Logan Melia: All right, well, you’re hitting the road with The Milk Carton Kids, do you remember the first time you all talked together? Maybe when this tour was starting to get planned out? 

Sierra Hull: Well, we’ve been planning this tour for many months now, but I’ve known these guys for the better part of 10 years or more. But we’ve mostly just gotten to hang out at festivals or cross paths at various events with friends, stuff like that. We’ve never really got to do any serious music making together so I’m excited for this. We’re all kind of hopping on a bus together and just hitting the road for like two weeks and. I’ve been such a fan of theirs. They’re just like amazing singer-songwriters and musicians and I just think it’s going to be so much fun to get to kind of kick back and hear them play every night. It’s one thing to go out and sort of do your own tour, but it’s another thing when you can go do a tour with friends and be inspired every night by other people as well. 

Logan: You have been so active touring this new record of yours, “A Tip Toe High Wire”, but do you remember the very first tour you ever did? 

Sierra: I’ve been playing shows ever since I was a kid. I started playing mandolin when I was eight years old and playing around locally and kind of starting to do like summertime festivals where I would travel and do things here and there, but it was pretty much right after I got out of high school. I mean, as soon as I could sort of really hit the road, I started going out and actually touring more seriously. When I sort of got old enough, I could kind of go without a parent. My parents always worked full-time jobs, so there’s only so much I could do as a youngster. But yeah, I feel like I’ve been kind of touring on and off for many years now. 

Logan: You mentioned growing up and always playing. And you grew up in Byrdestown, Tennessee, a real small town there. And I’ve heard legend of the Dixie Cafe being a lovely place to catch some bluegrass music. Can you attest to that statement? 

Sierra: Oh yeah, the Dixie Cafe. You know, they didn’t do it when I was a kid growing up, it wasn’t a thing yet. So I didn’t like grow up playing there or anything like that. But when I got into my sort of teenage years, probably around the time I was actually like moving away, started hearing, oh, this is a regular thing and there’s jam sessions. And then it was like, oh, well, there’s people playing on stage every week and local musicians. So it just does my heart so good to know that there’s a music scene in my hometown. Because I used to have to go over to the next town, Jamestown, where a lot of my family was from, or kind of go down the road a piece to be able to find any kind of real jams or music. So I just love that The Dixie is bringing music into the community like that so cool.

Logan: Yeah and you are very much at the forefront of this huge bluegrass revival. I’m seeing it as someone who wasn’t really in the bluegrass a few years ago seeing it wash over this this whole music culture right now, and being a part of this leading charge here it seems very cool. How does the bluegrass scene seem now compared to maybe what you were growing up with, does it feel any different? 

Sierra: Well, I just think the music scene, in general, the way we get our music, the way that our culture feels toward music is so different than what it was when I was a kid. I mean, but I’ve been lucky enough to kind of be really immersed in the bluegrass community since I was really young. So in a way, that community is still there. It’s thriving. It always has been, right? It’s always been a big part of my world, but it’s exciting to see it be able to reach a bigger audience in some cases. There’s always been moments I know we’ve got like the big anniversary of the “O Brother Where Art Thou” soundtrack I think hitting this year. And there’s always a wave of something like that that comes along and puts it in the spotlight. You know when I was a kid that was one of the big things, and someone like Allison Krauss kind of being at the forefront of that to see what my buddy Billy Strings is doing these days and the audiences that he’s reaching. The way that bluegrass can kind of coexist alongside a bunch of other styles of music just because I think our culture consumes music that way now, where we can get on our phone and within, 2 minutes we can curate a playlist of everything from bluegrass to hip-hop if we wanted to. So I think it definitely feels different, but I think it’s more, for me, it’s more that the culture around music just feels different. But the bluegrass scene, has always been this beautiful, thriving thing, and it’s cool to see other people start to get a glimpse into that world and that community that I’ve loved since I was a kid. 

Logan: You mentioned the ability to get these wild playlists going on. Do you have anything you wouldn’t expect to be on, you know, bluegrass Grammy nominee Sierra Hull’s playlist these days? 

Sierra: Oh man, I’m all over the map and what I like to listen to. I mean, it’s funny. It’s like I really enjoyed the Justin Bieber performance a lot at the Grammys. 

Logan: With the loop pedal and everything? 

Sierra: Yes, sitting in the room the other night, I mean, he’s such a crazy singer. And so it’s been kind of fun, even some of the things that I was in the room here on the other night, I started going, okay, cool man. Say what you want about pop music and coming from a world like bluegrass and others, a lot of people are like, Oh, I can’t stand the Grammys. That kind of thing is just not their cup of tea. But I’ve always just been someone that loves all kinds of music. And you sit in the room and you hear somebody actually sing live though, I mean, there’s no denying the level of talent in the pop. There really is some incredible singers and some incredible artists so it kind of makes me go home. Maybe I want to listen to some of this stuff that I kind of missed over the last year. I Don’t know, I bop around a lot to be honest with my listening of Joni forever, of course, but then it’s like, I kind of go, oh man, that makes me want to go back down a Joni rabbit hole. There’s so much great music to listen to, for sure. 

Logan: What is the most recent rabbit hole you fell down? 

Sierra: Oh, well, probably Bieber the last couple days, diving into his new record, listening to that a little bit. The total rabbit hole, oh gosh. Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe that just because that’s the last couple days. I’ve probably watched that performance four or five times over the last few days.  

Logan: Do you have any memories of watching the Grammys at all growing up? Do you have any performances that have like stuck in your head? 

Sierra: Oh yeah, it was always cool for me to see as a young bluegrass kid, I mean, I was so immersed in bluegrass. Of course, my friends at school were listening to the popular pop music of the time, but that really wasn’t where I was digging in my heels as a listener. It was all bluegrass, and I was such a big Allison Krauss fan. Of course, Allison’s been a staple of the Grammys for basically her entire career, and has been loved on strongly by those folks. And so anytime I would see someone like her perform, that was always really exciting to me because it felt like there was a part of my world being represented on the big stage like that. 

Logan: You mentioned growing up listening to bluegrass. I saw in some older interviews you brought up how your dad brought home a Larry Sparks tape and Tony Rice and stuff like that. What would you want to show the next generation of bluegrass players right now? What would be your Larry Sparks? 

Sierra: I mean, Larry Sparks is still out there crushing it, to be honest. And I think there are people like Larry, like Belle McCurry, who are still out there really holding the torch for that sort of early bluegrass sound. They’re the closest thing that we have to Ralph Stanley. It’s like you’ve got Larry, who actually played with Ralph ,and you’ve got Dale, who actually played with Bill Monroe. I mean, these guys come come at it with that first generation connection that like the rest of us don’t quite have. And for me, I think for anybody who’s really getting into bluegrass, I love, like I said, all kinds of. The music that I make obviously leans more progressive these days and a lot of what I’m tapping into too, but I mean, at the heart of it, I love that traditional music, and I wouldn’t trade sitting in those jam sessions as a kid singing that. Singing and playing the music of Flatt and Scruggs and Bill Monroe and the Stanley Brothers and growing up listening to Larry Sparks, people like that, there’s a foundation you build on that first generation music that I think is so important for a young musician who wants to grow up playing these instruments. And even if your heroes are more progressive people, I think there’s no replacement for going back and digging into where this music really comes from. 

Logan: How do you find a balancing act between the two? Because I feel like you do such a good job of doing new and innovative things while also kind of holding down that old Larry Sparks charm. 

Sierra: I don’t think about it that much, to be honest. I think that the foundation and that old-school thing is just a part of me. I mean, I grew up here in Tennessee, too, and that music, kind of the way even culturally, what the music was kind of built on, you know, singing about the little cabin home on the hill and, the hard times in which people, Appalachian people, were facing. It’s like, that’s kind of those stories, even though I grew up obviously in a different time, hence the fact that I think my music reflects a different kind of sound and time as well in order to feel truly authentic to me, I think it kind of has to. But those sounds are like my people, It’s a part of not only just the music I grew up listening to and playing, but the people that I was around too, and people that experienced the music, the things that those stories are all built upon, the sounds of bluegrass really just sound like the part of the world that I come from. So I think there’s the there’s that part of me that will always just reflect in the music because it truly is, as a person, who I am and where I’m from. 

Logan: It’s so ingrained in kind of Tennessee, the culture of it all. Is there anything that you have learned on mandolin or about bluegrass music or anything that has recently come into your ears that you’ve been able to implement into your songs? 

Sierra: I think if you’re really keeping your ears open, there’s always something to be learned and to be brought into the music. You know, I think like coming out of this kind of crazy week I just had, I think there’s a lot of inspiration to be had being in the space, and I was in Los Angeles all week for Grammy stuff. And you’re around all these incredible artists for an entire week, people who are all there celebrating all styles of music and just the love of the craft and the hard work that everybody kind of puts into this too. I know it’s like you kind of go, oh, Grammy week, it’s all about the flash and the awards and getting dressed up and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, that’s fun, that’s true, but it also is like a showing of all the hard work that all these artists put into music over the last year and sort of celebrating that. And so, I think coming home even off of that hearing, like I said, a lot of performances that were inspiring to me, conversations I had with people that were inspiring. All that really starts to get me excited to work on the next thing, so it’s always hard to put your finger on, well, something that you’ve learned directly, whether it be an exact musical phrase or just something in life that happened that inspired you. But I know I certainly feel inspired right now and a real desire to kind of be like, okay, that was fun, now let’s get back to work. Let’s get back to the actual thing we all want to do, which is making music. I came home and I said that to my husband. I was like, well, that was fun, but now I’m like, shoot, I can’t wait to get back to actually playing my instrument and singing songs. 

Logan: Are you writing anything new these days? Do you often write new things casually or do you have to be in a certain mindset to like put down some new ideas? 

Sierra: Yeah, the last couple days I’ve been writing like crazy. That doesn’t always mean that’s something ever going to be heard either, but gathering lyrics and ideas and feeling, I think for me, there’s moments where I can like grasp it and go, I can like connect to something like I’m always writing. But then there’s sometimes when there’s this like real inevitable feeling of I must do it, like I have to do it, and so whatever that is, I feel it right now. And that comes in waves for me. That’s not all the time. Sometimes you can think, well, it’d be good if I got back to writing because I hadn’t been doing it much, but you just don’t feel like you can work on it a little bit. But the connection, I’ve got to do this almost in a therapeutic way, is not there in the same way. And I’ve definitely been filling that pole lately. And I think that’s probably as a result too, the whirlwind of being busy and finishing one project, we put “A Tip Toe High Wire” out not quite a year ago, but almost, and you jump into this whirlwind of being so busy around new music and a new album, and then you sort of find yourself near the end of that cycle, and it’s almost like your emotional space frees up for me, where I can suddenly go, okay cool, we sort of did that thing. Now I can get back to the creative side again. 

Logan: In this past year, you played the Outlaw Music Festival with such a cool variety of artists. I believe the dates I saw had Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Billy Strings, and Lake Street Dive, and a few others. Normally, there’s not too big of an age gap between eighty-year-old Bob Dylan and these younger artists right here. Did you learn anything from that tour being around these older artists? 

Sierra: Well, getting to watch him play, I didn’t even get to meet Bob. I didn’t get to hang out with him, unfortunately, or anything and I think it’s understandable. It’s like Willie’s in his 90s. Bob turned 80, actually, while we were on the road, which is pretty cool. But getting to see him take the stage every night as these legends and when you’re on a tour with Willie and Bob, I think the main takeaway for me was man, songs. They just have songs, It’s like we all, we think about, of course, Bob Dylan probably as a songwriter first and foremost. Willie… Willie’s just such a treasure kind of all the way around, but like he has such an incredible catalog of songs and even songs he didn’t write, his ability to be a storyteller. I remember he would sing this song every night on tour called “The Last Leaf on the Tree”, and I swear I didn’t realize it was a Tom Waits song. It wasn’t a Tom Waits song that I knew, But it was like my favorite in the set every night. Just the way he sang it sounded exactly like he wrote it. I think because they’re such great songwriters and they understand the power of words and lyrics, there’s a delivery that those guys have and what they do that is just, I don’t know, it sort of stands on its own. And then the performance is just like the cherry on top, you know what I mean? So yeah, it just reminded me of like, okay, you gotta have good songs first and foremost first and foremost. All the fancy like tricks and talents of like vocal moves or instrumental whatever prowess, that’s really secondary to the song. It’s pointless without having really good songs in my opinion.

Logan: Do you have any songs that you really enjoy covering yourself?

Sierra: You were talking about that tour, we covered a couple things on that tour, most nights, we have a cover of “Mad World” we do a lot, which is one of my favorites.  On sort of the flip side of that, that’s like moody, edgy, or, you know, lyrically a little bit more edgy than something just straight ahead. But then like on something just completely joyful, it’s like we would, to cover Bela Flec stomping grounds, often. So, I mean, we have a wide range of stuff. I just most recently covered, actually during Grammy’s week, the Americana folks have a kind of tradition. They do a music cares fundraiser show honoring an artist at the Troubadour every year. And this year it was Neil Young. So it’s a bunch of artists singing Neil Young songs and I did the song “Look Out for My Love”, which is such a great song. And yeah, such a great catalog of songs he has to. 

Logan: You went to the Berklee College of Music, and I’m in college right now. Was there any party that wanted a more traditional college experience? Because obviously Berklee’s a little intensive, one might say. Do you at all wish it was a little bit more of the classic American college, or were you just too locked in on the music to even think about that? 

Sierra: You know, I don’t think, to be honest, I would not have gone to college at all if the opportunity to go to Berklee hadn’t kind of appeared. I wasn’t really planning on going, and then I got offered this scholarship, kind of out of nowhere, and  just wound up feeling like, okay, well this is an opportunity that is almost too good to pass up. I should definitely give this a try. But I knew all I ever wanted to do was play music, to be honest. And I think the value of getting an education is so important, and I always tried, I was an honor roll student the whole time I was in school. I always tried to make good grades and cared about getting an education, but I also knew that just going to a traditional college and spending four years and spending the money and things like that and the time, if I wasn’t really going to apply it, I didn’t see the point in the path. You know what I mean? It’s kind of like I knew what I wanted to do. I wasn’t even planning to go to music college because I was fortunate enough just to start young and I already had a record deal and I already could see a path in front of me for starting to tour, even at a small level. So yeah, I don’t know. I think there’s times where of course I can go, what would this feel? If I could just have a normal college experience? I think anybody who doesn’t have something like that, you might kind of go, what would that have been like sometimes. But at the same time, I think I was so fortunate, to just already know what I wanted from life, to know at least generally, where my path was headed and what road I was hoping to take. And I have a lot of friends who are still figuring that out, even in their 30s, and it’s tricky. So I don’t know. It’s a mixed question, sort of, because I think it would have been cool to know what that’s like and maybe feel more relatable to my friends who did have that experience. But at the same time, I wouldn’t change anything about where my path has taken me, because I think this is all I’ve ever wanted. 

Logan: You’re on a pretty cool path right now, I’d say. You’ve been playing music your whole life, like you said. But do you remember the first time in Nashville, Tennessee you sat in the pews at the Ryman? 

Sierra: Oh, man. Funny enough, the first time I ever went to the Ryman, I was on stage. 

Logan: Really? 

Sierra: The first time I ever got to go, yeah. I was 11 years old, and I got to go play the Grand Ole Opry with Allison. And the Opry, in the winter months, usually they move it to the original home of the Opry is the Ryman Auditorium. And so they move it from the Grand Ole Opry House to downtown to the Ryman, and they host their shows there for a couple months. And so it happened to be, this was in November, and they were doing Opry at the Ryman. And so, Allison called me up as a young kid. My biggest hero called me up and asked me to come play the Opry with her. I’ll never forget that for so many reasons. And honestly, that was such a magical experience, just even being in the room. Of course, I knew the history of the Ryman, I still think it’s my favorite venue in the world for so many reasons. The stage they say in which Bluegrass was born, when Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs stand on stage playing banjo at the Opry. But to actually be in the pews, it sounds funny to say I probably played it the first few times before I actually got to see a show there. 

Logan: Wow. I don’t think many people are able to say that. So that’s pretty cool. 

Sierra: That’s insane, I know. I’m so fortunate. But I love being able to go see shows there because I never forget that that magical feeling I had as a kid getting to be there for the first time. 

Logan: I hope the Englert Theater in Iowa City is somewhat memorable enough. You know, it’s not the Ryman, but maybe it’ll leave an impression over here. 

Sierra: Hey, I’ve actually played there once before. Like two years ago, I believe two falls ago. It was a fall tour we did maybe in like October or something. So I’ve definitely been there before and yeah, looking forward to getting to come back. You know, there’s a few venues on this tour we’re doing with Milk Carton Kids that I haven’t done, but then a handful that I’m like, oh yeah, we get to go back to that spot. So yeah, I’m looking forward to it. 

If you think bluegrass isn’t your thing and you find yourself saying things like “they play too fast” and “the banjo scares me”, I am prescribing some exposure therapy on February 12^th. This combination of Sierra Hull and The Milk Carton Kids is a viciously entrancing mixture that is bound to make any non-fan into a fan, any fan into an enthusiast, and any enthusiast into a devotee. You can listen to Sierra Hull’s latest album “A Tip Toe High Wire” here and find tickets for Sierra Hull and The Milk Carton Kids at The Englert Theatre here. 

The post Interview: Sierra Hull appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Logan Melia: How are you doing? 

Molly Tuttle: I’m doing great. Thanks for having me. 

Logan: Thank you so much for taking time for me. You’ve had an incredibly busy week. Congratulations on the two Grammy nominations. 

Molly: Oh, thank you. So exciting. 

Logan: Best Americana Performance, “That’s Gonna Leave a Mark”, Best Americana Album, “So Long Lone with Sunshine”, and you’re touring that record. It’s a phenomenal, phenomenal piece of work there. How long was that process for you, writing the songs, putting it together, staying in the studio? 

Molly: I started writing some of the songs like four or five years ago. That’s where the seeds of this album started. And then I just kind of kept working on it. And then in the last year, I kind of felt like I had this burst of writing a bunch of songs that ended up on the record and then going back to some older ones and kind of, you know, rewriting sections, editing them a little bit to get them all to where I was really happy with them. And then we went into the studio last fall. spent about a month from the pre-production process to actually tracking all the songs. Went in with Jay Joyce who produced the record and we got together whenever I was off the road and then we had about a week of tracking and then mixed it. I think we got everything finished in last January. So it’s been a long time coming and it was really an exciting and fun process, I worked a lot on this record. I probably spent more time on it than any other record I’ve ever made, so that was just a fun process. I just love being in the studio. I’m just excited for what’s next and certainly excited to be going to the Grammys. 

Logan: Oh, absolutely. Now, when you’re writing these songs, are there any that just fall out of the sky? Is it a really laborious process for you? 

Molly: It really varies song by song, some you kind of have to work more to get them to a good place and then some of them just kind of happen all in one sitting. One of the songs on the record, “Old Me New Wig”, which is where we got the title for the album from, a line in that song. That one just kind of happened in one sitting, but some of the others spent, I like came back to them years later and just kind of kept working at it. 

Logan: You’re touring this new album and You’re still playing some songs from The Golden Highway. How do you create these set lists where you balance the old with the new? 

Molly: Yeah, we’re kind of playing about half the new record and mixing in different ones. There are certain songs off the new record that we still haven’t played live and we’re kind of workshopping them. At soundcheck, we’ll be working on a new song and getting it ready for the stage and so that leaves a lot of room in the set to work in stuff from all my other albums, last two Golden Highway records. Those had kind of become staples of my live shows the last few years so it was fun kind of reworking a bunch of those songs with the new band. And we always do like an acoustic portion of the set as well. So a lot of the set will be with drums and sometimes Ellen Angelico, who’s playing multiple different instruments. She’s playing Dobro, electric guitar, and pedal steel. Mary Meyer is another multi-instrumentalist, she plays mandolin, fiddle, and keys. And then we have Vanessa McGowan who plays upright and electric bass and Megan Jane will be on a full drum kit. And then for the acoustic portion, well, it’s all kind of acoustic because I’m always playing acoustic guitar and Mary’s off and on mandolin or you’ll have the Dobro, but we strip down to do a little one mic portion of the set. And that’s when Megan might go to a washboard or maybe we’ll just do like an acoustic trio portion of the set some nights. And so it’s really fun, it’s like a varied set list each night. I feel like it just allows for so many dynamics within the show to kind of, have some of the bluegrass tunes and then some of them we’ve reworked. And then there’s the new album stuff as well. 

Logan: You mentioned your band, a phenomenal, phenomenal collection of musicians. I’m sure there’s so many incredible ones in your circles, but these are all the best of the best. How did you pick these specific artists? 

Molly: Yeah, I reached out first to Vanessa, who’s the bassist. I reached out to her first, I’ve known her for years. And she’s had experiences being a band leader, which is often times in bands, they’ll be like the front person. And then there might be one of the other musicians who is kind of helping orchestrate all the music and putting it all together. And so she’s just knows everyone in Nashville and has all these connections. So I kind of worked with her to figure out the rest of the band, but I told her like that I would need people who are very versatile because I want to still be able to go from playing a bluegrass tune to playing like a more rockin arrangement of one of the newer songs on the record that might have a need like pedal steel or like keys and drums and this and that. So I really wanted to be able to kind of slide between different genres throughout the night when we’re playing the show. We talked about who would really work with that kind of format, and I think the next person we reached out to was Megan Jane, who’s the drummer, and I’ve actually toured with her before I toured with her in 2022 a little bit. Actually, maybe 2021. I can’t remember now. It was whenever we were coming out of the pandemic, we toured together. And so I knew I would love playing with her because I’d already played with her a bunch. And Ellen is someone I’ve known, Ellen Angelico, plays Dobro and guitar and steel. I’ve known her for many years here in Nashville, she’s worked at all these different guitar shops around town and she’s just a great multi-instrumentalist as well. And then Mary Meyer, who strangely enough, like I actually didn’t really know her before we ended up playing together, but she grew up in a bluegrass family band just like me, but she also kind of has like me branched out into all these different genres. So I feel like it’s just a perfect fit musically for her and I to play together since we both love bluegrass, but we do other stuff too. And it just makes for a really fun show because I feel like we’re all kind of on the same wavelength. 

Logan: You are kind of leading the charge for this new generation of bluegrass. I mean, my 17 year old little sister is like listening to Merle Haggard now because of you and Sierra Hull and Billy Strings and all this new wave of it. Can you kind of feel the excitement about your scene coming up? 

Molly: Yeah, it’s really exciting. I think bluegrass music and roots music in general or Americana or whatever you want to call it, it goes through these waves and different generations that push it into new territories. People I looked up to like Alison Krauss and Béla Fleck, Sam Bush, people who are really pioneering new ways of playing this music. It just feels like a huge honor to maybe be part of that next wave coming along, that someone might look to kind of figure out where it could go next in the next generation after this. So yeah, it just feels kind of like it’s so important to keep this music alive and keep letting it evolve. 

Logan: Your artistry mixed with your phenomenal guitar playing has always put me in mind of Glen Campbell. Do you remember your first time ever hearing Glen Campbell? 

Molly: Yeah, I learned about Glen Campbell when I was a kid because I loved the song “Gentle on My Mind”, but I knew it as a John Hartford song. And then of course, Glen Campbell kind of made it famous. So I listened to his version and that was the first song I ever heard Glen Campbell do. So big fan. And that was kind of how I discovered him through being a big John Hartford fan. 

Logan: You just played that with Sierra Farrell, I think, right, “Gentle On My Mind”? That was a phenomenal video. You had a busy week last week. In addition to the Grammys, you released a cover of a personal favorite of mine, “Fairytale of New York”. 

Molly: Yes, yeah, that was a cover I’ve been doing for a couple years now. Ketch and I, Ketch Secore is the one who I recorded it with, and we’ve sung it together for a few years. I’ve been doing these holiday shows in Menlo Park near where I grew up, and we worked it up for those shows after Shane McGowan passed, who sang the song originally with Kirstie McColl and The Pogues. We’re both big fans of the song and of Shane and The Pogues and everything, so we worked that one up after he passed away. And then it just became kind of my favorite, one of my favorites to bring back around the holidays. And we ended up recording it last year after performing it a couple times. And I’m just happy it’s out in the world to get people in the holiday spirit, even though it is kind of like a depressing holiday song. It’s not your typical cheery Christmas song, but I think that’s what I kind of liked about it. 

Logan: Do you start listening to Christmas music after Halloween? After Thanksgiving? What’s your threshold? 

Molly: I don’t usually listen to it very early. I feel like I wait until after Thanksgiving is probably when I can pivot on to Christmas. I don’t have that many Christmas decorations, I feel like we put up a tree and stuff, but I’m, my house isn’t like the place where you walk in and it’s like, Christmas vomit of the ornaments and everything everywhere. Ketch and I live together and he is kind of the opposite. He has a million Christmas ornaments, so we find our balance of maybe we just put it in certain rooms. I feel like it makes me feel crazy when everywhere I look there’s Christmas stuff. I think he kind of brings out the Christmas spirit in me, but we listen and put on a lot of Christmas music in the weeks leading up to it. So far we haven’t really been playing it around the house, but we did release the cover. So that’s my first contribution. 

Logan: It’s quite the good contribution. It’s all a balancing act, you know? 

Molly: Yes, totally. 

Logan: Are you a big physical media collector? Are you a big like vinyls person or CDs person? 

Molly: I have a fair amount of vinyl that I’ve just kind of acquired through the years. Most of it is people will give me vinyl or I get it from my friends. I have a lot of vinyl from friends of mine who put out records and then some of my favorites I have on vinyl. So I don’t have a massive collection, but I do love spinning records when I’m just around the house, you know, kind of puttering around. It’s just so fun to have a record on. I feel like I miss the days when we all would just sit and  listen to one full record back-to-back. So that’s what it kind of brings me back to, is just appreciating a full album that someone put out. Whereas when I’m kind of like out and about, I might just be listening to music still, but kind of picking my favorite songs here and there, maybe not listening to a full record. So that’s what I like to do around the house is just pull out a record, maybe a classic one that I haven’t listened to in a while. I have Joni Mitchell‘s “Blue” is one of my favorites that I have on vinyl and Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumors” is another one I have, and a bunch of older ones like that, just kind of classics. I like just rifling through and picking out one that I haven’t listened to in a while. 

Logan: Yeah, I mean, those are some great picks right there. What is on your playlist nowadays? 

Molly: I’ve been kind of listening to… A couple different things like my playlist is always all over the place. I just found out about this band that I’ve been listening to recently called Geese, they’re like an indie rock band. 

Logan: So good.  

Molly: Yeah, they’re awesome. I only figured out who they were because I kept seeing their name on festival lineups and I thought it was Goose because we’ve been playing a bunch of festivals this year that Goose is on the bill. And then I kept seeing Geese and I was like, ‘What’s Geese?’. Like I’ve heard of Goose, but I haven’t heard of Geese. So I started listening to their music and I became obsessed. So I was listening to them a bunch this last week. 

Logan: Oh, they are great. This is going back to kind of your beginnings a little bit here. You’re a phenomenal clawhammer player. Do you remember like the first song you really got down on clawhammer? 

Molly: Yeah, the first song I ever learned on clawhammer was one called “Little Sadie”, and it’s like this old murder ballad. It’s a really creepy song so sometimes I don’t even like to sing it anymore because it’s like in the first line, he’s shooting someone. And I’m just like, it’s a creepy song. But there’s so many songs like that, the old kind of traditional songs, you don’t know who wrote them, but they tell these kind of disturbing stories a lot of the time. And some of them are really more inappropriate than others in our current day and age but that one is that one is fairly mild by comparison to some others. But that was the first song I learned on clawhammer guitar. That’s one that you can hear it. Like the Grateful Dead did it, Jerry Garcia would sing it and so many people have done it through the years. Doc Watson is another version I really like. So yeah, that was my first clawhammer guitar piece and I learned it from a guy out in the Bay Area, Michael Stadler. I had been playing clawhammer banjo but I’d never heard of clawhammer guitar and he kind of showed me that song and the tuning that I use for it. 

Logan: You mentioned these storytelling songs. The storytelling songs, and you write a lot of songs about the road, it’s kind of Springsteen-y in a way. Are you a Springsteen fan at all? 

Molly: A little bit. He’s actually someone I need to listen to more. I’ve been thinking about that recently. I’m like, dang, especially with like the Springsteen movie coming out. I’m like, I actually don’t know his music as well as I should. I know a few of the hits, obviously, but I’ve never really taken the time to dive in. But I’m sure once I did, it would be like a rabbit hole that I would love going down. Maybe that’s next on my agenda. There’s certain artists like that where they’re like, such iconic artists and I feel like I’ve missed them. Maybe that’s due to growing up just listening to bluegrass and then slowly figuring out like popular music when I was a little older. 

Logan: Are there any other artists on that list that you can think of off the top of your head that you’re like, I need to get into these guys? 

Molly: Yeah, other kind of classic artists that I feel like I haven’t fully, maybe I’ve just listened to like one or two of their records. Like Paul Simon, I feel is someone that, of course, I’ve listened to “Graceland”, but I don’t know that much of his other solo stuff. I’ve been thinking recently that I need to dig into his stuff as well. 

Logan: Thank you so much for taking time with me. You can see Molly at the Englert on the 16^th, later this week. I’m looking forward to a great show. 

Molly: Thank you so much. It’s going to be great. 

Molly Tuttle will play The Englert Theatre on Sunday, November 16th at 7:30. Tuttle will be supported by Joshua Ray Walker and Cecilia Castleman for her Iowa City debut. You can listen to “So Long Little Miss Sunshine” now, and can find tickets for her performance here.

The post Interview & Concert Preview: Molly Tuttle at the Englert, Nov. 16 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Originally from Muscatine, Iowa, Strause has created his own original combination of blues, folk, and bluegrass. Similar to the stylings of Amos Lee and Brett Dennen, Brooks Strause usually plays with his band, Brooks Strause and the Gory Details. But on Friday, Strause kept the audience entertained simply with his voice, his acoustic guitar, and his harmonica.

Strause played a number of songs, including “The Wrong Reasons” from his forthcoming effort, Acid Casual. This upcoming album will be his fifth CD. Strause also performed “Strange City,” a song specifically about Iowa City. Although it was written for the Iowa City Song Project, Strause highlighted the fact that he has lived in Iowa City for the past three years and has always loved the great people, great ideas, and the arts that the town has to offer.

The post Brooks Strause on IPR’s “Java Blend” – 10/12/12 appeared first on KRUI Radio.