good.
Band: It was a great way to start off the tour for us.
LJ: You just played at the High Watt, and you’re playing again tomorrow at the Bootleg BBQ, right?
Band: Yeah.
LJ: I’m really looking forward to that. Where are you headed next?
IN: In terms of the tour or in terms of today?
LJ: (laughs) Both!
IN: I think we head to Knoxville on Sunday and then we are on tour until late October and then today…
LJ: Drink?
Band: It’s certainly a possibility (laughs).
IN: What day is it?
LJ: Friday.
IN: Yep, we’ll be right here (laughs).
LJ: It’s very clear with Rain Plans, that your move to Texas was a big inspiration for the album. What’s motivating your next album?
IN: I’m working on new stuff and we’re planning on getting into the studio in February or so for the new album. I think that move for me was way bigger than just a move…it was a life-changing thing for me on many levels, which has so much to do with the move but also so little to do with the move. As an artist, it definitely changes the music and what’s going on but I don’t think I need to move again to make an album or anything. The bigger thing is having the confidence and knowledge, I don’t know, I just have a much clearer idea of how it is…the expectations and different roles. Rain Plans was very much written with these guys in mind and the songs were very much about coming together and each of us giving pieces of ourselves to it and if you listen to the album and listen to each of these guys play and you’ll hear something completely different. It’s like wow, it’s someone owning their…it’s amazing to work with people who are serious about the craft…it’s part of you. Whatever it is…your passion. It’s fed by nothing else.
LJ: You look at people in the audience and they get it, the don’t take that for granted. It’s very much appreciated here at AmericanaFest.
IN: I think there is something really cool about…ya know, like last night and even today, there are people giving you compliments…it’s not like “hey, bad ass show. Cool guitar part.” It’s appreciative. That was our experience in Europe too. People thanking us for giving them something. It’s really great.
LJ: I really enjoy the song “Iron Of the Mountain,” can you tell me about creating that song?
IN: Um…I’m gonna make up something really cool (laughs). No, “Iron Of the Mountain” is a song about… iron represents blood and blood of the land and family and being married to the land in some way that’s bigger than us. That’s kind of what that song is about – and being on the road and being in the country and making up for lost time. It’s so simple, to me, ya know. As a songwriter, I like to just be honest…So that song is just about family.
LJ: It’s a great song.
IN: I’ll make some demos of ideas and share it with the guys and then before we make a record, like with Rain Plans, I sent them the songs and then re-sent the songs with just me on guitar because I don’t want to be like overly…I did these things so you should do those things. I don’t like to get into that. That’s the reason you have players here and all these guys like to play their instruments better than I can play their instruments, ya know. I feel like there’s some magic that comes together when people prepare music fresh and just kind of collaborate. I think with that song…(to the band) do you remember recording that song? I remember Eric because he has a big solo at the end.
LJ: Pedal steel is my favorite. It just stings you, ya know…
IN: Yeah…church in a box.
Eric: If you try playing one, it will quickly become not your favorite instrument (laughs).
LJ: I’ve heard it’s extremely difficult to play.
IN: Our European fans asked, is that a keyboard? (laughs)
LJ: How did you get into playing pedal steel?
Eric: Um, I’ve only played for three years. Basically, with Barn Doors, he had some pedal steel on it that I didn’t play on and when we went on tour and he said well hey, I’d love to have a pedal steel player and it was something I had always considered doing anyways, so I just learned it.
IN: Yeah. I didn’t even know he bought one. He said he got one and I was like, what?? With Rain Plans, I had this idea that I wanted pedal steel on every song because with Barn Doors, it was a post-album thing. It was like $150 for every song to get this guy on pedal steel. I thought, it’s almost done, we don’t need it yet. I really wanted pedal steel on this album and Eric does it in a way that’s really unique.
Eric: They don’t know that I really don’t know what I’m doing (laughs).
LJ: It adds a lot. It seems like you guys have a great dynamic going.
IN: I don’t like the idea of hired guns and these guys are changing… These guys are my friends and I just like making music and hanging out with them. Ya know it’s so easy for someone to make music and it be all about me. No one’s more important here. From you guys, to fans, we’re all here. People are just doing things. You need people around you that you care about and who care about you. I think once you find that, it’s alright.
LJ: That’s what it’s all about.
A Cup of Joe: An Interview with Joe Pug
One of our favorite places to visit while at Americanafest, was Crema—a cozy and bright Coffee shop, located slightly off the city of Nashville’s beaten path. If you’re ever in Nashville, make it a point to visit Crema and sample their “hand poured” (brewing technique) coffees. I recommend the Ngila Reserve with apricot. No need for dairy or soy or sugar. Sooooo good! This was the setting for our much anticipated interview with Joe Pug. Joe was gracious enough to delay his travels to his next performance (in Louisville) so that he could meet with us. By the way, Joe also takes his coffee black and we’re glad to have had time for a cup with Joe.
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Lauren Jahoda: I was speaking with Gregory Alan Isakov just last week and your name came up. He mentioned how much he loves you. What great friends you are.
Joe Pug: Yeah, we are good buddies.
LJ: He seems like the sweetest guy ever.
JP: He is but he has a real wild streak too. We run into each other…we cross paths quite a bit and every time we do, we just end up staying up really late and drinking way too much and having to go to our respective gigs the next day (laughs).
LJ: Have you ever played a show together?
JP: We played, um, like this weird songwriter thing that was in Denver a year or two ago and that’s where we first kinda touched base. We’ve just run into each other a lot since then.
LJ: Yeah, you, him, the Tallest Man on Earth and Newport Folk Festival sealed the deal for me. I couldn’t escape the pull of this music after that.
JP: That’s great. That’s awesome.
LJ: When you and I met the other night, I had mentioned that I was at your show a few years ago at the Mercury Lounge when you had Anthony D’Amato open for you. I remembered after our conversation that Will Arnett attended that show. I’m sure you get musicians attending all the time. What was it like having him show up?
JP: Me and the whole band, we were all…I literally cannot think of a person we would rather have just randomly turn up at one of our shows. We all love him and all of his work. The Arrested Development stuff…that Blades of Glory movie…all that stuff, man. It was really cool. He just came back…he bought all of the merchandise we had. He left the club with his arms stuffed full of it (laughs).
LJ: Was he a fan before the show or did someone recommend that he go?
JP: A friend of his played some songs for him in California and then he was back in New York and he either lived or was staying near the Mercury Lounge and we were playin’ so he just stopped by (laughs). Yeah.
LJ: That’s so cool. What I love about what you do is that wherever you’re playing, you find someone within that area to open for you and provide them with such a great opportunity. At the Mercury show, you went on stage very late because you had two people open for you. It’s great that you give people the opportunity to get their songs out there.
JP: Yeah, yeah. That’s how it works. People gave me that hand up, so I give to other people too.
LJ: Yeah, reciprocation.
JP: Yeah.
LJ: I want to talk about your Dad a bit, if that’s okay.
JP: Yeah.
LJ: You said he was a musician, which I didn’t know when I met him a few years back at your show. Can you tell me about his music career?
JP: My Dad played all through his 20s and early 30s. He played in a regional band. They were called Sky Cop. They were really inspired by The Band. That was a major inspiration. He was a piano player…he is a piano player. He still… when he had me, he went to work as a carpenter. He did that for about 20 years and then when I went to college he went back to school, got his bachelor’s degree and became a 1st grade teacher. He’s an absolutely unique and inspiring individual. He’s like my, my, main role model. He’s a really cool guy.
LJ: When I met him, he was extremely nice. Very welcoming.
JP: Oh yeah. He has a sort of a quiet charisma about him that everyone gets to know.
LJ: I went to school to be an English teacher but I decided not to pursue that career. It’s so difficult to get a job doing that.
JP: It is. My wife-to-be is a teacher as well. She’s an English teacher. She plays music at night and does this during the day. My dad tells me it’s really difficult.
LJ: Most people don’t realize that you bring work home with you. That’s the thing. You live in Texas right?
JP: Yeah, we live Austin.
LJ: I haven’t been there yet. I’ve been wanting to go.
JP: It’s a great place.
LJ: It’s definitely on my list of places to go. I read that you left college just before your senior year. What led up to that decision?
JP: Yeah. It’s funny. When we were on the last tour, I was with the band, we were all in the van with this guy David Ramirez…
LJ: Oh we love him! We’re going to see him later tonight.
JP: He’s great.
LJ: Yeah. He’s special.
JP: He’s very special. In more ways than one. It was like the 4 or 5 of us in the van and we’re talkin’ and one of us was like, “Yeah, I dropped out of college…” and then another one said it and we realized that everyone in the van dropped out of college (laughs) and so then it got kind of quiet and I forget who said it…I think it was our guitar player Greg…he said “Yep and now we’re sitting in this van right now and this is pretty much where all our parents told us we would be if we dropped out of college (laughs).
LJ: (laughs) It seems like everyone is very content doing it.
JP: It’s the best. It’s… There’s no money in playing music anymore, so it’s about having a calling and you do it because you enjoy it and it’s the most meaningful way you can spend your short years on this earth.
LJ: Everyone I’ve spoken with says the same thing. It’s not about the money.
JP: Yeah.
LJ: What were you studying in college?
JP: Playwriting.
LJ: I knew it. I just finished my Master’s degree in English Literature, so I love the fact that you were/are into that.
JP: Oh cool.
LJ: Do you still write plays?
JP: Nah. I’m more of a…I have to really stick to one thing and concentrate on that. I’m not a very prolific creator in that way. If songs are what we are doing, I need to just slowly concentrate on songs.
LJ: I read somewhere that you said something along those lines – that you only had enough creative juice to get the songs out.
JP: Yeah. That’s pretty much it.
LJ: I had a couple of ideas with the playwriting thing (laughs). A friend and I were we’re tossing around the idea of you writing the music and lyrics for a play – that’s sort of the happy combination of the two (laughs).
JP: Musical theater. There ya go (laughs).
LJ: It seems like you are very much into poetry and literature. I read somewhere that you’re a big fan of Walt Whitman.
JP: Yeah.
LJ: We’re actually from Walt Whitman’s hometown in New York.
JP: Oh really?
LJ: You wouldn’t believe it but, there’s a huge mall there that’s called the Walt Whitman Mall, which is a complete contradiction to everything that was Walt Whitman (laughs).
JP: Sounds like a nightmare.
LJ: It’s a complete nightmare. What are you reading now?
JP: I just finished….I’m reading all non-fiction these days…and ah, I just finished Timothy Tyson’s Blood Done Sign My Name about the later era of the Civil Rights Movement, and now I’m started to read a book The Warmth Of Other Suns. It’s about the Great Migration. Black Americans coming up from the south up to the northeast and Midwest during the middle of the century. It’s really good stuff.
LJ: Yeah, I’ve delved pretty heavily into the Emmett Till story myself and it stays with me always. It changed me.
JP: It’s one of the most iconic and horrifying moments of our nation’s conscience. All those pictures were published in Jet Magazine, from his funeral.
LJ: His mother is the most brilliant woman in the world because, if it wasn’t for her, no one would know about it. She made sure to bring it to everyone’s attention.
LJ: We love your newsletter. It’s really refreshing to see and hear about what you’re doing.
JP: I like doing it. It’s really good because the type of music I play. … I think the best way to put it is that I would literally sit down and drink a beer with 95% of the people who come to our shows. Ya know what I mean?
LJ: Yeah.
JP: They are some really cool folks. It’s like a community. They really are. I really feel like I just travel around the country and there’re these people who have a similar world view as I do and we go to the same place and drink a bunch of beer and hang out. It’s a great thing.
LJ: It is. We keep coming back to this idea of the Americana ecosystem. Everyone finds and relies on each other. That’s why we love it here so much.
JP: Yeah.
LJ: Everyone is so embracing. It’s really nice.
JP: This festival is in a really good spot. It’s not too small and not too big right now. I don’t know how you keep something that way but this is definitely…I had a great time this weekend.
LJ: Is this your first time here at AmericanaFest?
JP: No. About 3 or 4 years ago we were nominated for somethin’, so we came, but even then it was a different vibe.
LJ: I know we’re short on time, and I just wanted to ask you… the hymn songs are my favorites, always have been… what’s the story behind naming them hymns?
JP: Well, I just think the reason I named those three songs that is because they are cut from the same cloth. I did one and then the other two just came.
LJ: Is the 101 some kind of reference to like a first course, as in school?
JP: Ya know, I don’t know. I had someone ask me once…His thought was.. are those the highways you were riding on when you wrote those songs? And I was like damn, I really wish that was the answer to that question (laughs).
LJ: That’s great! Just say “yes” (laughs). That’s exactly it (laughs). Seriously, they’re amazing, they’re stunning.
LJ: Well, I don’t want to keep you. I know you have to get going. Thanks so much for taking time out to meet with us. It really was a pleasure speaking with you
JP: Yeah. Well, it was great to meet you too.
LJ: Thanks Joe. So, where are you headed now?
JP: We’re going to Louisville right now.
LJ: Well, good luck with everything.
JP: Thanks. You too. Take care.
♦
My interview with Joe Pug was special to me. In speaking with him and with other artists at AmericanaFest, it was clear that they share a thriving brotherhood, a mutual admiration of each other’s craft, and a genuine appreciation of who they are as individuals, friends and fellow travelers upon the Americana trail. This Americana community has so much to offer to every fan, every venue, and every city or town that is fortunate enough to be embraced by it. It is self sustaining in the most wonderful way. It’s focus on the inherent worth of the music it brings, leaves no room for greed or pretense, and instead, creates bonds of friendship. And what more could anyone ask for… besides a great cup of Joe?
‘My Hillbilly Confidence’: An Interview with Joe Purdy
I was very excited to receive an email from Ryan, about setting up a Heartstrings interview with Joe Purdy. I’ve been a fan of Joe’s music for quite some time and welcomed the opportunity to speak with him about what drives and inspires him. I called Joe’s cell phone. It rang and rang and then I heard: “Hey, this is Joe. Sorry I missed your call. But I’ll get right back to you, so leave a message. Thanks.” My first thought was that I won’t leave a message, and instead I’ll give him some time and try again in a few minutes. So I hung up without leaving a message and called a few minutes later hoping he’d pick up, but ready to leave a message for him for a call back if he didn’t. Again, the phone rang and rang and again I heard: “Hey, this is Joe. Sorry I missed your call. But I’ll get right back to you, so leave a message. Thanks.” In the silence that followed as I waited for the beep, I got ready to leave my message. But instead of a beep, suddenly there was Joe’s voice again. The message continued: “…That’s possibly a lie. I may not get back to you for a while. I’m actually not very good at that sort of thing so, if I don’t get back to you at all, don’t take it personally. It’s just that I don’t know how to work my phone very well. But regardless, thanks for calling and, ah, I will talk to you at some point in the future.” I appreciated his candor and again readied myself to leave a message. Again, I waited for the beep. But instead of a beep, a voice came back. This time it was a woman’s voice: “The mailbox is full and cannot accept any messages at this time. Goodbye.” I heard a click and the line went dead. I had no other way to reach Joe for the scheduled interview. What to do?
Well, as it turns out, it wasn’t Joe’s fault at all. I simply got the interview time wrong when accounting for the different time zones. The full mailbox can also easily be explained by Joe’s popularity. Thankfully, it was no lie, and Joe was true to his voicemail word. We would indeed, talk some time in the future. In fact, although when I called again, at the correct time, I got Joe’s voicemail again, Joe immediately called back and I was ecstatic!
Here’s what happened next:
Lauren Jahoda: Hello.
Joe Purdy: Hi! This is Joe Purdy.
LJ: Hi Joe! How are you doing?
JP: No complaints, no complaints. Kind of a busy day. Sorry I missed you. I was in the middle of a radio performance. I’m actually in my hometown tonight. We’re passing through and I got a chance to go out and visit my folks with the guys and see my sister who just had a little one. My first niece. I was here recently for that, but she is six weeks old now and I just love to get my hands on her every chance I get. She’s a sweetheart.
LJ: Congratulations!
JP: Thank you so much. Our family is just so happy.
LJ: Where is your hometown?
JP: Well, hometown…it’s more of an area, it’s called Hickory Creek, Arkansas. I went to high school in Springdale, Arkansas and I’m about a relative distance from Rogers, Springdale and Fayetteville, where the university is, but we’re playing in Fayetteville tonight, and the University of Arkansas is here. Springdale is next in line over and that’s where I went to high school.
LJ: It must be great being able to come back and play there.
JP: Yeah, ya know I haven’t played here in about 8 or 9 years so it’s a little wild (laughs).
LJ: Do you expect to run in to people from your past?
JP: I imagine I probably will (laughs). It’ll be quite a reunion. I missed our 10-year reunion and yeah, it’s going to be 15 or more now. And yeah, I know a lot of those folks are coming out and I still have a lot, well I wouldn’t say a lot, I still have a few friends I still keep in touch with regularly. But, yeah, I expect to see a lot of old faces.
LJ: That’s great.
JP: Yeah, it’ll be nice and it’s just nice to see my folks and have an excuse to see my family again for a little bit.
LJ: I know you’ve been cranking out albums for the past 10 years, so I’m sure it’s been a busy road.
JP: It has! Yeah. It’s going to be a little strange tonight because I haven’t made it back to play in town, it just hasn’t fallen on the roof in quite awhile. Just routed around, just things schedule-wise, have just always kind of gone the other way of our favor and not been able to pop in. So, it’s really nice to be able to this time.
LJ: I know Arkansas, is a big part of your life – it’s where you live, it’s where you’re from – you hear about it a lot when doing research on you. I also heard you are quite the local history buff. Is that true?
JP: Oh, no, hardly. I wouldn’t take credit for that (laughs)!
LJ: (laughs) Well I’m glad I checked with you then (laughs)!
JP: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, no, no. I wouldn’t say that so much. I mean I do, I have done my share of snooping around local history for sure, but I wouldn’t say I was a buff by any means.
LJ: I’ve never been to Arkansas, so I was wondering if there is any sort of cool history that you could tell me about the area or a personal story.
JP: Well, the name of my label is called Mudtown Crier Records and where that kind of comes from is the town name technically, that my folks’ house is in is called Lowell and what that used to be called, what they used to call it was Mudtown, for obvious reasons. And when people would come through there, through the main section of town, way back in the day, they would park their wagons over night and in the morning they’d come out and they’d be sunk in the mud and they’d have to take the wheels off and do, ya know, all that stuff and it got to be one of those things where it was such an issue that they ended up going by the name Mudtown. That’s kind of where I got that. There’s this old-timer called Elza Tucker and he’s probably 94 or 95 now and he worked at the Lowell historical museum and the only time he ever left town was World War II to serve under General Patton. He worked everyday in the historical museum and I’m afraid to bring that up because I dont, I haven’t gotten to check in on him in a couple of years, but last time, he was doing great last time a couple years ago when I went and visited him when I was still in town. I ended up looking up, about the area that I was in Hickory Creek and he was a postmaster up in, I think he retired in 1973, and his father also delivered… in a pony express like wagon before that…the mail by wagon out to our area, and if you know our area, it’s quite a ways out there and it would come I think once a week at that point. But even when he was postmaster, he would take things out there, he would take the mail out there and he had for certain families that were across the river there, and they would boat over to get their mail at a certain time and he met them and handed them their mail (laughs). And ya know, there’s a bunch of, he told me some great old stories about some of the houses that are still standing. There’s a not a lot of them that are still there that were there way back in the day. We haven’t taken as good care of our buildings as a lot of the East coast has, but we did, we were able to have a few still standing. He told me a bunch of great stories about that stuff.
LJ: Is that also because of the weather and storms you get there?
JP: Partly, yeah. It’s partly because of that and it’s partly because of neglect and partly because of um, I think the idea has been a little bit more of build something new, leave the old farm behind. Build a new house, build a new barn, one that’s state-of-the-art, one that stays, ya know. I surely don’t want to be in a situation where it looks like I’m bad mouthing anybody. It’s fair, the reasons are fair, but it’s just a shame because there are some really beautiful farm houses and beautiful barns and beautiful old historical buildings that have been highly neglected and it gets to where you just don’t recognize the place anymore and it would be nice to have some of that around and drive through. Even in Kentucky and Tennessee and Virginia and places like that, you get to see so much of the countryside and you see these farms, full-functional farms that have been there for a hundred years or more and they’re just maintaining what they had and they’ve always been taking care of and repairing and taking care of them and they’re just, to me, they’re so much more unobtrusive to the natural landscape of the place. It just fits to me, and it’s just more beautiful to look at and I have a sense of preservation and a sense of pride behind it and I don’t know, I guess, I’m just sort of old-fashioned like that.
LJ: They become part of the landscape.
JP: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
LJ: I do want talk about your music. I’m genuinely interested in the history because, like I said, I’ve never been there before and I take any opportunity I can to get to know something new and interesting.
JP: Well, ya know, the Ozarks are a beautiful place and ya know, this time of year, right now, they’ve had a really good summer and it hasn’t been nearly as hot. It’s been very mild compared to a lot of other summers we get and so everything’s still really green and beautiful here right now. A lot of rolling hills and a lot of beautiful woods, beautiful rivers and lakes. Ya know, it’s a lot of wide open country still, and that part of it is special and it’s really, when you’ve been gone away from it awhile in a city and you come back, it still surprises you, even though you know it’s there, it surprises you. Even if you’re not driving, or even if your flying it…everything starts to get greener and buildings start to get further apart from each other and you start to see more trees, more hillsides, more streams of water and ya know, it’s a beautiful place. It’s a beautiful place to grow up too.
LJ: I love that. I grew up and live on Long Island in New York. I don’t know if you have ever been here, but we don’t have much of that here.
JP: Right. Absolutely.
LJ: Thankfully, we don’t have to go too far to get it. I went to school in upstate New York and it’s there.
JP: Oh I’m a big fan, big fan of upstate.
LJ: We’re you in upstate New York a lot?
JP: Yeah, I have been over the years. Sure, we do a a benefit concert for the St. Lawrence River every year on 4th of July in Craton, NY, Thousand Islands region and Save the River is an organization that got started by a group of people and Abbie Hoffman when he was kind of living up there and hiding under a different name. They had this really long, kind of scientific name for what their organization was going to be and it was like nine letters long or something and he’s like, “How about Save the River?” (laughs) And they’re like, alright, so, anyway we’ve been, I guess the last 10 or 11 years, we’ve been doing a concert up there to raise money for the Save the River organization, which is always constantly fighting legislation, because there’s a channel through there where traders come through and the commerce is good, but they are always constantly fighting to widen the channel so that they can fit more than one at a time through. But if they do this, they’re gonna knock out, they’re going to majorly disrupt the ecosystem, but they’re also going to wipe out 700 or 800 of the islands. And so, it’s kind of, it’s always a fight and a struggle for this commerce and they understand the need for the commerce as well. It’s not as one-sided as you might think it would be with one side against the other. They really are a great organization, who are really understanding of everything that is going on around them, but they’re constantly trying to maintain the balance and it’s one of my most favorite places in the whole, wide world –the St. Lawrence River and the Thousand Islands region. It’s just one of the most beautiful places that I know, so that we always want to do everything we can. First of all, it’s just a pleasure to get to go and be there, but second of all after that, it’s just we want to make sure that we keep getting to go back there, and we want to make sure that everybody can and that it doesn’t get disrupted to the point when no one can go.
LJ: I’d love to check that out.
JP: Oh you should, we put it on at the Clayton Opera House and it’s mostly people that live there and people who have homes that they go to in the summer time, and in the winter time it freezes over and there’s not nearly as many residents year-round. Although, there are more and more now, as the folks have gotten older, ya know, there’s houses that have been in families for generations and stuff. It’s the country and it’s more than the country, it’s a river and it’s navigating it, and building or living on the little river island somewhere, it’s a very humble sort of existence, but a really beautiful one and one very worth it.
LJ: I’m definitely going to look into that. I want to cover that in Heartstrings.
JP: Yeah! Absolutely!
LJ: You play there every year, right?
JP: Yes ma’am. I’ve got some great amazing, old stories that come from that area.
LJ: Yeah. I’m definitely going to look into that. I’ve been a fan of yours before I even started the magazine. It all got started with “Worn Out Shoes.”
JP: Oh, nice! Well, thank you, thank you.
LJ: A couple of years ago, I decided to pick up the banjo and I hate to say that I didn’t continue it, but I was taking lessons and the teacher said to write down 3 songs that I’d ultimately like to learn. I know it’s the mandolin on that song, but I just wanted to learn it on the banjo so bad.
JP: Oh, it’s real simple on the banjo! It’s about as simple as it is on the mandolin. I can teach you how to do that.
LJ: I would love that! I love that song.
JP: Oh, thank you. Thanks so much!
LJ: Is there a story behind “Worn Out Shoes”?
JP: I was driving through Colorado with Brian Wright, my buddy – great singer-songwriter – we’ve been around the world together many times. We were, gosh I think that tour awhile back we were opening for Edie Brickell, I was opening for Edie Brickell and he was accompanying me and we were driving in a car, in this SUV rental with the sun roof, driving through Colorado on this really gorgeous night. We had been on the road for a long time and you could see all the stars up through the roof and he was taking his shift driving and I had a mandolin in the passenger seat and just started playing ya know around with it “the hole in the roof for stars to fall in…” and then we started singing it together and then it got to the next verse and we kinda spit lyrics back and forth, and then he spit the next verse with “the devil is three steps behind…” and this stuff. Anyway, it was kind of the first and one of… the only time I’ve ever co-written, and it just happened to be that we were both… and he’s one of the only, if not the only person in the world that I would actually want to co-write with, and just because when we do it it’s an accident, it’s not a sit down and decide to write a song. I just can’t, I don’t understand that, and I can’t do that. But yeah, we were just drivin’ and singin’ together and it came about and so, soon after that when we were overseas for another tour we stopped in–we were traveling with Tom McRae and Will Golden and B. Wright and I– and we all stopped in outside of London and made a record, made You Can Tell Georgia in a few days, 3 or 4 days. So B, B was the other person that was on that. He was playing the 4- string or 6-string, whatever it was, and I was playing mandolin and they put a microphone up above us and we sang up to it and that was it.
♦
At Joe’s performance on Friday night at the Mercy Lounge in Nashville, we witnessed just that — Joe Purdy and Brian Wright reunited after years apart, singing “Worn Out Shoes,” reliving that moment when they had sung right up to that microphone above them in the recording studio outside London many years earlier. I believe that, Joe, Brian and I were quite possibly the only one’s aware of the history and sentimentality behind the moment of their performance of “Worn Out Shoes” that night, but the artistry and friendship shared between them was undeniable to everyone. We were fortunate enough to capture the incredible moment here:
♦
LJ: That’s so interesting because I have to tell you – last week, I interviewed Gregory Alan Isakov and I mentioned, as I am now, some of the songs that really stay with me. I mentioned one or two to him and they were two songs that he wrote collaboratively. It’s funny because I’m beginning to notice that my favorites are falling under this co-write category. Gregory had also expressed that he was particularly fond of those collaborations.
JP: I feel like it has something to do with, ya know… I’ve always had a bit of a spike from that one. Especially, he [Brian Wright] is out on tour with me now, and we haven’t played it together for years and years, if really ever and live, and we’ve been doin’ it in this recent show and it’s been going over so well. I started that song. I started the first verse and chorus and then we started finishing the rest together, but I think it has a little bit of a tinge of something that’s a little bit different than the stuff that maybe I do all by myself. So maybe it sticks, spikes out a little bit.
LJ: I love it. Is he going to be with you at AmericanaFest?
JP: He is. Yeah, he lives in Nashville now. Um, and spent the last couple of years with family and he played a little showcase last year but yeah, he’ll be on my full band show, since really the first time since You Can Tell Georgia, he sort of lost the coin toss and had to play drums (laughs). So, he’s on this tour. He’s opening the shows for this tour but he’s also playing drums and other instruments as well throughout the show and he won’t be opening for that showcase, but he’ll be playing with me.
LJ: I’ll definitely be there, so I hope you play that song for me.
JP: Oh, beautiful. Alright, I’ll see what I can do.
LJ: That’s my formal request (laughs).
JP: Alright, I like it (laughs). That’s good. I could start to carve out a set list now.
LJ: Great! (laughs) How do you create your set list?
JP: All different ways. Usually I don’t at all, but when I have a band with me I kinda have to try to at least have some kind of an idea of what we’re gonna play one after the other, just because it’s hard on the guys who are switching instruments too much, and if my set list doesn’t really jive with that and they have to switch over too many times… but anyway, yeah. Sometimes I just start with a song that I think would be nice to open with and then I just think about what would sound good after that. Ya know, maybe play a few lines of the last bit, kind of the way you sequence a record I guess, similarly anyway, and think about what kind of arc you have I suppose – whether you want it to go up or you want it to go down or you want it to be a little reprieve from fast stuff or you want it to be a reprieve from slow stuff or sad stuff or whatever it might be and you can throw something different in there.
LJ: Yeah. Definitely. I want to ask you about how you’ve remained unsigned and have achieved such a great level of success. I read that you said something along the lines of that you figured out really early on that as long as you’re doing what makes you happy, that you’d be happy living in a cardboard box.
JP: (laughs) Yeah, I may have said something like that.
LJ: I perceive a really strong sense of faith and confidence from that, and what’s really amazing about it is that you felt that way so early on, since you released your very first album. Is there an experience from your childhood or a part of your upbringing that gave you such a strong sense of faith in personal success rather than financial success?
JP: Well, I’m certainly lucky in my upbringing. My folks are amazing to me and always have been. I definitely had a strong work ethic instilled in me from my father. But part of it also is sort of a naïve, hillbilly confidence that I got when I first started writing songs, because I was surprised when one fell out. Ya know, I was 21 years old before I wrote my first song and when it fell out, it was a surprise, and so, but when it did, I was like “Oh, this is what I’m gonna do,” and so I wrote 10 more that week and the next week I recorded it and that was my first record.
LJ: Wow.
JP: And ya know because it was the first thing that ever really fell out of me that I really felt like I was good at, that I had some ease with and I knew that I had some talent for. I think I might have thought I was a little better than I was (laughs). And I just figured, well, this is what I’m supposed to do, so I don’t really have to worry about anything because it was pretty easy to see that this is what I’m made to do, ya know, over anything else. This is my strong suit. It was a huge relief to not be searching for what you’re supposed to do in life, ya know, what career you’re gonna have, what you’re gonna do with your life, what makes you feel good, how you’re gonna survive – all that. I just felt like well, that’s it, that’s what I’ll do. Whatever it takes and puttin’ all your energy…just deciding on something and putting all your energy into that, is such a great asset in itself because your not putting all your energy into a bunch of different places, hoping something will take. You’re just doing one thing and you’re focused on the one thing and you believe, and you know and you have no doubts that’s what your supposed to be doing, then it kind of makes it easier in a way, and it does kind of fall together that way. And I think I thought I was good enough, and I didn’t care what anyone was saying about how they thought the record should sound and, well, now they’ll give me this much money to re-record those songs with this producer. I had more songs to write. I was making up for lost time. I had a lot more songs to give and I didn’t want to slow down to re-record old songs that I felt were already done and already recorded. Like, let me record new ones… and so I think that part of that naïve hillbilly confidence that I had in my abilities is kind of what got me through, and the reason I have a career is because I just made a lot of records in a small amount of time and I didn’t give them to anybody. Ya know, they’re mine and so when you don’t give your catalog away to a record label, the funny thing is that when you sell a record you actually make money from it. All the money comes to you, so yeah, I’d love to take credit for it, but it was really more of an accident of just being a hillbilly (laughs).
LJ: I can relate to that completely. With Heartstrings… that’s how I got into it. I dove head first into it because it came naturally. It was a mixture of everything I’ve ever wanted to do. But I have to admit that there are definitely times when I struggle with the financial realities of pursuing your passion solely for your passion’s sake. It’s hard dealing with that. It’s admirable that you have been so committed to that ethic and were able to be successful with it as well.
JP: Well, thank you. That’s nice of you to say. I’ve had some times that were rough too, and I also got very lucky as well, that it worked out the way that it did, but um… I do think that if you have enough…if you can eliminate that question from your mind… if it’s what you love to do, and you know you’re good at it, that’s what you’re meant to do… and if you can take that bit of doubt out of the equation, then you just realize that regardless of money or anything else, you’re ahead of the game. You’re ahead of most people, because you found what you want to do in life, as opposed to what you have to do in life. And if that’s what you want to do in life, and you’re getting to do it, no matter what the money is it’s gonna work itself out.
LJ: It’s happening right now.
JP: That’s beautiful.
LJ: Talking to you is part of that, for me at least.
JP: Well, good. I should be congratulating you then!
LJ: I guess so! (laughs)
JP: Yeah. Good girl.
LJ: (laughs) Thanks Joe. On a similar note, a couple of your songs have been on Grey’s Anatomy and you have the background with the producer of Lost. This accomplishment along with how, when you first started selling albums you made your music affordable for whoever your buyer was… if someone couldn’t afford it, you’d give it away… what’s it like dealing with those extremes – giving your albums away to people who can’t afford to buy them and then selling millions of one song?
JP: (laughs) It’s a bit of a contrast I suppose, but it also felt like a little bit of a reassurance or an affirmation that I was doing the right thing and that I had done the right thing. The reason being, ya know, the producer of that show was in a restaurant, ya know, listening to a burnt CD copy that I had given away when he heard that, when he heard any song from me. And then got a hold of me and asked me to do a song for that show [Lost] and that was the story of itself. I was in upstate New York, making a record, but I wasn’t trying to make a record, I was just making a little documentation of my time there, and it was just a few days and I wrote about my time with the River folks there and everything and then he called and asked for a similar song to what I’d already just written. So I said how about this one, and he said perfect. So, that’s how that came about, but it certainly came from giving it away in the first place.
LJ: That’s amazing. Pay it forward.
JP: Yeah, you bet.
LJ: I heard you released your 11th album on June 28, 2010 at 4 AM, because that’s when you finished it.
JP: Right (laughs).
LJ: How did that happen? Were you just so excited to finish it that you had to release it right then and there?
JP: Yeah, sure! Well, that’s the thing about technology. I finish something and send it over to my manager Brian Klein and… I was like, “Here it is. Put it up,” ya know, because we can. Really, the only answer to that is because we could. Because we’re not tied down by the record label or a release date and put this much promotion into it before hand, which is surely the smart way to do things, I’m sure, but I just can’t operate under those kind of conditions. If I made it, I want it to be up there right away and luckily, I’m able to do that. Because I want to make more and I feel like if it’s not out, then I don’t really have to make more. But if I put it out, then it’s time to make more.
LJ: So do you feel like you have to release something in order to move on in some ways?
JP: Yeah, probably. Definitely. It’s not a golden rule for me. I mean, I’ve done it other ways. I have a little double record I made before the one I just released and I haven’t released it yet and I’m not sure when I will or if I will, but on average, yeah, I like to do things quickly and have it be out there in the world and let people decide for themselves whether they like it and then move on, and make more. ’cause that’s the part that… I don’t know, that’s the part that fulfills me – is making art. It’s not the rest of it. It’s just art for art’s sake. Which is, if you can operate under those guidelines, then that’s what makes you happy and so the rest of it will fall into place eventually. Or not, and fuck it if it doesn’t (laughs).
LJ: (laughs) Well, my next question was going to be whether self-criticism ever comes into play, but I think that answers that. I guess it just doesn’t matter.
JP: Yeah. I suppose so (laughs) No, it doesn’t matter. Really doesn’t.
LJ: In more than one place, I saw your collection of albums referred to as a “travel guide.”
JP: Oh, yeah?
LJ: Yeah. How do you feel about that description? Is it a good reference?
JP: Sure. It’s a good reference for me. I don’t know if it would be a good reference for anybody else, as a tour guide situation, but it’s from places that have inspired me or places that I found to be very beautiful, or places or important things in my life that have happened. Things that have made an impression on me.
LJ: I think that’s why they said it. I think it’s clear, with the number of albums, that you sort of take advantage, and I mean this in the best way possible, of wherever you are and whatever you’re experiencing and because you’re able to release something on your own accord, you do that.
JP: Absolutely. Yes, ma’am. I try to anyway.
LJ: Do you have a favorite album of yours, or is that too tough of a question to answer?
JP: I mean, it’s a tough one. I have different parts of different ones that are favorites for different reasons, but it mostly has to do with some kind of breakthrough in writing, or acquiring some kind of tool that I hadn’t done before. Writing a certain kind of song that I hadn’t quite been able to find a way to do before. Ya know, on this one, this last one, I kind of found my rhythm with a little bit of a talking blues number, which I had never been able to do without sounding cheesy, so I just never did it. Um, but, adding a little bit of levity to the songs and not just having them be straight sad songs, um, is something I’m kind of a little more proud of on this last run… that there’s actually, even if there’s a hard situation for me, there is humor in everything, which provides a little bit of levity in the record and in the material. Um, but you know, different ones for different reasons. This American was something that I went out into New Mexico, brought myself with some recording gear for a week and turned that out and ya know, at the time I was very very proud of that one and but again, for different reasons, the ones that were made ya know with the guys when we were travelling and being able to pull off a, ya know, You Can Tell Georgia or Paris in the Morning or Take My Blanket and Go in a matter of 3 or 4 days, um, in a studio we’ve never been to. Just stopping in, off of tour, because that’s all we could afford and those have their own things that I love about them as well. And the locations where they were and the things they make me think of, it is a diary I guess for me. But then again, I don’t listen to those, I don’t listen to my records really, unless I’m trying to remember the words to some of them.
LJ: It sounds like there’s a lot going on in the background where you are right now.
JP: Yeah. I’m at Georgia Majestic Lounge in Fayetteville, Arkansas. They’re calling me in.
LJ: That’s the venue you’re playing at tonight?
JP: Yeah.
LJ: I’ll let you go then, I’m sure you have a lot to do.
JP: Oh well, yeah. It was really nice talking with you. Will I see you in Nashville then?
LJ: Yeah, I’ll definitely be at the show and if I see you cross my path, I’ll definitely stop you (laughs).
JP: Yeah, please do, please do. It’d be great to see you.
LJ: Okay cool! Good luck tonight and thank you so much for taking time to talk to me.
JP: No, thank you! Thank you. You’re very good at what you do, so keep doing it.
LJ: Thanks Joe. I appreciate your saying that. Just one last thing… your voicemail is a riot.
JP: Ohhh (laughs) right. Right. I forgot about that (laughs).
LJ: It made me laugh a bunch. It’s very genuine and sincere….and funny (laughs).
JP: Oh good, well, at least I got that (laughs). I’m glad, and thanks for calling me. Hit me up any time.
LJ: Thanks again.
JP: Thank you. Take care. I’ll see you soon.
♦
We all have a lesson to learn from Joe Purdy. There is no separation between Joe Purdy the musician and Joe Purdy the man. In fact, Joe’s personality can be summed up by that lengthy voice message I connected with on his cell phone prior to our interview. He’s honest, gracious, funny and above all, true to himself and to others, through and through. 10 years and 13 albums later, there’s no denying it. The Americana music community is fortunate to have Joe Purdy — an artist who discovered early on that creating music is what he wants to do, and who has proven that by pursuing it at all costs, he was able to avoid doing what others might think he would otherwise have to do. With that ethic, Joe has made his music available to us — from the self-titled Joe Purdy (2001) to Eagle Rock Fire (2014) — straight from his heartstrings to ours. Perhaps it all derives from, as he calls it, the “hillbilly confidence” he’s had ever since his first song “fell out.” Whatever the source, I’m sure that I speak for all of us when I say that we look forward to hearing from Joe again, “at some point in the future,” just as he promised.
AmericanaFest 2014 – Nashville, Tennessee
Our arrival at AmericanaFest on Wednesday began the way it always does — with a celebratory local beverage. We knew Yazoo Brewing Company had crafted a smoked IPA just for AmericanaFest and dubbed it simply, “Americana,” so that us crazed festival goers could not only listen and talk Americana, but drink it too.
With the assurance that we would inevitably sample Yazoo’s “Americana” free of charge at the festival’s upcoming parties and BBQs, we headed to Jackalope Brewing Company on 8th Avenue S.
The bartender greeted us, wearing a Jackalope shirt with a message on the front, which, in just three short words, would foretell the events and our experiences to follow over the next 4 days. The Jackalope message reads:
DO
EPIC
SHIT
And we did.
Keep your eyes focused here on Heartstrings in the days to come. While recovering from severe AmericanaFest withdrawal, we will post coverage of some of our favorite venues, performances and our amazing interviews with Joe Purdy, Israel Nash, Joe Pug, Jonah Tolchin, Nathaniel Rateliff, along with notable and unexpected encounters and our reviews of local eateries, accommodations, transportation (in case your wondering about all those large pink mustaches you saw on the grills of passing cars) and hotspots for good old-fashioned Tennessee warmth and hospitality.
Interview: An Afternoon with Gregory Alan Isakov
Gregory Alan Isakov on the Woods Stage at Pickathon 2014
(Photos: Lauren Jahoda)
In anticipation of his upcoming showcase at AmericanaFest, we interviewed Gregory Alan Isakov about everything from stealing lines from himself, his harmonica mic and his vow to never watch a video of himself to his Colorado farm and his degree in horticulture. We were even able to discuss two of many GAI favorites — “All Shades of Blue” and “If I Go, I’m Goin.” To top it off…well you’ll have to wait and see, but all I’ll say is that there was no shortage of singing during our Thursday afternoon conversation.
During our interview, I told Greg that I felt his trademark is without a doubt his use of the harmonica mic for some of his vocals. The truth is that there is a quality to Greg’s music which projects far greater than that marvelous vintage tone coming from his harmonica mic. Rather, his trademark lies in his ability to access an ultra-private and intimate place, one of which we, like Greg, can say “I’ve only experienced by myself.” There is relevance to every listener in every GAI song, making it a shared and peaceful endeavor; three to five minutes of unrestrained communication. As Greg told me, “It seems almost impossible, but it’s totally amazing when it happens.”
Greg takes the stage at Third Man Records at 9 PM this Thursday, during this year’s AmericanaFest in Nashville, Tennessee. His showcase will be one OF his last US shows before his extensive European tour this fall, and thus this performance is an opportunity that should rise to the very top of everyone’s AmericanaFest schedule.
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Lauren Jahoda: You have 3 full-length albums so far and that’s a lot to choose from when making your set list for a show. How do you choose which songs you’re going to play for a particular venue? Does it vary? Do you pull from one album more than another?
Gregory Alan Isakov: My manager would probably want me to push a certain record but I never do that. I walk into the room for sound check and I usually scribble a little set list right before we go on, once I see the room, because there’s always this balance between what I’m really feeling and what we can get away with in a space. Lately, we have been so lucky being able to get away with songs that might be really slow or really quiet. But sometimes, you can’t get away with those and you sort of have to play the room, and that’s a whole craft in itself – choosing the right music for that evening or room. I usually never stick to a set list much, but I definitely pay attention to how I open the show a lot, and I try to do that as intimately as possible.
LJ: It’s nice to hear that because you generally assume the artist is going to play the most recent material, from the most recent album. I was at Pickathon and I saw both your performances, which were full of the old stuff too, which I love.
GAI: Oh, yea. Thank you. It never feels tired. Playing live is such an amazing thing because every time we do, it feels new, especially when there’s a group of people that you are playing with all the time, because you feel like you can be present with them.
LJ: Every performance has it’s own fingerprint. They’re never the same.
GAI: Never the same.
LJ: Seeing you play so many times over the past several years, I’ve noticed that you often remind the audience at the beginning of the performance that the guys up there on stage with you are your closest friends.
GAI: Yeah. When I started writing songs, I just played by myself wherever, and then I noticed that the people that were my friends, who I was just around, I ended up playing music with, while we we’re all living in the same building, which is how I met my band. It just felt regular as opposed to seeking out these great players from Nashville or wherever. It’s was way more important to me I think and I just got weird-lucky because they’re amazing and we’ve all kind of grown a lot together playing. So I think about that when I’m writing.
LJ: I love to hear you say that. It’s very comforting as a spectator because I feel the performance I’m getting on stage is the same performance you guys are creating in your living room. It’s an insider look.
GAI: Yeah. It does feel that way. That’s important me. That’s cool. I’ve never heard that before. That’s cool.
LJ: This may sound a bit gushy — I think Steve Varney is just about the best banjo player I’ve ever heard.
GAI: Isn’t he? And he would laugh at you so hard because he’s just like “I’m just fakin’ it.” He was just a guitar player and he’s just a killer, killer musician. He’s got such great taste.
LJ: He’s really amazing and seems so versatile.
GAI: He totally is. He’s amazing.
LJ: When you guys did Serialbox Presents, I saw the video you did for “Saint Valentine,” but then you also recorded “Big Black Car.” You have to scroll to the very bottom of the screen to find it, but I have to tell you, I probably listened to it about 100 times in a row because the banjo in it is just so haunting.
GAI: I never watch those. We worked so hard on that arrangement with the banjo because I play banjo on all our recordings and I think it took Steve awhile to figure out how…because at first, I was like no, no you’re too good, can we put a pencil in your hand? And then he took my aesthetic of banjo and did his own thing, which I really love.
LJ: So you never watched the video for SerialBox?
GAI: (laughs) No, I haven’t. I don’t really watch videos of myself ever.
LJ: Why is that?
GAI: I think I tried that a couple of years ago and I remember feeling… the next time I was on stage I felt really self-conscious and said I’m never going to watch myself again (laughs).
LJ: Well that’s commitment, I have to say.
GAI: I live on a farm and I don’t have Internet, which is actually a blessing. If I have to do work or whatever, I have to go to the coffee shop. It’s just one of those things– the last thing I need is more about myself (laughs).
LJ: Are you based in Colorado? Is that where your farm is?
GAI: Yeah.
LJ: Do you plan on going back to Nederland to record your next album?
GAI: Oh yeah. I’m actually writing now. Jamie, our engineer and producer, he also does sound for us when we tour, he lives here on the farm as well, in a trailer, and right now we’re building a studio here in the barn and so our goal is to record here, but we’ll definitely be going back up to the mountain house to do mixing.
LJ: You were born in Johannesburg, South Africa. How long were you there?
GAI: I was there ‘til I was almost 7. So I definitely have a very distinct memory of before and after. I’ve been back there once since I left with my family, and we still have some family there but a lot of us moved all over the world during the apartheid, so we have family in Australia and Canada and all over the place.
LJ: Is that where some of your album art aesthetic comes from?
GAI: I’ve never thought about it.
LJ: I get this 1920s/1930s Wright Brothers feeling to it, myself.
GAI: Yeah, I don’t know where…It’s funny, all the stuff that we’re drawn to. The aesthetic is so interesting. I was just having this conversation with a friend of mine. We were talking about music and how in Colorado there’s a big bluegrass scene and bluegrass has always had a sports vibe to me (laughs). Like how fast can you play!! (laughs) And then you’ll hear a song that holds one chord and it will keel you over and how little playing fast matters, ya know. Most of it is just a sense of aesthetic really, how important that is. I don’t know where it comes from. It’s so weird the stuff that we like. I don’t know why we like what we like.
LJ: It’s so prominent too, which is even funnier. I was looking at your albums and they kind of all have it in their own way. I love it, I think it fits really well even though we might not know what it is.
GAI: Yeah, totally.
LJ: Your brother — I remembering you saying at a show that he writes songs with you. What’s that like? What’s the process?
GAI: It’s awesome. He’s just like this weirdo-genius kid. He used to live with me in the summers and then go back to Pennsylvania to work. He teaches piano and writes scores for documentary films. But he’ll like break out a mandolin and just sing. We wrote a song called “Second Chances” together and so he has that like…you know, on the mandolin one day and he’s just playing it and… (sings) “If weren’t for second chances, we’d all be alone,” you know, on the mandolin, and I was like, I didn’t even know you played the mandolin! (laughs). So then I was like, hold on and I ran outside, and I wrote the verses…I ran in the garden and wrote the verses, came back in and we finished that song real fast. But a lot of times, he’ll have these seeds that I think are just brilliant that he might not even pay any attention to. He’s just amazing.
LJ: Yeah. Sometimes you need someone to pick it up for you and it works out really well. That must be an awesome experience.
GAI: Yea, it’s really cool. I’m really close with my brothers. I have two brothers and we’re best friends. It’s awesome.
LJ: That’s funny. I’m one of three girls so I know what it’s like.
GAI: Really?
LJ: Are you the middle child?
GAI: I am, yeah.
LJ: I am also.
GAI: Oohh, that’s awesome! I got lucky that way.
LJ: It is kind of a cool role.
LJ: I really like the female vocal in That Moon Song. Who is that?
GAI: She sings back up on This Empty Northern Hemisphere. Her name is Brandi Carlisle. She’s amazing and she’s a really good friend of mine. Her voice fucking belongs in a museum or something. She’s amazing. She’s such an inspiring artist to me. Her energy and her musicality is mind-blowing to me.
LJ: The two of you together on that song – it’s enchanting.
GAI: Yea, she’s got it, and those were one-takes. I just saw her play actually. I was on a long camping trip in my van. I saw her play for the Portland Symphony. It was so awesome.
LJ: Let’s talk about your sound from the two microphones you use while performing — I consider that your signature. How did it come about?
GAI: I love camping in the wilderness and for me music was never a plan as a career. I was in horticulture school. I loved the wilderness. I loved camping and so I would go on long camping trips and I’d play at coffee shops to pay for gas. I’d do one show in Bozeman for 15 people and try to sell 10 CDs and then do Missoula 5 days later (laughs). I’d end up playing these gigs at bars and you’d get 9 PM to midnight or 1 AM, so 3 1/2 hour shows…that’s a lot of music. I’d have to learn a couple of covers but a lot of them are original and I used to play through a harmonica mic and then I just started singing through it just to give myself a break during a 3 ½ hr show. Then I got really into the sound of it. Within a year after that, I started writing for that microphone. Kind of like this subconscious voice I had that seemed to really work. And that mic is a piece of crap. I’ve re-soldered it so many times. They’re really cheap harmonica mics. It’s not going through anything, it’s just going through the house which is great. And Jamie has a love/hate relationship with it because it feeds back a lot so…(laughs)
LJ: I love it. It’s definitely your trademark.
GAI: Yeah. That’s cool. It sort of just happened because I was tired of hearing myself for the 3 ½ hours (laughs).
LJ: About your degree in horticulture — I view gardening and horticulture as a very emotional and sentimental activity that is often passed down from generation to generation. How did you get into it?
GAI: I dropped out of high school and I ended up moving to the city with my drummer, in Philly, and I realized oh man, I can’t live in the city ever. I ended up kind of falling into this really dark place for quite a long time, and a friend of mine said “Hey, I’m going to hike some of the Appalachian trail, do you want to come?” And I didn’t know anything about hiking and camping, and we went to K-Mart or something and I bought a bag and the first 10 days I had canned food. I didn’t know anything about backpacking and we were out there for a long time, and I don’t know, I just woke up to the scent of the natural world and plants in general where I just felt this really strong connection to plants. And my granny, my grandmother was a gardener and I grew up gardening a little bit. But it never had that kind of profound effect on me and even then I didn’t know why I was so drawn to working with plants. I still don’t get it. The weirdo new-age hippy part of my brain it goes “Cool. Well, maybe the earth needs more of those and they made you like it,” you know? (laughs). It’s a weird thing to love but, it’s a huge part of my life.
LJ: You were in the right place at the right time. You sort of needed to be in that moment to be grabbed by something else.
GAI: Yeah. I think when I first had my first vegetable garden around that time. I thought man, I’ve never even tasted food before. I don’t think I’ve ever really known what food was actually like until I was picking it out of the garden.
LJ: I know what you mean.
GAI: It was a cool feeling.
LJ: I met a friend at Pickathon. Apparently he’s a mutual friend of ours. His name is Asher. He said you used to play at a place called The Gryphon Café. Was that a pivotal place in your career?
GAI: Oh yeah. I love Asher. He’s a really old friend of mine from back in those days. Gryphon was an old school coffeehouse that you would picture in the 60s at that time. You could smoke upstairs. There were all these shows every night and all the little vagrant kids would hang out there all the time. We would always cut high school and hang out there all day. It was that place.
LJ: This is a personal question, but I have to ask it. Who do you write about?
GAI: I don’t think it’s a specific person. I’m not in a relationship or married or anything like that. The characters that make it in to the songs are a mixture of people that are either from my past or that I meet here and there. A song about a town might be maybe about really three or four different places. For me, songwriting is never quite that literal. Even when I go for that, when I try, and say like “I’m going to write a story song like Springsteen” or something, that’s a hard thing for me to do for some reason and it never feels like the songs write themselves that way, in my experience and yeah, there are definitely pieces of people in all the songs I write.
LJ: Can I ask you about “All Shades of Blue”? How did you come up with that? That’s a favorite of mine.
GAI: Oh, really, I love that song too. Actually, I was just fishing in Colorado, here in Lyons, with my dear friend Annie and we were working…and my friend Johann, a friend in Austin, we’re super nerdy together — we write a lot of songs together, and we were fishing and I had just come up with …(sings) “when the wine stop workin’ and you’re all run out and all of your high hopes have all headed south…” and then he would be like…“and the songs left the stable…” — and it’s funny, because he’s like, that’s something you would write (laughs) and so we just started swapping these lines and that song just kind of wrote itself and is like, really strong.
LJ: That makes sense because before the song officially came out, I watched a video of you performing it and the lyrics were different than what’s on the album, slightly.
GAI: Oh, yeah, I know. This is a problem that I have. (laughs) This happens to me all time. Which, I don’t think people were as worried about before YouTube or whatever. But, a really huge way for me to finish songs is for me is to play them live. Last night, we booked a secret show, just last minute at a bar. So we played for a couple of hours at this little bar here, just for about 20 or 30 people that were there and I was just playing new songs just to see how they were gonna happen, and I remember that’s how I used to write a lot…just kind of in that moment of that pressure, of like okay just finish…your kind of like pleading the song to finish itself. It’s a really good tool for me to finish songs because I have a lot of starts and sometimes they don’t finish themselves unless I put ’em on the spot. I think that song kind of found its words later after playing it out a bunch and figuring out what sang well. And then another problem that I have is that I’ll steal lines from myself all the time. I’ll finish a song and then later thing this is where that “cut down the cottonwoods” line should go, and then I’ll write something else for that other tune (laughs). I do it all the time. It’s a problem (laughs). I steal lines from myself all the time.
LJ: I think that’s the best case scenario.
GAI: (laughs) Yeah.
LJ: Another song that stays with me a lot is “If I Go, I’m Goin”.
GAI: Oh yeah, that’s another song I wrote with Johann. You should check out his music. It’s really cool. He goes under J. Wagner. He’s from Austin and he’s such a solid songwriter. He’s kind of like a Steinbeck with his songwriting. He just has that about him and we write together a lot. He’ll say “We can’t use the words ghost or moon!” (laughs). We’ll walk around town and spend like $9 on coffee or whatever, because we’re going after that one line and it could take all day (laughs). That’s really fun. “If I Go” we wrote on a long trip down to Kerrville, TX and Johann goes down there and we just kind of meet up and hang out for a few weeks and I had my truck and we just kinda sat in the back of the truck and then we’re working on the verses and chorus and we’re up to this part where it’s …(sings) “I will go, if you ask me to…” and then this guy John, our friend John Eliot, just walks by and he’s like ..”I’ll stay if you dare!” And we’re like “alright!” (laughs). He’s another great musician, and then he just disappears into the…and he’s just gone (laughs). That whole song was a co-write. All 3 of us. And then John came in at the end and sort of helped us a little bit more with it. That song happened pretty fast. We were trying to write a song, we after writing a story song about a woman, or about a guy who lost his wife and he was living in that house where she had died and he kinda goes crazy.
LJ: That’s amazing to me because I think about what it feels like listening to that song. It feels like such a lonely, personal, haunting, intimate song, and yet you wrote it collaboratively.
GAI: It’s amazing to me too. I know. I never would have thought working with other people, other writers, that you could actually access that place where I’ve only experienced by myself. It seems almost impossible, but it’s totally amazing when it happens.
LJ: It’s an amazing song. Would you mind singing something for me now, that you’ve already released or maybe something you haven’t released?
GAI: Yeah sure. Ah, let’s see, I can play you the morning…this morning’s song.
LJ: It’s called “This Morning”?
GAI: Oh, no…it’s this one I worked on this morning (laughs).
LJ: (laughs) maybe you should name it This Morning!
GAI: Alright, let’s do This Morning Song….
—
At this point GAI took out his headphones, picked up his guitar and began to sing and play what even he was now calling “This Morning Song,” i.e. the song which was so new, it was otherwise yet to be titled.
As I listened, I reflected on how effortless and enjoyable our time talking on the phone had been, and it occurred to me that, it just simply makes sense that Gregory is as genuine and engaging in conversation as he is when speaking through his music. When you are genuine, it can be no other way. And now, his newest song, which quite possibly no one else had ever heard him play, was dancing around the room I was in– as passionately delivered and as stunning as any of the performances I’d enjoyed in venues packed with full audiences. But this time it was just me, “on the phone with Greg,” having a private live concert of the song he had just created in the morning hours before our call. I don’t hesitate to gush. The experience was surreal, and I marveled at his ability to instantaneously transition from thoroughly engaging light-hearted conversation, to full-on, deeply-passionate immersion into his craft. I thought “pure genius, at the flick of a switch.” But it’s not that at all. The genius and genuineness are ever present. Always at the ready. Inherent. I’d heard it before, and I am even more certain of it now.
If you’ve heard his music, then you know what it’s like too. When you hear a GAI song, it only takes a moment to know that it’s a GAI song, and with every album, he gives us something new within the frame work of that familiar magic. There’s a strikingly unusual chord in the new song. One I’d not heard him use before. It resurfaced briefly within the progression of each verse, and each time it came back around I could hear the master working, assimilating it into the familiar magic of his sound, even transforming the chord itself into “a GAI chord” — hauntingly beautiful.
I don’t know if “This Morning Song” will ever officially be the title for the new song or when his next album might be released, but I do know that this artist continues to bring us great music at it’s genuine best.
Again, don’t forget to catch Greg’s performance at Third Man Records during AmericanaFest, Thursday (9/18) at 9 PM.
Magic Is Real: Pickathon 2014
By: Asher Alexander
I love Pickathon. That’s probably the biggest understatement I could possibly write. In truth, there aren’t adequate words in English, or any other language, that can describe my affection for and connection to the magic that transpires on Pendarvis Farm each year on the first full weekend of August. There is also no amount too large of flowery praise and superlatives I could heap upon this festival that would ever in a million years even come close to hyperbole. I know it sounds fantastic, but Pickathon is very special, it’s more than a festival. From the line-up, which is always so diverse and exciting that you look forward to the artists you’ve never heard before as much as the groups you already know and love, to a setting that always seems to produce true musical transcendence at a higher level than anywhere else I’ve ever experienced live music. And finally, to the amazing friends, with whom I get to share some of the best times I’ve ever had — Pickathon is absolutely one of a kind.
One of the many features that sets Pickathon apart from every other festival is the camping. When most folks picture camping at a festival, images of harsh sun-bleached fields covered with tents and vehicles packed in like sardines, full of wasted teenagers making all manner of noise at all hours of the night, usually comes to mind. Every year at Pickathon campers turn beautiful acres of shaded, hilly woods into a tent filled Brigadoon for just a weekend. Don’t get me wrong, my friends and I, and many other folks, stay up late and party each night, but the camping area remains the most chill and respectful festival camping situation I’ve ever seen. When the music is over at Pickathon, people aren’t herded out of the concert fields and back to their tents. The farm is pretty much turned over to everyone and the entirety of the festival grounds are ours to roam and play in all night long.
Some of my all time favorite Pickathon moments have happened out amongst the trees, tents and revelers after the music has officially ended. Three years ago I threw an impromptu pizza party at 3 or 4 AM for all my friends and everyone who still gathered in the field by the main stage. Last year Marco Benevento played a surprise set at the Pumphouse that began around 2 AM and ended sometime just before sunrise. So many memorable late nights/early mornings have been spent singing old John Prine songs and having generally the best time ever while sitting under the breathing fabric ceiling by the main stage or at a campsite deep in the woods. Last year my good friend Gregg and I insisted on serenading everyone who was still assembled at the Brew Crew Camp at about 8 AM Monday morning with “Goodnight Irene.” It was finally time to turn in and to our shock, none of the remaining pickers knew the tune — isn’t “Goodnight Irene” the first song everybody learns?
This year, there was certainly no shortage of late night/early morning magic. Personally, my late nights at Pickathon usually follow the same formula each year: 2-4-6-8. That is, I stay up until about 2 AM on Thursday, 4 AM on Friday, 6 AM on Saturday and 8 AM on Sunday. This isn’t intentional, but it always seems to work out that way. I head to the farm early on Thursday to get a good spot for my VW camper van. The same spot along the tree line where I’ve camped for the last 3 years. The trees keep my van shaded until about 10:30 AM, so no matter how late I stay up, I’m always able to get some sleep. My van has become essential to my Pickathon experience. I love camping and I love festivals, but I’m way too old and too much of a light sleeper to get any quality rest in a tent. And I’m not the only one. The car camping area is always full of VW’s. So much so that it looks like it could be a Westy cruise-in. I think we should all have van club jackets covered in patches for all the rallies or festivals we’ve been to.
Another pretty obvious reason for going in early on Thursday–who wouldn’t want to tack another day of fun onto what is always the highlight of the year and annual “Best Weekend Ever.” This year I saw more folks out early on Thursday than I’d ever seen. I spent Thursday night chillin’ with my good friends from Brew Dr. Kombucha. They are one of the vendors at the festival and over the years they’ve become some of my favorite members of my Pickathon family. Not only do they make a killer beverage but they are some of the greatest all around dudes ever. It’s an honor and a privilege to get to hang out with them each year. They always have a large group camp site that’s a perfect place to chill late night, stop by while traveling from the Woods stage to the main stage or if I need a place to beat the heat during the day between sets.
Friday night’s post music adventures were mellow by necessity. I’m 35. I probably haven’t been in a mosh pit in 20 years. But when Diarrhea Planet whipped the occupants of the Galaxy Barn into a frenzy, my friends and I made sure we were right in the thick of it. It was absolutely bonkers! After leaving the sauna of the Barn, dripping with sweat and the sweat of everyone else inside we were exhausted and needed quite a while to cool down, even in the 2 AM air. All the late night called for after that was some easy strolling through the gently lit paths of the woods. My friend Angela and I just moseyed from jam session to jam session. People were picking on the hay bales by the Woods Stage, in their campsites and in one case right in the middle of a path deep in the woods. Someone (or possibly a bear) in a tent no more than a foot away from the players and assembled listeners obliviously kept time with the music, with possibly the loudest snoring I’ve ever heard. They certainly didn’t need the comforts of a camper van to get a good night’s sleep.
The last set in the Galaxy Barn each night usually sets the tone for the rest of the evening. Saturday night’s Marco Benevento fueled dance party was no exception. After years of hearing me preach about the wonders of Pickathon, a bunch of old friends of mine finally came out for the day. Possibly just to shut me up. But after seeing them all bouncing around the Barn as Marco played a cockeyed, spaced out version of “Jump Into the Fire” by Harry Nilsson, I was sure that they “got it” and had their very first taste of Pickathon late night fun. Afterwards we all went to relax at my van. It’s not just a place to sleep, but also makes a pretty good mobile living room. Once all of those day trippers headed home, my fellow weekend warriors and I knew what the next stop on the evenings journey needed to be: The Pumphouse.
The Pumphouse is Pickathon’s best-worst kept secret. A small structure, big enough for a band to play inside, nestled in a clearing encircled by christmas lights and outfitted with some comfy couches and usually a keg or 2. It’s not on any maps and what goes on there isn’t advertised. You just have to know someone who knows where it is or have the good fortune to stumble upon it yourself. During the day, bands play special sessions for KEXP Live & Breathing. You usually need a backstage wristband to get in. But at night the rules get a little looser and it becomes the hub of Pickathon late night activity.
Once we arrived at the Pumphouse Saturday night things were already in full swing. There was plenty of music being made. A fellow and I traded sad country songs by Gram Parsons, Townes and George Jones, but I have an awful memory and all the lyrics to every song I’ve ever known are just a jumble in my brain. It turned out that neither of us could remember more than a verse or two and the choruses of the tunes we wanted to sing. I ran into plenty of friends and made plenty of new ones. Whiskey was consumed. There was a lot of talk about what everyone had seen that day and who they were excited to see next. It was a fantastic party. It just happened to be in the middle of the woods.
The night grew longer and we could see the morning light come creeping through the trees. A group of friends and I resolved to stroll back to camp. While everyone else was distracted by some pickers on the path, I grabbed a gal that I had been hanging out with that evening and said “Follow me. You’re gonna want to see this!” I lead us down a path to the edge of the trees. Once we broke through the tree line we were treated to the most beautiful sunrise I think either of us had ever seen. We laid down at the top of the hill by the main stage and watched the dim morning rays, growing brighter and stronger by the minute, all filtered through the crisscross patterns of the fabric diamonds that hung in the sky. It was Sunday morning. So, to complete the picture perfect scene, I dialed up “Sunday Morning” by The Velvet Underground on my phone (what did people do before Spotify?!). As we listened to Lou Reed’s mellow baritone and marveled at the unfolding dawn we knew we were witnessing a special moment of Pickathon magic.
I always think that Saturday nights shenanigans might be hard to top. But one of the things I’ve learned is to never doubt Pickathon’s ability to raise its own bar. Sunday being the final night, everybody always steps their game up, eager to wring the last drops of fun out of an already epic weekend. Sunday night at the Pumphouse was probably the ultimate highlight, at least for everyone who was there. For me, the scene truly symbolized what Pickathon is all about. Mac Demarco and the guys in his band were leading everyone in a late night sing along of 90’s radio jams like Michael Jackson’s “Man In The Mirror,” Weezer’s “Sweater Song” and “Waterfalls” by T.L.C. And it really felt like everyone. There was Shakey Graves, his drummer, the guys from Parquet Courts, the gals from Warpaint, and everyone, and me. All hanging out together, singing together, laughing together. The lines between performer, volunteer and attendee were completely blurred. I think that’s one of the main thing that the folks behind Pickathon are going for. The scene Sunday night at the Pumphouse was proof that they’re succeeding probably beyond their wildest dreams.
As Sunday night melted into Monday morning we finally parted ways with the last few folks gathered at the Pumphouse. It was time to head back to camp, then back to sleep and finally, sadly back to the real world. But Pickathon wasn’t quite done with us yet. We made one last visit to Brew Camp, where there is always a raging Sunday night party. We stopped to chat with some of the last few stragglers who were still awake at a time when many folks were just waking up. Then at 7:30 in the morning something happened that sounds so fantastical I might not believe it were I not there myself or anywhere other than Pickathon. Sherry Pendarvis, owner of the farm, founder of the feast, came riding by on a white horse thanking everybody for coming. Now I am positive that sort of thing doesn’t happen at any other festival.
You don’t have to stay up socializing and reveling all night like I do to have a good time at Pickathon. I know plenty of folks who turn in when the music ends each night and still have the best weekend ever. There is no right or wrong way to experience Pickathon. As long as you’re there with an open heart and mind, the music, community, vibe and spirit will eventually burrow it’s way deep in your soul and there’s a pretty good chance you’ll learn what my friends and I know–I know magic is real because I’ve been to Pickathon.
(Photography by Asher Alexander)
HEARTSTRINGS MAGAZINE 