Los Angeles soul singer and guitarist Dylan Chambers, who’s back with his new single, “Don’t Give Up On My Love” (out now). The song was co-written with Greg Hein aka Aldae (who also co-wrote Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers,” the #1 song in the country right now), and is currently on editorial playlists Retro Soul (Spotify), Cocktail Bar (Apple) & Breakthrough Pop (Amazon).
“Acknowledging the highs and lows of romance, Karen Jonas returns with the piano-led folk ballad “Lay Me Down” from her forthcoming LP The Restless (out March 3).” – Americana Music Association
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Prolific Americana songwriter and guitarist David G Smith releases his 11th LP, Witness Trees on June 2nd, an album about equality, love, death and legacy. Throughout Smith’s storied career, he’s collaborated with Mary Gauthier and Grammy winner Keb’ Mo’, been covered by American Songwriter, No Depression, Music Row, The Tennesean and many more. His songs have been featured on TNT, Lifetime Network, and the Travel Channel, and he’s shared bills with folks like Justin Townes Earle, Griffin House, Rory Block, Dave Moore and Kelly Willis.
On Witness Trees, Smith moves from blues driven roots music that showcases his masterful slide guitar work, to more story-driven folk rock. It’s an album about recognizing the injustices of the world, looking to our future, and acknowledging that we can do better.
“I was thinking a lot about the next generation with this one,” says Smith. “I was thinking about Malala Yousafzai who was shot in the head by the Taliban for fighting for girls’ rights to education. I was thinking about Greta Thunberg fighting for climate justice. And… I was thinking about my own granddaughters, and the world I’m leaving for them.”
Album opener “River Gonna Talk” is a Mississippi blues call to climate action. Smith’s slapback vocals mesh with his powerful and emotive resonator slide guitar, is reminiscent of Duane Allman’s iconic slide work. It dances with Dan Mitchell’s Hammond B-3 in a way that just feels cool. There’s a universality in his lyrics, “Blue Jay he don’t know his song / Summer wind won’t keep me cool / Mother Earth what are we doing to you,” that reflects our symbiotic relationship with our planet.
“Weight You Carry” channels the raw delta blues energy of Blind Willie Johnson or Skip James, but with a bigger, more modern production brought to life by Smith’s twanging resonator guitar and Alicia Michilli’s haunting backing vocals. It’s a song that imagines the difficulty of coming out as LGBTQ+ to friends, family and others that might not take it well, and the weight that’s lifted when you’re able to live as your true self.
“How do you let people know?” asks Smith. “What’s that journey? I heard someone say during an interview, ‘You don’t know the weight you carry before you come out.’”
The title track “Witness Trees” carries the album’s theme of egalitarianism and fighting for the rights of the disenfranchised. The symbology of a tree looms large in the U.S. through the civil war, to lynchings, to modern day Jim Crow and the continuing fight for racial justice.
“Some trees have root systems that have lasted over 10,000 years.” says Smith. “How much of mankind’s poor treatment of each other have these trees witnessed?”
“Give Us Free” was inspired by the late civil rights activist and congressman John Lewis’ posthumous essay ‘Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation,’ and the provocatively titled “Women Are Not Equal” supports female equality.
“The album is a plea to recognize the past and, in many cases, the present, and own up to it,” says Smith. “We need to evolve into something better than where we’ve been and, in some cases, where we are. We can envision a better future.”
For “None of Em Dead” Smith relays, “We lost songwriters Bill Withers, David Olney and John Prine in 2020. This song is my offering to honor those songwriters who’ve come before me. I’m a link in a chain and happy to be a part of it.”
Smith may belong in the pantheon of the great storytelling songwriters that he sings about in this ballad. Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark and John Prine may no longer be on this Earth, but they live on through their songs. “Gone” was inspired by the Henry Van Dyke quote, “Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.” Smith found the quote on a pamphlet that he picked up at a friend’s funeral, and he has carried it with him for years.
The meditative and therapeutic “To Be Human” lightens the mood with an easy, lilting tune reminding us that we’re all human, that we should build bridges instead of looking for differences.
The only song Smith did not write for this album came from his friend Dave Moore, artist and leader of the Prairie Home Companion band in its early days. “Let’s Take Our Time and Do It Right” brings some levity to an album full of heavy songs. It’s about not getting caught up in the rat race, slowing down and taking the time to take care of each other. That appropriately leads into the gentle soft-rocker “Some Love,” about finding that classic love story.
Album closer “I Wanna Go Out,” co-written with Smith’s frequent collaborator Tom Favreau, is about doing what you love until your last breath. The song touches on the death of beloved songwriter David Olney who suffered a heart attack while performing on stage in 2020, and country legend and yodeler Jimmie Rodgers who passed away 30 hours after recording his last song. Its foot-stomping cadence is anchored by Smith’s signature dirt-funk style guitar lick, and interlocks with Michilli’s gospel backing vocals and Mitchell’s playful piano lines.
Smith played in bands for decades before going solo. He’s been a professional songwriter in Nashville, a full-time artist and family man in Colorado, and now is based out of his native state of Iowa. He’s voraciously recording and touring, frequently visiting his 2nd home of Nashville to write, record, and organize shows at The Bluebird Cafe to play music with his friends. This journey has led to collaborations with his heroes, and to playing his song “Doesn’t Take Much Light” (written with Dean Madonia) to an arena of 5000 Eagle Scouts. Smith says, “You never know where a song is gonna take you.”
“I want to make quality material and honor my own life,” says Smith, “while being as truthful and authentic as possible. That’s part of paying it forward.”
Paying it forward is at the core of everything Smith does, particularly with his Give-Back Series where he donates a portion of all money that comes in to local charities like homeless shelters and national charities like St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Witness Trees asks us to question our intentions in life. It’s an album about social justice, our time on this planet and what we leave behind. As Smith says, “It’s about our life, our contribution, our legacy.” Smith will continue touring until he can no longer, all the while giving back to the communities he visits, both financially and through mentorship programs. He’s a juried artist on Music for Life run by Paul Stookey (Peter, Paul & Mary) and his daughter, Liz. Witness Trees is built with the intention to inspire the next generation through music, and Smith is an artist who puts his money where his mouth is.
“People helping people may be the most important work in anyone’s life. I know it is for me,” says Smith.
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“VOLK fits somewhere within the same style of Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The White Stripes.” – Chorus.FM
VOLK / Stand the Test EP
VOLK is Nashville indie-rock duo Eleot Reich (drums, vocals) and Christopher Lowe (guitar, vocals). Their new EP, Stand the Test (out Apr. 28), delves into bluesy retro-futuristic dance punk, synthwave, new wave, and nostalgia-filled roller rink bangers. Their masterfully designed video for “I Fed Animals” is a cyberpunk spectacle of stylized street fights and music performance, shot partially on location in Tokyo.
Since meeting in Berlin in 2013 at a brothel-turned-bar called Madame Claude’s, VOLK’s work ethic can’t be questioned. Recording regularly, and spending more than half of the year on the road since their inception, has paid off. They’ve shared bills with The Dead South, Charley Crockett, Electric Six, Supersuckers, Diarrhea Planet and more. They’ve played festivals like SXSW and Mile of Music. And, they’ll be playing Muddy Roots Music Fest this September.
In their travels, VOLK connected with producer/sound engineer John Pedigo (Old 97’s, Joshua Ray Walker). They recorded “Stand the Test” at Modern Electric Sound Recorders in Dallas, and worked with him on the remixes and remasters that make up this EP. They’re currently in the process of completing their next full length album with Pedigo.
“Recording with John has been great,” says Reich. “We start from this emotional and raw place, true to our live sound, then build from there. For ‘Stand the Test,’ the song kept growing in meaning from when I wrote it, to going through Covid, then while recording, and now my partner just left me, and turned out to be a break-up song for myself that I wrote two years earlier.”
“Stand the Test” is a melancholy break-up song set against soothing indie rock hooks. Its hauntingly beautiful chorus gives you a feeling like you’ve known and loved this song your whole life. Lowe’s rich guitar compliments Christopher Tait’s (Electric Six) synth undertones and Matt Van (Electric Six) provides an infinitely danceable bassline. It has an ‘80s throwback vibe while being thoroughly modern, like it wouldn’t be out of place on a playlist with Cyndi Lauper and Sharon Van Etton.
“Touring with Electric Six taught us a lot and we all became friends,” says Lowe. “So, we knew we wanted to bring Tait and Matt on for this song and the next album. Tait came to one of our shows in Detroit after we’d already toured with him. He heard us play “Stand the Test” live and he really loved it. After recording, Tait wanted to take a crack at a remix. The Pedigo mix really kept vocals and drums forward, closer to our live sound. Chris had this vision in his head of this roller rink he went to as a kid called Rollerama, and he came from that place in his remix.”
“Stand the Test (Dubai Bros. – Rollerama Remix)” is a nod to childhood feelings of hanging out with friends during summers that’ll never end; couples skate, laughter and junk food—building the relationships and memories that we take for granted as adults. The Dubai Bros (Chris Tait and Zach Shipps) lean into Shipps’ re-recorded disco bassline and Tait’s menagerie of synths. It’s a song that burrows into a timeless nostalgia that takes lyrics like, “And I’m trying to remember what I love / But we don’t know how long this will last” from romantic heartache to looking back at the good times of an idealized childhood.
“These days I’m over the cool rocking virtuoso guitar thing,” says Lowe. “I just want to bring this Tom Morello, nebulous sound, where maybe you can’t even tell it’s a guitar. For ‘I Fed Animals,’ it’s like the id of my Gretsch being pushed through whammy and octave pedals. I’m feeling what weird ways my foot can move, weird places I can hold the pick on the strings to make the most jarring noises possible.”
“I Fed Animals (Remastered),” originally on their 2021 album Cashville, was remastered by Pedigo to bring out a bigger, fuller sound. This stomp-stomp-clap, stadium-sized, indie blues-rock banger has the raw energy of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or White Stripes while tapping into the primordial foundation of Big Mama Thornton or Bessie Smith’s “Need a Little Sugar in my Bowl.” The iconic drums waterfall into primal chaos as Reich’s carnal lyrics of lustful revenge are complemented by Lowe’s lo-fi, raw pterodactyl screeching guitar stabs. The visceral and animalistic core of this song beckons you to tear the clothes off of your lover.
“I wrote this after going through one of my first breakups,” says Reich. “I was angry and just wanted revenge. I was out there doing my thing, and I wanted it to get back to him. I thought of the line “I Fed Animals” and loved the metaphor of it all. I love the history of blues and using these types of sexual metaphors.”
The Blade Runner meets Ghost in the Shell meets Tekken music video for “I Fed Animals” is a retro-future, VFX-heavy labor of love that took months of production. Director Patrick Pierson even flew to Tokyo to shoot the streets and neon of Shinjuku to capture the authentic feeling of his cyberpunk vision. The video is a feast for the eyes as the band performs against neon geometry and banks of neo-futuristic screens while a cyber girl and street demon face off in beautifully choreographed fights through rain and city streets. Each meticulously crafted frame is a work of art in its own right. The cinematic majesty of the video pulls no punches and lands in the echelon of masterpieces like director Seth Ickerman’s video for “Turbo Killer” by Carpenter Brut.
“I saw VOLK live at a mid-sized club,” says Pierson, “but they’re sound is so big, like AC/DC or Queen. I knew I wanted to work with them, and I knew I wanted to work within a cyberpunk aesthetic. I took a page from anime, grindhouse, 70s sci-fi b-movies and old kung fu films. We shot VOLK in a studio, and I flew to Japan to shoot the background plates to honor the anime roots of the idea. For the fight scene, we brought on O’Calla Joslyn to do the choreography and professional dancers Doug Hooker & Gretchen Marie Olson. I wanted the fight to mimic a murmuration of birds, the way they dance and fly together in a rhythmic pattern.”
“I Fed DarkNESynths (Acid Fader Remix)” is a moody, dark synthwave, slow-motion dancefest. It feels like a journey through Berlin’s underground tunnels, arriving at secret parties where designer drugs that we haven’t heard of yet are traded among the underbelly of society. It’s a song of dancing under pulsing red lights, and making out with strangers in dark corners. It might live in the same psychedelically nebulous world as Panos Cosmatos’ Mandy.
VOLK is known for making the music they want with little regard for genre, historically landing in cow punk territory with heavy guitars, rock n’ roll drums with a flair for country and western. Their debut album Cashville moves from outlaw country and rockabilly swing, to dancey garage rock.
Their next album with Pedigo is nearly complete and will include Dick Valentine, Chris Tait & Matt Van (all of Electric Six), Joshua Flemming of the Vandoliers and Ray Wylie Hubbard. They’re constantly touring, so keep an eye out for them in a city near you. One thing’s for sure, VOLK wants to bring their brand of badass swagger to your town and they’re going to do it on their terms while showing us all how to have a good time.
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“An effortlessly vulnerable and raw talent.” – The Aquarian
“Skoda has long been drawn to the rawness and simplicity of country and bluegrass music. Ironic when you learn it was Mariah Carey’s four-octave range that wowed Skoda as a little girl, and she has spent much of her life singing in choirs.” – American Songwriter
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Leeann Skoda – Living Room Sessions EP (out May 26)
Los Angeles singer/guitarist Leeann Skoda is in demand for her directing of lush harmonies and emotive guitarwork. You might’ve seen her on Jimmy Kimmel Live! backing up Noah Cyrus, touring & singing with Psychic Temple or harmonizing with Brian Bell of Weezer. When not on the road with heavy hitters, she’s an integral part of Los Angeles’ familial americana scene that was built around The Grand Ole Echo, a weekly Sunday music series every summer at The Echo in Silverlake. Her new Living Room Sessions EP is born from these relationships.
It was recorded on a sunny afternoon in the living room of Malachi DeLorenzo (Langhorne Slim, Izaak Opatz) who set up a tape machine, placed some room mics and let them do their thing.. Skoda played guitar and sang with her friends, and tremendous artists in their own right, Dylan Rodrigue (background vocals, guitar) and Sie Sie Benhoff (background vocals). Their rehearsals were the shows that they all played together leading up to this day.
“We played these gigs together,” says Skoda. “And I just loved singing with them so much. Dylan is the best person to bounce ideas off of and collaborate with and Sie Sie is the best singer I’ve ever heard. She’s a great performer. We’ve sung together at her shows and on her records and vice versa. I really wanted to just capture this moment that felt so special, even if it was just for myself.”
They decided on three songs to capture that day: “Little Star,” “The Living Room” and Mariah Carey’s “Can’t Let Go,” in which Skoda strips its pop R&B down to the bone, creating a gorgeously sullen Americana rendition with incredible harmonies from Rodrigue and Benhoff. This classic ‘90s torch song of being so heartbroken that you can’t even deal with life feels like Skoda is baring her own soul for all of us to see. “There you are holding her hand.” Has there ever been a more brutal lyric?
“It’s such a young song,” says Skoda. “Everybody has felt this way when they’re young, like you’ll never get over someone. I was going back to explore my influences during Covid. Mariah was the biggest deal in my life from age five through eleven. I had every record and memorized every song. I always wanted to sing like her and of course couldn’t. I was a precocious kid. So I made it in my own style of Mariah-cana.”
Co-written with Emily Herndon as part of a 30-day songwriting challenge, “Little Star” is a slow-march lullaby, about not having all the answers and just living life. Its hypnotically elegant cadence feels like a slow dance, a first kiss, falling in love, putting your first-born infant to bed. There’s so much loving chemistry built into this performance that its poignant lyrics feel like you’ve lived with this song your whole life. “Oh, my little star / Spinning around like a dancer / Don’t know what you are / Still waiting for an answer.”
“Emily wrote the first two lines of ‘Little Star,’ and I did the same for one of her songs,” says Skoda. “I wrote one song a day for 30 days, and this was one of the best of them. I love to test myself that way, to spark my creativity. For ‘The Living Room,’ I did the Acoustic Guitar Project where you have a traveling guitar for a week and have to write a song on it. When I finished, I brought it to the next songwriter. Then, we all did a show at the end where we performed the songs we wrote on that guitar.”
With Skoda playing rhythm guitar, Rodrigue playing lead and everyone singing, “The Living Room” embraces the sound of the room they recorded in, the hiss of the tape and the trio’s rich harmonies. This sparse and mysterious tale of sex, longing and voyeurism carries a somber weight.
“I was inspired by this Love + Radio podcast episode called ‘The Living Room,’” says Skoda. “This story about a new mother watching young lovers across the way until tragedy strikes, all from the perspective of someone just watching, that isn’t a part of that situation at all. Sometimes it’s easy for me to adopt that persona and put myself in that place.”
Her 2018 debut album Call Me Back Home (BIG EGO Records) has the charm of classic country stalwarts like Patsy Cline or Lorretta Lynn with honkytonk guitars, expert pedal steel and Skoda’s intimate vocals. Both “Little Star” and “The Living Room” come from her 2021 studio EP Lucky Penny which moved into more indie-folk territory, but with a much bigger sound. Now with the intimate and gentle Living Room Sessions EP, magic did happen while recording in the living room that day. DeLorenzo mixed the tracks and sent them to Kevin Ratterman (My Morning Jacket, Andrew Bird, Murder By Death) for mastering.
This group of songs have a theme of introspection that’s translated in a way that feels effortless between these three friends. Whether we’re trying to let go of lost loves, learning to live in the present or lusting after a life we’ll never have again, Living Room Sessions EP is a heartwarming companion for all our life’s journeys, something to make us feel loved and grounded.
“I’ve really learned to enjoy songwriting and to follow my instincts,” says Skoda, “to trust my own style, to dive into the lyrics and continue to hone my voice as a songwriter and performer. I can’t wait to continue collaborating with my friends, with such great musicians.”
Hollow says: “‘Wolf in Sheepskin’ was filmed on a retro-themed movie set in Phoenix, AZ by Tina Andrea. The song kicks off the record as the first track from ‘Only the Wild Ones’, and it showcases the raw emotions of living on the road as a full time artist/musician, as well as the feeling of never quite fitting the mold or conforming to what everyone else thinks you should be.”