Showing posts with label Zach Schmidt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zach Schmidt. Show all posts

Dec 29, 2021

Kevin's Top 11 Albums of 2021

(These were counted in the staff voting for top 20 of the year)


By Kevin Broughton

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1. Jesse Daniel – Beyond These Walls

 

If FTM had a “follow-up album of the year” category, this one would win it unanimously. Stretching his legs from the Bakersfield love fest that was Rollin’ On, Daniel – by focusing on the simple things in life – has broadened his focus, showing a grateful audience just how great country music can be. He’s made a great leap forward with his vocals and songwriting, and those were already high bars. There’s not a weak cut on this album. 

 

2. James McMurtry – The Horses And The Hounds

 

He’s just the Godfather. 

 

I picture a room full of accomplished singer-songwriters trading shop talk when McMurtry walks in, and all of a sudden you can hear a pin drop. It’s been six years since his last album, and just like last time, there’s an effortless feel to this magnificent work of art. McMurtry combines imagery, geography and unrequited love better than Guy Clark, Lyle Lovett or Townes. I literally listened to “Canola Fields”  seven times before moving on to the second cut. It’s on par with “Tangled Up In Blue.” 

 

3. Mike & The Moonpies – One To Grow On

 

I’ll be shocked if this one doesn’t win the FTM overall prize. It’s merely flawless.

 

4. Charles Wesley Godwin – How The Mighty Fall

 

Speaking of great follow-ups, Geez. Seneca, Godwin’s stellar breakout record from 2019, was just a warmup, it seems, for his 2021 offering. There’s an intensity to his writing this time around that solidifies a rightful claim to be mentioned in the same breath as his Appalachian brethren: Simpson and Childers. 

 

5. Jeremy Pinnell – Goodbye L.A.

 

One of the best pure country albums of the year. Ties of Blood and Affection in 2017 was a phenomenal record, but with a solid assist from quirky producer Jonathan Tyler, Pinnell has written his masterpiece. We should all give thanks that there’s a longer road in front of him than there is behind. And, who wants a monthly FTM  Q & A with this jiu-jitsu practitioner on the intersection of mixed martial arts & country music? 

 

6. Zach Schmidt – Raise A Banner

 

This was a record a long time in the making, but the Pittsburgh-born artist made the most of his time. Is it nice to walk into a studio with The 400 Unit for a backing band and Sadler Vaden producing? Sure. But this writing stands on its own, and even if You Don’t Know Zach Schmidt…you know the deal. 

 

7. Blackberry Smoke – You Hear Georgia

 

Twenty years strong. Only a small handful of artists* can begin to make Southern rock like these guys. They’ve added some personnel to fill out the sound and become one of the darlings of the elite Yellowstone set-list crowd, but what you hear is what you get. “Hey Delilah,” one of many gems, is a love letter to Lowell George. 

 

8. *Rob Leines – Blood, Sweat & Beers

 

This legit blue-collar rocker fronts a power trio turned up to ELEVEN, reminding the world and his Los Angeles environs of his proud Georgia roots. Skynyrd and CBD fans, step on up. 

 

9. Tennessee Jet – South Dakota

 

A toned down follow-up to (my #1 in 2020) The Country gives the listener an even more intimate setting to sample this man of letters’ writing. “William Faulkner,” just like the author, indeed. 

 

10. The High Hawks – The High Hawks

 

What started as a fun thing for a collection of jam/string band guys became a passion project – with tours to boot. Open, free and joyous, smart money says this ain’t a one-off. 

 

11. Mac Leaphart – Music City Joke

 

Just outstanding writing that leaves folks wanting more. 

 

 

May 12, 2021

Ten Favorite Albums of 2021 So Far: 1/3 Report


 The usual disclaimer: Our year-end list will be staff-voted; this is just Trailer’s list.

It’s been a weird year and I’ve listened to more old music than I have new, to be honest. I’ve still heard a lot of new stuff and I’m pretty sure these are my favorites, but it’s entirely possible I’ve completely left out an album I listened to multiple times and enjoyed. Feel free to let us know your favorites or make suggestions! 


1. Morgan Wade - Reckless


2. Carly Pearce - 29


3. Dallas Moore - The Rain








(this one may end up higher, but it's new so I haven't listened a lot yet)


Apr 16, 2021

Back Around: A Conversation With Zach Schmidt



By Kevin Broughton


You don’t know Zach Schmidt. 


“Who in the world is this guy, and why have I never heard of him?” was my initial reaction after a run through his second full-length album, Raise A Banner, out today. The explanation? Well, it’s complicated. 


Through no fault of his own, Raise A Banner sat on a shelf for more than a year. Despite the delay – perhaps in a silver-lining moment – the album’s themes are now more apropos than ever: fighting through hardship, finding truth in a world of lies, enduring personal loss. Produced by 400 Unit guitarist Sadler Vaden (on a mini hot streak behind the glass himself) and backed by Vaden’s bandmates, it’s a record whose overdue time has come. 


The thoughtful and humble Schmidt has been waiting for this moment; he’s made a record without a weak cut on it, and it’s borderline criminal that he remains unsigned. Smart money says that’s about to change.


Nah. You don’t know Zach Schmidt.*  But a whole lot of folks are fixin’ to. 


It was a real pleasure to catch up with Schmidt and discuss fence-building, finding inspiration in lawnmower boys, and the secret to finding the best harmony vocalist.


Let’s do a little level-setting. This record – and you, for that matter – seemingly came out of nowhere. You’re from Pittsburgh, and you self-released albums in 2013 and 2016. Beyond that, could you fill in some biographical details, personal and professional? 


I’d be glad to. So yeah, the EP I put out in 2013, I released that right before I moved to Nashville. I was living in Pittsburgh, working at a sh*tty job and playing music every night. I was extremely emotionally exhausted. I grew up in Pittsburgh. I love the town and love to go back, but it wasn’t the right place for me; things in my life just weren’t in a great spot. 


So I moved to Nashville at the end of 2013, and throughout that time I was putting tours together and doing my own solo thing…driving around the country. A couple of years later, we put out my The Day We Lost The War album. I didn’t know anything about releasing a record, so I just put it out there to see what would happen. And with this one, I’m trying hard to get some press and radio; seeing if people will dig it. 


There’s a real heartland feel to the whole album, and several of the ballads – like “Go My Way” and “I Can’t Dance” – give off a Steve Earle vibe. Who are your songwriting influences? 


Steve Earle is a huge influence of mine. I love all those Texas songwriters: Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, James McMurtry. All those guys are huge to me. When I was writing this record I took a deep dive into John Hiatt’s catalog. I had never listened to John Hiatt before; I don’t know why, but he was one of those guys who had always eluded me. My wife’s family loved the record Walk On. After that one, I just dug really deeply into all his stuff, trying to soak all that up while I was writing. 



Kathleen Edwards, I’m a huge fan of hers. Lucinda Williams. Just too many people to really put my finger on one. All those folks have had a deep impact on me. I’m really glad to hear the Steve Earle comparison, though. I’ve loved his songwriting as long as I can remember.  


You’ve said that the album was “written from a place of uncertainty.” It was in the can and ready for release last year, only to be derailed by the pandemic, which certainly rings of uncertainty. A pretty good example of life imitating art, huh? 


Yeah, it really does. And in fact, we had the record done a year before the pandemic and tried to put it out. But we had two failed record deals that fell through for one reason or another, and a couple other labels that basically wanted to own me and everything I did for the rest of my life. And it just wasn’t worth it. 


And really, we wanted the record deal for the money, because it’s hard to put out an album as an independent musician and get people to hear it. We wanted a little bit of support behind us, and it just wasn’t working. I kept waiting, hoping that something was going to sort itself out, but at the same time getting ready for a self-release at the end of 2019. And then…here’s 2020, coming in hot. 


We were all set to go to South By [Southwest] in March, and that was the first thing on my calendar that got canceled. 


What a kick in the nuts. 


Yeah. 


I’m gonna skip ahead a little here, because I had a two-part question, the first sounded rhetorical, but wasn’t: “How in the world are you not on a label…”


Ha!


 “…and how did you come to the attention of Sadler Vaden?” You can take the second part, since you’ve covered the first. 


I’ve known Sadler for a little while through friends around town. Nashville’s a small town, so you run into everybody one way or another. And I met Sadler through my buddy Aaron Lee Tasjan; I met him right after I moved to town. A couple of years later – I think it was on my wife’s birthday – we were out and I was talking to my buddy Paul, who manages the band Shovels And Rope. I was basically talking his ear off, complaining how hard it is to get a record made – this huge, daunting task. 


It was the first time that I really wanted to work with a producer specifically. You know, I wanted to take these songs out of my head and get them into the ears of somebody who cares about them. Paul told me that Sadler had started producing and wanted to work on more and more stuff, so he passed my number along to him. A few days later I got a call from him at 8:00 in the morning. They (Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit) were in Australia, and I think he was sitting by the pool or something.


He said, “Send me the songs you’re working on. I’ll take a listen and see if we can figure something out.” I think I sent him 18 songs.  A couple days later, he called me back and said he’d booked the studio for two weeks, we’d meet for a couple days beforehand and then just go do it. 


Wow.


Yeah, after complaining about it for so long, it all fell together really quickly. 


For the last year, I’ve asked every artist I’ve interviewed, “How have you made things work, or ends meet, during the pandemic?” Indulge me, and maybe you’re the last one I have to ask.


Yeah, that would be nice, right? 


When the pandemic first hit in March, my wife and I took off for Pennsylvania and stayed in a cabin for two months. We packed for two weeks, hoping for the best – everyone was hoping it wasn’t gonna last for long. We quickly realized that was not going to be the case and came back to Nashville.


I started building fences with a friend, another guitar player in town. He and I had both done construction over the years, so we just put ourselves out on Facebook: “We’re gonna build some fences. Who needs one?” Word spread, and we started doing that. I also worked at a warehouse for a denim brand here in town. Between those two things I was able to totally shift my life from anything music-related, to having more jobs than I cared to.  


A guy (or gal, in Morgan Wade’s case) could do worse than having The 400 Unit as a studio band. How much confidence did that give you, recording with such a top-flight lineup?


(Pauses) Well, when we first got into the studio and started to work on the first track, I got out my guitar and we were sitting in the control room. I laid it down for the guys, and the first song we recorded, we took the very first take from it. So that alone speaks to their level of professionalism and how great they are together as a band – and individually. And honestly, there couldn’t be nicer guys out there. It was an honor to work with those guys; they really are the best around, in so many ways. 


I didn’t know them beforehand and they didn’t know me so at first, we were trying to figure each other out. But after that first take, everything felt great. And we had to do everything pretty quickly, because [drummer] Chad [Gamble] lives in Alabama. He was coming up every day to play drums, so we only had him for a few days. We had to work efficiently, and those guys knew how to do it. 


What was the studio dynamic like, in terms of the arranging?


Sadler and I put a lot of that together beforehand. A lot of the songs I wrote just on the acoustic guitar, and he didn’t change too much other than on a couple of songs. I would go in, play them for all the guys, and Sadler would tell everybody what to do. And because they’ve played together for so long and he knows all their styles, he was able to communicate what he wanted quickly. And so we’d just go in and give it a shot and see what happened. 


I’m a sucker for great harmony vocals. Tell us a little about Jackie Berkley. 


Jackie Berkley is my wife. 


So that’s the connection! 


Ha, yeah. We were married last October, but we’ve been together seven years. We met at this amazing little bar in town called Santa’s Pub, on a Sunday night where I’d been playing with a country band. Sunday nights before the pandemic, we were Santa’s Ice Cold Pickers, doing good old country music from 7:00 to 9:00. 


We’ve been together ever since. She’s been a singer all her life. She’s a great singer and performer. And cheap labor, you know? 


(Laughing) Yeah!


She has a choice, but she chooses to grace me with her talent every day. 


The title cut has a swampy feel that reminds me a little of Brent Cobb. What’s the story of that song? 


That song…long story short:


The first house I lived in here in Nashville, we had a next-door neighbor with two sons, and we used to pay them to cut our grass. Super nice kids, and one day when they were finishing up, I asked them, “So what did you buy with the money?” And they said they had given the money to their dad, “for his medicine.” 


And he was a nice enough guy, but he didn’t take super good care of those kids. He typically was just drinking all day long. So that’s a very unfortunate story, but those kids are what inspired that song: Just feeling kinda hopeless for those kids and their future. And wanting to do the best you can for them, as a relative stranger; not being able to help in a significant way. And the dad played it off as “not the Christian thing to do,” judging him for the way he lives his life. I wasn’t trying to judge, I was trying to look out for the kids; I didn’t think it was right to take their money from them, no matter how he ended up using it.  


One other cut I have to ask you about: “Concrete Dreams,” with its strong Mark Knopfler groove. What’s up with it?

Honestly, it just kind of came naturally to the song. I have always played that song in a very percussive way with the acoustic guitar. When we recorded it, Sadler went with the Strat and it just kind of had that feel to it.


After the fits and starts you’ve experienced in getting this album released, have you allowed yourself to set expectations about what will happen next? What’s your best-case scenario?


Best-case scenario? I would love to get back out on the road and play some shows. I expect…I guess the best way to put it is, I hold great expectations over myself, I know what I’m capable of, and I know what I want to do. But I think as far as the record goes, I’m trying to curb any expectations so as to avoid disappointment, and just be grateful for the fact that this record is coming out. It’s not just going to sit on a shelf somewhere; people are gonna be able to hear it. 


And you know, with anything like this, it’s hard to do that, especially now that people are starting to get back out there. Stuff’s still getting canceled. But I really just want to play music for people, whatever that may look like in the future. 


So y’all haven’t mapped out a tour just yet? 


No. I have two shows right now, one in July and one in August. That’s the only thing on the books as of now. Our booking agent was the first person laid off when the pandemic hit. Seems like once South By was canceled, all the booking agents got laid off, so we don’t have anybody in that corner for us right now. Hopefully that’s one of the things we’ll be able to line up. I’d love to be able to hop on somebody else’s tour and open some shows; I think that would be the best thing for me right now. 


I’m hoping it all comes back soon. I’ve got my two shots and I’m ready to go. 


What else would you like people to know about Raise A Banner? 


(Long pause) I think I would like people to know, as the person who wrote the record, that I really put everything I had into these tunes. I’m really proud of the record we made, and I hope that people will just give it a chance. I think that’s all I can really add. 


I think you’re about to be ridin’ a rocket ship. This thing is top-flight.


Well, thanks, Kevin. And you know what? I keep telling people this, too: The silver lining of having this record take so long to get out is that I’m ready to go back in the studio any time. I don’t think it will be five years before we put another album out. 


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No, it surely won’t. Don’t bet against this guy. 


Meantime, buy this thing at at Apple Music, Amazon or wherever you purchase fine music. 


*Integrity compels me to admit that I cannot claim credit for the clever opening line of this piece. I found it on a tee shirt in Zach’s store, where you can also buy the album on vinyl, or download it for a mere ten bucks. 






Apr 15, 2021

Exclusive Song Premiere / Zach Schmidt / "Concrete Dreams"

From his new album, Raise A Banner. If you’re curious how an unsigned artist made an
album of the year contender, check back tomorrow for our in-depth interview with the man
himself.

-- Kevin Broughton

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