January 10, 2025 • 63 mins
In episode 59 of Worktapes, we are joined by Muscle Shoals native, singer-songwriter, and rock-Americana artist Hannah Aldridge. Her writing explores themes of rebellion and the allure of spiritual darkness while grappling with deeply rooted Southern Christian values. In this episode, we discuss growing up as the daughter of hit songwriter Walt Aldridge, what draws her to darker themes, how to stay authentic in an industry that prioritizes hit songs, and we listen to the original worktape of her song “The Great Divide.”
Find Hannah Aldridge
Listen to "The Great Divide"
Produced by Brandon Carswell
Film & Editing by Shaun Carswell
This episode was filmed at Sound Stage Studios in Nashville, TN
Episode intro music written by Brandon Carswell & produced by Micah Tawlks - "Back To Us" Worktapes show cover art designed by Harrison Hudson
**All songs used by permission**
Find Hannah Aldridge
Listen to "The Great Divide"
Produced by Brandon Carswell
Film & Editing by Shaun Carswell
This episode was filmed at Sound Stage Studios in Nashville, TN
Episode intro music written by Brandon Carswell & produced by Micah Tawlks - "Back To Us" Worktapes show cover art designed by Harrison Hudson
**All songs used by permission**
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Work Tapes. This is a podcast where we
tear up our songs. Why with the song written? What's
it about? What's the context and emotion behind it? Where
were you at the time, what were you going through?
How did certain lines come to you? What's the inspiration?
How long did it take to write? I'm Brandon Carswell
and I'm fascinated with songwriting and how songs are built
(00:29):
from the ground up. It's easy to hear a full
production song on the radio and dismiss its origin story.
I want to hear the rough draft of the song
or the work tape. I want to explore the very beginning.
How songs that move us and make us move our mourn.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
He's a re hostage to the sun.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
It's midnight and the morning.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
In the days made of glass, It's somehow shadowed with
a morning even now.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
How everyone, Welcome to Work Tapes. I am Brandon Carswell.
We are joined by Hannah Aldridge.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
How you doing, I'm doing good? How are you good?
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I'm good?
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Hannah is a singer, songwriter, artist extraordinary. Do you want
to just start off and tell us a little bit
about yourself?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I know you come from a background like, your family
is very musical, your dad is a pretty epic songwriter.
Maybe you could talk about a little bit of some
of that and how that we'll just arriving that way.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
So I'm originally from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, which you know,
if you're not familiar with that, as a little town
in North Alabama where a whole lot of cool music
was made. And I grew up in the music business
because my dad, like you said, is a songwriter and producer.
But you know, it wasn't something that struck me as
(02:41):
weird at all growing up that way. It was you know,
although I did run around studios and things whenever I
was young, it wasn't like I consciously was sitting there thinking, Oh,
I'm going to be a musician when I get older.
I always really wanted to do that, but I didn't
pick up the guitar until I was in my early
to mid twenties, so I didn't really know how to
execute that dream exactly until I started putting it together
(03:04):
with a guitar. I was classically trained on piano and
knew that I loved to sing, but I didn't I
just didn't know how to put the pieces together. So
I kind of always thought that my dad's the musician,
and the family and everybody else is kind of just
you know, good at singing or whatever. And then we
moved up to Nashville, not for me to pursue music
(03:28):
per se, but just because my father was in the
music industry and I went to school at MTSU. My
parents were like, please get out of our house. Please
will pay for you to go to college to do anything,
just so I thought, well, I'll go to school for music.
I like music, you know. I didn't know what I
wanted to do at all, But in that course ended
(03:49):
up taking some songwriting one oh one classes because I thought, well,
this will be an easy a They're just going to
teach us to write little jingles and things, and lo
and behold, I ended up really enjoying writing songs and
that was a whole, you know, chapter of my life
learning to do that. But it was not as straightforward
(04:10):
as a lot of people think it is. Oh, your
dad's a musician, so of course you're a musician. For me,
it really I had to figure that out that that's
what I wanted to do, and then really try to
figure out what that meant to me and how that
translated to my music because I don't write for a
music row or other artists. Yeah, so that was a
(04:30):
process for sure.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah do you think. I mean, obviously, you growing up
the way you did with your dad being a big songwriter.
What's interesting about your story is that that would have
influenced you later though, right, I mean, you took all
of those things. I'm sure you were around it, watching
(04:52):
him or hearing his songs or seeing artists cut his songs.
And when you were a kid, what were you thinking.
Was it like this is no big deal, you didn't care,
or was it something where like, oh that would be
cool to do maybe.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
You know, I think at that age, even then, I
recognized that what my dad was doing is not something
that I wanted to do. And I didn't know, you know,
what it was I wanted to do. I thought being
an artist is too big of a dream, you know,
during that time, even you know that that was during
the era that you still would have to get a
(05:28):
huge record deal and that's how you got big. I mean,
the Internet was barely even a thing, you know, even
in my mid teens, so that wasn't an option to
me that you would make a bedroom record and put
it out. You know, it was like, you either are
really famous, and at that time when I was a kid,
it was like Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys. So
(05:49):
that's who I'm thinking, I've got to do that, you know,
because I can't write songs and I don't want to
write for country artists and so so for me, it
just seemed like too big of a to be able
to do. And then as time went on and the
Internet became a thing and being a dy diy artist
became possible, that that became clearer to me, you know,
(06:13):
what I wanted to do in terms of did it
did it seem weird? Like, you know, growing up that
way because I grew up in muscle shoals primarily, yes,
I knew to some extent that what my dad was
doing was not what everybody else's parents were doing, and
that it wasn't a super normal situation. My dad never
(06:36):
presented that as being something that was that different than
anything else. Yeah, it's just a job. And so until
I got older and I started actually going out and
writing music in the Nashville community and touring and seeing
the impact that that little town had on the world
and that my dad's music has had on people. That's
(06:57):
when I started to really realize that it was something
that was really special and unique.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah, yeah, it's cool. It's it's cool and interesting to
me that you were thinking when you did start writing
that you're not going to write for country artists or
other artists. You're gonna write for yourself, seeing that your
dad wrote for other people and for those interested, your
(07:24):
dad's name is Walt Aldridge, so you guys can look
him up and what he's done and written, and we
won't camp out here the whole time. You're not living
in your dad's shadow because you do your own thing.
But it's interesting to me, like how how an artist
is influenced when they're younger, and being that your dad
was in the industry, it would be easy to assume like, oh,
(07:48):
you're just doing what your dad did because you have
an end.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Yes, sure, yeah, sure sure, And I think a lot
of people do assume that, and it's it's frustrating because
it's like the truth is is that we don't talk
at all about my music stuff. I mean not really,
because I've always been so independent in wanting to do
everything myself and you know, the times that I do
(08:13):
call on my dad to help me with anything is
actually so rare that it's very special, you know, And
those few things that we've done together are really special
to me because we just do It's just two different
things altogether, and it's two different industries that we worked in,
you know, and I think it would be easy to
assume that that that's you know, in the same way
(08:35):
that it's easy to assume that if you live in
Nashville and you're not Taylor Swift, that you're not successful,
which is a whole nother thing. Is like people's perception
of how the music industry works. You have to kind
of learn to just let it roll off your back
because it doesn't matter really Like people can think what
they want to about it. But at the end of
the day, I mean, my life has been primarily circled
(08:58):
around touring because I found and that's what I loved.
My dad could have hated touring, you know, couldn't have
hated touring more than anyone in the whole world. I Mean,
he absolutely was like, this is not for me, but
for me, that's the only thing that really drives me
to write a song, is that I want to play
this in front of people, and that's a whole another
thing we can talk about. But that's where I found
(09:21):
my love for music, whereas I think my dad really
is centered around the song and whoever sings that song,
it doesn't matter to him because he wrote it. And
to that point, I remember when I wrote a song
called Lonesome, which was the first song I ever really
wrote that I was proud of, and it got put
on a TV show and I remember having a conversation
with my dad saying I don't want anybody to ever
(09:43):
record the song, and he was like why, and I'm like,
because it's my song. You know, I don't want to
sell this song to somebody. And he was like, I
bet if they paid you enough money, you would. I'm like,
probably not, you know, I mean, I just I always
felt that way about my songs that there were and
that I wanted to sing them, and I wrote them
for myself. Now I probably would let somebody else sing
(10:05):
my songs, but I think that was kind of my mindset.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Well, it's understandable. It's interesting. It can be like an
interesting dynamic. So in this town you have and I'm
sure in most souls you have artists that want to
do their own stuff and they own that, and if
(10:28):
somebody comes along and says I want to cut this,
you're like, no, this is mine. I've experienced that in
the past where I didn't take a deal because they
wanted certain songs and I wanted those. Yeah, and you
can you can corner yourself a little bit, but you
can also just stay true to yourself. Yeah, and if
you want to try to write for Top forty, you
(10:51):
can do that.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Ye.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Your stuff is not Top forty.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
No, no, not at all.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
But it's really good. So maybe you can speak to
what kind of style you do of music and what
influenced you to go that route, because it's an interesting style.
Sometimes it's dark, sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's broody, whatever.
(11:21):
Sometimes it's rock and roll. Sometimes it does have a
little country flare in there.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
So.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
You know that it's interesting. I just re released the
ten year anniversary of my first record, and I've had
a full year of touring behind that to kind of
consider where all of it started for me. I think
every record came from a different place of what I
was wanting to put out as a representation of myself.
(11:49):
But I've never been afraid of changing how something sounds,
and I think that's that keeps it interesting for me.
I don't want to be cornered into being like, uh,
she's a country artist or a rock artist. But I
think at the core of it, for me, what I've
always found interesting is addressing those those dark topics and
(12:12):
things that are hard to talk about because again, a
lot of what I'm doing is centered around the live show,
and in the live show, I talk a lot about
why I wrote that song. I'd kind of take that
Nashville singer songwriter around thing on the road, and I
find that a lot of times that's what people really
connect with. Yeah, they like the song, but the story
(12:34):
behind the song is they go, I can relate to that,
you know, And I think for me that that is
the is the core of it and whatever however it's produced.
All of these songs start, which you'll hear in the
work tape of the song that we're going to talk about,
All of these songs start the same. They all start
with an acoustic guitar and some very deep feeling that
(12:55):
I have, and a lot of times it's just me
working that feeling out live, you know, and in person
on a work tape with an acoustic guitar, and for me,
it's about connecting with other people and talking about things
that are hard for me and probably hard for other people.
Then once you get past that step, you talk about
(13:17):
how do I want to make this project sound? And
my first record was a little bit more country because truthfully,
I had no idea what I was doing. I was
just writing songs and recording them in analog with you know,
absolutely no polish at all on it.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
I listened back to that first record of mine, Razor Wire,
and I'm like, good lord, I would never have the
nerve to go into a studio with songs that are
this rough around the edges and not know what I'm
doing and just put out a whole record, you know.
And there's something really beautiful about that record because of that,
And it is a little country because I grew up
in Alabama and that's how those songs came out. I
(13:53):
didn't have like a concept of what I wanted my
artistry to be like. As time went on, I then
kind of leaned more into the seventies rock because I
enjoy that as well, and I thought, well, maybe this
is kind of where these songs are home. And I
was really lucky to have people working with me on
all of those records that could help me kind of
(14:15):
make those sounds come together and make sense for me.
Then after that, an interesting turn of events is that
I signed with a metal label out of Stockholm, Sweden.
And when I signed with this metal label, it all
kind of comes together for me because this label is
I'm still currently with them, and they are amazing at
(14:35):
letting me just be creative visually and tie all the
pieces together. Whereas the first two records, gold Rush in
Razor Wire, I felt like I was fighting that desire
to want to have this weird.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I get to hold back.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Some Yeah, I just felt like I didn't know. I
didn't have the vision of what it should look like
I had. The songs are all the same at the core.
You know, they're acoustic guitar, and you know, for me,
that part of it is cohesive throughout my entire career.
But it's the presentation of it that's changed a little bit.
And when I signed with this label, Icon's creating evil art.
(15:11):
They they were so they have been so good at
just being like, we like you and we like what
you do, and the darker and weirder it is the better.
And so that helped me tie tie together what I
was hearing with what I wanted to see. And I
think that was really key for me as an artist.
And when I talk to people now that are starting
(15:33):
down that path. That's the big missing piece that took
me forever to figure out was how does this look
with how this sounds? Yea, And and it really it
took a while to get that, you know. But the
songs are the same at the end of the day.
I mean, they're all they're all kind of Yes, they're
all kind of dark, I mean, but how how dark
they're produced is the difference.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Sure, And that well, content wise, I don't I don't,
they don't. I mean I listened to a lot of
it this week to prep for this. I don't think
they're like every song is like dark.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
No, it's not so dark that it's like, oh God,
I can't handle any more of this, but a lot
of it, you know, A big, big, big part of
my songwriting is this kind of religious subtext because I
grew up Church of Christ, so that was a big
part of my life and my conflict, you know, in
(16:25):
a lot of these songs, almost all of them if
I listen back to them, even when I'm not trying
to write about that, somewhere in there.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
It's in there.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
And I think that comes from my deep love of
Southern Gothic literature as well and kind of addressing those
things that are Southern culture, religious culture, and things that
move me. And I think that that has has kind
of become a little bit of the darkness, and some
of my songs as me trying to figure that out
(16:54):
in my own mind. Also relationships. Of course everyone's writing
about that, but it's not like every song is about
vampires or demon possession. Some of them are, but not
in your face.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Well, let me ask you this, Are they so don't
I don't know like all of the theology behind Church
of Christ. I know some denominations, but I assume it's
much more legalistic than a lot of other ones. So
are those darker topics based around that? Are they kind
(17:28):
of like a is it kind of a struggle to
understand the two worlds? Or is it a middle finger?
Or is it no?
Speaker 3 (17:35):
I think you know, I I have always had this affinity,
like I've always been drawn to the dark side of things,
because I think because I was told my whole life
that I'm not allowed to look at that. So where
I have a really I have a deep respect for
boundaries within that, I'm not going to go home and
(17:56):
play with Ouiji board because I truly am a little terrified.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Yeah that you know it.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
I also I'm like, this is kind of cool, what's
up with this? You know? So when I'm on tour,
for example, one of my favorite things to do is
to go in different churches and find religious historical things,
because for me, it's a real cathartic experience. And I
(18:23):
when I started touring, I kind of decided, I'm going
to try to untangle all those things that I've been
taught and just experience the world in its own state
and how it presents itself to me, and try to
not have any preconceived notions of what it should be.
And so I try to go in these cathedrals in
(18:45):
Barcelona or wherever, you know, in Paris or you know,
even if I'm in New York, just walk into a
church there, you know, and try to just experience it
in real time. And something about that is so dark
and so beautiful at the same time, and I think
that that that's what draws me to it, is there
is this darkness about the afterlife and religion and God
(19:09):
and all those things that I'm drawn to that as well,
not just the light side of it.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
So what do you think the draw is?
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Like?
Speaker 1 (19:15):
You can go as deeper as shall as you want.
We don't even have to talk about it. But is
it a search for like some absolute truth, some hope.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Or I think it's in the same way that there's
a dress. Yeah, there's a draw to in the same
way that you sit down and watch a horror movie
and you go, are ghost real? You know, it's the
same for me. I don't know that I necessarily want
to see a ghost, but the idea of it's really
fascinating to me. And I think as it ties into
religion and the world, I mean, let's pretend like the
(19:48):
devil is real and all of that scary stuff is real.
You know. I find it fascinating because it's like, where
do I tie into all of that? You know, where
do we all tie into all of that? And how
far can you push this before you go? I don't
think I want to. I don't want to see what's
behind that door. You know, so I think it's just
an alurt It's the same way you sit down and
you you watch a horror movie.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
I mean for me, it's flame with that.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Yeah, exactly, It's just like what is going on here?
Exactly because the religion I grew up in it is
very I always joke and say it's like Amish but
with electricity, because it's it's not. You don't there is
no demon possession or the you know, mystical, magical kind
of side of religion that happens with snake handling or
(20:33):
even Catholicism to some extent. It's like those things are
so foreign to me. So I'm like, what is that about?
Like why are we why do we have little pieces
of of you know, someone's clothes or whatever that we're
rubbing and praying to this religion or in that religion.
Why are we holding rattlesnakes and hoping that we you know,
can speak in tongues? You know, that was something that
(20:55):
I was never exposed to because it was such a
you know, Church of Christ is such a black and
white religion and it is there is not much room
for anything mythical at all.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Was there any musical influence there.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
No, so fascinating question because that part of my religious
upbringing did influence me because there were no instruments whatsoever.
So the only part of that that was really good
for me was my harmony singing.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
So they just sing hymns or hymns.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
And it's funny because when I talk about this during
my shows, I mean, think about for a moment. You've
got a religion where most of the churches, not all
of them, but most Church of Christ, i'd say the
attendance is well under one hundred people, let's say fifty
in some places, maybe even less. And I remember going
to see my grandfather, who was a Church of Christ preacher,
(21:50):
preaching at some churches in Indiana, and there were maybe
twenty people there. So you imagine a church with twenty
people and you're singing a cappella. Out of those twenty people, Well,
how many of them do you think can sing? So
you've got twenty people, yeah, I mean you statistically, you're
(22:11):
gonna hear some pretty horrible singing, you know. And I
remember that so vividly growing up, just being in these
tiny churches and just sitting in the back puce, shake
and laughing like listening to these people singing, because it
does does it's horrible sounding, you know. And on the
other hand, some beautiful moments I can recall in that
(22:33):
experience was being in massive, massive, but you know, much
bigger hundreds and hundreds of people singing a cappella and
having the ability and freedom to play around with harmonies
and how melodies move you and those kinds of things,
and that was really important to me. But there was
no there were no instruments at all, you know. So yeah,
(22:57):
it was really really interesting.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
That it's like a it's a for this podcast, it's
kind of refreshing because most of my guests are like,
I grew up in the church and I did music there. Yeah,
and that's how I learned how to That's how I learned, Yeah,
like the southern gospel thing. Yeah, that's how so many
like country artists starts.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Yeah. Absolutely, And I had zero of that. I mean,
it just I think because it was such a strict
and constricting religion. It the type of person that I am.
It made me go, what's over there, you know, And
and I took some of the things that I could
value from it, which are like this, like the harmony singing,
(23:36):
or the you know, the finding the beauty in in
in God, or being taught as a child, you know,
these values. But outside of that, I mean, I as
a person really was scarred by a lot of it.
And and that's a whole nother layer of all of that.
I think the religious trauma part of it really pushed
(23:59):
me to want to go out and figure out what
that means and how it applies to me. And and
that's where that plays into my music. You know. I
think the harmony, singing and all of that was really
important for me. But where it really ties into my
music is that deep exploration of who am I and
what is God to me? And and how how does
(24:25):
that play into everyone around me's life, you know, and
and can we all coexist with these different ideas?
Speaker 1 (24:31):
So yeah, I don't I don't hear your lyrics as
being I mean, you can correct me if I'm wrong,
but I don't hear them as being anti God as
much as they are exploration.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Like you said, No, they're not anti God. I definitely,
like I said, I have a deep respect for the
notion that there is a God and those things that
you learn when you are born. You know that the
first ten years of your life. You're never going to
unlearn those things, good or bad. And for me, a
lot of that was religion. And so still to this day,
(25:05):
you know, I could try to unlearn everything that I
was taught. There's no way.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Well, there's a there's a whole world of content to
pull from first songwriters as far as being existential and
like sensationalism and religion and upbringing and all that. Absolutely,
it's wild. We were just talking about Sam Outlaw. We
were he was on this show. I forget what episode
(25:30):
number it is, so for those of you listening, you
can just look it up. It's a great episode.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
But you play with them, I do, yeah, yep.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
And I I met you a really long time ago,
but I saw that you you did a set at
the Bluebird with Sam and Cheyenne Metters, who Shian's been
on this as well, and he's a gem.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I don't know how well you know him, but he's amazing.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Yeah he is.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
And so I remember seeing that, I was like, oh,
I need to get Hannah on here and we need
to talk. So thank you for being here. Thank you
halfway in the episode.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
No, it's super fun to talk about a process of
doing what I do as opposed to just my backstory
or just one specific thing, because it helps me to
remind me why I'm doing so I love doing well.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
One of the things that you mentioned earlier was touring
and how that's a connection for you to write like,
I think that's interesting. I haven't done as much touring
as a lot of people, but I still love to
write like a lot. I could probably probably be like
your dad and just live in town and write songs
(26:42):
and be happy, which is wonderful without traveling the world.
Not that I wouldn't want to travel, but I don't
need it either. But I think it's interesting how you say,
like this is what brings me songs essentially, like connecting
with people. What is it specifically about? Is it the travel,
is it the show itself? Is it all of it?
Speaker 3 (27:04):
I think it's all of it. I think I have
such a nomadic soul, you know, and I'm always looking
for something else and always looking for the big meaning,
you know. And I truly had to come to terms with,
you know, especially during COVID. I really had plenty of
(27:26):
time to sit and think about this, Like why am
I doing this? Is that carrot that you're chasing all
the time of fame or money, or if I could
just get opening for that person, or if I could
just you know, get on that bill and for me.
I came back from twenty twenty with this very clear
head about why I'm doing what I'm doing. I think
(27:49):
living in Nashville and being around so many people that
are are seemingly have this success quote unquote that you
want to have. I had to really to find that
word and think about what is success for me, because
success for other people might be one thing, and success
(28:09):
for someone else might be another thing. It might be
a number one hit, or it might be touring in
the UK. You know, I know plenty of people that
have all the success that they want to have writing
songs for other people, or playing writing songs that are
in TV shows or whatever it may be, and all
they want to do is tour. And then there's some
(28:32):
people that are touring and all they want to do
is have a big hit, you know, and finding that
place where you're content is. You know, if I never
do anything more than what I'm doing right now, I
could be happy. That for me is the key to
what I learned during that whole process of discovery, and
I had to really kind of ground myself and say,
(28:54):
if I never go any further than where I've gone today,
am I happy with this? You know? Do I still
want to do this because that's a real reality that
I may never get any further than this. And yes
was the answer because for me, the ability to go
out and play my music in front of people around
the world and not just play the songs but tell
(29:17):
my story. And when I play a song, I say,
this is my experience that I had. And at some
point during the show, I say, you know, I grew
up religious, I talk about all of that, and I say,
you know, I left the church when I was about
nineteen and went on this sabbatical of just trying to
(29:38):
figure out what God is to me and what the
whole point is, what I am to this world and
what I can bring to the world. And what I
discovered is that when I stand on this stage and
I play in front of a room full of people
and one person comes up to me and says, thank
you for writing that song because I went through that,
or that was something that I thought I was completely
(30:00):
or they say thank you for being here because I
thought tonight I couldn't make it through another day because
of X y Z. You get a letter from someone
or a note that says my spouse that's passed away.
They were massive fans of yours, and I came to
your show because that was something I could do that
reminded me of them. You don't realize the impact that
you're having on those people in that moment. And that's
(30:22):
my church. That's why I go out and I do
it because it's bigger than me. It's not about people
applauding or people, you know, ticket sales or how much
money I'm making. It's like being a preacher, you know.
It's like going out and saying I can impact one
person in this room and they might not feel alone,
or they might feel like they want to go out
(30:43):
and write a song or whatever it may be. That
I think, you know, when the day is done and
my life is over, at least I had that that
I gave to someone, to several people, to a lot
of people, you know, And I think that's all you
can ask for. Like, who gives a damn about if
you have a number one hit that nobody.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Remembers, And that's good therapy. For you.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Yeah, it is as you're on.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Your search, because you're you're out there unloading exactly you've
been like on this mission to find answers or whatever
it is. And as an artist, we just put our
heart on our sleeve on stage and trust that people
aren't going to eat you alive.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Yeah sure, and yeah yeah, and they don't.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
That's got to be it is.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
And also a lot of those songs, most all of
those songs come from a place of deep hurt or
deep darkness, and you go and you lay that out
for other people and they go, I feel that way too,
you know, And I think that is so validating. It's
not validating in a way that you think, oh, I'm
amazing because I wrote that. It's validating because you think
(31:46):
I'm a human being and someone in Spain feels the
same way that I do, you know, and I'm not alone.
And I just think for me, that is that is
the core. I mean, why else are you creating art
if it's not to connect with people? And I think
sometimes when you're writing songs and you blow them out
into the wind, and you you know, people give you feedback,
But for me, it's getting to see them face to face.
(32:11):
Sometimes that's exhausting. It can feel a little bit like,
oh good, I get to go up and do the
same show all over again. But then you have that
one connection or several connections, and you think, man, this
is why I'm doing it. This is why I'm doing it,
you know, And for me, that's how I plug in.
Other people they plug in in other ways, but that
a lot of people, it's sitting in a room with
(32:31):
someone and dumping all your feelings and having a song
to show after it. That's enough, or the recording process
is their cathartic experience. But that for me, you know,
getting to go and play those shows in front of
people and also experiencing their life on their terms. You know.
I go to these cities and sit down at a
(32:54):
dinner table with promoters and their kids and their family
or whatever, and they tell me their stories and I think, man,
how would I ever get to do this other than
doing this job right here. So it's not always easy.
I made that sound really wonderful, but but.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
It's there's not like a destination to it. You just
keep going now, you keep working. You mentioned going through well,
we all went through the COVID era and I thought
that would be a good segue into talking about the
song we're going to talk about, which is called The
Great Divide, which is the last song on your most
(33:33):
current record. And you mentioned to me before this that
this song came about during that time and the recording
process and the writing process were different because of that. Yes,
so let's get into it. Let's talk about The Great
Divide where it came from, and then we'll listen to
(33:53):
the work tape.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Yeah, so this song is interesting. Uh, it's it's not
like every song that I've ever written, in the fact
that it started probably a year before I ever finished it,
a year before COVID ever started. I started this song
and I could not figure out what that big point
of the song was. I had some lyrics. I kept
trying to rewrite it. I'd sit at my piano and go,
(34:15):
maybe if I play it like this, or maybe if
I do this, maybe if I put it in this key.
You know. I just could not figure it out. And
as COVID went along, I really felt like I did
not have anything to say to bring to the dialogue
at all. There was so much coming at me, you know,
and I turned to trying to write songs about books
(34:36):
I had read or movies or podcast A lot of
those ended up being murder songs and you know, songs
about like I listened to a podcast on the Root
of Evil or on a black Doll you Murder, which
is called root of Evil, and I wrote a song
about that, you know, And I'd write a song about this,
you know movie I had seen, or Faulkner. I wrote
(34:57):
a song that was about as La dying.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
You know, Oh, the Portrait of an Artist.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Yeah, Portrait of the Artist is.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
And they're just all these songs that were like really
an experiment, you know. But the one that one song,
the Great Divide, I kept coming back to it. And
I was dating a guy that lived in North Sweden
for several years prior to COVID, and during COVID, I
had been separated from him, and so there's a lot
of imagery about about you know, the northern lights and
(35:28):
it being cold and being divided by the ocean and
things like that. But also my father at the time
was really ill and I was caregiving for him, and
I was kind of looking down the barrel of that
gun that that most of us have to do at
some point, which is watching our parents, you know, getting
older and and it's a very sobering experience. And so
I was dealing with that along with the like existential
(35:50):
crisis of what is life right now? You know, and
the fear that just was so wrapped up in COVID.
I felt so overwhelmed, and little by little, day by day,
I said, in my apartment, and I could hear the
I lived in this apartment in Chattanooga at the time,
and I could hear everybody's conversations through the walls. Like
I would literally put my head down to the floor
(36:11):
and just write what people were saying, because I could
hear everything that was happening. But we couldn't be with
each other, We could not be face to face. And
that felt like the the that felt like the big theme,
you know, which was why this song is called the
Great Divide, because I was thinking, you know, is their
life after this is their life after life? Is their
(36:32):
life after COVID? You know? Is there is there life
after your whole life being destroyed? And so that was
kind of the centerpiece of it. And I remember sitting
one night at my piano. This is after I had
moved back to Nashville, so this song, you know, I'm
still sitting there like, what is the point of the song?
And uh, I was sitting at my piano and it
(36:53):
was sitting in front of this big window in my
apartment that was overlooking like the totally empty streets of Nashville,
and I remember looking up at the stars and thinking
how wild it is that so much history has unfolded
under this night sky, you know, throughout time. And I
started going through all the historical events in my mind
of things that had happened, and I jumped from like
(37:15):
the Donner Party to like to the Titanic, and all
of a sudden, I started thinking about the Titanic and
what it would have been like the night that the
Titanic went down, that some of those people were on
the bow of the ship and everything seemed fine, and
they were cruising towards their dream, which is America. And
then next thing you know, you're in this water looking
(37:35):
up at that same sky, and it feels completely different.
And so I was able to finally be like that.
That is what I want to say, you know, is
that sometimes you know, it feels like a dream that
you're trying to reach out and grab this thing and
it all feels like some massive divide between where you
are and where you want to be. And so I
(37:57):
ended up finishing that song based on that. But man,
it was a process. And then once I finished these songs,
the fascinating part about the recording process of this record
was I did this record with my friend Lachlan Bryan
and his right hand man, Damien Caffarella, and they live
in Melbourne, Australia. So all of these songs we were
(38:18):
like sending little voice notes and things back and forth
to each other. And I'm sure there's some other people
out there that had similar experiences during COVID, even if
it was people just up the road that they were
doing this way. But it was like the hardest way
to record a record. I would never do it again
this way. But I'm so grateful I have that record
because it would have never existed in that way otherwise,
(38:42):
you know. And even though it felt like pulling teeth
to get a record out during COVID, I felt so
uninspired and so like, well, I don't know if I
ever want to do music again. Yeah, I'm so glad
I did it because I have this record that would
not have ever existed otherwise. And the great divide for
me was kind of my baby on that record that
I wanted to really get it right, and we kind
(39:04):
of I wouldn't say argued, but we had differing opinions
about how that song needed to sound and and for me,
I always heard it just being very simple, very like,
you know, a cello and an acoustic guitar. And the
producers sent me all these different versions of the song
and I was like, no, I don't like any of these,
this is not what I want. And finally we landed
(39:26):
something in between there and ended up it ended up
being really cool. I mean it was. It was totally
a different process than what I would have done in
a studio.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Well, I really liked the work tape that you sent me.
I'm a sucker for just like a vocal acoustic ever, right, Yeah,
like where when the song just comes out or whatever,
you finally have like it formed and ready. So let's
let's listen to the work tape and then we'll get
into it a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Said, we're hostage to the Sun's BENIGNI money in the
days made of glass, somehow shadow with the.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
Even now, how on do.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
We aren't I if the love beyond the northern light.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
And of love's fading and focus, all close my eyes.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
To be.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
Of Amerca.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
With this flicker through the like can on man while
I'm sleeping, and it's good really on my side to
do my facious brush sel looking back.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
Let's see you.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
When the strangers.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
Say the covagson from diste.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Any vaults only a circles, we may, I'll close my.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
Three of America.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
To my.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Ever known there.
Speaker 4 (42:43):
If there's that beyond the great divide, and if time's
only siding in the progress, all close my.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Okay, I do love this work tape. This song made
me think of like when You my first few passes
on it, I was thinking what does this mean? Like
what does the America part mean? And the way that
it hit me just personally was like, Okay, for me
(43:41):
being from America, being in it is my comfort, it's
my home, It's where I am, It's what I know.
I can travel around different places here and I'm still comfortable.
But if I go overseas to some other country and
I don't know how it goes or what the what
the their day to day is, I'm totally out of
the box. Yep, totally vulnerable. So dreaming of America, that's
(44:05):
what I was thinking of. I was thinking like maybe
she was on the road. Maybe she was because I
don't talk about to the guests that are on the show,
don't We do a lot of communicating beforehand, but we
don't talk about the content of the song before him. Yeah,
because I want it to be here. So I'm in
my head going making up all these stories, which is
what we do with yah music.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
We hear, which is what you should do because it
should be personal for everyone. Interestingly, this song, I had
to really figure out what it meant to me as well, because,
like I said, it was such a puzzle piece. And
it was interesting listening back to work tapes because the
one that you just listened to that was one where
you can even hear at some point that I'm trying
to figure out what I'm going to say next in
the song, because there are probably thirty work tapes of
(44:48):
that song before I got to that version of it
where the lyrics are different, all the verses are mixed
up in different orders. I play it with an electric
I have this little aultro in one of them, and
you know it's Yeah, it took me a while. I
think the autro initially talked about me being a foreigner somewhere.
(45:10):
I'm a foreigner again tonight, I'm a prisoner, you know
kind of thing. And I think initially that was kind
of kind of what I was thinking, is that I
felt like I was in some kind of prison or
a box, you know, trapped in this apartment. But then,
like I said, it dawned on me whenever I was
I was sitting and trying to finish the song, I thought,
(45:31):
you know, I'm not the only person that's ever felt
like this throughout history, you know, and that there's something
like there's a line in there that says, even now,
I wonder where you are tonight, and if there's life
beyond the northern lights, And the next time it says,
and if there's life beyond the Great Divide. I think
it's about it's about looking up at the sky or
(45:51):
thinking about those things that all of us think about
at some point in thinking, am I am I alone?
Is this just me here that's dealing with this? Or
is something that everybody's feeling, you know? And I thought, man,
that's true. Throughout history, everybody has felt that way. And
for some reason the Titanic really struck me as like
that really being on a ship headed towards your dreams,
(46:15):
headed towards what is America and just being so close
that you could almost reach out and touch it, but
you just can't get there. And that was a lot
of the dialogue between me and my partner at that time,
was like I want to be there and he wanted
to be in America, and I felt like that was
such a valid thought, regardless of whether you were talking
(46:36):
about going to Sweden or America. Is just I think
we all felt like, where are we going right now?
Like what is happening? I don't know where I'm headed.
I was almost at this place and then everything derailed,
you know. And in hindsight, I look back at that
experience of living through a pandemic, and so much good
came out of it for me as well. I hate
(46:57):
to even put it like that, because I know that
there was so much tragedy and horrible things that happened
in my life too, you know, And but I look
back at it and I think if I had not
had that experience, you know, I don't know that I
would be the same person that I am today. You know,
and I'm really grateful for it in a lot of ways.
(47:20):
And I certainly am grateful that I was able to
kind of cohesively finish that song, because I think it
would still if COVID had not happened, it would still
be laying in a stack.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
Somewhere and not you would have the record, right.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
And also the another point of that song was I
initially was going to call it a Dream of America,
and when we were finishing this record it I've got,
for example, on Dream of America, the record I've Got
a Psycho Killer. So I did a cover on that,
and that entire record, even that cover, the entire record
(47:54):
was about addressing the underbelly of society in America, and
you know, that's why a lot of it was murders
that had happened. There's a song called Unbeliever, which is
about me not believing in religion anymore. You know, just
kind of all these undertones of things that were happening
in America and have throughout history, the darkness of America.
(48:15):
And that was why I ended up naming the record
that in the song the Great Divide, because I really
realized after I wrote that song that that was The
tone of the entire record for me too, was like
we all had this idea of what America was in
our mind, but we're just pushing aside all these other
dark factors in it.
Speaker 4 (48:35):
You know.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
And so yeah, COVID kind of exposed a lot of that.
Speaker 3 (48:39):
It sure did. Yeah, And there was a lot of
a lot of thoughts, and I think, I'm I'm sure
I'll continue to write songs about that era of my
life because it was so it is so interesting, you know,
and it you just kind of get an autopilot throughout life,
and something like that makes you stop and really reconsider everything.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
Yeah. So my favorite lyric in that song is pray
just brush the ceiling?
Speaker 3 (49:01):
Yeah? Or do my prayers just brush the ceiling? Yeah?
I say? And is God really on my side? Or
do my prayers just brush the ceiling? And I remember
laying in my bed and, like I said, in that
apartment and just looking up at the ceiling and thinking,
you know, am I here by? I can hear all
(49:22):
these people talking, but I feel like I'm just completely alone.
And what I mean is there's so many of us
out there right now on our knees praying, am I
is mind getting you know, sent to the draft box,
you know, or like it is it being listened to,
you know, and yeah, I just I just felt so
(49:43):
I just really was going through an entire mental breakdown
during that.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
Yeah. I think that's a really it's a creative way
to say that, first of all, but it's also really relatable.
It doesn't matter if you are staunch believers, you know,
the most foundational Christian. Yeah, we all feel like, yeah,
our prayers might not be getting through that.
Speaker 3 (50:08):
Yeah. Maybe maybe I felt I remember thinking, you know,
maybe mine are not first in the inbox. Maybe they
are just brushing the ceiling because I'm not as big
of a believer as this person is or whatever. Maybe
he's listening to theirs first. I mean, yeah, I think
that is. That is a thought that a lot of us,
you know, feel and have sometimes.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
So you know, yeah, well it's a great song. Thank
you for talking about it.
Speaker 4 (50:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
What would you say if you could pick a record
that's like a guilty pleasure that we wouldn't expect, Like
your fans would be like, shouldn't like that?
Speaker 3 (50:48):
Oh? Man? Uh, you know, I have been listening to
I think you pronounce it. Joe dj O is the
guy Steve from from Strangers. It's his record. Oh really,
it's so good, so good, I think the I think
the one I really like is called twenty twenty. Actually
it's like bedroom pop kind of but even it's so
(51:10):
good and yet and whenever I tell anybody that I
like that record, they're like, what, But it's really really.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
What kind of stuff is it is?
Speaker 3 (51:17):
It's like seventies kind of rock funk kind of stuff.
But but it's it's just the lyrics to it are
really cool, you know. I mean, it's it's all very
much about like the La lifestyle, you know, but he's
it's just cool. It's cool production, and he's a great singer,
you know, And I just I think it's a great
(51:39):
I think it's a great record.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
Being on a metal label, which is fascinating to me.
Are you into metal?
Speaker 2 (51:45):
Do you like? No?
Speaker 3 (51:46):
Not really? I like really dark. I like industrial metal.
We'll say like nine inch nails, you know, like I
really love that kind of stuff. But there is a
there's a breaking point for me where I'm like, this
doesn't like black metal, not at all. No, And actually
the label that I'm on is kind of a pet
label of that Despots is the name of my parent label,
(52:11):
Icons Creating Evil art is one of the owner's pet labels,
and it is like Lera Lynz on there, you know,
and that they they have some other artists that are
sort of in the vein of what I do, and
it's it ranges from singer songwriter to like more musical metal,
(52:33):
you know, and then you know, rock and things like that,
everything kind of in between. But but it's that particular
entity of that label is all about just dark. You know,
whatever whatever you're doing has to be dark, you know.
So the parent label Despots has a lot of really
big metal artists, but I just you know, it Scandinavian.
(52:57):
A lot of it's in Norwegian or Swedish, and I
don't really listen to that type of music often, but
I do try to delve into it a little bit
just so I have an idea of what is going
on going on.
Speaker 1 (53:08):
But yeah, so last little road will go down. You've
been doing this a long time, what advice would you
give up and comers or because it seems like you're
on a pretty steady career at this point. When we
do this as artists, there's always you know, dips and
(53:30):
struggles definitely in the beginning, like how do I make
a record and hold down a job and do all
of these things I have to do in a family
and all this stuff. Yes, what has been your experience
and maybe like a good piece of encouragement for people
that are doing it.
Speaker 3 (53:46):
Yeah, So whatever stage you're in in your life, I
think the real key to it is finding what we
were talking about earlier is why are you doing this?
If it's about the song, then focus on that. If
it's about you know, you're an artist that all you
want to do is go out and play live shows,
then you need to focus on that. Not that you
(54:08):
don't want to focus on having great songs. That's that's
obviously something you want to do as well. But you
need to shape your priorities around whatever that thing is
that you love, because there are going to be days
that you're going to ask yourself why am I doing this?
And you need to be able to clearly answer that
question for yourself or you're going to get very lost,
you know. And for me it was about touring, and
(54:30):
for other people it's going to be about writing songs
for other people, and that that is a very attainable goal.
If you want to have a family and still write songs,
you know, for other people or even for yourself, or
maybe I know lots of people that just enjoy the
hell out of writing a song and recording it in
their bedroom and putting it out. There's nothing wrong with
(54:50):
that either, and getting sync playings and things like that.
You know, you can make money not leaving your house
doing music. You got to be smart. You got to
figure out how you're going to to do that. But
very first thing is figuring out why you're doing it
and what it is that you value the most and
making that your priority and coming back to that all
the time. This is what I want, and it's if
(55:14):
it is touring, that's a whole nother You know, I
can't give a lot of advice about how to become
a successful top forty songwriter because I've not even come
close to doing that.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
But I don't know if anybody knows the answer to that.
Speaker 3 (55:26):
Yeah, I mean, you know there's a formula from that
to how you're going to do it. You start playing
your singer songwriter around, You make friends with the songwriters
in town. You get in a room every day that
you can with someone else and eventually you're going to
be standing at the right place at the right time,
you know. That is one method of it. But if
it's about touring, I get messages multiple times a day,
I'm not even kidding from people asking various questions, how
(55:50):
do you do what you're doing? Or hey, when you
go over there, what do you do for this or whatever?
Or you know, do you know the person that books
this venue? And I think I think the answer to
the touring part of it is that if you want
to tour in Australia, then look up the venues that
people are playing that are you know, on your level,
(56:13):
whatever that may be, and find the contacts and send
them an email. It's that simple, and it's not the
answer that people want to hear because that's hard and
that requires figuring out all the things like how do
you get a van? How do you get over there?
You know, and you can ask those questions. You've got
to be the person that sends those emails out for yourself,
because nobody is going to just pick you up and
(56:34):
do it. Maybe if you're really lucky, but that's not
the path that I counted on because having to get
a label to pick you up and get all these
agents and things that has never worked for me cohesively.
So you know, agents drop out here and there, and
so you've got an agent in the UK and one
over here and one in Germany, but you don't now
(56:54):
you don't have one in Sweden. Well what are you
gonna do? You're gonna book them yourself, you know. So
that's a whole I could do a whole podcast just
on my advice about how to do what I do specifically.
But I think to answer the big question, the advice
that I would have for any artist, or any writer
or any musician starting out is find that thing that
(57:15):
makes you want to get up in the middle of
the night and do it. You know, even on the
days that you're exhausted, on the days you don't believe
in yourself, that thing that's like, this is why I'm
doing it. And then you figure out the path, because
there is a path to everything you want to do.
You just ask the questions to people that have done
it before, specific questions.
Speaker 1 (57:33):
You make a plane, you do. And so somebody told
me recently, if you're not making a plan, you're just
making a wish.
Speaker 3 (57:40):
That's true. Yeah, I mean I always say to people like,
you can write songs all you want, but people are
not going to come and knock on your door and
make you for them. Even if you're writing the greatest
songs in the world, you got to have a plan
to get them out there, you know. So the plan
is not the hard part, because you can ask people
those questions. You know, by and large, if you go
about it the right way, are going to be like, hey,
(58:00):
this is how I did it, you know, or this
is my suggestion contact that person to book that venue.
But it starts with a really clear vision for what
it is that you want, you know. And it took
me a long time to figure that out. You know,
I had publishing deals and was writing for film and TV,
and I love all of that stuff. But what I
(58:21):
always came back to is I want to be on
the road. I want to tour.
Speaker 1 (58:24):
Well that's an important point also real quick, is that
you might have to figure out what you don't want
to do.
Speaker 3 (58:31):
Yeah, oh god, I might have to.
Speaker 1 (58:32):
Do it to figure out you want to do it.
You know, people are you know, touring guitar players or whatever,
and they want to be an artist, and they just
got roped into this thing because it's a job or whatever,
and that's fine.
Speaker 3 (58:44):
There's value in that.
Speaker 1 (58:45):
Sure, absolutely, there's value in so much, but it doesn't
mean that's what you want to keep doing.
Speaker 3 (58:50):
No, everything at the end of the day has to
if you want to be an artist and you're playing
for someone, which I do that too, you know, and
if you if you want to be an artist and
playing for someone, you have to circle back around and say,
is this valuable to what my bigger goal is? And
even if that's just paying my rent sometimes that is
(59:10):
you know, having that side job. Is that valuable to
me wanting to be a touring musician? Well, if it
pays the bills, then yes, you know. So there's no
shame in any of that. I mean, it is hard
work trying to be a full time musician and a
just completely side note. But also relevant thing is that
I think it's really good for people to have a
(59:31):
job that's not music for two things. One is because
it takes the pressure off of constantly having to do
music full time and being so burned out on it
that you don't want to do it anymore. And also
because it gives you a little piece of reality as well.
You know, if you have just a nine to five job.
It keeps you hungry, it keeps you going. This is
not what I want, you know, And I have always
(59:52):
found a lot of value in that.
Speaker 1 (59:54):
Honestly, I tell people all the time. Everyone should have
the experience of waiting tables. Yes, yeah, it schools you
so so fast.
Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
Yeah it does. And I mean I have done so
many things throughout my career just to take the pressure
off of not having to tour, or to give myself
some some material to write about, you know, whether it's
substitute teaching, I was a cake decorator, you know, all
of those things that kept me in one foot in
reality and help me to not only pay the bills
(01:00:23):
why I wrote a record, but also to just help
me remember you know that it's not just about people
asking for your autograph, you know. So there's no shame
in that. My god, that's I think. That's that's a
really a really commendable thing to do, is to try
to juggle a family. And I have a seventeen year
old son. The entire time that I've done this, I've
had a kid, you know. And everybody's path is going
(01:00:46):
to look different because your circumstances are different. But again,
if you know what that end goal is, you always
just go. It's like writing a song with the formula
for writing, you know, a top forty song. You have
the hook and every line has to point to it,
and that's what you know. That is what you want
to do with your goal in the music industry. You
have your your big hook, your big payoff, and everything
(01:01:07):
has to point to that. It's like, is this speeding this?
If not, I don't think I need to do that.
Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
Yeah for sure.
Speaker 3 (01:01:13):
So that that's where I what I believe with that,
But everybody will tell you something different.
Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
So I think that's great advice. That's killer. What do
you have coming up? What's going on? Where can people
find you?
Speaker 3 (01:01:25):
Yeah? So Sam and I are going to be on
tour quite a lot the next couple of months. Yeah,
and I'm just knows of the Grindstone writing songs for
a record.
Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
You know, you playing Nashville at all?
Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
We are not playing in Nashville right now, but I'm
sure that we will. We're doing some West Coast stuff
in February, then we're headed over to Europe doing some
European stuff, and then I have some Spain and things
like that in the fall. I'm recording a live record
in the fall, Oh cool, and working on another studio record.
(01:01:55):
So I'm just kind of laying the plans for twenty
twenty five right now, trying to figure out what my
goals are by this time next year, and one of
them is a live record and another one is to
have the songs together for a studio record.
Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
Nice, awesome And where are where you found?
Speaker 3 (01:02:11):
Everywhere? If if anyone is ever looking for me, it
would be pretty easy to find me. Yeah that you can.
I think it's Hannah Aldridge of Music Official or something
like that for Instagram, but hand Aldridge. Just google it
on Instagram, on Facebook, on Spotify, on Apple Music.
Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
On all the things cool, Yeah can awesome, Thanks for
coming having felt it.
Speaker 4 (01:02:44):
Listen.
Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
Work Tapes is produced by me Brandon Carswell. Filming and
editing for this episode by Sean Carswell
Welcome to Work Tapes. This is a podcast where we
tear up our songs. Why with the song written? What's
it about? What's the context and emotion behind it? Where
were you at the time, what were you going through?
How did certain lines come to you? What's the inspiration?
How long did it take to write? I'm Brandon Carswell
and I'm fascinated with songwriting and how songs are built
(00:29):
from the ground up. It's easy to hear a full
production song on the radio and dismiss its origin story.
I want to hear the rough draft of the song
or the work tape. I want to explore the very beginning.
How songs that move us and make us move our mourn.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
He's a re hostage to the sun.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
It's midnight and the morning.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
In the days made of glass, It's somehow shadowed with
a morning even now.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
How everyone, Welcome to Work Tapes. I am Brandon Carswell.
We are joined by Hannah Aldridge.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
How you doing, I'm doing good? How are you good?
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I'm good?
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Hannah is a singer, songwriter, artist extraordinary. Do you want
to just start off and tell us a little bit
about yourself?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I know you come from a background like, your family
is very musical, your dad is a pretty epic songwriter.
Maybe you could talk about a little bit of some
of that and how that we'll just arriving that way.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
So I'm originally from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, which you know,
if you're not familiar with that, as a little town
in North Alabama where a whole lot of cool music
was made. And I grew up in the music business
because my dad, like you said, is a songwriter and producer.
But you know, it wasn't something that struck me as
(02:41):
weird at all growing up that way. It was you know,
although I did run around studios and things whenever I
was young, it wasn't like I consciously was sitting there thinking, Oh,
I'm going to be a musician when I get older.
I always really wanted to do that, but I didn't
pick up the guitar until I was in my early
to mid twenties, so I didn't really know how to
execute that dream exactly until I started putting it together
(03:04):
with a guitar. I was classically trained on piano and
knew that I loved to sing, but I didn't I
just didn't know how to put the pieces together. So
I kind of always thought that my dad's the musician,
and the family and everybody else is kind of just
you know, good at singing or whatever. And then we
moved up to Nashville, not for me to pursue music
(03:28):
per se, but just because my father was in the
music industry and I went to school at MTSU. My
parents were like, please get out of our house. Please
will pay for you to go to college to do anything,
just so I thought, well, I'll go to school for music.
I like music, you know. I didn't know what I
wanted to do at all, But in that course ended
(03:49):
up taking some songwriting one oh one classes because I thought, well,
this will be an easy a They're just going to
teach us to write little jingles and things, and lo
and behold, I ended up really enjoying writing songs and
that was a whole, you know, chapter of my life
learning to do that. But it was not as straightforward
(04:10):
as a lot of people think it is. Oh, your
dad's a musician, so of course you're a musician. For me,
it really I had to figure that out that that's
what I wanted to do, and then really try to
figure out what that meant to me and how that
translated to my music because I don't write for a
music row or other artists. Yeah, so that was a
(04:30):
process for sure.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah do you think. I mean, obviously, you growing up
the way you did with your dad being a big songwriter.
What's interesting about your story is that that would have
influenced you later though, right, I mean, you took all
of those things. I'm sure you were around it, watching
(04:52):
him or hearing his songs or seeing artists cut his songs.
And when you were a kid, what were you thinking.
Was it like this is no big deal, you didn't care,
or was it something where like, oh that would be
cool to do maybe.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
You know, I think at that age, even then, I
recognized that what my dad was doing is not something
that I wanted to do. And I didn't know, you know,
what it was I wanted to do. I thought being
an artist is too big of a dream, you know,
during that time, even you know that that was during
the era that you still would have to get a
(05:28):
huge record deal and that's how you got big. I mean,
the Internet was barely even a thing, you know, even
in my mid teens, so that wasn't an option to
me that you would make a bedroom record and put
it out. You know, it was like, you either are
really famous, and at that time when I was a kid,
it was like Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys. So
(05:49):
that's who I'm thinking, I've got to do that, you know,
because I can't write songs and I don't want to
write for country artists and so so for me, it
just seemed like too big of a to be able
to do. And then as time went on and the
Internet became a thing and being a dy diy artist
became possible, that that became clearer to me, you know,
(06:13):
what I wanted to do in terms of did it
did it seem weird? Like, you know, growing up that
way because I grew up in muscle shoals primarily, yes,
I knew to some extent that what my dad was
doing was not what everybody else's parents were doing, and
that it wasn't a super normal situation. My dad never
(06:36):
presented that as being something that was that different than
anything else. Yeah, it's just a job. And so until
I got older and I started actually going out and
writing music in the Nashville community and touring and seeing
the impact that that little town had on the world
and that my dad's music has had on people. That's
(06:57):
when I started to really realize that it was something
that was really special and unique.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah, yeah, it's cool. It's it's cool and interesting to
me that you were thinking when you did start writing
that you're not going to write for country artists or
other artists. You're gonna write for yourself, seeing that your
dad wrote for other people and for those interested, your
(07:24):
dad's name is Walt Aldridge, so you guys can look
him up and what he's done and written, and we
won't camp out here the whole time. You're not living
in your dad's shadow because you do your own thing.
But it's interesting to me, like how how an artist
is influenced when they're younger, and being that your dad
was in the industry, it would be easy to assume like, oh,
(07:48):
you're just doing what your dad did because you have
an end.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Yes, sure, yeah, sure sure, And I think a lot
of people do assume that, and it's it's frustrating because
it's like the truth is is that we don't talk
at all about my music stuff. I mean not really,
because I've always been so independent in wanting to do
everything myself and you know, the times that I do
(08:13):
call on my dad to help me with anything is
actually so rare that it's very special, you know, And
those few things that we've done together are really special
to me because we just do It's just two different
things altogether, and it's two different industries that we worked in,
you know, and I think it would be easy to
assume that that that's you know, in the same way
(08:35):
that it's easy to assume that if you live in
Nashville and you're not Taylor Swift, that you're not successful,
which is a whole nother thing. Is like people's perception
of how the music industry works. You have to kind
of learn to just let it roll off your back
because it doesn't matter really Like people can think what
they want to about it. But at the end of
the day, I mean, my life has been primarily circled
(08:58):
around touring because I found and that's what I loved.
My dad could have hated touring, you know, couldn't have
hated touring more than anyone in the whole world. I Mean,
he absolutely was like, this is not for me, but
for me, that's the only thing that really drives me
to write a song, is that I want to play
this in front of people, and that's a whole another
thing we can talk about. But that's where I found
(09:21):
my love for music, whereas I think my dad really
is centered around the song and whoever sings that song,
it doesn't matter to him because he wrote it. And
to that point, I remember when I wrote a song
called Lonesome, which was the first song I ever really
wrote that I was proud of, and it got put
on a TV show and I remember having a conversation
with my dad saying I don't want anybody to ever
(09:43):
record the song, and he was like why, and I'm like,
because it's my song. You know, I don't want to
sell this song to somebody. And he was like, I
bet if they paid you enough money, you would. I'm like,
probably not, you know, I mean, I just I always
felt that way about my songs that there were and
that I wanted to sing them, and I wrote them
for myself. Now I probably would let somebody else sing
(10:05):
my songs, but I think that was kind of my mindset.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Well, it's understandable. It's interesting. It can be like an
interesting dynamic. So in this town you have and I'm
sure in most souls you have artists that want to
do their own stuff and they own that, and if
(10:28):
somebody comes along and says I want to cut this,
you're like, no, this is mine. I've experienced that in
the past where I didn't take a deal because they
wanted certain songs and I wanted those. Yeah, and you
can you can corner yourself a little bit, but you
can also just stay true to yourself. Yeah, and if
you want to try to write for Top forty, you
(10:51):
can do that.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Ye.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Your stuff is not Top forty.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
No, no, not at all.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
But it's really good. So maybe you can speak to
what kind of style you do of music and what
influenced you to go that route, because it's an interesting style.
Sometimes it's dark, sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's broody, whatever.
(11:21):
Sometimes it's rock and roll. Sometimes it does have a
little country flare in there.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
So.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
You know that it's interesting. I just re released the
ten year anniversary of my first record, and I've had
a full year of touring behind that to kind of
consider where all of it started for me. I think
every record came from a different place of what I
was wanting to put out as a representation of myself.
(11:49):
But I've never been afraid of changing how something sounds,
and I think that's that keeps it interesting for me.
I don't want to be cornered into being like, uh,
she's a country artist or a rock artist. But I
think at the core of it, for me, what I've
always found interesting is addressing those those dark topics and
(12:12):
things that are hard to talk about because again, a
lot of what I'm doing is centered around the live show,
and in the live show, I talk a lot about
why I wrote that song. I'd kind of take that
Nashville singer songwriter around thing on the road, and I
find that a lot of times that's what people really
connect with. Yeah, they like the song, but the story
(12:34):
behind the song is they go, I can relate to that,
you know, And I think for me that that is
the is the core of it and whatever however it's produced.
All of these songs start, which you'll hear in the
work tape of the song that we're going to talk about,
All of these songs start the same. They all start
with an acoustic guitar and some very deep feeling that
(12:55):
I have, and a lot of times it's just me
working that feeling out live, you know, and in person
on a work tape with an acoustic guitar, and for me,
it's about connecting with other people and talking about things
that are hard for me and probably hard for other people.
Then once you get past that step, you talk about
(13:17):
how do I want to make this project sound? And
my first record was a little bit more country because truthfully,
I had no idea what I was doing. I was
just writing songs and recording them in analog with you know,
absolutely no polish at all on it.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
I listened back to that first record of mine, Razor Wire,
and I'm like, good lord, I would never have the
nerve to go into a studio with songs that are
this rough around the edges and not know what I'm
doing and just put out a whole record, you know.
And there's something really beautiful about that record because of that,
And it is a little country because I grew up
in Alabama and that's how those songs came out. I
(13:53):
didn't have like a concept of what I wanted my
artistry to be like. As time went on, I then
kind of leaned more into the seventies rock because I
enjoy that as well, and I thought, well, maybe this
is kind of where these songs are home. And I
was really lucky to have people working with me on
all of those records that could help me kind of
(14:15):
make those sounds come together and make sense for me.
Then after that, an interesting turn of events is that
I signed with a metal label out of Stockholm, Sweden.
And when I signed with this metal label, it all
kind of comes together for me because this label is
I'm still currently with them, and they are amazing at
(14:35):
letting me just be creative visually and tie all the
pieces together. Whereas the first two records, gold Rush in
Razor Wire, I felt like I was fighting that desire
to want to have this weird.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I get to hold back.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Some Yeah, I just felt like I didn't know. I
didn't have the vision of what it should look like
I had. The songs are all the same at the core.
You know, they're acoustic guitar, and you know, for me,
that part of it is cohesive throughout my entire career.
But it's the presentation of it that's changed a little bit.
And when I signed with this label, Icon's creating evil art.
(15:11):
They they were so they have been so good at
just being like, we like you and we like what
you do, and the darker and weirder it is the better.
And so that helped me tie tie together what I
was hearing with what I wanted to see. And I
think that was really key for me as an artist.
And when I talk to people now that are starting
(15:33):
down that path. That's the big missing piece that took
me forever to figure out was how does this look
with how this sounds? Yea, And and it really it
took a while to get that, you know. But the
songs are the same at the end of the day.
I mean, they're all they're all kind of Yes, they're
all kind of dark, I mean, but how how dark
they're produced is the difference.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Sure, And that well, content wise, I don't I don't,
they don't. I mean I listened to a lot of
it this week to prep for this. I don't think
they're like every song is like dark.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
No, it's not so dark that it's like, oh God,
I can't handle any more of this, but a lot
of it, you know, A big, big, big part of
my songwriting is this kind of religious subtext because I
grew up Church of Christ, so that was a big
part of my life and my conflict, you know, in
(16:25):
a lot of these songs, almost all of them if
I listen back to them, even when I'm not trying
to write about that, somewhere in there.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
It's in there.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
And I think that comes from my deep love of
Southern Gothic literature as well and kind of addressing those
things that are Southern culture, religious culture, and things that
move me. And I think that that has has kind
of become a little bit of the darkness, and some
of my songs as me trying to figure that out
(16:54):
in my own mind. Also relationships. Of course everyone's writing
about that, but it's not like every song is about
vampires or demon possession. Some of them are, but not
in your face.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Well, let me ask you this, Are they so don't
I don't know like all of the theology behind Church
of Christ. I know some denominations, but I assume it's
much more legalistic than a lot of other ones. So
are those darker topics based around that? Are they kind
(17:28):
of like a is it kind of a struggle to
understand the two worlds? Or is it a middle finger?
Or is it no?
Speaker 3 (17:35):
I think you know, I I have always had this affinity,
like I've always been drawn to the dark side of things,
because I think because I was told my whole life
that I'm not allowed to look at that. So where
I have a really I have a deep respect for
boundaries within that, I'm not going to go home and
(17:56):
play with Ouiji board because I truly am a little terrified.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Yeah that you know it.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
I also I'm like, this is kind of cool, what's
up with this? You know? So when I'm on tour,
for example, one of my favorite things to do is
to go in different churches and find religious historical things,
because for me, it's a real cathartic experience. And I
(18:23):
when I started touring, I kind of decided, I'm going
to try to untangle all those things that I've been
taught and just experience the world in its own state
and how it presents itself to me, and try to
not have any preconceived notions of what it should be.
And so I try to go in these cathedrals in
(18:45):
Barcelona or wherever, you know, in Paris or you know,
even if I'm in New York, just walk into a
church there, you know, and try to just experience it
in real time. And something about that is so dark
and so beautiful at the same time, and I think
that that that's what draws me to it, is there
is this darkness about the afterlife and religion and God
(19:09):
and all those things that I'm drawn to that as well,
not just the light side of it.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
So what do you think the draw is?
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Like?
Speaker 1 (19:15):
You can go as deeper as shall as you want.
We don't even have to talk about it. But is
it a search for like some absolute truth, some hope.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Or I think it's in the same way that there's
a dress. Yeah, there's a draw to in the same
way that you sit down and watch a horror movie
and you go, are ghost real? You know, it's the
same for me. I don't know that I necessarily want
to see a ghost, but the idea of it's really
fascinating to me. And I think as it ties into
religion and the world, I mean, let's pretend like the
(19:48):
devil is real and all of that scary stuff is real.
You know. I find it fascinating because it's like, where
do I tie into all of that? You know, where
do we all tie into all of that? And how
far can you push this before you go? I don't
think I want to. I don't want to see what's
behind that door. You know, so I think it's just
an alurt It's the same way you sit down and
you you watch a horror movie.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
I mean for me, it's flame with that.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Yeah, exactly, It's just like what is going on here?
Exactly because the religion I grew up in it is
very I always joke and say it's like Amish but
with electricity, because it's it's not. You don't there is
no demon possession or the you know, mystical, magical kind
of side of religion that happens with snake handling or
(20:33):
even Catholicism to some extent. It's like those things are
so foreign to me. So I'm like, what is that about?
Like why are we why do we have little pieces
of of you know, someone's clothes or whatever that we're
rubbing and praying to this religion or in that religion.
Why are we holding rattlesnakes and hoping that we you know,
can speak in tongues? You know, that was something that
(20:55):
I was never exposed to because it was such a
you know, Church of Christ is such a black and
white religion and it is there is not much room
for anything mythical at all.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Was there any musical influence there.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
No, so fascinating question because that part of my religious
upbringing did influence me because there were no instruments whatsoever.
So the only part of that that was really good
for me was my harmony singing.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
So they just sing hymns or hymns.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
And it's funny because when I talk about this during
my shows, I mean, think about for a moment. You've
got a religion where most of the churches, not all
of them, but most Church of Christ, i'd say the
attendance is well under one hundred people, let's say fifty
in some places, maybe even less. And I remember going
to see my grandfather, who was a Church of Christ preacher,
(21:50):
preaching at some churches in Indiana, and there were maybe
twenty people there. So you imagine a church with twenty
people and you're singing a cappella. Out of those twenty people, Well,
how many of them do you think can sing? So
you've got twenty people, yeah, I mean you statistically, you're
(22:11):
gonna hear some pretty horrible singing, you know. And I
remember that so vividly growing up, just being in these
tiny churches and just sitting in the back puce, shake
and laughing like listening to these people singing, because it
does does it's horrible sounding, you know. And on the
other hand, some beautiful moments I can recall in that
(22:33):
experience was being in massive, massive, but you know, much
bigger hundreds and hundreds of people singing a cappella and
having the ability and freedom to play around with harmonies
and how melodies move you and those kinds of things,
and that was really important to me. But there was
no there were no instruments at all, you know. So yeah,
(22:57):
it was really really interesting.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
That it's like a it's a for this podcast, it's
kind of refreshing because most of my guests are like,
I grew up in the church and I did music there. Yeah,
and that's how I learned how to That's how I learned, Yeah,
like the southern gospel thing. Yeah, that's how so many
like country artists starts.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Yeah. Absolutely, And I had zero of that. I mean,
it just I think because it was such a strict
and constricting religion. It the type of person that I am.
It made me go, what's over there, you know, And
and I took some of the things that I could
value from it, which are like this, like the harmony singing,
(23:36):
or the you know, the finding the beauty in in
in God, or being taught as a child, you know,
these values. But outside of that, I mean, I as
a person really was scarred by a lot of it.
And and that's a whole nother layer of all of that.
I think the religious trauma part of it really pushed
(23:59):
me to want to go out and figure out what
that means and how it applies to me. And and
that's where that plays into my music. You know. I
think the harmony, singing and all of that was really
important for me. But where it really ties into my
music is that deep exploration of who am I and
what is God to me? And and how how does
(24:25):
that play into everyone around me's life, you know, and
and can we all coexist with these different ideas?
Speaker 1 (24:31):
So yeah, I don't I don't hear your lyrics as
being I mean, you can correct me if I'm wrong,
but I don't hear them as being anti God as
much as they are exploration.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Like you said, No, they're not anti God. I definitely,
like I said, I have a deep respect for the
notion that there is a God and those things that
you learn when you are born. You know that the
first ten years of your life. You're never going to
unlearn those things, good or bad. And for me, a
lot of that was religion. And so still to this day,
(25:05):
you know, I could try to unlearn everything that I
was taught. There's no way.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Well, there's a there's a whole world of content to
pull from first songwriters as far as being existential and
like sensationalism and religion and upbringing and all that. Absolutely,
it's wild. We were just talking about Sam Outlaw. We
were he was on this show. I forget what episode
(25:30):
number it is, so for those of you listening, you
can just look it up. It's a great episode.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
But you play with them, I do, yeah, yep.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
And I I met you a really long time ago,
but I saw that you you did a set at
the Bluebird with Sam and Cheyenne Metters, who Shian's been
on this as well, and he's a gem.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I don't know how well you know him, but he's amazing.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Yeah he is.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
And so I remember seeing that, I was like, oh,
I need to get Hannah on here and we need
to talk. So thank you for being here. Thank you
halfway in the episode.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
No, it's super fun to talk about a process of
doing what I do as opposed to just my backstory
or just one specific thing, because it helps me to
remind me why I'm doing so I love doing well.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
One of the things that you mentioned earlier was touring
and how that's a connection for you to write like,
I think that's interesting. I haven't done as much touring
as a lot of people, but I still love to
write like a lot. I could probably probably be like
your dad and just live in town and write songs
(26:42):
and be happy, which is wonderful without traveling the world.
Not that I wouldn't want to travel, but I don't
need it either. But I think it's interesting how you say,
like this is what brings me songs essentially, like connecting
with people. What is it specifically about? Is it the travel,
is it the show itself? Is it all of it?
Speaker 3 (27:04):
I think it's all of it. I think I have
such a nomadic soul, you know, and I'm always looking
for something else and always looking for the big meaning,
you know. And I truly had to come to terms with,
you know, especially during COVID. I really had plenty of
(27:26):
time to sit and think about this, Like why am
I doing this? Is that carrot that you're chasing all
the time of fame or money, or if I could
just get opening for that person, or if I could
just you know, get on that bill and for me.
I came back from twenty twenty with this very clear
head about why I'm doing what I'm doing. I think
(27:49):
living in Nashville and being around so many people that
are are seemingly have this success quote unquote that you
want to have. I had to really to find that
word and think about what is success for me, because
success for other people might be one thing, and success
(28:09):
for someone else might be another thing. It might be
a number one hit, or it might be touring in
the UK. You know, I know plenty of people that
have all the success that they want to have writing
songs for other people, or playing writing songs that are
in TV shows or whatever it may be, and all
they want to do is tour. And then there's some
(28:32):
people that are touring and all they want to do
is have a big hit, you know, and finding that
place where you're content is. You know, if I never
do anything more than what I'm doing right now, I
could be happy. That for me is the key to
what I learned during that whole process of discovery, and
I had to really kind of ground myself and say,
(28:54):
if I never go any further than where I've gone today,
am I happy with this? You know? Do I still
want to do this because that's a real reality that
I may never get any further than this. And yes
was the answer because for me, the ability to go
out and play my music in front of people around
the world and not just play the songs but tell
(29:17):
my story. And when I play a song, I say,
this is my experience that I had. And at some
point during the show, I say, you know, I grew
up religious, I talk about all of that, and I say,
you know, I left the church when I was about
nineteen and went on this sabbatical of just trying to
(29:38):
figure out what God is to me and what the
whole point is, what I am to this world and
what I can bring to the world. And what I
discovered is that when I stand on this stage and
I play in front of a room full of people
and one person comes up to me and says, thank
you for writing that song because I went through that,
or that was something that I thought I was completely
(30:00):
or they say thank you for being here because I
thought tonight I couldn't make it through another day because
of X y Z. You get a letter from someone
or a note that says my spouse that's passed away.
They were massive fans of yours, and I came to
your show because that was something I could do that
reminded me of them. You don't realize the impact that
you're having on those people in that moment. And that's
(30:22):
my church. That's why I go out and I do
it because it's bigger than me. It's not about people
applauding or people, you know, ticket sales or how much
money I'm making. It's like being a preacher, you know.
It's like going out and saying I can impact one
person in this room and they might not feel alone,
or they might feel like they want to go out
(30:43):
and write a song or whatever it may be. That
I think, you know, when the day is done and
my life is over, at least I had that that
I gave to someone, to several people, to a lot
of people, you know, And I think that's all you
can ask for. Like, who gives a damn about if
you have a number one hit that nobody.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Remembers, And that's good therapy. For you.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Yeah, it is as you're on.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Your search, because you're you're out there unloading exactly you've
been like on this mission to find answers or whatever
it is. And as an artist, we just put our
heart on our sleeve on stage and trust that people
aren't going to eat you alive.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Yeah sure, and yeah yeah, and they don't.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
That's got to be it is.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
And also a lot of those songs, most all of
those songs come from a place of deep hurt or
deep darkness, and you go and you lay that out
for other people and they go, I feel that way too,
you know, And I think that is so validating. It's
not validating in a way that you think, oh, I'm
amazing because I wrote that. It's validating because you think
(31:46):
I'm a human being and someone in Spain feels the
same way that I do, you know, and I'm not alone.
And I just think for me, that is that is
the core. I mean, why else are you creating art
if it's not to connect with people? And I think
sometimes when you're writing songs and you blow them out
into the wind, and you you know, people give you feedback,
But for me, it's getting to see them face to face.
(32:11):
Sometimes that's exhausting. It can feel a little bit like,
oh good, I get to go up and do the
same show all over again. But then you have that
one connection or several connections, and you think, man, this
is why I'm doing it. This is why I'm doing it,
you know, And for me, that's how I plug in.
Other people they plug in in other ways, but that
a lot of people, it's sitting in a room with
(32:31):
someone and dumping all your feelings and having a song
to show after it. That's enough, or the recording process
is their cathartic experience. But that for me, you know,
getting to go and play those shows in front of
people and also experiencing their life on their terms. You know.
I go to these cities and sit down at a
(32:54):
dinner table with promoters and their kids and their family
or whatever, and they tell me their stories and I think, man,
how would I ever get to do this other than
doing this job right here. So it's not always easy.
I made that sound really wonderful, but but.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
It's there's not like a destination to it. You just
keep going now, you keep working. You mentioned going through well,
we all went through the COVID era and I thought
that would be a good segue into talking about the
song we're going to talk about, which is called The
Great Divide, which is the last song on your most
(33:33):
current record. And you mentioned to me before this that
this song came about during that time and the recording
process and the writing process were different because of that. Yes,
so let's get into it. Let's talk about The Great
Divide where it came from, and then we'll listen to
(33:53):
the work tape.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Yeah, so this song is interesting. Uh, it's it's not
like every song that I've ever written, in the fact
that it started probably a year before I ever finished it,
a year before COVID ever started. I started this song
and I could not figure out what that big point
of the song was. I had some lyrics. I kept
trying to rewrite it. I'd sit at my piano and go,
(34:15):
maybe if I play it like this, or maybe if
I do this, maybe if I put it in this key.
You know. I just could not figure it out. And
as COVID went along, I really felt like I did
not have anything to say to bring to the dialogue
at all. There was so much coming at me, you know,
and I turned to trying to write songs about books
(34:36):
I had read or movies or podcast A lot of
those ended up being murder songs and you know, songs
about like I listened to a podcast on the Root
of Evil or on a black Doll you Murder, which
is called root of Evil, and I wrote a song
about that, you know, And I'd write a song about this,
you know movie I had seen, or Faulkner. I wrote
(34:57):
a song that was about as La dying.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
You know, Oh, the Portrait of an Artist.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Yeah, Portrait of the Artist is.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
And they're just all these songs that were like really
an experiment, you know. But the one that one song,
the Great Divide, I kept coming back to it. And
I was dating a guy that lived in North Sweden
for several years prior to COVID, and during COVID, I
had been separated from him, and so there's a lot
of imagery about about you know, the northern lights and
(35:28):
it being cold and being divided by the ocean and
things like that. But also my father at the time
was really ill and I was caregiving for him, and
I was kind of looking down the barrel of that
gun that that most of us have to do at
some point, which is watching our parents, you know, getting
older and and it's a very sobering experience. And so
I was dealing with that along with the like existential
(35:50):
crisis of what is life right now? You know, and
the fear that just was so wrapped up in COVID.
I felt so overwhelmed, and little by little, day by day,
I said, in my apartment, and I could hear the
I lived in this apartment in Chattanooga at the time,
and I could hear everybody's conversations through the walls. Like
I would literally put my head down to the floor
(36:11):
and just write what people were saying, because I could
hear everything that was happening. But we couldn't be with
each other, We could not be face to face. And
that felt like the the that felt like the big theme,
you know, which was why this song is called the
Great Divide, because I was thinking, you know, is their
life after this is their life after life? Is their
(36:32):
life after COVID? You know? Is there is there life
after your whole life being destroyed? And so that was
kind of the centerpiece of it. And I remember sitting
one night at my piano. This is after I had
moved back to Nashville, so this song, you know, I'm
still sitting there like, what is the point of the song?
And uh, I was sitting at my piano and it
(36:53):
was sitting in front of this big window in my
apartment that was overlooking like the totally empty streets of Nashville,
and I remember looking up at the stars and thinking
how wild it is that so much history has unfolded
under this night sky, you know, throughout time. And I
started going through all the historical events in my mind
of things that had happened, and I jumped from like
(37:15):
the Donner Party to like to the Titanic, and all
of a sudden, I started thinking about the Titanic and
what it would have been like the night that the
Titanic went down, that some of those people were on
the bow of the ship and everything seemed fine, and
they were cruising towards their dream, which is America. And
then next thing you know, you're in this water looking
(37:35):
up at that same sky, and it feels completely different.
And so I was able to finally be like that.
That is what I want to say, you know, is
that sometimes you know, it feels like a dream that
you're trying to reach out and grab this thing and
it all feels like some massive divide between where you
are and where you want to be. And so I
(37:57):
ended up finishing that song based on that. But man,
it was a process. And then once I finished these songs,
the fascinating part about the recording process of this record
was I did this record with my friend Lachlan Bryan
and his right hand man, Damien Caffarella, and they live
in Melbourne, Australia. So all of these songs we were
(38:18):
like sending little voice notes and things back and forth
to each other. And I'm sure there's some other people
out there that had similar experiences during COVID, even if
it was people just up the road that they were
doing this way. But it was like the hardest way
to record a record. I would never do it again
this way. But I'm so grateful I have that record
because it would have never existed in that way otherwise,
(38:42):
you know. And even though it felt like pulling teeth
to get a record out during COVID, I felt so
uninspired and so like, well, I don't know if I
ever want to do music again. Yeah, I'm so glad
I did it because I have this record that would
not have ever existed otherwise. And the great divide for
me was kind of my baby on that record that
I wanted to really get it right, and we kind
(39:04):
of I wouldn't say argued, but we had differing opinions
about how that song needed to sound and and for me,
I always heard it just being very simple, very like,
you know, a cello and an acoustic guitar. And the
producers sent me all these different versions of the song
and I was like, no, I don't like any of these,
this is not what I want. And finally we landed
(39:26):
something in between there and ended up it ended up
being really cool. I mean it was. It was totally
a different process than what I would have done in
a studio.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Well, I really liked the work tape that you sent me.
I'm a sucker for just like a vocal acoustic ever, right, Yeah,
like where when the song just comes out or whatever,
you finally have like it formed and ready. So let's
let's listen to the work tape and then we'll get
into it a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Said, we're hostage to the Sun's BENIGNI money in the
days made of glass, somehow shadow with the.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
Even now, how on do.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
We aren't I if the love beyond the northern light.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
And of love's fading and focus, all close my eyes.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
To be.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
Of Amerca.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
With this flicker through the like can on man while
I'm sleeping, and it's good really on my side to
do my facious brush sel looking back.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
Let's see you.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
When the strangers.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
Say the covagson from diste.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Any vaults only a circles, we may, I'll close my.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
Three of America.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
To my.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Ever known there.
Speaker 4 (42:43):
If there's that beyond the great divide, and if time's
only siding in the progress, all close my.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Okay, I do love this work tape. This song made
me think of like when You my first few passes
on it, I was thinking what does this mean? Like
what does the America part mean? And the way that
it hit me just personally was like, Okay, for me
(43:41):
being from America, being in it is my comfort, it's
my home, It's where I am, It's what I know.
I can travel around different places here and I'm still comfortable.
But if I go overseas to some other country and
I don't know how it goes or what the what
the their day to day is, I'm totally out of
the box. Yep, totally vulnerable. So dreaming of America, that's
(44:05):
what I was thinking of. I was thinking like maybe
she was on the road. Maybe she was because I
don't talk about to the guests that are on the show,
don't We do a lot of communicating beforehand, but we
don't talk about the content of the song before him. Yeah,
because I want it to be here. So I'm in
my head going making up all these stories, which is
what we do with yah music.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
We hear, which is what you should do because it
should be personal for everyone. Interestingly, this song, I had
to really figure out what it meant to me as well, because,
like I said, it was such a puzzle piece. And
it was interesting listening back to work tapes because the
one that you just listened to that was one where
you can even hear at some point that I'm trying
to figure out what I'm going to say next in
the song, because there are probably thirty work tapes of
(44:48):
that song before I got to that version of it
where the lyrics are different, all the verses are mixed
up in different orders. I play it with an electric
I have this little aultro in one of them, and
you know it's Yeah, it took me a while. I
think the autro initially talked about me being a foreigner somewhere.
(45:10):
I'm a foreigner again tonight, I'm a prisoner, you know
kind of thing. And I think initially that was kind
of kind of what I was thinking, is that I
felt like I was in some kind of prison or
a box, you know, trapped in this apartment. But then,
like I said, it dawned on me whenever I was
I was sitting and trying to finish the song, I thought,
(45:31):
you know, I'm not the only person that's ever felt
like this throughout history, you know, and that there's something
like there's a line in there that says, even now,
I wonder where you are tonight, and if there's life
beyond the northern lights, And the next time it says,
and if there's life beyond the Great Divide. I think
it's about it's about looking up at the sky or
(45:51):
thinking about those things that all of us think about
at some point in thinking, am I am I alone?
Is this just me here that's dealing with this? Or
is something that everybody's feeling, you know? And I thought, man,
that's true. Throughout history, everybody has felt that way. And
for some reason the Titanic really struck me as like
that really being on a ship headed towards your dreams,
(46:15):
headed towards what is America and just being so close
that you could almost reach out and touch it, but
you just can't get there. And that was a lot
of the dialogue between me and my partner at that time,
was like I want to be there and he wanted
to be in America, and I felt like that was
such a valid thought, regardless of whether you were talking
(46:36):
about going to Sweden or America. Is just I think
we all felt like, where are we going right now?
Like what is happening? I don't know where I'm headed.
I was almost at this place and then everything derailed,
you know. And in hindsight, I look back at that
experience of living through a pandemic, and so much good
came out of it for me as well. I hate
(46:57):
to even put it like that, because I know that
there was so much tragedy and horrible things that happened
in my life too, you know, And but I look
back at it and I think if I had not
had that experience, you know, I don't know that I
would be the same person that I am today. You know,
and I'm really grateful for it in a lot of ways.
(47:20):
And I certainly am grateful that I was able to
kind of cohesively finish that song, because I think it
would still if COVID had not happened, it would still
be laying in a stack.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
Somewhere and not you would have the record, right.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
And also the another point of that song was I
initially was going to call it a Dream of America,
and when we were finishing this record it I've got,
for example, on Dream of America, the record I've Got
a Psycho Killer. So I did a cover on that,
and that entire record, even that cover, the entire record
(47:54):
was about addressing the underbelly of society in America, and
you know, that's why a lot of it was murders
that had happened. There's a song called Unbeliever, which is
about me not believing in religion anymore. You know, just
kind of all these undertones of things that were happening
in America and have throughout history, the darkness of America.
(48:15):
And that was why I ended up naming the record
that in the song the Great Divide, because I really
realized after I wrote that song that that was The
tone of the entire record for me too, was like
we all had this idea of what America was in
our mind, but we're just pushing aside all these other
dark factors in it.
Speaker 4 (48:35):
You know.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
And so yeah, COVID kind of exposed a lot of that.
Speaker 3 (48:39):
It sure did. Yeah, And there was a lot of
a lot of thoughts, and I think, I'm I'm sure
I'll continue to write songs about that era of my
life because it was so it is so interesting, you know,
and it you just kind of get an autopilot throughout life,
and something like that makes you stop and really reconsider everything.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
Yeah. So my favorite lyric in that song is pray
just brush the ceiling?
Speaker 3 (49:01):
Yeah? Or do my prayers just brush the ceiling? Yeah?
I say? And is God really on my side? Or
do my prayers just brush the ceiling? And I remember
laying in my bed and, like I said, in that
apartment and just looking up at the ceiling and thinking,
you know, am I here by? I can hear all
(49:22):
these people talking, but I feel like I'm just completely alone.
And what I mean is there's so many of us
out there right now on our knees praying, am I
is mind getting you know, sent to the draft box,
you know, or like it is it being listened to,
you know, and yeah, I just I just felt so
(49:43):
I just really was going through an entire mental breakdown
during that.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
Yeah. I think that's a really it's a creative way
to say that, first of all, but it's also really relatable.
It doesn't matter if you are staunch believers, you know,
the most foundational Christian. Yeah, we all feel like, yeah,
our prayers might not be getting through that.
Speaker 3 (50:08):
Yeah. Maybe maybe I felt I remember thinking, you know,
maybe mine are not first in the inbox. Maybe they
are just brushing the ceiling because I'm not as big
of a believer as this person is or whatever. Maybe
he's listening to theirs first. I mean, yeah, I think
that is. That is a thought that a lot of us,
you know, feel and have sometimes.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
So you know, yeah, well it's a great song. Thank
you for talking about it.
Speaker 4 (50:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
What would you say if you could pick a record
that's like a guilty pleasure that we wouldn't expect, Like
your fans would be like, shouldn't like that?
Speaker 3 (50:48):
Oh? Man? Uh, you know, I have been listening to
I think you pronounce it. Joe dj O is the
guy Steve from from Strangers. It's his record. Oh really,
it's so good, so good, I think the I think
the one I really like is called twenty twenty. Actually
it's like bedroom pop kind of but even it's so
(51:10):
good and yet and whenever I tell anybody that I
like that record, they're like, what, But it's really really.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
What kind of stuff is it is?
Speaker 3 (51:17):
It's like seventies kind of rock funk kind of stuff.
But but it's it's just the lyrics to it are
really cool, you know. I mean, it's it's all very
much about like the La lifestyle, you know, but he's
it's just cool. It's cool production, and he's a great singer,
you know, And I just I think it's a great
(51:39):
I think it's a great record.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
Being on a metal label, which is fascinating to me.
Are you into metal?
Speaker 2 (51:45):
Do you like? No?
Speaker 3 (51:46):
Not really? I like really dark. I like industrial metal.
We'll say like nine inch nails, you know, like I
really love that kind of stuff. But there is a
there's a breaking point for me where I'm like, this
doesn't like black metal, not at all. No, And actually
the label that I'm on is kind of a pet
label of that Despots is the name of my parent label,
(52:11):
Icons Creating Evil art is one of the owner's pet labels,
and it is like Lera Lynz on there, you know,
and that they they have some other artists that are
sort of in the vein of what I do, and
it's it ranges from singer songwriter to like more musical metal,
(52:33):
you know, and then you know, rock and things like that,
everything kind of in between. But but it's that particular
entity of that label is all about just dark. You know,
whatever whatever you're doing has to be dark, you know.
So the parent label Despots has a lot of really
big metal artists, but I just you know, it Scandinavian.
(52:57):
A lot of it's in Norwegian or Swedish, and I
don't really listen to that type of music often, but
I do try to delve into it a little bit
just so I have an idea of what is going
on going on.
Speaker 1 (53:08):
But yeah, so last little road will go down. You've
been doing this a long time, what advice would you
give up and comers or because it seems like you're
on a pretty steady career at this point. When we
do this as artists, there's always you know, dips and
(53:30):
struggles definitely in the beginning, like how do I make
a record and hold down a job and do all
of these things I have to do in a family
and all this stuff. Yes, what has been your experience
and maybe like a good piece of encouragement for people
that are doing it.
Speaker 3 (53:46):
Yeah, So whatever stage you're in in your life, I
think the real key to it is finding what we
were talking about earlier is why are you doing this?
If it's about the song, then focus on that. If
it's about you know, you're an artist that all you
want to do is go out and play live shows,
then you need to focus on that. Not that you
(54:08):
don't want to focus on having great songs. That's that's
obviously something you want to do as well. But you
need to shape your priorities around whatever that thing is
that you love, because there are going to be days
that you're going to ask yourself why am I doing this?
And you need to be able to clearly answer that
question for yourself or you're going to get very lost,
you know. And for me it was about touring, and
(54:30):
for other people it's going to be about writing songs
for other people, and that that is a very attainable goal.
If you want to have a family and still write songs,
you know, for other people or even for yourself, or
maybe I know lots of people that just enjoy the
hell out of writing a song and recording it in
their bedroom and putting it out. There's nothing wrong with
(54:50):
that either, and getting sync playings and things like that.
You know, you can make money not leaving your house
doing music. You got to be smart. You got to
figure out how you're going to to do that. But
very first thing is figuring out why you're doing it
and what it is that you value the most and
making that your priority and coming back to that all
the time. This is what I want, and it's if
(55:14):
it is touring, that's a whole nother You know, I
can't give a lot of advice about how to become
a successful top forty songwriter because I've not even come
close to doing that.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
But I don't know if anybody knows the answer to that.
Speaker 3 (55:26):
Yeah, I mean, you know there's a formula from that
to how you're going to do it. You start playing
your singer songwriter around, You make friends with the songwriters
in town. You get in a room every day that
you can with someone else and eventually you're going to
be standing at the right place at the right time,
you know. That is one method of it. But if
it's about touring, I get messages multiple times a day,
I'm not even kidding from people asking various questions, how
(55:50):
do you do what you're doing? Or hey, when you
go over there, what do you do for this or whatever?
Or you know, do you know the person that books
this venue? And I think I think the answer to
the touring part of it is that if you want
to tour in Australia, then look up the venues that
people are playing that are you know, on your level,
(56:13):
whatever that may be, and find the contacts and send
them an email. It's that simple, and it's not the
answer that people want to hear because that's hard and
that requires figuring out all the things like how do
you get a van? How do you get over there?
You know, and you can ask those questions. You've got
to be the person that sends those emails out for yourself,
because nobody is going to just pick you up and
(56:34):
do it. Maybe if you're really lucky, but that's not
the path that I counted on because having to get
a label to pick you up and get all these
agents and things that has never worked for me cohesively.
So you know, agents drop out here and there, and
so you've got an agent in the UK and one
over here and one in Germany, but you don't now
(56:54):
you don't have one in Sweden. Well what are you
gonna do? You're gonna book them yourself, you know. So
that's a whole I could do a whole podcast just
on my advice about how to do what I do specifically.
But I think to answer the big question, the advice
that I would have for any artist, or any writer
or any musician starting out is find that thing that
(57:15):
makes you want to get up in the middle of
the night and do it. You know, even on the
days that you're exhausted, on the days you don't believe
in yourself, that thing that's like, this is why I'm
doing it. And then you figure out the path, because
there is a path to everything you want to do.
You just ask the questions to people that have done
it before, specific questions.
Speaker 1 (57:33):
You make a plane, you do. And so somebody told
me recently, if you're not making a plan, you're just
making a wish.
Speaker 3 (57:40):
That's true. Yeah, I mean I always say to people like,
you can write songs all you want, but people are
not going to come and knock on your door and
make you for them. Even if you're writing the greatest
songs in the world, you got to have a plan
to get them out there, you know. So the plan
is not the hard part, because you can ask people
those questions. You know, by and large, if you go
about it the right way, are going to be like, hey,
(58:00):
this is how I did it, you know, or this
is my suggestion contact that person to book that venue.
But it starts with a really clear vision for what
it is that you want, you know. And it took
me a long time to figure that out. You know,
I had publishing deals and was writing for film and TV,
and I love all of that stuff. But what I
(58:21):
always came back to is I want to be on
the road. I want to tour.
Speaker 1 (58:24):
Well that's an important point also real quick, is that
you might have to figure out what you don't want
to do.
Speaker 3 (58:31):
Yeah, oh god, I might have to.
Speaker 1 (58:32):
Do it to figure out you want to do it.
You know, people are you know, touring guitar players or whatever,
and they want to be an artist, and they just
got roped into this thing because it's a job or whatever,
and that's fine.
Speaker 3 (58:44):
There's value in that.
Speaker 1 (58:45):
Sure, absolutely, there's value in so much, but it doesn't
mean that's what you want to keep doing.
Speaker 3 (58:50):
No, everything at the end of the day has to
if you want to be an artist and you're playing
for someone, which I do that too, you know, and
if you if you want to be an artist and
playing for someone, you have to circle back around and say,
is this valuable to what my bigger goal is? And
even if that's just paying my rent sometimes that is
(59:10):
you know, having that side job. Is that valuable to
me wanting to be a touring musician? Well, if it
pays the bills, then yes, you know. So there's no
shame in any of that. I mean, it is hard
work trying to be a full time musician and a
just completely side note. But also relevant thing is that
I think it's really good for people to have a
(59:31):
job that's not music for two things. One is because
it takes the pressure off of constantly having to do
music full time and being so burned out on it
that you don't want to do it anymore. And also
because it gives you a little piece of reality as well.
You know, if you have just a nine to five job.
It keeps you hungry, it keeps you going. This is
not what I want, you know, And I have always
(59:52):
found a lot of value in that.
Speaker 1 (59:54):
Honestly, I tell people all the time. Everyone should have
the experience of waiting tables. Yes, yeah, it schools you
so so fast.
Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
Yeah it does. And I mean I have done so
many things throughout my career just to take the pressure
off of not having to tour, or to give myself
some some material to write about, you know, whether it's
substitute teaching, I was a cake decorator, you know, all
of those things that kept me in one foot in
reality and help me to not only pay the bills
(01:00:23):
why I wrote a record, but also to just help
me remember you know that it's not just about people
asking for your autograph, you know. So there's no shame
in that. My god, that's I think. That's that's a
really a really commendable thing to do, is to try
to juggle a family. And I have a seventeen year
old son. The entire time that I've done this, I've
had a kid, you know. And everybody's path is going
(01:00:46):
to look different because your circumstances are different. But again,
if you know what that end goal is, you always
just go. It's like writing a song with the formula
for writing, you know, a top forty song. You have
the hook and every line has to point to it,
and that's what you know. That is what you want
to do with your goal in the music industry. You
have your your big hook, your big payoff, and everything
(01:01:07):
has to point to that. It's like, is this speeding this?
If not, I don't think I need to do that.
Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
Yeah for sure.
Speaker 3 (01:01:13):
So that that's where I what I believe with that,
But everybody will tell you something different.
Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
So I think that's great advice. That's killer. What do
you have coming up? What's going on? Where can people
find you?
Speaker 3 (01:01:25):
Yeah? So Sam and I are going to be on
tour quite a lot the next couple of months. Yeah,
and I'm just knows of the Grindstone writing songs for
a record.
Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
You know, you playing Nashville at all?
Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
We are not playing in Nashville right now, but I'm
sure that we will. We're doing some West Coast stuff
in February, then we're headed over to Europe doing some
European stuff, and then I have some Spain and things
like that in the fall. I'm recording a live record
in the fall, Oh cool, and working on another studio record.
(01:01:55):
So I'm just kind of laying the plans for twenty
twenty five right now, trying to figure out what my
goals are by this time next year, and one of
them is a live record and another one is to
have the songs together for a studio record.
Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
Nice, awesome And where are where you found?
Speaker 3 (01:02:11):
Everywhere? If if anyone is ever looking for me, it
would be pretty easy to find me. Yeah that you can.
I think it's Hannah Aldridge of Music Official or something
like that for Instagram, but hand Aldridge. Just google it
on Instagram, on Facebook, on Spotify, on Apple Music.
Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
On all the things cool, Yeah can awesome, Thanks for
coming having felt it.
Speaker 4 (01:02:44):
Listen.
Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
Work Tapes is produced by me Brandon Carswell. Filming and
editing for this episode by Sean Carswell
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