April 2017

Cadillac Three frontman Jaren Johnston tells Paul Sexton about the moment he realised that the country and rock worlds were coming together. It was in February this year when The Cadillac Three’s repeated UK visits – eight in two years by that point – were rewarded with their biggest audience yet one sizzling night at the Electric Ballroom in Camden. Frontman Jaren Johnston saw two worlds collide. “I saw a Travis Tritt t-shirt and a Pantera t-shirt at the same show,” he laughs. “That’s when you know you’re doing something different.” Bassist, steel guitarist and dobro player Kelby Ray joins in with the memory, underlining how the band have created a scintillating subdivision of Southern rock with deep country roots. “You could see it in the ages of the crowds over there,” he beams. “We had kids from 20 to 65, it was all over the map. You get those old Skynyrd and ZZ Top fans, and then the younger fans.” As Ray points out, the band’s live UK audience had increased six-fold from their first visit in 2014, when they sowed the seeds of their following at London’s Barfly. In the summer, they rocked the Ramblin’ Man Fair, and in November, their stature will likely take another giant leap forward when they return for an eight-date tour of Britain and Ireland. They’ve become such adopted Brits that Johnston has even been considering getting a flat in London. “Chrissie Hynde’s one of my best friends,” he says without a whiff of name-dropping. “She lives there, and she always comes out and hangs. It’s just been such a cool thing to see that whole thing grow, kind of by accident. We weren’t forcing anything, we just literally did what bands do, you put a record out and kids reacted to it. “We were always infatuated with Tom Petty and bands that came over there and did what they do, and people appreciated it, and they kept going back. When we did the first trip and saw how cool it was, and how we sold the first show out in, like, 10 minutes, we were blown away. So we were like ‘alright, this is a commitment, two times a year if not more’. Monetarily speaking, it hasn’t been easy at the beginning, but it’s paying off now.” That upcoming schedule will continue with dates in Germany, Holland and Spain, in a European run that’s wrapped around a never-ending domestic tour. Every night, they’ll play the hell out of both their earlier anthems and the brilliant sophomore album Bury Me In My Boots. The Cadillac Three are doing something seriously right. After a brief but warm hello with the band backstage that night at the Electric Ballroom, we sat down for a face-to-face with Jaren and Kelby on Tennessee time, while they were completing the album at Nashville’s celebrated Blackbird Studio. As we spoke, drummer Neil Mason was hard at work downstairs adding a final percussion part to what’s become a landmark record for the band. Bury me in my boots Released in early August, Bury Me In My Boots shows the band’s distinguished and in-demand songwriting chops reaching a new plateau. A mature successor to the debut record released in the US, in the first of several incarnations, in 2012, it upped the ante by debuting comfortably inside the mainstream Top 40 on both sides of the Atlantic. TC3’s serrated sound references everyone from Kings of Leon to Lynyrd Skynyrd, with healthy ingredients of an upbringing that embraces country, rock and roots music of many stripes. But more than anything, Bury Me… is clearly the sound of a band with courage in their convictions. “It shows how we’ve grown over the last five years, since we recorded that first album in a week,” says Ray. Adds Johnston: “It’s a nice little salad of where we come from, as far as having recorded that first record so fast. We wrote the songs for that first record in four or five days, and we just put it out. That’s what bands do. We didn’t have anybody telling us we couldn’t do it. “So this is after three and a half years of touring extensively, and starting to live life on a bus, and writing songs in the back of the bus and kind of living that ‘Almost Famous’ life, where everybody’s always got a guitar, there’s always a beer, there’s always a girl, and you’re always going somewhere. I think this is a nice little mix of the last few years of living that life.” Not that Johnston, Ray and Mason have tried to fix anything that wasn’t broken. “As far as production goes, it’s still just the three of us playing, with somebody hitting the record button,” says Jaren of their inspiringly live studio technique. “Nothing’s changed, but every band wants to grow. “Graffiti and White Lightning were a step in the right direction, but there are some other cool songs, like [album closer] Runnin’ Red Lights. It shows a more…” he stops short of using the word mature, but goes on: “I’m not just singing about booze and fighting and trucks. I’m a little older. Things get a little more nostalgic and you start looking back on your life. I’m married now, I own my house and we’re living life, and it’s a crazy lifestyle. So I think a lot of those stories are in these songs.” That’s why he didn’t quite make it to the word “mature”. The band’s conversation, like their lyrics, is peppered with references to good-natured good-timin’. They proudly play what they deftly describe in one of the album’s many singalong moments as the Soundtrack To A Six Pack. But in the very next song, the aforementioned White Lightning, they can switch gear and sing sincerely about a girl who “stole my heart faster than a heat-seeking missile on a mission”. Abbey Road studios Graffiti, an advance rider for the album when it appeared as a single

With his love of folk evident on his latest solo album, punk spokesman Greg Graffin reveals the links between the genres. It may not always be obvious, but punk rock and country music are closer cousins than first appearances would ever suggest. Forget the surface: the roughness, rips and snotty aggression on one side; the old-school, down-home familiarity on the other. Authenticity, passion, the basic premise that anyone can get involved and embrace their creativity, whatever their background; these are the foundations of both genres. This is what gives them both their spark. It’s why Johnny Cash, the Man In Black, the outlaw’s outlaw, is seen by so many in both camps as the ultimate rock star. It’s why Willie Nelson crosses boundary lines with the slightest flick of his trademark plaits. It’s why Dolly Parton, with her laser wit, social conscience and fearsome intelligence, is roundly considered one of America’s greatest living badasses. And while those people have been clasped to the studded bosom of many a moshpit warrior over the years, it goes both ways. Punk rock, after all, is now moving into middle age, the original angry young things of the late 70s turning into the respectable musical elders of the 21st century. It’s no wonder leading lights of the scene are looking further back to their roots and exploring music outside of their own career springboard. Take Greg Graffin, frontman of revered Californian punks Bad Religion since their inception in 1979. His new folk solo album, Millport, draws on the music he grew up with, the Grand Ol’ Opry songs his mother listened to on the radio when she was a child in Indiana: traditional Appalachian music infused with fiddle, banjo and guitar and a sense of deeply American tradition being handed down through the ages. It’s a beautiful thing. “If it’s a good country song it still can be whittled down to an acoustic guitar and you can sing it around the campfire,” he says. “And believe it or not, it’s been our criteria in punk as well. Most of our songs are written on guitar or piano and then you take them in the studio and you adapt them to the genre. So consequently you can find me singing punk songs on acoustic guitar as easily as I do with folk music. As an artist is it feels very natural to play both of them.” Bad Religion are the quintessential Californian punk band. Their lyrics take on themes of social responsibility and political discourse, but their harmonies are pure west-coast sunshine. But when we call Graffin, he’s holed up in his farm out east in upstate New York, looking out at a damp, dark, misty winter’s day. Millport is named after a nearby town, a real Anywheresville, USA, providing a strong home base for its rich metaphors for American life influenced by the likes of Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley. “Some people say ‘well, that’s not what Greg’s really known for’, but the truth is I’ve been playing this sort of music since I was a kid,” Graffin says. “I now have three albums that are solo projects of my own, and I don’t get to make as many of these albums as I’d like to. “People ask me how I learned to sing punk, and the truth is I didn’t, I learned how to sing this old-time music, this folk style, and if you blend that with rock, you’ve got something that just happened to be springing up in Southern California in the 70s when my family decided to move out there. My vocal delivery has always been very authentic, I don’t try to sound like anyone. Early reviews for Bad Religion all said, ‘sounds like folk music’. And I didn’t really like being accused of being a folk singer, but the truth is that’s how I learned how to sing. I didn’t listen to Johnny Rotten.” Integral Identity Having grown up alongside peers such as Black Flag, Circle Jerks and The Adolescents, Bad Religion have gone on to influence everyone from Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder to Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam. Again, it all comes down to credibility and honesty. “Everyone’s voice has a uniqueness,” says Graffin. “And so many singers try to disguise that uniqueness so they can sound like someone else. That turns me off right away. If I were ever on one of those shows that Simon Cowell hosts, I would be dismissed in the first round. And that’s true of every great singer that I know.” The songs themselves combine a nostalgic mournfulness with a tongue-in-cheek humour. While opener Backroads Of My Mind aches with a longing for home and roots, it’s also a self-mocking look at the physical and mental changes in an ageing singer. A take on Nashville songwriter Norman Blake’s Lincoln’s Funeral Train, meanwhile, looks to history to try and make sense of the seemingly unprecedented problems facing America. “Lincoln’s one of our great heroes, but people forget his real impact internationally came after he was gone,” says Graffin. “His presidency was so tumultuous. If you think our country’s divided now, you should think of what it was when Lincoln took office. “He had to sneak into Washington DC on a nighttime train and no one was told he was arriving, because there were lynch mobs waiting for him in Baltimore. He stole away to the White House from Springfield, Illinois avoiding cities where there were hostile people waiting to lynch him, literally. The country was never more divided and he presided over a terrible four years. “This song commemorates his funeral train that went from Washington back to Springfield, and to me the image of a train is one of the great American images. It’s what connected this country and brought us into the modern era. I just think it’s a great reminder. During these current political struggles it’s good to remember how bad things got, remember how essentially we’re all connected. I

Four years in the making, Alison Krauss’s first solo album in 18 years – Windy City – was anything but plain sailing. But, as the bluegrass star tells Paul Dimery, she overcame the turbulence to emerge triumphant. Alison Krauss sounds a bit fed up. An afternoon of phone interviews has left her hoarse and exhausted, and now she’s struggling with my British brogue and a transatlantic phone line that insists on cutting out every few minutes, leaving both of us hanging in mid-air. After exchanging niceties, I begin our interview proper by asking for a personal recollection of her formative years, before she rose to fame as one of the world’s biggest country stars and began collecting Grammy Awards for fun (she has 27 to date, making her the most prolific living recipient along with Quincy Jones, a man 38 years her senior). There’s a long pause at the other end of the phone as she casts her mind back through her career. A very long pause. Then a crackle. Nope, the line has gone dead again. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Originally, Country Music was set to meet the Illinois-born bluegrass sensation in person, in London, prior to an intimate gig at the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios where she would showcase her new album, Windy City. But a throat infection meant that Krauss had to cancel her visit to the UK at the last minute, and so here we are, trying to overcome tiredness and technology on either side of the Pond. No wonder she’s feeling frustrated. “I’m still not completely over [the illness],” she rasps when the connection finally remedies itself. “It was only supposed to last about three weeks, but it’s not letting go.” Early virtuosity Her downbeat nature today jars with those oft-recounted tales of the wildly talented ingénue who entered her first fiddle contests aged eight, laying waste to her rivals with thrillingly offbeat renditions of The Beatles and Bad Company; formed her first band at 10; and discovered bluegrass music at the tender age of 12, taking a shine to banjo stalwarts Ralph Stanley and J.D. Crowe while her school mates were listening to Cyndi Lauper. When the Society For The Preservation Of Bluegrass in America labelled Krauss the ‘Most Promising Fiddler in the Midwest’, and Vanity Fair magazine followed suit by describing her as a “virtuoso”, she’d not yet reached her 14th birthday. “I would just show up and do my thing,” says Krauss, recalling those early competitions with a modesty that belies her lofty achievements. “I don’t remember being goofy or nervous about doing them at all, and I think that might’ve been irritating to my folks. They felt like I should be taking things a bit more seriously or realise what was going on, but I don’t remember being terribly aware.” It was Krauss’s mother, Louise, who’d first set young Alison on her path to musical destiny, encouraging her daughter to learn the classical violin at the age of five. But Alison soon gave that up to pursue what she deemed to be her true calling in life: “I liked fiddle music a lot,” she explains. “I would spend hours cassette-recording the famous fiddle players and learning the tunes that other people did. I studied how they held their bow and tapped their feet, that kind of thing.” She proved to be a natural; indeed, such was her skill with the instrument that she quickly found herself in demand among seasoned artists looking for session talent. One of those, bassist and songwriter John Pennell, was so impressed with this fresh-faced starlet, he invited her to join his band Silver Rail (later to become Union Station). It proved to be a match made in heaven; Krauss’ energetic performances with the group helped to earn her a deal with Rounder Records – putting her on the same label as one of her childhood heroes, J.D. Crowe – and while Pennell eventually drifted away from the line-up, his protégé has recorded and toured with them prolifically ever since. In fact, we’ve become so used to Krauss performing with Union Station, it came as something of a surprise to learn that, though certain members of the band make cameo appearances on the recording, Windy City is officially a solo venture – Alison’s first since 1999’s underrated Forget About It. In those 18 years Krauss has contributed bluegrass tracks to the Coen brothers’ Hollywood hit O Brother, Where Art Thou (2000), appeared on stage at the Academy Awards, where she performed two nominated Appalachian songs from the movie Cold Mountain (2004), and recorded a successful rock/folk crossover album with Led Zeppelin icon Robert Plant (2007’s Raising Sand). So what was the thinking behind this career curveball? “Every now and again, I’ll do a record without the band,” she answers matter-of-factly. “We all do it from time to time. I haven’t done one in a long while, but it didn’t feel weird at all. I don’t do anything that I’m not inspired to do.” Nostalgic tribute In this case, her inspiration came from the past – specifically her own past. Windy City is a gloriously nostalgic scrapbook of Krauss’s favourite country songs – 10 standards and rarities originally recorded by artists as diverse as Willie Nelson, Roger Miller, Eddy Arnold and The Osborne Brothers – all lovingly recrafted in her own inimitable style. “I wanted to sing songs that are older than I am,” she told Rolling Stone magazine in the build-up to the album’s release. “There’s a real romance in singing other people’s stories.” It’s a brave yet brilliant record, and listening to Krauss’s hymnal longing on Brenda Lee’s All Alone Am I, or her tender vibrato on Glen Campbell’s Gentle On My Mind, it’s hard not to feel that Windy City is the LP she was always destined to make. And yet, recording it was anything but a breeze. While sessions began in 2013, it was another four years before the album

Meet the cross-Atlantic, harmonising duo who draw on their sense of home for inspiration – by Steve Faragher. With their mouthwatering close harmonies, great songs and very personable stage presence, Lewis & Leigh look like a pair of singers with no ceiling. While they’re definitely country, they bring an exciting modern twist to their lyrics that makes them sound quite unlike any other act in these pages. Formerly two solo artists in their own right, Al Lewis from Wales and Alva Leigh from Mississippi met at a Matthew Perryman Jones gig in London in 2013. “I’d worked with Matthew in Nashville,” explains Al. “He had this backing singer with him and I got him to introduce us.” The pair struck up an immediate rapport, and before they knew it were writing songs together. Al expands: “We said ‘let’s pencil in some writing, then’ with no other plan than for it to perhaps appear on one of our solo albums.” So was it exciting to work together from the start? “Day one, the first thing that excited me was the song What Is There To Do, Al continues: “It sounded really good, but Alva did the singing on that first one. It wasn’t until a bit later that we started really singing together.” “Yeah,” Alva takes up the tale. “We didn’t think about arranging it as a duo song till later. But then we realised we had something special. It was a wonderful surprise.” Suited to each other You may never have heard two voices so suited to each other. “I always laugh that maybe I have Welsh blood, and Al and I are long-lost cousins. There has to be a reason we sing so well together.” A good-looking pair, Al comes across as the more business-like of the two. Clearly driven, he’s jumped through some music business hoops already to get to where he is today. Alva’s more prone to laughing, but equally serious, and also has a solid history of music-making behind her. But they took it slowly when it came to making music together. It was six months after that meeting, in early 2014, that they wrote their first song, and over the next few months they went on a journey of musical self-discovery via three EPs. “Each EP, we explored different influences,” says Al. “The first one was straight down the middle country; we used pedal steel and every single instrument that we thought signposted country, like mandolins and all that.” Alva continues, “The second EP was more folk noir. Very dark, brooding songs with some fiddle and banjo and Al got a beautiful new guitar, a 1965 Gibson with a beautiful tone. That guitar inspired the second EP. And then on the third we went down the big band/southern soul rock vibe with a horn arrangement.” The album doesn’t sound much like any of those, but is the big band something that might appeal to them later on in their careers? Alva laughs: “Well that would be fun, but we do know that what we have at the moment works, and when you add more elements sometimes it does make it better but sometimes it dilutes what you have.” So having experimented, what did they decide on for their first album? “They were very different EPs and we didn’t feel we could just mush them all together and make an album, so we decided to start from scratch,” says Al. “I think it was good that we entertained all these different kinds of influences that we have,” Alva continues, “and so when it came time to make the album we started from scratch. We said, ‘let’s strip this all away and see what’s left and also look at our live set and see what we can do there, because we won’t be able to tour with a horn section, much as I wish we could’. We wanted the album to be simple and to come back to what we did in that first songwriting session where it’s just two voices and a guitar.” Chicken noodles in broth The album was recorded over a cold period in London at a studio where Laura Marling had just made her critically-acclaimed album Short Movie. It was so cold they still fondly remember going out every day for a bowl of Vietnamese chicken noodles in broth to warm up. But in just two four-week sessions the album was done. Opening track There Is A Light sums up the newly-discovered, stripped-back sound perfectly. Starting with just a harmony, sparse instrumentation fills in the almost-hymnal structure of the song, but where did the inspiration for it come from?” “There Is A Light is about where we’re both from,” says Alva. “The first verse is about the house I grew up in, and that feeling of home. But neither Al nor I live where we’re from; we’ll probably never live where we’re from.” Al explains: “We both grew up in small places. Alva is from a small town on the Gulf Of Mexico called Gulfport and I’m from North Wales, and we both have really fond memories of how we grew up, but we never see ourselves living in a place like that again.” So where do they live now? Al’s based in Cardiff, and Alva in Oxford. And how does the songwriting process work for them? Al explains. “We each bring something different and we help each other in our weaknesses. I tend to think about the big picture of a song – you know, the chorus and the need to grab people, whereas Alva is more about the details, the things you pick up on listen three or listen four, whereas I’m like, ‘let’s not worry about that’. So I think we complement each other well.” Lewis & Leigh are already catching on in Germany. They’ve already been snapped up by German TV for a guest appearance on a flagship show, and you can imagine their intense personal harmonies working