- "Shaped by Sound" combines performance and conversation to capture the depth of the North Carolina music scene.

If you were to take bluegrass from the Blue Ridge and combine it with the honky-tonk of Tennessee, you might find yourself listening to the Asheville-based group Town Mountain.

The band and their sound have evolved over the years, but at their core, they remain a group filled with blue-collar grit and a deep love for their native Asheville.

Today on the "Shaped by Sound Podcast," Phil Barker and Robert Greer of country rock outfit Town Mountain.

All right, so I've got Robert and Phil here from Town Mountain.

How y'all doing?

- Doing great, James.

How are you?

- Great.

Thanks for being here.

- Thanks for doing the show.

We're so excited to have you.

- Thanks for having us.

- Yeah, so I kinda wanna start off from the beginning.

Y'all are from North Carolina, is that right?

And whereabout?

- Asheville.

- You're from Asheville.

And Phil?

- Yeah, we make our home in Asheville.

Originally I'm from Greenville, South Carolina.

- Cool.

So, very close, - Very close.

But I've been in Asheville long enough to call it home now.

- Yeah.

Cool.

And it seems like the beginning of this story starts with Town Mountain, on Town Mountain.

Can you talk to us a little bit about that?

- Sure.

I was living at the base of Town Mountain back in like '05, '04, with my brother and a guy who used to play banjo in our band, Jesse Langlais.

And we had started playing around, playing some tunes and playing some music and taking it on the road a little bit and we needed a band name.

And there we were, and we were real proud of where we were from there in Asheville, North Carolina, and it was just like a natural thing, man, Town Mountain.

We were kind of sitting around talking about it and it was square edged and seemed to make perfectly good sense.

- Yeah.

What was it like, like, what's it like on Town Mountain?

- Well, down there at the base of Town Mountain, it was right on Charlotte Street, I think.

Up in the top in the hills of Town Mountain, there's a lot of doctors and lawyers who live up there.

But Town Mountain Road will take you all the way up to the Blue Ridge Parkway and it's beautiful up there.

- Yeah.

And I think the governor's got a residence up there, right?

- That checks out, yeah.

[James and Robert laugh] - So what kind of drew you then, what drew you to the Asheville music scene then?

- There were people moving to Asheville who were around our age, who were, for one reason or another, were moving there instead of moving to Nashville, Tennessee.

The Steep Canyon Rangers had relocated there from Chapel Hill.

I grew up in Brevard.

I was interested, I'd been living in Virginia and been away from North Carolina for about 10 years and then just wanted to move back.

And those guys who moved to Asheville, I'd been coming down to Asheville, hanging out with them a bunch from my teaching job up in Virginia.

And it just seemed like there were a bunch of kindred spirits there and it was a natural pull and wanted to be part of that scene that was happening there.

- Yeah.

So you were a teacher?

- I was just briefly, yeah.

- [James] What were you teaching?

- I was teaching US history to high school juniors.

- Ooh, so AP US History?

- No, it was at a, [chuckles] it was at a boarding school in Virginia, in Lynchburg, Virginia.

- Whoa.

- Yeah.

- I just imagined you as sort of like a Robin Williams but for history.

- I didn't really, I wasn't very good in the classroom.

I'm not gonna lie to you.

I was more of a guy if you had a group of students who wanted to go, who wanted to go snow ski somewhere, I'd load up the van and take those guys somewhere.

But, yeah, that was more my thing.

And I feel like, yeah, it was short lived.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- You're more made to be a musician than teach history.

- I think so.

Yes, absolutely.

- I guess you can teach history in a different way if you wanted to.

- Yeah.

[chuckles] - And Phil, so you said you were from Greenville, South Carolina.

What brought you to Asheville?

- The same thing, just the vibrant picking scene up there.

You know, I'd never been around other people my age that were into that music.

It was mostly older folks that I'd come across.

So just seeing that many people interested in bluegrass and traditional music and just the overall scene in Asheville, the arts community, everything was super vibrant and just wanted to be a part of it.

- Yeah, so you saw sort of a community forming that was something that you wanted to be a part of?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

What was it like for you to find that?

- It was exciting.

It was a lot of fun.

Every night, you'd go to the jam or whatever, you learn a new tune from somebody, or you hear a song that you're like, "Oh, gosh, I gotta go home and work on that.

Or like, just like constantly being engaged with that kinda music, it was just a lot of fun.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- So for both of y'all, do you feel like there was sort of like an Asheville sound, so to speak, that was forming?

- When we were there in the middle of it, I didn't think of that.

The first time I spoke with somebody in radio, the person who was doing the interview talked about that and I asked her what it was.

I didn't know what she was talking about, you know?

But I think maybe, I didn't think about it.

Did you think about that?

- No.

[James laughs] - It was a little, and I asked her what what she thought, what is the Asheville sound?

I asked her.

She was from D.C. - [James] Yeah, oh, okay, well, that's- - And she said it was raw and not slick, a little more unpolished, and, you know, I was like, "Yeah, absolutely."

That all... - That sort of seems like a backhanded compliment.

- Yeah, hey.

I'll take it.

- Like, raw, unpolished, and not slick.

Well, yeah, I was just asking because it seems like you were kind of drawn to these, you know, bluegrass musicians that were also up there doing the same thing.

And there also seems to be a very diverse community of just artists period in Asheville, and it's definitely gone through, like, waves, right?

So do you, like, kind of talking to that, do you think that a certain place can influence the music that you're making specifically?

Like, do you think you can make your music anywhere else beyond where you were?

- I feel like probably, but the inspiration would be different.

I feel like as a more mature musician now and having lived there and been around, those hills are inspiring and, you know, Doc Watson's not too far away and Earl Scruggs is not too far away.

And there's lots and lots of great musicians there who nobody's ever heard of and it's all over.

You feel it.

And it certainly helps and it is inspiring to make music in those Western North Carolina hills.

So, yeah, you could probably make it somewhere else, but it's real natural there.

- Maybe it gives you, like, more of a reverence for the tradition a little bit, just knowing how you're kind of immersed in it.

- Yeah.

And do you feel like it's sort of attainable too, right?

Like, versus, say, being in somewhere like Nashville or, you know, anywhere else where- - What do you mean attainable?

- Well, I guess like, do you feel like it's easier to connect within that scene versus say, like, somewhere that's a lot larger where you're a small fish in a massive pond?

- It's just a different pond.

Like, there's the Shindig on the Green in Asheville.

I remember going to that when I first moved to town and just like, you're seeing the old timers, they're still coming out there and playing and generations that are getting in circles and picking.

So it's like, you see how community-based it can be and where that kind of thing's not happening in Nashville.

It's all about business, it seems like.

So maybe you get a little more of the human side of it in Western North Carolina, and you can appreciate the tradition in that sense.

- Yeah, do you think that music can create a sense of place?

The reason why I ask that is like, you know, you hear bluegrass and you go, "Wow, like, this reminds me of, say, Wilkesboro or somewhere."

Do you think that music can provide a sense of place?

- Sure.

I mean, well, there's accents.

- Yeah.

What do you mean by that?

- I mean, just the way people sing and the way people talk comes through in their music.

But, like, in the bluegrass scene, you can definitely tell, I mean, like a California bluegrass band or a D.C. bluegrass band versus like a East Tennessee bluegrass band.

There is ways, once you get into it, you can hear the nuances, but, you know.

- What are those nuances?

- The whole sounds.

[all laugh] - It's like kinda what we were touching on earlier, maybe northwestern North Carolina people play with a little, play a little bit louder and hit their instruments a little bit harder because they're need to cut through a clogging band or something.

You know, it's like that kind of thing develops, or, like, people are more focused on harmony, three-part harmony in certain areas, or, I don't know, man, there's just like, you can kind of hear it as you start, as you start getting into it, you hear the nuances maybe of place, but it's a hard thing to describe really.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, and not just bluegrass music in a sense of place, but, you know, whenever we roll into someplace like New York City, I immediately wanna listen to David Byrne.

You know, so sense of place and all different types of music can take you, music can take you there.

And if you're missing a spot, you can turn on some music if you're homesick and those sounds.

- Exactly, yeah.

That's one of the things that I feel like I come back to a lot, right?

Is if I wanna recall a memory or something even, like, I'll play a certain kind of music and I feel like I just go right back to it.

So beyond y'all, you know, starting in bluegrass, kind of having the band form, I do want to step back just a bit.

How did you all meet?

How did the two of you meet?

- I mean, we moved to Asheville I bet within a year or two of each other.

And I mean, it was as natural as breathing, meeting people who were around our same age and all the picking parties that were going on and the jams that were going on.

And Asheville was quite different then than it is now, you know?

And broke musicians were living in areas and homes and neighborhoods that are gentrified now and are, you know, single-family homes.

And we were, you know, everybody was doing everything they could it seemed like to avoid a straight job.

And, you know, so as a result of that, there were a lot of opportunities to hang out in our downtime.

And we did and we met.

It was a small scene.

It's a small town already.

And then the acoustic music scene within that is much smaller and, you know, we met quickly and easily.

- Did you have a moment where you were just playing together and it just kind of clicked?

- Yeah, we moved in, we were living in this neighborhood off of Charlotte Street, and Phil moved into that neighborhood and we lived right across the street from each other.

And so then we were just playing, you know, we were playing music a lot, you know, and life's about timing, and so he was playing with an outfit and our mandolin player that we were playing with in the infant stages of the band bowed out and his thing, Phil's thing that he was working with was coming to an end and it was just, you know, it just made perfectly good sense.

It happened real easy and organically.

- Cool.

- Yeah.

- Phil, what was it like to kinda just jump into the group?

- It was great.

You know, I'd been playing in a trio mostly and we weren't specifically playing bluegrass, so it felt great to have, you know, a five-piece band, just the power of a five-piece bluegrass band.

It was just a lot of fun.

And just so happened everybody in the band was a lot of fun to hang out with too, so made it easy and, yeah.

- That's awesome.

And I wanna talk a little bit about that evolution of the band a bit.

So you all were sort of founded in this bluegrass and Americana and folk and sort of you've evolved a little bit beyond that.

Can you sort of speak to that expanding outside of Bluegrass?

- Yeah, yeah.

You know, when the band first started, we were kind of, there was a big bluegrass renaissance phase going on.

And, you know, none of us, I feel like I can, none of us really grew up as bluegrassers, you know?

And we've always had a lot of different influences, musical influences.

Your Ramble On Rose hat there is like, one thing we can agree on is the Grateful Dead.

And I think as we've also, you know, we pride ourselves on writing original music.

Phil's a prolific writer and our albums showcase our original songwriting.

And I think as we grew, you know, matured as a band, the writing started, we started writing tunes, we were getting better at writing tunes that fit our style and played to our strengths.

- Yeah.

- And we were also never, you know, when we were a five-piece bluegrass band traveling like that, we would play bluegrass festivals and we didn't sound like anybody else.

You know, the other bands were slicker than we were and they'd probably been playing bluegrass music since they could walk.

- [James] Right.

- And, you know, they're playing heirloom instruments and stuff that'd been handed down to 'em.

But in that mix, we had something to offer and I liked that we embraced our difference and how we didn't sound like everyone else.

And music was, I mean, when you say music, we started writing music that was more like a classic country kind of vibe and a rock blues kind of vibe.

And we didn't have any drums.

And I feel like the music that we'd been writing just kind of evolved.

You mentioned the evolution, which is exactly what it is, and, you know, we kind of didn't shut out any ideas.

And we used a drum every now and then on a recording and then we were just, we were like, "Eh, we need to maybe think about hiring a drummer," and kind of middle fingering to the rule, what is acceptable in bluegrass music.

And as we matured, we were like, "Yeah, what is acceptable is, bluegrass music is not acceptable for us and we wanna do what we want to do."

And that kind of, wouldn't you say that kind of fed into some of the evolution of the band?

- For sure.

Yeah, definitely.

I think it's like we got to the point where it's like, if we want to keep doing this, we need to make the music that we wanna make.

We can't keep trying to fit our music into this other box.

And that's okay.

You know, for the longest time, we were kinda conscious of the rules of bluegrass, and then it's like, wait a second, music doesn't have rules.

Let's just see what we can come up with.

And, yeah, every time we would add drums on a track, we were like, "Yeah, this sounds awesome."

- [James] Yeah.

- And then it's like, "Okay, well, let's just try to do it with the drummer."

And then, you know, when Jesse had to step away from the band, adding pedal steel, we were like, "Let's embrace this country side of the music and see where that goes."

And, you know, it's all about exploring artistically, you know, what kind of music you can come up with.

And, for me, continuing to challenge myself as a songwriter and try to come up with something new, you know, not keep writing the same song over and over again.

- Yeah, that must have been sort of exciting for you all to step outside of this sort of box in a way and just say, "We can make whatever we want," and just kind of let the wind take you where you want to go.

- Yeah, it's exciting for us.

You know, it's difficult for, you know, some people had difficulties with it.

They want us to continue to be this one thing and, you know, it's not as easy to market or know where to book it, you know, and it's not exactly what people call bluegrass anymore.

But at the end of the day, it's gotta be something that we're passionate about doing.

- Yeah, and it does seem like the traditional bluegrass barriers are breaking in a lot of senses.

I mean, you have people like Billy Strings out there playing a acoustic guitar as an electric guitar and doing all sorts of things.

So it seems as like you're kind of just breaking out and doing your own thing, which seems exciting.

- Yeah, I mean, bluegrass is still a young music when it comes right down to it, you know?

I mean, what, was it founded in the '40s, you know?

- I guess so, yeah.

- So, like, jazz music is young music and they're gonna be, when people started playing bebop in jazz, the jazz purists were like, "That is not jazz," and they called it bebop.

Well, what do we call it now?

We call it jazz music.

And so music's gonna breathe, it's gonna grow, it's gonna evolve, and there's always gonna be people who embrace that and there's always gonna be people who say, "Oh, that's not, you know, that ain't no part of nothing."

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- I wanna ask you a little bit how not having these genres and just kind of going into a live show, like, what is that like for y'all?

I mean, it seems like you can go wherever you'd like.

- Yeah, it's kinda, we don't really know.

It depends on what the audience is there for.

You know, sometimes the audience, if we're playing a bluegrass series, they're there maybe expecting something a little more traditional and that can be, you feel like you gotta win 'em over or something like that.

So it's like, we run the gamut.

And then there's other times when we're playing a festival dance tent and it's like, "We were made for this scene right here.

This music is dance music," and it's maybe a little more effortless to connect.

- [James] Yeah.

- So each night is different a lot of times, depending on the scene.

- Can you sort of expand on that scene that you like to play to?

- I feel like we thrive in a scene that is not seated.

[Phil and James laughs] And maybe, you know, the music that we seem to gravitate towards is music that gets people moving and we want to interact on that level and we want that energy exchange.

We don't wanna be just putting out all this energy and then not getting anything in return.

- [James] You want people dancing.

- Oh, yeah.

- Yeah.

- Ideally, yeah.

[James laughs] - And what does that do for you all when you do see that, when people are up and they're active and they're really enjoying it?

Like, what does that do for you on stage?

- It's really fun.

- Yeah, not much.

I mean, just validates your life's work.

- Yeah.

Validates your life's work.

- No big deal.

- No big deal.

[James laughs] No, that's what it's all about, for me at least.

Like, when you have the connection, that's why you do it.

- Has there been moments where you approach a show and you're like, "I'm not really sure how this is gonna go," and all of a sudden you play one and people are, like, down and- - [Phil] Yeah.

- Okay, here we go.

- Yep.

And that's a pleasant surprise.

- I bet.

- For sure.

- Yeah.

- Sometimes people don't, sometimes you'd be surprised, man.

Sometimes audiences don't know how to listen to music.

If they don't, if people, [Robert sighs] I'm trying to be diplomatic here, but at the same time, it's like, it's not their fault.

It's just not everyone goes to hear live music and sometimes there's a, you know, maybe there's a concert series somewhere that is supported by people who have donated money to that concert series to help get acts there, to help pay the crew and all that, to rent the place.

And those people support the, for whatever reason, some audiences are better and more accustomed to listening to live music than others are and those places tend to be a little more fun and a little more rewarding, gratifying, to play music for, for one reason or another.

- I've heard that y'all have some really fun Western North Carolina shows, that people show up for you all out there.

- Definitely.

- What is that like?

I mean, I've heard about it, but I haven't been to one, so.

- Are you talking specifically hometown shows in Asheville?

- Yeah, I mean, I've just heard from people that, hey, if you catch them out in Western North Carolina, it's something different and people just get energized by it.

- Well, those are all our homies over there.

And there's something to be said for a hometown show.

And there was something to be said, like, people say, there was always something to be said for a California show with the Grateful Dead, especially, you know, in the Bay Area.

And so I think that that is something that most bands and acts experiences in their hometown, you know, there's a little different energy there.

- Yeah, you think people show up a little bit different for that?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

They come in, they know everybody's names, and they're hollering and they're ready to go and they're ready to see their boys perform and we're ready to throw down for them too and perform for them.

That's always a kick in the pants.

- Speaking of that Western North Carolina scene, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about Helene, right?

And how so many people were affected by that.

Obviously the arts community drastically affected by that as well.

And I know that you all sort of had to deal with the effects of that, but also just keep going on tour, right?

- Mm-hm.

- What kept you going despite just, like, having to live through that?

- Well, we were fortunate to be able to go back to work.

- Yeah.

- Our work takes us out of town.

And I feel like it was the thing to do.

If we were gonna go back to work, the thing to do was to represent what had just happened and have some sort of, do what we could to help make that, to benefit Western North Carolina.

Should probably let Phil talk more about this than me because I wasn't there.

I was out of town.

I came back into town to meet the guys for a run and saw the devastation afterwards.

But it felt like the right thing to do to be in that situation, having the good fortune of being able to go to work.

And we need to go, we gotta go to work, man.

I mean, we gotta pay mortgages and rent and raise kids and stuff.

- Mm-hm.

Do you wanna speak to that, Phil, at all?

- Yeah, I mean, like Robert said, maybe we were representing, like, you know, the storm wasn't going to keep Asheville down.

We were kind of representing, like, we're gonna keep doing what we do.

And it wasn't an easy thing to leave town just with so many people hurting the way they were and...

But at the same time, yeah, we had bills to pay and had to take care of that and maybe just represent some normalcy in our worlds.

- And I'm also wondering too, I mean, you kind of spoke to it a little bit, but you all seem that you're representative of a working class here that's trying to get back to work period, right?

And just go out there and just do what you're normally doing.

But that new normal is just so difficult.

- Oh, yeah.

There's a big change over there, the feel, and, you know, I'm no political scientist, man, and I'm not a, you know, I'm not super tuned into a lot of that stuff, but what you see is they'll be feeling, the people there will be feeling the effects of that for some time.

And I think now it's like, the town is so, Asheville specifically, and it's not just Asheville.

Asheville made all the noise because that's the city.

- [James] Right.

- But some of those little river towns along the French Broad River and other, you know, creeks and hollers that people don't know, I mean, they got crushed and wiped off of the map and, you know, dams were broken and towns were flattened.

We're feeling the effects of it, we will feel the effects of it for some time.

And now the town hitched its ride to the service industry in a lot of ways and that's the big business in Asheville.

There's no big plants, not, you know, that type of stuff.

But there's a huge service industry.

- [James] Yeah.

- And now people gotta get back over there, going on vacation to Asheville, because the water ban is lifted and you don't have to boil water anymore and things like that.

And we have to go back to, people need to go back and start staying in the hotels that are there and going to eat at the restaurants and the service industry needs to get back up and running and back to business as usual.

And Asheville is open for business, folks.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Also sort of wanna talk to a little bit about performing up there again 'cause we need to go see shows up there again.

Right?

- Yeah, yes, yes.

The town has, they're thriving on tourism.

Double-edged as it may be, it's like the word is out about Asheville and Western North Carolina is a gorgeous spot.

It's one of the most beautiful places on earth, we think.

And people are drawn there and so, yeah, Asheville is open for business and get back over there and support The Orange Peel and other live music venues and all those great restaurants, 'cause that's where they're feeling it right now.

And it's like a, you know, it's like a big plant has been shut down and workers can't work and that is not sustainable.

- Yeah.

One thing I wanna talk to you about too is sort of the set that we've been able to work with you all on.

Early on, we were chatting with you all and asking, you know, like, what inspires you and what do you think that we could build sort of around you that kind of is a reflection of your sound, and Phil, I think you said to us a line where you were thinking, like, "I want to think about the working man's vintage."

Can you sort of explain that a little bit and how that's a reflection of the sound that you all make?

- Sure, I'd say maybe some of the, a lot of the songs that I've written kind of speak to that kind of idea of talking about the, pleading the case of the working man or whatever.

Just like these idea, these, like, struggle of making it in the world today, but in a bluegrass instrumentation context.

So there's always been like this juxtaposition of those two things.

So maybe like, you know, it's country music, but it has some of these more urban ideas about the struggle of surviving.

So I don't know, that was just kind of an idea that I had was us playing our music maybe in a, which can be thought of as country music, in this more urban setting.

So that's kinda where the set design idea started.

But you guys obviously took it to a much higher level and appreciate that.

- We heard that idea and ran with it.

Yeah, for sure.

But I just think it's interesting to kind of touch on, like, who you think your music is really sort of touching, right?

Like, who it's reaching.

- That's a great question.

I would like to know.

[James laughs] - At the end of the day, like, for me, I'm writing music, selfishly, that I'd want to hear, that I want to hear.

Like, I don't hear a lot of these stories being told so much in the country music context, you know?

It's like more about dirt roads and tailgates and stuff and, like, I don't know, just wanted to write about something real, or at least real feelings.

And maybe that's just something that I struggle with, is trying to find my place in the world and trying to survive doing what I do and hoping some people can relate to that.

- Yeah.

Robert, do you wanna speak to that at all?

- I think my dog over here took care of it.

He's the prolific writer anyway.

I mean, when I write something, I write about something that usually has happened and it's what I call a frying pan tune, you know?

I write that thing in about 10 or 15 minutes.

Phil cooks these things up, slow cooks 'em over months sometimes, you know?

- Low and slow?

- And I'm sure he has the occasional quick one too, but he's disciplined as a writer and diligent as a writer and gets up writing songs, you know, and schedules days to write songs.

I don't do that.

- Yeah.

- I wish I could.

I probably could.

I just choose not to.

- Mm, what's...

I'm sorry, go ahead.

- No, you go ahead.

- I was gonna say, like, frying pan tune?

- Just a quick song that gets, you know, like you cook a T-bone steak in a skillet real fast, you know, and hot.

- When do you know you've got that though?

- It hits me like a ton of bricks.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

And a lot of my songs that I've written are written fairly quickly, in an hour or two.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

Which I think is, that's pretty, some of 'em are much faster than that.

- [James] Yeah.

- Yeah.

- So how does it happen?

So you're like, you get struck by lightning and then you just jump on your guitar and just get it out?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or I'm in the van and something hits me or I'm, you know, yes.

I'm driving along there and I've got my iPhone.

You can hit voice memo and recite, you know, dictate into it.

Get home and put it down.

I mean, I usually, when I'm in that kind of headspace, I pretty much have the key in my head and the chords and everything is just kind of just happening quickly.

- Do you think there's songs just sort of floating around in the ether and you just happen to just, just connect with you just like that?

- I think there are experiences that are, and I think that there are, you know, that just kind of have to be hit over the head at the right time for it to take effect the way that, you know, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

And I can't force it.

I can't, yeah, yeah, I can't force it.

- Mm-hm.

So, Phil, when it's a slow burn though, how does that work for you?

- Oh, deep slow.

- Yes, a slow cook.

- I just find myself laboring over, I want to keep challenging myself to write a, I don't wanna say better song, but just, like, maybe just different.

I don't know why, but I just like keep wanting to push myself.

And I just know that there's a better line.

I just know there is, and that can be to my detriment sometimes as well.

But yeah, I'll generally get a phrase or something at the most random time, driving a lot of the time.

And usually it's just one line and I'll just grow either a chorus out from that or a verse or something, or I know I wanna say this in this way and then go from there.

And I usually have a phone full of melody stuff that I could pair it with.

So at this point, the slow part of the burn is the lyrics for me.

- [James] Yeah.

- Yeah.

I just continually try to push myself in that area and the people that I look up to, like, Townes Van Zandt or somebody, like, I want to be that good and I wanna challenge myself to try to get there.

- Yeah, so the slow burn is sort of a workshopping for perfection [chuckles].

- Yeah, I mean, a lot of times I'll write a song, it'll go through six or seven versions before I am like, "That's it."

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Wanna also speak to, the title of this show is "Shaped By Sound," with the idea being music can sort of help us with our identities as people, within our identities as a community.

And I'm curious, you know, how do you all believe you're shaped by sound?

- Well, I mean, shaped by sound, sound, music, is kind of, has definitely made me who I am.

Like, all my core, a lot of my core memories are around music growing up.

You know, I remember listening to my grandmother practice piano, and that was the first time I'd, she would play this one little phrase, just working on it over and over and over again.

And I remember that was the first time I'd seen someone, like, practice an instrument and that was an influence on me.

And then as I got older, the different things, like, my sister's record collection.

I remember the Rolling Stones greatest hit double fold, listening to "Paint It, Black" on vinyl.

Like, that's just something that I have and that was an influence on me.

So it's like, I always remember being connected to music, and I don't know why, it just made me feel whole.

And as I continue to grow, I'll just have these moments.

Like, the first time I discovered tablature, guitar tablature on the internet.

There's an endless trove of guitar tablature that you can learn how to play anything.

- [James] Yeah.

- It was like opening up this whole world and it just blew my mind.

And then, I mean, even as we, and then as we sat down here, I noticed I had this exact Tascam Porta 03.

- Oh, cool.

- That exact one in my bedroom.

- Wow.

Do you still have it?

- It got lost somewhere in the shuffle.

But that brings back a lot of memories.

I would spend hours on that thing just, like, experimenting with like, whoa, I can record over myself and make these songs.

- Yeah.

- It was really, really, it just made me feel whole.

I don't know, I don't really know how else to say it.

You know, I just always had this connection with music.

Like, it touched, it just made me feel complete and it goes to this deep emotion that I don't think anything else can touch, so.

And then I don't know why I ended up doing it for a living.

I just made a choice one day that it's the only thing that I really love to do.

- Do you feel like it's what you're called to do maybe?

- Maybe.

Maybe.

Maybe I haven't found the other calling yet, but at this point, yeah, I feel like I don't know what else I could do and feel the same way about it.

- Mm.

What about you, Robert?

- I mean, that was a great response, Phil.

Good answer.

And, I mean, music has become my life.

I've given my life to music and all that comes with it.

And I feel like, I mean, I learned how to, my dad was a Methodist minister and he loved to sing.

And, like, when ideas of theology and my outlook on religion were differing from my parents, we could sing in church and I didn't necessarily, you know, I wasn't there for the theology of the sermon as much as I was to share in that experience of being a 20-year-old kid and harmonizing with my parents on the pew at church.

And, you know, all that came with, like, being in children's choirs and chorus groups in high school and college and always loving music, always, you know, singing at the top of my lung when I'm driving down the road, or, you know, and always loving to sing.

It's always kind of been there.

I mean, we didn't grow up, I didn't grow up in a family that played every instrument in the book or, you know, it wasn't like that as much as it was just always in some sort of choir group and there's always music playing.

Now I'm singing songs to my pregnant wife, to our child in her belly, and, you know, and I believe that sound is a powerful sense and it has shaped what I've chosen to do as an adult.

And I assume as long as I'm still have fire in the belly that I will want to continue traveling the road and playing music, because it'll only work as long as I do have fire in the belly because you can't fake it in this business.

I believe that wholeheartedly.

I'll continue to make music as long as I feel like I can do it authentically and naturally.

Music has, I imagine in one way, shape, or form, it will always be central with me and, yeah, that's it.

I could go on about it.

I have a lot of feelings about it.

- It sounds as though that you've found a lot of harmony between people, not just within the music.

- Yeah, I mean, there has been, there've been times when the harmonies are a lot tighter and there've been times when the harmonies aren't as tight, but it just keeps coming back and it's always been a constant.

And sometimes it's more fun than it is other times, but I wouldn't change a thing, yeah.

- So I'd like to, at this time, sort of go through the set list with y'all, if that's okay, and go through some of the songs and kind of understand a little bit more about them.

And I'd like to start with "American Family."

- Okay.

That's a song that I wrote at a family gathering in Middle Tennessee a few years ago.

And it's, you know, I mean, it's not autobiographical, but it's kind of talks about dysfunction and how that, I mean, it basically is every family's a dysfunctional family and we just kind of, you know, how do you deal with that?

And this is just kind of embracing it and knowing that your family's got your back and we will overcome this dysfunction one way or another.

Deal with it very dysfunctionally and still as it goes on, which is life.

- Do you think there's some sort of stigma to, like, have a perfect American family?

- I think that if there is, that needs to be revisited because I think that there is no typical American family.

You know, it's just your family and, yeah, it's beautiful and probably maddening at the same time, you know?

But the idea that there is an American family that that isn't an American family and this is an American family, that's total BS, yeah.

That answer your question?

- Yeah, it does.

Yeah, it's good.

And then you all play that into "Flannery's Reprise," is that right?

- Yeah.

"Flannery's Reprise," that's a remake of an old fiddle tune called "Flannery's Reel," and that's a tune that Bobby's always liked to play.

We did a version of it on our third record and we did a covers EP up in Woodstock, New York, at Levon Helm's barn.

- [James] Oh, cool.

- And Bobby wanted to rework that song and he kinda came up with the different kinda arrangement and feel on it.

And it's a lot of fun to play.

It's got a deep groove and something we all try to get with.

- Yeah, it seems like you all get to really have fun with that.

- Yeah, it's a chance for the pedal steel to kinda explore the space and Bobby to explore the space, yeah, connect on the rhythmic level for the rest of us, yeah.

- And "Lines in the Levee?"

- The author's right here.

- Yeah.

You wanna talk to us about "Lines in the Levee?"

- Sure, yeah, "Lines in the Levee" is a tune about just impending change.

I think I wrote this, started writing this one around election cycle.

It just kinda like, feeling like maybe people's voices weren't being heard or that other people were kind of controlling the conversation.

And this is kind of a song kind of like rallying people to know that there's a change coming and having the hope that there's better times ahead and the dam's gonna break.

There's lines in the levee.

- Hmm.

Does it feel like that song now means sort of something similar to when you wrote it?

- Sure, history seems to repeat itself for certain themes and maybe it's still, change is still coming.

It's just slower than we thought.

And maybe it's, you know, but it's for whoever.

So it's just about feeling a change coming and just the potential in that.

- Mm-hm.

And "Made Of the Mountain."

- "Made of the Mountain."

I'll take that one.

"Made of the Mountain" is a, that's a song about home and missing home.

And particularly in Nashville, when you come back to town, most directions you come back to town, the first thing you see is the French Broad River.

And so it was kind of like, just kind of maybe a love song for the region and for the people there and it takes on a different weight after Helene.

So that's a really important song to sing for me.

And it's just about missing home and missing the community.

- Yeah.

And "Ruination Line."

- Phil wrote that song.

Phil, I mean, writes a lot of these songs.

It would be foolish for me to answer- - Oh, it's okay if you would like to, I mean, 'cause, I mean, you play the songs on the record.

- I can tell you about the, there's an evolution that this, at the very least, at the very least, "Ruination Line" is a glaring social commentary.

And we used to play it as a grass band.

It was on our, what was it?

Was it on "Steady Operator?"

Or, no, it's on, it's on "Heroes & Heretics."

So it's on our second record.

And it worked great as a bluegrass song.

It's always been one of my favorite songs to sing.

It gives Phil, the lead and the harmony vocals interact not only like in the verses.

And we put it on the shelf for a long time.

We haven't played it in years and recently brought it back, this is the first time we'll be performing it with drums and electric instruments.

And we changed it a little.

We changed the key.

No, we're keeping in the same key.

I changed the position I play it on the guitar.

It slowed it down a little bit, gave it a little different feel.

But as the writer, Phil can talk more about the tune, but it's a Town Mountain classic in my opinion.

- Yeah, "Ruination Line," I specifically remember, like, when I got the first version of that song, I had been, yeah, this was like probably 2007 or so, and I had been turned down for insurance for like the third time for a preexisting condition.

I had some heart thing when I was in high school and so I couldn't get insurance and that was not a good feeling and just feeling, and I was struggling in this construction job, like, not making any money and just trying to play music and that wasn't going so hot at the moment.

And, yeah, so I was just kind of feeling disenfranchised and just, like, wondering what I'm doing and just kind of stating how hard it was and there's, how hard it was to make your way in the world at that point in time.

- Yeah.

Does it feel sort of like now that you're here and you are playing music full time, does it feel like you got some redemption there in a little way?

- Yeah, in a little way.

You know, it's still tough to [chuckles] get insurance.

- [James] Yeah, it is.

- You know, afford it for sure.

So, yeah, there's some sentiments that remain, and I think most of 'em remain actually.

You know, it translates still.

- Yep.

- And "Comeback Kid."

- "Comeback Kid" is, that's one of those songs that grew out of one line.

I'll get this one line that I was like, "I wanna sing that."

And for me, that line is, "I just can't get my together."

- [James] Yeah.

- And it was another, like, moment in my musical journey where I was like, "God, this is not working right now and it's super frustrating."

And I was like, "Well, that would be pretty fun to sing in a song."

And so I started from there and just kind of drew on feeling alienated in my hometown when I tell people I'm a musician and they look at me like I'm an alien, you know, it's like people don't think that's a real career in certain circles.

So there's that sentiment.

And then it's like playing these gigs where we just played a pretty lonesome gig where part of the pay was a couple drink tickets, you know, so a couple drink tickets in a smoke-filled room, you know, just these scenes that you go through trying to do it.

And a lot of times in this business, at least for us, you can set your, your self-worth can be determined by the number of tickets you sell.

You know, and sometimes when that doesn't go so well, it can hurt.

And like, how do you come back from that?

How do you keep getting up there and giving people this, or telling people how you feel.

And, like, when it doesn't connect, how do you come back from that?

So that's kinda like, you gotta reach down deep.

- And we've got a Bruce Springsteen cover of "I'm on Fire."

- That song, "I'm on Fire," has long been one of my favorite Bruce Springsteen tunes and wanted to do it for a long time.

And now we have been doing it for a long time.

We put it on, before we recorded it, it's also on our second record, "Heroes & Heretics."

Before we did it, I've been singing it, we've probably been singing it in the band and live shows for a couple years.

And I feel like, you know, back then, we were a grass band and I feel like a lot of times, bluegrass bands, if you're gonna take a pop song or whatever, rock and roll song, and make it bluegrass, people think you have to play it 190 miles an hour.

And we've never, that has never been our, we were never inclined to think that way.

Take a tune like "I'm on Fire's" a great example and try to play it as much like the original version.

You know, we take some liberties in there.

I think we sang a extra chorus or something, but tried to maintain the integrity of the tune.

- What within that song spoke to you?

- I think there was Bruce Springsteen's, the sparseness, the melody, and I just was drawn to his just vocal delivery more than I would say the message or, you know, and a lot of times that's what music is, that's what draws me in.

I can listen to a song for years sometimes and not know the words.

And so it's a melodic chord progression thing, you know, that draws me in.

I think it was that same thing for me with "I'm on Fire."

And then we worked, like I said, we would play it live and people loved it.

The litmus test was a success and so we recorded it.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- What about "Down Low?"

- That was a tune that, it's become a great tune for us.

Jesse Langlais, former banjo player, founding member, dear friend, if you're listening out there, brother, he wrote that song with our friend Tyler Childers and Tyler came and sang it on the record.

He and Jesse sang it.

It would've been a killer song without that collaboration.

Certainly, Tyler helped that along big time.

And we have to play it every night, yeah.

A lot of these songs, "I'm on Fire's" the same way.

There's a couple more that we have to play.

And there are worse problems to have, you know?

- Right.

- Yeah.

- What's it like for you all to play those every night?

- It can be a challenge.

It can be a challenge, but at the end of the day, you have to know that the people in the audience haven't played this song every night, you know?

So at that point, it's bigger than you.

It's about doing something that, you know, these people paid money to come see you play.

So they want to feel like they've heard their favorite song, and their favorite song is usually one of about four.

So let's play 'em all.

And it can be a challenge, but at the end of the day, it's not about you.

It's about the experience of people in the audience.

- Great.

"Struck It Rich."

Is this a new one?

- No, it's not new.

- Okay.

- I wrote that song, what album was it on?

We've been playing it for years and we put it away.

In Town Mountain, and I'm not sure about, I won't speak to other bands, I think some bands probably experience this.

Songs run their courses with our band, run a course with our band, and we'll play some songs, we'd never stop playing, and then other songs, we'll put on a shelf for a while and then it'll come back and "Struck It Rich" is another one of those songs that we stopped playing for a while, and I think last spring kind of brought it back, changed the vibe on it.

We kind of, when I wrote it and we recorded it, we, you know, did our best to play it like as Larry Sparks or something would play it.

And it never really, like, I went back and listened to it not, you know, I think maybe when we started last spring and I was just like, "Dang, that is not the way that song, that doesn't jive well with the," we didn't perform it very well.

And the way we're doing it now is a lot more, has more of like a southwest Louisiana vibe to it.

And we love this band, Red Stick Ramblers, and I go down there and hang out with some buddies, you know, duck hunt down there and stuff and go, you know, Southwest Louisiana is an amazing place.

- [James] Yeah.

- And their musical culture, among other things, is really fascinating and vibrant.

- [Phil] What is "Struck It Rich" about, Robert?

- "Struck It Rich" is about, was written by my younger brother David and me, and it was written about our buddy.

It's written about this dude named Mike Catrino, who's one of the great characters of our lives and we love him.

And he grew up in a single-parent house and he has always, he's always been a go-getter.

And we came to know him in Asheville when we first moved there.

I think he was a student for about two and a half weeks at Warren Wilson College.

He's like, "I don't have time for this.

I got some money to make."

- [James] Yeah [chuckles].

- And so he started, you know, I think he was always getting into different ventures and he started a seafood business.

And then the next thing you know, he's like, you know, in a place where he was one of my first friends in Asheville that ambition took away from Asheville.

And we missed the hell out of that guy when he left but we've maintained a great friendship and now he's crushing it, you know, wherever.

And, you know, the song is about him and he always wanting to, he has achieved his goal.

And it couldn't happen to a better guy, you know?

So whenever we get to see Catrino, we've almost always put "Struck It Rich" in the set list and he loves it.

And he's probably due another tune at some point, you know?

But for now, "Struck It Rich" is a little anthem to Mike Catrino.

It's just, yeah.

- [James] It's a little anthem to hard work, huh?

- Yeah, man.

- And ambition.

- Yep.

- Is there anything that we haven't really had a chance to cover that you'd like to speak to or talk about?

- I feel like we've gone on the deep dive today.

- [laughs] Agreed.

- I don't know anything else we'd like to cover.

- In a much different way than I would've said before Helene hit the mountains of North Carolina, visit Asheville, North Carolina, folks.

Visit and visit often.

- Yeah.

- But, yeah, thanks for having us, James.

- Yeah, of course.

Thanks for being here.

We really appreciate it.

Thanks for joining us on the "Shaped by Sound Podcast."

If you'd like to hear some of the songs we discussed today, you can find them on our website, pbsnc.org/shapedbysound, or find us on the PBS North Carolina YouTube page.

Thanks for listening.