Bring Me The Horizon

Bring Me The Horizon

Photo: Courtesy of Bring Me The Horizon

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Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: Bring Me The Horizon's Oli Sykes

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The lead singer and creative force reacts to the band's first nomination, discusses creativity in the face of pain and says why he feels Grimes is "the millennial Björk"
Nate Hertweck
GRAMMYs
Jan 30, 2019 - 2:55 pm

Six albums into their career, Bring Me The Horizon flat out refuse to go through the motions. The band's new album amo arrived—or rather departed—Jan. 25 with a rich, variegated sonic color palette, unapologetic pop melodies and unflinching lyric themes of love, truth and betrayal.

While its lead single, "MANTRA," may feel more like home to longtime fans, with its punishing percussion and rubbery riffs, the rest of amo shows frontman Oli Sykes and company pushing up and out from their metalcore roots and into the dark yet lustrous skies above, exploring the cosmos of electro-pop, hip-hop, EDM and beyond.

We caught up with Sykes over the phone to get his reaction to "MANTRA" earning the British band its first GRAMMY nomination for Best Rock Song, hear what elements he feels makes for a great album, his thoughts on collaborating with Grimes, who he calls "the millennial Björk," and more.

Congrats on the GRAMMY nomination! Where were you when you found out?

We were in England. We just finished up our U.K. and Europe tour… We were signing about 2,000 CDs at the time to send out, and I guess we got the news at the same time as the world got the news. We were just like, "What the hell? Is this true?" It was kind of crazy.

You're up for Best Rock Song, a songwriter's award. What do you remember most about writing "MANTRA"?

We'd been writing for about nine months, I would say, and we had a load of cool stuff, we had a lot of stuff that we were really excited about. But it was the more experimental and weirder stuff and the stuff that you'd never heard Horizon do before, which we were excited about but the same time, we were ... One night I just said to myself, "Alright, if the record label or management or whatever said, ‘What song are you going to show the world first,’ what would it be?"

And in my head, I was like, we don't have that song. We don't have that song because all this music we've made so far is bats*** crazy and if we put this out first, people are not even going to recognize it's us or we're going to alienate our fans. And as much as we knew we wanted to do a completely different record, we still respect the fact that, to a lot of people, we're quite a new band. I know it sounds crazy, we've been going 15 years, but to a lot of people, they've only just got into us like one album ago, maybe two, maybe three, and so we didn't want to completely just pull the rug from underneath them.

So we had this mini-meltdown moment, and that's how "MANTRA" was born, with like, "Let's write the comeback song. Let's write the song that we would want to put on the album first, that we want the world to hear first."

The production on amo is daring and adventurous. Halsey even called it "a technicolor, emotion, trip" on Twitter. How do you see the sound of your sixth album?

I guess for me this album embodies everything that I like about music and what I'm into and what I'm doing in the best possible way. It's a record that I've always wanted to make. When we started writing this record, we had no idea what it was going to sound like. It wasn't preordained that this is how it would sound, but we just knew ... the goal was really to make an album that challenged you and it took time to like, and it was one of those album that you would almost be surprised that you like it, and it's not just something that when you first hear and go that's amazing, that's cool. It's something that really you have to [sit with].

My favorite albums are ones that when I first heard them, I was either underwhelmed or confused or just didn't know how to process it, and it always ends up being the kind of music that was ahead of its time and then everyone's catching up to do that kind of thing. That's not what I'm saying this record is, but I'm saying I didn't want it to be safe.

We knew what we could do to play it safe and keep our fans happy and all this stuff, but... it felt like it was time to push it that next level and do something where we just did everything we ever wanted to do. We used every kind of inspiration and influence and put it into this music and then didn’t worry if it came out the other end and everyone said this is not rock music, or this is not metal music.

We really don't care. We just want to be a band. We have no elitism, and we have no care for whatever people think. We're soft, we're pop, we're hip-hop, we're rock, we're whatever. We just really wanted to make something that hopefully blew people's minds.

You worked with Grimes on this album on "Nihilist Blues" – how did you connect with her?

We sent the song to her management. We knew we wanted a couple of guest features on this album. Again, we wanted to do some things from different worlds and try and connect bridges a bit more between rock music and everything else because you kind of feel like it used to be such a booming craze, do you know what I mean? Back in time when JAY-Z was collaborating with Linkin Park and all those kind of things, it's kind of gone now. We really felt like that should come back, so we were looking outwards to different places, and for me, Grimes is one of my favorite artists from that world.

All I listen to is kind of female fronted avant-garde-y pop stuff anyway, and I think she's almost like the millennial Björk for me, so she was my number one choice, and I'd seen her in a magazine a couple of years back where she said she liked our band. Wasn't sure if she was just joking or you know just on the spot, so we sent her the song and we didn't hear anything for about a week or so, so we were kind of thinking, "Yeah, well alright, maybe not." And then, out of the blue, she just texted me and she was like, "Yo. I f***ing love this song. This is one of the greatest songs I've ever heard."

She got all the reference points we were coming from… like Nine Inch Nails meets Darude."

She was going to come down to the studio, but she opted to just do it in her studio, which I think worked out good because she put so much work into it, she must've sent us about 30 different tracks with little noises and ad libs and all this stuff that we used throughout the song, as well as the vocals. It was my favorite song anyway, but her coming into it and also putting her, I guess, finesse and signature on it, just took it to that next level.

You've been forthcoming about your battles addiction and loss in the past, how have you seen your relationship with creativity change based on your physical and mental health?

It's one of those catch-22 situations. You go through these painful experiences and through all this stuff, but it really is fuel for the fire and it kind of contributes to what you do.

One of my friends said to me the other day, while I was going through my divorce process with my ex, and kind of found out all this stuff that she'd been doing and all this stuff, and he said to me today, back when we were sat in his flat and he was like, "I'm sorry, man." He said, "I knew it was the best thing that could've happened." He went, "I don't know why, because it wasn't like I knew at that point that she was wrong for you or anything like that but at the same time, I just had this feeling that it was all going to work out." And then he was like, "And look at it." He went, "Listen to this album."

He went, "Not only is it obvious that you've got out of something that you needed to get out of, but you're going to help so many people and they're just the best thing you've ever written in your career," and all this stuff.

RELATED: Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: FEVER 333 Tackle The Tough Issues

And he's just like, "How crazy is that? That something so terrible can just literally contribute to something so amazing."

And when you think of it like that, it's so true. It's not only therapeutic— and it's not necessary, obviously. Better not to have to go through these situations, but they not only make you grow as a person, but being able to write about them and put them into words where maybe people would never have looked at it in a certain way or can't, maybe, articulate it themselves, get to experience it and I think that's the greatest thing about music with lyrics that are actually real.

Totally. So what are your plans for GRAMMY night, and any spoilers on what you'll do if you win?

Oh god, we're not even thinking about it. I mean, it's such an incredible thing just to be recognized, I think we're just stoked that we can even be like, "We're GRAMMY nominated artists," that's amazing. And we're not getting too excited about the prospect of winning because we're obviously up against some huge and really good acts, so we're just going to expect nothing so we're not disappointed and just drink it in.

Back in England, we've never been to anything like this, so the fact that a different country is recognizing a song and a work we've done. That's just good enough for us.

Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominees: Between The Buried And Me's Paul Waggoner

Between The Buried And Me

Between The Buried And Me

Photo: Courtesy of Between The Buried And Me

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Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: Between The Buried And Me's Paul Waggoner

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The experimental metal band's co-founder and guitarist reacts to being nominated and talks touring, coffee, and the chance to bring a GRAMMY Award home to North Carolina on his 40th birthday
Nate Hertweck
GRAMMYs
Jan 15, 2019 - 4:50 pm

Respect and mainstream success don't necessarily go hand-in-hand in the world of metal. As in life, most meaningful milestones are hard won. Nearly two decades into their career, North Carolina genre heavyweights Between The Buried And Me have recorded and toured relentlessly, covering a lot of musical ground while amalgamating elements from death metal, jazz, prog, blues, indie rock, math metal and much, much more. Defying categorization is a cliché, transcending it is an art form, and, for Between The Buried And Me, a calling.

The quintet's latest album, the two-part Automata I & II, shows point blank how versatile, imaginative and absolutely crushing the band's music can be. Its lead-off track, "Condemned To The Gallows," earned the band their first GRAMMY nomination for Best Metal Performance.

We caught up with co-founder and guitarist Paul Waggoner to get his take on being nominated for a GRAMMY, what he respects about the competition, how he'll be spending his 40th birthday, and, of course, coffee.

Where were you when you found out you'd been nominated, and what was the first thing you did?

I had just gotten up and I was eating breakfast, making coffee or something, and my buddy J.B., who plays in August Burns Red, who have been nominated a couple of times now, he sent me a text and it said, "Congrats on the nom." And I was like, "What are you talking about?" He goes, "You guys got nominated for a GRAMMY." I was like, "Nah, I don't think so, man. That's crazy…" So I went online and I looked it up, and I was like, "S***, it's real…" Then of course shortly after that, all the emails started flooding in, text messages and all that stuff.  But, yeah, I'll always remember that… I was riding high for a while after that.

Between The Buried And Me are extremely well-known, influential and revered in the experimental, metal and indie communities. How does recognition on a wider scale feel at this point in your career?

That's something I've actually kind of had to think about a lot because, on the one hand, we've been doing this almost two decades now, so there's that sort of part of me that's like, well, we didn't really need a GRAMMY nomination to validate what we've done. We've always had pretty reasonably good critical acclaim, and it's hard to have any kind of success being a band like us. So the fact that we've had some success has been validating enough, and the fact that we're still doing it.

But on the other hand, it was definitely cool…It's really cool that everything we've been through as a band, whether it's lineup problems or just the trivial sort of flat tires on the road or bad shows or whatever, that all that stuff has led us here. We’re a progressive metal band and we got nominated for a GRAMMY.

Can you share what you remember about writing "Condemned To The Gallows"?

Part of the reason why we thought "Condemned…" would be a good song to release with a video and as the first single, if you will, we thought it was like one of those easier songs to the palate, you know, for the casual listener. It had a little bit of everything. It was melodic at times. It was weird at times. There's some quirky bits to it and then it was aggressive. So we thought it was just sort of a slam dunk as far as being a good song for us to put out there to kick off the whole album.

I remember the cool thing about the song, and I've thought about this when we were nominated, is that literally everybody in the band wrote at least some part of the song, which is cool… It was a true collaborative effort and it was the first song we put together for the album. So it's kind of fitting that that's the one that got recognized.

You mentioned the song is more palatable. Beyond the many genre titles that have been thrown at when describing your band, there's this concept of "accessibility,” or, one record or song being more or less "accessible" than another. How do you feel about that dynamic with your listeners, and does the concept come into play when you’re writing?

I think when we first started out, being a band, we knew we wanted to be a weird band. We wanted to write music that strayed from the traditional formula of what a heavy metal band could be. We wanted to write stuff that was unique and quirky but still in the context of metal. Especially in the early days, a lot of our songs were very linear and structured. They rarely had repeating parts, they just had this soundscape of craziness from start to finish.

I think as we've gotten older, we've realized that you can balance the two. You can still have a really long song that has instrumental bits, but at the same time, it's okay to have a repeating chorus. It's not like we're trying to be on mainstream radio or anything, but it I think it gives the song a little more structure and a little more identity.

You've mentioned diverse guitar influences such as grunge-era bands, jazz players like Scofield and Metheny as well as Rivers Cuomo. Who are some bands or guitar players who stand out to you today?

I still love listening to guitar players that just rip and shred… Steve Vai and John Petrucci… I'm fascinated with Devin Townsend, how prolific he is… Lately I love what Ghost is doing… I love bands that take the context of heavy metal or metal and push it in a different direction and whether that direction is just making it more genre-bending or if it's making it more accessible to the mainstream.

There's a lot of heavy bands out there that are doing really cool things. Some of them were nominated in the same category… Trivium, for example. They've been doing it a really long time, too, so and they're players and they're constantly challenging themselves. Deafheaven, they do something totally different. Again, they're taking the blank canvas of metal and sort of applying their own vibe to it and I think that's really cool. I have a lot of respect for bands that do that because we're trying to do the same thing.

What is the reality of making a living in music for you as part of a very successful artistic band with a relatively niche audience?

You have to work. You have to tour. You have to get out there and get on the road. I guess that's always been reality for us. As we've gotten more successful, it's never garnered very much more money in the way of royalties or whatever. It's all about just increasing your value, your market value as a touring artist. That's how we've been able to make a living. Otherwise, as a 40-year-old man, I would have had to give this up a long time ago, so that willingness to just get out there and keep beating the streets and playing gigs is our livelihood.

I think in a lot of ways a lot of our fans probably don't realize that we are totally dependent on their willingness to buy tickets to shows and buy T-shirts and buy vinyl and all that stuff, you know? That's what pays our bills and affords us the opportunity to keep doing it.

RELATED: Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: TOKiMONSTA On Why 'Lune Rouge' Is "A Celebration Of Life"

I understand the band began in Raleigh, but you now live in Charlotte. What's your favorite thing to do there outside of music?

I started a coffee roasting company a few years ago, and then about nine months ago we actually opened a café in Charlotte, a coffee shop, so that keeps me super-duper busy when I'm home. Probably too busy. So it's music and it's coffee for me. That's pretty much what I do and there's very little time for anything else, but I love Charlotte. It's a growing city that doesn't quite have its own identity yet, so it's cool to be able to contribute to that.

Well, good luck at the 61st GRAMMY Awards! Can you give us a spoiler on what you'll do if you win?

We'll be there… we had to move some shows around, but we figure it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and Feb. 10th is actually my 40th birthday. So I said, “What better way to spend my 40th birthday?” It'd be really cool to bring an award like that back to North Carolina.

Underneath 'Undertow': Examining Tool's Classic Debut Album 25 Years Later

Sheila E. & Snoop Dogg

Photo: Amy Sussman/Getty Images

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"GRAMMY Salute To Music Legends" To Air Oct. 18 On PBS

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The tribute concert will honor the Recording Academy's 2019 Special Merit Awards recipients, including Black Sabbath, Donny Hathaway, Dionne Warwick and more...
Nate Hertweck
GRAMMYs
Aug 27, 2019 - 10:01 am

Get ready! The fourth annual "GRAMMY Salute To Music Legends" in collaboration with PBS' "Great Performances" series is set to air on Oct. 18 on PBS. The all-star concert will honor the Academy's 2019 Special Merit Awards recipients, including Black Sabbath, George Clinton & Parliament-Funkadelic, Billy Eckstine, Donny Hathaway, Julio Iglesias, Sam & Dave, and Dionne Warwick.

Aug 27, 2019 – 12:31 pm

"GRAMMY Salute To Music Legends" To Air Oct. 18

Led by GRAMMY-nominated industry icon Greg Phillinganes as musical director and hosted by past GRAMMY nominee Sheila E, the celebration and tribute concert features rare performances by honorees and never-before-seen renditions of their classic songs by those they've inspired.  

The Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement recognizes musical artists that have made significant contributions to the recording field. This year's Lifetime Achievement Award honorees are Black Sabbath, George Clinton & Parliament-Funkadelic, Billy Eckstine, Donny Hathaway, Julio Iglesias, Sam & Dave, and Dionne Warwick. The Trustees Award honors areas outside of performance. Lou Adler, Nickolas Ashford & Valerie Simpson, and Johnny Mandel are Trustees Award honorees. The Technical GRAMMY Award recognizes people and companies who have made outstanding contributions of technical significance to the recording field. Saul Walker is this year's ​Technical GRAMMY Award recipient 

Also being honored is Jeffery Redding, this year's recipient of the Music Educator Award, which is presented by the Recording Academy and GRAMMY Museum.

Performance List (honoree in bold)

Dionne Warwick
"Walk On By" (performed by Johnny Mathis)
"What The World Needs Now" (performed by Dionne Warwick)

Sam & Dave
Medley: "Hold On, I'm Comin'"/"Soul Man" (performed by Sam Moore and Garth Brooks)
"I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down" (performed by Sam Moore)

Lou Adler
"I Feel The Earth Move"/"It's Too Late" (performed by Jessie Mueller)

Julio Iglesias
"Caruso" (performed by Julio Iglesias)

Ashford & Simpson
Medley: "You're All I Need To Get By"/"Ain't No Mountain High Enough" (performed by Valerie Simpson and Kenny Lattimore)

Johnny Mandel
"How Do You Keep The Music Playing" (performed by Patti Austin and Greg Phillinganes)
Medley: "The Shadow Of Your Smile"/"Suicide Is Painless" (performed by Patti Austin)

Black Sabbath
Medley: "War Pigs"/"Paranoid" (performed by Rival Sons)

Donny Hathaway
"A Song For You" (performed by Lalah Hathaway)
"Where Is The Love" (performed by Lalah Hathaway and Kenya Hathaway)

Billy Eckstine
"Everything I Have Is Yours" (performed by Gregory Porter)
"Dedicated To You" (performed by Gregory Porter and Patti Austin)

George Clinton & Parliament-Funkadelic
Medley: "One Nation Under A Groove"/"Mothership Connection"/"Flash Light" (performed by George Clinton, William "Bootsy" Collins, Sativa, Eddie M, Sheila E., and Snoop Dogg)

The concert will air at 9 p.m. on Oct. 18 (check your local listings) and will be available via pbs.org/gperf and the PBS Video app.

Black Sabbath, George Clinton & Parliament-Funkadelic & More To Be Honored At GRAMMY Salute To Music Legends

J.S. Ondara

Photo: Daniel Mendoza/Recording Academy

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Kenyan Singer/Songwriter J.S. Ondara On Telling His Own 'Tales Of America' With Debut LP

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The "Torch Song" singer describes how his new album aims to, 'Speak about my perspective on the times we're in in America as an immigrant"
Nate Hertweck
GRAMMYs
Aug 14, 2019 - 4:08 pm

Although he grew up in Nairobi, Kenya, singer/songwriter J.S. Ondara has more in common with Bob Dylan than you might think. After discoving the music of Bob Dylan, Ondara moved to Minneapolis, not far from where Dylan hailed from, to pursue a career. Also like Dylan, Ondara wrote songs - a lot of songs. This year, the prolific Ondara wittled down fhundreds of songs he wrote to the 11 stories comprising Tales Of America, his remarkable debut album.

Aug 14, 2019 – 4:04 pm

J.S. Ondara On Newport Folk & 'Tales Of America'

"I was trying, in some ways, summarize my jorney so far of my time in America in a few songs, a few words, and speak about my perspective on the times we're in in America, as an immigrant," Ondara told us of Tales... backstage at Newport Folk recently. 

Ondara was making his Newport Folk debut, another Dylan parallel and another giant step in his American journey.

"I've known about this festival for a long time," said Ondara. "I used to watch videos of it when i was back home in Kenya all the time. Being here in person, experiencing it, is quite surreal."

Bringing his fresh take on Americana and the American experience, Ondara voice is a welcome and refreshing sound and perspective for the genre. On his latest single, a new version of an outstanding track on the album, "Torch Song (Echo Park)," he sings with a jarring fragility and wisdom beyond his years, "Don't hold a torch to the sun/My heart is never on time/Always a little behind/Oh when it's about to break/I close my eyes and count to ten."

Ondara's songs such as "American Dream," Television Girl," and "Lebanon" have stirred up quite a buzz, and Rolling Stone called him out as an artist you need to know earlier this year. 

"The reception has been great, of the record," he said. "I don't know what I expected really, but this is more than I expected. I'm pretty grateful for all of it."

Catch Ondara on tour this fall in North America and France, and watch our interview with him above for more.

Billy Strings

Photo: Daniel Mendoza/Recording Academy

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Billy Strings Talks New LP, Being Billed As Bluegrass' Future, Heavy Metal & Mental Health

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The virtuosic bluegrass guitar star opens up about his forthcoming album, his rock and metal influences and how he copes with the pressures of touring and being hailed as the future of a genre
Nate Hertweck
GRAMMYs
Aug 8, 2019 - 11:31 am

Once you hear Billy Strings do his thing, you'll get it. His unhinged flat-picking guitar playing kicks the tradition of bluegrass into new territory with one foot while keeping the other firmly planted in the genre's rich tradition. As a young artist, his songwriting, already scary good, seems to only be improving. For good reason, Stings is being called the future of bluegrass. And even though seeing is believing, and he proves he's worthy of the attention every night he takes the stage, that's still a lot of pressure for one person.

Aug 8, 2019 – 11:31 am

Billy Strings On Bluegrass, Playing Live & More

We sat down with Strings recently at Newport Folk to talk about how he handles the challenges of all the attention and success, how other genres like rock and metal have weaved their way into his astonishing guitar work, the collaborative process of making his forthcoming album, HOME, and more.

You're new album HOME is on its way, Sept. 27. Can you tell us how it was recorded?

We made it back in January over about 10 days or 12 days I think.

So lots of live tracking then?

Yeah, we just all were isolated in different booths and stuff, but we just try to lay the tracks down and I'll play it and live track it. Yeah, I think most of the songs we just end up doing that way. It kind of feels more live that way too than if we played the music and then did the vocals and then did this and that. We kind of just do it all at once like we do at our concert, you know?

I think there's a collaborative element of that, and a collaboration is a theme to this album. Why is it important to you, as a solo artist?

For me it's just I love playing music with my friends. Like I just did with Molly Tuttle up there [on stage at Newport Folk], but yeah, Jerry Douglas played some on the record and sometimes collaborating with people like that, it's just inspiring. It kind of puts a fire underneath you and keeps you going. When I get to play with my heroes, it really inspires me. It's good for you.

There are a lot of the people who want you to carry the torch for bluegrass, bring traditional bluegrass into the new generation. Obviously, you know the history and you come from the history, but you're doing something new. How do you navigate that as an artist?

A lot of people have said, and I would believe that it's true that you kind of have to know the origins and to know traditional bluegrass before you can then branch out. I think there's something true about that. I grew up playing bluegrass with my dad and very traditional bluegrass, I cut my teeth on it, but then somewhere along the way when I was a teenager, I got into heavy metal and rock and roll and all sorts of different music as I grew up and branched out a little bit.

As a writer, I try not to block off those other genres for inspiration as well. I'll let all the rock and roll and the metal and all that stuff that I've listened to inspire me while songwriting just as much as a bluegrass. And also, even if I'm writing a song that's not very bluegrass, it sort of comes out because that's how I learned how to play. It always kind of, you'll hear that flavor in there, I guess.

Yeah, is there something specific about rock or metal that has worked its way into your style?

I think it's more just about our live show. I think the most important thing that we do is our live show. I think that's where we are really best seen is on stage, in a concert venue somewhere. We're gonna make records and we're going to do our best to recreate that live setting on an album, but we're a live music band. Every night it's different. We could play the same song, but it's totally sometimes different. I don't know, we just try to jam with each other.

How often do you practice to play at such a high level?

I mostly even play on stage every day. Sometimes I never get to practice because I'm always on stage. I was talking to my friend David Grisman about that the other day and like, "Man, I never have time to practice." He's like, "Well you could work up new songs and play them and we do that." But, we play a lot of gigs, and sometimes when I'm not playing gigs, I finally get a day or two off after several weeks on tour. Man, it's almost like you just want to take a nap and catch up.

But, I would like to practice more. Honestly, I think I could do better about that. I'd like to write more music. I'd like to get out my metronome more and practice with that. I'd like to just practice learning my fretboard, everything. I mean I'm still trying to get better.

You spend a lot of time playing shows and touring. For a lot of artists, mental health has become a topic we talk about now, where it used to be avoided. What do you do to kind of stay grounded when you're away from home?

The main thing that I do is I see a therapist and I talk to that person and I've been doing that for a while. I had a lot of anxiety back in January maybe before we started making the record and I don't think it was based around the record. It's based around a lot of other things. Things when I was young and just everything, everybody has their own troubles and that kind of things, but certain things can haunt you or if you keep things inside and don't talk about them, that stuff can come out as an anxiety.

It's almost if you have a pot of boiling water, all these emotions and things that you wish you would have said or maybe thought about or this or that and you put the lid on, it starts boiling and a little bit of steam is gonna get out no matter how hard you hold that lid on. Might as well just take it off.

That's what I do is I talk, I see a therapist and I would recommend it to anybody who struggles at all in that way. I think it is an important thing to talk about and I'm certainly not ashamed of that or anything. I have to work on myself and I think a lot of other people do too. I've lost a lot of friends to, whether it's substance abuse or depression and anxiety and that kind of stuff is very real to me.

Unfortunately, I do believe in this line of work as a musician, entertainer, an actor or actress, those kinds of folks, because there is this added amount of pressure, I think a lot of times anxiety and depression sometimes, I think a lot of musicians deal with that or I think maybe a lot of therapists or psychiatrists see a lot of musicians or entertainers because we're like in the public eye and there's a lot of stress involved.

A lot of musicians depend on things. I know a lot of people that are in bands drink a lot and that kind of stuff. It's easy to do. People are always handing your stuff too man when you're out there. People are offering you everything and it's hard to say no when there's a party and it's, until you start to have anxiety and stuff and that's, man, I just, I do everything I can to try to stay healthy. I try to make sure I get enough sleep, make sure I drink enough water, don't be doing drugs except for psychedelics, but yeah, just try to take care of myself and stay zenned out brother.

One more question: What's inspiring you right now?

I think my earlier life, I use [it] as inspiration a lot. When I grew up, I grew up in a small town and I saw a lot of drugs and stuff, a lot of substance abuse and I saw also that those people drove themselves down into a dark hole and that they can never get out of, prison and overdose and stuff like that. It's like, I didn't want to be a bum. I wanted to do something good with my life. I think just seeing that kind of helped me run towards the light in the right direction.

It's great that we get to travel and spread the light and meet people and play music for people and hopefully brighten somebody's day. Also, I've got to mention my father who taught me how to play. It's just great to sort of carry his torch in a way and to kind of, I'm doing it for him and from my mom and him.

Molly Tuttle On 'When You're Ready,' Her Modern Nashville Bluegrass Classic | Newport Folk 2019