Kasey Anderson: Lean in close, he's got a confession

Lean in close; he’s got a confession

By Kevin Broughton

In one of the earliest issues of No Depression – I want to say 1998 or ’99 – Steve Earle remarked on how much he had missed in the world of music during his long, tragic descent into addiction. Rotted teeth, wrecked relationships, hocked guitars and finally, a six-month hitch in the Cold Creek Correctional Facility were what it took for Earle to bottom out, then rebound. When he emerged clear-headed a lot had changed. “By the time I had heard of Uncle Tupelo,” he said, “they had broken up.”

I hadn’t heard of Kasey Anderson till last week, and he’d been out of the federal pen for almost a year. An established fixture in the Pacific Northwest’s alt-country scene, Anderson – gifted songwriter, musician and producer – had seemingly limitless potential. Bright, articulate and affable, he’d been extraordinarily prolific in the music business by the time he turned 30. With much more, it seemed, to come.

His hellishly downward spiral to convicted-felon status had a definitive terminus: the clang of a cell door on his first night in the joint. When things started to go seriously south, however, is a little harder to pinpoint. It was probably around the time he got the big idea to do a concert and benefit album for the West Memphis Three, that trio of misfits wrongly convicted of murder in 1994, and a cause celebre among many show business types. (Including, um, the normally reclusive Eddie Vedder, who tends to shy away from fashionable social causes.)

There were two problems, though, with this big idea that became progressively more grandiose. First, absolutely nothing ever came of it. And, much more troublingly, Anderson raised nearly $600,000 from more than 30 investors – many of them friends – that he just…spent. It evaporated like it was never there.

There would be no star-studded lineup with the likes of Tom Petty, Pearl Jam or R.E.M. The Boss and Lady Gaga wouldn’t headline the album – some kind of duet that would’ve been -- that would never exist anywhere but Anderson’s mind. And when the Three were cut loose in 2011, the shot clock started on his freedom. He had created bogus email addresses and impersonated industry lawyers and tour managers along the way. “I told myself consistently that whatever was going on with me,” he wrote in a letter to the judge who accepted his guilty plea for wire fraud in 2013, “I could fix it on my own.” Turns out there was plenty wrong, and not just on the surface.

No objective person who hears Anderson’s story could conclude that he set out to run a grand criminal enterprise. But mental illness and addiction (“cocaine, whichever pills were around, and Maker’s & soda with bitters”) kept him from seeing the criminal in the mirror. To be clear, Anderson readily admits that being a bipolar addict/alcoholic is no excuse for his actions. He emphasized that all culpability is his and his alone, several times. But I think it can help make some sense of the situation.

When you run a con so widespread and for so much money, prison – as opposed to civil litigation and bankruptcy – is the inevitable conclusion, and it’s been a rough four or so years for the musician. I didn’t ask – and in retrospect he probably wouldn’t give it a thought – but I imagine one of the starkest ways the Internet can tell a musician he’s now irrelevant is the “years active” entry on his Wikipedia page.

To his credit, he’s emerged from the nightmare sober, very humble, and if not happy, then certainly in a place of relative personal peace.

We caught up with him after his shift at a friend’s Portland store, Animal Traffic  (“Work wear,” quips Anderson, “for people who don’t work”), and chatted musical second acts, possible paths to redemption, and the wisdom of not running up prison debts.  

You re-surfaced publicly a week or so ago at Saving Country Music, but you’ve been out of actual custody since last Halloween. What have you been doing the last 10 months?

I spent six months in a halfway house, which is where they help you transition back into the world. I’ve been on probation, and I work full time in a friend of mine’s shop here in Portland. And that’s pretty much it. I’m just trying to get my feet back underneath me and make some amends where I can, and get life back on track and try to be a human being.

I imagine the scheme that got you into trouble started to seriously unravel when the West Memphis Three got out of prison in 2011; have you had any contact with them since your release, and if so, did you offer an apology?

Not since my release, no. I saw Jason Baldwin when he got out; this is something I’m still proud of --though it was under somewhat spurious circumstances – the first rock show he ever saw was my band at the Sunset Tavern in Seattle.  So that was a cool deal, but it was hard to reconcile with what I knew was going on at the time. So no, I haven’t been in contact, though I reached out a little bit to [Seattle producer] Danny Bland and offered an apology and tried to make amends, though I haven’t heard back.

My M.O. when I got out was to try to do that part of the 12-step program, which is I’m going to make direct amends to those I can and to those whom it wouldn’t harm in some way. So I reached out to as many people as I could; if I heard back from some of them, great; if not, it’s understandable. Hopefully after a while they’ll see I’m living in such a way that’s conducive to making amends.

A casual yet cynical observer might see your 2012 diagnosis of Type 1 Bipolar Disorder as a way to dodge doing hard time, a close cousin of “Hey judge, I get it now and I’m going to rehab.” You alluded to your being “mentally ill” in a letter to the judge. Was there ever a time before the walls closed in that you thought, “Maybe there’s something seriously wrong with me mentally?”

There were times when other people close to me suggested that my problems weren’t just addiction but something else. But I had no real frame of reference because I spent my time in an industry where accountability is not the number one priority. And it wasn’t for me – and the folks around me – until the wheels started to seriously come off. But the diagnosis made sense, and I did try to use it as an excuse: “Don’t you see I wasn’t myself?”

But the more time I spent with myself and the more time I spent incarcerated, I came to the point where I am now, where I can look at my own life and see that addiction and mental illness certainly played a role in what I did. But that doesn’t help anybody who was victimized by me, either financially or personally in some other way to say, “Well you know I’m bipolar.” Because the response would be, “Well, best of luck with that, but where’s my money?”

In private conversations with those with whom I’ve made amends – because I haven’t talked much about this publicly – I’ve said, “The diagnosis is accurate but it doesn’t excuse what I did.”

Are you clinically medicated now for being bipolar, and is it reasonable to assume that the substance abuse up to the time it all fell apart was self-medication?  Also, are you treating it with therapy?

Yeah. I’m medicated and have been since Oct. 24, 2012, which is the last time I had any sort of substance or alcohol. In November before I went away, I took a little break from it when I decided it was a good idea to go to Los Angeles and live with my girlfriend, which turned out not to be such a great idea in the eyes of the court.

But yeah, I’m still taking 900 milligrams of lithium and 100 milligrams of Zoloft; the lithium causes tremors, so I’m taking 60 milligrams of Propanolol – which isn’t any kind of anti-psychotic medication, it just helps with the tremors.  And I also go to therapy, which is mandated by the terms of my probation.

In another life I was a criminal defense lawyer, so I’m curious about something. After your indictment but before plea negotiations with the U.S. Attorney’s office began, what was your expectation as to doing time? Did your lawyer let you know early on that there was a strong likelihood of incarceration?

I had two attorneys [from the Federal Public Defender’s office] and in our first meetings when we were sort of fleshing things out, I was a frustrating client because I didn’t know how much money I’d taken or how much I’d spent. One put a couple pieces of paper in front of me and said, “These are the people who say they’ve lost this much money. Is this accurate?” I said, “I mean, probably. If someone says I took money from them I probably did.”

When we started getting closer to entering the plea, they said, “Let’s try for a year and a day. That would be best case, so let’s be prepared for at least a year and a day.” Well, as soon as I (long pause)… I guess “absconded” is the right word, because I wasn’t really on the run, but I went to my girlfriend’s in LA and didn’t tell anybody about it…

I’d say that’s absconding.

(Laughs) Yeah, yeah, I guess that’s absconding, but it’s not attempted escape. But as soon as they got wind of that, my lawyer called me and said, “You can either get on a plane and fly home and self-surrender, or they’re gonna kick your girlfriend’s door in because they absolutely know where you are right now.” So I flew home that night. From that point on, there was no shortage of expletives thrown my way by my attorneys. They said, “We’ll do the best we can; you had a shot and now you don’t have that shot anymore.”

So the prosecutor at first was asking for 87 months; he really had a pretty low opinion of me and rightfully so, given the information he was working with.  And fortunately for me, he took another job.

Wow. That’s freaking lucky, dude.

Yeah, I know. He took a job in the private sector and another prosecutor picked it up and he was like, “I don’t know this kid from Adam, how about 46 months?” My lawyers said that was for sure the best we were gonna do; take the deal, we’ll go to sentencing with that.

There was no point in [my lawyers’ telling me], “We’ll get you off with some probation.” As soon I turned that corner and headed to Los Angeles my lawyer said, “You’re fucked.” That was pretty much it, she just said, “You’re fucked. You did this to yourself; we’ll do our job, but you had your chance and you blew it.”

There was never any thought to taking it to trial.

No, not really. The only way we could’ve done that was with the mental health defense…but for most of that time, I paid rent, I had a car, I played shows, I made records. You’re not gonna prove someone was intermittently insane over the course of several years. A trial wouldn’t have been fun for anybody. I didn’t want my folks or anybody to have to go through that. 

I want to back up for just a second. I’m guessing this wasn’t, in your mind, a criminal enterprise from the get-go. You didn’t set out and say, “I bet I can bilk a bunch of people by talking about the West Memphis Three.” As I understand it, one of the tendencies or characteristics of someone who’s Bipolar Type 1 is delusions of grandeur…

Yeah…

…and you get these grandiose impulses from time to time. Did you think, “I can do this”? Did it start out that way, and then maybe “Well, I’ve gotta have expenses to live on,” and you end up shuffling money around? Was that how this think evolved?

Yeah, that’s pretty accurate. It’s one of those things that’s a real point of contention for me, but it doesn’t do anyone else any good because the outcome is the same. 

I met with Danny Bland at South By Southwest in 2009 and we talked about it in earnest. We had a conference call with Lori Davis, Damien Echols’ wife not long after and talked about it with her in earnest. So it started out for me as a very real thing. But that ended – that’s as far as it went for Danny, that conversation with Lori. And I said I was going to raise the money.  And once I had the money, yeah, you’re right. I was living in Europe at the time and I thought, “If I go to Italy for a couple days and spend a thousand bucks, I’ll just put it back in there; I’ll just play a couple shows and put it back.” Then all of a sudden a thousand bucks is a hundred thousand bucks, then it’s $400,000, and I’m neck deep in it. And there’s nothing true about it anymore.

And all you can do is lie, and keep lying.

Yeah, exactly. Although it’s been brought to my attention by more than one person that if at some point I had just said, “Hey, guys, I spent that money, it’s gone and you’re not gonna get it back,” the outcome would not have been good, but it wouldn’t have been what it was.

You wouldn’t have been in the federal joint, I guess.

Probably wouldn’t have. Would have been more of a civil deal, bankruptcy, etc.

Did you have to do the elocution --verbal confirmation that you had done those bad acts – before you were sentenced?

Yep, sure did.

Were any of your victims in the courtroom at your plea or your sentencing? Did that have any additional impact, seeing those folks in person?

Nobody was there that I saw. I think – and I hesitate to speak for any of them because I haven’t been in contact with them – but once it became public that I was probably going to prison and it involved federal charges, I think a lot of them figured, “Okay, he’s probably going to get what’s coming to him and I can go back to living my life.” I have to imagine that a lot of them were pretty consumed with it until I cut off all conversation with them. Because no matter what sum of money was involved for each individual, they’re trying to get their money back. And there was probably no small amount of relief in knowing that the government had it.

Asking you “How was life in prison?” would be offensively stupid. But I’m curious (a) whether there was one particular moment when the reality of incarceration sank in on you; and (b) whether a Kasey Anderson jail song may ever be in the works?

(Laughs)

That’s a thing, you know, jail songs?

Yeah, oh yeah. They do jail songs.

I would say the reality I was in prison was Night One, because I came in kinda late after being in court all day and they put me in a cell in the corner. I was at SeaTac, which is a holding facility for people of all different custody levels. You don’t really go outside, you don’t see the sun, the rec yard is in the unit. I had never been in trouble before. I went right to sleep, spent from the last 72 hours. I woke up the next morning and stuck my head out of my cell, and there’s a bunch of black guys watching TV. So I started watching, and this white guy grabbed me and threw me back in my cell and said, “The white TV is over here!”

Oh, wow. So this wasn’t Club Fed. I know it wasn’t Supermax in Colorado, but…

Well, the second year was pretty much like a community college, and more or less Club Fed. But that first year at SeaTac was…not like Supermax, but a high-security facility where you’re locked down a good part of the day, or mingling with people that have seriously harmed other people.

So that first day was, “Okay. I’m in prison now and this is how it’s gonna be.”

Do you have any Aryan Brotherhood tats, since you had to watch the white people’s TV?

I actually ended up not having to watch the white TV. I told the guy, “Look, I don’t want any trouble but I do like basketball, and it doesn’t seem like you guys have basketball on. So I’m just gonna go watch with the black guys.” He told me fine, but nobody would have my back if anything happened.  And that was the end of it.

It’s probably a lot harder-edged in the higher-security facilities. But when you’re stuck in the unit with everyone all day, there’s going to be some intermingling. And that was good for me, being able to sort of bounce back and forth. So, no, I didn’t pledge any sort of allegiance to anyone.

Did you ever get physically hurt by anybody?

No. I saw things happen, ah, mostly at SeaTac I saw things happen that weren’t pleasant. My experience in prison was if you just kinda cruise along and work your own program and don’t lie to people or rack up a bunch of debt, you’re more or less gonna get left alone.

“Rack up a bunch of debt?”

Well, like card games or betting on football; you can’t bet with money, so it’s like food at the commissary, chips…pretty much anything you can think of.  And I didn’t do any of that to begin with. But that’s where you see people get into trouble: Where they give people their word and break it, or they owe somebody a six pack of Pepsi and don’t pay it. That’s when there’s trouble.

Did you lift weights and get all buff?

Uh, I worked out. I played basketball. I didn’t hit the weight pile because I’m not a strong dude and didn’t have any desire to put weight on that way.  I did get in pretty good shape by doing cardio. Pushups, crunches, stuff like that. I didn’t go crazy

At SeaTac I played a lot of basketball. At Sheridan – the second year -- they had a music program so I played a lot of guitar. We actually put a little band together. And on all federal holidays we’d do a concert. That was cool to get plugged back into music in some way or another…there were some songs I had written and never heard how they sounded with a band, so that was a cool way to test them out. And these were good enough players; probably not the guys I would use in a studio, but they were capable dudes I could bounce songs off of.

How much writing did you do? Prose, I mean. Is there a book inside of you as a result of this experience?

You’re not the first to suggest that. I did a lot of writing when I first got in, and looked at it when I got out and didn’t think there was a whole lot I can use.  I actually have been working on some prose and think I’m about a third of the way done with it and I’m not sure where it’s gonna go yet. I mean, it’s good to be clear-headed enough to actually be sidetracked by life stuff.  So I told my girlfriend the other day that I need to take an hour or two and just sit down and write, whether it’s prose or songs or whatever.

And you’re legit sober?  

Yeah, I am, since that date of Oct. 24, 2012. 

How do you feel, physically and mentally these days?

Physically I feel pretty good. I keep coming up with a clean bill of health; my girlfriend and my mother are furious because I still eat like a teenager. I still have that addict’s diet of a lot of sugar. They tell me I’m gonna kill myself, and I keep coming back with clean blood tests, so I’m gonna keep eating Sour Patch Kids till a doctor tells me otherwise. (Laughs) I’m not in as good shape as I was when I got out and I should probably get back into the gym. I probably feel as good as I have…but it’s so hard to tell. Looking back, I felt like shit when I was using, but you still think you feel good.  So I feel like I’m healthier than I ever was, but it’s hard to tell how much of that is just the subtraction of narcotics, versus any kind of healthy regimen.

The mania…I’m guessing it made for some really prolific songwriting.  Has getting sober tamped that down any?

It definitely made for some productive long nights that stretched into long days of working on something. So I’ve definitely lost something – with the lack of narcotics – the desire to stay up all night until a song is finished, or write three songs at the same time and finish them all.

Now it’s more, “Okay, this is a good idea; let’s get down what I have and we’ll go from here.” So I finish them when I finish them. It’s changed my focus. I was talking to a friend who had tried lithium but he gave it up because he felt like it really deadened his senses. He’s a painter, and it really affected him artistically. It hasn’t really affected me that way, I think, because I had a lot of really good teachers along the way who taught me to look at [songwriting] as a trade, and not some crazy, muse-inspired impulse. If you know how to rebuild an engine, you know how to rebuild an engine. It might take longer depending on the model or the circumstances, but you know how to do it.

And that’s really what I’ve tried to lean on; I guess I won’t know how well I’m doing at it until people actually hear the songs. But what I’ve leaned on in terms of satisfying my own creativity is, “I know how to do this.”

Based on some of the thoughts you shared with Trigger the other day, you seem resigned to pariah status, at least initially. Do you see any path to redemption, generally, and if so, what is it?

My path to redemption – such as it is – is what I mentioned to you earlier, and that’s making living amends. That’s far more important to me than being someone people come out and see or someone whose records get reviewed. And I think for right now, it keeps me a lot more grounded if right now, I don’t think about what my relationship with music or the music industry is going to be.

Obviously, if someone says, “Do you want to do an interview?” I’ll do it if it feels right. I’m not actively seeking publicity. I have a website and a Facebook page that I think has 150 fans. For me, that stuff will come if it comes. I’m at a point in my life where I’ve already had a lot of fun playing music. And I’m not old, but there’s still time that if something’s gonna happen, it’ll happen. But I need to start thinking about what the rest of my life is gonna look like.

For the most part, I’ll say that the people who were my friends when I went in were my friends when I came out, whether they’re involved in the music industry or not. But, who knows what would happen if I said to Isbell, “Hey, why don’t you take me back out on tour?” I imagine the tone of the conversation might change a good bit.

You toured with Jason?

Yeah, Jason and I toured in late 2011, maybe early 2012 and built up a pretty good friendship. And he’s been cool to me. I mean, we don’t talk every day…

So, you didn’t stick him in this deal…

No.  And he’s been like – and this is the way most people have been – he said, “You never did anything to me, dude, and the rest of it is not my business.”

Seems like he’d be a guy who’d give you a shot. He’s a pretty sweet guy.

Oh, yeah, and he’s definitely been encouraging. And I was in when his record went to number one. And I called him from prison and he didn’t pick up, and I thought, “Well, I probably wouldn’t have either.” And when I got out he said, “Look man, I didn’t know how to accept a prison call; I didn’t know it was you and I’m so sorry.”  He doesn’t have to be that way, but again, I haven’t asked him or anybody, “Hey, let’s do a show or go out on tour,” because I want them to know that my relationship with them is based on friendship and not some “social climber” thing.

And I don’t think I’m in position to ask people for slots on bills, or to listen to songs. If they want to hear them, they’ll find them. That’s the way music has always been.

Your talent is self-evident, and I feel cheated that I’ve only recently become acquainted with your work.  Do you have any general plan for a second act in music, or are you just doing the one day at a time thing?

Right now I’m doing one day at a time. Eventually I want to make a record for a lot of reasons, one because I wrote songs while I was in there, and I’ve written songs since I’ve been out that I think are really good songs. I think the world needs as many really good songs as it can get. I also really like being in the studio and working with [producer Eric] Roscoe [Ambel] and my other friends – some folks I had talked about recording with before I went in and wasn’t able to.

In terms of any sort of career, right now I don’t have any expectations; I’m not at a point where I can count on music to pay my bills or pay my restitution. I don’t know if I ever was, because it’s hard to know how well the records or tours would’ve been received if I hadn’t been using resources that didn’t belong to me. Right now this is just a way for me to practice gratitude; to be grateful playing music. I’m not drawing up a five-year plan in a notebook, though.

I downloaded Let the Bloody Moon Rise from your website today. Quite the bargain at five bucks. I feel like I’m stealing from you, frankly. But my email confirmation/receipt said it was order number 00009. Is that a true indicator of the current lack of interest?

Yeah, I think that’s about where we’re at.

Well I’ll just say this: With prices like these, you can’t afford not to buy.

(Laughs) That’s right! Yeah, that’s one that got released in some fashion in 2014, after I was already in. And that’s a deal where I did just such a disservice to that record and that band; I’ll go on record and say, “That’s a good fucking rock ‘n’ roll record.” That’s the sort of record I would have wanted to hear if I was a rock music fan in 2014.  But, that’s another situation where I let those guys down, and everybody’s moved on and doing their own thing, so you can’t do too much looking back.

And what’s the one thing you most want people to understand about you, right this minute? And I’ll add a caveat: I didn’t factor into that question the – whatever step it is of the 12 about making amends – so what do you think is most important right now?

Two things I said over the weekend…I was playing a show at a winery, and it was a really fun time. And I was talking to John, my friend who owns the place, and he asked me sorta the same thing.

I said, “I do want to make amends wherever I can, and it’s important to me to live that out.” The other thing is: I haven’t forfeited the right to write songs and to be good at writing songs, and I’m going to do it. I was without my freedom for a couple of years, and I’ll probably be paying restitution for as long as I live, and that’s well deserved. And if you think I’m an asshole or don’t like the songs, that’s fine. But I’m gonna keep writing and playing, whether it’s in my basement or in front of a bunch of people on stage. So the degree to which anybody is cognizant of the fact that I’m doing it, get comfortable with it. 

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Kasey Anderson is a man who’s has been down and kicked plenty, with more likely to come. We don’t ask for much here at FTM. But his music can be found at his site’s store, and I’m asking you – as a personal favor – to go there and download a digital album for five bucks. Five bucks, people! And oh by the way, it’s freaking quality music. I’m serious. So thanks.  -- Kevin

Photos from Wikipedia and Kasey Anderson's Facebook page

Chelle Rose: An East TENnessean indeed, in whom there is no guile

Chelle Rose: An East TENnessean indeed, in whom there is no guile

By Kevin Broughton

One gets the impression Chelle Rose has never met a stranger. Which is odd when you look at her involuntary frown-bordering-on-scowl in publicity photos – a trend that’s been constant since childhood. Whenever a camera’s trained on her, her countenance turns super-serious, surly even. “Momma always said my mouth was gonna get stuck like that,” she says. Lyrics on her brand new album Blue Ridge Blood commemorate the admonition, so much has it always been a part of her (visual, at least) persona.

And that’s the odd thing: Nothing in her photographs or the lyrics on this deep, dark, brooding record matches her actual personality.

She’s happy. Joyful, even. She’s blessed with an infectious, often high-pitched laugh that stands in stark contrast to her smoky contralto voice. And she’s not hesitant to laugh at herself when reminded, for instance, that she’s veered a good bit off course in a conversation. Self-deprecating and totally comfortable in her own skin, Rose is nothing if not the genuine article. There’s nothing contrived about this woman who doesn’t possess, if an hour-long interview is a fair sample, a single ounce of guile in her entire being.

There are a lot of givens when it comes to lifelong Southerners. Here are a couple: 1. We’re used to having our accents be a source of mockery. 2. We can spot fake Southern accents in a movie or TV show in a matter of nanoseconds, and it’s probably going to insult us and piss us off.  Hence the “genuine article” assessment.

Her home state of “Tennessee” is pronounced with a pound of emphasis on the first syllable, not the conventional last one. In the studio, she knows what she “lahks.” Nonsense or unfounded criticism is “just devil doin’s.” While these might foolishly be sources of mockery outside Dixie, there’s an adorable sexiness to them that will buckle the knees of any real Southern man.

She knows and accepts her own limitations. “I’m not a singer singer, I’m an emotional singer,” might sound counterintuitive, until you’ve spent about 30 seconds in conversation.  There’s a difference – and it doesn’t bother her (much) – between “singing pretty” and doing what Rose does.

And singing pretty would have sucked the all the life and authenticity out of Blue Ridge Blood. The Appalachian sense of place – and people – permeate the album. It’s what she is, and what the record is.

“Painstville Table” opens the album with the harsh reality of a hardscrabble coal miner’s life. It sets the tone, with what are maybe the best few lines of authenticity on the record:  “But his lady’s got a baby in her belly, so he’ll trade his dream to a black lung thief. To put food on the Paintsville table.” You can’t manufacture that. It’s too organic, too real. Chapter after chapter in this sonic book they come. “Blue Ridge Blood” isn’t simply the title of an album and a song; it’s a way of life. And Rose’s very state of being.

Life, love, lies, cheating, despair and death. They all get her uniquely Appalachian imprint. “Mean Grandpappy” is particularly poignant, though the listener is left to his or her own interpretation of this painful tune. (And it uses one of the greatest Southern common nouns of all time, “sumbitch.”) It’s the title cut, though, that is thematic for the whole record. And uber-guitarist Buddy Miller leaves his mark on it, though of all things, as a backing vocalist. But again, with the overall dark tone of the album, one is struck by the way Rose can compartmentalize things, and it’s hard at times to reconcile her attitude to this record. 

We caught up while she and her daughter were in the middle of a move from Nashville to her native East TENnessee. She is bubbly and game, not indicating for a moment all the awful stuff she’s been through in the last several years: a long-undiagnosed chronic illness that prevented a tour to support a fantastic album in 2012; divorce from a vindictive spouse; loss of her momma and meeting her biological daddy within a year; and an (accepted) marriage proposal.

And mere hours before our chat, she found out her beloved and brilliant producer, George Reiff, was just diagnosed with stage four cancer. (Hit this link and throw in a few bucks for his medical expenses.) I was surprised she could function, much less do an interview. But she’s a champ. One who’s made a great record.

An awful lot has happened in your life since the release of 2012’s Ghost of Browder Holler, and we’ll get into that in a minute. Ray Wylie Hubbard produced that record, and it has his sonic fingerprints all over it. Blue Ridge Blood is a lot more brooding and deliberate, but a lot of the themes and characters are similar. Was it the songs themselves that pushed this album in a stylistically different direction, or did you start out with the idea of doing a markedly different record?

You know, it’s funny. You can sit and think about what kind of record you wanna make. I know what I don’t wanna make.  Every time I’ve tried to record anything and stick my pinky toe in the water with people around [Nashville] – I won’t mention names – I’m happy in the studio because it’s a creative environment. And then I come home and I’m like, “Oh my God, I hate it!”

I was originally supposed to record “Ghost” at Levon [Helm’s] studio in Woodstock.  This was in 2010, just before he got sick again. He passed in 2012, so that plan was scrapped.  So, I just started going through my record collection saying, “whose songs do I love?” Well, George Reiff produced a lot of them. You said it has Ray Wylie’s fingerprints on it, and it does. But George was a big reason it sounds the way it does. And Ray knew that. George is totally badass, and the coolest dang cat on the planet. He was the engineer and bass player on Ghost. This time he was the producer and bass player, and we just hired a couple of engineers.

But Ray was dipping his toe into producing, and a couple of friends of mine mentioned me to him, and he went online and saw a couple of my (probably horrid) YouTubes. Then I heard him mention my name – as somebody he’d like to produce – on a radio show! Till then I wasn’t really sure if he was real, or like Santa Claus (laughs). Three weeks later I was on a plane to Austin.

This album is more organic, in that the arrangements are real close to how I wrote them. On Ghost, they got changed up a good bit, sometimes in a big way. Like Ray would take chords out of songs, which kinda tripped my head up. But in the end when I looked back at it, he was so brilliant.

Both albums are firmly grounded in Appalachia – both the geographical region and the people in it. Why was that sense of place so important to the point that you titled the new one the way you did?

Well, I was sittin’ in the bathtub thinking of names for a band, and I thought, “Maybe I’ll name my band Blue Ridge Blood.” And I texted a friend and said, “Is this a band, or is this a song, or what?” And he said I needed to write it. So it had been cookin’ for a while.  But to answer your question about how it always trickles in, it’s like the song says, “I don’t think I can even help it; couldn’t get away from it even if I tried.” It just hangs over me. Even if I’m writing about something else, it just comes through. I don’t set out to write about it, but it’s what I have and it’s all I have.

I’ve learned, it’s taken me years to kinda like my voice…

To do what?

Sometimes I like my voice. (Laughs) It’s taken me years to figure out this is what I have. I can try to sing pretty, but it’s still gonna be rough; I only can do what I do. I get bored with myself sometimes and I wish I could do something different, but it’s what I’ve got to work with. But the stories and the characters and places I grew up around…I could write a book. It’ll never go away, and it’s a deep, deep well.  The folks I grew up were storytellers, and I like to tell stories and embellish, too. It’s fun.

Well, tell me the story about how you got Buddy Miller to sing backup on the title track. He’s the best guitar player in…like, the world, and I think his voice is way underrated…

I know…

So, was he just walking down the streets of Austin and y’all shanghaied him into the studio and said “C’mere, we need you to sing harmony on this song?”

(Laughing) No, I have to confess he’s a dear friend. When I came to Nashville 20 years ago, he was one of the first people I went to see. I was a fan back then, and now he’s just the king.

Metaphorically, you can listen to emotional baggage being systematically unpacked over the course of Blue Ridge Blood. In the last four years, you got an overdue diagnosis of thyroid disease, made first contact with your biological father, and met the man you’re about to marry. Is it fair to say the overall dark mood of the record reflects what was happening in your life?

Yeah, and if I were to tell you what happened in the past three weeks, and what’s going on right now…but I will save you that. It’s insane. A lot of life-changing events. [Here a tangent on the recent engagement ensues, to the point of hoping to plan the wedding in a way that won’t burden “the elderly folks” too much.]

Doll Face, that’s awesome, but I wasn’t really asking about your wedding plans.

(Laughing vigorously) Oh, yeah, sorry. What do you want to know, again?

The dark tone of the album, and how it might be a reflection of all the shit that’s gone on in your life the last few years?

I don’t really know. I don’t really think about it when I’m writing. I just write and then I’m done. I don’t really stay in that place, but man, it’s just a really hot topic in every interview now. I don’t think I realized how dark I am, even in my music, till people bring it up. And I’m not dark in my personality, in my everyday life. And that seems to catch people off guard, because I’m a pretty happy person. I can be moody…

But when I sit down to write it just sorta comes out that way. A lot of those events happened after I had written most of this album. Maybe with the exception of “Southern 4501.” I’m looking at the list here, let’s see…I didn’t meet my biological father until late last year, so that’s still kinda new – and lovely – in my life right now.

All of them were when I was sick, though, because I’ve had thyroid disease for a while now.

Well let’s talk about that, because “thyroid disease” sounds scary and mysterious. For those who don’t know – like me – how does the condition manifest itself, and how are you treating/dealing with it now?

That’s really a complicated question, because until I got diagnosed, I didn’t even know where my thyroid was in my body. I had never been sick, never missed a day of work or school. I was that girl. So I didn’t handle being sick with much grace, because I had always been healthy.

It really knocked me on my butt, and I was finally forced to go get blood work. I thought I had cancer. When you’re a momma, you don’t want to know that, and I kept thinking I was just tired. I had just put the record out [Ghost, in 2012] and had been through a rough divorce, and I knew stress could do that kind of stuff to you. I was thinking, “If I could just rest.” There was at least a whole year when I would take my daughter to school and just come home and get in the bed. Then I’d pick her up and make myself fix dinner and help get her ready for her next day, and couldn’t wait to get back in the bed.

Somehow I didn’t go too blue with depression, because that happens with hypothyroidism. So they tried to get me on antidepressants and I said no.  Then, I discovered a book called Medical Medium, by Anthony William, and it’s just saving lives every day. It’s amazing. He’s like the Edgar Cayce of our times. Some people don’t like Edgar Cayce, but that’s just devil doin’s.

Did you just say “devil doin’s?”

(Laughs) Yeah, devil doin’s. But I had to scratch out everything I had learned about my body, and get myself on a brand new protocol. And as soon as I started treating my body like the book said to, I started to get a little bit better every day.

You’ve mentioned that your touring in support of Ghost of Browder Holler nearly put you down, and that you were turning down gigs – and at least one record deal -- before you found out how sick you were. What sort of plan do you have for promoting this album on the road? I mean, you’re a single mom…

Yeah, I have a son who’ll be a freshman at UT this fall, and an 11-year-old daughter. Music and family have always been intertwined with me, but bein’ a momma is always gonna come first, because if I mess that up, nothin’ else matters.  So if it’s summer and I’m gonna do a three- or four-night run, and she doesn’t wanna come with me, for the first time I’ll have family close by that she can stay with. So this will be a new thing for me in that I can go and do more dates, because I have family support now.

Along those lines, I’m curious about audience reaction to this material in a live setting. These aren’t exactly “get up and shake your ass” tunes; do you think you’ll need a certain type of audience and setting for their to be a deep connection?

Absolutely. That’s one of the things I learned during a month-long residency I did at at Family Wash, which used to be a pub in East Nashville. Now they’ve moved into a fancy place, if you will, and it’s a little more sophisticated; it’s a dinner crowd. There’ve been nights when I’ve had a roomful of fans, and other nights where I’m pretty sure no one knew who I was. And that’s great, because that’s how I can gauge…if people put their forks down and get quiet, I know they either love it, or they’re saying “what the heck?” (Laughs)

And I’ll look out and people are either lovin’ it, or “what is that?” Because I think people either love what I do or they don’t like it at all. Like some of the comments on YouTube are, “Well, that’s just nails on a chalk board.”

(Laughing) Well, why would you even read ‘em? Why in the world put yourself through that?

Well, sometimes just by accident. (Laughs) But I really do get why some people don’t like what I do. It is not for everybody. I wish that I could sing differently sometimes, but I open my mouth and that’s just what comes out.

Eh. There’s plenty of girls who can “Sing Pretty.”

Yeah, I guess.  But just the making of this album made me so happy and was so awesome, the rest is just icing on the cake.

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Blue Ridge Blood is available on Amazon, iTunes, Chelle's website, and streaming services.

All photos courtesy of Conqueroo

Robbie Fulks Channels Agee from Down South to the Upland

Fulks Channels Agee from Down South to the Upland

By Kevin Broughton

Eighty years ago, Knoxville-born and Harvard-educated journalist James Agee headed South on assignment for Fortune magazine. His time spent with three white, West Alabama sharecropping families evolved from a long form magazine story to Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, an early touchstone of a forthcoming wave of “new” or “literary” journalism, which would feature names like Capote and Plimpton and Talese.   

Agee – a film critic by trade, mostly – brought to light the balefully stark conditions under which the lowly whites toiled. You hear – and can see, really -- their plaintive, hardscrabble lives in Robbie Fulks’ Upland Stories, released on Bloodshot Records on April 1.

If you’re familiar with Fulks’ body of work, you appreciate the release date’s ironic wink. If not, well, there’s really not enough space to get you fully up to speed. It’s complicated. Comparisons to other artists are the mediocre music writer’s crutch and I ain’t scared to lean on them. Hell, I’ve got a closet full and not a single one works here.

Pennsylvania born, Carolina-and-Virginia raised, now affixed to Chicago. A bracing tenor who’ll make your hair stand on end, but knows less is often more. Guitar virtuosity that’s under-heralded and would enjoy Buddy Miller status if the latter confined himself to a mic’d up acoustic 80 percent of the time. Then there’s the songwriting.

What if Frank Zappa had been born un-swarthy and in the Blue Ridge? Hmmm. We’re getting somewhere, comparison-wise.  Fulks has a deep reverence for traditional country, bluegrass and roots music; appropriate, since he has few peers as a practitioner of the craft. And yet on the same album, you could hear a song that’s so country it’s busting on country. It’s a pity so few people get the joke, because much of Fulks’ appeal is in his wit. It’s mainly how he made his bones early on, and never too far from the surface. 

On Upland Stories, though, you step deeply into the melancholy – a word that cropped up a time or three – and it’s not wit, but passion and empathy that hold you. Do yourself a favor and listen to the opening cut, “Alabama at Night,” right here, before reading any further. It’ll set the mood. You’re with Agee.

We caught up with Mr. Fulks and talked American literature, Year Zero on Austin City Limits, Feuding with Mojo Nixon, and getting Called By Saul.

Your last album, Gone Away Backward took on some topical issues like economic hardship and alienation. In Upland Stories, you take it one step further, with James Agee as your jumping off point. Did you do these two records with thematic continuity in mind?

Yeah, I wanted to do a record that came out of the previous one, because I liked the way Gone Away Backward sounded, and was pleased with the reception of it. And I enjoyed traveling around and supporting it with the players on it. This one came out sounding a little less like the last one than I wanted it to, and ended up with electric guitar and organ and various other things on it. But I think the nature of it does somehow connect it to the last album, and that’s because of the thematic material.

The Agee angle came out of a show I was working on – it’s now on hold -- with a playwright, and we were looking at subjects, and he suggested I think of something that really lifted my skirts. So we were talking about home, and the South, and places you can’t return to anymore and lost, old things. I just thought of James Agee, and took a dive into Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.

Other than the obvious, why Agee?  He was a little sheepish about his own status when he wrote, and wrote about, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. How do you think, if at all, being a Southern white child of relative privilege enhanced or encumbered his ability to write that book?

I don’t think of him as privileged, other than the fact that he was a Harvard guy. But I think he had this melancholy – if not depressed – streak, and I may presume to say that once he was up north, he was an outsider. Where he came from really came to occupy a haunted little sector of his brain. And there’s just a melancholy, aggrieved air in his writing, whether he’s writing about film or poor people…a lot of it’s infused with sentiment and depth of feeling.

Did you write all of these songs with this topical/thematic album in mind, or were there some outliers that you dropped in as well?  I ask because  “Needed” is obviously personal, and autobiographical stuff isn’t typical of your catalog, unless I’m missing a lot.

(Chuckles) You’re actually remarkably close to my frame of mind when I put that song [into the album] because I had a group of ten or 12 songs at a certain point, and I tried to look at them and envision what was missing. And it seemed like a personal ballad was missing for some reason, like the album was a little too immured in social issues, and in narratives in points of view other than my own. So it seemed like it needed a hard shot of something strongly personal, and I deliberately wrote that one to fill that slot. I tried to distance it from myself a little, in that I had the singer talking to his daughter; I have three sons. Other than that, it’s pretty close to stuff that’s happened to me and a trillion other people.

Are there other characters on the album based on people you know or knew?

Well, “Sarah Jane” is kinda – I don’t want to embarrass her – but there was a girl I went to high school with…well, in fact I named her on the record, her name was Judson. Anyway she and I had a memorable encounter, it was after high school, and we realized we could’ve dated.  That song is about all the things you’ve missed out on, and many roads not taken, and sort of drifting through melancholy and middle age and letting all that stuff get to you.

You spent some time in the early and mid 90s as the “hired help,” writing songs for the likes of Tim McGraw & Ty Herndon. Were tunes like “The Scrapple Song” and “Papa Was a Steel-headed Man” your way of saying “I’m free” after that stint?

When I was working for that company, I wrote a quite lot of songs that were out of my personality, and which were songs for them to pitch. Some of them were songs that made my skin crawl to be singing them. So I would sometimes write songs just to blow off steam, which how I came to write “Fuck This Town” and “God Isn’t Real,” as a way of sort of countering the other type of dross that I was coming up with.

And then some of them were in the middle, like “Tears Only Run One Way,” was written from the heart but then I thought “Well, this could conceivably be pitched to somebody or another.” So some were in between, but they ended up becoming my first album, Country Love Songs.

“Tears Only Run One Way” could be a Buck Owens song. And there’s a Buck Owens-themed song on that album.

Buck’s steel player was on that record.

Do you come across many people whose first exposure to you was your Austin City Limits appearance around ’97 or ’98?

Oh, yes. Is that what it was for you? How old are you?

Old. About three years younger than you.

I’ve definitely heard that. For the people that came along in Year Zero for me, so to speak, around 1996-97, it’s hard to displace that from what they like about me. And yes, it makes me yearn for more prime time TV. It makes me wish I could go back and do that again, with the better things I’m doing now.

You’ve written songs about bludgeoning pigs with hammers and reducing them to a gelatinous pie; starlets who kill themselves with pills; crushing on Susanna Hoffs; a truly disturbing “children’s song” about a creepy magician; and a Michael Jackson tribute album. Ever ask yourself where all this comes from?

Some of it comes from assignments. The kids’ record [Bloodshot] asked me to contribute to; the Michael Jackson thing, believe it or not, came from an assignment. It was his birthday and the Cultural Center in Chicago was putting on a tribute and I re-worked some of his songs. I found that I enjoyed doing it, so it emerged from that.  Some of it’s fortuitous, if that’s the right word.

Some of the hard right turns I’ve taken on the discography, I might have second thoughts if I could do it again, but I think the great benefit to being “unpopular” and being kind of a cult figure is that I don’t have people looking over my shoulder saying “don’t do this, don’t do that.” So there’s absolute freedom to do what I do, and I really need to exploit it.

You mentioned working with a playwright on a musical. Have you ever tried your hand at prose? A short story or screenplay, maybe? I think you’ve got a movie in you.

Well, that’s nice of you. I don’t think I could do that, so I’ll disagree with you there. I have written a story that I’m not really proud of that came out in a collection of country artists…I think it was called “A Guitar and a Pen,” basically people who have no business writing prose. I wrote something in “An Atheist’s Guide to Christmas.” A few things for the Journal of Country music.

I see from Twitter that I missed you & Mojo Nixon on Sirius XM from Austin a couple weeks back, and I’m pissed. Care to give a summation?

It was surprisingly serious. Mojo gave his version of something he thought I meant when I said something rude about him, in an interview somewhere along the line that I’ve long forgotten. So we sort of interpreted what I meant by my supposed insult to his craft. I would have rather screamed obscenities at one another, because that would have made for better radio.

I certainly bear him no ill will. Whatever I said about him was just trying to explain that I do more than novelty songs. And I used his name as an example.

“At least I’m not Mojo Nixon?”

Well, I don’t think there was an “at least” in it, but yeah.

Now I’m gonna have to go back an look at some of the videos he did when I was in college.

Well, he can take it. The main thing about him -- and I love his show. In fact I don’t love the music on his show, but I love his part of it. So sometimes I’ll have it on in the car and turn it up when he’s talking, then turn it back down again.

You know, they play you on that station every now and again.

Well, I’ll turn it up for that. Then back down for Ryan Adams or whatever.

Back to Upland Stories. “America is a Hard Religion” sounds like Appalachia, but I think you’re making a point that’s more universal. What can you tell me about point of view and/or characters in that song?

 I’d like to tell you something really specific and revealing about it, but it’s a little bit of a nebulous tune. It’s one that I wrote for the musical about James Agee, so I didn’t have a hard grasp of the point of view. It’s meant to be an old-timey song that’s shockingly realistic about what poor people in America endure, like sending kids off to war. And doing backbreaking work, and being part of this great historical social contract, while living among unimaginably wealthy people who live like kings. So it’s a point of view from a demographic group, rather than a single person.

“Never Come Home” is kind of a downer. What’s going on there, besides a guy going home to spend his last few days or weeks?

That’s exactly what it’s about. He goes to his family, who doesn’t understand or appreciate him, and in fact looks upon him with rank suspicion because he’s been living in New York. His family is religious and he’s not, or hasn’t been. It’s one of those confrontations between superstition and secular rationality you see in a Flannery O’Connor story, or a sort of T.S. Eliott allusion that we do things because we’ve been instructed with certain beliefs. That clash of values is great, it’s fruitful, just as it was when Miss O’Connor did it.

Your references to Flannery O’Connor and T.S. Elliot – in one response – make me wonder what you studied at Columbia before dropping out.

Nominally, Kevin, it was English, but in fact it was sitting in coffee houses and getting drunk at night. Not a lot of studying involved in my college career, unfortunately.

What's the Bob Odenkirk connection? Are you guys Chicago pals? Also, I'm in a minority that thinks he was better as Bill Oswalt on season 1 of Fargo than Saul Bello. Is this heresy?

We have a mutual friend, Dino Stamatopoulos, and I guess Bob liked my stuff also, but I hadn’t met him till that day at his house. That’s him in Fargo? I thought it was Frances McDormand!

Over the course of your career, you've done songs that embrace and celebrate everything traditional and pure about country music; and often on the same album you might have a couple that are essentially self-parodies or caricatures of the genre. Discuss this continuum. (That sounds like a high school essay question, doesn't it?)

Too much Mad Magazine as a youngster. If I love something I put it under the light.

"Parallel Bars" is a favorite of mine, mainly because it's a duet with the dreamy Kelly Willis. You've also worked with Lucinda Williams and Nora O'Connor. With whom else would you like to duet? Or, is there already a waiting list of chicks wanting to sing with you?

You’re leaving out Joy Lynn White, Ora Jones, Donna Fulks, Jenny Scheinman, Kelly Hogan, Gail Davies, and Brennen Leigh. Other womenfolk I’d love to sing with include Jeannie Seely, Rhonda Vincent, Delia Bell, Susanna Hoffs, Annette Peacock, Jennifer Nettles, Nicole Atkins, Cecile McLorin Salvant, and the late Martha Carson. The man-woman combination is my favorite harmony situation. Who knows why, I guess the high/low contrast and the varying sets of reproductive organs must be part of the charm!

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There’s a pretty decent Robbie Fulks set list here, SoundCloud.  He’s touring all over the place this spring, so check out where you can see him on his website.   

Upland Stories is available Friday, April 1 at all the usual spots, including Bloodshot Records (where you can pre-order now).

All photos courtesy Bloodshot Records. 

The Yawpers: Praise the Lord, They’re an American Band

By Kevin Broughton

“I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.”

--Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Drop the needle on “Doing it Right,” the first cut of the Yawpers’ American Man – released today on Bloodshot Records – and you can be forgiven if you mistake it for a long-lost Aerosmith outtake from its heyday in the mid-70s. The frenetic, stop-and-go rhythms, squalling vocals and blistering lead guitar make it easy to get that impression.

What it does is get you by the throat and not let go. Funny thing, though: It’s two guys with acoustic guitars, plus a drummer. Wrap your brain around that, and you’ll realize this is a band that’s breaking new ground.

Walt Whitman got his last shout-out from popular culture in Dead Poets Society, wherein the late Robin Williams’ character had a classroom full of elite prep school boys standing on their chairs, shouting “Oh Captain, my captain.” Whitman was, in his mid-19^th Century day, a radical. An abolitionist before it was cool to be one, he volunteered to care for wounded Union soldiers, and even flirted with taboo sexual themes in his controversial poetry. He wasn’t scared. Nor is his spiritual protégé, Yawpers front man Nate Cook.

Politically, he’s an unapologetic progressive. In and of itself, that’s nothing noteworthy. Cook names Springsteen, Steve Earle and Woody Guthrie as some of his songwriting influences, checking all the right boxes. But it’s not superficial and because he thinks he’s supposed to, like way too many of today’s reflexively liberal musicians.

“I’m proudly and solidly from the Left, politically,” says Cook, 29. “But political correctness is fucking bullshit and dangerous. People should be able to say whatever they want without being afraid of some kind of retribution.”

Do go on, Mr. Cook.

Genre is always a tricky thing for a lot of bands; is “Americana…”

“I avoid ‘Americana’ [as a classification] like the plague. It really fucking pisses me off, because I don’t want to be dumped in with some douchebag bullshit like the Lumineers.”

He ain’t scared.

But Cook is concerned about and burdened by what he sees as the plight of the disenfranchised. “What I care most about is the individual,” he says. “These characters, these American citizens in the songs…what I’m most passionate about is their being allowed to flourish.”

It burns through every cut on the album, and nowhere more evidently than the title track:

Raise the flag, cover your heart with your hand,

Hear the call and heed the command.

Livin’ my life with my head in the sand,

Praise the Lord, I’m an American man.

Themes of desperation and resignation pepper this record. But this ain’t your grandaddy’s Woody Guthrie. This is the Black Crowes with a social conscience. (And oh yeah, it’s three guys.) About the production…

“We recorded almost everything live,” Cook says. “[Lead guitarist] Jesse [Parmet] split his signal out three ways, with lots of gain, but you’re hearing the real deal.” Drummer Noah Shomberg’s battering-ram style ties it together to make this raw, unconventional power trio’s sound complete.

Produced by Cracker guitarist and co-founder Johnny Hickman, American Man is proof positive that the Bloodshot label is leading the pack at signing and promoting the best bands and artists that defy genre and convention.

There are a couple months to go yet, but the Yawpers are clubhouse leaders for best rock album of 2015.

They celebrate themselves, and sing themselves.

Buckle the fuck up. 

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American Man is available today on iTunes, Amazon, and the Bloodshot website.