As Butch Walker watched the tragedies and violence spewing out of the Charlottesville protests in 2017, it reminded him of the time when the Ku Klux Klan was asking for money in his hometown in Northwest Georgia. So he made a rock opera about it. 

When the singer-songwriter and superproducer watched the footage of the Unite The Right rally, the white nationalist protest that resulted in the murder of civil rights activist Heather Heyer and the injury of several dozen counterprotesters, it didn't strike him as a new phenomenon. Growing up in the small town of Cartersville, Ga., he had regularly seen such virulent hate on full display—even at an everyday red light.

"It was just normal," Walker says incredulously from his Santa Monica studio. "You actually saw people putting money in the f**king bucket, just like a firemens' donation." 

From there, he says, "I just started writing in a pattern after Charlottesville happened, and all these things started coming back into light." It returned him to a time when, as a young man, he witnessed animosity against people who weren't straight, white and Christian. While he didn't perpetrate these acts, he admits he was "complicit" in them.

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Three decades after the events of his "complicit" youth, Walker is now shining a harsh light on bigotry through his songwriting. His new album, American Love Story, out this week (May 8) on his label, Ruby Red Records, is a largely self-performed concept album. The storyline follows a character named Bo, the child of a discriminatory Southern family, who bullies a gay classmate who, in a twist of fate, saves his life. The transformative moment causes Bo to rethink the prejudices ingrained in him by his upbringing. 

Even before the album's release, its controversial song titles alone—"Divided States Of America," "Torn In The USA," "Blinded By The White"—are already ruffling feathers online. Walker doesn't care. 

"Oh, I don't like it when my favorite artist gets serious or talks social or political or whatever!'" he mock-complains as an offended fan in a bellyaching voice. "Well, f**k you, because guess what? I pay taxes and I've lived a long life and seen a lot, and I'm not going to just write another breakup song for people or a party anthem."

The new album's political and social slant may come as a surprise to fans who have been following Walker for years. A singer-songwriter who released his debut album Left Of Self-Centered in 2002 and has made records ever since, he's become widely known in recent years for producing summer-ready albums by Rob Thomas (2019's Chip Tooth Smile), Green Day (2020's Father Of All Motherf**kers) and Adam Lambert (2020's Velvet). Whether or not your politics align with his, Walker's commitment to self-examination on American Love Story is without question. 

The Recording Academy caught up with Butch Walker to chat about the inspiration behind American Love Story, his misspent youth in a Southern small town and his choice to make amends for his upbringing through a rock opera.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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Walk me through what you were like as a young man—your attitudes and your actions.

I can't say that I was ever like the main character in the rock opera. I had a very loving family, albeit it came with some dated philosophies as it does growing up in a small town. But my parents were from a small town, and I wasn't really having a scope outside of that and what was on TV and the radio. That was all you really got back then. It was hard to be "woke," so to speak. 

But I was more complicit, I think. I was more passive about things, maybe. But I was definitely OK with how normalized that behavior was toward minorities and [people with] different religions and different sexual preferences. All those things were considered so taboo because, quite honestly, it's fear. It's being afraid of the unknown. Unfortunately, a lot of people were instilled with that from a young age. Sometimes it's inherent and sometimes it's not inherent.

I think that's how I walked through life until I moved to California with my band when I was 18. I kind of had my eyes opened in a very big way. Not just because of Los Angeles or [it being] a big city, but because it was a melting pot of cultures and religions and sexual preferences and things like that. And then I toured forever after that, and by doing a lot of touring I felt like I grew as a person and as a mind.

What small town did you grow up in?

It's called Cartersville, Ga. At the time, coming up in the '70s and '80s, it was a lot smaller than it is now. It went from being a pretty small rural town to, at this point, almost being a suburb of Atlanta.

Do you want to go into any detail about the discriminatory behavior you were surrounded by?

Like I said, my immediate family was pretty tame and I'm super glad about that. My mom, she's a super-progressive country woman, which is a rarity. My dad grew up not so much, but by the time he died, he was very progressive-minded. I think it sadly came with the times and the location that you heard a lot of derogatory words thrown around about people. Most of it [came from] relatives, maybe some friends or friends' parents.

I took a lot of that and put it into the record. It's a factual tale of fictional characters based on people I know or even myself, loosely. I've got to say, coming from a small town [made me] have certain scruples and things that are lost on someone in a big city. Some of my favorite people are from these small towns. They'll give you the shirts off their backs. 

I was trying to be careful how I did the record so it didn't sound like I was judging. It really isn't. It's like a movie with characters. It's a story based on things that happened in my youth. It's also stereotyping stereotypes in a lot of ways.

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In the story, "Bo" experiences an attitude adjustment regarding a gay schoolmate. Tell me a little about that.

I absolutely knew and was friends with some gay kids at my school. But at the time, obviously, that was forbidden to be out of the closet in small towns. I think a lot of people just sadly kept it shrouded and kept from the public. But people knew and sadly, I followed this behavior toward them by some mean-ass motherf**kers at my school. 

Having that happen in the rock opera, there's a [kernel] of truth, obviously, but it was more like a "What if this happened to you?" scenario. I'm sure this has happened where a racist or a bigot or something has had their life saved by the one [type of person] that they had been raised and taught to hate. What does that do to your mind after you realize you'd be dead without the help of somebody who didn't judge you, but you spent your whole life judging?

And you realize they're just people. That there are good and bad people in all walks of life. So I think that's why this character has this comeuppance and this crazy epiphany about what his life actually means and has meant all this time because he had blinders on.

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Did anything like that happen to you?

No. That part of the story is fictional, but I wanted to make it something that could easily happen. Not to say that I didn't see that happen growing up. I [also] saw instances where people were compassionate to people who didn't deserve it because of their actions toward them.

Let's fast-forward to 2020. What made you want to tell this story in a format as outsized as a rock opera?

I'd say it was more like 2017. I wrote and recorded it a couple of years back. When I finally finished it, I just sat on it and didn't think I wanted to do anything with it. I was like, "Nobody needs a f**king rock opera." And certainly, it's touchy subject matter. I didn't set out to make a rock opera, a concept record, whatever people want to call it. I just started writing in a pattern after Charlottesville happened and all these things started coming back into light. 

I started flashing back to my childhood where I can remember what it was like seeing Klansmen in full costume on the side of the road, walking up to red lights wanting donations and s**t like that. And it was just normal. And you actually see people putting money in the f**king bucket just like a firemens' donation. Or worse, going over to a kid's house and seeing racist s**t everywhere and [knowing their parents were] probably a member of some sort of organization. So it was wild to see that the sleeping giant never died. It was just always around.

I certainly don't want to politicize this because it's beyond being a political record by a mile, in my mind. It's more that in the last four years, there's been an inherent spike in hate and division and racial crimes and bigotry. When I started writing songs about it, it was just a theme—I don't know why. Then I sent some demos to my manager and he was like, "It sounds like you're making a rock opera." I was like, "I guess you're right." And here we are.

Then the pandemic of 2020 set in and I said, "You know, this is going to be a really tough record to market and tour on anyway without playing the whole thing from beginning to end. It seems like it'd be weird to just pepper a couple of songs into a set of 30 years' worth of albums that have a first-person narrative from a bigoted racist. It'd be strange to hear in a show! So when [the lockdown] happened, I said, "You know, I've got to put this out."

As a classic rock fan, I appreciate that you went full Tommy or The Wall with it.

Absolutely. I grew up on that music. I'm a big fan of when a band or an artist wants to get out there and jump into the deep end. Even if it's something spacey like Tommy, which is a strange, convoluted story. It was more like a surreal situation rather than a strict storyline. And it didn't matter because that's what made those records so much more intriguing and fun to listen to.

We're still a long way from the finish line on the current lockdown, but we could be nearing the end of the Trump era. What are your sociopolitical feelings at this stage in world history?

Well, I've got to be careful there. I've already got a record here that a lot of people are judging based on the titles and lashing out at me about online, thinking I'm some sort of pious, judgemental Hollywood liberal elitist. Which is funny because I f**king hate Hollywood. I don't live in Hollywood. I live half the time in the South where I love it the most. I made that record because I wanted to poke fun at all types of stereotypes of all people.

Where we are right now, in my 50 years, I may care more now than I did naturally when I was younger because I know most people in my 20s didn't care about politics. Maybe they do now. But I know when I was growing up, most people just cared about them-f**ing-selves. They didn't pay attention to the world. But we've unleashed a massive amount of hate and vitriol into America with this presidency.

At the risk of this making me sound soft, I miss having someone who has just an ounce of empathy and compassion. I would love to see that exist again. Whether it be in him or in someone completely different. I just want that back. I want that tone to be set for the rest of the country, because when you have somebody angry and tensed up and yelling and f**ing screaming at everyone all the time in America and lashing out daily and nightly on Twitter, all you're doing is making everyone else feel that way.

I just think we're not going to get anything done and we're not a strong nation when we're divided. Obviously, people in politics are going to have differences until the end of days with their right-wing and left-wing agenda, but there used to be more civility between the two. Now it's just bad. I would like to see a shift back. I don't care who it is. I could care less. It has nothing to do with right or left—it's right and wrong.

Do you hope this record can help well-intentioned folks to reexamine possibly unsavory attitudes?

Man, I hope so. I'm not Post Malone, so I'm not going to have millions of people be aware of who I am or my record, so it is what it is. I'm limited on who I can reach. But do I want it to? Yes. Because I know there are people who come to my concerts who are like that, and I have friends that are like that. I've had conversations with some of these people even recently, which is what I want. 

You can't have a conversation in a comments section on a f**ing Instagram post. That's not a place to have it. It's more about trying to establish some sort of talking point in a civil manner. And that's few and far between, but I've definitely had people, including myself, believe in wrong things growing up and grow over the years.

My dad was one of those people! By the time he was on his deathbed, for the last 25 years of his life, he was helping out black people, white people … he totally had as many gay friends as I did! And that's something that just didn't exist. It's sad to say that, like it's some sort of accomplishment or something to be stoked about. But it is, sadly. For a lot of people, it's just not going to be their reality.

Nobody's going on tour, obviously, and I think we've reached the saturation point for livestreaming. What are your immediate plans to promote the record?

[Sarcastically] I've got an idea! Livestream! I mean, I get asked daily to do someone's livestream. I'm so thrilled and honored that people want me to do them. But I can't keep up. I'm trying to finish the records that are here right now, and it's hard to take the time out to do them all. It's really awesome that people want me to do them. But it's the only form of digital expression of songs that we have right now. And right now, with this record, I think I got a little divine intervention because I was thinking to myself, "How am I going to do this live?"

Sorry if I'm repeating myself from earlier, but I didn't know how I was going to do this record anyway because peppering in a couple of songs from it didn't make sense. It needed to be played all the way through in its entirety. That's a tall order to ask your fans that have come to see you play and they're pretty die-hard. They love old and new material, but the last thing I want to do is say, "Hey guys, chill for an hour! I'm going to play a whole album you don't know that well yet!"

But it does sound like a great idea. To me, anyway. So in that respect, it's the perfect time for me to film it and show it. Whether that be a livestreamed concert where I do a storytelling, one-man-band version of the record or … what? I don't know. But I know that I've got that option that I've been playing with, trying to make it come to fruition.

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Mastodon's drummer and singer Brann Dailor assures you he did not purchase his shiny golden gramophone at his local shopping mall.

“I won that! I’m telling you. It’s a major award,” he says in the latest episode of Where Do You Keep Your GRAMMY?

The metal musician won his first GRAMMY award for Best Metal Performance for Mastodon's “Sultan’s Curse” at the 2018 GRAMMYs.

“‘Sultan’s Curse’ was the jumping-off point for the whole theme of the album,” he explains. “The protagonist is walking alone in the desert, and the elements have been cursed by a Sultan.”

It’s a metaphor for illness — during the creation of the album, the band’s guitarist Bill Kelliher’s mother had been diagnosed with a brain tumor and bassist Troy Sanders’s wife was battling breast cancer.

For the band, the GRAMMY award represented their version of the American Dream and culmination of their career work. Even if Mastodon didn’t win the award, Dailor was happy to be in the room: “We felt like we weren't supposed to be there in the first place! But it's an incredible moment when they actually read your name."

Press play on the video above to learn the complete story behind Brann Dailor's award for Best Metal Performance, and check back to GRAMMY.com for more new episodes of Where Do You Keep Your GRAMMY?

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In April 1993, journalist Stuart Maconie coined the term Britpop for a Select magazine article celebrating the UK's fight back against the dominance of American rock. Remarkably, London four-piece Blur weren't even mentioned in the story. And yet, frontman Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James, and drummer Dave Rowntree would provide the catalyst for the scene's mainstream breakthrough.

Just a year later, Blur released what many consider to be Britpop's defining statement. Parklife served as a colorful, vibrant, and incredibly infectious love letter to all things Anglocentric, drawing upon the nation's great cultural heritage while also foreshadowing what was to come. And it instantly struck a chord with homegrown audiences desperate for guitar music that wasn't drowning in abject misery, and better reflected their day-to-day lives.

Remarkably, Albarn had predicted Parklife's success four years earlier. As he declared to music writer David Cavanagh in 1990, "When our third album comes out, our place as the quintessential English band of the '90s will be assured. That is a simple statement of fact."

Three decades after its game-changing release, here's a look at how Parklife forever changed both Blur's career trajectory and the history of British rock.

It Kickstarted Britpop's Greatest Rivalry

In one of those great rock coincidences, Blur's third LP hit the shelves just 24 hours after "Supersonic" gave a then-relative unknown Manchester outfit named Oasis their first ever UK Top 40 single. And the two bands would remain intertwined (perhaps begrudgingly so) from then on, culminating in the most high-profile chart battle in British music history.

You could argue that Oasis' Noel Gallagher threw the first stone, describing Parklife as "Southern England personified" in a manner that suggested it wasn't exactly complimentary. And according to his manager Alan McGee, Definitely Maybe cut "Digsy's Dinner" was written as a deliberate "piss-take of Blur."

An increasingly bitter war of words then broke out in the summer of 1995 as the "Country House" versus "Roll With It" war swept the nation. Blur emerged victorious, although Oasis had the last laugh when (What's The Story) Morning Glory spent 10 weeks atop the UK album chart.

It Brought Storytelling Back To Indie Pop

Heavily inspired by Martin Amis novel London Fields, Parklife was inhabited by a cast of intriguing fictional characters, essentially doubling up as a series of short stories. "Tracy Jacks," for example, is about a golf-obsessed civil servant who ends up getting arrested for public indecency before bulldozing his own house.

"Magic America" is the tale of Bill Barret, a Brit who commits to a life of excess during a Stateside holiday ("Took a cab to the shopping malls/ Bought and ate until he could do neither anymore"), while "Clover Over Dover" explores the mindset of a manipulative boyfriend threatening to jumping off the titular white cliffs.

Over the following 18 months, everything from Pulp's "Common People" and Space's "Neighbourhood" to Supergrass' "Caught by the Fuzz" and The Boo Radleys' "It's Lulu" were combining classic British guitar pop with witty Mike Leigh-esque vignettes of modern life.

It Originated The Big Indie Ballad

Dramatic ballads aren't necessarily the first thing that come to mind with Parklife, a record famed for its jaunty, "knees-up Mother Brown" ditties. But it boasts two examples: "To The End," an alternate Bond theme featuring a burst of Gallic flair from Stereolab's Laetitia Sadler, and the swoonsome "This Is A Low." Turns out the "mystical lager-eater" the record was designed to embody could also get a little vulnerable from time to time.

This appeared to give all of their laddish peers some pause for thought. Oasis, the most fervent advocates of the "cigarettes and alcohol" lifestyle, later scored their biggest hit with acoustic ballad "Wonderwall." And bands including Cast ("Walkaway"), Shed Seven ("Chasing Rainbows") and Menswear ("Being Brave") all enjoyed UK hits revealing their softer sides. No doubt Coldplay, Travis, and every other sensitive post-Britpop outfit that emerged in the late 1990s were taking notes, too.

It Paid Respect To The Greats

The Britpop scene was renowned for its slavish devotion to the first time British guitar bands ruled the airwaves, the Swinging Sixties. Oasis freely admitted they modeled themselves on the Beatles, while the likes of Ocean Colour Scene, Kula Shaker and The Paul Weller all released albums that sounded like they'd been discovered in a vintage record shop.

And while Blur would later distance themselves from the past with a sense of invention (which Albarn would also parlay into his various side projects, including the virtual band Gorillaz), they were more than happy to get all nostalgic on Parklife. See "Far Out," their only track to feature James on lead vocal, which resembled the trippy psychedelia of Pink Floyd in their Syd Barrett era, and the Sgt. Pepper-esque brassy instrumental "The Debt Collector," while there are also echoes of the Walker Brothers, The Kinks, and Small Faces. Suddenly, retro was the new cool.

It Turned Blur Into Britain's Biggest Guitar Band

The UK Top 10 success of 1991's "There's No Other Way" proved to be something of a false start for Blur, with the band soon falling by the wayside like every other baggy pop outfit that emerged at the turn of the decade. "Popscene," the 1992 single intended to revolutionize both their career and British guitar music in general, stalled at No. 32, while 1993 sophomore Modern Life is Rubbish sold just 40,000 copies.

But Parklife single-handedly turned Blur into Britain's biggest guitar band, reaching No. 1 in their homeland, spending 82 weeks in the Top 40, and eventually becoming a million-seller. It went on to pick up four BRITs, a Mercury Prize nomination, and has been recognized as an all-time great by Spin, Pitchfork, and Rolling Stone. Further proof of its glowing reputation came in 2009 when Royal Mail selected it as one of 10 albums worthy of commemorating on a postage stamp.

It Spawned A String Of Classic Singles

Parklife's campaign was kicked off in March 1994 with "Girls and Boys," a glorious dissection of British vacationers — which, surprisingly in the days when genre-hopping was frowned upon — evoked the '80s synth-pop of Duran Duran and Pet Shop Boys. Rowntree was even replaced by a drum machine, not that he particularly minded, luckily.

This indie floorfiller was followed up by the hugely underrated "To The End" and then the much-quoted title track. Everything about "Parklife" the song is larger than life: the Cockney geezer narration from Quadrophenia's Phil Daniels, the festival-friendly sing-along chorus, and the brightly colored video in which James — perhaps tipping his hat to Queen's "I Want to Break Free" -– donned soap opera drag. But fourth release "End of a Century," a melancholic tale of domestic drudgery complete with mournful trombone solo, once again proved there was a depth beyond their cheeky chappy personas.

It Made Brits Proud To Be British Again

Unable to connect with the oppressive angst and flannel shirts of the grunge movement that had plagued their first major North American tour in 1992, Blur first started to embrace their inherent Englishness on the following year's Modern Life is Rubbish. Unfortunately, this throwback to the original British Invasion was met with a resounding shrug of the shoulders on both sides of the Atlantic.

Undeterred, however, the band doubled down on all things Anglocentric on its follow-up, from its original title of London, to its greyhound racing cover art, to its celebrations of bank holidays, Club 18-30 holidays, and shipping forecasts. This time around, they managed to capture the zeitgeist (at home, at least), as the rise of New Labour and the forthcoming hosting of Euro '96 made everyone proud to be British again. Within 12 months, the UK charts were littered with homegrown guitar bands selling the idea of the English dream — and it all started with Parklife.

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Using lively, raw instrumentals as a vehicle for emotional catharsis, Sleater-Kinney’s Little Rope takes the lead as one of their most vulnerable projects to date. 

The "Dig Me Out" singers approach their 11th studio album with a fresh perspective, influenced by their experiences during the pandemic. Despite the departure of drummer Janet Weiss in 2019, the band maintains their iconic post-riot grrrl take on rock music. Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker infuse Little Rope with reflective lyrics and raw energy, mirroring their personal growth and resilience. 

While working on the album one day, Brownstein received a call with news that nobody ever wants to hear, nor expects. She had been informed that her mother and stepfather had been involved in a fatal car accident while on vacation in Italy. Faced with grief and a sense of unfamiliarity, the band turned to something that always brought them comfort: making music. Little Rope was born.

Despite such a tragic, major life change and trying to make it through a global pandemic, Sleater-Kinney’s motive remains consistent.

"We hope to find people where they're at," Tucker explains to GRAMMY.com. "And it seems like we have, in each stage of someone’s life."

After hosting a GRAMMY U SoundChecks event with the Pacific Northwest Chapter of GRAMMY U, Sleater-Kinney sat down with GRAMMY.com to talk about their perspective on the ever-changing industry and the legendary bands they pull inspiration from.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

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It has been almost 30 years since you all released your first album. In what ways has Sleater-Kinney changed since then and what has stayed consistent? 

Corin Tucker: We still try to write songs that are emotional and that reach people. Our songwriting has developed over the years and I think we have different methodologies for writing. But, really the most important point of a song is that it makes people feel something. We still try to judge what we do by the same metric as we did 30 years ago.

Carrie Brownstein: One thing we set out to do is to have a unique sound and I think we created a sonic language with each other that we've tried to maintain, but also push the narrative forward and challenge ourselves with each album. That's been consistent from the beginning, we never — even in the early years — wanted one album to sound like the last one. Things change and the industry changes. We just try to stay true to ourselves, but also adapt.

Are there any of your early projects that you feel still resonate to this day? 

Corin Tucker: The funny thing about streaming is that people are finding some of those older songs and really getting into them. We found out at the end of last year that people were really into one or two songs off of our very first self-titled record. A really nice thing about having your music available digitally is that it's available to everyone all over the world. 

Path of Wellness (2021) was self-produced, as it was made during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic and Little Rope (2024) was produced by GRAMMY-winning producer John Congleton. What was it like going from a self-produced project to having John on the next project? Was there a certain reason you chose to work with John? 

Carrie Brownstein: Self-producing for us was very anomalous. We've always worked with producers and one of the reasons is to just have an outside perspective — somebody to come in and be the tiebreaker or to just bounce ideas off of. So, it was kind of a no-brainer to return to a producer after the solitary of the pandemic. 

We have always been fans of John Congleton's work. We come from similar backgrounds and have been in talks to work with him for a while. Fortunately for this album, it worked out and we felt like these songs would be really well served by his productions. 

Could you tell us a little bit about your dynamic as a music duo? When writing songs, do you both try to work on them 50/50 or is it on-and-off, where one of you may take the lead for certain songs? And what was this collaboration like specifically with Little Rope? 

Corin Tucker: Our goal is always to make the song as strong as it can be. We’ve worked together long enough to know that that's the most important thing. Sometimes a song is more an idea of one or the other, and you need to wait until they’ve fleshed it out to come in with your parts. We have a bunch of different modalities and we just try to keep the conversation going. It's a lot about communication – it's an ongoing constant conversation between the two of us on where the song is at and what we think it might need.

Can you share any standout memories or experiences from when you were writing Little Rope?

Carrie Brownstein: My friend has an apartment in Downtown Portland and he was out of town. So, he let us use the space as a writing studio. And neither of us live in Downtown Portland, so it was interesting to be in this highrise in Portland looking out over the city — sort of being in conversation with the city and changing the landscape in which we were writing was nice to have.

As Pacific Northwest natives, how do you see your Pacific Northwest roots stick out in your music? 

Corin Tucker: A lot of the sounds from the historic bands you can hear in our music. You can hear Nirvana, you can hear the Fastbacks, so you can hear so many of those Pacific Northwest musicians. They were bands that we grew up with and bands that we still try and emulate with what we do.

I feel like a good number of Sleater-Kinney fans have stayed fans and grown with you all over the years. What about your music and your brand do you think resonates with people even in different stages of their lives, and how did you foster this dynamic? 

Carrie Brownstein: Sleater-Kinney’s a very earnest band. We wear our hearts on our sleeves and I think our audience appreciates that rawness and vulnerability. It's emotional music.

We have a lot of younger and newer fans. I think they relate to the emotionality and the honesty in the music, so that’s what we try to stick with.

You have said that The Showbox is one of your favorite venues to play at in Seattle. How does it feel being back at The Showbox for two sold-out shows? 

Carrie Brownstein: We really enjoy the intimacy of a smaller venue, allowing the fans to get a little closer to the stage and feeling more connected with them. It's just nice to feel a sense of history, a through line with our career and our relationship with the city. We're really excited to be here. 

I’m curious to know how your fans reacted to Little Rope. Have you noticed any common reactions to the project? Or any particular responses that have stood out?

Corin Tucker: People really relate to the emotion in the music. We've gotten a lot of people saying that it helped them through a hard time. Having that impact on people is pretty special when they feel like it's okay to be emotional and process things with music.

Lastly, you have the rest of your international tour to go, but what else is coming up for Sleater-Kinney? 

Corin Tucker: We're very excited to play shows internationally. There may be some cool stuff coming up that maybe hasn't been announced yet, but we're looking forward to more touring.

Carrie Brownstein: For an album cycle, it's almost two years and so, for the most part it will be, it'll be touring and then we'll write something else.

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When Sheryl Crow released her tenth studio album, 2019's Threads, she declared it'd be her last — even calling it "a beautiful final statement."

"People don't listen to whole bodies of work anymore. In fact, I'm not sure they even listen to a whole song anymore," Crow explains. "So it seemed kind of, not only futile, but also, at this stage, it seems like a long process that's expensive when really, it's best to put out something you really believe in."

As it turns out, she really believed in her eleventh album, Evolution. 

Crow's music has always been as insightful as it is catchy, and Evolution is perhaps the most existential example of that. Throughout, the nine-time GRAMMY winner  poignantly muses over the state of the world and humankind, while also reflecting on the moments and the ideals that still give her hope. Along the way, she throws in very Sheryl Crow quips ("Anger sucks, but at least your brand's trending," she sings on "Broken Record") and makes some important statements ("We are brilliant, we are kind/ But sometimes we miss the glaring signs," she urges on the title track).

If Evolution ends up being Crow's actual last album, she'd certainly be going out in signature style. It's a culmination of what's made her music so timeless: unabashed honesty, soulful musicality, and unbridled joy. 

GRAMMY.com sat down with Crow to discuss her unexpected album, her "liberating" new creative process, and major moments that have made her career feel like a fairy tale.

After declaring that you wouldn't make any more albums, how did creating Evolution change your perspective on the rest of your career? Do you think you'll go back to making albums?

Well, this was not like any experience I have ever had. I've never made a record where I wasn't there for it. I mean, I was there, but when I typically make a record, everything starts and ends with me. 

This was me sending a guitar vocal to this incredible producer, Mike Elizondo, who basically was like Martin Scorsese. He would take my little screenplay and just build this cinematic landscape around it. I've never had that experience where I walk in and hear myself in the context of something I've never heard before. And it was really a beautiful experience. 

Once I got over the fact that I'm not playing everything — once you check your ego and go, Wait a minute, this is exactly what you wanted. You wanted your stories, your thoughts to be built on — it made it so different than any process I've ever experienced. 

Will I go back and make records the way I used to? I don't know. I'm going to quit saying I'm never gonna do an album again, because I don't know. [Laughs.]

You've said that this is kind of a diary turned into an album. You can actually feel that in some of the songs. I can envision you sitting down and just spilling your heart out, and then it turning into a song.

I've never made a record where I just wrote the song and then let it go, and then it came back to me. It was a really colossal gift that I gave myself, to let go of it and be okay with what came back to me. 

Luckily, there was no disappointment in what came back, because I know Mike Elizondo so well — like, for 20 years. And the interesting thing about this process is the whole thing came together over one song that we put on the record [last]. 

It's called "Digging In The Dirt," it's a Peter Gabriel cover. It's on the deluxe [version of Evolution]. I called Mike, I said, "I have been really soul searching. I've done a guided mushroom tour. I am really trying to navigate how I'm feeling about this moment in our humanity, and I want to do this song 'Digging In The Dirt,' would you produce it?" He said yes. 

We sent it to Peter, and quite a long time went by, and [when we] got it back, he'd put himself on it. Then, it was like, Okay, we have an album.

I imagine that you probably weren't thinking he would put himself on the cover.

I wasn't. We sent it to him and he really liked it. And I said, "If, you know… no pressure!" 

Of course, it's a compliment. But I think his work is pretty emblematic of what this record is about: Digging deep and taking no prisoners, calling out what you see, trying to figure out a way to get back to [your] authentic self — which is what every human being at some moment in their life will struggle with.

I feel like you've always been pretty outspoken in your music — not in an abrasive way, but just in a way that you're very assured of the message you're spreading.

I hope so. It's a weird thing to be now — because when you think about music before MTV and VH1, like before videos, you'd write a song and there was no image that was attached to it. Then MTV and VH1 [come along, and] suddenly you're writing little stories [for visuals], and that gets in somebody's head. Like, I can listen to Madonna song, and instead of what I experienced, I remember the video.

Now, you put out songs, and there's so much branding and social media that you're attached to before you ever hear the song, that it taints what your songs are about, you know? And it can also make you [think], I would never listen to her because she's a liberal. 

It's like we're programmed to decide if we could like somebody's song based on how we feel about that person. It's different than it used to be. All that to say, there's nothing that can stop me from writing, because it's the thing that I know how to do. It's a salve for me.

I saw an interview with the Guardian where you answered fan questions, and someone asked about how your creative process evolved. And you were basically like, "I don't know who's listening anymore, and I don't really care who's listening. So I'm just gonna say what I feel." Do you feel more creatively liberated than you ever have?

I do. I mean, there were many periods during the process of making the albums in the early days where I would sit and listen to the body of work and go, I gotta write something that could maybe get played at radio. There's none of that anymore. Because radio is based on streams, and streams is based on social media and TikTok, and all that stuff. And also, being my age, I can't even hope to be played anyway. So it is liberating.

That's not to say that it's not frustrating. It is frustrating to feel like you're writing some of your best work and [have to ask] Will anybody hear it? But I had to stay out of the outcome, just like I've always done, and be into the process. And that's where I continue to find my joy.

You've been able to celebrate a lot of success before the streaming era took over. This year actually marks 30 years since "All I Wanna Do," hit No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, which started a very epic run for you, including your first GRAMMY wins. What do you remember from that time?

When I reflect on that night, I think I was not equipped to hold all that. In fact, it's funny, I look at what I wore, and it was very not designer. I just was a country bumpkin. [Laughs.]

We had already toured for, like, a year, and nothing had really — I mean, it was just starting to pick up, and then "All I Wanna Do" came out, and it exploded. And then I was nominated for GRAMMYs, and won the GRAMMYs, and then the next day, we played in San Francisco like it never even happened. 

It took a little time — in fact, the better part of that year — to realize that, at that time, the GRAMMYs, which was the one night of the year that everyone tuned into, that winning a GRAMMY could change the trajectory of your career. Just from the GRAMMYs, and that visibility, my record sales expanded exponentially. It was just over the top. 

It was a whirlwind. And what looked like, to most people, as being an overnight success, to me, being a 30-year-old, I felt like I'd worked my whole life — I studied piano, I taught school. I had a whole life before I ever made it. 

It was a bizarre time. And obviously, there's no guidebook for how to become famous and how to navigate that. So I just tried to really stay in my lane, and I didn't really enjoy it as much as I could have enjoyed it. I wish now I could go back and say, "You need to enjoy it more! Be a rock star!" [Laughs.]

You were just inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame and you've hung out with — and recorded with — Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. I would say that puts you in the ranks of a rock star!

I've been so dang lucky. And that was an amazing thing. I grew up in the middle of farmland, in a town with three stoplights. And my parents were like, "You work hard and you're a good person, good things will happen." 

You just don't really know what life can be like. As you get older, you realize that the stories we tell ourselves [when we're younger] about what [life] can be can be very limiting,

In my particular instance, I could not have envisioned knowing these massive heroes that I got to brush up against, and I got to learn from. I think there's not an award on the planet that could measure knowing some of these people. 

I mean, even singing with Willie Nelson, for as long as we've sung together is — the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame [performance with him] was just icing on the cake. To be in a "club" — as my dad calls it — with the people that wrote the book on it is just very humbling.

I read that you didn't even want to record "All I Wanna Do" at first. Is there a song you've never gotten sick of playing?

After two years of touring that record, I was so sick of ["All I Wanna Do"]. Now, of course, I play it with absolute and total gratitude, because it's taken me to St. Petersburg, to Tokyo, to Bogota, to Tel Aviv. That song has literally taken me all over the world, and I've watched people who don't speak English sing the many thousands of words in that song. 

There is one song that I love every time I play it, and when it comes on the radio, I don't turn it off. It's "My Favorite Mistake." The original intent of it, the experience of writing it, the feel of the song. It feels like the best song in my catalog.

That's a big statement! You don't see artists making that statement a lot, because they're like, "Oh, I can't pick one, they're all like my children!" 

"My Favorite Mistake" is my favorite child. There, I'll say it.

It's amazing to have a piece of work like that, right? I can imagine that you have so many songs you're proud of, but it's very cool to have a song, no matter what it meant to other people, for it to feel so special to you.

It is. You hear that woo-woo statement of "I was just a vessel." I've had a few of those songs where I go, "Okay, that's weird. I don't know how I wrote that song top to bottom." There are those songs, and I do look at that and go, "Okay, there is some divinity in that." 

Because we learn really early on how to craft a good song — what the form of a good song is, how to build interest in it, how to make it exciting, how to hold the listener. All kinds of crafting tricks. But on the odd occasion you get, like, a "Redemption Day," which you go, "I don't know how I wrote that song, because that's not even how I write," and 15 years later, Johnny Cash records it. 

There are those songs where you think you just got to be in the room for it. "My Favorite Mistake" was a little bit like that. It was so effortless. Most of the lyrics I sang onto the mic as I was playing it on bass, writing it with Jeff [Trott, Crow's frequent collaborator]. 

It just fell together, and it felt so authentic to how gutted I was over my relationship falling apart. And I think sometimes that is what makes a song universal — it's the emotion we all experience no matter what the experience looks like. 

That can very much apply to Evolution as well — in a very different way than "My Favorite Mistake," but there's a lot of relatable sentiments on this album. 

I think as a mom, as a person who's raising two young people, a lot of what I'm asking myself — and what I'm witnessing, which causes me to scratch my head — I don't know what to do with it. And you can't really engage anymore in narrative conversation where people share ideas, and try to come up with solutions, and make compromises. Because we are now being, I guess, in some ways, programmed to not do that, you know? To not give in to the other side because it might be a show of weakness.

My safe haven is to write songs, and this process was really that. And I can safely say, without ego, I love the way that it turned out, and that is because I did not produce it. It's just my songs and a great movie around them.

So your biggest takeaway from this album is that you should stop producing your own work…

My biggest takeaway is I should just sit and write little songs and then fire them off to a producer.

You know, that's what they're there for, right?

Exactly! That's why we pay you, anyway! [Laughs.]

You're such a statement-based artist and you've always stuck to your guns. What are some things that you look back on and you're like, Man, that is exactly what I set out to do?

Oh my gosh, I have so many that now I allow myself to feel proud of. I think it's our knee-jerk to not ever give ourselves a minute of homage. 

I got to sing with Pavarotti. I got to sing a piece by Mozart in front of my mom and dad in Modena Italy for War Child. The look on my parents' faces will never leave me, ever. My parents are musicians. I don't think they could have envisioned their little girl, like, singing legitimate music, after the years of piano lessons and getting my degree in voice and piano. 

To see me up there singing Mozart with Pavarotti, and then getting to play my own music with Eric Clapton backing me [at the same event], that one moment was a personal highlight for sure.

I've had some incredible experiences — getting to sing with, like you said, Dylan, and getting to walk out on stage with the Rolling Stones and strut around and be a rock star. But doesn't it all come back to your parents, ultimately? I will never forget the emotional looks on their faces. And I will carry that with me forever. 

Well, especially, like you've been talking about, coming out of such a small town. What you've accomplished is so rare, especially coming from a place with three stoplights.

To bring your parents all the way to Italy! They'd never been out of the country and [I had to say] "Okay, you guys are gonna have to get a passport. You're gonna drive an hour and a half to the airport in Memphis, Tennessee. You're gonna fly all the way across the world." 

You know, those are the things that fairy tales are made of. And I would say that my life has been a fairy tale.

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