Sturgill Simpson

00:00:08 Speaker 1: Pushkin. Kentucky singer songwriter Sturgil Simpson is used to doing what he wants one he wants, at least until contracting COVID in early March sidelined him. After a rough month long battle with the virus, Sturgil was itching to get back into the studio, so in October he released a surprise bluegrass album that masterfully reworks his back catalog, called Cut and Grass Volume One. Sturgel was in his mid thirties when he found fame as a country artist in Nashville. He had already lived at full life, including the stint in the Navy and years spent working in Salt Lake City rail yards. His outsider status in Nashville only boosted his outlaw peel, but as time passed, Sturgil began to despise the relentless expectations of the major label system. So in true fashion, Sturgil has now taken back control of his career and returned to his independent roots. In this interview with Rick Rubin, Sturgel explains why is bluegrass album is the purest expression of his work, why it bothers him that people often overlook the stories and the songs, and why being classified as a country star has been perhaps the biggest detriment to his career. This is broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmondon. Here's Rick Rubin and Sturgill Simpson. What's happening in Maine? Oh no much man. Sunday morning is a donut day around these parts. So for the kids, So let's my daddy's day to get up early and go handle breakfast and all that from is donuts only on Sundays. Oh yeah, only on Sundays and only for the kids. I don't I don't touch those shit. So what's your what's your diet? Like? Overall? Mostly I just try to monitor blood pressure. Ever since the it's nothing that's gonna like cause a lot of cholesterol and things like that. Blood pressure or blood oxygen. Blood pressure? Really, how did COVID affect your blood pressure? Uh? The early onset, everything was just insanely high. When I went to the hospital. My initial reading when I checked into that R was like one eighty seven over one sixty four, about to stroke out like an old man. So is that a normal COVID? I hadn't heard that one before, you know, I'm not sure. I Honestly, I was pretty obsessive about it for a couple of months after I had it, and then now I feel like I have superpowers, but so I've gotten kind of lazy. I don't know where the preliminary studies are coming out, but I mean, septems are sort of all over the place. For me, it was just this really intense frontal lobe headache and some severe chest tightness, which is what led me to have her take me in. Yeah, did you did you know people who had it before you had it? No? Man. We we played the last show of our tour on March tenth and Charleston, South Carolina, and it was only that day that there was any type of mainstream media awareness, where like when all the panic buttons started going off and we were all just sort of like, WHOA, there's a lot of people back here, you know. So the next day we had off. We're supposed to be heading to I think Virginia or Philly for some shows that weekend, and my wife and I were still in Charleston. I was just like, man, I don't feel right, Like I was just physically just I don't know how to even describe it. Man, it was so the most intense fatigue I felt in a long time. And you know this job, if there's one thing that you become accustomed to, it's fatigue. But this was something different. So and then that that day I just told her. I was like, I don't think. I think I need to go home and rest, like something's not right. I can't breathe, and all the inner voices like I probably got this shit in Europe, like here we go. And then the next morning I was in the hospital, so wow, and how long we in the hospital for? Oh? I was just there for about six or seven hours. They would and well, they wouldn't even test me. And then the doctors spent about forty minutes sitting on my bed with his mask off, telling me all the reasons why I couldn't possibly have contracted and it wasn't Europe at that time, and it was so rare and all the stuff we now know to be completely false, and not to complain, there's a whole lot of people in a hell of a lot worse shape than I was. But so how did you know you had it if they wouldn't test you? Just what they were saying about symptoms, And it felt like I had a ratchet strap going on around my chest, and my wife had been really fatigued and tired too, And that initial onset only lasted for a couple of days. Those those symptoms all sort of evaporated as fast as they came on, and then I was just really tired for about two or three weeks. I felt just you know, took like two naps a day, which is very unlike me. What made it better? Because you didn't take any therapeutic drugs? Actually, yeah, my booking agent JL brought me a big old cornucopia basket of like holistic medicines and vitamins and a lot of a lot of you know, detoxifants and stuff. I was just drinking tea, a lot, a lot of water, and plus we live out we're pretty secluded. I probably overshot it on the solution, to be honest, and so just to eating a lot of vegetables and trying to be healthier and going for walks and uh. And then I think it was around March twelfth or thirteenth thousand in hospital and we didn't actually get tested until the first, very very early April, and I was still still detected like positive. Wow result so I must have had a really large viral load or exposure. I guess for it too. I'll stick around that long. I don't know. And do you have any um, like, do you have asthma or any Uh? No, no, allergic to anything. No, my lungs are huge, man, I got like big fat swimmer lungs. So the whole tour, you know, we played nine or ten shows I can't remember, and like something wasn't right. I remember vividly knowing I just couldn't get a real deep inhale on stage. And I've lost like twenty pounds before the tour. I was really making a conscious of it to be healthy, and I was living cleaner. I stopped smoking pot and all that shit, you know, and and just every night I was like, what is it? God, I'm old, Like this is middle age. It's here now. You know something's going on. But I guess it was just slowly metabolizing through my system. But you you essentially beat it with no Western medicine. You're saying, yeah, I'm just healthy. It was, you know, I mean it sucked. I've definitely never woken up in my entire life and said I need to go to the emergency room. Yeah, and this was like something's very not right here, and yeah, and then it went away. And then you know, some friends like Prime passed away that was pretty close after. I don't know, man, It's it's so funny to me that you see all the denial and people just falling at fear, moo, hungering or whatever. We were here renting a house on the East coast, and the guy we were renting from he got it, was in the hospital for a while, like the handyman who I would constantly have to ask him to mask up, tell me come over in the lard. We kind of look at me laugh. He was in the hospital for two weeks just recently, so you know he's not laughing now. But it's it's some real shit, man. Absolutely, Man, I'm so glad you're I'm so glad you're over it. It's like I said, now, it's I feel strangely sort of rejuvenated. I haven't felt I'm probably just from being off and having rest for the first time eight years, but I feel pretty great right now. Yeah, tell me about Kentucky. You grew up in Kentucky. What's it like growing up there? And again, I'm really asking how to ignorance. I know very little. In some ways not at all what most people probably think, and in a lot of ways exactly like that. Kentucky's a weird state. Depending on what corner or region you're in, you might as well be in different worlds. I'm originally from southeastern Kentucky or the Appalachian region, so um, you know, we used to be coal mining, strip mining country, bluegrass country. And then my dad had a he was a state trooper, kind of ran the gamut of that career, and I think when when I was young, he was doing some more sketchy kind of work that put a lot of stress on my mom in their marriage when I was a young kid. So I think we ended up moving. He took a transfer and got out of doing that stuff, and we ended it moving up to central Kentucky, eventually settling in a little town, Versailles, the locals called Sales. I remember, you know, it's a good place to grow up. But I do remember always feeling the wanderlust, you know, So I left. I left for boot camp and the Navy. I don't a week and a half, two weeks after I graduated high school, just ready to go and get out, you know, Yeah, what was the music in the house that he grew up in, Like in the house I grew up, and my mom would listen to a lot of motown like Rod Stewart and stuff like that. And then she had she still had her old forty five when she was a teenager. And then my grandmother had she had one of those old you know, the furniture type record players had the built in speakers and he'd flip the list, had to reach down in and my grandmother just had a ton of old soul music and that's what she listened to. So those were probably the first records I was exposed to. And then CCR and I think the first song I learned how to play on guitar was probably Sunshine of Your Love. How old were you then? Probably was second grade? So I got my first guitar around second or third grade. And I remember why, I was like Nickelodeon was really big back then, you know, so I remember I was I watched the Monkeys when I was a little kid on TV. So honestly, those songs I had all those records, those songs which we now know were like Nielsen and Neil Neil Diamond Tunes, so you know, they're getting that melodic chop burned into your brain at a young age. And then an older cousin and also older next to her neighbor. Both of them were teenagers when I was in like i'd say, fifth grade, and they both corrupted me pretty good and proper. I mean, I was exposed to Appetite for Destruction and I don't know Man Hendricks and the whole Zeppelin box that found it all like probably I used to stay way too young, but now, I mean I responded immediately, so I guess it was right on time. You know, when you were a kid and you'd hear Jimmy Hendrix and you'd hear Appetite for Destruction, did it all seemed like it was music from the past? Or was it clear when something was more current and something was from the more distant past. I definitely think it was clear when things were more from a different era or just the way I remember like the sound of it, you know, it just sounded lived in and cooler. And but now, you know, appetite even that sonically to a fourth or fifth grader because at the time MTV was probably playing god knows what Poison and def Leopard videos add nauseum over and over. But I remember vividly seeing that video for Welcome to the Jungle come on because we were living in this apartment one summer and I couldn't go outside a mom and dad worked all day. I had to stay inside, and uh, I was so young, I couldn't really do much. So I was just sitting watch MTV all day and that video came on, man, and it was like you could just feel the danger, you know what I mean. I was just like, oh shit, this is this is something entirely different, like this is real, you know. I remember, I remember that being so clear, like I gotta know everything about this, you know. And and then later on that year, I guess I hadn't really heard the record yet. And we had an older My next door neighbor was this older kid, Michael, and he had a navy blue Chevy Nova, and he'd like used to run away from home all the time, and shit, you know, he's a bad kid, and uh he was. He was basically woodson from from days and confused, and uh he pulled up one day just cranking that record in his car, and I was out. I was outside. I don't even know what I was doing, probably sitting on my button in grass and I heard it. I was just like, what is that man? And he and he was such a dick. He was just like, fuck, you've been kid in the caves, guns and roses man. And he gave me the cassette tape like he gave me the cassette and it still had had the original artwork in the middle with the robot jump in the fence and all that shit and men. I wore it out. My mom found it threw it away because she saw that, she saw the artwork and everything. I think I ended up buying like two more copies that ended up getting trashed. But that that record was a huge, a huge bomb going off for me. And then yeah, Cream Hendricks and then I had a big Clapton phase for a while. I got real into Clapton. I just like reading everything I could find about him, and then that takes you down these holes to you know, guys like Peter Green and all the John Male stuff, which which takes you back to the Chicago and Delta, and it was just this rabbit hole. Man. I was like a weird sixteen year old into a lot of shit that you know, it was probably nerdy, I guess looking back on it. Did you have many experiences of your mom taking away stuff and throwing it away? That record and the other one she pulled, she popped out of the tape deck and tossed out the car window. Once was Stepping Wolf when the Pusher came on, she was just like, no, sir, you know anything talking about pimping and pushing hose and selling drugs was probably nothing your mom. My mom once they're nine year old bumping too. My dad was a steak cop too, and he was probably the biggest supporter of it. He bought my first guitar and what was what was your dad's tasted music like rock and roll? Yeah, yeah, he took me. He took me to see Van Halen in like fourth or fifth grades, so it was always, you know, he liked a party. Do you ever go down rabbit holes of different kinds of music that you haven't listened to before? Absolutely? Yeah, I mean I think that's important. One year, one year to Blonde come out, that Frank Ocean record sixteen, maybe when Sailor's got I think it was around the same time A Sailors guy came out, and I was just I wanted to listen to something like so far away from anything that I did or understood. And I heard a song. A friend of mine play was listening to that and heard a song and I was just like, I remember being struck by the production values and the sounds, and I just was like, I have no idea what he's doing or how he made these noises, and that it really fascinated me to just stick my head in something that was so different than the tools that we use, you know. And I listened to that record for about a month straight. Must have been but yeah, a lot of hip hop, weirdly, maybe not. I don't know. One thing I never really got into, I guess was jazz other than the basics. You know. Yeah, I predict you will maybe it's coming. Yeah he'll billy jazz. But let's talk about bluegrass a little bit in general. I know almost nothing about it. Tell me about what do you know about bluegrass? You could start from the beginning. Well, okay, I got out of the navy. I know, I know more now, I've forgotten a lot. In my twenties, I was obsessed, like scoured the earth kind of shit. And when I was younger, my grandfather I wrote this little letter sent out with the record. He my paternal grandfather, was obsessed with it. It's he thought about, spent his entire later years going to festivals and it's always listened to. Oh to the point it would drive my mom crazy, and he would always trying to push it on me, you know, even like a real young age. But my palette wasn't ready, man, because it's it's very complex music. You know, it's always recorded or would you see people play it live? Mostly field recordings. And then he took me to a festival one year out the horse Park and it was like that was that I do remember vividly feeling like I was watching magic because these guys were like dancing around the mic. It was old school, you know, it's still early eighties. And then in Jackson, where I'm from, every Labor Day they had this a festival in the city called the Honey Festival, and on Friday nights, I think they have rock bands, and on Saturday night it was bluegrass and all the old timers. I mean, dude, it was like something right out of a time where these guys would come down from the Hollers and the Hills, like in their start shirts and overalls and dances this ship and it was like probably the last of that stuff, you know, time capsule kind of thing, but those images are burned into my head and so that was really the early exposure. But then it wasn't until I got out of the military. I'd gotten off some pretty pretty heavy drugs. I was kind of floating pretty hard for about a year and I got home. I was clean. I was just like dealing with all that, like the shame spiral and everything, and like trying to figure out my mom would remarried. Nothing, everything was just uplifted. You went into the military just to escape escape home, but well, yeah, escape home. And also I kind of got in some trouble. I got really lucky, but I got in some trouble my senior year of high school, just doing shit I shouldn't have been. And it was sort of like a wake up call. What was the experience? Your service experience? Like what it was peacetime for starters, And I was stationed overseas, the majority of it in Asia, Southeast Asia, and we'd go a lot of places I would have never seen otherwise. And it turned into some songs later on in life, thankfully. But you know, a lot of a lot of experiences that were eye opening, a lot of expensive experiences that were probably things I could have done without. Things I wish I hadn't seen older dudes I hadn't. I wish I hadn't been exposed to, you know, sailors in life. That comes with that, and you just hard to wash a lot of that shit off man um. But then a lot of a lot of most a lot of drinking and partying, to be honest with you, and and uh, a lot of girls. That kind of thing, like what you do when you're stuck in this like tyrannical, oppressive environment with lots of sharp corners and gray paint, you know what I mean. Like as an artist, it was like the fuck have I done? You know, and you're you're stuck. We'd go out to see sometimes like ninety one hundred and eight days, you know, so like it's basically prison. I mean, you're basically in prison eating better food maybe, I don't know. So I got out and I was just ready to I was ready to not be that anymore, and I went a little too buck wild. How long were you in for long enough about three years. Yeah, And it's like I said, I just sort of burned it at both ends. And I came home and I was really lost, man, I was really lost and probably severely depressed, and serotonin levels were still finding their way home and that kind of ship. And was driving down a row one day and I heard it was a Monroe Brothers song, and I want to I'm trying to remember what the song was. It wasn't something as easy as it was, like a deep cut, probably long journey home or something, man, and I had to pull the chuck over. I was just like the tears, just it just it slam me in the chest. But everything, like whatever it was, was extremely visceral connection, an emotional reaction to that music. And then for the next i'd say seven or eight years, I don't give a fuck about anything else. Was it in the song itself or were you reconnecting to something from childhood by hearing it. It was the inflection of their voices, It was the lyric, the underlying like there I say, religious themes with like pain and lament and sorrow. But mostly man, it was just the voice, the voices and the music and the notes it took me back to like just childhood memories and like funerals and these things that you can't really put a finger on, but I knew like this is, this is where I'm from. We'll be right back with more Rick's conversation with Sturgil After a quick break, we're back with Rick Rubin and Sturgil Simpson. Let's talk about the Sailor's album a little bit. It's it's very different than what came before. How about how does it happen? I mean that one, I think more than any record of me I probably heard in my head or in terms of the blueprint before we went in what I wanted to do and what I wanted to incorporate. I was listening to a lot of Marvin Gay, a lot of Memphis Elva stuff at the time and wanted to, you know, meta modern. Was just me and the three other guys in the room. Once we set the mics up record, we didn't really move or change anything. It was It wasn't so the songs has all kind of been carved out live on the road and this three month tour prior to us going in and banging that record out, and so I knew I didn't want to do something that stripped down and raw again for starters. And then two I was was my first label record, and the only reason I really signed with the label was for a larger recording budget. So I was like, well, you know, I don't really want to make a ten thousand dollar album because that's that's not what we're doing here. So and you have that toolbox now available and opened up to you, and I just kind of went all in on it, man, and wanted to make this really lush and cinematic sort of soundscape to accompany the story of the album. And some of it was notes. Some of like I told you, man, I had like probably four songs, five songs, and then we got in the studio and I had little pieces and things that there was nothing for me to play for the band, so they could chart out form and sit there and do the things. It was kind of like nobody really knew what was happening but me too much to Ferg's dismay some days, and but it all came together pretty pretty fast, I think four four or five days maybe, And so you did the basic tracks with the band and then all of the orchestration happened after. Yeah, we overdubbed the strings and the horns later, but those were in your original vision for the songs. Those were always there. Some yes and no, but it was I think there was. There was definitely a moment once with that first three days of tracking, and I just looked at furg and I was like, we gotta do a cox this ship. Man. I was like, we gotta get we gotta get strings. I want to hear horns. He was. He just kind of set there, smoker a cigarette. He's like yeah, and then you know, so we went up to New York for a couple of days and recorded the Dap Kings and the and the String Quartet there at the Atlantic Studios. Yeah, and then that's when I finally heard it, you know what I mean. I was just like, Okay, there it is. It's such a surprise coming from the first two records. You know, it's like it's a total departure, but for me, not so much. I felt like getting away from other influences or maybe agendas. I was finally able to make the music I'd actually been influenced by and listening to as a kid growing up, which was more soul and rock and roll and things more so than like Hank Junior or Waylon Jennings, you know, whereas you moved to Nashville and I just had all these country songs, and I guess just not norm where to start. Well, this is what you do now, You make like these hard country records. And I love that music too, but I don't really hear a lot of my voice, especially on that first one, met a modern more so because like I said, we worked it out on the road and Dave did a good job on the console and Mike choices and stuff like that. But Sailor's Guide was honestly for me, I guess stretching my legs a little bit more for the first time and talk about the new one a little bit. The grass was there was zero planning on that one. That was definitely okay. Well, I've always wanted to make a bluegrass record. Now I have the time. I'm not going on a tour anytime in the next two or three years. So I was feeling better. I think I was mostly just excited that I was finally feeling good. By June early June, and I called furg up and I was like, man, I've always wanted to do this. We did this big fundraiser thing online because I had this We've been on Instagram for maybe a month or two, and then just everything hit the fan. We had incorporated some charity stuff into the tour with the ticket sales, and I was just trying to figure out a way to continue that and actually hold through on that promise. So and then it turned in, you know, there's a big tornado in Nashville and all the COVID shit, and we just we were like, well, we could raise some money from music cares because everybody's out of work now, and the fans totally blew it out of the water. Man, I don't know what I expected all and all, we raised about a half million dollars a thing, so amazing. I was just like, well, I gotta put a record out now, because I promised him I would. So I also knew I was about to have at least the rest of this year off. Yeah, and I knew I wanted to spend a lot of time folks and on my kids and home things that had sort of slipped through the cracks because of the work. And I didn't want to sit around the next six months thinking about what that next thing would be. So I just said, fuck it, let's just do the next thing now and get it in the can. And then it was I'm glad I did it because now I've just been fishing and changing diapers for the last couple of months while we set up putting this thing out. It's great, though, I really love it. Had you ever looked at the songs through the filter of bluegrass before making the record, well, I mean yeah, they were all written on a D twenty eight, probably sung on played a little too fast, just because that's where my natural I have a tendency to push things a little bit ahead, like most blue grass pickers, and so when you make country records, you basically just slow everything down. I could put some form changes here and there to make it stretch out and phrases, but they were all I mean, no bullshit, man. I'd say eighty percent of them were written as more as bluegrass songs than anything. So so these renditions of the songs are closer to how they were originally written, yeah, before they became country. They're written closer to who I am more naturally, that's my voice and my instrument and like I saved, like if I had to express myself in a medium as truly as possible, this would be it. Yeah, It's one of the things that came away from listening to it was the lyrics. Now, even though I've heard these songs before, there's something about hearing lyrics when there's not drumming going on that they hit me in a different way. You understand them in a different way. Generals, it feels like this this album really is the storytelling version of the story of these songs, where it's really about the lyrics. Thanks man. It's always been something I've never said anything about it, but it has always sort of bothered me that the last six or seven years, I put these records out and I'm writing all the songs, and anybody talks about is my voice or the production or the instruments, But it's like they're missing the story. Yeah, and even some of the fans aren't really listening, or at least some of the fans I used to have, because they've kind of fallen off now that they figured out more who I am. So it's been it's all just learning and growth, I think. But finally hearing these songs the way they were probably always intended to is very gratifying for me. Is it is it acceptable to do songs that are not in the cannon in the bluegrass style? I don't. I think anything is acceptable if you mean, I'm just asking the bluegrass community. I don't know anything about bluegrass. I mean, I was told like it was unacceptable to put horns on a country record, even though I grew up in my grandfather's car here and merl Agger do it, So I don't. I don't know, man. I guess it depends who you ask, based on their their criteria of what fits their identity that week. I don't know. I made what I thought to be a true bluegrass record with some songs that are probably country songs and also bluegrass songs. So yeah, I feel like it's got potential to turn more people onto bluegrass who might not already be into it. I feel like that's the real potential that's held in this world. That's the goal. I mean, I've always been trying to turn people on. We've went with earlier stuff, maybe to country music that wouldn't necessarily be into it, or to change their opinions of what it could be, and then it's been all this is weird to say, but having that word, that c word attached to my name as an artist has probably been more of a detriment to me in my career in terms of reaching my actual fan base than anything, because so many people well that don't listen to country music, they only know it by what they've been told the last twenty five years. To believe it is, you know, from watching awards shows on TV and stuff, or you know, I have no desire to sit here and talk shit about any of that crap but anymore. But it just is what it is, you know. Um So then you have to sort of point out, oh, we can also be this, you know. I don't know if artists would ever really give any of this stuff thought if they didn't have to sit down and answer questions when it was time to foot records about it. You know. I think sometimes it's interesting to think about though, Like I feel like we find clarity through through discussion if we think about things who wouldn't normally think about. And I don't know, I learned a lot through the conversations, you know. Well, you know, man, I'll tell you what, starting in this business at thirty five thirty six really actually taking a go at it trying to be a pro musician. I was damn near middle aged, unlike i'd say ninety five or even more percent of the people that start out at eighteen or nineteen, and this is all they ever know, you know. And I was so held bent at first on like I finally found something in my life to be ambitious about because we had a child on the way, and I knew, like, I have to make this work, it has to happen, it has to succeed. I gotta take care of my family. I want to have something I can look back on and know that like I didn't compromise whatsoever, and this is like, I did this the right way and it was very important to me and it still is. And then somewhere along the lines, you know, you get on the train and it's hard. I've always said, it's hard to tell how fast the train's going when you're on it. And next thing you know, you think, well, like you get in, you get sucked in or like manipulated in the music industry has a really scientifically applied methodology about making artists feel like if they don't keep treading water, they're gonna drown because everybody's got to keep generating their paychecks, you know what I mean. And if something's working, you want to keep working. So you just keep throwing fuel on the fire. And then next thing you know, you weigh up and you just completely burnt out, and you're like, how did this happen? Who was taking care of me to keep this from happening? And I realized that nobody was putting more pressure on me than I was. And I tell you two things again, there was two very distinct incidences that were wake up calls from me and very touchdown reminders. The first one was when I went to Merle Haggard's house for the very first time ever, and he I think Merle only won one Grammy in his career. And when you walked into the house, it was sitting on the floor used as a doorstopper to hold the screen door open, just scratched and be all to hell, And I was like, got it, you know what I mean? Yeah? And the second one was when Ferd when we came out to La to go to the awards, and when he took you came, he brought me to visit and meet you for the first time. And I can't Yeah, we were hanging out. We were there in the room that you're sitting in right now, and he asked you you got any records up for anything this year, Rick, And you said, I don't know, and I knew you weren't bullshitting, and I was like, that's it. I mean, that's it. Just just make art. Fuck the rest, you know. And and I've been trying to like commit and live in that headspace ever since, man, and just just block out all the trivial nous and the hedge of money. Yea of the system that makes us think we all have to end up on these lists every year, like standing at a podium giving little speeches because it doesn't have shit to do with anything about like connecting with human beings and making music. Yeah, there's so many distractions that can really get in the way and and putting the blinders on and focusing on making something that you love. That's all it's about. If you love it, it doesn't matter if anyone else likes it. And if you of it, there's a better chance someone else might like it because at least one person cares about it. You yeah, or it wasn't for that person, which is fine, but there's two or three other people out there that maybe everything I've done before wasn't for them, but this thing save their fucking life, you know, I don't know. It's hard to describe. How much do you take into consideration the audience in the making process when you're writing and when you're recording. Is it okay to say zero? Absolutely, that's the right answer. In the studio, I'm not thinking about how's this going to translate live? That's all. That's like a problem to worry about later, you know. It's really just it feel right? Does it sound right? Could this be better? Or is this gross enough? I don't know, Like these are thoughts that I have. More so, there are people are gonna like this. I think if you start thinking like that, you're gonna make some shitty records, for sure. Absolutely, That's that's why I asked a question. And so and there are so many artists who really do pollute their process thinking about the audience, and it really just undermines the whole, the whole enterpress. And you can hear that people just keep making the same records over and over. Then what are you What are you really chasing or serving? I guess, But well, the bluegrass thing. Honestly, this probably came more of That's what I was listening to me before we cut this. I was listening I love Van Morrison. Him and Marvin are probably my two favorite singers, and and I think I love Van Morrison even more because a lot of times it's hard for me to understand what he's saying. And that's a complaint that I get about my voice a lot. It's like the annunciation becomes far less important than the emotion behind the note, you know what I mean, Like you can just feel him squeezing and it's coming from all these different places as opposed to just like I am articulating now, you know what I mean. But listening to a lot of his stuff, I feel like with the bluegrass record, I feel more in tune to that kind kind of thing right now, maybe more of like a hillbilly astral week sort of. That would be like my dream record to make. Sounds pretty good, It's what I'd like to hear. Yeah, man, It's it's weird because I was one on social media at all until this year, and I you know, I don't want to be like some definitely have no desire in like hiding behind a public persona or some crafted image to sell records. So I don't know how to. Maybe it's a detrimental at times, So I do engage with people even though people say not to. I mean, the fans are coming, they want to connect and know you, and I've realized that that platform is invaluable in the case you ever really wanted to represent yourself, as opposed to having go through the filter of the press or you know, a press release and hope that the narrative is what you intended it to be, where as opposed now like I could just I got a mic and a light in a computer. You're gonna line and say whatever I want. However I want to say it and it can't be twisted. So I think I'll always keep it for that if no other reason. But also like just seeing the love from people, man, and the really seeing the difference that music makes in people's lives, especially through shit like what's happening right now. It's been really motivating for me in a way, and sometimes the haters are the funniest part. Like you know, if you read that shit after a while, it truly doesn't mean anything anymore, and it's it almost. I told my wife like this summer, I would get on there and blast them back for like ten minutes fifteen minutes every day with my coffee. And I was told HER's like, it's kind of like my yoga now, Like I do that and then I don't look at it. I can go walk out in the woods and I just feel amazing, you know, so and eventually they go away. It's so funny also the social dynamic of it all, because if life isn't complex enough, it just fascinates me. Something. Last week she pointed out that, like I was, the record was number one on iTunes. My wife told me that. She was like, yeah, it's it's between you and Luna. This this a pop band. I was like, that's insane, you know, it's like the bluegrass record and a pop record. And I made a post about the absurdity that, and of course there was like you can't control that. It's like you've seen Ghostbusters too. No, okay, I'll spare you anyway. There's a river of slime and when you talk me into it, it bubbles up, and I think, well, that's like that's the Internet, you know, And of course, like some some slime bubbles started popping up, and it was teetering in some cases towards some some xenophobia, and I was just like, oh shit, like what did I What did I do? You know, I feels I feel responsible. You can't control you. You create this this ripple and then it turns into this other thing and it's out of your hands. So then all the all the lunar fans started coming at me on Twitter, man like. It was like, holy shit, this is amazing to watch in a way. Then I listened to the record and I was like, man, I kind of dig lima, this is actually pretty bumping. So I just said like, look, guys, you need to motivate. You know, the girls deserve they deserve more love and respect, and like if you want them at number one, you need to get off your ass and do the work. You know. Yeah, it's like where's my T shirt? I'm here for it. Orbit all the way and it turned into a really beautiful thing in the end. We'll be right back with Sturgill Simpson in just a moment. We're back with the rest of Rick's conversation with Sturgill Simpson. You said, when you came back from the Navy, you were depressed. How would you say your moods tend to run in general? Like what's your Oh, brou I'm a geminium, pretty mercurial. Uh I can. I can. I can either be the nicest, most giving, kindest human being on the planet or like I can definitely I'm aware, Like especially in the zone if I'm working, is it like that you're focused to the point of where niceties? No, man, it's environmental. I real to multiple's childhood, there's some trauma there and then and between between, Like just experienced military and then working railroad. I just wasn't. I was never in these nurturing environments, you know. I mean I was always in like shit needs to be done now world, and I don't have time for your fucking feelings. So coming into this world at thirty five and learning like, oh these are artists and sensitive feeling like I'm also a very sensitive dude. You know, I'm very emotional dude, And uh, We're all vulnerable. We all have like giant egos and the insecurity that comes with that, and learning how to be a better leader or just to empathize with people who although you need them to do a job, like they also have lives outside of that, and even people that have worked for me, like I have very clear expectations, you know, especially when you're paying people money, and not just musicians, Like I've lost friends and relationships around me just from like I am not happy with what you're doing and these my expectations, and then people start crying in the meeting and all of a sudden like okay, well, I guess I can't verbalize those things like that anymore. And these have been very very important lessons for me, like to know, everything is not a train that's forty five minutes late, but it's it's always circumstantial. It's not just you wake up in a bad mood one day and na, man, I probably got some some some shit going you know. I probably got me and Kanye got the same birthday. I'm just gonna leave it at that, you know. But all of that, with children and family and root the last four years is I'm feeling I had some I had some stuff going on. I'll just be really honest, without teetering up to like insurance policy, red flags and ships twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen, I got pretty dark. I don't know why. I think I just was out there too long. I was drifting too hard, and things got slippery and I fell back into some some ugly shit, especially on the road. And you know, you spend too much time alone in hotel rooms, man, and sometimes that translates into more escape and freedom on stage, and it's not necessarily a good thing. But and then I woke up to it and just decided, you know what, I'm done, that it's never never happening again. And ever since then, it's just been like focusing on trying to be a better husband and the best father I can be, and not wasting this opportunity that I've been given. Was just to make art that will be here long after I'm gone and affect people that I'll never even know or meet, And like, when you really weigh the gravity of that, it's an immense responsibility. Absolutely. I think the only people who I've ever met who've become successful musicians starting in their thirties are you and Bill Withers. I think you're the only you. I was just talking the other night on a zoom called Donald Glover about some other things, and he said the same thing his manager, Fan told me that once two years ago, and I watched that documentary and I love Bill Wither's music, but I didn't really ever know that much about his life, and it was kind of I was taking it back some of the similarities, especially in our life before music. He was in the Navy. I think he was from a West Virginia coltown. Hated the industry side of the business, the fickleness and the manipulation of it all was I was just like, whoa man? And then Donald, Yeah, Donald, we were just talking about the other night. And Bill also, I don't know he. I loved the interviews I have read that he gave Since then, it I feel like I understood and know that guy just how he handles those situations and those types of questions, and there's not a lot of fool suffering, I guess. Yeah. One of the things that was really interesting him out him as well is that his music is put in a box because of the genre that he came from, as you know, urban music really because he's black yea. But he has more in common with Bob Dylan than he does with most R and B. You know, he's really a singer songwright. He's a folk song folk folk song right basically with incredible feel incredible. Do you think yourself more as a guitar player, songwriter, singer, Like does the music come first? Or is it what you're saying? It just depends. Man. I've never made a record the same way twice, and that wasn't intentional. It's just the way it worked out. Like the way we approached Sound of Fury wasn't anything like Sailor's Guide or Metal Modern and cut and Grass was the easiest thing I've ever done, the fastest thing. But I mean, I played guitar every day I got I got a fifty four strap downstairs. That's like the first hour of my day every morning. But the songs, if I'm like, if you're asking, like where do the songs come from? Usually a melody or like me just play All my songs are written on acoustic guitars, and then I come up a little risks and things around them later. But it's always like a melody singing. Mostly it comes from it here, and usually the melody comes before the words. Usually a line will start things and then the rest comes generally pretty quick. I'm not one of those guys that like wakes up every day and says I'm gonna write for three hours and like trying to craft like a creative college essay or some shit. It really like, if it takes me more than forty minutes to write a song, it's probably not very good song. Do you write a lot of songs? It goes in phases. I'm pretty lazy. But when I sit down and do it, yeah, I'll write like five or six in a week usually, But no, I don't sit down every day and be like, I'm a just a blue song writer. And God bless people that can do that. It's just not for me. Do you collect lines like yeah, over the course of your life, if you over hear a phrase or or an idea for a song, Yeah, a lot of a lot of scribbled napkins, a lot of like notes on your phone, where like you'll write a line and then six months later that ends up being the first thing in a chorus or something, or I hear somebody's A lot of songs come from hearing things, just observation. You'll hear people talking or pick something up and it's underlying meanings or turning things that weren't meant to be metaphors into them. Just play on words kind of stuff fascinates me more or anything. I guess have you ever written a song without having an instrument in your hand? Like? Has it ever come? For sure? At work? Like work, I find I don't have a job anymore, but when I worked at the railroad or when I was in the navy, just like purpose and daily monotonous purpose, like a lot of a lot of songs and music and melody can come out of that, man Like Yeah, you know, without without being conscious of a thing. Yeah, a lot of music comes to me like that when I'm not sitting down to write music. I wrote Turtles in the shower, you know, pretty much that whole entire first two verses just like came to me in a shower one morning, and I literally almost killed myself getting out of the shower to write it all down. What was it like working for the railroad? Actually I loved it, man? What was the job? What was your job? I started as a switchman on a switching yard, as like at this intermodal opera, the Union Pacific Yard, and then you kind of go through you work up like things that engineer would drive the trains. Our main job. It was like a main artery center for the entire western region United States. We'd have trains coming literally an X from all corners of the United States. They pull in and we'd have to tear them apart, put other cars on them, slough them off, build other trains, and then get them crewed and out the gate on time and that kind of thing. So it was like heavy, dude shit. You know. It definitely saw train rex and you know, big big boy pants type stuff. And I ended up. I became a yardmaster for a while, which is like you're in this pickup truck with eighteen radios and you're kind of coordinating all the movements of everything. And then they had a nighttime assistant manager position come open, and I decided more money, let's do it. Did that, and then I just by chance, about a year later, the main operations manager took a transfer and they offered me. They offered me the office and like running the operations of the yard, and I took it. And that's where I fucked up, or i'd probably still be there. I just you know, with the conference calls and all that gets literally screamed at by dudes I'll never meet in my life. Because the train came in two minutes late and left three minutes early instead of picking up an hour, you know, and I think I hit vaporlock in a way just like, wow, this is not this is not who I am. So I started playing or writing for the first time in about four years at night, and my wife, we weren't married at the time, and she was just like, she just set me down one night, you know, because she's like, look, I know your miserables is creating tension with you and me. This is what you should be doing, whether anything comes up or not. This is who you are, you know. Yeah, beautiful, And that was it, and we I think two three months later we had sold everything we couldn't fit in the Bronco and drove Nashville Wow two into two thousand ten a blue. And it's interesting if it wasn't for that change in jobs, like you say, like you you worked your way up the ladder at the point of where it didn't suit you anymore, and luckily we get we get your music now. Yeah, I mean, before I took the management gig man, I was out on the yard like twelve hours a day, and it was good. We'd work three days, have three days off, work four, have four off. You know, Salt Lake City's beautiful. Man, it's kind of a well kept secret. The yard was out in the west part of the valley, in the desert, so like my office was looking at the Okrah Mountain Range and over here is the western face of the Rockies, and there's three hundred days of sunshine, and uh, I very well possibly might still be there if all of that hadn't gone the way it did, which is a strange thing to think about. Yeah, it's amazing how so much of this is out of our control, you know. Yeah, control is an interesting concept. Letting go of that I think has been the greatest lesson for me. But also that job taught me a lot that most musicians probably don't know, like logistics and overhead and keeping numbers in the blacks. So like, you know, even the people around me. I keep a pretty tight grip on my business. And I'm thankful for that because I see, I see how easy it would be for a lot of artists just be copacetic and complacent and then you wake up and you like, why am I broke? You know? So that would be that's something in terms of dealing with the mechanics and especially the record labels and then I self manage myself for about three years, so I learned more about the business than I probably want to know. Just out of sheer necessity. I would sit on the lawyers that make them explain things to me and like really the back channels of how it all unfortunately works. So and that's been good, and it's terms of like working with my friends, people like Tyler and Margot, I've been able to hopefully give them some pretty valuable advice to keep them from making even some of the mistakes that I made, knowing what I know, you know, and I think it's just finding a new path and what is ultimately a wild, wild West again, and there's a real opportunity for artists to put a lot of the power back in their own hands. Yeah, any recommendations you have for artists in general, don't sign anything. There's no such thing as a good record deal, even if you've got a great one, it's it's essentially a bad loan from a really shitty bank. And in this day and age, if you've got work ethic and hustle and you're not afraid to go out and do the laps, and by that I mean go out and build a fan base as opposed to go onto an industry town and waiting for a bunch of suits to make it happen for you, because that ain't gonna happen. They're not taking game anymore. And if that does happen, I guess those are the people that like wake up and don't know how hard they just got fleeced a year later. But if you want to play music, do what musicians do and go play music. You know. That's that's what I did, and that's the only reason I'm sitting you're talking to you right now. Yeh, make good music, play good shows, wash rents. Repeat. My wife, we're okay. But like she told me one time and I realized she's a serious I probably turned down more money than I made just because of what came with it, you know, because like that, a lot of it really kind of freaks me out because you're as an introverted only child, you're letting a lot of shit into your bubble and there it is, you know, And I know there will be a day where I probably don't do this anymore. Yeah, So I wonder, I wonder if that's true, because if this really is what you're meant to be doing. You can do this for a long time, and in some ways, by choosing not to take the check, you're not taking the office job. You're still working in the train yard. Yeah, doing the thing that that feels good. Yeah. I think for me, I love the studio, I love creating, and I love playing live when I want to. Yeah, I don't know that I really ever feel the need to go spend nine months a year on a tour bus again, though that's not really At a certain point, you're like, wait, who am I doing this for it? You know, because I wanted to go home three months ago. So I think it's learning your limits and learning you just want everything to be the best you have to give, and it's hard to be inspired if you're not. So that's what I've learned from it all. Sometimes the best thing I can do for my music is to not play music and go and just live for a while. Yeah, I really have been. I've been fishing all summer. Man, we're down we're down here on the coast. So I just feeding the crabs and playing guitar, playing with the kids, reading a lot of Harry Potter to them. And then, uh, you know at night, I spend time on the internet looking at really expensive cars that go way too fast. And that's that's sort of where I'm at. You know, sounds pretty good. Yeah, it's something to do. Yeah, writing, writing songs when they come, and then looking looking forward to what's next. Great man, Well, thank you for talking, you too, man, Thank you, Rut. Thanks to Stigill Simpson for catching up with the Rick. You can hear all of our favorite Sturgil songs on a playlist at Broken Record podcast dot com, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash broken Record Podcast. There you can find extended cuts of new and old episodes. Broken Record is produced with helpful Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler, and it's executive produced by miol Bell. Broken Record is production of Pushkin Industries. And if you like our show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast. Act our themes, expect any beats. I'm justin Richmond, Bass m