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Can you recall the first moment you knew you wanted to pursue music?  I don’t have a recollection of the exact moment I knew I wanted to pursue music as a career, all I can say is there are unlimited hours of family video footage of me singing and dancing to my own little songs. I’ve always been musical, and I’ve always known it would play a significant role in my life. I just didn’t know how significant. To answer your question though, I knew I wanted to pursue it after I wrote my first song on guitar—I knew I needed to continue on the path of writing, in whatever capacity.   What music did your parents play to you growing up and what are you choosing to listen to now?  When I was around 10 my parents gave me a stack of their vinyl and a little suitcase turntable. In the stack was: Stevie Wonder’s “Song’s In The Key of Life”, Phoebe Snow’s “Self-Titled”, Bob Dylan’s “Nashville Skyline”, The Beatles “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Magical Mystery Tour”…there was a few more but those were the albums I distinctly remember. I have wildly vivid memories sitting in front of that record player reading the lyric inserts and singing every word.   Around the house my parent’s always had music blasting though, they listened to a lot of Folk, old R&B, and stuff off Motown records. It seemed like they were always up on current music as well, like I remember my mom had a huge Erykah Badu and India Arie phase. She also loved Etta James and Sharon Jones—those are the woman who really taught me how to sing.   I listen to everything, I really do. If it makes me feel something I’ll listen on repeat, I’ll absolutely wear it out. My playlist can go from Western Swing to Mexican Ballads in two songs— I study up on it all, because I hold a deep appreciation for music as a whole. I’m fascinated by who’s making what, where, and how. When it comes down to it, I’m just a huge nerd for all songwriting and sounds.    When it comes to your own songwriting do you mainly draw from personal experience? What comes first, lyrics or melody or is it different every time?  I predominantly draw from personal experience, though I have written some new songs that are based in fiction. I suppose those songs are still drawing from my personal well of emotion and seen through the lens of a made up character.   I immediately want to say that when i’m writing a song the lyrics always come first, but when I think about my process that really isn’t true. It’s a very fluid process, always changing in one way or another. Sometimes I’ll write the guitar and lyrics at the same time, through some stream of conscience channel. Other times I’ll be diddling around on the guitar and think, “hey that’s a pretty cool chord progression, I’m gonna remember that”. I can recall the process for every song i’ve written, though I can never predict that process for future songs.    I really like your version of ‘Help Me Make It Through The Night’ what does that song mean to you and what made you decide to put it on the record?  During the time period I was writing this album I became obsessed with a video performance I found on YouTube. It was Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge performing ‘Help Me Make It Through The Night’ on The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1972. The way Rita sings her parts are what initially fascinated me. Then I learned that Sammi Smith’s performance of the song is what gained it mainstream popularity, while also ostracizing her from the Nashville country music scene. I guess folks thought that song was too “suggestive” for a woman to be singing, so she found her way into the Outlaw music world because of that. Anyway, I just love Kris Kristofferson’s writing, and this song specifically is so simplistic and leaves a lot of room for listener interpretation. It made it onto my record because it fits the album’s sentiment completely.  My favourite song on the record is ‘Barbed Wire’ can you tell me the story behind that song please?  ‘Barbed Wire’ is about the trope of the American cowboy. Lonely, isolated, continually heartbroken—but distracted from their hardship with a never ending amount of hardwork.  When you perform are you completely focused or do you let your mind wander, we call it your mid-gig thoughts?  I am completely focused when I’m performing, I have to be or else I stumble. I try to transport myself back to the emotion I felt when I wrote the song, it’s a bit like acting in a sense. I think the day I start writing a mental grocery list during my performance is the day I’ll be reassessing my relationship to my material.    What’s next for you?    A lot of touring is in my future! When I’m not on the road I’ll be at my place in Montana writing a new album and enjoying the mountains.     

Kris James’ debut solo album has been four years in the making after his band, The Scheme broke up when they were on the brink of making it big time. James, heartbroken by the collapse of the project he’d worked tirelessly on turned to music as he always did as a way of getting through. The result is this 10-track eponymous album.  James was always destined to perform from an early age, “The first time I performed, I was a colour in a play in primary school and we had to sing the rainbow song, everybody was a colour of the rainbow but nobody else would sing their colour so I ended up singing the whole song. It’s never been something that I had to be educated on, it was just something that came naturally to me. I got A* in Drama and Music and everything else I was rubbish at.” James begins. Growing up he was in a number of bands and after leaving school he went to drama school. “Whilst I was in drama school I was given the opportunity to go to London to audition for Universal. They said if I could drop drama school they’d put me in this boy band. The drama school said they’d allow me to leave as long as I came back and finished my degree, which I never did because I’ve never really stopped doing it as a job.”  James’ experience as part of The Scheme has been vital in influencing his direction as a solo artist. “I went into that band, we toured the US, we wrote a record in Germany and we had a couple of line-up changes but we’d been going for seven years, writing some great songs, my confidence on stage had improved and we toured with some great US and English bands. We went all the way to America, got signed by a big label and management deal and then they decided we’d make a record out there. So we went to Minneapolis and we worked with a producer called John Fields, who is basically the guy that made the Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato – super mega stars. We were out there for three months, and we didn’t know but our pianist had met a girl out there. We recorded half the record and we were going to go back in the new year to finish it with this GRAMMY award winning producer. But Kyle said, ‘you won’t see me again’, he wanted to settle down and have a family with this girl so we ended up getting dropped from the label.”  James channeled his sadness over the breakup of his band into his music and reached out to the label to release some of the songs he’d been working on with Fields under his own name. The song ‘Eyes Open’ featured on this record is one of those songs. “It’s about when everyone says this person is no good for you but you keep trying to make it work and eventually you see that maybe they weren’t great for you after all.” The song was a success on the charts for James, “I didn’t know what to expect and then all of a sudden I was getting messages from the official Top 40 charts!” After the release of ‘Eyes Open’ he reflected on what had happened with the scheme, “Without that happening, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” James says positively.   When it comes to the songs on this album, he focused on making the stories he told relatable. “I’m writing songs as an outlet for me but I’m mindful of other people too because I know the strength of music as a way of helping other people. There’s a song I wrote called ‘Unhappy Anniversary’, nobody ever talks about Unhappy Anniversaries like when you’ve lost somebody, whether you’ve lost a family member or you’re not with that person you thought you would always be in a relationship with, like your first love. So for me it’s personal because it’s somebody that I’m not with anymore who I really miss. But to you it could be about the death of one of your family members or friends. I want to write so people can take something from it, especially at this time, we can help everybody through music.”  After four years of hard work, Kris James is ecstatic to be releasing this record, celebrating with an album launch show this month in his home city of Liverpool and a vinyl launch early next year. His positive attitude and zest for life has paid off and he now plans for the year ahead, teasing some big tour plans. “I can’t really say any names yet, but we’re going to be touring with some really cool people!” 

The Australian duo President Street have been enjoying touring around the UK and Europe in recent weeks. Their sound has shifted a lot with the release of their new record ‘Heartbreak Player’ from their acoustic beginnings we now hear a heavily produced, electronic-pop sound. Ruby and Pete spoke to me about the new release and this change in direction. “Our first EP had more rock and country elements to it,” Ruby begins. “We’ve been songwriting together a lot more since then and it’s just gradually moved to a more pop direction.” Pete continues, “We might have had a few different voices in our ears for the first EP and then over time, as we put out those voices around us and just listened to the two of us, we naturally ended up drifting into the space that we are now.”  The pair write all their songs 50/50 and though each track on this latest EP has a catchy hook and beautiful melodies, the pair don’t have a set process for how they write. “We don’t have one specific formula,” Pete says, “Some will start with a fun lick on guitar or it might start with a lyric or Ruby might have a melody in her head that she sings out. One of the things that we’re very focused on is we’re not writing with an outcome in mind, we’re just letting the songs write themselves in a way. We focus on finding the emotion we’re trying to capture and on the storytelling side of it. Overall, the energetic journey of the song is really important as well. We want people to feel strong and uplifted after listening to our music.”  The title track and single ‘Heartbreak Player’ is an up-beat track littered with hooks, “It was a fun one to write,” Ruby says with a smile. “Lyrically it’s a little bit cheeky. It’s about the juxtaposition between reality and fantasy in love and giving yourself that bit of a pep talk to hopefully make some better choices than what you may have been making in the past.” When it came to bringing the song to life in the studio the pair were excited by the possibilities. “We felt we had something special when Ruby came up with the pre-chorus in the studio, the lyric, the melody – we just knew we had something with that vocal line.”  For this latest tour they have utilised technology in their live performance to create a really special show. “We decided to use a loop pedal. Obviously coming over to Europe is a big exercise, last time, we played acoustically but we were playing much bigger venues this time so we wanted a bigger sound that fitted the venues. We wanted to push ourselves so we’ve completely recreated our live set-up. It’s more dynamic and energetic and a lot of fun for us to play.”  Even as they continue this European tour, Ruby and Pete are already looking ahead to next years touring plans, “We’re back on tour in the UK next April and May,” Pete says. “That’s going to be across all of the UK, it’s quite a big tour so we’re looking at trying to release an album to coincide with that” he teases.  

When did you first know you wanted to be a musician?  I knew from a pretty young age that I wanted to do music. I grew up in a family of musicians. My dad was a producer, I grew up going to the studio with him. So I was always around musicians. He ended up building us a studio by our house, we lived out in the country in Alabama. My older brother, he played guitar, bass and drums, and I was always in bands with him. Then my two little sisters, they also are into music as well, they both sing and play instruments. So it was just like in our blood from the very beginning. As soon as I graduated high school, I went straight into signing my first record deal when I was 18 and it’s been a pretty wild journey ever since.  You mentioned your dad’s work there, what did your parents play to you growing up?  I grew up on a lot of gospel music, Kirk Franklin and CeCe Winans. Church music was like a huge thing, that’s how I initially started singing and playing music in my church growing up. I was really influenced by that. Now I’m influenced by all kinds of different music, all kinds of different genres, and just different artists.   I really love the originals on this record, what’s your songwriting process like?  I’m always singing melodies, melodies come first for me. I’ll just record it on my voice memo on my phone, then that will sometimes spark an idea. I’ll take it into a session with a producer or other co writers and we’ll just kind of start vibing. I also have a list of titles in my phone, so when I can’t think of anything, I’ll just go to my titles. It depends on who I’m working with, as well. So for this Christmas album, it was very interesting, because I wanted to write originals that also stood in line with the covers. When I think of Christmas, the music that I listened to around Christmas is like the classics, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby. When I wrote these originals for the Christmas album, I wanted them to sound like they came out of that era.  My favourite song on the record is ‘Sentimental’, tell me the story behind that song?  I wrote sentimental with a few people in Nashville, Tennessee, in May or June, it was very hot. My mind has been in holiday mode, even though it’s been hot outside. I go into the studio, and we have this TV monitor and we put the virtual fireplace on Netflix, you feel instantly cosy. We just started talking about Christmas, I explained my vision, wanting it to feel still very classic and timeless. Someone in the room said the word sentimental. And I was like, Yes, that’s the title of the song, let’s build everything around that title. I wanted to create something that gives you that magical, warm, cosy feeling of Christmas. It’s my favourite song on the Christmas album, so I’m glad you asked about that one.  I love the arrangement that you’ve used, you had a live Jazz band, tell me what it was like working with them?  The way that I make music on a daily basis is mainly keyboard and a guitar and then everything else is programmed. With this record, I knew in order for it to be that nostalgic sound, we needed the real thing. So we rented out a studio in Nashville, with an amazing grand piano and we decided to bring live professional jazz musicians into the studio. We had done some pre-production so we knew the vision of the songs and they gave the songs one, maybe two listens and they just nail it first time. Like, they nail it the first time. It just adds so much, there’s this realness to it that you don’t get from a computer.  Are there any Christmas traditions you had when you was younger that you’ve kept up in adult life?  I think as far as traditions go, the one thing that I think about is food. That’s just something that we always have to have, the same meal on Thanksgiving and Christmas. I love to cook and so I have this recipe that I found with this Sous Vide cooking method. So I started making beef tenderloin for Christmases. I’m the one that makes it now which usually, I wouldn’t be the cook but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve just kind of taken that on. We have all the sides like brussel sprouts and potatoes and pumpkin pies and cheese cakes. We’re just always cooking and baking, that’s my favourite tradition to do with my family and my friends. Put the vinyl on and eat good food.  What’s your favourite Christmas present that you’ve ever received?   Growing up, I always told my parents, I want a Barbie car. That was the ultimate Christmas present as a kid. What’s funny is my parents never got me a Barbie car, instead, every Christmas they would give me a microphone or a karaoke machine or a keyboard. Everything was musical instruments. Then my sisters got the Barbie car, but I will say, I’m so thankful that my parents kept giving me musical instruments because I used that, obviously, up until now. I’m still using those same keyboards and some of the things that they bought me when I was a kid, because that’s what brought me here.  What’s next for you?  I’m in LA right now working on my next album. I’m always like thinking six months to a year ahead. I’m hoping to get some new music out pretty early next year, maybe the spring. I had to force myself to rest the past couple of months, just because I’ve been going so hard. I feel like I’m back in the flow, I’m inspired again, and I’m writing

Country Music’s Biggest Night™ is getting even bigger as the Country Music Association has announced presenters for “The 55th Annual CMA Awards.” Hosted by Country Music superstar and “American Idol” judge Luke Bryan, “The 55th Annual CMA Awards” will broadcast LIVE from Bridgestone Arena in Nashville Wednesday, Nov. 10 (8:00-11:00 PM/ET) on ABC. This year’s CMA Awards presenters include Trace Adkins, Ingrid Andress, Kelsea Ballerini, Deana Carter, Lauren Daigle, Russell Dickerson, Faith Fennidy, Florida Georgia Line, Freddie Freeman, Amy Grant, Dulé Hill, Alan Jackson, Elle King, Lady A, Zachary Levi, Scotty McCreery, Hayley Orrantia, Katy Perry, Lionel Richie, Darius Rucker, Susan Sarandon, Saycon Sengbloh, Kurt Warner, Lainey Wilson, and Trisha Yearwood. With 20 unforgettable performances from some of the biggest names in music, “The 55th Annual CMA Awards” is not to be missed. Artists taking the CMA Awards stage include Jason Aldean and Carrie Underwood, Jimmie Allen, Gabby Barrett, Dierks Bentley feat. BRELAND and HARDY, Brothers Osborne, Luke Bryan, Eric Church, Luke Combs, Dan + Shay, Mickey Guyton feat. Brittney Spencer and Madeline Edwards, Jennifer Hudson, Miranda Lambert, Old Dominion, Carly Pearce and Ashley McBryde, Thomas Rhett, Blake Shelton, Chris Stapleton, Keith Urban, Chris Young and Kane Brown, and Zac Brown Band. “The 55th Annual CMA Awards” is a production of the Country Music Association. Robert Deaton is the Executive Producer, Alan Carter is the Director and David Wild is the Head Writer.

Global country music superstar Brad Paisley will launch “American Highway” Bourbon this month, a whiskey aged in barrels stored in a 53-foot semi-trailer that followed his 2019 nation-wide tour for 7,314 miles across 25 states, from coast to coast.  “Bourbon is like songwriting, it’s a blend of things coming together to make something incredible,” said Paisley. “These are really special barrels that saw more of the United States than most people I know.”   The fluctuating climate of the barrels’ journey expanded and contracted their staves, imparting oak and char that cultivate the characteristics flavors of America’s native spirit. This well-traveled batch was then blended with three-year, 13-year and 15-year-old Kentucky bourbons to create the final product. The next batch, to be released in 2022, was aged on the Rolling Rickhouse during Paisley’s 2021 tour.  Paisley sums up the creative process that derived his bourbon: “It’s so similar to what goes into a great guitar. The right woods, the right craftsmanship, the right alchemy that makes this intangible, magical thing, and that’s what makes this so great to me.”  “American Highway’s” literal path-to-market wasn’t the only unique aspect of its creation: Rather than just sourcing whiskey and lending a celebrity name to it, Paisley worked closely with award-winning bourbon distiller Bardstown Bourbon Company to create the final blend. Located in Bardstown, Kentucky the “Bourbon Capitol of the World,” this modern bourbon distiller creates custom whiskey, bourbon and rye for more than 30 different brand-owners worldwide and has won critical acclaim for its releases.  Paisley collaborated with a team of experts at Bardstown, including VP of New Product Development Dan Callaway. “You don’t get to see many celebrities that have such a technical palate,” shared Callaway. “It was a super collaboration that resulted in a travelled bourbon in an exemplary expression.”  Callaway describes the bourbon as “A blend of four rye-forward bourbons ranging in age from 3 to 15 years. The flavor profile is incredibly unique. Subtle, complex, spicy, well-traveled. As we like to say, it was, ‘born in Kentucky, aged across America’.”  With just 30,000 bottles of the initial release produced, the 96-proof blend has a suggested retail price of $99.99.