A Very Candid Conversation with Caroline Dare

North Carolina native Caroline Dare immediately got attention in 2016 when she posted videos on YouTube singing original songs with her acoustic guitar. One of her first singles, “Thank You Dan and Phil,” is about YouTube stars Dan Howell and Phil Lester and has over one million views on YouTube. Her rising popularity on social media brought a demand to put her songs on Spotify and iTunes. 

In 2017, Caroline released her first EP, Me, where she was backed by a band. She released two acoustic singles, “The Weight” and “Snowy Day,” before making her second EP Take It or Leave It in 2018. Unlike her previous work which was acoustic, she played with a band and recorded in a studio. Very prolific, Caroline released a few more acoustic singles in 2018 and 2019.

Today, Caroline lives in Nashville, Tennessee. She is signed with Suretone Entertainment, an agency who manages Fleetwood Mac and ZZ Top. She has also teamed up with Nick Wheeler, the lead guitarist of All-American Rejects. The first single, “Dive,” off her soon-to-be released EP Dive, shows the direction she is currently taking with a studio-produced pop sound. A lot of promise and potential await Caroline, who is the youngest interview subject of my blog.

In this candid conversation, we discuss Caroline’s beginnings on YouTube to where she is now with her music, ready to make her mark on the scene. I want to thank Nichole Peters of Jensen Communications for setting up this interview, but most of all, I want to thank Caroline for her time in doing this interview.

Jeff Cramer: So what formed your interest in music? 

Caroline Dare: I started playing guitar when I was eleven years old. I got a guitar of my own on my eleventh birthday. I was always a very musical kid. I loved listening to CDs and music on my way to soccer practice and everything, so I’ve always loved it growing up. Once I got a guitar of my own, I just really fell in love with it even more. Then I ventured out into songwriting and here I am.

JC: Were there any influences you had on guitar? 

CD: I think my biggest influence musically is or was Ed Sheeran. I saw him play live and I was just so fascinated with everything that he was able to do on the loop pedal. [A loop pedal records what you are playing and then plays it back in a repeated loop, allowing you to record another line or play over it]. It just fascinated me and really drew me to want to play guitar. So he’s kind of the main reason why I began playing.

JC: When did you start songwriting?

CD: I started songwriting about half a year after I started playing guitar. When I was really little, I would write short stories and poetry. I always loved to read those to my class, and my teachers were kind enough to let me do that in front of the class and share what I’d created. But people would always ask me when I was little if I wanted to be an author, and I was like, “No, that’s not really the path that I want to take.” So it was funny because when I started songwriting, it was like my love for music and my love for writing stories and telling stories all meshed into one thing, and I just fell in love with it. That’s kind of when it really clicked for me.

JC: Okay, I guess we’ll start off with one of your first singles in 2016, “Thank You Dan and Phil.” A curious question: Who are Dan and Phil? 

CD: Dan and Phil are two YouTubers I was a huge fan of when I was fourteen. They do a lot of comedy videos and everything, so I loved watching their videos growing up and through high school. So I was on FaceTime with one of my friends, and I had the random thought of writing a song expressing how much I appreciated them, and I was kind of like, “Why not? Why not do it?” So I did. I was really scared to post it at first, but I'm really glad that I did. [To hear “Thank You Dan and Phil,” please click here.]

Dan Howell, Phil Lester, and Caroline (May 29, 2016)

JC: You released a couple of singles throughout 2016 and 2017. Then you released your first EP, Me, in 2017.

CD: Correct.

JC: Describe the process from doing singles to pulling out an EP. 

CD: So I started out posting songs on YouTube—original music—and I gained a lot of attraction and just connected with so many girls all around the world and everything. There was just such a huge demand for me to put my songs on Spotify and iTunes so people could buy it and stream it and have it in their library. So that’s what led me to going into the studio and recording songs and making EPs. I made my first EP, Me, when I was fifteen or sixteen. And then about a year later, I put out a second EP, Take It Or Leave It. In-between the EPs, I put out some acoustic singles of just me and my guitar in my room. I put that on my Spotify and iTunes. I really appreciate people listening to those songs even though they’re not high quality or produced in a studio or anything. They still just really love that acoustic vibe.

Caroline Dare, Me EP (2017)

JC: I want to talk about two songs on Me. One song, “Wish You Were Mine,” has the line, “I don’t fall in love this easily.” Was this inspired by anyone? 

CD: I wrote “Wish You Were Mine” when I was fourteen and I’d never had a boyfriend or any experience with relationships. But that doesn’t mean I can’t write about it either. I was just inspired by that sort of thing. That’s kind of how it was. A lot of people try to guess who they think I wrote the song about—

JC: Yeah. 

CD: But honestly, it’s not really about anybody specific. But it’s really funny, because a lot of people have sent that song to their crushes and it’s ended up getting them into relationships. I think that’s really cool. [To hear “Wish You Were Mine,” click here.]

JC: Actually, I'm one person who could relate to that, because I know about getting a crush on someone. I’ve been there, getting a crush on someone without really knowing almost anything about the person. Let’s talk about another song, “Long Drive.”

CD: “Long Drive” is another one that I wrote a few years back. It’s kind of about the rough patches that you go through in life, and everybody struggles in their own way. We tend to turn to things in order to cope or to get our mind off of it. I felt that driving, and just kind of going off somewhere and getting lost, is one of those ways to cope. That’s kind of what the song is about . . . you know, using driving and getting lost as a way to cope. [To hear “Long Drive,” click here.]

JC: Okay, let’s talk about the one of the acoustic singles, “Snowy Day,” you did in 2017 before your second EP. It’s an interesting tune. To me, if I have a snowy day, it means I’m telecommuting and don’t have to drive to my other job. But if you have plans and it’s a snowy day, that day can end up not being your best day. 

CD: Yeah. “Snowy Day” is kind of a Christmas song, but it’s not really a Christmas song. I think I wrote that one when it was snowing outside, and for some reason that song just came so easily to me. It was such an easy song for me to write. It's crazy, because sometimes some songs are so difficult to finish, and then others just come to you so easily. I'm really thankful that “Snowy Day” was one that just came to me. I wanted to write a fun, little winter song. I love listening to holiday songs, and I love that time of year. I was like, “I want to write my own little holiday winter song, whatever that may be.” So that’s kind of how “Snowy Day” came about . . . it’s just being fun with it, being a little cold outside, and being trapped inside. [To hear “Snowy Day,” click here.]

JC: Okay, let’s talk about Take It Or Leave It, the second EP you did in 2018. This is where you start to break away from acoustic songs into studio-produced songs. The song “Fake” definitely sounds like it was produced in the studio. 

 Take It Or Leave It EP (2018)

CD: Yeah, definitely. Take It Or Leave It was a realization that I did want to go into more of a pop direction because the first EP was very pop/country and very acoustic-based. I wanted to expand from there and see what else I could do. “Fake” is inspired by one of my favorite movies of all time, Mean Girls. It’s a very petty song about school drama. I’ve had my own experience with bullying and everything, so that’s how that song came about. [To hear “Fake,” click here.]

JC: Also on Take It or Leave It, I’ve noticed you’ve written a song, “Over That,” where the narrator has been dumped. On the other hand, there is another song  in 2019, “Anymore,” where you’re the one who’s doing the rejection.

CD: Yeah. I think it’s really cool how you can totally write from different perspectives. I wrote “Over That” about a guy I was talking to for a little while and then he kind of ghosted me out of nowhere. I was confused as to why he stopped talking to me. I wrote “Over That” when I was just trying to get my feelings off my chest . . . and that sort of thing.

JC: Yeah.

CD: “Anymore” is a completely different perspective. There’s a line in “Anymore” that says, “I know how it feels on the other end,” which kind of reflects to how I was feeling when I wrote “Over That.” Yeah, it’s definitely crazy how you can be on both ends of the spectrum. “Anymore” is about letting someone down and not wanting to hurt their feelings, but it’s kind of inevitable. [To hear an acoustic version of “Over That,” click here and to hear “Anymore”, click here.]

JC: I liked the part where it says, “I know how it feels on the other end,” because it shows that a person is very sensitive and thoughtful about it. Most rejections are kind of like, “I want out.” 

CD: Yeah. It's definitely not like, “Ew, you’re gross. Bye.”

JC: I’m also curious about a song, “Two.” That’s an interesting acoustic one. One of the lyrics is, “I think your mother loves me more than you do.”

CD: “Two” is definitely a very different song. The story is very different too. The song has its own special meaning to me, but a lot of the time I like to leave it up to the listeners’ interpretation and so I like to keep that special for them. It’s a very petty, snarky song. It’s so not like me. I'm such a nice and sensitive person, and I look back on the lyrics and I'm like, “This sounds like nothing that I would actually do in real life.” [To hear “Two,” click here.]

JC: Also, I was wondering if you were singing about yourself in that song, “So Far Away?” 

CD: A lot of people think I wrote “So Far Away” about myself, which I understand, because I definitely relate to the storyline, but I actually wrote it about a girl I found on Instagram. She was moving from her hometown in Pennsylvania to LA to go after her dreams and her passions. I just thought that was so inspiring, so I wrote the song about her. Then I ended up moving from North Carolina to Nashville to pursue my dream, so I definitely see why people would think I wrote it about myself, but I didn’t. [To hear “So Far Away,” click here.]

JC: All right. Tell me what made you decide to move from North Carolina to Nashville. 

CD: I started going back and forth from North Carolina to Nashville about once a month for about four to five days at a time. I started coming to Nashville when I was twelve and I just fell in love with the city. The more I came here, the more people I met and the more connections I made. So by the time I finished high school, I had built such a strong support system and team here, and I had so many friends that I was ready to move. It's what I’ve been wanting for the longest time, and I just feel like there are so many opportunities here. This city is so loving and accepting, and I just love being here.

JC: You alternate between songs that are acoustic and songs that have a studio production. Is there anything in particular that makes you say, “This song sounds better with my acoustic guitar,” or, “This song should have a band and let’s give it accompaniment”? 

CD: Well, I think that just has to do with me developing as an artist, especially with the recent songs I’ve written and taken to the studio. I’ve really gravitated more into like the songwriter-pop sort of genre.

JC: I was listening to the most recent single of yours that is a studio production, “Dive.” 

“Dive” single (2019)

CD: So “Dive” is my newest release. I co-wrote that song with my producer, Nick Wheeler. He’s the lead guitarist of The All American Rejects, and it’s just been so fun to work with him. “Dive” is a really high-energy anthem song about falling in love and being a little bit nervous to start a relationship but just kind of trusting yourself and falling into it. It’s just a fun, little song about that. [To hear “Dive,” click here.]

JC: Now, I understand there is an EP coming out of this—a Dive EP. What can we expect from that EP? 

CD: There are going to be four songs on the EP and we’re planning on releasing them as singles over the next few months and into the new year. New music is definitely on the way. All I listen to in the car are these songs, and every time I listen to them I just get so happy.

JC: Are these songs going to be acoustic, or are they more in mold of what “Dive” is, a pop tune? 

CD: They’re definitely more pop and produced.

JC: Do you have any plans on touring? 

CD: I really, really want to tour, especially since my followers online are from all over the place, all over the world, which is really insane. A lot of people online tell me to come to this place and to come to that place, so one of my main goals as an artist, a songwriter, and a musician is to actually play in person in front of the people who have been supporting me online.

JC: Describe your feelings about the whole process. You started putting things on YouTube. You started putting things on Spotify. What are your feelings about the whole adventure, from what got you to Nashville and now you’re working with The All American Rejects lead guitarist . . .

CD: Yeah, it’s been really crazy to experience because I have experienced self-doubt and just kind of questioning, “Is this really what I'm meant to do?” It’s just crazy. I'm so lucky to be in this situation and have a platform to influence people and spread positivity in such a creative way, and just using what I love to do and using that for positivity. It just blows my mind every time I get a message from someone online saying that I’ve helped them out of depression and with their anxiety. I’ve definitely dealt with that myself, and I’ve been in that situation before, but I was able to help someone else going through the same thing. It's really helped me not feel like I'm going through it alone. I definitely just want to keep growing, not only as a person, but also as an artist, and I want my music to keep developing and expanding. I don’t want to stop at any point.

JC: I was reading your website, and you signed up with Suretone Entertainment, the management company that represents Fleetwood Mac. 

CD: Yeah, so I signed with Suretone Entertainment about a year ago, and they’ve just been so supportive and so sweet. They take such good care of me. It's just such a blessing to have them here in town, and it’s so nice that they’ve got my back and are so supportive. I'm so thankful to have them as part of my team.

JC: So you were in Nashville when you signed up with Suretone Entertainment? 

     Caroline Dare, 2018

CD: Yeah. So not this past summer, but the summer before I was at CMA Fest [a four-day country music festival held in Nashville held every June]. My manager saw me play at the Nashville Underground during CMA Fest, and that’s kind of what got him interested in working with me. Shortly after he saw that performance, we started taking a few meetings together and I just felt like he was the right person I needed on my team. That’s kind of how that came about.

JC: And so the Dive EP is the latest thing. Is there any other project? .

CD: Yeah. So as of right now, Dive the EP is the next thing I’ve got coming out, but before that entire EP comes out, we’re releasing some of the songs on that EP as singles. You’ll be able to hear them before the whole EP comes out. That’s kind of what the plan is right now, but I'm still writing and trying to come up with new ideas too.

JC: So we can expect that you’ll be probably pulling singles, some that are just you and your guitar and then others that have a whole studio production? 

CD: I'm not sure yet. With the direction that I’m going in, I think studio-produced songs will be more common than the acoustic ones. But I love going live on Instagram and Facebook and just playing acoustically too, so that side of me will always be there.

JC: Okay. The last question I'm going to ask is you started at a young age. A lot has happened since you started. What would be your recommendation to someone else who’s around your age group? Someone who also might want to start with music at a young age. 

CD: My biggest word of advice would probably be to stay genuine to yourself and don’t get caught up in what you think is really trendy, because I think  what makes you unique is so special and makes you stand out from everybody else. I think it’s so important to stay true to that. I mean, that’s what makes you different, and that’s what changes music all of the time is when somebody else is different. So I really, really encourage people to just stay true to themselves.

A Very Candid Conversation with Goodnight, Texas

Goodnight, Texas, 2018 (Avi Vinocur, left; Patrick Dyer Wolf, right)      

   

Avi Vinocur and Patrick Dyer Wolf are the bandleaders of Goodnight, Texas, a folk rock band. The name, Goodnight, Texas, comes from the midpoint between where Avi and Pat lives. Avi lives in San Francisco, and Pat lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Their sound and their approach to writing songs is unique because they embodied a certain time era with each album. 

Goodnight, Texas writes about different time eras in their music. Their first album, A Long Life of Living (2012), contains original music of acoustic songs that are reminiscent of old-timey music from the 1800s. One of the songs, “The Railroad,” was used in a Coors commercial in 2018. On their next album, Uncle John Farquhar (2014), Goodnight, Texas wrote original songs about the Civil War and Appalachia with music that sounds reminiscent of that period. Their most recent album, Conductor (2018), is written about the early twentieth century and their original songs reflect that era. There are plans to do an album that will contain music that sounds like it takes place in the future. In addition, they have recorded two EPs, An Even Longer Life of Living (2017), and The Senseless Age (2019).

Goodnight, Texas plays “The Star-Spangled Banner” for the San Francisco Giants, which they have been doing since 2017. Avi also played with Metallica late 2018, in which Metallica did an acoustic set for their All Within My Hands charitable foundation. Avi played mandolin, guitar, and sang backup during the Metallica show. 

This is the first interview in which I’ve interviewed two people at the same time. In our candid conversation, Avi and Pat talk about how the band started and their interest in recreating music from different historical eras. We also discuss how they got to play “The Star-Spangled Banner” for the San Francisco Giants, how Avi got to play with Metallica, and what their future plans are.

I want to thank Nichole Peters of Jensen Communications for setting up the interview, but most of all, I want to think Avi and Pat.   

Jeff Cramer: This question is for either of you and who wants to start: What formed your interest in music?

Patrick Dyer Wolf: I have a memory of sitting on the floor in my parents' bedroom and  looking up at my dad sitting on the bed playing his acoustic guitar. I think the guitar was an Applause, which is a subset of Ovation (a guitar company). The Applause is not a great guitar.

I just remember being dumbfounded at what he was doing with those strings. He made me a tape and called it “Pat's Rock Tape,” which was a Dire Straits song, and then there were a bunch of James Taylor songs. I think I was six or seven—that's the memory I have that made me want to play music.

Avi Vinocur: Well, there is a debate on this, but I got really into piano when I was around six years old. I don't know why. Then I got into guitar after I heard Green Day. I felt like I could do something like that and started playing songs from Dookie. This was in 1994, I think. Then in high school I got really into Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles and started playing a lot of sixties’ songs.

JC: It's interesting you're mentioning all these artists, but your band doesn’t sounds like any of them. How did you came up with the sound of Goodnight, Texas?

AV: I think we were both interested in how some people like to play characters and have concepts for their act. We had a collection of songs that all sort of felt like they may have existed in a different time period.

We were covering songs from the 1800s, and we were writing songs but just trying to make them feel like they belong in the 1800s. We used some stories that we heard from that time period.

We both really love American history, and so writing historical fiction or biographical music seemed to kind of make sense.

PDW:  I remember we had been playing together with just two guitars—a little bit like Simon and Garfunkel. I mean, Garfunkel didn't have a guitar, but at some point Avi got a banjo and I remember thinking, “Oh, that's a whole different tone.”

And then at some point Avi started playing the mandolin. He can really play a guitar, but then he just transitioned to the mandolin as his lead act.

AV: I got a mandolin from a guitar show. I think the mandolin was from 1918, and right away I wrote twelve songs on it, like within a week. It just felt like this instrument had been built to be playing these songs. I don't know, it just made sense to me in some weird way.

I had an old mandolin before that and tried to write songs on it, but I didn't really have any luck. But once I got this really old one, it was—

PDW:  It's not like a straight-up bluegrass sound that we're going for or that he is going for. I think it's a little bit darker.

We’re not trained on traditional bluegrass playing, but we're playing these bluegrass instruments like the mandolin.

AV:   Goodnight, Texas is the midpoint between where we live. Bluegrass and folk is not something we necessarily grew up with. My family is from West Virginia and Maryland, and I had relatives that were mandolin players and fiddle players in my family history, but none that I was close with. But the band's concept came from also just sort of finding out about them.

JC: How did the first album, Long Life of Living, take place? 

PDW: We recorded most of our stuff at Avi's apartment in San Francisco. We’d sing and play the songs first before we put any drums. We ended up putting the drums on afterwards, and we played a lot of the drums ourselves.

AV: I think we sort of started recording the only way we knew how, which was just to play guitar and sing live. So most of the songs on that album are actually a live performance of us playing and singing guitar. And in doing that, we realized we kind of wanted to make it rock out more, and we didn't want to redo everything so we just played over it. I think we ended up with something really kind of dark and heavy, and heaviness has just kind of been in my soul forever.

PDW: That's the quote.

A Long Life of Living cover (2012)

JC: I want to talk about one song on the album, "The Railroad,” which is a semi-instrumental song. The vocals don’t come until the end of the song. That was also the first song I heard from you guys.

AV: That was just something we kind of worked on for the rhythm and melody. We initially had lyrics for the first half and it was a little bit different, but it just wasn't working quite right, so we decided to trim the first half down slightly and leave the vocals out of it and then put this whole section at the end with the vocals. [To hear “The Railroad,” click here.]

I play the drum take for that song, and then I play some guitars and mandolin and banjo over it. Then Pat plays the slide, and our friend Jonathan Kirchner plays bass.

I think we had different lyrics. Initially the song was about Pittsburgh called "Pittsburgh Grit.”

PDW:  Was it about a handshake?

AV: It was about a really strong, firm handshake, but it just didn't fit, so Pat encouraged me to change the lyrics. We did, and I think we changed them further after that. The line, “Their backs are turned,” was sort of kicking around for a while in my head, and that's kind of how it came together.

I was really into a lot of traditional and spiritual music like "Rosie,” (an African-American prison song from 1947) and  stuff like that. I wanted to try to make something that felt like that kind of song.

PDW:  Maybe like a year ago Avi sent me a voice memo that he found of us working on this song in my parents' dining room just figuring out the structure of it. You  can hear my dad in the background yelling about some insurance snafu he was having or something. It was great.

JC: You were mentioning earlier that you came up with real life stories you had heard, or you just like to write historical fiction. Your first single, "Jesse Got Trapped in a Coal Mine” . . . was that Jesse's unfortunate incident something you came up with, or was it based on something?

AV: I wrote that one, but it wasn't a true story. It was kind of similar to some stories that I had heard from my family in West Virginia and Maryland, but it wasn't anything specific. I kind of just went with it.

But that being said, we've met a lot of people whose families are in coal and who even have members of their family named Jesse. I think we met someone in Nashville whose great-great-grandmother’s husband was killed. Her name was Jessie, and her husband was killed in a mining accident. So it's like it may be true. I definitely made it up, but I think it may have actually happened whether we realize it or not, like a lot of stories. [To hear “Jesse Got Trapped in a Coal Mine,” click here.]

JC: Also from that album is “I’m Going to Work on Maggie's Farm Forever.” Was Bob Dylan's “Maggie Farm” the inspiration behind the song? Is it referring to the same farm that Bob Dylan is referring to?

PDW:  Yeah. It’s definitely a takeoff of sorts, and I think it's sort of like an alternate ending, an alternate universe take on it, of the chronicle of uprisings or rebellions that have failed or have been squashed and don’t get remembered. It’s kind of like a testament to the suffering and effort that people go through that doesn't really come to anything. [To hear “I’m Going to Work on Maggie’s Farm Forever,” click here.]

JC: So from there we look into Uncle John Farquhar (2014) album. Tell me how that got started.

PDW:  Uncle John Farquhar came from the semi-historical semi-idea like a family scrapbook partially remembered and oral tradition that might not be true . . . you know, like the movie, Big Fish. (Big Fish is a 2003 film about a frustrated son trying to determine the fact from fiction in his dying father’s life.)

AV: Big Fish. I was going to say that.

PDW:  Our album is named after my great-great-great-grandfather, John Farquhar, but the picture on the album is his nephew, Edwin Freer Bogart. We thought that was a funny joke that no one would get except us because it’s a picture from 150 years ago. Nobody is going to know.

Uncle John Farquhar cover (2014)

AV: What if somebody wrote the wrong name on the back of the photograph? Then throughout the future and history everyone thinks that's the person's name, but it might not have been.

 We wrote some of Uncle John Farquhar on the road. We were touring behind our first record a lot and spent a lot more time with our drummer, Alex Nash, and bass player, Bobby Kendall, at the time. We were sort of developing the songs on the road, like we had concepts for how they went and we'd come home and record them.

And then the songs would get a little more swing or a little more bouncy, and we tried to incorporate that into the album on a few of the songs. In addition to us playing drums, we had a friend play drums on a few songs on Long Life of Living, but Alex Nash played drums on the whole record.

Bobby Kendall and Scott Padden, our drummer now, both played bass on a few songs on that record too. It was sort of a transitional record for us. We were changing members, but some of the songs we had for a long time. I had the song "Dearest Sarah" since 2006. I just never recorded, but I had written the lyrics, and then I changed the rhythm and the instrumentation of it in 2012, and then I decided I really wanted that to put that one out there.

JC: In the sixties, a lot of then-contemporary artists did songs on Vietnam. In the last decade, artists did songs about Iraq. But with "Dearest Sarah,” you went back to the Civil War.

AV: Yeah. I mean, I've always been fascinated by that period in American history, and the song is based on a real letter written between Sullivan Ballou and his wife Sarah in Rhode Island. To me, that letter has always been one of the best pieces of American writing.

Sullivan died in July of 1861 at the First Battle of Bull Run. So that is a true story, and that song is sort of interpreted from his letter. We don't break that one out live super often because it doesn't really fit in some of our bar shows, but it's a pretty depressing and stark song. [To hear “Dearest Sarah,” click here.]

PDW: The actual Uncle John Farquhar was a preacher in Pennsylvania and he went to visit some troops during the Civil War at different battlefields. He gave a  sermon on the National Day of Mourning for President Lincoln's death.

JC: Yes.

PDW: We found the text of his speech and put it in the liner notes. So that's another thing that was true from our family perspective. It’s not well-known to history, but we were trying to weave that in with the “Dearest Sarah” story.

JC: In addition to the Civil War, “A Bank Robber’s Nursery Rhyme” sounds like it could fit in the historical decade of the Wild West.

PDW:  "A Bank Robber's Nursery Rhyme" comes from a riff I had written in college. Maybe eight years before that song was recorded, it was called "Slow Down Hoedown" at the time. We kind of re-imagined that one.

JC: "Slow Down Hoedown" sounds like it would have a different lyrical concept than “A Bank Robber’s Nursery Rhyme.”

PDW:  There were no lyrics to “Slow Down Hoedown.” It had a different structure, and it kind of slowed down toward the end. But we kept one of the main riffs from “Slow Down Hoedown.” [To hear “A Bank Robber’s Nursery Rhyme,” click here.]

JC: I want to talk about the song "Moonshiners.” I’m familiar with it during the seventies era. Burt Reynolds did a lot of films around that time that revolve around moonshine. But I'm sure the era of moonshine in “Moonshiners” is not the seventies.

AV: Yeah, the first record sort of took place in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, and this one sort of took place at end of the nineteenth century into the beginning of the twentieth century.

In "Moonshiners,” as the characters of our songs sort of head south and time passes, they get further and deeper into Appalachia, and I think that's where a lot of that moonshining was going on. It was a sort of isolated mentality that a lot of people felt in those regions in that period. [To hear “Moonshiners,” click here.]

What you get is something very different than what Pat and I grew up with, and that's why it fascinates us.

PDW: I mean, a lot of the people up in the hills were Irish immigrants from Avi's side, and maybe like 80 percent of my side are Irish immigrants. It's just very interesting. People came over to find a new life and escape a terrible condition, and you ended up funneling into a city like a lot of my ancestors did, or you made it up into the hills and found banjos and washtubs or whatever and started making this music that we eventually became fascinated with.

Over the course of a century, there was a lot of isolationism up there and an interesting culture. I think it was very interesting for us to kind of ponder this when we were making this music.

JC: I read in Wikipedia that you sang the national anthem.

AV: Yeah.

JC: How did that come about?

AV: We're big baseball fans, and I have the good fortune in San Francisco of knowing a couple of people who work for the Giants. They let us know that if they had a cancellation they would try to get us to do the national anthem. And they did finally in 2017, and we did it.

We got a good review from the Giants’ sportscaster, Dave Flemming, on the radio and they've asked us back every year since then. [To hear them perform “The Star-Spangled Banner,” click here.]

JC: It would be 2017 when you released your next EP, An Even Longer Life of Living, and 2018 when you got to making your next album Conductor.

PDW:  Yeah, so Uncle John Farquhar was 2014, and Conductor was 2018, and in the middle I had a son, Damon. So that was one thing I was doing. We actually recorded a lot of the material for Conductor in late 2015, and a series of setbacks just kept us pushing it back.

We put out EPs in the meantime, so we had that. And it just it finally came together in the spring of 2018, feeling like the right time from all angles.

AV: I'll add to that . . . at the beginning of 2016 we sort of lost a lot of parental figures. Pat's father passed away. My grandfather, who was sort of like my father, passed away two weeks after his dad did. A year or so later the following year 2017, Scott, our now drummer—he was our bass player at the time—his mother passed away from cancer. We were thinking to try to put Conductor out at the end of 2016, and then the presidential election happened, and it was like no one had time to think about music right now.

JC: Yeah.

AV: Conductor would have just gotten buried under everything with the election, and it just didn't feel right. The further we got from it, the more we decided to just kind of keep waiting until it felt right, and once the beginning of 2018 came around we were I think we're ready to get angry or something.

Conductor album (2018)

JC: I mentioned Bob Dylan earlier. On Conductor, the song, “Takin’ Your Word For It,” sounds a little like Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead. Were those guys influences for that song?

PDW: I wouldn't say no. I think another big influence would probably be the Band.

AV: Yeah, the Band was big influences on us with all their songwriting. I got really into Planet Waves by Bob Dylan back then.

PDW:  I felt like we could fit that kind of a sound in with sort of these American tales and it sort of was part of the story and it seemed to blend in and have a little bit of be sort of led by the bass, kind of a funkier bass line. So it seemed to kind of fit. [To hear “Takin’ Your Word For It,” click here.]

JC: Which decade is Conductor (2018) referring to?

AV:  I think this is moving more into the early the Dust Bowl and the beginnings of Prohibition and that period. It does take place further west out in the plains than in the southwest.

PDW:  Yeah, we sort of think of it right at the point when America is starting to become the world power and figuring out what to do with itself as that's happening. Electricity is really becoming a thing. Automobiles are becoming a thing.

We added electric guitar for the first time on that record.

AV: We don't have any electric guitar on the first two records. Pedal steels. [Pedal steel is a musical instrument played like the Hawaiian guitar, but set on a stand with pedals to adjust the tension of the strings.]

PDW:  Conductor is the title, and there is a spiritual want for somebody to rein in all that power America has and to figure out what to do with it. That's like the conductor of an orchestra.

JC: I also understand that Avi got to play with Metallica around that time. How did that happen?

AV: Yeah, that was the end of last year. I was fortunate enough to know those guys and have worked with them before on a side of things such as a studio tech. They’re aware of our band and they know I play mandolin. They were doing an acoustic show, and they wanted to kind of fill out their sound.

I had sang with James Hetfield at a benefit show in 2016, and we figured out that we could harmonize pretty well together. So when it came time for Metallica to figure out what they wanted to do for this acoustic show, they asked me to do it, and they asked if I knew a percussionist. Then we got this pedal steel player and keyboard player.

So the four of us kind of sat in, but I got to sing and play mandolin on the whole set. I played a little guitar too, and it was just a trip. It’s one of the most unbelievable things that's ever happened to me. [To hear Avi perform with Metallica on “The Unforgiven,” click here.]

JC: It’s interesting to know that the music can still be heavy even though there are only acoustic instruments.

AV: Yeah. Heavy is definitely like an attitude and a feel more than a tone—more than any specific guitar tone or type of guitar. They happen to do it with electric guitars and through high-gain amplifiers, but the songs kind of translate any way you do them, and the heaviness still just imbued in it.

I will say that doing that show with them was  one of the most high-energy shows I've ever done, and we were all sitting on stools. I can't even imagine what it's like to play with them and running around with electric guitars.

JC: I understand you've done a EP, The Senseless Age (2019). 

The Senseless Age (2019)

AV: In my head I sort of think of our albums as part of like the long running story, and the EP is the extraneous almost bonus material. Like side—

PDW:  Side dishes.

AV: Yeah, side dishes. But yeah, there is like elements of the sixties and the nineties even in these songs. There’s a song that sounds like it could have gone on A Long Life of Living. It’s a little instrumental one, “For My Mother’s Wedding,” which is one I actually wrote for my mom to walk down the aisle to. [To hear “For My Mother’s Wedding,” click here.]

They're five songs, and you put them together and they go together, but they all sort of have an independent feel from one another. "Blood Brothers" is probably one of the heaviest songs we've recorded. I'm really proud of how that turned out. [To hear “Blood Brothers,” click here.]

JC: Yeah. So I take it you're on the road touring now?

PDW: Yeah, we are. We played in Newport, Kentucky, last night, and we're playing in Cleveland tonight. [Note: It was July 28,2019, when I spoke to Goodnight, Texas.]

JC: Are there any other shows that you're planning to do?

AV: We're doing some festivals. We're doing a Mile of Music Festival in Wisconsin. We're doing the Sweet Pea Festival in Bozeman, Montana. We're doing the West Coast in October. Actually, on this run, we're finishing the Midwest and the middle states until the middle of August.

In October, we're doing the Northwest coast with the Brothers Comatose. Yeah, we got a lot of touring on the docket behind the EP and our next potential record.

Goodnight, Texas (Pat, left; Avi, right) performing in 2018

                                                 
JC: What is the potential next record?

AV: It takes place in the year 2145.

JC: Wow, it's futuristic.

AV:  Yeah, it's all synthesizers, and drums have become unpopular. The robots don't like drums . . . so, yeah. We’ve got a bunch of songs that I think go together pretty well, but I don't know. They definitely have a unique sound, but I think they fit in line with what we've also done, and we're getting them together.

We've got twelve or thirteen partially recorded right now, and we've got a whole bunch more that we've written. We usually take our time. I think it's worth it to take your time and do it right.

JC: For an upcoming band doing a different, original, unique sound like you have, what would your recommendation be?

AV: Definitely listen to Korn.

JC: Korn, okay.

AV:  No one has ever sounded like Korn. I don't know how they made it work.

PDW:  And, you know, Tom Waits. I think to try to define it in your own mind is like a TV series. Then it’s just seeing what fits on the show, what doesn't make sense with the plot or the setting . . .

AV: I mean, you're always balancing between what people know and what they haven't heard. If you season a little more of what’s  unknown to people, you can be more exciting in that sense.

JC: The last question I'll ask is how would you describe where you started off with the Long Way of Living album to now with The Senseless Age?

PDW: I think we've been very fortunate that we have been able to make it happen over this time. We live on opposite sides of the country—the two of us. Scott Padden, who is playing drums, and Adam Nash, who has been playing bass, although he is an incredible guitar player, live in California too. There are logistical hurdles for us to even exist, and we have been very lucky of the good fortune that's been working out in that the Internet has been helping us out just attracting bees to the nectar.

AV: We're just trying to see if this whole thing can work. So far it's still working somehow.

Goodnight, Texas in 2018 (Pat, second from left; Avi, third from left)

A Very Candid Conservation with Matt Wayne

Matt Wayne is a singer-songwriter and guitarist. He played in various metal bands until, he met bassist/vocalist JuJu. Together, they performed at gigs and open-mic nights until they formed a band called the Blood Moon Howlers. The name of the group came about in 2015 when they were at a party. There was a blood moon that night, and they went up on the roof and howled at the moon. On their website, their music is described as “whiskey drenched heavy swamp blues rock,” with “flecks of smokey burlesque.” 

In 2017, the Blood Moon Howlers released their first EP Wasteland with Scott Wittenberg on drums. Scott was only filling in temporarily until Brandon Cooke took over drums on a permanent basis. The Blood Moon Howlers also included Evan Hatfield who plays sax and keyboards. The new four piece band can be heard on their latest album, Mad Man’s Ruse (2019) as well as their EP The Hangover Sessions (2019), which is a trio of acoustic versions of songs from Mad Man’s Ruse. Also this year, they released a cover of Prince’s “Partyman” in tribute to the thirtieth anniversary of the Nicholson/Keaton Batman movie. “Partyman” is played in the movie when Nicholson’s Joker and his men trash an art museum.

In this candid conversation, we talked about Matt’s beginnings before the Blood Moon Howlers, how the Blood Moon Howlers formed, their multiple recordings and future plans. I want to thank Nichole Peters from Jensen Communications for setting up the interview, but most of all I want to thank Matt.


Jeff Cramer: All right, so what sparked your interest in music?

Matt Wayne: Let's see, I think I was in a music shop one day with my mom, and we were kind of cruising around. The guitar just caught my eye, so that was sort of it. I used to sit around reading comics when I was a kid, and I would throw on music in the background, and that just slowly turned into a love, you know?

JC: When you got into the guitar, was there any guitarist you admired, like say, “Hey, I want to play like that!”?

MW: Yeah, definitely. The first guitar I ever got was a Fender Stratocaster, and that was definitely because of Eddie Van Halen. Van Halen’s first album was one of the first CDs that we had in my house growing up. That was what kind of sparked that whole thing.

JC: I was reading in the bio section of your website that you had played in several metal bands before the Blood Moon Howlers.

MW:  I played with a band called the Changing with a guy named Kalen Chase. He played around with Korn. Joey Jordison from Slipknot was there, and we did that band for about a year or so.

Then I played with Bruce Bouillet, who played guitar for a heavy metal band called Racer X in the late eighties. Other than that, I just played in garage bands and stuff like that, which were all kind of different variations of metal. When I first started, I was into a lot of power metal, like Iron Maiden and that kind of stuff. As time went on, it got a little bit heavier.

JC: All right. So talk about the Blood Moon Howlers . . . how did that group form? 

MW: Well, the group started with JuJu and I, the other singer. We started playing together, doing a lot of acoustic stuff. I had been in a bunch of bands, and I wanted to take a step back from being in a band for a while. JuJu and I just started doing a bunch of acoustic cover songs to kind of learn how to sing together.

We were taking on a lot of gigs—doing open mics and a lot of hired gigs playing covers. It was a time to learn how to sing together, how to perform together, how to write a song together.

Then we started the Blood Moon Howlers because we wanted to get away from doing strictly acoustic music. We wanted to do a rock-and-roll kind of feeling.

JC: And that’s when other people joined?

MW: The first EP, Wasteland, that JuJu and I did as the Blood Moon Howlers was actually with a drummer named Scott Wittenberg, who I had known. We performed around with Scotty for a bit, but he was just kind of filling in as a friend.

The Blood Moon Howlers as a trio with Scotty (2017) (Matt left)

Then we met Brandon—our current drummer— at a gig, and he came up to us and said, “Oh, I love your music and stuff.” Then a show came up where Scotty couldn't make it, so we called Brandon and it's just been fun ever since.

JC: On the EP Wasteland, one of the songs, "Lady Daydream,” has an interesting structure. When you're singing the verses, it's kind of reggae-like, and then it's more rock in the chorus.

MW:  One of the things that started the Blood Moon Howlers is the concept of writing music. I always see fliers that bands put out, or people trying to start bands, and every one of them says something like,  “Hey, I like these five bands. If you like these five bands, please give me a call. Let's start a band.” It seems that those bands end up just sounding like some knockoff of the bands that they've listed on the flier.

For our band, what we were hoping to achieve is to work with a lot of people who were like-minded in the sense that we all love a lot of different kinds of music. A lot of times, we're just sort of experimenting with different influences and stuff, so hopefully the music comes out more interesting. [To hear “Lady Daydream,” click here.]

The Blood Moon Howlers’ first EP Wasteland

“Lady Daydream” just sort of came from where we grew up in California—we're around a lot of the  Long Beach–reggae thing. It was a big part of our lives, but then we also love a lot of the stoner–desert rock kind of music thing. We just sort of had this idea of what it would be like to fuse those two worlds, and that was our shot at that.

JC: The Blood Moon Howlers don’t sound like Fleetwood Mac, but it reminds me of Fleetwood Mac because there’s a combination of male and female lead vocals.

MW:  Oh, very cool. I mean, I haven't grown up listening to Fleetwood Mac, but I know they're all very great musicians and stuff, so I appreciate that.

JC: And from Fleetwood Mac, we go to Johnny Cash. What made you decide to do Johnny Cash's "Cocaine Blues"?

MW:  I had been performing a lot of these songs that were just sad songs. I'd been doing a ton sad songs, and they were real slow. It was sort of becoming difficult to perform, because I just ended up feeling a lack of energy.

And so when I was doing a lot of the cover stuff, I was trying to find songs that were fun to listen to, and I guess that one is definitely a sad song still, but it was a lot more fun to tell a story like that. I mean, if you've heard the Johnny Cash version you know there is a lot of story in that song.

JC: Yes, I have. 

MW:  And it was really fun. I had been performing that song for a long time, and when it came time to cover it we were kind of like, “What can we do a little different with it?” So we flipped it into a minor key and just kind of changed the melody around a bit and turned things around a little. It was really from wanting to play some more like fun, bluesy-sounding music. [To hear a live version of “Cocaine Blues,” click here.]

JC: Yeah. The other song that you sing on Wasteland, "Motor Mouth Mission,” has a punk energy to it.

MW: Yes. I mean,  I was going for like punk–blues—a lot of the chord progressions, a lot of the soloing vibe, and it’s very bluesy, at least from my perspective. Then again, I grew up listening to punk bands like Black Flag, Minor Threat, Fugazi . . . stuff like that. So it seemed sort of natural to bring that in a little bit too. [To hear “Motor Mouth Mission,” please click here.]

JC: Having talked about various songs on Wasteland, let’s go over the songwriting process you and JuJu go into creating a song.

MW: I think there is always a portion of songwriting that I feel is a little bit separate. JuJu and I use a concept that I call “banking” where we just compile ideas. My phone is completely full with guitar riffs, and there are papers all around our house that have lyric ideas.

Usually we designate some time to come together and start talking about song ideas, and then we just start piecing together all the ideas.

There is always a portion of it that's very spontaneous, even though it’s coming from a lot of ideas compiled, but it's really awesome to not lose any momentum. So it's kind of nice to have all those backed-up ideas, you know?

JC: When it comes to a song, how do you and JuJu decide who will take lead vocals?

MW: There is a couple of different factors. Sometimes, it’s like, “Hey, this is going to be my song,” and then sometimes it's like, “Hey, I wrote the lyrics.” Overall though, I think there is definitely times when one of us will just sound better on the song. It's another fun part of songwriting, which is just this idea of, “Hey, if you're singing really heavy lyrics, it might be kind of cool to explore a different method of delivering those lyrics besides just screaming them or yelling them.” We’ve been doing a lot of messing around with the delivery of lyrics, whether it's singing heavy, singing soft. I guess that also kind of comes into play with deciding who is singing it, or who we feel takes on the character of the song the best.

JC: What model of guitar do you play?

MW: Nowadays, I've been pretty much just playing a Fender Telecaster. I got a couple of those. I have this silver, sparkly one, and I've got a very plain-looking Telecaster, but that pretty much shows up on all of our music nowadays.

JC: The band went on to become a four-piece band.

MW: We added Evan Hatfield through the process of recording Mad Man's Ruse. Evan plays saxophone, keys and stuff.

JC: The saxophone is an interesting element to bring to the music. How did bringing a saxophone come into play?

MW:  Oh, that basically comes from my love of the 1970s–era Tom Waits. If you've ever heard his Nighthawks at the Diner album or where it's got that late-night-vibe thing. So that's sort of where my love of that comes from.

We were performing as a three piece, and both JuJu and I are singing and playing instruments, and then just the drums. But it was nice to have an extra musician to take some of the pressure off of trying to sing lead vocals and play lead guitar, rhythm guitar.

It was nice to add a different dimension to it as well. It also kind of just fell into our laps a little bit too—our drummer Brandon played in the band Paracosmic with Evan. And we ended up playing a bunch of shows with them, and went on tour with them.

The whole thing with Evan joining the band happened when we were on tour, and Evan just started playing with us every night. At one point when we were driving around, he said, “So can I stay and play with you guys now or what?” So he threw it up on his Instagram that he was in the band and we figured it was real from there.

The Blood Moon Howlers as a four-piece band (2019) (Matt far right)

JC: Now let’s go to the EP Hangovers Sessions, which is a bit of teaser album for the new album, Mad Man’s Ruse.  It contains three acoustic versions of songs that appeared on Mad Man’s Ruse.

MW:  So what JuJu and I have done is try to experiment with a song. We grew up in an era with MTV Unplugged and stuff like that, where you got to see bands play. A lot of times the charm of it was that they were a very heavy band.

The Hangover Sessions EP (2019)

And then you get to see this whole different version of that heavy song brought down to like acoustic or just like a mellower version or whatever. It just sparks the idea that these songs are just some chords, melody, and you can really do a whole lot with them.

So it's a real fun thing for us that I think we'll probably continue doing in the future when we'll be releasing a version that's maybe heavy blues, and then we'll be releasing ones that are a different take on that same song with an acoustic guitar and broken down like nightclub background music stuff.

It’s really fun to experiment with a song and see how many different ways it can take you.

JC: One of my favorite things in the bar is going to the jukebox and putting on music I like as I drink a beer. Well, the "Drunk and Cold" song feels like a great song to drink a beer to.

MW: Awesome. That's the goal with that one for sure. I mean, that's what we love to do too—relax, head out to the bar and hang around, drink a beer, throw on some good music, you know. [To hear “Drunk and Cold,” click here.]

 The Hangover Sessions was done after recording Mad Man's Ruse. Then it seemed kind of useless to release a song now without a plan, so we have been working with the PR company and a manager to actually make the release a little bit more than if we were just to throw it up online without anything, you know?

Besides wanting to have a game plan for the release of Mad Man's Ruse, one thing that sort of postponed the release was adding Evan onto all the tracks. That was also was when we ended up recording The Hangover Sessions.

JC: I also understand you did a cover of Prince’s "Partyman" as a single.

MW: Yeah, so "Partyman" was kind of a fun one, just because we recorded that all in our home studio. We did that basically for the Batman movie with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. So the movie turned thirty when we released the song. It was the thirty-year anniversary, and we decided to take the song from that scene where the Joker is going through the art museum . . .

JC: Trashing the art museum, I remember.

MW: And that's the song going on in the background. That was always my favorite scene of that movie.

JC: Yeah, it’s one of my favorite scenes of that movie.

MW: And so we decided to take that song and do something with it, which was interesting because there is not really chord progression in that song. It’s kind of a wild, interesting song. We actually almost took the words and made our own thing with it.

JC: But what’s interesting is Prince’s version fits the scene of the Joker trashing the art museum. In your version of "Partyman,”  it feels more like a melancholy piano ballad.

MW: Oh, okay. Yeah, that’s an interesting perspective on it. We thought it was maybe bringing a nightclub kind of vibe to it. We're definitely going for different, that’s for sure. Maybe we're shooting for more like Heath Ledger, if he was doing that scene. [To hear “Partyman,” click here.]

JC: Your new album, Mad Man’s Ruse, was released on July 26, 2019. What to expect from the new album?

The Blood Moon Howlers’ Mad Man’s Ruse (2019)

MW:  When we recorded Wasteland, that one was very special to us because it was the first thing that we did. And it was recorded all over the place, which I think is kind of a charm for modern recording—everyone is flying around tracks from studio to studio.

I think a long time ago, people would hear these recordings that were done all in one studio, so you get kind of this one vibe, whereas nowadays I think where the vibe comes from is actually different home studios and recording in multiple places. It kind of creates something unique.

This one is not a ton different from that, but it was all done in one studio, and then at the end we added Evan, and that was recorded at Brandon's studio. We ended up redoing some vocals and things like that all over the place.

Overall, I would say it's a little bit more put together than the last album. It was also an album that we were exploring a lot of blues structures on, where I think in Wasteland we were still kind of working out of a lot more pop structures.

JC: Yes.

MW: Even though Wasteland's not very pop. It still kind of worked out of that verse-and-chorus kind of setup. On Mad Man’s Ruse, we were working out of a lot of twelve-bar patterns and a lot of sixteen bar and eight bar different classic blues structures. We didn't stick specific to any of that stuff, but we did kind of use it as a tool when we were building the songs.

So there is a lot of exploration of the blues format, which I think we were able to update with modern guitar tones and . . . I don’t know, just our own take on the whole thing.

JC: Any songs you want to highlight for this new album?


MW:I guess the one we'd want to highlight is "Lose Myself (Bar 9).”  [To hear a live acoustic version of “Lose Myself (Bar 9),” click here.] I think that one is probably the band's favorite. It was one of the more last-minute songs on there, and it felt purely collaborative with Brandon. It was one of the first times where Brandon actually suggested a whole section of the song—it’s that whole kind of psychedelic middle crazy section. It’s like Santana's "Soul Sacrifice" or something . . . that whole middle section.

It was just a very spontaneous addition to the song. Anyway, that is one of the songs that didn't totally follow a blues structure—it’s maybe more like a Wasteland-style pop structure.

It actually has a chorus and stuff, but then the bridge is sort of inspired by jam bands and stuff like that. I think that was a cool marriage between a heavy rock song with a chorus and everything, and then a sort of complete jam band middle section. I guess that would be a highlight.

"Drunk and Cold" is another cool song just because the parallel of that being on The Hangover Sessions. Sorry, I’m going to ask JuJu real quick what she thinks about we should be mentioned on the album.

JC: Oh, she is here? 

[JuJu can be faintly heard in the background.]


MW: Yeah. I’m going to say for both of us that we want to go with "Mad Man's Ruse" because it's the title of the album. [To hear “Mad Man’s Ruse,” click here.]

JC: Yeah. So this is the title track?

MW: Yeah.

JC:  We spoke earlier about the movie Batman, and I understand a song on Mad Man’s Ruse was also contributed to a short indie film titled Sugar Babe.

MW: Yes, we contributed to a short film called Sugar Babe, which is through a friend of ours named Summer Vaughan. She does really, really wonderful stuff. She liked a lot of our music. She approached us with a couple of the songs that we had recorded and kind of gave us like, “Can you guys mix this with that?”

She gave us the script, and we wrote that song in two days. That was kind of the quickest song we wrote on the album. Then we went and tracked everything—we did all of the tracking in one day. That was actually the first song that Evan played on. [To hear a live acoustic version of “Sugar Babe,” click here.]

JC: Are there plans to tour behind this album?

MW: Absolutely. We have dates being set up as we speak. We have a weekend set up in summer, we have a weekend set up in October, and then we're working on November dates right now.

JC: I understand you’re going to release party for Mad Man’s Ruse tonight. [Note: It was July 20, 2019, when Matt and I spoke.]

MW: It's actually tomorrow night, so I'm really excited for it. We got a bunch of good bands playing. They’re real friendly bands that have been real supportive to us throughout our time as the Blood Moon Howlers and stuff. So it's a real close group of people.

We're doing it at Lucky Strike in Hollywood, and I think it's going to be a pretty epic night. It's going to be a lot of fun.

A Very Candid Conversation with Luke Underhill

This blog has covered artists who have history and/or are veterans in the music industry. This is the first entry on an artist who is starting out and shows a lot of promise in the years to come. Luke Underhill is a singer-songwriter who hails from Chicago. In addition to singing, he plays guitar and piano. He plays with a band and other times, plays solely by himself. Luke has already earned comparisons with John Mayer.

This fresh new talent got his start in 2015 with an independent EP called Atlas. He then released his first studio EP, The Left Side (2017), where his fan base on social media started to grow. One of the people listening was hit producer Warren Huart (producer of Aerosmith and The Fray), who helped him make his most recent EP, Illuminations, which was released in April 2019.

From Illuminations, Luke has had his first radio single, “Long Way Home.” In addition, Illuminations has had more than 59K streams on Spotify. Later in 2019, Luke plans to tour behind Illuminations, bringing his music to a bigger audience.

In this candid conversation, we discuss Luke’s beginnings from Atlas to Illuminations. I want to thank Nichole Peters from Jensen Communications for setting up this interview, but most of all I want to thank Luke.


Jeff Cramer: How did you become interested in music?

Luke Underhill: I honestly think my dad, because we didn't have much music playing in our house, but when we would drive together anything would go. My dad had every Bruce Springsteen CD in his car, so I had no other choice but to listen to it.

Thank God I loved it, because if I didn't then we wouldn't have gotten along. But there was something about listening to Bruce Springsteen that really kind of captured all that. I got to see him live—I was probably five or six years old when my dad took me to a concert. When I was there, I remember thinking, “I needed to be on stage.”

JC: So Springsteen started it all for you?

LH: Yeah, I got really into poetry when I was young, and I noticed that Bruce wasn't just this guy who would scream into a microphone. He actually had something to say, and he had a great way of saying it. I mean, he has a lot of pretty obscure tunes and weird ones, but even on those songs I'd sit back and actually listen to the lyrics and the content.

It hit me in a really personal way, so I think that's when I started taking a lot of it seriously.

JC: When did you first start writing music?

LH: I think I wrote my first song when I was thirteen or fourteen. My uncle passed away and I didn't have a person to go to, or to talk about it. I didn't know what to do with my feelings, so I knew a couple of chords on guitar and I just decided to give it a go, and it turned out all right.

JC: From there you would work on what be your first EP, Atlas. 

LH: Oh, Atlas. Yeah, I didn't want to record and put out the songs I was writing—like personal songs—so I tried writing about things I saw, like paintings and movies, or books I've read and stuff, because it was just the easiest way for me to do things.

I think if I wanted to do Atlas over again, I don't think I would change much. I'm really happy with how my first EP turned out.

Luke’s first EP Atlas (2015)

My friends are usually the ones who will bring up Atlas in a kind of jesting way. I don't listen to anything from Atlas anymore. I've kind of moved on from that part of my life. I think I've really matured as a songwriter, as a musician, and as a person since then. I wrote all those songs from Atlas when I was seventeen or eighteen. So I don't hate Atlas; I don't dislike it. It's just like I've moved on from it.

JC: And then from there you would move on to The Left Side.

LH: That was fun. Working with Mikal Blue [producer of Jason Mraz and OneRepublic] at his studio, Revolver Recordings, was a lot of fun.

  

Luke's second EP, The Left Side(2017)  

                                           

JC: In the song, "I'll Be Waiting,” on The Left Side, the narrator has been waiting for this girl since the age of eleven. Is it autobiographical, or is it based on someone else?

LH: I wanted to write about anything but myself. Of course I took different things from my life as inspiration, as kind of fillers. But people really don't believe me when I say this, but I swear it's true . . . I was watching the movie Just Friends with Ryan Reynolds.

JC: Yes, I know that movie.

LH: And I thought it was some crazy situation to be in. Here’s this guy, decades later, who’s still in love with the girl he met when he was a kid. I'm sure I can relate to that and other people could too, so I just kind of tapped into that. It was a young puppy-love thing that never really went away and then turned into actual head-over-heels in love. Writing it was fun.  [To hear “I’ll Be Waiting,” click here.]

JC: Yeah, when I heard the lyrics about the eleven-year-old, I remember I waited too long than I should have to talk to some girls, but I have nothing on the narrator. He’s been waiting since he was eleven.

LH: I thought the line flowed well. I can name a couple of my friends who have waited so long to be with their one true love or the girl they've been infatuated with ever since the fifth grade. So I just had to put the point across that way.

 Working with Mikal Blue on The Left Side helped a lot because I got to meet a lot of cool people. They called me “the rookie,” because I was there and I really didn't really belong there, but I was among all these great musicians and artists.

When I was working on The Left Side, I didn't have any social media.

JC: Oh really?

LH: I absolutely hate social media, but I know how important it is in this business. And so they kind of introduced me to it. My managers were like, “You have to get Instagram. You have to get Twitter. You have to get Facebook.” So just by doing that, people would then follow me. I was not into YouTube, social media, anything like that until they all sat me down and said, “You have to stop being so stubborn and do this because it does matter,” and they could not have been more right.

So I'm still learning. I'm still not great with it. I think all the followers and YouTube content of the subscribers and the views and stuff . . . I'd honestly say was kind of luck at first, a lot of luck. But then we learned the different ways to do things, and from The Left Side, I got fans. I guess they liked the music.

JC: Another tune on The Left Side I want to talk about: “Goodbye, Mary Jane.” Was there a Mary Jane in your life?

LH: Oh yeah. I just wanted to write a song about a summer fling, and I've never really had a summer fling. People  have these seasons in their life and they connect them to different people. I think that's what I really wanted to do: you know, portray that sort of thing.

I feel like everyone has that person. It's like, “Oh man, remember this? Remember that tree we used to hang under? Remember we used to do this, and we'd have fun doing that?” That’s kind of what it is. I took a little inspiration from The Notebook and Grease.

Just trying to catch these different little flings that people have that ended up meaning a lot more to them than they originally would have thought. That’s a very relatable scenario in people’s lives.

 I did some acoustic sessions of the songs on The Left Side, and a lot of people like that other side. I think those are my most watched videos on my YouTube, so stripping everything down was a really good choice.

JC: In "Goodbye, Mary Jane,” I’ve heard the acoustic and studio version and was struck by the differences. [To hear the studio version of “Goodbye, Mary Jane,” click here, and the acoustic version of “Goodbye, Mary Jane,” click here.]

LH: Yeah. For all the stripped-down versions of those songs on The Left Side, I wanted to emulate what people would have heard had they been in my bedroom when I was writing them.

"Goodbye, Mary Jane” was never supposed to be a kind of poppy tune. I wanted it to be slow. I wanted it to show that if you actually listen to the lyrics they're kind of sad, you know?

JC: Yeah.

LH: I got done with the studio version, and I was so happy with it. Then out of nowhere, I checked in with one of my managers and said, “Hey, I want to release the acoustic version of ‘Goodbye Mary Jane.’”

She was like, “Why?” I said, “Because people just don't get it.” I want people to see the actual emotion of what I was trying to portray, because I feel like it would hit them in a completely different way. Why not try to make people think a little bit and see how they like it. I think it's my most watched video on YouTube.

But yeah, the whole point of stripping everything down when I did that is because I wanted to give my fans the impression of what it would have been like to sit in the room with me when I was writing these songs.

JC: You were also getting attention from well-known producer Warren Huart, who produced your latest EP Illuminations.

LH: Yeah. That was a lot of fun. I got a call from my manager one day and she said, “Hey, you have a call with Warren Huart. He is really interested in working with you, and I think he be a good fit.”

So I got a call from him, and right off the bat he was listening to everything I had to say. It was a lot different than any other producer I've worked with. Right off the bat, you kind of have an understanding of what you want, but Warren kept on asking all these questions to get down to what I actually wanted from this EP.

I'd reference a song, and he would write it down and immediately start playing on his computer. When I notice him doing that, it really spoke a lot to me. It wasn’t until after the phone call that I looked him. I didn't realize he worked with some of my favorite artists:  The Fray, Aerosmith, and Augustana.

I was just freaking out and thinking, “He was the one.” I called my manager back and said, “Okay, I have to work with this guy.” There was no one else I wanted to even meet. He understood me, he understood my art, and he obviously knew where I was coming from. Yeah, he was a lot of fun to work with.

Luke’s third EP, Illuminations (2019)

JC: Now let’s talk about a couple of the songs there. Want to start off with "Long Way Home?” 

LH: Yeah, I'll talk about "Long Way Home" first. For the EP, I wanted to write about myself, which is something I didn’t do on the other EPs.

I've always been a dive-into-the-pool kind of guy—I don't like dipping my toe in. So I got together with this guy in Nashville, Andrew Capra, and we just sat down and talked. He said, “Tell me about your life,” and I said, “Oh, there is really nothing much.” But then we started to really get into the nitty-gritty, and I realized that there is nothing better than that feeling of being a kid again with no care in the world.

When you’re a kid, you’re just kind of living your life literally step by step and day by day. Andrew and I decided to write about  riding my bike home from my friend's house when I was a kid. We wanted to expand on that feeling, and the same feeling I had when I moved away from my small hometown in Illinois to Nashville.

So it was expanding on all of that, just really trying to be as personal as we could. Everything that you hear in that song is true, and something that I've lived with. I think that song is about as specific as you can get with writing, but I feel like a lot of people do relate to that. [To hear “Long Way Home,” click here.]

I never wanted to be too detailed or too specific, because I want people to relate to my music. But I feel like that was the best way to get them to relate; you never really realize how people will react to a song or to lyrics. I think people connect the most to “Long Way Home.”

JC: I'll say the "Rooftops" song does give me a feeling of being high up on a rooftop.

LH: I think that song might have been the most changed. I originally brought Warren the demo. My manager did not like it. It was really just a more experimental with a lot of piano. It was about six minutes long, so that wasn’t going to make it. Then Warren was like, “This has the potential to be a success. We just have to trim it down. We have to really fix it.”

And so we did. It was over six minutes, and now it’s three minutes, or something like that. Warren said, “Just let me kind of take my mind and run with this one.” I gave him pretty much everything I wanted in it. I just wanted really triumphant strings and stuff, and I think we nailed it up.

Warren’s favorite band is Queen, and all he ever wants to do is kind of just run with some Brian May [the guitarist for Queen] guitar licks, and that's exactly what I let him do, and he had a ball doing it. I had a blast just sitting there watching him kind of create all this. Yeah, "Rooftops" was fun.

JC: You guys had lucky timing with Bohemian Rhapsody coming out to theaters, making Queen even more popular around this time than they had been in a while.

LH: I didn't think he would actually go through with all of it, turning this into a Queen tune. I didn't think he'd actually do it. With the success of the Bohemian Rhapsody movie, I feel like people may better understand what we were trying to do with it.

Lyrically, that song was just a mess before I met Warren. He sat me down and said, “You need this to go here. You need this, this, this.” Warren and I tightened it up, but lyrically it was just free writing on that one.

Then musically, production-wise, I can't take all the credit. Warren really had fun messing around with it. I think that's what kind of gives it that charming fun part of it. [This author thinks “Rooftops” sounds more Springsteen than Queen. The reader can make their own decision by clicking here.]

JC: We’ve mentioned Springsteen and Queen, but there are obviously other music influences for you besides Springsteen.

LH: Of course. Bruce is my biggest influence because I really had no other choice but to listen to him, and I'm not complaining because he is one of my favorite artists, but my favorite artist of all time is Ben Folds. I don't believe I sound like him. I don't believe I write like him.

I cannot play like him. If I did, then I would have zero problem playing in front of people. In some way, he does inspire. I take away from him a little bit, and also Ben Rector and Billy Joel.

If you really want to dig down deep, a lot of stuff I like to listen to is AC/DC and Guns N’ Roses.

JC: Yes.

LH: I just grew up on that stuff, but I never really paid attention to the people that I grew up listening to. When I'm writing my own stuff, I just want to see where my own heart can take it. But then after I'm done, I'll be like, “Oh yeah, this is definitely a Springsteen tune, or this sounds like whatever.”

I don't think that's something that people should ignore. I feel like they should use that to their advantage and see where it can take them. But Springsteen and Ben Folds are my numbers one and two.

JC: Now I notice you play piano and guitar.

LH: Yes.

JC: Was there any influences on your piano playing?

LH: Piano wise?

JC: Yeah.

LH: Probably oh, I have no idea. I just picked up piano one day because there was a piano in the room, and I felt the need to play piano. I never really had a personal hero. Of course, Ben Folds, Elton John, Billy Joel, but I don't play like them. I play it more like if it sounds pretty, it sounds pretty. I'm not a classically trained pianist.

Performance wise, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Ben Folds . . . I love how crazy they get with all that. I just, It’s not using the piano as a classic instrument, and I’ve always loved that. I like to use it as a percussion instrument. It's a big, thick instrument. It can take a beating. I'm going to beat it up a little bit.

But guitar wise, I grew up watching Angus Young from AC/DC play, and he’s my guitar hero, because I'm a big guitar buff.

JC: So what's the model of guitar that you play?

LH: I have a Gibson Midtown Custom, all black. It's absolutely gorgeous, and you can't beat the sound. But I'd have to say my favorite guitar of all time is just the classic SG.

JC: Actually, I just realized there is one song that I also wanted to ask you about that's on Illuminations. It's "Katie's Song"—the narrator says, ‘I'm a mess because of you.’ Yeah, I'm just curious about that one. [To hear “Katie’s Song,” click here.]

LH: Yes, that one probably came the easiest. Writing that was so easy. I didn't really even have to think at the moment. I was talking to a friend of mine and he kept on asking why I was feeling bad. He said, “There is no reason you should be feeling this way. Everything is going good.”

I wasn’t feeling down because of a woman or with any kind of relationship. It's just in life in general. There is something in me that always said, “This is going good, but you're going to mess it up.” And just the thought of that, like no matter what's going on in my life, it ruins it.

It’s like you're in bed with the one you love. Why are you so upset? When I say I'm a mess because of this person, I'm not blaming on this person. They're doing everything right, but I am doing everything wrong right now. I could always put the blame on them because I have no other person to put it on. It's such a shitty feeling. Sorry for swearing.

JC: It's fine.

LH: It’s such a nasty feeling, and I feel like that song really wasn't for anyone but me. "Katie" doesn't really exist. You just need to get some of that stuff out sometimes and realize that you're not doing anything wrong. Sometimes you just feel like a mess and it's something you can't control. “Katie’s Song” is all about insecurity and just trying to get through the night without completely losing yourself.

JC: Are you planning on touring behind Illuminations?

LH: Yeah. We have a Midwest run coming up probably toward end of July, beginning of August [2019]. I'm kind of planning it right now. I've done a couple of short runs already. I have some different press trips planned from Atlanta to New York City. A lot of stuff coming up. In this genre you can't rush it because you’ll miss too much, and they move on without you if you go too slow. It's a scary process, but I'm having the time of my life getting ready for this tour.

 Right now, "Long Way Home" has been hitting the radio pretty well. That is more than I ever thought it would be doing on the radio. It’s going to take such a long time to kind of see those results. I'm just more than blessed to have a song on the radio.

But it would be nice to be picked up by things like a commercial or TV, movie. I feel like a lot of these songs could fit in well with different scenarios, and that would be more than awesome. But could not be more happy with how "Long Way Home" is doing, and the rest of the album is getting a lot of attention just because of that song.

I never expected "Katie's Song" to be anything more than just a last song of the EP, but that one has about as much play as "Long Way Home.”

JC: You know I listen to Illuminations on Spotify. I didn’t listen to the way you set the album; I listen to it by ranks of Spotify popularity. “Long Way Home” is first, and "Katie's Song” is second, which is a different order than what the song list is on Illuminations.

LH: I didn't expect that. That’s probably the most personal song I'll ever write, and it is my favorite one on the album. It’s really cool to know that people are actually checking that out.

JC: Along with touring, do you plan on continue with any more EPs or songs?

LH: Yeah, absolutely. Right now, I'm itching to get back into the studio because I have so much more in my pocket to get out there. I want to go back to the studio. I want to release some new music. I think it's going to sound a little different, but awesome to me. It's a different feel all around for this next project I'm working on.

 On the next thing I work on, I don't expect it to sound anything like what came before it because that one season in my life and I'm moving onto the next. Atlas was a season before, then I moved on to The Left Side, which was a different season, and that was enough, so on and so forth.

For now I'm focusing on the tour, and that's why I'm itching. I want to get more people hearing the songs. Honestly, if you hear them live, I think you'll like them even more as I do. There’s a little bit different arrangements, and I have some more fun with it. And of course, anyone who loves music knows that you can't beat a live concert.

JC: I love music and I’m a huge concert buff.

LH: Not to toot my own horn, but I think I put on a pretty good show. I mean, I grew up watching people like Bruce Springsteen. I have to bring that authenticity.

JC: You started in 2015 with Atlas, and Illuminations is in 2019. What has been your feelings about it?

LH: I've never been more happy. When I did Atlas, I didn't really expect much to happen at all. I didn't really have any confidence. After I did it I was like, “Okay, I'm done. Whatever.” But after Illuminations, everything was just so bright. The future was just like kind of in my head at that point, and I knew great things were going to come.

Going from Atlas to Illuminations, I couldn't be more proud of myself, because I seriously did not think anything would come after Atlas, but I was okay with it. I knew when I was writing Illuminations that it would be something special and be something big for me.

And now more people know my name. People know my songs. At the last show I played, people were singing along, and that's a dream come true. They never did that when I released Atlas. I just knew that this was different, and I'm glad I was right.

JC: We’ve mentioned Springsteen a lot. The music industry was a lot different back then when he was recording. What would your recommendations be for people who are in a world when we no longer go to Tower Records and stream on Spotify or YouTube?

LH: It’s an uphill battle, and it will never be easy. Making music has become a lot easier with technology, and being able to get it out there has become a lot easier.

There is always going to be a fan base for what you want to do. There is always going to be someone out there who loves what you do, but the hardest part is continuing to do it because there’s a steady stream of people doing it.

 I would say to someone who wants to go into this industry that if it’s truly what you want to do, there should absolutely be nothing holding you back. This is because of all the opportunities that we have now being in this day and age. There should be absolutely nothing stopping you from doing what you love.

I mean, it's going to be hard. Nothing worth fighting for is going to be easy, but it's not work. It's not going to be a huge challenge if you enjoy doing it. Every time I've failed, I gain experience from it.

I think the best advice is to not let anyone tell you no. Don’t let anyone tell you that you're not good enough, because that happened to me a lot, and that is just a bunch of crap. You have to keep pursuing it if it's truly what you're meant to do.