Hi, how’s it going? You’re coming back to the UK soon and we’re super excited. The last time you were here was for BST Hyde Park, which was such a special evening – can you talk me through what that performance meant to you and then to be returning to the UK at The Roundhouse?

Yes, ok the UK never disappoints, I mean I’ve had unreal experiences every time I’ve gone over there, so the last time I got to fly over with my daughter for the first time – the first time taking her abroad, which was incredible. She got to be backstage and running around where Elton John had been the night before – I mean it was Hyde Park, get out of here! We haven’t been able to play The Otherside album really for you guys, so we got to do it in this really organic and authentic way. I was a little nervous, just because there’s Robert Plant and Alison Krauss and The Eagles and everyone coming on. I’m trusting that people will want to hear this intimate thing. It was just amazing, how it always is, everyone, even in that big of a crowd, were really listening. I could hear my voice flying over across this whole crowd and people were just taking it in.

That must be really strange, because the album was released during the pandemic and then you’re finally being able to see audience’s reactions – it’s almost like the album is having two separate lives. 

Oh, it has been so weird. You kind of have to do two things at once at all times, so we planned this Otherside tour, which we got to do some of last year, after Hyde Park, in the US. It was incredible, I put so much thought into this tour and how it would work. It was very small, but with these big emotional moments. I created exactly what I wanted and I’m really proud of that. It was very intentional to sculpt something that has this arc to it – it was very hard and very rewarding. I’m so thrilled to now be coming to The Roundhouse and to bring that show to everyone. It’s so funny though, because I’m here working on the next album. You have to celebrate it, because then you get to enjoy the next one.

Talking about bringing your daughter over, I can imagine now you’re approaching your next project slightly differently to your last, as a mother?

I think at the beginnings of it, you’re just so overwhelmed, because you don’t have any sleep and we were also navigating the pandemic. Any time it’s a very uncertain kind of thing, hiding in a cocoon, but also the world is still moving and you’re navigating ‘who am I?’ There’s so much to parenting that we don’t warn people nearly enough and it’s not really a good set up. At the beginning, it sucked so much of my energy into her that I felt very pragmatic about where I would be spending energy outside of her. I didn’t want to spend energy on things I didn’t want to do. If someone has an idea that’s great, I’m down to go with it, but also I just really want to write what I want to write and I’ve always done that but it’s got a little more cutthroat. I think it evolved, now that she’s grown and I find myself in these moments where I want to leave her things and ideas and questions, maybe some answers will help but also to let her know that I ask the same questions too. It’s wild. 

Well I feel even during the pandemic, there was a lot more introspection around who we are as people, so it’s almost doublefold then experiencing motherhood for the first time.

Yeah, I think it landed where it was really relatable at least to go out and think well if I’m going to go on tour, I want it to be exactly what I want, I want people to have the space to feel these things, where when you’re in survival mode – and a lot of parenting is in survival mode – you have the space to drop that and stop being protective and just feel it, cry and laugh and scream and do what you want to do. That resonated, because I think everyone was going through it, and I was going through it as a parent, so yeah 100%. I think also with how it went in the US last year, things are not going back to running smoothly – buses are breaking down, or not available, when you get into places, a lot of the staff are no longer there so it’s harder to run these events. You’re appreciative of when things do go right and when things do go wrong you let it roll off your back and you go into it, knowing you want to do this enough, where when things are going wild, I’m still following my little North Star. Having that extra commitment, I think saved me in some of those moments. I’m happening to life, as much as it is happening to me. 

Obviously, we don’t have the details yet, but everyone is excited for whatever we hear next from you. Do you have any idea yet what that is going to look like? How much do you think we can expect change to have happened?

Lots of change. I love change, I think it reminds you of who you really are. I fully embrace it, and I think if what you do after all this that has happened to us – parenting and the pandemic – if you are sounding exactly the same, even dressing the same – it feels weird. It doesn’t make sense, I mean it literally doesn’t fit. You just have to be different. It’s still me, it’s still my voice and still my songs and songwriting, but I was so excited for this show that we’re bringing to The Roundhouse. I’m so proud of what we made and so, I’m making this next album purposely, to make this tour a really incredible thing that I want to do, it’s all tied into a full, real experience. Not to scare anyone, but of course it’s different. 

I mean, I’m excited about it – from Untamed to The Otherside, there was a great deal of change, but it was a beautiful, organic thing and then I think that will probably be a thing for the next thing that happens. Finally, what does this continuing relationship with the UK mean to you – it’s been a beautiful, mutual love affair to behold. 

I feel that too, it’s so wonderful. I’m always so excited to get back over there. I mean, literally, because we haven’t had a chance to tour the UK. Hyde Park was in London, but it breaks my heart that we can’t do the full tour, because the pandemic threw a wrench in everything. If it were financially possible, and all those things, I would be doing it. The plus side is that this new thing is coming and then the first thing, I’m planning on figuring out how to come back to the UK. I don’t know what it is, but it seems we love the same things and we’re asking the same questions, or something. It feels like we’re all in tune and it’s so wonderful, except I hope that anyone who sees the shows feels it too. I’m always excited to be there, and it feels like I get to give people the show that’s been perfected and laying the groundwork for when we’ll be back soon with this other new gift that we have for everyone. I appreciate that everybody’s gone through something and we’ve remained connected, but it will be so good to see everyone more often. 

Well it’s always a pleasure to chat to you, and we can’t wait for the show.

The post INTERVIEW: Cam on The Roundhouse, New Music and the UK appeared first on off the record.

Welcome back to the UK. Congratulations on the new single – can you talk a little bit about the track and writing it?

Yeah, so ‘Lost Its Allure’… I think that I’ve just gone through such a lot of loss and grief in my life in such a short amount of time, so life has just changed so much, I don’t think that I could adapt to it in a week or two. It was just a feeling that I’d had, I just felt like I’d lost my sparkle and shininess and how did I get that back? It’s just a song that I wrote about that that I thought was just important to share.

It’s so important, I know that you really do delve into the depths of pain in your music, you don’t just go surface level. Has that always been important to you in your music?

Yeah, I want to connect with the listener and be as honest as I can. I always want that authenticity to come through in my music – whether it’s a sad song or not, that level of realness to always be there.

You must have had so many stories about your music reaching people

Yeah, someone was just talking to me today about how ‘Fool Your Own Blood’ was so special to them in their relationship and their family. That’s just amazing.

I feel aesthetically, you really seem to have evolved with this song. Is that something that’s also important to you, to visually create eras in your music, as much as sonically?

Yeah, I mean it has to evolve, but it also has to be real – I can’t just manufacture a new look and a new sound. I just let it be real and let the change show. Yeah, the new album that’s coming, there’s still lots of sad songs, but I do think it’s evolving from how it started.

Obviously, Glasshouse Children was the big introduction to you and your music that you continued in the deluxe version, with ‘Tilted Crowns.’ Can you talk a bit about the deluxe version and what you wanted to achieve in the addition of those songs?

Yeah, I just had more to say and I know I needed new music out and I thought that that was the best way – rather than starting a new project. I felt that I really wasn’t done in telling the ‘Glasshouse’ story yet, so I just needed to kind of tie a bow on it and push it out. I’m really happy with how it turned out.

I think part of the allure of that project is that you are really part of the vanguard of artists changing the face and sound of what it means to be an artist in country right now. Obviously, you have this rich heritage behind you but do you feel a degree of responsibility in leading country into this new realm?

Yeah, I just do my best to be myself. I think a lot of people get caught up in thinking how to be more country and how to be more like a certain person. I just don’t see that for myself – to be more like the next person, the more unique and special it is the better. I don’t want to remind people of someone else. I want them to be dumbfounded and think that they don’t know anyone else like this.

We can’t not talk about the masterpiece of the song – Tilted Crowns – can you talk a little about what that song meant to you and come out in that way?

‘Tilted Crown’ is just a story of redemption and regaining confidence. I never planned on coming out as gay in the video, but that was just what we wrote in the video and I just thought that it was the best thing to do. I speak so much about authenticity, if I didn’t show that part of myself, I just felt like I was hiding.

It was so perfectly done. Now that the album is out, what do you feel that record did for your career?

It really helped me get over imposter syndrome, wondering if I was a nepotism baby and I felt like I was able to put down a foundation of writing and artistry and creativity.

It felt like you already knew who you are before you released the debut.

I felt like it was iconic. You know the saying of having a life to write your first album, now I’m working on the second album and it’s a little more difficult. What to I want to say exactly now? Have my sad songs, but also have the more upbeat songs and the opportunity to grow more commercially as an artist and move from independent to mainstream in my music as well.

Going into the next phase then, what can we expect?

I would say it’s more dreamy. It’s more explorative and the longing is still there, it hasn’t gone anywhere, but it has to grow. It’s been a tumultuous few years for me personally, so I feel like it’s been a rollercoaster.

Thank you.

The post INTERVIEW: Sam Williams on His Heritage and Creation of His Debut Album appeared first on off the record.

Your debut album was extraordinary. I remember from the first lines it really captured me, when you spoke about ‘Cars like spaceships, flyin’ down the highway / People underneath, treated like strays.’ We don’t often hear people talking like that in country songs, yet alone music generally, so you saying that in the first line was just mesmerizing. Can you talk a little bit about that song and what it meant to you?

Of course, so not to get too personal off the bat, that song when I first wrote it, it was supposed to talk about division and how that makes us feel alone and all of us feeling alienated anyway. It was kind of ironic because, after that album came out, my brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He has had a very hard time finding communities to be a part of. It’s been the most difficult thing. He has chosen homelessness, and now the song has taken on even more new meanings, because it’s now my responsibility, as a sister – how do I care for my brother as best as I can? Now, I’m seeing the government in America doesn’t really support people with mental illness and most of the people out on the streets, that are struggling with homelessness – about 80% of them have a mental illness. That line, in particular, has taken on an even greater new meaning, because I pass cars all the time – brand new Teslas and the like – and how many of those people’s times are taken up thinking about this, and I’m not pointing any fingers, I’m guilty of it as well.

Well, it’s an extraordinary song. There’s so much pain there, but sonically it feels very empowered. Was that a conscious decision?

Yes, it definitely was. There’s a lot of songs on the album that have a lot of hurt behind them, I mean I can’t write without putting pain in it – that’s probably why my voice is so soulful, and why the music is so soulful. It will always have that thread in it and that’s mostly because I’ve just been through a lot of s**t. I can’t not be honest about that. I don’t mind telling anyone about the stuff that I’ve been through in my life.

I think there’s been a movement in music generally, over the past few years, to be more honest. It’s not just love songs any more, there’s less fear to talk about deeper issues and that’s the throughline that came through in the record.

I have a theory on that. So, I completely agree with you and I think that’s why we’re now seeing artists like Billie Eilish, Phoebe Bridgers and Noel Kahn who are talking about these really painstaking issues, whether it’s in their own personal lives or whatever. I think post-COVID, we were all in such survival mode that it was just ‘give me the party music, something to drown out this world event that’s happening’ and now that we’re two to three years past all of that, now it’s hitting us. Like what the f**k did we all just go through? Now, we’re all just having this delayed reaction to this really traumatic thing that we all went through and now we have a badge of honour to show for it and I don’t want to listen to another song about going to a bar and partying. I want to hear something that’s going to help me process this pain that we’re all going through.

It’s like in ‘Port City’ where you talk about needing to sink in order to swim… There’s so many influences in your music and I hate that we even feel the need to pigeon hole by genre, but can you talk about the evolution of your music to now be relating to the country genre. It’s been through a proper journey over the past several years.

It has, and you know because it sounds like you know my catalogues, but I started in jazz and then went into soul and RnB. I started writing in pop for a little bit, and now I’m in country and Americana. You hear all of that in the record, you hear rock on the record with ‘Spurs’ and even ‘Crashlanded’ has some rock elements.

I love that transition from ‘Crashlanded’ to ‘Spurs,’ feeling increasingly empowered.

It’s sonically and lyrically supposed to do that. I think ‘Crashlanded’ was supposed to tell the listener, right out of the gate, that we’re going to be really vulnerable on this record and then ‘Spurs’ was an encouragement to tell it like it is. I wanted the listener to hear that.

Obviously, this was the debut album, did you feel the weight of that behind you and how did that sit with you when you went in to write and record the songs?

There were a lot of songs that didn’t make the record that I wanted to. I’m a true believer in the record, I don’t like these 30+ song records. At the end of the day, you’re trying to tell a story – cover to cover, and sometimes that can get overindulgent. For an artist like me, because I’m newer in the country music space, if I put out a record like that, no one’s going to listen to it. I think 12 to 14 is the perfect number of songs to put out, everything that needs to be said can be said across those songs. That’s my theory. It also makes you more strategic about what you’re picking – there might be some songs that don’t make the record that you save for the next one.

You’re so open about the faith as well on the record, which is so refreshing – people don’t really share that any more. Again, was that a very conscious thing you wanted to share?

I don’t know what it’s like here in the UK, but the American church has a very bad reputation. I’ve been very burned by the church and Christian culture, multiple times and it keeps stinging. I wanted to talk about my faith, but I also wanted to show that the Christian culture can be different than what the media has portrayed it to be. A lot of church culture in the US is very homophobic, it’s very divisive and there’s a lot of judgement there. Jesus at the end of the day was about exclusivity, I believe that. I just wanted people to see a Christian that didn’t believe that and believed in how Jesus actually walked when he was here.

I was very conscious in listening to the record that you took listeners on an intentional journey – can you talk me through that process?

It took a few months, I took the order that I thought and then I’d run it past artists and people that I trusted, and then people would send back their notes. I don’t mind taking notes from people, I still want their opinion though it’s my decision at the end of the day. It would keep switching and it was a process, it had to be perfect because as much as the songs are a story, so is the album a story from front to back. I wanted to tell a story of my life, and someone else’s life that they can insert their story into.

I think one of my favourite songs on the record is ‘How Strong I Am,’ can you talk me through the evolution of that song?

Man, that one was a sneaky one. That song gets overshone a lot, because of ‘Mama, Dolly’ and ‘Spurs’… that song is kind of the theme of the record though, my belief system is that we have so many things in society distracting us from going through really dark sh*t, whether they know it or not, it’s just bypassing you from growth. It just gets deeper down inside of you, masking little traumas. The day I decided that the only out of this is through it, going to therapy, building a community and being honest with them, asking them to call me out. Now, I have this system set up where I go through the pain, I don’t do it perfectly but I always get better results when I go through that. It’s so simple.

It was so lovely to talk to you today.

The post INTERVIEW: Madeline Edwards on C2C, Crashlanded and Her Evolution as an Artist appeared first on off the record.

Hi, how are you doing today?

Not bad.

Congratulations on the new single, the sound is fantastic. It’s changed so much since High Country Sound, how much did that record change the game and enact a big musical reset for you?

It totally was. It was a full reset for me, coming from a major label when we had the ‘Love You Like That’ single, it was an entirely different experience – the song selections for the project had to be approved, the production was not in my hands, having to be a slave to the road and the radio shows. The way you make an album and a single work is that you do the dog and pony show, and you go where you have to go to make it work. It was awesome and the pay-off is that you get a number one song. I became a little bit lost in the process. I didn’t even have a gauge for where I wanted my footprint to be.

I guess you begin to question what your music even is at that point?

Yep, and don’t get me wrong, I had songs on Bronco that I still pay in my set and I’m really proud of. I’m super proud of that song and what it did for my career – it was a launching pad. I think I just needed to get away from everyone else’s opinions and – for better or worse – do it for myself. So, I had to just go back to the drawing board for a minute and write a ton of new material and be re-inspired. I found it. I found that inspiration, back in some really simplistic storytelling and production that I was not leaning into prior. There’s a simplistic approach to High Country Sound that really leans on the classic instruments, underproduction, but I think it was still a good middle ground to be competitive, but not feel like it’s following in anyone else’s footsteps.

It’s carving the path out to be who you want to be and bridge that gap in the sound. It opens more avenues rather than shutting them off.

Yeah, and it didn’t make me want to continue to deliver the same album again, but it did make me realise I have my own brand of what I offer. I thought ‘Heartbreak Heaven’ was a good segway from the High Country Sound album, which leaned heavily on my Virginia roots – camping and mountain lifestyle – and taking that same approach musically but also realising that the subject matter can shift.

Well it’s so much fun as a song, from the production to the lyrics. It’s fun and it’s catchy but there’s that infusion of High Country Sound in there. I know you produced this one, so how important is it to you now, to have that reins on the production?

Yeah, it was important to me to just know that I could pull it off. For my own sanity, I didn’t know, it was stepping away from feeling like I had to have too many opinions, I had to be able to stand on my own two feet. It was a test, basically, to see if I could get a finished project across the line.

The test was completed.

Yes, it was a lot of work, I’m not going to lie. I’m not married to the idea that I’ve got to produce going forward, but I’ve really enjoyed it.

I guess it also means that when you now step into the studio with a producer, you have a little more confidence to have a say if you don’t like the direction that a song is going in?

When it feels right in the studio, it is generally something that I’m proud of when it’s finished. My whole game going forward is to just make sure that the vibes are captured the right way. If I feel like doing it myself, I will but if I need someone else to come in and put some fresh ears on it, then I’ll do that. I’m at the stage of my career, where if I’m not shipping things to radio, I don’t have a team right now, I’m fully independent, really my only mission is to do something proud of and so far so good.

I feel like the way music is going, there’s so many more artists making it through who are independent. What do you think it’s given you in terms of control and confidence in having a hand in what exactly you want to release? You could put out a song tomorrow if you wanted to!

I love that idea. I love that that can be an outlet at any time. I also know that putting music out, in a way I’m proud of – a guy like me who’s a bit of a perfectionist to a fault – it takes time. The reality is that I’ve got a lot to juggle to. The takeaway is that there are no rules, no chain of command to sign off on what my next move is, I can carve my own path and my own decisions. I like the freedom that comes with that, but how often that plays out and when I next release is still to be determined. I’m enjoying it right now.

Just to go back to the evolution of this single, what was the genesis of the idea for this track? I know you’ve mentioned Honky Tonk 2.0 before, so what do you mean by that?

Like, it’s nothing new the subject of broken hearts and you find the bar to feel better – it’s not anything new, that’s an age-old story. You’re just now hearing this resurgence of honky tonk production, with this fiddle and steel driven, unapologetically country sound – I’m glad it’s going that way. This song felt that way, where it sounded a lot like the songs I loved when I moved to town and the mission I had for myself when I moved from Virginia to Nashville was to record those kind of songs, that could be country still ten years from now.

I think people are craving that authentic sound in the midst of viral TikTok trends…

Yeah, totally. There’s parts of me that are super quirky and the production is intended to feel a little loose and funky. It sounds like me, so I’m proud of that.

Finally, what can we expect in terms of new music to come?

I’m trying to figure that out. I have a bunch of new songs that I want to release that aren’t finished all together yet, but now that I’m here and fully independent, I love the idea of being able to release more music, more often, so…

Watch this space! We can’t wait personally for any new music to come…

The post INTERVIEW: Canaan Smith on New Single ‘Heartbreak Heaven’ appeared first on off the record.

Hi Matt! The last time we spoke was back in May last year, and so much has happened for you since that time – how can you configure all that in your brain?

Yeah, it’s been great, we’ve been really busy, we’ve been running up and down roads with the new single, playing a bunch of shows. The way that I just keep everything straight is I don’t look too far ahead, I just see- where I’ve got to be in the next day or two, because calendars can get a little overwhelming at times. 

You’ve been to the UK in that time and everyone talks about how much they love it – but I feel that you took it to a whole new level – apart from the beer. How was that experience for you? 

Oh it was amazing, I enjoyed my time, probably the thing that I enjoyed the most was the people. I had a great time, I made some friends and got to play country music for a brand new crowd. Not only that, but I get to come back in October to do it again – we’re really excited about that. 

Super exciting, you’re going to be touring with Elvie Shane and I feel like you’re both part of this huge movement of artists who are really shaping the genre and pushing boundaries and playing with the sound in lots of different ways. 

I hope so, my favourite country music is stuff thats distinct and different and unique – that’s what we try to do for sure. I know I can probably speak for Elvie that he has the same thing and views it the same way. He’s got some unbelievable songs, he’s a great guy and a talented dude so we’re really excited to get over together and get to play some music.

It will be absolutely awesome, we’re really looking forward to it. I can’t not talk about the success of ‘Man Made,’ it’s still going up the charts – the way country music radio works I will never understand – but it’s doing all the right things. Can you talk about hearing that track for the first time, and why it spoke to you? 

When I heard it the first time, I was blown away because it’s not something that I would typically write. Besides a couple of songs, most of my songs are on the heavier side – subject matter-wise at least – and when I heard this song and heard the melody and the lyrics, it had this positive vibe to it and I thought ‘oh man, this is a special song, and I’d love to be the guy who gets to sing it for people.’ It’s been a lot of fun releasing it out into the world – as you say, country radio is it’s own beast, so you’ve got to jump through the hoops for certain things, but at the end of the day, that typically means that people will get to hear your songs, so that’s exciting for sure. 

Obviously this was an external cut and I know you’ve had amazing success with external cuts yourself – you’ve got a cut on Cody Johnson’s record –  so, when do you make the decision to keep a track for yourself and when to give it away? How do you work that thought process through in your head? 

Well a lot of it has to do with timing, because you’re cutting sometimes and sometimes you’re not, then fit for sure, I like to write a bunch of stuff that doesn’t necessarily fit what I do but it’s fun to get out and do unique and different stuff when you can. So I think fit and timing are a lot of the reasons why those things happen, and why they’re cut by other artists.

It’s awesome to kind of have even more of your voice floating around the country ether. 

Well I moved into town to be a songwriter and my motto has always been that the song is king, whoever writes it, it doesn’t really matter as long as the best songs are getting recorded – or the song that fits the best. I’ve just got to go by that, whether I’m cutting music or sending the music off for other people. 

I know for this track, you co-produced it with Ash Bowers, can you talk about how important it is for you to have a hand in the production. I know a lot of artists are not as heavily involved in that side of things. 

Yeah for sure, it’s such a big part of the song – how it comes off and how it gets recorded. That’s something that I’ve always enjoyed being a part of and then I feel like for the most part, I have a vision or a sound in my mind that I try to get out onto the track. It’s just another opportunity to be creative, I’m leaning on the taste and the talent of a lot of studio players, I can kind of tease out the sound that I want – certain songs can sound quite a bit different in how they’re recorded. It’s another creative sort of half of it.  

You brought the track to life with that really powerful music video, what was the process to record that music video. 

That was totally the brain child of the videographer and the director of the video and the treatment that he did. I think it’s so fun to collaborate visually with people, I really rely on the expertise and creativity of so many people to help give a song that third dimension and tell a story with it. It’s always a value add and a way to engage with the song in a different way. Dustin Heaney is someone I’ve worked with a lot and I really trusted him.

Now you’ve had a few number one hits, is there an increased pressure that something has got to go number one again?

I mean that’s always the goal, but there’s a lot of mitigating factors that have nothing to do with the music itself, which is a tough thing to learn. At the end of the day, you put the music out and know that you’ll have a team to support. It’s the reality of the music. 

What’s the plan for the releases for the rest of the year – obviously you’ve dropped a string of singles, ‘Boyfriend Season’ and ‘Man Made’?

I’ll release singles and give them their moment, it’s tough to say because music gets released so differently and plans change so much. I have a lot of new music in the hopper that I can’t wait to share. The good news is that there’ll be a bunch of new music out soon.

Well we can’t wait to hear it. Thanks so much for taking the time to chat today!

The post INTERVIEW: Matt Stell on ‘Man Made’ appeared first on off the record.

Hi Jackson, how are you doing today?

Not too bad!

It’s been three months since the release of Greenbroke, how have you found navigating its release and sharing this project with the world?

It’s a lot and it’s a lot of go go go, a lot of things happening at once. It feels good to let it go. I held this for a while, even the first five have been out for a while, so it felt really good to let it go.

Have there been any responses from fans that have surprised you with the direction they interpreted the songs?

Yeah, there’s a couple of them where people have taken them in a direction that I hadn’t intended, like ‘that’s not what it’s about but I like it.’ ‘Love You Anymore’ had a couple of interesting ones, ‘Trailer Park’ people are always intrigued by, but they’re also kind of stumped, like ‘what’s the deal?’ There’s a couple where people are on the same wavelength but a different page.

You obviously worked with Luke Dick on this project and he’s such a legend in the industry. Can you talk about the first interactions that you had with him and how he came to be a part of the project?

Yeah, so Luke writes for the same publishing company that I do – Little Louder – and I went over to his house one day and we just kind of hung out and got to know each other. It took us about two or three times of writing to where we actually got something, but the first time we just really hit it off and we started writing demos together. I remember one of the first ones was ‘Don’t Come Lookin” and I just kind of liked where that was headed. I mean I lived off Luke Dick demos for a while and some of them weren’t even songs I wrote, they were just songs where I liked what he was doing and how he was doing them. There’s really no one else in town that I’ve worked with that are producing the kinds of sounds that he is.

Well there’s such a specific sound of this record, it’s completely timeless and a very ‘outlaw country’ vibe, a sound that I think a lot have people have moved away from and you needed a very specific producer to kind of draw that out.

I haven’t heard a lot of those sounds in a really long time and it was really awesome to get to work with him. I just saw him yesterday and it’s always a privilege to work with him.

You’ve talked a bit about some of the songs that weren’t yours that you lived with, but I know you wrote every song on the record, so was that something that was very important to you in leading out and introducing yourself?

Oh yeah, I mean before I got signed, I had put out three records by myself that I wrote all by myself, so when I got to town and they were like ‘hey, we want to put you in a room with some other people, I thought absolutely no, we don’t do that.’ I did it a couple of times and then I got it. It was really important to me, I didn’t want to cut something that I hadn’t had a hand on.

Well you do want to be able to stand behind every song on the tracklist. I know before Nashville you had spent some time in Maryland and California, can you talk about how that journey has shaped the kind of music you’re putting out?

Well, there’s a good music scene in Maryland, there’s a lot of blues and country and there’s a circuit of like 15 of us who’d bop around, especially in the Baltimore scene – there’s a lot of hip hop and alternative in Baltimore. My drummer and I have been making music together since we were 14 and he’s done it for a decade in Baltimore, the first of my stuff he and I did together, so home was very influential to me. There’s so much great stuff there, and great venues now – the Merriweather, Ram’s Head… It was always around, at least to me, it was always there.

Landing in Nashville then, was it a big learning curve getting into the town and the industry?

It was really interesting because I didn’t move down here and then go and play all those writer’s rounds and get noticed, I had been noticed from out of state, so I came in and I was already writing with, off the bat, with Casey Beathard, Luke Dick… really top of the line writers. So, immediately, it was like ‘let’s get in there and after it,’ automatically I felt like the stakes were raised. In the beginning, I was trying to be a sponge and learn as much as I could, I was having to learn a whole new set of skills, aside from my own.

Leading onto the record, how did the idea of ‘Greenbroke’ take place and what did it mean to you?

Greenbroke didn’t really shape up until I started writing for the second half of the record, it was ‘Love You Anymore,’ ‘Don’t Take Much,’ ‘Fearless’ and ‘Don’t Come Lookin” – I didn’t really have a title for the record yet, but I was back home and I think I had just had my wisdom teeth yanked out. I was sitting in my chair, staring out at the screen door and it took me a couple of weeks to flush out. I had the rough outline and I took it to Jeff Hyde and asked him to help me tweak it and it just kind of came to life.

Do you find that happens often – leading with the melody rather than the lyrics?

It can go one way or the other, cos I’ll play for hours and in those hours things will come to me. It takes a bit of time for that sort of stuff. I think as soon as I started writing Greenbroke, I knew it needed to be the title of the record – it had never been written before, and I thought it could be so cool. I took the song to the studio with my band in Baltimore, and my guitarist came up with this kick ass solo and I thought ‘that’s it.’

So what’s up for the rest of the year?

So for the rest of the year, I’m writing a good bit when I can and the rest of the time, I’m pretty much on the road until the week before Christmas. This year, I’m just playing every show that I can.

I’m excited for you – good luck with the rest of the year!

Thank you.

The post INTERVIEW: Jackson Dean on ‘Greenbroke’ appeared first on off the record.

Congratulations on release day! How are you feeling? It must just feel overwhelming emotional and all the things.

All of the things. It’s been a long time coming and a lot of pent up excitement.

I can imagine. You’ve got a child now and this is different – this is the first full length album. You’ve done releases before, but this must just feel another layer of special and meaningful and all the things.

Yeah, well, especially because it’s really the first album, the full eleven tracks. I’ve never gotten to do that before. I mean, we spent so much more time on this than I’ve spent on any music that I’ve ever made and there’s just so many people involved that have worked really hard – my husband and my best friend included, it’s not just mine, it’s all of ours. It feels like this very collective excitement.

I do think that must be very special. You obviously created the record in the weird pandemic time when we all were locked up. Do you think that it would have been the record it was, if that hadn’t happened? Do you think you would have consciously kind of gone away and had that moment to create the record? Do you think that was just like, a kind of a product of the time?

I think you’re absolutely right – everything that we went through in the last three years, massively influenced where the record is today. There’s this whole long story that, you know, we have yet to kind of talk about, but Brian and Topher and I had half the record done. Then, when the pandemic happened, we basically just scrapped everything and started over, so we had all this time. I think there’s something to be said for having the luxury of time. If it had been a normal year, and we were touring and writing, I probably would have just started putting things out and not really made it what I wanted it to be. Full disclosure, I was listening to the record this morning in the kitchen and I don’t know if I had actually listened to the entire thing front to back like that. I was so overcome with like, ‘wow, I think we made something that transcended what I had hoped for it’. I really wanted to make a record that people would listen to all the way through and it feels like one sonic thought.

I mean, I’ve always loved your music, but it was amazing to listen and delve into your world a little bit more. With the full length project, it feels very intimate and I know that there’s a lot of songs on there that you performed back in your London show a few years ago, I remember ‘The Ocean.’ From that show til now so much has happened in your life and so much has changed, so do you feel the meaning of those songs has changed as well?

Not necessarily. What I really value about the fact that I did play them three years ago, is it feels like a return to probably what people did in the 60s and 70s, artists that were heavily touring and then making records and they made like one record every five years. It is your time to really vet the songs and also to let them breathe in different iterations. The way I played ‘The Ocean’ when I was playing it back in London in 2018, or whatever year it was, is absolutely different than the way it is recorded. that’s because we had so much time to really sit with it. I think meaning-wise they just had time to take on more meaning in a way, because making this record has been a very unique challenge, I wouldn’t necessarily advise it. What’s really powerful is, as we were going through some challenging trying times, and having a baby as a whole other layer into marriage, I had these songs that I was working on, and they were really good reminders of the fact that I’m with my person.

‘Honeymoon’ is that on the tin. Obviously some of the songs you have had for an extensive amount of time, but I can imagine there were a few that were created during this time where you weren’t able to get that immediate response. Do you feel that there were some songs that snuck in that were almost more personal to you because you hadn’t tried them out and you hadn’t had people coming up to your shows afterwards and going ‘oh, that song meant so much to me’. It’s kind of like a leap of faith.

Oh, that’s such a cool way to put it. I love that. Yeah, ‘Hummingbird’ and ‘Honeymoon’ are definitely those songs for me where I really didn’t let anyone hear them. It felt purely selfish – this is something that I believe in and I don’t really care if anyone else gets it. Those songs are maybe a little bit less down the middle country than a lot of stuff. I didn’t worry, I just knew they spoke to me on a very personal level. ‘Hummingbird’ feels like the most introspective and self-reflective song on the record, and then ‘Honeymoon’ is that beautiful closing moment.

You know, you’re going to listen to that at some point in your life and it’s going to have changed in meaning.

Oh my God, I know, because it almost can speak to just phases in life too. It doesn’t even have to be a partner or love necessarily. Last night, when I was doing this Instagram Live, I was holding my baby – and I recorded the vocal when I was holding him and thought ‘this song is about my baby now’ I love when songs can be interpreted to mean whatever you need them to mean.

I guess that’s the magic of music. At the beginning of ‘Iconic’ you have this tiny whisper of Paris in the background. Can you talk about that story? 

Yeah, well, I have to say my husband is a particularly romantic guy. He definitely thinks about the most grandiose movie moment things. I love that about him. He’s just as much of an artist as I am. When we were in Paris, we were playing some shows – this was in 2018. We were in Paris for one night. The day of the show, we’re driving around Paris during the day, and I had no idea we were gonna get engaged that night. He pulled out his phone in a cab that morning, and he started recording on his phone – I don’t know what he’s doing. He’s recording the sounds of the city. Fast forward to midnight, we got engaged under the Eiffel Tower – so clichè, but you’ve got to indulge the cliche right. Almost two years later, we were working on the record. One day, he was in the studio, and he called me and he said, ‘Hey, I want to play something for you. I’m working on ‘Iconic.’  I sat down, and then he presses start and I’m hearing the city sounds from the day we got engaged – he had kept the voice memo on his phone for two years and thought it’d be the perfect intro to the song. I’m bawling. It’s a piece of our life and a piece of our story, in the track that will forever be immortalised and how beautiful to be reminded of that, that promise from the beginning and what it meant at the time, because marriage is hard, and relationships are hard, long term. Anything is hard, it’s a lot of work. I think you have to kind of remind each other – why did we start this in the first place? Oh, because we loved to just be in a cab riding through Paris together, we were blissfully in love.

Obviously Side A was very different in tone to this record – here it felt like you were putting out a statement of where you are in your life and not shying away from that happiness. It was nice having happiness juxtaposed with ‘Better with a Broken Heart.’ Can you talk about having TJ be a part of it? You both have such unique vocals so it was amazing to hear that trade-off. 

His voice is one of my favorite voices because it has that warmth and that depth. I’m just a huge fan. Brothers [Osborne] are one of the bands that I put on and listen to the whole record. I just find that his voice is so emotive. You never know how two vocals are going to sound together, but there was no way I was gonna have them come in and be like, ‘You know what, we don’t like the way that sounds,’ I’m gonna make it work. He comes in, he started singing, and I got full body chills. I look over at Topher and Bryan, and they’re like, ‘Oh, my God, this is amazing, he sounds so good’. He had all these really cool, unique parts he had picked out – the harmony part that he does at the end of the second verse, he already had this whole thing done and then on the bridge, where he goes really low, I knew he could sing lower. No one else can do that, it’s so cool, it’s a dream. I mean, literally, it’s a dream to sing with TJ and at the time Brothers hadn’t won their Grammy yet. I’m just so glad that I asked him before that, because now he’s really busy, but he’s such a wonderful human being too. I feel like it’s very cool that as a duet, it isn’t necessarily the two of us singing to each other – we’re both singing about our own personal experience. I love that as well, I think that’s really cool.

I feel like you both bring something to it, you both pour emotion into your vocals in a way that I think a lot of people don’t. You can feel that pure emotion in every lyric.

Thank you, that’s all I could ever hope for someone to say about my record. I really appreciate you saying that, I felt it’s important to live life – ‘Hummingbird’ kind of speaks to that. For the longest time, I was so focused on my career that I wasn’t really building a life outside of music. I feel like it’s so important that you can feel that I’ve lived some life. When I was singing a lot of experience behind a lot of what these are,

Are you glad then that this first full-length record happened when it did?

Yeah, it’s interesting, in my mind, when I first moved to town, that was always my dream. It was intended to become a full length album, but you learn as you go through your career and your life, that there’s so many things that are out of your control. It’s more about managing what you can have control of and lowering, not getting rid of expectations, but lowering what you believe is the right way and just accepting that there’s a way that you maybe haven’t even thought of yet. What I think is so beautiful about ‘Honestly’ is that nothing was planned, nothing that I could have predicted. Here I am. I’m kind of embodying it and owning it, and accepting it and not fighting it anymore – that is a very humbling thing. It’s also a very liberating thing, at the same time.

You’ve got this amazing snapshot of the last few years and where you are now – working with your husband and working with your best friend. It’s kind of amazing that it happened the way it did.

Yeah, I believe that. And also, like you said, there’s this transparency – there’s an intimacy here that I haven’t explored yet, ever. That was very intimidating for me, because once you go there, you can’t really go back. Now you’ve seen me naked, so I can’t go back. I think life can be very powerful when you step into your most bare bones, honest self and let people see it. You don’t get to shield yourself from whether they like it or not, which is why it’s hard.

Thank you so much for taking the time to chat. It’s always just a joy to speak to you.

Thank you. It’s so good to talk to you. I hope I get to see you in person very soon.

The post INTERVIEW: Jillian Jacqueline on Honestly appeared first on off the record.

Hi guys, congratulations it’s finally release week, this must have been years in the making so how are you all feeling about it?

Feeling really good. It’s been three years plus since ‘Greatest Hits’ which had a couple of new songs on it, but that was a new thing of putting out a compilation record. It feels really, really good to be putting a record out of new music that we’ve been able to put together.

Yeah, I can imagine. Obviously, it’s been like two decades since the band actually formed – do you feel a sense of pressure every time to evolve and experiment your music?

It was just releasing new music and finding that creative outlet when the world shut down. Mike was real creative in doing that and writing a bunch of songs. We were chomping at the bit to get back in the studio in Nashville and record some new music.

This project feels very intentionally upbeat post-pandemic, was that a very conscious choice? It felt like a nice relief after everything we’ve been through.

For sure. I think back to the last point, I think that the pressure for us of creating new music is to try to evolve, but also to evolve in a way that is very true to ourselves. I think in some past projects, we’ve really tried to stretch the boundaries in ways that some of the fans who’ve been with us for all this time, might miss some of the elements that have always just made us ‘Eli Young Band’. The big effort is to do something that is truly us, but also feels like it’s pushing forward a little bit.

Mike sent us over 100 songs over the period when we were really off and not touring very much. I know he made a concerted effort to try to keep things upbeat and pick songs that not only spoke to where we’re at right now in our lives and what’s going on, but something that can hold up 10 years from now. We’ve always been a band that’s really tried to be hopeful and look towards the future and keep optimistic. It would be very against the grain for us to do something that was very in the moment.

I mean, you have to evolve. At the end of the day, you have to take fans with you on the journey – your lives change and your sound evolves. How much do you still feel like you need to retain the core essence of Eli Young Band, and how do you figure that, particularly when you’re taking external cuts and things like that?

That’s something that we’ve always taken pretty seriously – especially when there’s four of us in the band voting on songs, there’s always one or two of us who are like, ‘Let’s hang on to some dignity, here’s some integrity’ when others might vote to try a song or whatever. The brand of the band – musically – is something we’ve always taken seriously and maintain. At least, if we put out a song or record that sounds a little different, our fans will still know what kinds of songs they’re getting, and what our niche is.

Obviously, there’s four of you, so how does that process happen? It’s very easy when Mike brings you a whole load of songs, and you can pick and choose and say, ‘right, these ones we like.’ In terms of external cuts, how does that process happen for you guys?

If one person is super passionate, again, we tend to listen to that person and they usually have a pretty good argument. There’s one outside song that made it onto this record – ‘Break Up in a Bar’ – and that was one that just felt like a song we should have written. It felt like a straight down the middle country tune, by the second verse, you understand what this is and you’ve already bought into it. That one was a no brainer for us. We’ve definitely passed on some songs in the past that felt like they were really big, massive songs, but just not for us. We’ve got to be honest with each other and also try to listen to where someone’s coming from, if they really feel strongly against a song.

I guess that comes with the fact that you all know each other so well, having done done this for so many years, and you inherently know what the band is –  while a song might be a huge stadium ready song, it’s not necessarily an Eli Young Band song.

You know, we were pretty honest with each other when it comes to telling each other how we feel about songs – you know that might be a great song, but it may not be for us.

Obviously, the new single is ‘Love Talking,’ which I know Mike wrote with Jeffrey East and Eric Arjes, can you talk a bit about writing that song?

Actually, the three of us wrote quite a bit over 2020. I mean, both of them are so talented, in their own way, we kind of sat down that day, and it was kind of towards the end of that whole time period. We were actually in the middle of picking songs to go on the record and we had already talked to Eric Arjes and Jamie Robinson about producing and so when we were kind of sitting down to talk, and we were gonna write that day, somebody made a joke about letting the booze do the talking and sometimes you want to say ‘maybe I was a little too honest, but it was the truth either way. It was love talking not the booze.’ That just kind of started this whole thing from his side of the story – you never really hear her side of the story when it comes to the song, and I think that it was really that moment where he wanted to reiterate that the booze had nothing to do with it. We didn’t really want to say that – we just wanted to be like, ‘hey, you know, this is where it’s coming from’. I just thought it was a very simple way to turn around something that we’re all pretty familiar with and then there was something special, musically and groove wise, about where we were going with it. It was definitely one that I was really digging, it was Eli Young Band but it felt a little different, so I wasn’t sure how everyone was going to respond to it. Normally, when I send a song to the guys, I’ll either say whether I really love it or think it might be a good one for us or I’m not sure, that’s where the process starts. I see whether there’s any response and then I put it in my list of songs ranked on how they responded the first time. I have a place to start when we start picking songs and I tend to kind of spearhead that whole process in a way. I have a good idea at that point of what they want to start with because of that. ‘Love Talking’ was an easy win, it got a big response right away and it kind of moved into the top 10 pretty quickly. Then every time we played it for somebody with the label or management, everybody was digging it. It found its way to the top of the list pretty quick.

Obviously you guys revisited it at the end and you did the more acoustic version – why did you decide to do it that way?

There’s this thing that kind of happens with that song that takes on two different lives in a way, when you’ve got everybody on it with the groove and everything about it. Then when it’s acoustic, it just has this different love song, mid-tempo thing.

I think that when we first started talking about that being the first single, it felt like we should give those two versions of it life. When we went into the studio, we really started exploring where we were gonna take it, it kind of took on another life – so we wanted to showcase both.

The other song that’s got totally stuck in my head is ‘Lucky For Me.’ That song is so sweet, but you guys have managed to not be corny. How did you manage to rein it back? Talk me through writing that song with Jimmy Robins and Laura Veltz.

That song was pretty easy to write. What’s funny is the way it started – there’s this fast wording and all that kind of happened with it. It was a lot slower when we first started.

There was a point at the beginning of 2020, when everybody was kind of searching for that positivity. There was just so much negativity in the world, at that point. For me, we had an opportunity to be home so much at that point and we had never – after 20 years of being a band – been able to spend that much consecutively at home. All four of us were really enjoying it because there was no pressure of packing a suitcase and telling the kids that you’ll be home in six days or whatever it might be. That’s where I found my positive space. I was feeling pretty lucky that day, and, everybody was just in this really good mood.

It’s different the way that all of the lyrics fall with the music. It’s actually a somewhat difficult songto sing and play and you know, we’ve been playing it for a few months now and it’s still kind of hard to find that spacing because it’s so different than anything we’ve ever done.

Well it worked – thank you so much for your time today and congratulations on the album release and good luck!

The post INTERVIEW: Eli Young Band on New Album – Love Talking appeared first on off the record.

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Jenna Paulette Tells Apple Music About Being Mentored By Ashley Gorley…

Honestly, he was brutal with me, and I say that in the best way, because I never wanted anybody to just be nice to me and say, “Oh, that song is good. That song is good.” He would dissect my songs with me and say why something could be better. There were just so many things that I didn’t know how to think critically about that he helped me think critically about, and it completely shifted my perspective on songwriting. It became more of, “Oh, yes, this is an artsy thing, and yes, we get to write cool stories, but how do we do this in a way that is the most effective on the listener’s heart and mind?” Their mind is important to keep engaged throughout the whole part of the song, and you want them to want to listen to that second verse. I think if he hadn’t been so critical with me over my own music, that a lot of my songs would probably lose people after the first chorus. You have to make them want to come back and listen again and again and again.

Jenna Paulette Tells Apple Music About Her Applying Her University Experience To Her Work In Music…

I was reading an article about Kenny Chesney, and Kenny had gotten his marketing degree. I just thought that was awesome, and just have seen how strategically he has pursued his career and how much he owns his slice of pie, his part of the market. Yeah, so I just thought maybe that would help me out there, and it really has. I went to all of my professors and just said, “Hey, I want to do country music for a living. Do you all mind if I just apply this class to doing that?” None of them said no. So I felt like I had a leg up going into country music because I was looking at it from a marketing and business standpoint as much as I was from an artistic standpoint. Yeah, so thanks, Kenny Chesney, for being my inspiration for that.

Jenna Paulette Tells Apple Music About Her Move To Nashville & Hopes For The Future…

For me, it was family. I love my family. We are all extremely close. And being far away from the ranch. It was both of those things for me. I always tell people I want to pull a George Strait on this place. I’ll be here as often as I need to be, and write songs here and do all of that; but the goal for me is to be able to tour and perform all over the United States and the world, and be able to go home to raise some cattle and kids too. Yeah, I want it all, and I want to do it all on a very high level. So the hardest thing for me was leaving all of that behind and not feeling like I was home home, like I do when I’m back in Texas.

The post INTERVIEW: Jenna Paulette on Apple Music appeared first on off the record.