[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Working Song Writer.
[SPEAKER_00]: The show where today's best songwriters come to talk shop.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host, Joe Pug.
[SPEAKER_00]: Each episode here, we host a distinguished guest, and we ask them to go deep on their inspiration, on their process, on the general ups and downs of making a life in music.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, whether you're a grizzled veteran, asking the mix engineer for more mouth harp on the third verse or else, a scrappy upstart, singing emo lyrics over a hip hop track with a face tattoo.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is your show, because ultimately, it is what every writer seeks most, and ironclot excuse to put off actually writing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the last Friday of November 2017.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for being here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks to everybody who came out and joined us in Ohio this month in Buffalo, New York, in New York City for the final installment of the Working Songwriter Residency City winery.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really look forward to trying the podcast in a live format going forward and I really think we began to figure out the formula over the last few months at that residency.
[SPEAKER_00]: So big thanks to City Winnering who have always had my back creatively and who gave that show a shot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you'd like to hear some of my music live in the coming months, here's where I'll be tonight, November 30th at the Bluebird Theatre in Denver, Sunday December 2nd in Fort Collins, Colorado at the Armory for the Bohemian Night's concert series.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wednesday, December 5th in Chicago at City Winery, which I believe is either sold out or about the sell out.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you were thinking about going to that grab your tickets now, and then December 6th, and 8th in Philadelphia for the strand of Oaks winter classic with, of course, Tim Show Walter, and also Carl Brummel from my morning jacket, which is very exciting.
[SPEAKER_00]: That will be at the boot and saddle.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that'll be it for my 2019 on the road.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was it was a great year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to shut it down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shut it down for a little while.
[SPEAKER_00]: You guys want to get this album mixed and sequenced and mastered and ready to come at you in 2019.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will have been four years since releasing my last album four years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: What the hell happened?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's almost as if I got married to have a couple of kids and moved across the country.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe that has some effect on a person's creative output.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just a guess.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're a listener to this show, but you've never heard any of my songs before, we should rectify that.
[SPEAKER_00]: A good place to do that is over.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's Spotify.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just search the words intro to Joe Pug and a playlist will come up with songs from all the different albums and EPs I've released over the years that are curated to give you a pretty good idea of what I'm about musically.
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, if you enjoy this podcast, if you'd like to help it remain a viable endeavor for me, here are a few things that you could do to help out.
[SPEAKER_00]: First, you could become a supporter of the show over at Patreon.
[SPEAKER_00]: Patreon, of course, is a platform that allows you to directly support a creative endeavor that you love.
[SPEAKER_00]: You head to their site, P-A-T-R-E-O-N, you search for the working songwriter, or you search for my name, and then you sign up to kick in a few bucks every month for this show.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's basically a voluntary subscription.
[SPEAKER_00]: A subscription that you don't have to pay, but that you choose to pay because you dig the show and because you won't miss the price of a cup of coffee every month.
[SPEAKER_00]: And also, here's the brass tax part of it, also because I've been posting a ton.
[SPEAKER_00]: of bonus content over there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Over the last few months, there's the first episode of the Oaks Chamber.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's the alumni check in with BJ Barham of American Aquarium.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's the bridge of Chicago in New York with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this month,
[SPEAKER_00]: I posted the audio from our live podcast in New York with Scrant of Vokes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did we spend about 25 minutes recounting the first tour we went on together?
[SPEAKER_00]: Did we tell a very strange story about meeting citizen cop in Birmingham, Alabama?
[SPEAKER_00]: Did we cover one another's songs at the end of the set?
[SPEAKER_00]: These are questions you can only answer by becoming a supporter over there at Patreon.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, stop on by and join up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're not in a place where you can contribute that way, financially that's totally understandable, I'd just ask you to please leave us a review in iTunes or TeleFriend who you think would dig this show and both of those things are 100% free.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, I think that's it for the housekeeping stuff, I'll end all my harassment there
[SPEAKER_00]: After mixing this month's episode, I went ahead and invested in a stool that doesn't violently squeak.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to edit out most of that, but this will be the last episode where you'll have to be subjected every once in a while to what sounds like someone slowly murdering a goat in the background of the audio.
[SPEAKER_00]: So my bad on that, I believe I've rectified the situation going forward and it won't happen again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, that's it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for being here and I hope you enjoy this month's episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: My guest this month is Arizona native Courtney Marie Andrews.
[SPEAKER_00]: She began her career at an early age as a backing musician for a wide range of different groups.
[SPEAKER_00]: First, playing keyboards and singing with pop punk outfit, Jimmy E. World, then a hitch playing guitar in Damian Gerado's band and finally singing back up for Belgian pop star Milo.
[SPEAKER_00]: That would be the last time she was standing up stage at a concert, as she self-produced and released her album on its life in 2016.
[SPEAKER_00]: That effort landed her on a slew of year-end lists, from American songwriter to Rolling Stone to NPR, and it brought her songwriting to national and international attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: she's performed on later with Jules Holland and CBS this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's recorded for Fat Possum, Mama Bird, and Loose Records.
[SPEAKER_00]: This year she was nominated for the Americana Music Association's Emerging Artist Award, and she was crowned International Artist of the Year at the 2018 UK Americana Music Awards.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Guardian gave her last album five stars and concluded that it's a brilliant record, proof that old forms can still be timeless.
[SPEAKER_00]: NPR has called her latest album, ideally calibrated to our current moment, and it said that she doesn't just tell us these truths, she makes us feel them poignantly and right on time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Rolling Stone has said that her writing shows us, quote, a sophisticated understanding of what humans are able to sacrifice, just to love and be loved, or even to simply make it through a day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I caught up with Courtney on the phone between her U.S. tour and her Australian tour last month, and she was kind enough to sit down for a few minutes and tell us about her journey so far.
[SPEAKER_00]: Since you came through DC, I'd say about what was about a year ago that you guys came through and crashed at my place with the band?
[SPEAKER_00]: That sounds about right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah and so you guys have released a record since then and I've been following your schedule because we've been talking about maybe making this happen for a while and in following your schedule I've just been aware that you've been working full speed ahead for at least a year now if not more you've been doing the type of touring that's not for the faint of heart I'm catching you on a two-day break between a major US tour and your flight to Australia how are you holding up with all this touring?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I rolled up pretty well.
[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of knew from a young age that I liked touring.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like you said, it's not for the faint of heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: You sort of have to love it or love most of it to be able to do this amount of touring.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you love it, you're all in.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm all in.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's some days where just like anything, you sort of get worn out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you just want to crawl and bed with some hot goat go or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, for my and it would be a Blanton's bourbon, but yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean maybe the Hacoco spiked and you don't you don't have a problem with I mean your voice your show is so voice dependent you don't have a problem with your voice being on the road.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I I actually had like a little bit of a a scare earlier this year and I went to an ENT just my voice
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just was sort of, I was curious if I had any notes or anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: I definitely became paranoid that that was the case.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they said that I didn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: And but while I was there gave me some tips and apparently talking is the worst thing that you can do.
[SPEAKER_00]: No problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm a laugher.
[SPEAKER_01]: I laugh very loudly at everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I have to
[SPEAKER_01]: trying to be better about warming my voice up rather than just going for the crazy belt noises.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right away.
[SPEAKER_00]: And do you do that just strumming the guitar in the green room before the show?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or do you literally literally have like vocal exercises?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I just say I sing a soft song.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's kind of my vocal warm up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I don't just go for the the the loud vocal songs right away.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just
[SPEAKER_01]: going for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, I've started to warm up before shows in that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before I find it, it's helpful not only for your voice, but it's helpful when you hit stage to kind of feel like you're continuing a performance rather than starting cold, do you find that at all?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I had, if we had like a room to just actually play like a small set before we went on stage, I think that would be like the perfect scenario.
[SPEAKER_01]: it's so nice to be able to play just a few songs before you hit the stage running.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, so those bigger bands, they actually, they rocked that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know one time I opened for the lumen years and they had a full set up, like recording set up backstage and then another time, I,
[SPEAKER_00]: got a name drop here, Courtney.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got to sit in with the killers when they came through D.C. And I'm only saying that because they had like a full set up besides their all of their individual green rooms, they had a full band set up with tiny amps and like a little PA in one of the rooms that they went and practiced in before I had.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I've seen that several times and I'm always just so envious.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's like the best way because then you you really are warmed up
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really a nice, it's a nice reach dream.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what do you do?
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's vocal health and warming up and stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you do for mental health stuff to you are saying earlier that you walked a little bit do you have any other strategies to stay balanced while you're on tour?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I am a huge advocate for pikes on tour.
[SPEAKER_01]: I try and,
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, invite the guys that I tour with and also just myself to to really engage in and nature.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that helps so much to balance out my mental health personally.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so just breaking up a tour, breaking up a mundane routine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I think a lot of people think it's not very mundane, but it can start to feel like that sort of drive.
[SPEAKER_01]: for her, or drive soundtrack play, sleep, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, absolutely, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I just, I really try and get out and walk and hike.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're able to keep up with that, because like when I first started touring 10 years ago, I thought to myself that I would do things like that, and then I never did, but you, you find yourself what weekly being able to find time to do that or more than that.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd say on the US tours, it's a bit harder just because the drives are much longer, but I'd say this last row was about a five week tour.
[SPEAKER_01]: We probably got to do it four times.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's not very often, but just that one hike is like such a reset.
[SPEAKER_00]: The drives are different in the US than they are over in Europe aren't they?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes, crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we are first drive was 20 hours.
[SPEAKER_00]: from where from Seattle to Texas?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've done that drive.
[SPEAKER_00]: One time I had to, we finished the tour in the guys' flew home, and I was like, don't worry, I'll take it from Seattle to Austin.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: One through the view.
[SPEAKER_01]: Coffee's in red balls.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you go through Moab?
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you take that round?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, you know, I always hear about that route.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if it's just not the quickest on the GPS, but it's looks so beautiful.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we usually go through Arizona or... Oh, in the next time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you do that because you're looking to see family from Arizona?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, is it looking to see family when you go through?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, trying to always stop if I can.
[SPEAKER_01]: So.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, touring is a good way, like I have a very big extended family throughout the United States.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the big joke when we were tour with the band was always at guestless time, I would have a cousin to put on the guestless no matter where we were, um, and I get to see that family more than anyone else in the family because I tour so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have family spread out throughout the, uh, the U.S. or is it mainly Arizona?
[SPEAKER_01]: It is mainly Arizona and California, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I tend to be able to see family in those states.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a few family members in Tennessee and in Georgia, and I will get to see them more often than everybody else does.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is also nice because I feel like as songwriters were often looking for those sort of connections and kind of searching to our roots and that sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I really do enjoy just catching up with family members.
[SPEAKER_00]: How has your family nuclear extended and otherwise?
[SPEAKER_00]: How have they responded to the course that you've charted so far with music?
[SPEAKER_01]: They're all very supportive.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of them have absolutely no idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't, I didn't grow up in a musical family.
[SPEAKER_01]: I barely grew up with family that I guess were what you would consider music fans.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, so not only did they not play, but they didn't particularly, you know, have a bunch of records you could leave through or something like that, huh?
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they, I think they all love music, but they're not record collectors.
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't, they didn't go to concerts, you know, it was very much, I didn't grow up in a music, music family.
[SPEAKER_01]: For that being the case, I feel like they're all extremely supportive, and my mom is my mom specifically, just for me, young age always wanted me to do what I wanted, and somehow that sort of openness led me to music.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, so you started getting exposed to the music that would affect you profoundly.
[SPEAKER_00]: It kind of comparatively late later age than most kids who would have had that around the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like what age would that have been?
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, very young.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I saw a musical, and I just, that's what I wanted to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you remember what it was like?
[SPEAKER_01]: Three or four.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was Annie.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, Annie, that was awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I just, I wanted to be Annie.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not just her singing, but just her.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought she was so cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the least rock story answer.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've had to that question in the same way, sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know what, I can tell them to true one and I can tell other people are lying when they say, you know, first up my life was the strokes, is this it, you know, so I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I definitely led into a cooler existence, but I was like five years old, so.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, but I can't lie.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess my question was more like, so yeah, definitely you're exposed to Annie, but you know, it's not like your folks have Tom Waste Records lying around the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: So at what point in your life did you get exposed to this stuff?
[SPEAKER_00]: the influences that I can hear in your music now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say, well, obviously my mom, like most 90s moms, the one album that she did have was the Lannus Marseille, Jack, a little pill.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when I was super young, I heard that record, but it sort of led me into hearing, I think the first records that I really liked were like,
[SPEAKER_01]: country and R&B.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I had like a Leon Rimes record and I had a Destiny's child record.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I sort of strayed away from that once they discovered the guitar and MTV and that sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And kind of went into more alternative music and then that led me to punk.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was really into punk and that's sort of when I started a first-by-first band.
[SPEAKER_01]: Was it open?
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a punk band.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was a, it was a feminist punk band when I was, I don't know, 13 or 14.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the feminist punk band when you were 13 years old, you were, you're a bulk, a carton, wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was, I was, I was, look, exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wait, did you say you're playing bass?
[SPEAKER_01]: I was, no, I was playing guitar and my friend, D.D.
[SPEAKER_01]: was playing bass.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my friend, Macy, played guitar.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was no drummer.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was, it was a very,
[SPEAKER_00]: Violent Femms, oh my god, so had you, you know, were you influenced by bands like bikini killers, something like that that you had heard or what gave you the paradigm?
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes, bikini kill was our biggest influence and this band called The Distillers, which wasn't a feminist bug fan, but was read blood by a woman named Brody Dale.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I would say okay girls let's all leave this for her so long, go right as song.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need songs.
[SPEAKER_01]: and I would be the only one that would come back with a song.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only one that did her homework.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was sort of then that I realized, oh, I really love writing songs.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that band sort of catapulted me into songwriting.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's pretty impressive that you were writing songs like an original music band at 13 usual.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's pretty unusual.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a very young age.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I was always more drawn to original music.
[SPEAKER_01]: I rarely learned covers or anything when I was a kid.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't have the patience for some reason to learn another person song.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was always more interested in creating something before trying to learn the fake books and that sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever gone back and listening to some of those songs that you wrote back then?
[SPEAKER_01]: I have recordings of them somewhere in a storage unit
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll be a very interesting day, the day that I dig those up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, just prepare yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've listened to some stuff that I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe not quite that early on, but pretty early on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I got halfway through about one of the songs that I wrote when I was like 14 called Corporate Rocks on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And had to turn it the fuck off, Courtney.
[SPEAKER_02]: That corporate rock song that is pretty like, that's pretty woke, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very meta.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's really woke.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't embarrass to tell you the title of my first.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you have to know, I've already put my cards in the table.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's called like five-girl world or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wait, and what's the theme of, like, what was the point of five girl worlds real quick?
[SPEAKER_02]: Didiata, didiata, didiata was dating, I mean dating, we were 13 years old.
[SPEAKER_02]: Didiata, a little boy for in that, was dating multiple.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, we were 13 and I was like, I'm gonna write a song about him.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it was very like angsty.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like living in a five girl world.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like standing up for my friend.
[SPEAKER_02]: I suppose them to our hangout, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, so.
[SPEAKER_00]: Man, I think, yeah, I think that's a really big Rubicon across as a musician is to be like, I'm gonna make my own, like I'm writing my own stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the sooner that you try that, I feel like,
[SPEAKER_00]: The longer you wait, sometimes I feel like you can realize how hard it is that you start later.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when you're younger, you're just like, well, I want to write a song about the five girls that this scumbag is dating right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you just do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it was very cathartic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I never had to seek, you know, as a kid, especially, I mean, it's obviously evolved into something more than just therapy.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when I was a kid, it was definitely that for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't have to seek a therapist.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just could write.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that was a very important part of my adolescence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Were you guys playing shows and stuff?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, no, we weren't.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was, so once I, once we started writing, we just really weren't, didn't have a musicianship to form a band that's really what we just discovered.
[SPEAKER_01]: It took us like 12 hours for her slun slung.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we just weren't quite there yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I sort of, I started posting, I started recording, I got a little recorded, recording set up with like a Walmart mic.
[SPEAKER_00]: And remember what this, the recording set up was?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it was a program called Asad Planet.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was going to be a computer.
[SPEAKER_01]: On a computer, I was, yeah, this is about when I was 15.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, we had just gotten a computer and I went to like Best Buy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I bought a program software called Asad Planet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, so you like physically bought the CD with the.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah, we're really showing your age here.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's only in yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: I bought the physical software at Best Buy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, did not realize that there was hacking at or, you know, that was obviously not a thing yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but anyway, there's a.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I bought the program and there was a forum that sort of you could upload on to the internet and random people would comment on your songs they recorded and this is all also showing me as somebody on the forum does your music is very folky and I was like, what does that mean.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that literally that comment and that word led me to everything else in now.
[SPEAKER_00]: So a random comment on some online forum to that you were uploading stuff to like it just seems strange to me that you would never have heard of the genre of folk music and some until someone said it like a comment.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had heard of the genre but I had all these implications internally with the genre like I thought it was like a bunch of like old people sitting around and I didn't think it was like a- And it is sort of-
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but I sort of, that somehow that led me to like indie music, it was just I don't know the exact chronological order of that, but yeah, somehow all that led me to the music I listen to now.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm kind of just hearing as a general.
[SPEAKER_00]: arc about what you were about as a kid.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, to take the initiative to like go to Best Buy, get this program so that you can record yourself, publish yourself like you, you had a real vision for this at a young age, didn't you?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like what you were gonna do and how you were gonna move it forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you were very corny word here, but you were very proactive about moving forward with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: You had a plan.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did, I was very determined to get out of Phoenix, Arizona.
[SPEAKER_01]: and to make music.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think once I discovered songwriting, I just felt like that I had wanted to do it all along.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I was a kid, I loved just singing, and I love to write, and I wanted to be an author, and I wanted to be a singer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I discovered that you could be both, it felt like it was all I've ever wanted to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: So.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it sounds like, and I know that about you, but it sounds like also not only was your desire to be a writer, but it sounds like there was a negative stimulus, like there was also a desire to get the fuck away from where you were from.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I feel like I always had this
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I just didn't belong anywhere in school, or I mean, I'm sure a lot of kids have that, but I really, really felt that I didn't belong anywhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I first set foot and the touring, I just, that was the first time where I felt I belonged.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you started touring at a very young age as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you kind of tell the story of how you first hit the road and how old you were?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so after booking coffee shops and venues around Phoenix, I booked this also, again, shows how it really started during I booked a tour on my space.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I would message people on my space and put it out there on my music page.
[SPEAKER_00]: You would like if you give me a show, I'll put you in my top eight friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: You'd be lucky enough to be number two in my top eight.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I booked a show via my space and booked a tour of me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I also did a lot of busking with some friends up and down the west coast.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so my first, yeah, three or four years of touring from when I was 16, where along the west coast, self booked sort of DIY shows.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you and I have, and I've personally had this conversation with you, but but I need to ask it because this is a public conversation we're having here obviously.
[SPEAKER_00]: What was, when I hear, okay, 16-year-old at the time girl books a West Coast tour to go busking and playing coffee shops in California, when you broach that idea to your mom or your dad, like, what was the reaction there?
[SPEAKER_01]: very scared and nervous that I was going to be out there in the world all alone at such a young age.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think that she recognized how determined I was and that sort of masked all the fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think she knew that if I'd
[SPEAKER_01]: like I would have done it no matter what.
[SPEAKER_01]: That sounds awful, but she just saw my determination and passion for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And at this point, I had already been playing so much around town and and you know, and it was only like the first tours were only like a week long, maybe 10 days and it goes straight in for like the full two months tours thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So
[SPEAKER_00]: And after that initial tour you ended up on tour singing with Jimmy Orl, which was like an alt rock, almost emo, leaning band, how did that happen and what was it like touring with that operation?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, by the time I was 19, I had been on the road in a very different sort of way and I'd been playing around Phoenix a lot and they're from Phoenix as well and I think they were searching for
[SPEAKER_01]: background singer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, yeah, Jim asked me to sing with him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a lead singer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then a month later after singing on their record, he's like, hey, what do you think about coming on tour with us?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was, I'd never experienced touring at that level, let alone like a music
[SPEAKER_01]: Operation at that level.
[SPEAKER_01]: I sort of had visions of just being like Woody Guthrie was like an abstract on train kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this was like a bus type tour?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, this was like a full tour bus.
[SPEAKER_01]: And lots of lots of things sort of shifted my perspective after that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I went on
[SPEAKER_01]: And I still do have this a little bit just like a very idealistic view of how everything works, you know, I'm sort of a day dreamer and so I was the first time where I went in there was like like a team of people working for a band, you know, and I didn't know what a publicist was or a booking agent or any of that stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just
[SPEAKER_01]: I did a had no clue and so in a way it was almost like music business school for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you saw how to sausage but before that moment you were like some of my extended family members who will ask me things like they'll be like so when you go on tour do you have it planned out where you're gonna play before hand or do you just get in the van and you just you just go to bars and ask me to come on like no we have a pretty good idea for
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't at all, um, but it's so accurate.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what you saw the sauce is being made, um, because presumably, they were releasing the record that you had sang on, and you saw that being publicized and all that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I saw, I saw how it works, uh, how it really works, because I feel like I, I definitely saw what I knew at the end goal was, but I didn't know any of the process of how to get there, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: going on that tour taught me so much and also gave me confidence to really go for it in a bigger way, not just like busking and that sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I suppose seeing that for the first time, you could take it in two ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: In one way, you could look at it as depressing because it doesn't just happen magically.
[SPEAKER_00]: In another way, you could look at it as liberating because you can say to yourself, like, oh, there's tangible step-by-step things I can do to get to my goal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which one of those ways did you take it, or was it a combination of the two?
[SPEAKER_01]: I definitely say it was a combination of the two.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember actually, it's funny you say that after sort of touring, it's a backup singer like my first tour I did after that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those shows.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, oh, it was sort of it hit me like a ton of bricks.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just like, I have a long,
[SPEAKER_01]: way to go, not only just in the songs I'm writing and sort of, but also in just the, the, yeah, the presentation of those getting there.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I was 21 years old, the day before classes were to start for my senior year of college at the University of North Carolina, I packed up my belongings in my truck, and I drove through the night to Chicago.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next morning I called the Registrar's Office and officially dropped out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Within the week, I had found a room to rent for 300 bucks, and I had a job for 15 bucks an hour as a laborer for a construction company.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had grand artistic ambitions and they overwrote every other priority for me at the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said to hell with all the different stops I was supposed to make along the way and I drove straight for where I wanted to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're going to live life outside the main stream, if you're going to forge a new identity, if you're going to set sail on the open ocean, sometimes a dramatic break like that is the best way to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I suppose the younger you are when it's done, the better.
[SPEAKER_00]: One day I'll tell you more about that trip in detail.
[SPEAKER_00]: I only mentioned it now because recently, Courtney posted an essay about a break like that of her own and it really spoke to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It really reminded me of the start of my own adventure so many years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd like to read you some of that essay here, paired down a bit to fit within our format.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here she is in her own words.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I was 18 years old, I took a Greyhound bus from Phoenix to New York City.
[SPEAKER_00]: It took four grueling nights, but I had very little money and was determined to book myself some shows on the East Coast.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mother reluctantly dropped me off at the station.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was wearing a Mexican prairie dress and a hiking backpack harnessed to my waist.
[SPEAKER_00]: I kept mace in my pocket that my uncle insisted on giving me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anything was possible and I was determined to learn from the world the way learning suited me by serious trial and error.
[SPEAKER_00]: At first, I sat near the front, thinking the bus driver could protect me if anything went wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: A man in his fifties took a liking to me and sat very close.
[SPEAKER_00]: Within an hour, I learned that he was part of some kind of cult and he tried to convince me to join him in New Mexico.
[SPEAKER_00]: I held the mace a little closer and switched buses in Albuquerque.
[SPEAKER_00]: I watched the sky turn ambering gold over the Cadillac ranch.
[SPEAKER_00]: I dreamed of the westerns my grandpa would watch and imagined John Wayne rescuing me from this strange bus by horseback.
[SPEAKER_00]: This time I chose to seat next to a woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had a one month old baby.
[SPEAKER_00]: On that leg, I learned that I'm a people pleaser, because somehow, with only $100 to my name, I was buying McDonald's for her and her newborn and holding the baby at rest areas.
[SPEAKER_00]: I moved to the back of the bus.
[SPEAKER_00]: I ended up sitting between two prostitutes who escaped their abusive pimps.
[SPEAKER_00]: They asked me to play a song so they could sing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got out my guitar and sang with the prostitutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their voices were gravely and deep and full of emotion.
[SPEAKER_00]: Out of all the songs I could have played first, I played, you are my sunshine.
[SPEAKER_00]: They sang, every American knows that song.
[SPEAKER_00]: I finally arrived in the peak of August to New York City.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found a bed in a hostel for $25, where a couple on the bunk above me made love with me below.
[SPEAKER_00]: I slept for 15 hours despite all the noise and heat.
[SPEAKER_00]: I arrived with a journey behind me that was hard to explain, but I made it to New York.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you talk about the period between coming off that Jimmy world four and your next emergence on that, the national scene?
[SPEAKER_00]: What did you have to do in those intervening years to get yourself to a place where you could be a person that would take a step onto the national scene and be able to hold her own?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think it took me a couple of years to find my sound.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I think that I was just sort of searching for that for a while.
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't until I was living in Belgium and going through a really painful time that I sort of discovered exactly what I wanted to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: And with that was the honest life.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I was writing those songs, it was like the first time where my vision was so clear that nothing could shake it, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just like this is a record I need to make and I knew exactly what I wanted to sound like.
[SPEAKER_00]: Had you in the bell,
[SPEAKER_01]: I was somehow, it's so funny.
[SPEAKER_01]: I never intended or set out to be a backup singer.
[SPEAKER_01]: I always wanted to be a songwriter.
[SPEAKER_01]: And somehow, just ended up as a backup singer for so many people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and so I was a backup singer for a Belgian pop star.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: For like four months, for four months.
[SPEAKER_01]: I lived there.
[SPEAKER_01]: the first tour one of one as a backup singer is like this isn't my path, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: So is the realization that that wasn't your path was that why you're having a difficult time over there?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I was going through a I was also going through a breakup and I was just I was realizing a lot about I had veered from my path.
[SPEAKER_01]: I felt my intuition.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had not followed it as clearly as I should have kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: and that was the first realization of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was going through break up, realizing I didn't particularly want to be a backup singer as my, you know, main career and writing this batch of songs that felt very clear and, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know exactly the exact steps from being a backup singer that led me to that place, but it happened and it felt very natural and real and wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: That could be pretty daunting though when you're in a place, you're lucky enough to have the insight that you're nowhere near where you want to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's great, but man, you see how many miles there are to go before you can even get anywhere even decent for yourself, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, it was a long journey, absolutely for me and in a very there's a lot of detours.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't it wasn't always very, you know, linear.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you want to limit your business, get in to real estate, but not in the music, so when honest life comes out, that kind of took on a life of its own and it really introduced you to a larger audience.
[SPEAKER_00]: When did you realize that that was taking on a life of its own that was different from earlier releases of years?
[SPEAKER_01]: Was there a specific moment?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, when I started playing shows where people were there, especially over in the UK and Europe, it's been so great for me over there and I think the first tour I did for honest life, first headlining tour I did over there, like shows were selling out and I was like, oh, this is this feels different, this feels how it's the
[SPEAKER_01]: that that's how it's going to you know it just felt different um shows we're starting to have attendance and uh and also I just started getting uh letters and messages about the record and how it helped people and affected people in a different way it just it just felt like a more
[SPEAKER_01]: in every sense of the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And obviously, it's the first record where I had a team behind me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't saw a release it on band camp or anything like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there was people sort of, you know, to build me up and back me up.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, just all those little things that sort of you just feel it feels different, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Definitely.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, yeah, just having people show up to
[SPEAKER_00]: that is nothing feels better than that when that first starts to happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's crazy how much you don't realize that it means into your, you know, somewhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was in like, part of Wales and there was a hundred people or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first time that happened and I was like, where did all these people come?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I was so
[SPEAKER_00]: The devil led sort of where did all these people come from and also where were the fuck were you guys for the last 10 years?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, but I mean, you had to, it took a very long time, took you a decade to put together something that was worthy of people coming out on a Thursday night and, you know, partying with their hard earned money and their hard earned personal time, you know, like you really have to present them with something exceptional to make it worth them, worth it for them to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I feel like I was always trying striving to get there, and it's funny, it's not always, it feels like it's not that record where you're trying the hardest.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just something that you can't even help it make, and it makes any sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think, well, I think it does make sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think when you don't feel like there's a ton riding on it, you just make decisions a little bit more effortlessly,
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you had records that you've worked on before that you've, like, decisioned to death?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, well, I think that was, like, I feel like I did that a lot when I was younger.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I just didn't quite...
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't quite have the years behind me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm definitely one of those.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not one of those people who has like first record comes out of the gate running.
[SPEAKER_01]: At least I don't believe that I am.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it takes me a while to process and to learn and to discover.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I feel like my first records were all very decisions to death.
[SPEAKER_01]: I spent like a year on one of them, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it took me a while to realize that I just needed really great
[SPEAKER_01]: clear vision, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the past three records I've made in like eight days.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'd say they're not decision to death at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you hear about how jazz quartets make albums that make them in a day.
[SPEAKER_00]: They go in and they record it and then someone mixes it after that, you know, 12 hours studio day, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's incredible.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I feel like there is something to,
[SPEAKER_01]: just making a record in the moment and letting that be, it can be really hard to let some of those things go, but it can also make something really magical and special.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was making an album once in Chicago with a producer named Brian Deck and the piano player Sam Casier from Josh Reader's Band, what's up Sam?
[SPEAKER_00]: He was doing an overdub of a part idea, and finally Brian came in with the talk back and said, come on in Sam, I know that you haven't nailed it yet, but now that you're getting close to it, I can hear that it's not something that we want.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Sam said, well, if you just give me one more take.
[SPEAKER_00]: you can have it like I'll do a good take of it and you'll have it there to use and Brian Busback over the thing and he said I want to make decisions not options and I was like and man like there is something to that if there was a big lesson I learned from that session it was that little nugget of wisdom right there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow that is an incredible statement.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think that's why some of the old gear is fun to work with because, you know, if the Beatles had to bounce everything down to four tracks, like they had to make some serious decisions about what was going to get cut and, you know, how much room they had for everything they didn't have a lot of options.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, and also it was about the performance, you know, they'd get,
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's actually very much how my latest record was made.
[SPEAKER_01]: We made it with this guy Mark Howard who
[SPEAKER_01]: his notorious for making records like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember talking to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we were in Australia when you had just hired him and you had hired him based on, in my recollection, how much you love that Lucinda Williams album world without tears, which is my favorite, Lucinda Williams record, as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what was it like to work with him how is the process different than past processes?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, he's just an incredible guy, you know, obviously his history of food is worth with is is incredible.
[SPEAKER_01]: And something to be reckoned with.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he, he, and he worked alongside Danieling Law for a lot of records.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they both have this sort of technique where they set up a studio in a house.
[SPEAKER_01]: And everybody lives in the house or they don't, you know, but it's in the house and it's in a different space than any other record they've made.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we did that and he doesn't work with pro tools or any sort of program like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of the record has to be made sort of in an old school way.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you just come straight to take.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we were just getting the takes.
[SPEAKER_01]: We do three takes of each song.
[SPEAKER_01]: Listen back and I call them the vibe master because we just sit there and we sort of feel which take has a vibe, it doesn't have to be the most perfect take, but which take has a vibe and.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's sort of how the record is made.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very live, very raw.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for listeners who are not musicians, but just music listeners, what she's talking about there is when you have pro tools or launch it, which is a digital system, you have a lot more opportunity to go in and cut takes together or repair takes or do overdubs and when you're going straight to tape, like this, you really have to commit to
[SPEAKER_00]: an entire performance in some ways, and that's another example of like the limiting options, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, yeah, and just going for what makes everybody feel a certain way.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a song on the record called this house.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got it in the first take.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was the sun was like setting, they had these big beautiful wet windows.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was kind of like overlooking the
[SPEAKER_01]: and it was getting like a little chilly and the sun was setting and it was just like one of those moments he just you don't know why you remember why it feels a certain way but it does and everybody felt it in the room and we just we played the first take of the song this house and it was the take.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've had a band that you've worked with for a really long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm wondering if you can give me some insights on what do you think some of the most?
[SPEAKER_00]: successful habits are that you can have as a bandleader on the road and in the studio.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I feel like, well, one, I, I love to sort of create, like, long lasting relationships, especially within a touring sense, just because it's such a fragile space, and it's really important
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a lot of compliment sandwiches.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you sort of if, especially like in the producer role, you know, it's like, oh, that was great.
[SPEAKER_01]: But can we maybe try something like this?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I feel like that to maintain the positivity within
[SPEAKER_01]: And inspire performances within that role is really important, not just saying something negative right away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you feel as you have worked with a group longer and longer that you're able to use less bread on the same way and use more of the meat, more of the critique rather than like do have they learn to trust you in a way where you can be more blunt?
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've actually it's so funny because I had some new members this year and it was something that I
[SPEAKER_01]: Realize that I had developed a communication and conversation with these players I've been playing with for over five years now that was so that it nobody took it personally, you know, it's just like a, we just could talk so easily that I talked the same way to the new people and I realized, oh, that's not quite, we haven't developed this five year long relationship, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, I think that's always like an everlasting learning process, you know, but I try as far as on the road, like I try and make it as fun as possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's like my number one, sort of release and I think everybody that's in.
[SPEAKER_01]: our band will say we just we are always like joking and laughing and it's the only way to keep sort of sane.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you say as fun as possible does that mean changing up the setlist every night where does that mean going bowling once or week like what does that for you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well we definitely I love changing up the setlist that obviously shakes things up but yeah just breaking routine
[SPEAKER_01]: people can get sort of grumpy after a while when they've been doing the same thing every single day.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so breaking or seeing staying fun places or just laughing, just making it light.
[SPEAKER_01]: not always serious, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I used to travel with a band, my big trump card for making someone feel better because we'd all be splitting rooms the whole time, obviously.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you could see someone kind of getting a little haggard from the tour.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's when you drop the big solo hotel room on them for the night.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was as if you had given water to a man, you know, uh, thirsty in the desert for a month.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, you know, that's so nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is so nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: I bet that was amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: All you had to do is just, it's $70 on price line to get that person back for the rest of the tour.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, and it probably just makes their day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: We could do that in Europe.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have, every, there's like a rotating cellar room and it's, yeah, it's amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the U.S. is obviously a little bit more accurate.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, it's amazing how just one night by yourself can like revitalize your entire... Oh yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm like, I got a two year old now, Courtney, so when I get in the road and get a solo hotel room, it's a totally different... That's heaven on earth for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you're in...
[SPEAKER_00]: When you're in writing mode, what does a typical day look like for you?
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have a day to be creative in front of you, what does that day look like starting from what time you wake up, what you eat for breakfast, take me through that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm an early riser.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love to get up early and right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like to write in the morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels like it's a very open,
[SPEAKER_01]: space as far as I feel like there's not as many people up and there's more alone time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to to be alone.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm a walker.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a huge fan of Amos walking.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I usually, you know, we'll have some coffee and then sort of write for an hour or two.
[SPEAKER_01]: And once it gets to that sort of
[SPEAKER_01]: for as long as I can.
[SPEAKER_00]: It really sounds like you use walking as a form.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is not hyperblane, this isn't hippie-dippy bullshit here, but as a form of meditation, almost.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's helped me so much, and I didn't even know what a huge role it played in my writing and creativity, until really in the past three years.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, it's a part of my routine when I write.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it generally helps if there's places to walk around and to, there's nothing worse than writing, like, by a major freeway where there's no sidewalks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Preferably, like writing somewhere in a... Of course, there's a formula to be found in the level of songwriting that you can do is inversely correlated with how close a panera is to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You want it like if it's like the closer up in era is the lesson spiring the Millieus around you So real yes Absolutely Yeah, there's something yeah, obviously there's there's no telling what a song can come in I think the Kowski was somebody who said that you can write song anywhere or right right anywhere right a polymer
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, it's just whether you choose to do that or not.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but I do find that setting myself up for inspiration does help, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you set yourself up for inspiration?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I find that staying in a nature area near a town is great.
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, within walking distance of a town.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that sounds very like specific, but all of my best songs have been written in that sort of situation, where I can walk to town if I want to, and walk back to right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the full long country is just a little bit too creepy for songwriting world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just too isolated.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's too empty.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing like, if I'm walking, I need something, or to know that I can go to a bar, like have a drink.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, just two in the country is like dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just complete empty.
[SPEAKER_00]: It kind of seems like you could fall into yourself pretty easily in not a good way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's no, you're not seeing anybody in the world and
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, it's just it feels very too isolated for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what's the end are you coming up on the end of May your kindness remain toward here or are you going to continue into the new year?
[SPEAKER_00]: What's where does your creative life look like coming up?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, after this Australia tour, I'm writing a New Zealand for a week after some shows there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I sat like five days for myself after my tour and news.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing like two dates in New Zealand and then staying for five days.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I'm opening for the span of the Warren treaty for about two weeks in the Midwest.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then two weeks sold
[SPEAKER_01]: sort of the winner is I'm really hoping to hunker down and and right because it's I don't know if how you do on tour with a band but it's pretty hard to write.
[SPEAKER_00]: The way I do on tour with a band is I don't have a band anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah solo touring is you can write I think it's possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a, it's a, it's a luxury vacation doing the solo tour.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Me and I hope you're able to get some creative time in the new year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd love to hear it now that you've done this experience working with Mark Howard.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, I want to hear a Courtney Marie, uh, Andrew's record that you produce yourself again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, I bet you that would sound totally different than on this life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm, I'm, it's funny you say that because that's kind of a conversation that has been sort of circling.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's especially if once you work to somebody like Mark, it's sort of inspiring to get that under your belt.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right on well, thank you for taking the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know this is like your two days off between tours and you gave us an hour here so I appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, thank you, Joe.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for having me on the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's our show for this month.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening.
[SPEAKER_00]: Courtney Marie Andrews latest album is entitled, May Your Kindness Remain.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today's episode was mixed by Matt Schusler.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this episode has been brought to you by associate producer, John McGeehand, who's company capital for compassion, specializes in financing for new construction for low income housing.
[SPEAKER_00]: their most recent project being the Salvation Army's Rath Gabor Center for Women and Children in Austin, Texas.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's also been brought to you by Associate Producer vinyl cup records of Des Moines, Iowa.
[SPEAKER_00]: They started as a boutique shop on Facebook and now they have a brick and mortar of their own.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're looking for a well curated selection of vinyl with fair prices and excellent customer service
[SPEAKER_00]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_00]: If before we meet again, you sit down to write, please remember, an expensive drug habit is not a song, a compelling Instagram account is not a song, and most importantly, reverb is not a song.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let all that take care of itself and for you, just keep your eye on the song.