Based in California, Fanny and The Atta Boys fuse American roots, country swing, depression era jazz, and classic blues into a sound uniquely their own. Comprised of Natt Wise (lead guitar), Toby Pykles (rhythm guitar), Eriberto Montoya (stand up bass), and Fanny (Tiffany Christie, lead vocals), the group recently released their latest album, the dynamite, First Time Out . Here Fanny and Natt answer their Essential 8 (+) on touring, writing, and much more.

Did you have a musical mentor? If so, who was it and how did they influence you?
Tiffany: I've had a lot of mentors. My mother is a singer and she definitely was my first mentor. She would encourage me to sing for family and friends at dinner parties when I was three and four years old. She always gave me a platform to perform on.
Natt: I had many, Sergio Estrada and Indian Joe. Mr Estrada was the guitar club teacher from my middle school, he let me play drums for all the learning guitar players. Indian Joe was my only real guitar teacher, he opened my ear to many different ways to approach the guitar ​

With any song of your choosing, what was the “a-ha” moment when you knew the song was completed and perfect?
Tiffany: "Ain't no money" was the first original I wrote for Fanny and the Atta boys. The entire song came out all at once. It was like it all came to me fully-formed.
Natt: "Entertain Me." When we started playing it live and performing a classic call and response for the crowd.
 
What’s the story behind your album’s title?
Tiffany: Pack of dirt is an idiom that Natt's Grandma used to use. The saying goes "you have to eat a peck of dirt before you die." It's basically saying you have to go through your share of trouble in life. We chose that title because it really was a struggle for us to get the album made and released.
Natt: It's the first time we had a chance to record with professionals as a band and put something out. (for First Time Out)
 
Where do you draw inspiration from when writing?
Tiffany: I'm not sure! Sometimes a line or word we'll just kind of float up to the surface of my mind. Other times, I'll hear a melody or guitar riff and I'll ask myself "well what's that song about?" And I'll write it down.
Natt: Playing for my son, putting him to sleep or making him dance 
 
When/where do you do your best writing?
Tiffany: I’m a daytime writer. I find a quiet spot and work. It can be outside in the yard or in my room, but it has to be silent for my brain to work.
Natt: The best writing comes out when you are not expecting it. At home, or the barbershop, or the car lol 

Do you write about personal experience, the experience of others, observations, made-up stories, something else or a combination?
Tiffany: Yes! I write about whatever occurs to me. I've made things up, been inspired by others, or my own experiences have inspired songs.
Natt: Definitely a combination of personal and others life experiences 
 
What’s the best advice you have ever gotten from another musician?
Tiffany: I think the best advice I've ever gotten from another musician would be to play for yourself not to play to the audience. As long as you're having fun the crowd will have a good time no matter what.
Natt: Just have fun. Don't let your mind take over 

Named "Best Band in Nashville" by the Tennessean's Toast Of Music City readers choice awards (2012-2015), Anthony Orio's unique blend of country mixes the traditional sounds of the genre with progressive contemporary vocals and production. Known for his electrifying live performances and strong ability to connect with the crowds, Orio has performed at The Grand Ole Opry, Ryman Auditorium, and Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge.

On October 9th, Orio released his latest EP, Undeniable, a six-track project that blends R&B ("Nobody"), ballads ("I Already Know"), and southern rock ("She's Mine"), along with a cover of "You Can't Always Get What You Want." Here, Orio answers his Essential 8.

Did you have a musical mentor? If so, who was it and how did they influence you?
I really didn’t have a “musical mentor” per se.  Of course, I have had a lot of influences over the years.   I love the way The Boss doesn’t break up his show with many stories or speeches, but just rolls from one song to the next.  I try to take that element to the stage with me.  I love the energy of guys like Garth and Mick Jagger and I try to incorporate that.  I look at a lot of the 90's Country Music I grew up on and songwriters like Jeffrey Steele, Tony Lane, and Anthony Smith- guys I heard when I first moved to town- as the benchmark for great songwriting.  

With UNDENIABLE, what was the “a-ha” moment when you knew the song was completed and perfect?
I’m not sure that a song is ever “perfect” (unless you’re Paul McCartney), but for “Undeniable,” and really for a lot of my songs, when I play them live and I see the crowd respond to them, I know we’ve done a good job. 

Where do you draw inspiration from when writing?
Most of the time it comes from just conversation with my co-writers.  We write about things we’ve been going through or have gone through.  I get a lot of inspiration from groove and feel.  When a song grooves and feels good, the lyrics seem to just flow. 

What’s the best advice to give to a musician just starting out?
Be prepared to wear a lot of hats.  If you are a writer/artist, and you’re determined to this no matter what, then you’re going to have to be a songwriter, a singer, a producer, an advertising agent, a booking agent, a tour manager, etc. etc. etc.

One of Pandora's “2017 Country Artists to Watch,” Canadian born singer-songwriter Tenille Arts' 2016 debut EP landed at #1 on the Top Country Albums chart on iTunes Canada, cracked the top 100 on the U.S. Country Albums chart, earned her the 2016 SCMA Emerging Artist Award and the 2017 SCMA Album of the Year. Her full length follow-up, Rebel Child, was released in October and finds Tenille, who had a hand in writing ten of the eleven tracks, further step into the spotlight. Here, Arts answers her Essential 8 (plus).

With "Run Out Of You," what was the “a-ha” moment when you knew the song was completed and perfect?
With "Run Out Of You", the "a-ha" moment was right after Adam Wheeler and I finished writing the bridge. The song just flowed out in the most perfect way, and it was as simple and as powerful as I hoped it would be. I had the end of the chorus written and a couple ideas for the verses before the writing session, but Adam and I brought the ideas to life and I think we both knew it was going to be a song on the album right after we wrote it! 

What’s the story behind your album’s title, Rebel Child?
The album is titled "Rebel Child" because that was one of the first songs I wrote for the album. It was written a few years ago on a writing trip to Nashville and it was the first song that felt like my own sound. I can clearly remember writing it in my bedroom in my hometown and I couldn't wait to take the idea into a writing session in Nashville. I didn't put the song on my first EP because I wanted to save it for my first full-length album. The song ties all of the different songs on the album together, and I wear all black, so I felt that the title described me in 2 words. A "Rebel Child" is someone who makes their own path and does things differently, even if it's not the easiest road to take. 

Where do you draw inspiration from when writing?
I try to draw inspiration from real life situations of my own, but my siblings and my friends are very open about their lives, so it's easy for me to create lyrics from what their going through. 

When/where do you do your best writing?
I get some of my best ideas in the middle of the night! Sometimes from dreams. I usually just start singing something that pops into my head, record it into my phone and go from there. Sometimes I finish the song by myself, or I take that idea into a writing session. 

Do you write about personal experience, the experience of others, observations, made-up stories, something else or a combination?
I write about a combination of experiences of my own and others. I don't usually make-up stories unless they start from something real. I'm very observant of people's behaviors, and I often write down lines that people say.

What’s the best advice you have ever gotten from another musician?
The best advice I've been given, is that nobody really knows what they're doing. Haha! So it's okay to break the rules and try to do things your own way. No two people are discovered in the exact same way. There's no specific formula to make it. ​

Hailing from New Mexico, singer-songwriter Max Gomez recently released the follow-up to his debut album, Rule the World, entitled Me & Joe, in September. Produced by Jim Scott [Cash, Petty, Lucinda Williams] and featuring Williams’ collaborator Doug Pettibone (guitar) and Eric Clapton accompanist Greg Leisz (pedal steel), Me & Joe is a five-track collection that is enveloped in a gentle melodic warmth coupled with an emotional lyricism that will overwhelm your heart with love and hope...or break it, but somehow, in the best possible way. Gomez, currently on tour promoting the album, kindly took some time to speak about the record, working with Jim Scott, and more.
 
Your dad was a craftsman and you have said that you see similarities between what he does and what you do. How so? 
Well, let me rewind a bit and say that when I first started doing music on a professional level, these sort of questions, like how did you become a musician, how do you write, or is your family musical, would often come up. I never had answers for them, but over time I started to think about it. My dad is an artist, a painter, and a builder of fine old-fashioned New Mexican furniture. One day when I was younger, I was sitting in the woodshop watching him, and looking around at his cabinets, which were loaded with books on different types of furniture and making specific things like dovetail joints….and it made me sit back and realize that maybe I wasn’t so different from him because my little bookshelf was filled with books about musicians I looked up to, songs, music theory, and other things music. I started to connect that a little bit and laid that out as a little piece of my history and how it correlates to me feeling that that’s partly where my drive and self-education comes from. Even though it’s different from what I do, when I look at my old man and what he does, I see a reflection; and underneath it all, it feels very similar. 

Hailing from Denton, Texas, singer-songwriter Blake Vaughn recently released his debut album, I Cannot Relate to a Thing But the Wind. Recorded at Mockingbird Sound, the ten tracks were all penned by Vaughn who has been writing since the ages of 12 or 13 after becoming infatuated with lyrically driven songwriters such as Townes Van Zandt. Here, Vaughn answers his Essential 8.

​Did you have a musical mentor?  If so, who was it and how did they influence you?
Maybe less a mentor than a musical confidant of sorts, but Alex Hastings, who engineered the whole thing, always had answers for questions I had pertaining to the recording process. I'm pretty much the least gadget saavy person in the world, and studio mixing boards just look like airplane cockpits to me, so it definitely felt like we were both performing eventhough it was my album. We found out pretty quickly we both had so much in common, influence-wise, so it was easy to trust him.

What’s the story behind your album’s title?
Aside from being the second track on the album, I guess I felt like it eluded to the varying subject matter. Most records are more cohesive, whereas with this being my debut and me already having amassed so much material to choose from I was just picking songs (old and new, sad and happy) that weren't related, to try and present some kind of balance.

Where do you draw inspiration from when writing? 
In every aspect of life purity and rawness are the things I'm attracted to. The art that has made the biggest impact on me has always been utmost honest and vulnerable. Everything on the table. I'm really into deconstructing conventional wisdom too, we could all live a lot more authentically if we thought for ourselves and did what was best for us individually.

In 2011, Koda Kerl and Marie Borgman poured some Evan Williams in a hot cup of tea and decided to start a band. The idea was to organically grow a sound based around lively shows that would not be restricted by genre. They joined forces with Irishmen Ryan Lavin (Marsh Mahon on bass and Stuart Gunter on drums round out the unit) started ferociously playing as much as they could. After a year of building a reputation playing rowdy bar sets they signed with County Wide Records and cut their first EP. A few years of cross-country tours and the band began playing festivals such as FloydFest, The Festy, and Arizona's Tilted Earth Festival, sharing the stage with Old Crow Medicine Show, Robert Earl Keen, and the Infamous Stringdusters among others. Their eclectic sound blends Americana and Southern Rock with Irish, Gypsy, and Old-Time all wrapped up in a raging live performance. Their sophomore record "Sweet Afton" was released on October 27th. Here, they answer their Essential 8.

What's the story behind your album's title?
Sweet Afton seemed like the perfect name for us because for us it ties together the Blue Ridge (specifically Nelson County) and Ireland. Marie and I grew up in Nelson County and Marie lived at the foot of Afton Mountain, which is a beautiful and meaningful place to us... Lavin is from Galway, Ireland, and used smoke Sweet Afton cigarettes (which are now defunct) - The original name comes from a Burns poem but we felt like it represented our sound.

Do you write about personal experience, the experience of others, observations, made-up stories, something else or a combination?
When I first started writing I only wrote about personal experience, but I've been trying to write in different ways over the last few years. Maybe one of these days I'll pull out a Springsteen-esque narrative epic. 

Where do you draw inspiration from when writing?
I draw a lot from my personal experience,  but I also draw a lot from the people around my and the places where I spend time. And I think like most artists I'm inspired by the music and art that I love.

What do you love most about being on the road?
I grew up one of eight kids and we weren't able to travel much...touring has given me the opportunity to see so much of the country. I also love being able to meet new people. Touring gives you a chance to see a city in a unique way and get tips on the area from locals.

The Legendary Shack Shakers (JD Wilkes on piano, harmonica and vocals, Rod Hamdallah on guitar and background vocals, Fuller Condon on upright bass and Preston Corn on drums), the band Stephen King described as dynamite and guitar legend Jeff Beck called "a cross between the Yard Birds and the Sex Pistols," released their new album, After You’ve Gone, earlier this year.

With After You’ve Gone, the band delivers their swampy, rowdy, blues and punk influenced rock-n-roll while Southern Renaissance man Wilkes channels a dark arts shaman to recount the Southern Gothic folklore of his home. Colored by the devastation of his recent divorce, the album starts and ends with a Voodoo curse and tells a cautionary tale of forgiveness, just like any good murder ballad. As adept at expressing the heart-wrenchingly personal as he is at spinning Southern folklore, Wilkes allows songs of fury and forgiveness to flow like the same phases that are lived in times of loss and recovery.  Here Wilkes answers the Essential 8.

Did you have a musical mentor? Who was it and how did they influence you?
One of my biggest heroes is Lee Sexton from Letcher County KY. 

As a banjo player, I had always aspired to meet this old master who had learned how to play before the birth of Bluegrass. To me he was like Elvis, a hero so inaccessible I’d never get to learn from him. After all, here was a guy who had been recorded and archived by the Smithsonian in the 1950s...a star in the movie Coal Miner’s Daughter, etc.

One day I just decided to call the operator and see if he was listed. Sure enough, he was. I rang him up and he answered with a booming “yeeeELLO?!”. 

I couldn’t believe my luck! It wasn’t long before I was asking him if it was ok to meet him and he just replied in that friendly, old hoarse, country twang “Come ON!”

He was and still is a great mentor and an important, living American legend.

Where do you draw inspiration from when writing? Books, Movies, personal experience, other musicians?
I draw inspiration from local and regional folklore, the culture and blood-memory of my kith and kin, dreams, visions, nightmares, misremembered history and intense personal experiences.

When/where do you do your best writing?
Best ideas come in the morning while showering, but I have to hop out to write them down because, I find, that the ink and paper tend to get wet. 
Many melodic ideas come to me in dreams though. So I record them, sleepily, into my smart phone recorder. However, half the time, upon listening back the next morning, they’re all just groggy, unrecognizable groans. Absolute unlistenable gibberish!!!! But every once in a while I’ll catch something cool.

Karen & the Sorrows are back with a new full-length album, The Narrow Place, a collection that centers around singer-songwriter Karen Pittelman’s lilting vocals, Elana Redfield’s lonesome pedal steel, and Tami Johnson's firm backbeat, and eleven well-crafted songs. 

The Sorrows are at the center of a growing queer country scene, creating a community for people who love country music even if country music doesn’t always love them back. For the last six years, they’ve run Brooklyn’s Gay Ole Opry Festival and the Queer Country Quarterly. “Now more than ever, we are grateful to be in community with so many amazing musicians,” Pittelman says. “Country music can tell compelling stories about family, love, heartbreak, and strength. Those stories should include all of our families, all of our love, and especially all of our heartbreak and our strength.”  Here, front woman Pittelman answers the Essential 8.

When/where do you do your best writing?
This might sound kind of lazy, but I’ve dreamt a lot of my strongest songs. Usually, I'll realize in the dream that it’s a song I want to remember and then I’ll wake myself up and sing it into my phone. I’m a weird person to share a bed with, I guess. Otherwise going on long walks really helps me, especially with lyrics. And a lot of times I get ideas in the shower. That’s where I wrote, “Can’t Miss What You Never Had.” In the shower on my birthday!

Which song of yours gets the best crowd response?
Right now, it’s probably “Take Me For a Ride.” Especially if it’s the kind of crowd that wants to learn the hand gestures. We have some hand gestures for that one that get a little risqué and some people really made them their own on our last tour. Shout out to our new friends in Columbus, Ohio—they definitely won for most creative.

What’s your favorite food on the road?
Cheese eggs, raisin toast, and grits at Waffle House. I would eat that on the road every day if the band would let me. I wish someone would open up a Waffle House in New York. 

What’s the story behind your album’s title?
The album’s title The Narrow Place is a translation of the Hebrew word mitzrayim, which is also the name for Egypt in the story of Passover. For me, that story is about how it isn’t so simple to get free. It’s a bitter struggle, and so much gets lost, forgotten, or left behind. But that struggle is also what makes you who you are. 

On Derek Hoke's latest, Bring the Flood, the singer-songwriter dives into a sound far more ominous, threatening, and anxiously introspective than the music on his previous three full length releases would suggest.

“So much pain and sorrow/more than I’ve ever seen,” sings Hoke on the opening “Love Don’t Live Around Here,” an exploration of life passing by for people stuck in their small town existence. And for most of the next 40 minutes, he explores shades of unease of the characters that populate this world with the confidence and musical prowess gleaned through years of working in Nashville.

Assisted by contributions from Elizabeth Cook, Langhorne Slim, Aaron Lee Tasjan, and Luther Dickinson, then molded into a cohesive whole by longtime producer and friend Dex Green, Bring the Flood finds Hoke more visceral, honest and intuitive than at any other point in his career. It’s a bold, unexpected stride in a dynamic new direction, further separating him from his Nashville peers, and audacious proof that Hoke has stepped forward with confidence and is not looking back. Hoke answers his Essential 8.

Did you have a musical mentor? Who was it and how did they influence you? 
Not really... I’m from Florence, SC. Every musician I knew was in a Top 40/Classic Rock cover band (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I think there was only 3 of us at the time that wrote their own music. I remember getting an award for Best Local Songwriter. It was a tie. 

With "Love Don't Live Around Here," what was the “a-ha” moment when you knew the song was completed and perfect? 
The song “Love Don’t Live Around Here” came pretty quickly. Once I had the right 3rd verse feel, I knew it was done. I thought of people that grew up in a small town, went to school there, got married, had kids.  Never moved away. Maybe never even thought about it. 

What’s the story behind your album’s title?
“Bring The Flood” is like a cleansing idea, I think. Washing away something. I’m growing as an artist, and as a human being. I wanted to shed some of my past. It also reflects the changes in Americana at the moment. Or as I see it, an oncoming storm. 

When/where do you do your best writing?
Early morning. In my car. No radio on. Driving back roads. Best inspiration there is.