“Greg, on seeing you live I could not help but be mesmerised by the amazing drive and pitch perfect harmonies but the style of lead vocalist Dave Wilson. His is so engrossed with the music and his role it is like he becomes lost in a world of his own?
That is an interesting comment, maybe, he is in own zone, own world as we play the song.
“You now have five albums out and it seems like each one is better than the last. Your latest record Wildwood (Yep Roc) is a fantastic recording?
Thank you. That is our favourite album as a group, every album we make feels that way and hopefully it will continue. It is like a natural progression for us and it makes sense to most of our fans. I don’t think we’ve alienated too many bluegrass fans with this record but gained a lot more younger music fans. It has been a victory for us for sure.
“Although 1V has some great songs on it as in ‘The Carolinian’, ‘Chip Of the Star’, ‘Country Boy / City Boy’ and ‘One More Minute’ I feel Wildwood offers a greater strength in depth?
I do too. We worked on the songs a long time before we came into the studio. It is our first, self-produced record. The timing seemed right and we had learned a lot from past producers and made some of the calls ourselves.
“Producing the album your self does it quicken the release on the album?
Some things were quicker others weren’t. In our case we don’t have the luxury of time based on our budget, so most of our records involve about five days in the studio. Then there will be two days mastering and maybe three in the overdub at some later stage.
“Greg, do you remember how Chatham County Line formed?
Yeah, I do. What happened was Dave and I had started an Americana, a Gram Parsons, country rock band called Still House where I played steel guitar and piano and Dave played guitar, mandolin, sang lead and wrote the songs. We had a party one night in the house we were living in and John and Chandler from CCL came to the show and enjoyed the music and a friendship was born. At the time they had a rock band called, Burgeon and we then started collaborating and they would come over to play acoustic music on the porch as one thing led to another. Dave got out the bluegrass standard book so we started learning a bunch of them. Our first shows featured a lot of those old songs because Dave up to that point had not written a lot and then things became more and more serious. As this evolved we started to do more and more shows as Dave took to writing bluegrass tinged songs, and that is pretty much how we have grown to be the band we are.
“So it wasn’t an overnight thing?
The first couple of years there was little reward, financially, but we then met Chris Stamey who produced our first two records and he talked to Yep Roc and were interested enough to put us on their roster. That had things become more serious as we had a meagre budget to made the first album. I was not the bass player at the time they recorded it because I was playing with a girl, Tift Merritt here in Raleigh (North Carolina).
After that record came out the bass player Ned DuRant became a father and felt he had to go so, I snuck in the back door because these guys were all my friends and we played together a lot.
“Greg, when you were growing up who were the people that influenced you?
Musically, it was like I was in a void till I got to high school. My parents did not have a great taste in music although my dad liked the odd Willie Nelson song. He also had some Doc Watson but neither was a big music listener. But I did have a cousin who was. As I was going through high school he used to give me them all the time, he was really into the Athens Georgia, Atlanta scene. It was like when R.E.M had just started and their first album Murmur and it was really something. I had on rotation non-stop, there were bands like Talking Heads but it was more the alternative bands I was into. My first band in high school did covers of these bands and then when I went to college I was introduced to the whole Gram Parsons thing. It felt so natural to me (he enthuses) and it led me to buying a pedal steel guitar.
“Yep Roc who you are with has an impressive section of artists with them. With people like Dave Alvin, Chuck Prophet, Caitlin Cary, Carlene Carter and Greg Brown among others signed to the label?
It always feels good when we are out on the road and people mention the label and other artists on Yep Roc (Chapel Hill, N. Carolina), it is a hometown label to us!
“North Carolina seems to produce more than its share of quality Americana acts I wonder why that is the case?
Yes, I don’t know what the formula is here but it seems to be that way. One thing I do know is that the University that Dave and I went to they are constantly playing local bands during the lunch hour. I am always amazed at the quality of the new acts. They are forever touring and getting attention here and there. There are a lot of big colleges around here within thirty miles of one another and that is a lot of young people plus, a lot of them want to make music. That is part of the reason this is true.
“One of the great things is that the musicians are staying true to the tradition, and at the same time moving forward. Each act sounds different with an identity all of their own. Unlike what you tend to have in Nashville?
Yeah, I don’t know how to explain that. Part of is it just evolves, organically. I don’t think is artistically necessarily a good thing to have too many musicians all in the one place.
“Playing with Tift will have given you room to express yourself on steel guitar and develop as a musician?
I did. I had already met Dave and we were, as they say cutting out teeth. Me on the pedal steel and we had a gig in Raleigh, North Carolina and Zeke Hutchins who was her drummer and a good friend, he plays on Wildwood and Tift was setting up her band and was looking for somebody to play pedal steel. They called and asked me to a rehearsal at her house and I was just floored with her voice, and was truly just blown away. It was and is one of the best voices I have ever heard, and I will stick to my guns on that one. I really love her voice. More than Emmylou and a whole lot more people. It ended up us becoming good friends and playing with her for about seven years and we have stayed good friends. We have Thanksgiving dinner together and it is a good scene to be part of.
“How about other people’s albums you have played on?
Thad Cockrell’s Warmth & Beauty early on in his career, he was kind of like a male Tift Merritt. His album was like Tift’s Bramble And The Rose it felt real natural. Anything that is like a slow Neil Young song is right in my wheelhouse and Thad for me, Tift obviously, and Caitlin who is just great. She is one of the best singers in our city.
“Caitlin Cary (formerly of Whiskey Town and the vocalist alongside Ryan Adams) is such a wonderful talent?
Her new band, Small Ponds that she has just formed is a fantastic band.
“You mentioned Gram Parsons a little earlier and love of the pedal steel have you ever thought of doing a side project featuring that kind of music?
For me Stillhouse, the original band is still an outlet for that style of music. We did some Gram Parsons covers in the early days before Dave became such a prolific writer. We have a tradition every December when Chatham County Line and Stillhouse go on the road together and, open the set before John Teer who is an amazing electric guitar player and Chandler on banjo will join us. So every December I get to scratch that itch when we play a handful of dates.
“One of the many appealing things about your music is how your music crosses boundaries. People don’t think about categories when they listen (and even more so seeing them live) as country, bluegrass, blues and rock are seamlessly covered and run into one.
One of my favourite comments is when people will invariably come up to us after a show and say, ‘we don’t even like bluegrass music but we like you guys.’ I feel we are as much an acoustic rock band as a bluegrass band. One of the great things about playing in CCL is, every night we play it is fun! I can’t imagine how bad it must be to be in a band and not to love the songs or the music you play!
