Life as a traveling musician in the 21st century
Life as a traveling musician in the 21st century
A conversation with singer-songwriter Cory Branan.
Appears in this episode
In this episode, I get to fanboy with Cory Branan, one of my favorite musicians, in a wide-ranging conversation about his life and music.
Text transcript:
David Roberts
Beloved Volts listeners, today I bring you something a little different. Okay, a lot different. One of my goals in starting Volts was to get out from under any bosses who could tell me what not to do. They probably would have told me not to do today's podcast. But I have no bosses now, so I'm doing it! Long story short, I'm interviewing one of my favorite musicians. It's a bit off our beaten path here at Volts, but since you're already here, you might as well listen. I think you'll enjoy it.
So, way back in 2002, I was newly married, newly a father, and fitfully employed at best, so I had a lot of time to listen to music. My wife had gotten me into alt-country and singer-songwriter music, so I picked up the debut album from a young singer-songwriter named Cory Branan. It was called The Hell You Say.
A couplet at the beginning of the second song, “Crush,” caught my ear:
That time I mentioned I was moving / and you said you'd help me move
I almost went out and bought some shit / so I’d need your help to move
It made me smile. And it stuck in my head. So I listened again. And again. And I learned a lesson that I would learn repeatedly in years to come: the longer I spent with Cory Branan's songs, the deeper they wormed their way into my consciousness.
Over the next 20 years, Branan released an album roughly every three to four years, and I bought them all. They were with me through all the phases of my life, through marriage, kids, finding my job, traveling — every time he had faded from my mind he would come out with a new album and I would fall in love with his music all over again.
You know how sometimes you come across an artist and you feel like you just get them? You get their sense of humor, their worldview, and why they make the artistic choices they make? You get what they're going for and feel what they're trying to convey? It's like they're making their art just for you?
That's how it's always been with me and Branan, who is responsible for a startling percentage of my all-time favorite songs. Not only have I enjoyed his music, his career seems to have oddly run alongside mine. He never quite broke out and became MTV or radio famous. He's always cruised along beneath the surface, the kind of artist that other artists love, with a relatively small but incredibly passionate fan base. Every one of those fans believes, as I do, that he ought to be ten times more famous than he is, though he seems temperamentally disinclined, if not incapable, of doing the kinds of things that make people famous.
One of the great serendipities of my life was a spontaneous opportunity to go see Branan play in a small club in Denver when I happened to be there, in the 2010s at some point (the past is a blur). After the show we got to talk a bit in his dressing room and we’ve kept in periodic touch since. Now he's come out with a new album, called When I Go I Ghost, and it is an absolute banger, already in my pantheon, so I am super-excited to get the chance to chat with him about his career, life on the road, and how the new album came together.
So without any further gushing or ado, Cory Branan, welcome to Volts.
Cory Branan
Thanks, man. Damn, dude. I don't know if I can still blush, but I'll be blushing if I could. That's very kind. Yeah, I shouldn't take the headphones off of that part. Thank you very much.
David Roberts
Mean every word. So I want to hear, just to begin with about the young Cory Branan. You were born two years after me, and we were both born in the South. Born and raised in the South. So tell me about young Cory Branan, and the part I'm always fascinated by, which is you graduate college and you're young.
Cory Branan
Back up right there. Maybe you graduated college.
David Roberts
You went to a little college, let's say, and then somehow you get from there to a career. Tell me about that period. Young Cory Branan. How did you get into this?
Cory Branan
Let's see. Well, I started playing guitar at like, 13. I was just, like, a little shredder, but I didn't write a song until I was almost like 24, 25, in between those years. And a lot of it had to do with just, you know, being I mean, I know it's hard to believe, but I'm, you know, I'm kind of shy, I was shy, you know? And I know, I know because I'm, like, insane on stage, but I found a way to use that nervousness, and channel it a little bit, and just call it my style, but mainly it's just me trying to survive.
I always was paranoid about my voice and stuff, and so when I started bartending after college, I don't even know the timeline, like you say, it's all kind of smeared, but I went to school here on and off, but I kind of got out of my shell, bartending a little bit, I think. And then I started playing at coffee houses and doing covers of Lemonheads and whatever I thought fit my vocal range. And then failing miserably at a Joni Mitchell cover now and then. Yeah. And then I just started writing.
I've said it before a bunch, but I was sort of hearing John Prine's music for the first time was very formative for me. It's the first time I heard I was like, oh, I didn't know you could do that. Like deceptively funny music, only using humor to disarm you to get the knife in, you know, he's my hero, but we have very different sensibilities. You know, he's very Midwestern. He's got that cornball, hokey thing. And I have the twisted Southern gothic gallow's humor.
Music
"She struggled to read his knuckle tattoos / Beneath the ring and the scar / But the left said 'love,' the right read 'true' / She said, 'Please say you got a car' / 'It's parked out back / Pointed out of state / It's a recent acquisition / Should probably ditch the plates / And it won't get me far enough to ever lose track / But yeah, it's plenty car enough for never coming back.'"
David Roberts
But you heard John Prine's music and you thought, "hey, I could do that." Because John Prine's music is, like, he's an unbelievable writer first and foremost. Like, his lyrics are are amazing.
Cory Branan
I think it was the singularity of it. You know, nobody writes those songs but him. And I've always been drawn to artists that are very, I mean, it's fine. It's one thing. Dylan can write a song that feels like it's 100 years old. There's an art to that as well. But when somebody writes a song that's like, oh, yeah, that wouldn't exist in the world without this person's skewed point of view, and I was like, oh, yeah, I got a skewed point of view.
David Roberts
I got one of those.
Cory Branan
But, yeah, that's sort of what happened. I wrote a song, and since I waited so long, when I wrote one, I wrote like, 40. And so I just kept going and yeah, I sort of made a small "C" career out of this.
David Roberts
So you wrote songs, and then you just knew people from around Memphis, like, how'd you get a band together and recorded the songs? Found a label?
Cory Branan
The label was local Memphis. Just almost a one man label, really. And they just sort of came along, and right at the beginning, and I had this batch and I went in and did it. And, yeah, I just knew Memphis is a small scene, and it was actually a thing going on at the time. There was sort of a songwriter thing happening. Memphis has always been very shocking how much of a ghost town it is for music, such as insane musicians, but none of what you would expect, none of what Memphis is known for. Everything here is always addressing things in a backlash kind of way.
And so there's no scene. Everything's splintered and very like, "oh, you like that? Fuck you. I'm going to do this." And I still have that chip on my shoulder, too. But yeah, so it went pretty fast. And then I lucked into, like, an insane publicist from LA that used to manage Wean and Sparkle Horse. But she did all these things. She broke. For better or worse, she broke Jack Johnson. She had some hands in that kind of world. So I ended up getting like we played Letterman on that first record. Like, I ended up getting insane pop press that would turn around later and bite me in the ass when people were like, oh, the kid had a shot and nothing came of it.
I'm like, yeah, I had a label out with no show dates. There's nothing. No infrastructure, no nothing. It was just unbelievable pop press because she could piggyback it on. Oh, you want Moby for your next interview? I'll throw my little redneck. How that game works, or how it used to work, now, who knows what the hell's going on anymore?
David Roberts
Reminds me of that lyric of yours. I can't call it exactly to mind, but something like, "soon as forever has begun, somebody's saying, all is said and done."
Cory Branan
Yes, you call it just as good as I can. I don't even know. Yeah, I would have to play every line leading up to that line to remember that line.
David Roberts
Like the ABCs.
Cory Branan
Yeah, exactly.
Music
"We knew added up, babe / We just knew we were the ones / Forever barely starts / And suddenly someone / Is saying all is said and done..."
David Roberts
So you're sort of a young, lay about college dropout, bartender guy playing, you know, stand up mic shows. Do you record an album with a buddy, and then boom, you're on Letterman?
Cory Branan
Yeah, it was absurd.
David Roberts
Featured in Rolling Stone. And so I just wonder, during that sort of short but heady period, did you think, "shit, like, I got this, I'm headed for Springsteenville here. I'm on an upward trajectory now."
Cory Branan
No.
David Roberts
Did you have those illusions?
Cory Branan
Not for a second, no. I knew it was inappropriate. Everyone that interviewed me knew it was weird. I was green and shit, and I just was like, I'm just going to enjoy this. Even my heroes that came along at a time when things like that really did happen, when there was money was being made hand over fists, and so people were signing outsider stuff. When you have a Jackson Brown, you can develop a Tom Waits whether the first records do anything or not, those days were gone. I started when Napster started. I already saw this floor.
Now, I hoped things would go well. I even threw a little elbow grease into it. I went out to LA, but it's not like I went out to LA and started schmoozing or nothing. I've never done any of that, for better or worse.
David Roberts
Your second album contains songs that you wrote kind of in that same first rush as your first album.
Cory Branan
Oh, absolutely, yeah.
David Roberts
But it didn't come out until three years later, and then the album after that didn't come out until four years later, and then four years after that. So why does it take you so long to put out albums?
Cory Branan
That second record came out with that same first label they had. You know, I was contractually obliged to give them a record, and it just, you know, I was ready to go. And one thing after another, you know, just business crap, you know, just the the bad side of it. But, yeah, no, the songs are raring to go. Even now I'm sitting on I have all these songs, but I am only interested usually in the latest stuff I'm working on. But, yeah, one of these days I'm going to have to give these bastards a yard to play in.
But, yeah, it's just the business. Between the second and third records, I was without a label.
David Roberts
Because the second album did not do well, right?
Cory Branan
None of them did. Well, it depends what you call well. I do find for an independent artist, I have a circuit I can work, and I have a career. Well, I did. Things are really weird now.
David Roberts
Things are weird now all over.
Cory Branan
Yeah, it's weird out there. It's great in some places, but yeah, it's just some of my strongholds are like, what the hell?
But, yeah, I've always just been a sort of a blue-collar working musician. I go and I do the circuits, and I work a lot a year. And the records themselves are a luxury. I enjoy making them, but it is a pain in my ass to get it. I got this third one funded by pretty much a patron saint, and he privately funded me to do it. And then I went and shopped it around. Bloodshot signed me, but then there was a delay in putting it out. It's always something, man.
David Roberts
Right.
Cory Branan
But the three I had on Bloodshot, they were more, I had it in my contract that I was like, I need a record every year and a half. If I hand it to you, I need it to come out every year and a half. And so we did a record every two years when I was at Bloodshot. So that was the best I could hope for. I would love to keep doing that. We'll see what I'm on Blue Élan now we'll see what they have in mind. See how this goes.
Music
"I had nothing when I walked in here / Pocket full of fire and a killer idea / Still had nothing when you walked in / Looking like an Elmore heroine / The air was wet, clothes was too / I got the room key / And we got through."
Cory Branan
And then you got to sit on it forever. I finished. This record was done, like, mixed and mastered in February.
David Roberts
Oh, no kidding.
Cory Branan
It just came out in October. Yeah, just in October. So it means completely done. And I'm the kind of person that as soon as I go buy somebody a Christmas presents in November, I'm like, hey, you want to know what I got you? I'm terrible at sitting on things that I like.
David Roberts
Yeah, and this is a big album, too. I want to get to this album later. But so your third, no fourth, I think fourth album was called "No-Hit Wonder ", which is, I think, sort of ironic commentary on the sort of kind of life and kind of career you have.
Cory Branan
Yeah. I didn't know if that was going to be too clever by half, but I had written it. But I honestly wrote it about a lot of my friends. I was playing the Folk Alliance a lot. That was like an international folk festival that was here in Memphis for about seven years, started by the cat that did South by Southwest. And when South by Southwest got insane, he brought Folk Alliance here to Memphis. And so I got to meet all these artists that didn't even have the luxury or play into the tens of tens of people that I get and just mind blowing stuff.
And so that's actually where the impetus of that song came from. But I knew there's no way I'm going to be able to play that and not have people interpret it like that. So I put my list of grievances in there too.
Music
"Years of living blood to string / Years of living hand to mouth / Years just getting gig to gig / East to west, north to south / Well, he could have been making a killing / Peddling a dream / But if you've found him at all / You've found him just scraping a living / Blood to string / Sing a song for the no-hit wonder / Though it isn't one of his / He'd sing 'shovel me under' / Boys, it is what is."
David Roberts
It's been 20 years now. Looking back on it, is this the kind of career you wanted? You would choose, like, this sort of like not quite above the surface, but making a living career, like, is that what you aspired to and always wanted? Because reading around about you in advance of this, every article going way back is full of other artists and producers being like, "God damn it, why is this guy not famous? I got to make this guy famous. This guy should be with these songs are so good, why aren't they more famous?" And there are things presumably you could do to try to bust into that world, maybe like pick a consistent genre or simpler songs you sing along the first time you hear them all, this kind of thing.
Were you never tempted to do that stuff?
Cory Branan
No, not really. I have natural limitations, especially now, my age and things like that, but I have vocal limitations. It's not like I'm a Jason Isbell where you want him to just sit down and sing the phone book to you? I have a limited and specific vocal thing, but a lot of my favorite artists do, they have these sort of idiosyncratic things. And when I had kids, right, at first.
David Roberts
Which was how long ago?
Cory Branan
My daughter will be ten, my daughter will be eleven and my boy will be nine. My brain is so off, they're eight and ten. It was right after I had recorded "Mutt" or whatever, but then I was on Bloodshot and that was the first record, the "No-Hit Wonder" that I was making for them. And I think that might be the only time I've ever compromised. And I didn't compromise the music at all. But I was like, oh, I'm on a roots-punk, that in between thing Bloodshot does. And I'm like, "I'm on that kind of label." I was like, "I'll give him one of those to the arches." I just picked songs that fit together and made an album that I liked. It didn't write any of the songs to be that, but as I went in to make it, I was like, I'll make it a little more cohesive. Sonically.
Music
"There's a songbird nesting in the head of a scarecrow / Low and free, woe is me / Now I'm happy as a bluebird in a bottle-tree / Baby, you make me, baby, you make me / You make me, baby, you make me."
Cory Branan
It's still all over the damn place.
David Roberts
Love that album "Mutt," by the way.
Cory Branan
Yeah, that's me making my kind of thing. And then when Bloodshot couldn't do much with "No-Hit Wonder," I was like, "I'll screw it. I'm going back to make a kind of records I like to make that are very jarring and very no consideration whatsoever for the listener."
David Roberts
Yeah. And especially, get back into this later, but especially these days when people hear music in the context of, like, three or four seconds on a streaming site, music that requires concentration and repeat listens is not, let's say, the commercial big play.
Cory Branan
No, for me, when I say I don't consider the listener, I don't underestimate the intelligence of the listener. And I also don't really give a shit if something's jarring sonically back and forth. I'm not making music to go behind a frappuccino. It's one-on-one music, when I consider the listener, I consider when I write, and I don't waste anyone's time. I will never take three minutes of your time and not take it somewhere. We'll start somewhere, we'll end up somewhere different. Even if it's a dumb, fun punk song, you'll have fun for three minutes, I'm not going to waste any of your time.
David Roberts
Well, I want to get into the songwriting in particular. If I got one more question about career, which is just kind of like, let me know if this is too personal. You don't want to talk about it I'm just curious.
Cory Branan
I'll talk about anything.
David Roberts
It's so unusual for a musical artist to be at that sort of sub-fame, but making a living level. It didn't used to be all that rare, right? It used to be a lot more possible just to be a work a day working musician. But these days, everybody, you've read all the articles, you either are like one of the five to ten megastars or you're scrabbling for pennies now.
Cory Branan
Yeah, they want to break the newest thing or they cover their nut with legacy artists that were broke by the old machine.
David Roberts
Yes, you have a legacy artist doing a covers album, always reliable. But you're doing it, like, you're doing that, "I'm a working, touring musician with a sort of built-in fan base. No radio support, no MTV support, probably not big money label support, but just working away at it, touring." And you've been doing it for so long. And I know a lot of those musicians that you sort of sing about on "No-Hit Wonder," a lot of your friends that you've seen over the years have, I'm sure, come in and out of the industry, of the game.
Cory Branan
Yeah, absolutely.
David Roberts
And you've made it work. I guess my question is, is it viable? Like, are you in fact making a workable living doing this? Or do you see it as kind of like, "I've gotten lucky so far and it's going to fall apart off at any moment?" Or does it seem like there's still a life like that available?
Cory Branan
You just have to lower your standards, and you have to shift with it. I'm not making a career in hardly anyone's definition of a career.
David Roberts
Yeah, I guess I'm wondering how you pay the bills, which is not something you have to answer.
Cory Branan
I pay them as I tour, and I pay them ahead of time because it's feast or famine, you know? Everybody has to go forward. You can't be like, "oh, I think I'm going to stop and get a new pair of jeans." Screw that. You got a pair of jeans. You got a good pair of jeans. I obviously have pedal problems and stuff. My whole thing is I do spend if I do have any excess stuff, it goes into music stuff that I think will keep me inspired when I'm bored with one aspect of music. But I overdo it in that area sometimes. I've got a keyboard in front of me and a drum machine. And I don't probably need this analog synth.
David Roberts
Love the synth on the new album, though.
Cory Branan
Oh, thanks. Yeah, I played some of that, actually. But Jared K was playing some good stuff on there. I don't want to be too negative, but when people ask me now what to do, I'm like, anything else.
David Roberts
Not this?
Cory Branan
Not this.
David Roberts
That's exactly what I tell people who ask about journalism. Run.
Cory Branan
It's just not sustainable. The caveat is unless you can't help it, unless you're compelled to do it, I have a compulsion. My mother helped me. Too much or not enough, I don't know. But I'm kind of a hermit when I'm off the road. But the stage time, nothing beats playing shit out of your head for folks that they can use in their life and, you know, that means something to them. And you see, you know, there are all these stories that come back, and you see people that, where these songs have made their way into their lives and sometimes under their skin, you know, literally in tattoos and things like that, but in meaningful ways.
And for me, music has been there for me for that. It's what music has provided me as a listener. And so when my music is useful like that, nothing beats that.
Music
"Warm molasses midnight on a Mississippi star / Got a candy apple moon on the hood of my car / Never could have told me you'd've gone this far / I can't even tell you where the fuck we are / We must be off the radar, off the map / Stretched out in the tall green grass / Only green, against the blue / It's only me, against you / A man that says 'dreams don't last' / Never slept in the tall green grass / A man that says 'Coo-coo-cachoo' / Did some time in the tall green grass with you."
Cory Branan
And the writing itself, for me, is one of the only consistent joys I have in my life.
David Roberts
Really, because a lot of people will say, I love getting out and playing the songs, but like, writing them is like pulling teeth or whatever. You enjoy the actual composition process?
Cory Branan
Oh, God, yeah, I love it. It can be pulling teeth when you get into the, I mean, if you pressure yourself. See, the thing is, I don't ever try to write, you know, like, I never sit down with, I'm going to write this song, you know, I have this great idea. I have this piece of wisdom I'm going to share. I don't — fuck it. I don't have any wisdom, you know, I don't know a fucking thing. And 47 years on this Earth and my kids have no advice from me. I'm just like, I don't know, maybe don't do that again.
As I'm writing, I'll find things that are true and I'll just sort of intuit my way into a thing.
David Roberts
I noticed that the singer-songwriter genre, such a dumb name for a genre.
Cory Branan
Yeah, it's pretty weird. It's like an alien named it. Oh, they do these two things, right?
David Roberts
Yeah.
Cory Branan
Like an accountant is like an adder, subtractor.
David Roberts
Insofar as that's a genre, it's sort of known for your kind of acoustic confessional.
Cory Branan
Absolutely.
David Roberts
Sort of diary kind of writing. And you don't do that. This is something else I noticed as I was listening back, thinking about this interview, going back to the very beginning. Almost all your songs are from a character's point of view. They're almost all a little bit fiction esque that way. And I'm not even sure I could think, I mean, I'm sure there are obviously, like bits and pieces of you in your characters, as with any author, but I can't really think of a single song that is straightforwardly, sort of like the first person confessional kind of song. I can't think of one you've done by that. Does it help you to write, to be in a character's head?
Cory Branan
Absolutely. Yeah. I'm in all of them. It's just for me, I don't interest myself at all. I don't think I have any special insights.
David Roberts
Maybe this is a Gen X thing, Cory, because I see like, Millennial and Gen X writers who are constantly writing these kind of first person essays about my experience, and my history, and where I'm situated, and all I ever think is, like, "I'm such a fucking bore to myself. I cannot imagine writing about for more than five minutes."
Cory Branan
I've got a line in a song that I've never used, but it's like "I'm sick in the death of my own bullshit. Two guesses to how I feel about yours." Why would I want, but I have found that the closer to something that I'm feeling, or the closer to the bone I can get at it by fashioning it into artifice, I can create a thing with it. I can let my feelings, you can sort of set a jewel in a facet, as opposed to just being like, look at my sparkly ass pain. You can pick where for me, a lot of things are everything's been said, everything's been done.
And so I don't have any knowledge, like I say, any particular, pertinent knowledge, but everything can be approached from a different angle. And that if I have anything, it's just my collection of experiences and way I see things. And so when you are writing a character, you can choose the setting, you can choose the framework of it. Some of the stuff is like just flat out, it is confessional. But I'm confessing through the characters, or I'm confessing through a situation.
And again, you ask if there's anything that I could do to have a bigger career. I mean, that's one of them. That's obvious. The mystique of the tortured, the artist. You're right inside this guy's life, and this thing that he's giving you on stage is 100% him and real. And the thing is, the shit I'm giving you on stage is 100% me and real. It's just not a fucking diary. I am constantly trying to derail that mystique that people can use, and you most certainly can use it to further your career.
David Roberts
Yes. Yes. Well, if you're coming from a character, you know, if you're hearing a character talk, it's not immediate, right? It just takes a little listening, it takes a little thinking, it takes a little time to get who the character is and where they're coming from. And, like, the significance of...it just takes time is something people don't spend a lot of with music anymore.
Cory Branan
And I get it, but, yeah, it's just one-on-one music. I'm not really interested in music that you can describe in three words. It's all kind of stuff. I like songs that are like that. Sometimes I want to pop on Louie Louie, but sometimes I need "Famous Blue Raincoat" by Leonard Cohen or something. Sometimes I need a story that resonates with me.
Music
"My name is Miguel Simone / A man who walked it alone / At least that's what it says on a stone under the sycamore / My mother was dead by the time I was born / In the black of my eyes the gypsy nurse warned / She could already see my path torn between the sun and the moon / So I walked it and I walked it straight / Till I passed through so many a gate / That not even the blame and the hate but my father could follow."
David Roberts
I have a theory, a kind of an elaborate theory about your songs. If you'll indulge me.
Cory Branan
Please.
David Roberts
For a second. I've been thinking about this for years, so it's delightful to be able to say it to you. So I find that with each of your albums, I have the same experience, which is the first time I listen, I kind of bounce off at the surface a little bit. And I think, this is the one. This is the one where he's dropped off. I'm not going to love this like the others. And then I listen again and again, and all the little hooks catch me and pull me in, and then I'm on, like, listen number ten thinking, "this album was carved out of the stone of eternity and could not possibly have been different. A single note of it, and it's going to live forever. And how did I ever think there was a flaw in this album?" It happens on every album, almost on, like, a very predictable cycle. And I've been thinking about why that is, and so I have this sort of elaborate metaphor.
Cory Branan
Oh, do tell.
David Roberts
Yeah, this will be fun for you. So it's architecture based. Like, your songs, as we've said, you stray all over genres. Every album is ten or eleven different genres, but they are sort of like instantly recognizable genres. So, like, oh, this is like the soul-horns-rave-up song. This is that kind of song. Or there are kinds of songs that are very indelible and very instantly recognizable. Like, you'd recognize a style of house, like, oh, that's a craftsman or that's a contemporary.
Okay, but then you go in the house and you notice, like, oh, there's a really interesting, quirky room in this house. And then you open the dresser and you're like, oh, the inside of this dresser is super interesting, quirky. And then you flip down the mirror in the dresser and you're like, oh, the backside of this mirror is super interesting. It's just like, you get the gestalt immediately, but the more time you spend, the more you find these little customization. It just seems like every square inch of the house is thought out, is built on purpose. Like, there is thought and purpose in every second of every song.
And as we say, this is different than you'll get, like, I don't know, try to think of a counter example, like a Ryan Adams who comes in and has six beers, and writes 37 songs, and bangs them out. And it's just like, I got, like, a verse structure and a chorus. I'm good, let's do this. Let's bang this out and then I'll twiddle a little at the end. Your songs are not, like, "let's use the first take" energy type of thing. Your songs strike me as — you have spent a lot of time on every detail, you have thought about every detail, and so, consequently, they just reward, repeat, listens.
To this day, as much as I've listened to them, I still sort of will discover, like, a new little, like, vocal intonation or little drum fill or just a little something that's idiosyncratic. And those are the things that attach me to a song. Those are the things that make me love a song. The first time I heard this, I couldn't sing along because it sort of, like, bounced off my expectations. It didn't do quite exactly what it was supposed to do, but then the tenth time I listen is like, oh, I know this quirky individual thing by heart now, and it's, like, wormed its way into my head.
So my question is, like, you strike me from the music as slightly, let's say, obsessive. It really seems like you have thought about every tiny chunk of every one of these songs. There's nothing in your music that ever sounds tossed off. Is that accurate? Do you spend a lot of time filling out the little details in every little room of the song?
Cory Branan
Yes, I do, when I write it, yes. The actual writing I do. When a reviewer first called one of my albums obsessive, and I was asking my wife at the time, I was like, he said, "obsessive? What did you mean?" She's like, "you're obviously, fucking you have OCD, you're obsessive. When you write, you write ten verses for every verse that people hear." It's like, "oh, yeah, well, that's just because I care. I give a shit." I'm like, "why wouldn't I do that?"
David Roberts
Yeah. That's what I love. Like, I love that you care, that you put time into it. It feels like you worked a lot to give me, a lot to sink my teeth into and discover over time with patience.
Cory Branan
Thank you. Yeah. And it's not all cell phone, so I got to stand on stage and sing these fucking things. It's got to come out of my mouth every night. But the contrary part of me, and the perverse part of me, is I am really a fan of lightning in the bottle stuff. So when I do go and make the records themselves, I completely have it arranged in my head and all that stuff. And I because I have aspirations beyond just strumming a guitar, you know, I hear them fleshed out and things, but I won't give the musicians the demos ahead of time, maybe a day or two.
And then it's funny that you mentioned the one take. Honestly, there's hardly anything on my record that was ever more than three takes. But we will arrange it on the floor, on the fly, and I'll be like, here's the way I hear it. And then I just surround myself with underprepared, over talented musicians, and then I listen because there's just no way I'm going to have a better idea for the drums, like on this last record, than Eric Slick from Dr. Duck. I mean, everything I threw at him, it just got better. And my buddy Robbie Crowell, who played all the bass, drums and keys on "Adios."
I enjoy the give and take of music on the fly. And so I have to have an element of something material. Even in my live shows, there are these petals on the ground and some of my step, I don't even know what they're going to do.
David Roberts
Yeah, I was going to say, the live shows are very different. The live shows are very much feel, like, raw, spontaneous.
Cory Branan
Yeah. I have to stay interested in it. And so the way I approach the recording in the studio is try to find some sort of corollary there, with the potential for lightning in a bottle. Because, yeah, left to my own devices, when I'm not on medication, I will overthink that shit until my hair falls out.
And so, I mean, that's why I didn't you know, all these years, I never learned, you know, what a single knob in the studio did, because I knew I'd want to know what they all did. And that's what I did. Yeah, that's what I did over COVID. I taught myself how to record and mix and master at the house. And I spent 20 hours days doing it and learning it. And so when I do a thing, I do a thing.
David Roberts
This is hilarious. I wish I guess my wife will hear this eventually, but this is so me. There are very simple things that I've just never learned to do. And people say, oh, no, it's just simple and easy to do it. And I'm like, no, you don't understand. If I start, I'm going to have to do it right. I'm not going to do it the simple way that's easy. I'm going to do it the ten hour way. So it's all or nothing.
Cory Branan
Absolutely. Yeah. And that sort of schism in my personality, it's productive. I find it's fruitful. And again, even my songwriting is balancing for the most part. It's balancing aspects of my personality, or my feelings, or, even, it's generative. Like, I had a line about, for the less new record, there's a song called "Pocket of God" or whatever, and it's like "just being around her is like, I picked a pocket of God." I'm like, "well, that's some fucking Hallmark bullshit." And so then to balance that, it turns into a fucking murder ballot.
David Roberts
Right. She steals his drugs.
Cory Branan
Yeah. And so then that story starts balancing itself. I'm like, oh, okay, there's the axis where this thing balances. There's going to be some very sweet lines in this, like, love song lines, and it's a murder ballot. And then there's going to be some shocking other kind of stuff in it.
Music
"I found out she had a partner / He's still around here somewhere / But now he's working for me / His was just business / I took her personally."
Cory Branan
And so that little pivot. And then you sort of see, it's funny that you mentioned architecture because I do things visually. But yes, structurally, there's a reason why structures stand up or follow, that structures work. And when you mentioned the songs that I work in recognizable forms. Absolutely. I work in a lot of times I like to use a cliche because it comes preloaded with expectation.
David Roberts
Right.
Cory Branan
So I can subvert the expectation much quicker if I can conjure the expectations immediately. And so you can start subverting right away instead of making a setting.
David Roberts
This is another area, Cory, not to lecture you more about this, but like, make a song that sounds familiar but then ends up subverting expectations is just not a recipe for, not a standard recipe for commercial success.
Cory Branan
No. Maybe I could have a late, a late act in life, you know, maybe somebody's going to let me start to record for Toy Story or some shit. But, you know, every time I hear Randy Newman in one of those movies, I'm like, have you guys heard his 70s subversive shit? You know, it's like, man, every time.
David Roberts
I listen to your albums constantly, I'm thinking like, why have none of the TV, like those people who pick music for TV shows? Like, your albums are just chock full of songs that would be so good.
Cory Branan
They've been on a few.
David Roberts
Have you?
Cory Branan
Yeah. I mean, just like things that I've never seen. I don't know, one of them was like, somebody's like, "yeah, I saw you on that Kingdom show." I'm like, "what was that?" They're like, "it's like sort of 'Sons of Anarchy,' but MMA Fighters." I'm like, "I haven't seen that one. Glad you liked the music."
David Roberts
Is that any kind of real money?
Cory Branan
It's like kind of one pop, but yeah, I mean, it's a little chunk, but no, not what a normal human would consider real money. But we shop at Whole Foods that month instead of Kroger.
David Roberts
Well, let's talk about this new album you hooked up with Jason Isbell, who plays a prominent part on two of, what I think are the best two of, the best songs on the album. Although my favorite keeps drifting around as I listen more. But the two "When in Rome, When in Memphis" and then "Room 101 ", both of which heavily featured Jason Isbell especially "When in Rome, When in Memphis ". Him howling that chorus is just like, so good. Such good use of Jason Isbell's voice. Like you were saying earlier about his voice. I listened to that chorus the first few times. I was like, "who is that?" And I was like, "why does this sound so good? Why is it so compelling?" And then I looked at the notes, I was like, "oh, yeah, that's no wonder."
Music
"I'm right at home anywhere once it gets dark / 'When in Rome, when in Memphis, when in Asbury Park' / She glows in the dark, discarded parts / 'When in Rome, when in Memphis, when in Asbury Park' / She strikes up the heart of me, my arteries spark / 'When in Rome, when in Memphis, when in Asbury Park' / I strip her memory down to her strawberry mark / 'When in Rome, when in Memphis, when I'm in Asbury Park'..."
David Roberts
So how did you hook up with him, and how did it come about working with him?
Cory Branan
Well, Jason and I, we've been buddies for a long time, and I actually go way back with his wife, Amanda. She used to be in a band, Thrift Store Cowboys out of Lubbock, Texas. And I toured with them right from the beginning. So I've known her a long time. I didn't meet Jason until he was post-Truckers, like, doing solo. I did some shows with him when he's doing solo stuff. And then we just became friends because I was in Nashville when they were in Nashville. I had a kid, they had kiddo. And yeah, we just became close.
And he actually sang on that "No-Hit Wonder" record, too. But I've just always had my friends on the records from day one. There's nothing more singular than the human voice. And so when you have friends that are singers, it's like, yeah, I can put that on the record because nobody's walking into the Guitar center and buying that and putting it on their record, it's like that's a document of signing the wall. I was here, I was alive. And so it's like when you have friends that are talented, it's like I've always enjoyed having people on the record.
And Jason was really kind and came in and he actually sings on three and plays on two on that record. That's him shredding when I leave here as well, which was super fun. He brought in the red eye, the guitar.
David Roberts
Yeah. I was going to say you say voices are singular, but there are a couple of solos on here that I also identified as Jason Isbell.
Cory Branan
Yeah, you can hear it.
David Roberts
It's as close as you can get to a signature kind of guitar sound, too.
Cory Branan
He does.
David Roberts
He's responsible for those.
Cory Branan
And it's funny that you mentioned there because I've had Luther Dickinson on before. He's an old friend from Mississippi and place for North, Mississippi. All stars and stuff. And his daughter could hear when she was young, because Luther is a slide player, she could hear. And if you could put on Ry Cooder, you could put on any slide player. But when Luther was playing on something, she'd be like, "oh, that's dad." It's a voice. Slide guitar is a singing sort of thing, so you have real nuance to it. But, yeah, Jason was great. And that track, actually, Brian Fallon sings on that one, too, and he sang it before Jason sang on it.
So he's laying back a little bit, in the chorus. And as soon as Jason sang on it, I called Brian and I'm like, we're fucked. Because Jason just lays into it. And to mix him, if you cut him back because his voice just sits in this wonderful frequency that it cuts, it's a rock and roll voice. And if you cut him back and he's singing energetically, it feels off the balance, doesn't he ain't a backup singer. It needs to be for, like, the band. When the band would sing harmonies, they would all just fucking go for it.
So I had to keep it up. And so I ended up taking my voice out of the answer part of that chorus so you could hear Brian underneath doing the thing. But Brian sings on "O Charlene" too, so he has a place where he shots.
David Roberts
I was thinking with Isbell back there singing "When In Rome" I was like, all you can do is get out of the way.
Cory Branan
It was great. It was funny because he sang on "That Look I Lost" as well. And that song was a good reason to be Nathaniel Rateliff, who is a buddy that I knew from Night Sweats, and I knew him pre-Night Sweats. We did a tour, nice guy, and we kept in touch, and it just didn't work out timing wise. And Jason heard that and I was like, yeah, I got this song also, if you want to sing it. He just ended up hanging out. It was great. But I mentioned the Nathaniel thing. So the little Easter egg, I've told a couple of people, is if you listen to the end of "Look I Lost ", there's a little Nathaniel Rateliff like, Run that Jason does is like, "lost" whatever. He's like he's like, "I dropped a little Nathaniel on there for you."
David Roberts
If there's one thing I want you to take away from this interview is that you need to make an album of duettes with Garrison Starr.
Cory Branan
Oh, God, I love her so much. She's so good.
David Roberts
Who sings on "Waterfront." Only three of the eleven songs on this album exceed four minutes. Like, most of them are just over three. And this has largely been, I went back and looked at it, it's been largely been true of your back catalog, too, although some of the earlier albums were a little bit more.
Cory Branan
I didn't know what I was doing on the first record. Like, if it last song, like "Wavering Down," there was no reason to have a banjo break between every fucking verse. That songs could have been three — And yeah, I just learn as I'm going.
David Roberts
The funny thing is, all these songs have a lot of ideas in them, a lot of parts. Like, I love songs with parts, and these songs have a lot of parts. And I finished listening to them, I'm like, "oh, my God, I've been on a journey." And then I look up and it's like three minutes and ten seconds.
Cory Branan
Yeah, there's an art to that. I really like that. I like that thing and the deceptively, simple thing.
David Roberts
There's a lot of ideas stuffed in a short space, but one of them that's less complex, sort of notably simple is "Waterfront." There's just kind of a straight as a damn arrow. Yeah, you don't do a lot with that. And it ends up serving the sentiment of the song so well. It's so sweet and simple. And it's just like the last bit makes me tear up at the end.
Cory Branan
Yeah, that was 100% on purpose. Like we were doing it and that's again, talking about working on the fly. That was a song. And sometimes I would play it live and it would be a driving sort of thing. And then Eric on the kit was like, yeah, we could do this sort of train beat. And he started like, no, I hate a train beat. The ubiquitous Americana. And I'm like I don't like that.
David Roberts
Especially since you sing about a train in the song. It might be a little too on the nose.
Cory Branan
Exactly. And I hated to ask him because he's such a talented drummer. I'm like, man, "can you fucking Bob Seger this thing?" I'm like, "can you 'Against The Wind' it?" So you pop that record on and for the first 20 seconds, that thing's "Against The Wind ". It's fucking straight as an arrow.
David Roberts
Yeah, super simple strumming. And it really highlights the beauty of her voice. I think. Your voices go together so well.
Music
"Your eyes were gray as the mountains in the distance / Yours were red as hazard lights / Both of us knew what we was getting into that night / You said this could be goodbye, I guess / Just like sleeping dogs lie unless..."
Cory Branan
Garrison can blend with the air conditioner. She's so good. But, yeah, she really crushed it. She's a sweetheart. And she was a Memphian, originally. And we used to play together a lot. And I used to play with her, and I used to play with my friend Kim Richardson. So early on, I had like a pretty solid lesbian following. And I went on my last, yeah, and I went on my last tour last year, and I had some my lesbian crew come out and where was I? Somewhere in the Northwest. And I was just like, "Jesus, that's what I've been missing, my lesbian crowd." But, yeah, I love Garrison and she's the fucking best.
David Roberts
Yeah, I would love I would love for you guys to do more together. So I was thinking, speaking of keeping, forcing that to be simple, I was thinking back to, when we talked in your dressing for a while back, I asked about the drum break in "Yesterday ". This was from a song from a couple of albums ago. And, just for listeners benefit, there's a drum break in there that is just classic, like 80s radio, like a Phil Collins. I don't know what, I don't know what the right, exact analogy is, but it's just really dramatic, simple sort of drum break that really captures a very specific feeling.
And I was asking you about it, and you were telling me how you were sort of talking to the drummer, like, who was doing all these sort of, you know, super fills and you were like, no, no, dumber, dumber.
Cory Branan
Super dumb.
Music
"I still remember every word you said / Like I always said I would / Since you walked on the water bed / Stood right there in my head / For good."
David Roberts
I wondered in that same respect whether there was a little bit of that in "When I'm Gone" on this album because it's got a little bit of that, sort of, it's got a little bit of like an 80s hard rock, like "White Man's Overbite" air drums, whatever that vibe is, which I love. Like, I grew up my whole vibe.
Cory Branan
We were trying to keep it out of cock rock territory.
David Roberts
It flirts with it.
Cory Branan
It does totally flirt with it. And the aesthetic choice to try and drag it back into the 70s, or the late 70s, was the cowbell. I'm like, let's keep it in Nazareth territory.
David Roberts
Yeah, there's literal cowbell on it.
Cory Branan
I tried to stay with, "now you're messing with the son of a bitch." That kind of era.
David Roberts
Yeah.
Cory Branan
And that's the thing, is that's just fun to play.
David Roberts
Yeah. Like that main riff in that song would have just been ruined by additional frills or whatever, you know what I mean? The simplicity of that riff is its whole beauty.
Cory Branan
And I wrote it relatively as a blues form. o
Oh, really?
With weird records in the verses. But yeah, the riff is essentially it's almost a blues riff, but blues to me is sacrosanct and almost scripture. So I just keep my cracker ass away from it.
David Roberts
So you just amp it up to be butt metal.
Cory Branan
Yeah. It just sort of turns these things, turn into and it's a vicious little song.
Music
"When I leave here / You will remember / That I've been here / You're going to know I'm gone."
Cory Branan
And that was some of the, that was some of the stuff, like, that I worried about specifically on this one because my my wife and I did get a divorce. And it's not a divorce record, you know, but some of these songs are relationship based, like the bickering couple in "Room 101 ". But that actually wasn't us. I mean, maybe I was having a bad day, and I created some characters, but, you know, she's not like that. And, you know, like, and nobody's going to mistake me for the murdering drug dealer or her for the thieving prostitute. But then there are songs, you know, some other ones that they can mistake it for, and, it's just, you can look and some things have happened are in there emotionally, but it's not the story. I did, "The Look I Lost" is obviously, that one's dealing with it.
David Roberts
Like I say, you sing from these characters, but lots of times your protagonist is an asshole, you know what I mean? These are not sort of like hero, sympathetic characters. Like lots of songs. Like, I think all the way back to "Crush" on that very first album. You realize over the course of those verses, like, yeah.
Cory Branan
He's obsessive.
David Roberts
Oh, this guy's kind of an obsessive psycho. Like, this is not a nice, you know what I mean? You're not supposed to sympathize with this guy. Clearly, there's an element of sinister, and that's true on a lot of your narrators.
Cory Branan
Yeah, that one particularly because it's that sort of teenage thing that can cross over from sweet to possessive. I like putting that sort of dichotomy or balance in there. But, yeah, a lot of the characters, you can't really fully trust all of them, but I don't fully trust myself. Who knows where that line where I draw that line?
David Roberts
I think about "Bad Man," too. I forget which album that was on.
Cory Branan
Yeah.
David Roberts
It's the same thing, like kind of a boasting teenager, where you're like half like, "yeah, you go" and then half of you is like a 17 year old.
Cory Branan
Yeah, I'm a big fan of using the braggadochio sort of thing and to do something sweet.
Music
"We were never cool / It'll be all over the entire middle school / I mean / You know / The scene / When they say I'm a bad man / You could say / I bet he makes a better bad man / I bet he makes a better bad man / My baby makes a better bad man / Than you do good."
Cory Branan
That appeals to me. And then there, you know, there are aspects of it that's, you know, it's like some of it's real. It's like, you know, it's like people like rough sex, you know, people like, people like characters in real life. They like they let aspects of themselves come out. And so, you know, I give the little free run, reign to the demons sometimes.
David Roberts
Well, I like it because these flawed people, when they do manage to be a little sweet, it hits a lot harder. You know what I mean?
Cory Branan
Absolutely.
David Roberts
It's a more hard one.
Cory Branan
Setting that jewel. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, you set that thing, if you hit it from the right angle, you can really hit a new facet. I mean, like the "Room 101" or whatever. They're just tearing each other up, the whole song. They're fighting each other. It has a double bridge in there, which I always love, the double bridge on "Night Moves," so I dropped a double bridge on that one.
David Roberts
I love that.
Cory Branan
But it gets all the way down to all these things. I mean, he's just basically saying he's like, "I'm so fed up with this. I just honestly wouldn't fucking mind dying." I've got lots of little fucking suicide notes in songs for years. But he's like, "I wouldn't mind dying." What's the line?
David Roberts
"I wouldn't mind dying?"
Cory Branan
Yeah, the set up is, "if I could leave all of you behind, I wouldn't mind dying."
David Roberts
Yeah, I laughed out loud the first time I heard that, by the way.
Cory Branan
But in the payoff is, "but I got this feeling I take some of you with me, and so come over here, kiss me. Let's have a happy new year." And again, that line for me, that works because I take some of you with me. It's like, if I go I'm afraid that it'll hurt you and you'll miss something. But also, the line, I'll take some of you with me is a fucking threat.
David Roberts
Yeah. Yes. There's a lot going on in those lines.
Cory Branan
And it's just bopping along with the little Tom Petty field.
David Roberts
I know. When you say, I wouldn't mind dying, it's just like kind of the most innocent voice. It takes, like, a heartbeat for me to go like, did he just say what I thought he said?
Cory Branan
Yeah, that shit's on purpose. Glad you called it.
David Roberts
I love that stuff.
Music
"If I thought that I could leave all of you behind / I wouldn't mind dying / I wouldn't mind / But I got this feeling / I'd take some of you with me / So come over here, kiss me / Come on, come over here / Let's have a happy new year."
David Roberts
And that's the kind of stuff that, not to go back to gushing, but just like what I love is it rewards repeat listening. It just rewards spending time with it. You find those little shares and layers and shades. You keep finding them and finding them. And that, to me, is like, those are the albums that stick with me.
Cory Branan
I like that. Yeah.
David Roberts
And those are the kind that, the fuck do you do with that on a streaming platform.
Cory Branan
It's not formatting.
David Roberts
Where somebody's got their finger on the next button the whole time they're listening. I want to believe that there's, like, still an audience out there who will spend the time. God, I sound old. I sound super old.
Cory Branan
Whatever. Get off my lawn, kids. I'm the same way.
David Roberts
Yeah, I was going to talk to you about your lyrics. I love your lyrics. They all seem — this is another thing where I was talking about how everything feels crafted. You just seem like you are absolutely hyperallergic to cliches. Listen to all six of your albums, and I can't think of a single, like, "baby, baby, I want to hug you.
Cory Branan
I use a mechanic.
David Roberts
These standard AB AB rhymes, that kind of thing.
Cory Branan
Like, the chorus for, like, "Survivor Blues" is riffing on a cliche. Like, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. It takes that cliche and says, "well, yeah, but what doesn't kill you can also make you wish you fucking died. So you got to actually survive."
David Roberts
It's commentary on it, right? There's an ironic distance.
Cory Branan
And so I'll use that, and I'll use cliche. "Boy meets girl on the bar" quite a bit, those kind of scenarios. But, yeah, I can't I mean, why would I do that? It'd be fucking embarrassing for me. I personally would be embarrassed by lyrics if they didn't have something you have a reason to fucking be on paper.
David Roberts
I mean, a lot of popular music just really sounds like the lyrics were the last, they really sound like they were an afterthought. You don't have to do that.
Cory Branan
That's fine. I like Louie Louie. I like dumb pop music, too. There's other uses for music, but the thing that I know how to do is the thing I do. I don't know how to do any of the other stuff.
David Roberts
Have you ever had sort of literary pretensions? Because a lot of these songs, I mean, they're quite poetic, they're quite well-written. I mean, they sort of like are good as verse even, absent the music. Have you ever thought about writing other stuff?
Cory Branan
I have, yeah. I'm just too fucking lazy. And I do write poetry, and when I'm writing these things, it's free. I tend to write in meter, though, I find, but it's free sort of poetry for the most part.
David Roberts
Well, this is how I feel like, when it rhymes, it's not by laziness or default.
Cory Branan
Oh, no. I hate that.
David Roberts
You chose to rhyme there on purpose for a reason.
Cory Branan
My existence is the forced rhyme or somebody. That thing I just did when I inverted the syntax, that's another one. But yeah, I can't stand that shit, man. Don't get me wrong, I love a slant rhyme. I love a half rhyme, if you're going for an effect. And when the ear sort of gets let down a little bit by the half rhyme, and if you're trying to let somebody down with a story, that's great, but it has to be chosen.
David Roberts
One of my all time favorite lines, I mean, originally when I was going to do this interview, I have this whole, like, document half full, basically, of just couplets and verses from your songs that I love, and I was just going to, like, read them to you and tell you how much I love them. But I thought that would ...
Cory Branan
Sounds mortifying.
David Roberts
Be awkward for you and boring for the audience. But I love your lyrics. But one of my all time favorite lines is "we threw our two hearts high, the first half felt like flying." I just feel like a) there's an interesting not-quite rhyme. There's an interesting, the way the meter in which it's delivered is interesting. And then also just like what a beautiful sentiment. "We threw our two hearts high, the first half felt like flying." There's just so much contained in there. There's so much implied. You can find so much character and backstory embedded in just those lines.
Cory Branan
Yeah, I'm glad you caught that. Yeah. The -ing on flying is absolutely fucking there for a reason. If I wanted to still lift, if I wanted it to be positive and optimistic, I would have rhymed it with a straight rhyme. But the ing is the fucking falling
"The easy way / we used to play / when there was no such thing / as yesterday / we threw our two heart high / the first half felt like flying."
David Roberts
The one other line I wanted to mention is about "Blacksburg ". It's basically about a woman who drinks a lot because she's stuck in a crap job in a small town and you say, "if I can't feel good again, I'll be damned if I feel this pain I'm in," which to me again is, like, captures something so exactly about the impetus to take drugs and drink.
Cory Branan
Yeah, the other one on that one is the, and I have plenty, plenty of lines of empty, meaningless sex. But the other little one in that that I liked was, "as empty as them inside of me," that kind of thing. That sort of distillation, and it could be trite. Anytime you look at something and you're like, "oh, well, that's too clever by half," you know? But if it's clever or whatever, and distilled down to its smallest form, and it still resonates, you could fucking hit it like a bell. And if it resonates something that's true and bigger, then I don't give a shit if it's trite, if I distilled it to its smallest form. Because I like to work in a miniature with a lot of the details, and then I can have my flourishes as how big it gets or whatever. But I like to get down in there, and I can ring the bell.
Music
"She said the sinless night feels indescribably / As empty as them inside of me / If I can't feel good again / I'll be damned if I feel this pain I'm in."
David Roberts
Yeah, I love a little bit of words that packs a lot of implication, packs a lot of meaning.
Cory Branan
Yeah, a lot of my favorite writers have always been like that. I mean, I love Neruda and I love, of course, Neruda loved his nouns too, but I've always leaned towards like, Yates and William Stafford and even like somebody that's deceptively congenial like Frost. That shit is dark, man. Never again. "The Spider," "the miles to go ". Of course there's all this unrest, and he's doing so much more than this pastoral thing that people know him for.
David Roberts
Yeah, a couple of his poems kind of sound sing-songy. And then, you know, again you look closer, you're like, wait a minute. I've kept you too long. I could go on like this all day long.
Cory Branan
I don't go back out to do it for a week, so I got a jack shit.
David Roberts
Well, I'll spare our listeners who are here for energy policy.
Cory Branan
Yeah, you guys get back on with your lives.
David Roberts
But I do have a question, and this drives to be mad. You're out on tour now. How in the world do you play these songs without a full band? Especially this album, especially just benefits so much from these exotic instruments you bring in, and the big arrangements, and the big, they're just big. And when we talked last, you're like, I'm a working musician. I can't afford to take ten people on the road with me. It's just me and my rented Honda with my acoustic guitar in the truck.
Cory Branan
I got a van now. I'm regretting that van. Thirsty ass van. I know I'm on the wrong podcast to be talking about how I have a guzzling ass van. It kills me. But I can sleep in it sometimes. And this record. Thank you. I'm glad you said that, but this is the closest I've ever gotten to the sounds of my head, and fleshing them out on a record. But for me, that's just a document for when I'm dead. The live stuff. What I like about a live show is the temporal aspect, and it happens in real time and it disappears. And so I will play them different all the time. And now I've kind of made a name, a small, lowercase name for my live shows because they're completely different. So no consideration of the record when I do the record, no consideration of the live show.
David Roberts
So you do have solo versions of these songs you play, like, at some of them, I just have trouble envisioning it.
Cory Branan
Absolutely. Yeah.
David Roberts
I mean, I've often thought that if I won the lottery, people muse a lot about what they do if they got a bunch of money. And one of the things I would do is set you up with a residency and a full band somewhere and just come see you every week.
Cory Branan
It's been recorded now. I've got it recorded on my phone and here. So when you win, I'm going to take you up on it.
David Roberts
Yeah, I need to start buying lottery tickets, but yeah, you don't ever get the urge to really just get your three horns, and your board player, and get Jason Isbell up there on the electric with you, and really rip these things in their full form.
Cory Branan
Yeah, I'd love to do it. And if there's a festival run or something like that, I can piece the thing together. I'll take out a band. But again, it's not a full band. I'll do a three piece a lot of times because I still like the room to maneuver and change things up on the fly. The more you add, the more you got to hit your fucking marks. But, yeah, I don't know. I enjoy playing with the band. I get carried away, and I hear the songs like that, but they get to change more when it's just me.
I can stop on a dime. I can drop lyrics. I can drop the music down and up and down and just take it all over the place.
Music
"And I sprayed our names across the bridge / So the whole damn town would know / That bridge is gone, but some recall / That what's-his-face hearts so-and-so / And so it goes / And so it goes / But when I get lonely / Sure, she'll do / But you're the only / When I get lonely / I make do / But you're the only you."
Cory Branan
Depending on how I feel. And that keeps me engaged. And I figure, if I'm not engaged or interested, why the fuck should anybody else be?
David Roberts
Finalish question. Like, do you think about, I mean, I just turned 50 and you're you know, which means, I hate to tell you, you're you're you're coming up on it.
Cory Branan
Yeah.
David Roberts
And when one hits 50, one becomes reflective about the rest of one's life, at least when one is me. Is your plan to run this, to do this until you fall dead on stage. Is that the plan?
Cory Branan
Absolutely. I mean, hopefully.
David Roberts
And you think just like, financially, in terms of like, not just financially, but in terms of just like you got some kids now, and I'm sure if your body is anything like mine, it's not as easy as it used to be to drive your van around hours every night to a show to show. You don't see anything that could stop you or anything that could slow you down?
Cory Branan
Oh, yeah, plenty of things could slow me down. Yeah. I mean, I kind of have sort of reset and got back in shape and stuff. I let it go during the plague.
David Roberts
Right.
Cory Branan
Yeah. I try to keep it together for that very reason, just so I can keep going. Yeah. All kinds of things getting the way, but I'll just get somebody to drive me when I can't see anymore, when my eyes go. I've seen Ramblin' Jack Elliot pull up to the Whitewater in Little Rock, play a show and then roll off. That's the dream. That's the dream. I've seen it. I've seen people do it right to the end.
David Roberts
Yeah. Who was it? Was it one of the John Lee Hooker or some famous blues guy I feel like died recently and had played a show like, the night before or something like that. I was like, that's the way there you go. Short of just dying literally on stage, that's about as good as you can do it.
Cory Branan
I can't remember who that was. I think I heard that, too. Yeah. John passed away, but, yeah, I think one of the old guard there's so few of the old guard left. Yeah, but yeah, that's the idea. But again, I have to provide, at least until I can borrow money from my kids
David Roberts
Or me, if I win the lottery.
Cory Branan
Don't there you go. Yeah. You all heard it, but, yeah, it's weird. And it is an internal struggle, especially coming from Mississippi and all this Southern Irish thing, and you will provide and all these sort of things. It's like I've lost my mind over it. I've been on meds over it. I just don't know. I could go back hanging sheetrock again. But honestly, when you iron it all out, I would be miserable, and it wouldn't be that much more money. I probably wouldn't last. I wouldn't last five years doing that. And I think I can last here. I want to stick around and see what shit my kids get into.
David Roberts
Yeah. Also, you strike me, and I say this with great fondness and recognition, somewhat kind of neurotic, self-aware, thinky person. And I find for that kind of person, activities that get you in that flow state, that get you out of your head, for once, which is what I'm assuming being on stage does for you.
Cory Branan
Absolutely. Yeah.
David Roberts
That's real mental health. You need that.
Cory Branan
Yeah. No, it's a real thing. Yeah. And that's the thing. Probably why I try to write like that, why I just try not to exist. It's great for me. It's also why I've seen every fucking movie that exists that's out. I love to shut this fucking thing off when I can, but I don't want to shut it off like I did in my 20s with alcohol or anything that's self-destructive. I want it to still be there when I need it. I got to find a little cocktail of meds that sort of keeps me between the ditches. And I've talked more openly, recently, about mental health and stuff. That again, it's very Southern, very Irish, very just suck it up.
David Roberts
Oh, I'm familiar
Cory Branan
Talk about that.
David Roberts
Very familiar.
Cory Branan
You know, the dynamic. And so I've been trying to be more vocal about that because everybody's got it.
Music
"So I free-fall into a dream / That feels like flight, enough / Trying to find the damn horizon, I ride the Death spiral until / Just in time for Death-defying, I pull up / Awaiting the oohs and ahs / I wake up to no applause / Just a bill to be paid and some shit to get done / So put one fucking foot in front of the other one."
Cory Branan
So I've been trying to be more open about that as much as, I don't want to let anybody in too close, but to the extent that it could maybe help someone, I want to talk about it.
David Roberts
Yeah, Jason Isbell's been, maybe you two have talked about it too. He seems like he at some point made a conscious decision to model more vulnerability, I guess you'd say, or just more introspection because he's so of that mold. He seems like a thousand year old person out of the South. He's been around for 1000 years. So for him and people like that, him and you to talk about it, I do think it is helpful, and I'm glad you have found some physical and mental health that you think is going to keep you at it. Because I want more albums.
Cory Branan
They're coming. Yeah, I'm sticking around. And it's mainly, I thought I'd be checked out by now. But with kids it's like, "oh, yeah, I'm going to stick around this joint and see what happens here."
David Roberts
Yeah. It just gets better and better with them.
Cory Branan
Yeah you get to resee things. It's like, okay, I haven't seen this street out in front of my house.
David Roberts
Yeah, exactly. It's a little bit like weed when you first try weed.
Cory Branan
Oh, yeah. Your hand is fucking fascinating.
David Roberts
Yeah. Look at this leaf. You're right, little infant. This leaf is fascinating.
Cory Branan
You are not wrong. Yeah, absolutely.
David Roberts
Alright, well, tell us where to catch you on tour then.
Cory Branan
Oh, yeah. Let's see. The next leg is going down through Southeast. All the dates are at corybranan.com. Almost everything's there, if I can find a hub. But yeah, I'm down next week is Mobile. Gainesville, Orlando, St. Petersburg, Jacksonville, then Decatur, Nashville, Chattanooga, Memphis, Oklahoma, Fayetteville, Arkansas, Oxford, Mississippi, Baton Rouge, Austin, Texas, New Bronville, Texas, Fort Worth then I'm back home to turn 48.
David Roberts
I'm not hearing West Coast.
Cory Branan
No Northwest at the moment.
David Roberts
Where's my West Coast?
Cory Branan
Yeah. Looking like we're doing Midwest and then West Coast in the spring. I'm going to wait. Sometimes I'll try to come out there in February and cheat winter a little bit, but I don't know where the hell we're in February. Honestly, I hardly ever look. When I'm on the road, I look ahead a week. I can hardly look beyond a week.
David Roberts
Alright, well, thank you so much. Thank you so much for everything. Thank you so much for all the music over the years and this new album, which listeners is called "When I Go, I Ghost ". Please go interact with it, however kids interact with music these days. Maybe buy it.
Cory Branan
Holograms.
David Roberts
Try to find some way to give it money. Did I ever tell you, I have to tell you this. We're way over time here, but I have to tell you this one story before I let you go. I was in the 2000s and 2010s, these were big Napster days, big music piracy days. And at the time, I listened to, like, 100 new albums a year. I was like, there's no fucking way I'm going to buy 100 albums a year. So I just pirated everything. And I remember I was at a show, I think it was in the Tractor Tavern in Seattle. God, I can't remember what year this, I think maybe it was like, late 2000s, maybe not even into the 2010s.
But I remember watching you play, and I was just blitzed, super drunk by the end of it. And of course, whenever I get drunk, I get super, like, "I love you, man." I'm that kind of drunk. So I was like, "fucking love Cory Branan. I love his music." And so you were milling around after the show, and I remember coming up to you and trying to basically shove cash in your hands, saying, like, "man, I've stolen all this music from you over all the years, man. And I've loved it so much. I just feel like I owe you something, man."
Cory Branan
Oh, my God. Yeah, that happens sometimes. People still do that sometimes. The only difference is, now, I take it. Yeah, I might have taken it then. I don't remember.
David Roberts
You were like, "no, thanks."
Cory Branan
I take that shit now.
David Roberts
Backed away slowly. Alright, well, anyway, thanks so much for everything, and good luck on the tour.
Cory Branan
I appreciate it, man. I'm a big fan of yours. Cheers, brother.
Music
"Down on the corner of what I want, and what I tend to get / Day drinking and dreaming of you, I let / The ashtray smoke my last cigarette."
David Roberts
Thank you for listening to the Volts podcast. It is ad-free, powered entirely by listeners like you. If you value conversations like this, please consider becoming a paid Volts subscriber at volts.wtf. Yes, that's volts.wtf, so that I can continue doing this work. Thank you so much, and I'll see you next time.
Music
"I've been down in it, I ain't free / Weren't no experiment - these seven years they went / Like a life out of me."
Life as a traveling musician in the 21st century
I have been stealing from you Sir for years. Just subscribed. Thanks for the reminder. Also if your podcast does one of these episodes every so often I am all for it! Jason Isbell next?
Love this!