Category: Interviews

One weekend, you’re performing on a cruise alongside Nancy Wilson of Heart. A couple of days later, you’re playing four hours in a smoky dive bar. Welcome to the music business. For Atlanta alternative rock band Hey Dreamer, that kind of contrast isn’t unusual. It’s simply another week in the

James Woods has spent much of his career bringing other people’s stories to life. He’s worked with directors like Martin Scorsese and Oliver Stone, delivering performances that helped establish him as one of Hollywood’s most recognizable actors. But these days, Woods is discovering something different. He’s writing the stories himself.

Coyle Girelli walked into Sun Studio in Memphis with an acoustic guitar and a few microphones. Nothing elaborate. No massive production. No army of session musicians. Just a singer, a guitar and one of the most historically significant recording rooms in American music. He had spent years making records, touring

Christopher Wyze has been spending a considerable amount of time in cemeteries, archives and alleys around Indianapolis. Not exactly the typical promotional schedule for a blues recording artist. But Wyze isn’t simply promoting a new album. He’s investigating a nearly century-old musical mystery. He’s tracking down forgotten addresses, studying newspaper

Ezra Vancil learned three chords because of a girl. His father was a songwriter. Ezra wasn’t particularly interested in following him into the family business. He liked the idea of being a musician. Actually learning an instrument? Not so much. Then he met a girl who was out of his

There is a version of the music business that exists mostly in movies. You start a band. Write a few songs. Play some shows. Somebody important walks into a club, hears you, and suddenly you’re on a tour bus wondering where to put the platinum records. Then there’s the version

There is something misleading about the phrase debut single. It sounds like a beginning. For Ivey Leighton, “Good Girl” is anything but. It’s the first song the public gets to hear, but behind those three or four minutes are roughly ten years of writing, learning guitar, filling a phone with

Three songs. That’s it. No second chances. No waiting until the end of the night to figure things out. No asking the artist to step back into the light and do that cool thing one more time. For a concert photographer, three songs can be the entire show. Tom Rentz

There are bands that record songs and then figure out how to play them live. Archers Gate seems determined to do the opposite. Build the song. Build the sound. Build the atmosphere. Then figure out how to drag every last piece of it onto the stage. That distinction matters. Because

Some bands write songs. Others build movements. The difference isn’t always found in the music. Sometimes it’s found on a school bus full of fans headed to a concert. Long before the first guitar chord rings out, before the lights dim, before the first scream from the stage, vocalist Matthew