Latest / Basic Folk / Michaela Anne: Loving the Mundane in the Middle of the Chaos, ep. 353

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Michaela Anne: Loving the Mundane in the Middle of the Chaos, ep. 353 · Basic Folk

0:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Hi and welcome to Basic Folk where we have on his conversations with folk musicians on the Bluegrass situation.
0:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm your host Cindy House.
0:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for finding us today or maybe we've been best friends for a really long time and you listen to us a lot.
0:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome back.
0:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Alright, Michaela Ann is on the show today.
0:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I love talking to Michaela.
0:30
[SPEAKER_02]: All ends of the spectrum with Michaela and she'll be on talking about her whole life as well as her new album these are the days.
0:37
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll get to that in just a moment, but first have you signed up for basic folks newsletter.
0:42
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0:48
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0:53
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0:54
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0:56
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1:03
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1:05
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1:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And thank you very much.
1:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, how's it going?
1:14
[SPEAKER_02]: How are are you doing?
1:17
[SPEAKER_02]: These are hard times.
1:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Right now, I'm in my little outbuilding here recording and this little outbuilding is great, but I think a mouse died in here, so it does not smell very good.
1:31
[SPEAKER_02]: And I haven't had time to figure out.
1:34
[SPEAKER_02]: What's going on?
1:34
[SPEAKER_02]: However, the good news is if it is a dead mouse, the smell eventually will go away.
1:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
1:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
1:41
[SPEAKER_02]: It smelled like this for like two months.
1:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And I did find a dead mouse in here one time, but maybe it had a friend.
1:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Because as in it, if you find a one mouse, there's more than one.
1:50
[SPEAKER_02]: There's always more than one.
1:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyways.
1:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Poor me.
1:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
1:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
1:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's go.
1:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Michaela and grew up in a military family that moved a lot.
2:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Washington, Michigan, California, Virginia, Italy.
2:05
[SPEAKER_02]: She and her family are currently in the middle of a huge long move and it seems like there are always
2:13
[SPEAKER_02]: So many things going on with Michaela, career and family-wise.
2:18
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the constants growing up for her was listening to music and learning how to play.
2:22
[SPEAKER_02]: She went to New York to study jazz at the new school in the mid-Os, where she met her future husband, musical partner, and co-host of their show The Other 22 Hours, Aaron Schaefer-Hace.
2:35
[SPEAKER_02]: They eventually relocated to Nashville and are in the middle of relocating to New England, via Michigan.
2:42
[SPEAKER_02]: In the early 2020s, Michaela's life changed intensely.
2:46
[SPEAKER_02]: She got sober, she found out that she was having a baby, and her mom had a very serious stroke.
2:52
[SPEAKER_02]: She said, my hands were full of the hands of those who needed me, and for two years I didn't pick up my guitar.
2:59
[SPEAKER_02]: She has since released two full-length albums, including her final release on Yeprock in 2022, and her latest 2026s, these are the days.
3:09
[SPEAKER_02]: The new album is her first self-owned album of her career after a decade of recording under traditional indie label systems.
3:18
[SPEAKER_02]: In our conversation, she speaks to her relationship with chaos and how she prefers many
3:28
[SPEAKER_02]: She talks about her complicated and evolving relationship with beauty and her own physical appearance as she turned 40 this year.
3:35
[SPEAKER_02]: She discusses her relationship to masculinity, which is something she is especially thinking about lately as she or husband are raising a boy.
3:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Like many people, Michaela's career was transformed because of the pandemic.
3:48
[SPEAKER_02]: In addition to that world-changing event, she also realized that no one has any control over anything, and she was going to stop putting off having children.
3:57
[SPEAKER_02]: It was something she had always wanted, but had put aside over and over because of her career.
4:03
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a very action packed and inspiring conversation with Michaela.
4:07
[SPEAKER_02]: I learned a lot from her and her hour together.
4:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I cannot wait to do it again.
4:11
[SPEAKER_02]: The new album is fabulous.
4:12
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll take a listen to a track from the release these are the days.
4:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's two Piano's and then we'll get to our conversation with Michaela Anne on Basic folk.
4:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Today's the sun just doesn't seem to shine here But wait does where everybody is Sippin' from my empty cup Who will come?
5:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And ever trust in my own point of view Someone might be out there now Looking in an ice-kin hotel Did I get so lucky to be here with you?
5:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we've got a house
5:42
[SPEAKER_01]: All that we've grown we started from seed And need to remember to remember That I have everything I do
6:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Michaela Ann, welcome to Basic Folk.
6:06
[SPEAKER_02]: How's it going?
6:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it's good.
6:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm good.
6:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, um, here.
6:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Same.
6:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Same.
6:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, all right.
6:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm excited to talk to you.
6:18
[SPEAKER_02]: My buddy, Michaela Ann.
6:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, all right.
6:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's get right into it.
6:23
[SPEAKER_02]: You grew up in a military family.
6:25
[SPEAKER_02]: You moved around a lot to places like Washington, Michigan, California, Virginia, and Italy, you and your family are currently in the middle of a huge long move and it seems like they're always like,
6:42
[SPEAKER_02]: So many things going on with you, like career and family-wise.
6:48
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you think the way that you grew up helped you develop a relationship to chaos?
6:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And how has that evolved?
6:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh man, it's so funny because I often would describe myself as
7:01
[SPEAKER_00]: an anxious person and then probably everybody else besides my husband and my parents would probably say what?
7:10
[SPEAKER_00]: You're so you seem so calm and even like people I would tour with would be like you always seem so calm and collected on tour but I do think that's something I haven't given myself credit for because I kind of lean into the thinking I'm always spiraling out but
7:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I think in hindsight, the way that I grew up, I was always in a state of transition, always packing up or unpacking, adjusting or saying goodbye, trying to find the new places to sign up for piano lessons or dance or find friends.
7:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Then you're saying goodbye, it was just so much transition.
7:51
[SPEAKER_00]: that I think my nervous system even if I am anxiety prone and have my kind of coping mechanism is pretty accustomed to chaos, probably to the point that I create or seek it out.
8:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Erin and I always say like, we don't choose the easy path.
8:16
[SPEAKER_00]: We kind of always have lots going on.
8:20
[SPEAKER_02]: How does it feel when you are finally relaxing or like when everything is calm?
8:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that comfortable or uncomfortable?
8:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I think that's the thing.
8:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's uncomfortable.
8:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's becoming more comfortable for me, but I think I have a hard time with stoneness.
8:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I like the, I like always looking forward to something, planning things.
8:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I like that.
8:47
[SPEAKER_00]: energy, I don't quite know what to do if like we had a completely open calendar, that would be weird.
8:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
8:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Something to work on for the future.
9:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Always working on ourselves.
9:04
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the constants for you growing up was listening to music and discovering music.
9:10
[SPEAKER_02]: How did it serve you when you were first developing your own tastes and how has that changed?
9:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, when I was young, music was my source of comfort and solace, and being a military kid, I was always moved in the summer, so I was always kind of alone all summer long.
9:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I had my brother, I had my brother, but we, you know, siblings, we weren't always wanting to be each other's playmates, so it was kind of like long summers that were lonely,
9:49
[SPEAKER_00]: companionship and comfort.
9:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that has continued.
9:54
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's interesting because now being older and being a mom and so busy, I'd be so curious what your relationship to music is like now because I feel like I don't have much time to listen in the way that I want to in the consistency that I want.
10:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I do have moments of quiet, I often, I'm like, I can't even think about what to put on.
10:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know, like, I don't even want music.
10:22
[SPEAKER_00]: But then when there is a song or something that really hits me, I feel like it hits me even harder now.
10:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm not going to fall for it, Michaela.
10:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm interviewing you.
10:36
[SPEAKER_00]: But I love you.
10:39
[SPEAKER_02]: It's different for me because I listen to new music every week with Yeah, that's what I mean.
10:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Folk alley, yeah.
10:49
[SPEAKER_02]: So it is, but you know, I do keep, I do keep, I don't, I use title because I'm better than a lot of people.
10:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I quit Spotify.
11:00
[SPEAKER_02]: But I make a monthly playlist on title that, if like, because when I go through all of my emails for folk alley, I'll see things pop into my inbox that definitely are not good for folk alley, but I'm like, oh, I do want to check that out, so I'll just go under title and throw it in the monthly playlist and then I'll put it on.
11:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's difficult at the beginning of the month because there's a lot of things that are unvetted in that playlist, or I'll put it on and Elizabeth, my wife will be like, can we change this one?
11:35
[SPEAKER_02]: They'll change this one because they're not always good, but yeah, so yeah, I try to keep everybody current by listening to those playlists, whatever there's time, but lately, we've just been listening to Francis playlist.
11:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I was gonna say, because I have a little one,
11:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, she might not be old enough to really dictate to you as she.
12:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I put songs on this playlist of hers that I think that she would like, and we listen to it so much.
12:08
[SPEAKER_02]: She recognizes the songs.
12:10
[SPEAKER_02]: So like, when one comes on that she likes, she goes, oh, yeah.
12:14
[SPEAKER_00]: But she can't tell you yet.
12:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, Henry, you know, we can, Henry's 18 months old, and so we can tell him,
12:22
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't have it.
12:23
[SPEAKER_00]: He can't verbalize, but Georgia, who's five, strongly verbalizes what she wants to listen to.
12:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So that impacts our listening time.
12:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Great.
12:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
12:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
12:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure it's going to get more and more squat for me.
12:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Just wait until you, I'm going to introduce Francy to Bongo Cat one day.
12:45
[SPEAKER_00]: You better not.
12:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, so, all right, you went to New York and study jazz at the new school in the mid-Os.
12:57
[SPEAKER_02]: What a time.
12:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, when did you start to leave your jazz dreams behind and how difficult was it to let go of jazz?
13:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I would say that I don't, I didn't really ever have jazz dreams.
13:13
[SPEAKER_00]: My whole musical identity and career has really been
13:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I love music and the genre thing has always been challenging for me, because I didn't... Hmm.
13:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't ever...
13:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that was always kind of hard for me living in Nashville too and singing country music, because there was a lot of authenticity, police, of like, are you country or not?
13:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, well, I guess I'm not, but I love country music.
13:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And my voice feels really at home in country music.
13:44
[SPEAKER_00]: But I grew up singing everything.
13:48
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, musical theater, I sing jazz standards, I sing pop music, I sing country, I really came up singing a lot of like 90s pop country.
13:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And when it came time to go to school, I just didn't know, I didn't know like the whole Americana indie world.
14:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know about like the bluegrass world.
14:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know about these festivals and camps.
14:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew nothing.
14:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So I thought it was like,
14:14
[SPEAKER_00]: you become a pop star, and then I learned about the new school.
14:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, why I'm always, I was in jazz band and hey, school, I love jazz standards, so I'll audition for that.
14:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone is trying to get in my room.
14:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, sorry.
14:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just, I ended up there not exactly seeing myself
14:40
[SPEAKER_00]: becoming a jazz singer but just loving music and knowing that that was a medium that I was excited by.
14:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And then along the way in jazz school, I became really disheartened by kind of the jazz world and met Michael Dave's and got really into the New York City Bluegrass world,
15:08
[SPEAKER_02]: probably a lot of PBRs.
15:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
15:11
[SPEAKER_02]: At that time.
15:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd love to hear more about your relationship to genre because you have recorded several different types of albums like Bluegrass Country, Indy, Folk Indy Rock.
15:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Where do you see genre fitting in with how you approach your sound and how, how has genre been helpful or unhelpful?
15:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I haven't, I think it's been both.
15:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's been unhelpful when trying to build a career, I would say, like it probably would have been better for me if I had stuck to one lane, but I think
16:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes people are like, I don't know where to put her to.
16:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Is she going to be playing kind of bluegrass these songs or is she going to be playing like with her kind of more indie rock inspired band, but I find it all music is music to me.
16:17
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's so exciting to explore and I couldn't imagine making the same record over and over and over again.
16:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So not that genre keeps you making the same record,
16:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It, for me, it felt like, okay, I'm ready to expand each time.
16:39
[SPEAKER_02]: In your past, you have kind of been surrounded by the glittery part of the music industry.
16:45
[SPEAKER_02]: You've releasing records on, you know, very cool indie labels.
16:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Got in some incredible coverage in places like Rolling Stone in New York Times.
16:57
[SPEAKER_02]: When you look back on that version of yourself that was really like go-and-for-it in the music industry playing by the rules, like, how do you feel about that version of yourself?
17:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a lot of compassion for her.
17:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and respect at the same time, I think I'm constantly trying to work on my relationship with ambition
17:28
[SPEAKER_00]: my drive for, you know, what is my motivation, what is my drive, and how much I am looking or was looking for affirmation or approval through my music career achievements.
17:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And, um,
17:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I feel for that version of myself and also I'm thankful for that kind of go get our attitude, but I'm feeling more at peace with the current version of myself that still feels ambitious, but I have such a more full picture of what the reality of the music industry is, what the reality of a
18:16
[SPEAKER_00]: so called quote-unquote successful career is being taught like a touring musician as much as it is often required to be at a certain level and currently feeling really excited about my continual effort to kind of grapple with my relationship with ambition and keep making music,
18:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Lizzie cannot be here today, but we did talk about things that she might want to bring up with you.
18:58
[SPEAKER_02]: So she put me on to this question.
19:03
[SPEAKER_02]: When you were starting out and being lauded as like an artist to watch and you were saying yes to everything, you said, hold on, let me start this question over.
19:17
[SPEAKER_02]: When you were starting out and being lauded as an artist to watch, you were like saying yes to everything.
19:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And Lizzie and I were texting before this and she said, I'm curious about the song, if I wanted to your opinion, which was on your first Yepp Rock release 2019's Desert Dove.
19:33
[SPEAKER_02]: So Lizzie listening to that song makes it seem like you're not too far off from embodying no.
19:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, what did it feel like when you were saying, yes, but it really was a secret no.
19:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, uh, I honestly don't know if there was, there was anything that was a secret no.
19:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm, I'm trying to think.
20:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I think at the time, um, I was really like just willing to
20:11
[SPEAKER_00]: go on the road all the time.
20:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I think my younger mindset, I've thought about this a lot, was like, oh, you have a rock band night.
20:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I could be a rock band, can I come play?
20:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, you have a solo acoustic night.
20:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I could do solo acoustic, can I come play?
20:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Rather than really understanding, I'm not gonna belong in every room.
20:31
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and that's okay, but I didn't, because I didn't have a strong sense of which room I wanted to belong in.
20:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I just wanted to go, yeah.
20:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
20:42
[SPEAKER_00]: So that I think was kind of feeding that, but at the same time I still had, you know, I had a song called Won't Go Down on my bright lights and the fame record, talking that all the roads I won't go down.
20:58
[SPEAKER_00]: So I still had this kind of through line of,
21:02
[SPEAKER_00]: these kind of righteous morals that I was raised on or like a certain, but I definitely got kind of gummed up in there of getting clouded by wanting this thing, wanting to build this career.
21:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's what is dangerous about
21:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, like the visibility and the constant metrics where you feel like you're not just trying to achieve for yourself, but like, aware that everybody can be measuring your level of achievement at any given moment as well.
21:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I don't know if I ever, if there, I mean, nothing standing out that feels like was a yes, but a secret no, because,
21:53
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like, when I signed with Yep Rock, for instance, I signed away my master ownership.
21:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was bummed about that.
22:00
[SPEAKER_00]: But I wasn't like that hung up on it.
22:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, well, this isn't my ideal deal, but I'm stoked to have a record deal, especially when that has like other artists I love.
22:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And let's go.
22:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And it wasn't until years into it, that my manager also was like, I think he very wisely was like,
22:24
[SPEAKER_00]: You've evolved in a different way and I think you need to re-evaluate if this is still the right situation for you.
22:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to talk a little bit about your masters.
22:35
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a big part of your narrative for this new album that this is the first album that you fully own.
22:42
[SPEAKER_02]: For those who know nothing,
22:45
[SPEAKER_02]: What does that mean?
22:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And then also, I'm curious, like, how motherhood played into the decision to wanna own your masters?
22:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so, master ownership is the actual recording of the songs.
23:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So the company, the record label owns the recordings that I made of,
23:10
[SPEAKER_00]: My record desert dove and owed to be that free, as well as my, my author and delabel I signed with before that for bright lights on the fame, um, which means I don't have control over that.
23:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So I, you know, I have sign-off for different things per our contract, but they ultimately they get to decide, for instance, desert dove is out of print and vinyl and I don't
23:34
[SPEAKER_00]: have any say about whether it gets reprinted or not.
23:36
[SPEAKER_00]: They decide if they want to reprint it or not.
23:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So I owned it.
23:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I would have those reprinted.
23:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Is this in perpetuity or is there like a time where you get, oh, yeah.
23:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So not every record deal is like that, but a lot of them are.
23:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was like, well, I still have the songs I could record them one day,
24:05
[SPEAKER_00]: who really has the time and the resources to do that, besides Taylor Swift.
24:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Taylor Swift, I do not.
24:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And I also don't want to, but motherhood absolutely played a role in that shift in mindset for me because I started to think about my life's work differently.
24:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I started to think about it in terms of
24:33
[SPEAKER_00]: more of my personal and emotional attachment to it, my legacy of my with my family, not not as a public facing or striving career musician and that really shifted my feeling of wanting to have complete control.
24:50
[SPEAKER_00]: especially over recordings that I made with my husband with Aaron and a studio that we built that songs that I thought really hard to be able to write again after two years.
25:04
[SPEAKER_00]: It just felt crazy to have a company, you know, that was also sold to somebody that I don't even know anymore and not have any say in that.
25:15
[SPEAKER_00]: It felt too scary.
25:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, could you ever try to get them back?
25:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, I think my early records I can because I know the, I personally know the man who owns them, but the upper records, I don't think there's anything contractually that says I have an opportunity to get them back.
25:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Hmm.
25:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
25:50
[SPEAKER_02]: So in the last several years, your life has changed pretty intensely.
25:54
[SPEAKER_02]: You've got sober, you found out you're having a baby, you have two babies now.
25:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Your mom had a very serious stroke, and it sounds like you did not pick up the guitar for two years around that, around that when those changes first are happening, and it sounds like
26:10
[SPEAKER_02]: survival mode, really.
26:13
[SPEAKER_02]: What does that mode do to your creativity and what did you learn about how to remain being granted?
26:19
[SPEAKER_02]: How to be grounded as an artist during like intense and challenging moments?
26:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean I don't think I...
26:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I'm learning that now five years into it, but the first couple of years and probably until only recently I really struggled with feeling like
26:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know who I was, I didn't have an identity anymore as an artist, the career stuff also really infiltrated that and I think because I wasn't able to write.
26:59
[SPEAKER_00]: It even more so made me think, like, oh, I've lost everything of who I was.
27:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't, I now, I'm not on tour all the time, the way that I was.
27:08
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm physically not doing the thing that I always loved.
27:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can't even do the thing that I loved that I have control over, that I could be just sitting in my room, writing songs.
27:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't access that.
27:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was really scary, because it felt like I lost control of everything.
27:29
[SPEAKER_00]: But what I've learned is to be incredibly patient and understand that sometimes we really do just have to live with the life that we're handed and there might not be any energy or time to actually create from it or through it that
27:54
[SPEAKER_00]: might come later and I'm always trying to sift through like, what is that pressure?
27:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that a capitalist pressure of, you have to you have to make something of everything that happens to you and also, if your career is in music, you need to be making another album as soon as possible.
28:12
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I've gone three to four years between records and the comments are like, well, it's been a really long time since
28:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I've found that if you have anything else going on in life besides music, and you don't have a ton of big support system, it's really hard, it's really hard to keep going.
28:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think just having so much empathy for that, for ourselves, is really important that if you have responsibilities of caregiving,
28:51
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't have massive resources for child care or parental care or whatever, it's you're in a different lane than the rest of your peers.
29:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd be curious to hear how those lessons contributed to creating your podcasts that you and Aaron host the other 22 hours.
29:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Also on the BGS podcast network, if people are not familiar the other 22 hours features interviews with creatives about sustaining a life in the arts during the other 22 hours, the idea being like you're on stage for two hours or you're
29:28
[SPEAKER_02]: you're being creative for two hours and what are you doing outside of that?
29:33
[SPEAKER_02]: How has that show contributed to your creativity?
29:37
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been so inspiring and so nourishing because we get to have these incredible conversations with so many people that I never imagined myself getting to even sit across a computer screen with Judy Collins and Amy Grant and Derek Trucks and
29:58
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we don't really talk about the music that much.
30:02
[SPEAKER_00]: We're talking about the life.
30:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're talking like with direct trucks about, you know, the logistics that he and Susan Tideski grappled with and navigated having two kids and being on the road all the time and the emotional,
30:16
[SPEAKER_00]: landscape of that and Judy Collins how to sustain this incredibly long career and keep reinventing or finding new inspiration while also grappling with really heavy big life things like a child suicide and addiction.
30:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So those conversations continually reinforce for me this kind of
30:39
[SPEAKER_00]: zoom out picture of creativity as a whole life and just being open to creativity in all aspects of my life rather than just writing a song and recording a song and that has been feeding just such a deeper sense of aliveness, I think, in my life.
31:08
[SPEAKER_02]: What is the podcast taught you about conversation?
31:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that it's so important.
31:18
[SPEAKER_00]: It's taught me that a conversation changes us.
31:26
[SPEAKER_00]: It changes us when we have it when we listen to it.
31:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It.
31:32
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I don't know the science, but it feels like it just reassembles kind of the molecules and yeah, it's so
31:43
[SPEAKER_00]: extraordinary to me, and also the importance of intention with conversation.
31:48
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, Erin and I would joke that, like, we really made the other 22 hours because we became parents and we, and as the pandemic, and we couldn't go out anymore.
31:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So we wanted this, like, sense of community.
31:59
[SPEAKER_00]: So instead of going to the bars in Nashville, we would invite people to come on a podcast and talk to us.
32:04
[SPEAKER_00]: But I've never had
32:06
[SPEAKER_00]: that intentional of a conversation at a bar or a show.
32:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Totally, yes, yes.
32:12
[SPEAKER_02]: So that feels, and really is a gift to be able to talk to people for, you know, I just did like a five hour deep dive on Michaela Ann and now I'm asking all these intense questions.
32:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I think about that all the time and like these, these are like very special opportunities to get to know somebody.
32:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, in a really meaningful way.
32:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and you and I have known each other, but we haven't spent significant time.
32:42
[SPEAKER_00]: together, and I feel that all the time when I even, especially when we have people on the podcast that are friends, and then I go do a deep dive on them, and ask questions I never had thought to ask before, even, you know, we had Caroline Spence on an Aaron Ray and Kelsey Walden who are my closest girlfriends.
33:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and we are in constant contacts, but we don't, but still an opportunity for a much
33:08
[SPEAKER_00]: deeper unraveling that we don't have on our day-to-day routines.
33:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
33:19
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is a fun question.
33:22
[SPEAKER_02]: about your voice.
33:23
[SPEAKER_02]: You're singing voice and you're speaking voice.
33:25
[SPEAKER_02]: So going back and listening to your debut album that is not on streaming, but it's on band camp.
33:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Listening to those songs on that record and listening to songs on the new record, your voice.
33:39
[SPEAKER_02]: To me, I'm sure you listen to it differently, but it sounds basically the same.
33:43
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like a little deeper and a little richer, but like, it seems like you took off as like a fully evolved singer.
33:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, wow.
33:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, what's been your relationship to your voice?
33:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And since you are also a podcast host, let's go over singing and speaking voice.
34:02
[SPEAKER_00]: So interesting.
34:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have not listened to that first record in a really long time.
34:07
[SPEAKER_00]: So I feel like, you know, I've been a vocal coach for a really long time and I have my Bachelor of Fine Arts and in jazz vocal performance.
34:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've often said that I feel like I'm someone who's gay.
34:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh no.
34:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you just do a scat right now?
34:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Should we have had a little bit of your buddy babe?
34:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, amazing.
34:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I very vividly remember like crying on the phone and college and my dad being like, I am so tired of you thinking that you can't sing just because you can't scat.
34:43
[SPEAKER_02]: So I never been a confidence me to come and scat again.
34:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, but no, I've always felt like I was someone who had to work really hard at my voice.
34:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I started studying voice at a young age and I had to work really hard to access strength and power.
35:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I was really timid and shy and small and I still feel like I have to
35:08
[SPEAKER_00]: kind of, I feel like I'm someone that gets really impacted by nerves where I'll not be able to perform as well as I could, if I wasn't, you know, choking from anxiety.
35:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's so interesting.
35:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like my relationship to my voice has gotten so much more comfortable though, as I've gotten older, which I think is also just
35:33
[SPEAKER_00]: age of just getting so used to hearing it.
35:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, and hearing it come out of my mouth, so I trust what comes out, and also having experienced enough, you know, vocal cracks or fun bowls or mistakes, and know that the world doesn't end.
35:54
[SPEAKER_00]: My career doesn't end.
35:55
[SPEAKER_00]: That like, it's okay, and it's human, and it's enduring when you can just be like, oops, sorry, and not like, oh my god, that sounded so terrible.
36:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a terrible singer.
36:09
[SPEAKER_00]: uh, spiral that can happen, but and same with my speaking voice, I, you know, I just did the world cafe session yesterday and we were talking about, I was talking with Steven Kale, the host that was interviewing me and we were talking about the kind of self-awareness, especially adding video in and social media of
36:33
[SPEAKER_00]: hearing ourselves and seeing ourselves so much.
36:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was saying, I think for me something that's happened where it's too exhausting to care too much.
36:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I like to be so concerned of like, what does my face look like in that video?
36:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And do I look tired?
36:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, having it so humbling, having two children, I'm just like, I don't have the energy to be too focused on my appearance anymore.
37:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, maybe I'll take a shower today.
37:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
37:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Or like what I say, I mean on our podcast, I feel like I've cried several times, which would have been more defined to me as a younger person.
37:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I just think that there's kind of this relieving from exhaustion, from, of just like, that I'm too tired to care.
37:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Like,
37:31
[SPEAKER_00]: find that very attractive and some people are going to find that repulsive because that's how what human nature is and I can't do anything about it.
37:39
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't want to spend too much time evaluating it anymore.
37:44
[SPEAKER_02]: yeah let's go into that one a little bit more about the looks um so you and your husband are hotties uh you married a very nice looking man so the way I remember how to say Erin's last name is that he has a nice face that was Erin shea for haste i think i have that like in my phone
38:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Nice to see you.
38:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And you are a very nice looking lady.
38:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
38:14
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you, well, thank you, and it's a blessing and a burden, I'm sure.
38:18
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you think the world receives your outward appearances?
38:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, have you noticed how it might impact Aaron differently than it impacts you?
38:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm, well, so funny because he has like often gotten received a lot of compliments on his physical appearance.
38:38
[SPEAKER_00]: But like the very first episode, we released off the other 22 hours on YouTube.
38:44
[SPEAKER_00]: He got some mean comment from a guy that said he didn't have a face for podcasts.
38:53
[SPEAKER_00]: to the point that like Erin Lee Tat.
38:55
[SPEAKER_00]: It was with Erin Lee Tat, she had an Erin Lee Tat, she was like in the comments defending Erin, Shafer Hayes, it was a pretty comical because I feel like often many men also, straight men as well, are, you know, gushing about how attractive Erin is.
39:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if it really honestly really comes into play in Erin's life.
39:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do think it comes into play for me in the sense it's such a double-edged sword, I think, as a female that has been treated in a way that people have told me that I'm attractive, but then there's like this edge of, you know, like, but I remember when I put out Desert of,
39:46
[SPEAKER_00]: their photos, the photos that I used, you know, and I had the song if I wanted to your opinion.
39:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a radio promoter say like, oh, you have a radio DJ, let's say you have, you know, this really feminist song on your record, but like your photo is so sexy, like isn't that a contradiction?
40:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, whoa.
40:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, good point.
40:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks.
40:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would go into these conversations.
40:12
[SPEAKER_00]: You want a good friend of mine was like, Are you like trying to be sexy and I'm like, what?
40:19
[SPEAKER_00]: So how should I present myself?
40:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, if you, if I wear too much makeup or if I, my clothes were too tight, like, that's too much.
40:27
[SPEAKER_00]: But,
40:28
[SPEAKER_00]: There's so much emphasis on how we present ourselves as women if we look like we're trying too hard, if we're too attractive, if you know what we do to ourselves and then getting older, I just turned 40 and it's like my hair has been graying for the past since I was 30 and I just and I've grappled with this like,
40:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
40:52
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you supposed to do?
40:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Am I supposed to die my hair forever?
40:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Am I supposed to get Botox?
40:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Am I supposed to get the filler?
40:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't want to get any of those things.
41:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but it is such an interesting, I would be lying if my physical appearance wasn't something that I was attached to in my identity.
41:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So, for it to be changing and to to
41:19
[SPEAKER_00]: to not make the attempt to try and preserve myself to look the way that I've looked my entire adult life or at 30 years old, the expectation is there and it's something I grapple with of wanting to let myself physically evolve as well.
41:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well.
41:43
[SPEAKER_02]: It seems like that's like the basis of if your body fails you.
41:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
41:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, close.
41:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that and, you know, mixed with childbirth, growing a child, watching my mother's body change so much and lose capabilities and see her treated differently and viewed differently by society.
42:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and yeah, just kind of,
42:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm bucking against the idea that our physical appearances, the most important thing about us.
42:25
[SPEAKER_02]: You give off a lot of matriarchal power in your personality and your music.
42:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Since you're married to a man and you're raising one, what is your relationship or connection to masculinity?
42:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I know it might be like obvious, but I would love to hear, you know, where is masculinity?
42:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome, where is it not welcome?
42:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
42:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, this is something I've been thinking about even more, especially now raising a boy.
42:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And I also, you know, I grew up in a military family.
42:59
[SPEAKER_00]: My father is a submarine captain and naval officer.
43:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I always say he looks like Bruce Willis.
43:10
[SPEAKER_00]: masculine and has a lot of masculine energies like a, you know, in so many ways kind of stereotypical like military man.
43:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, not super warm and fuzzy, but then at the same time, he has a lot of feminist beliefs and, you know, I grew up with him telling me that like the menstrual cycle is attached to the moon cycles and like that's when you're in your power and all this stuff.
43:38
[SPEAKER_02]: He's like a mystical witch.
43:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, he is.
43:43
[SPEAKER_00]: But also, is very, you know, talks about,
43:47
[SPEAKER_00]: like there is a biological difference between male capabilities and female capabilities.
43:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's all this, especially in today's rhetoric, it's really nuanced and I'm constantly and I feel like kind of at my beginning of learning more about this, especially raising a boy.
44:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think masculinity is inherently toxic.
44:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I do think there are feminine and masculine energies and as, you know, female identifying and male identifying beings, we each have both of them and us and I think need a healthy balance.
44:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I think some people also would say I might have some masculine energy in my assertion and my, um,
44:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Go get them out of two.
44:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Here we go boys, yeah.
44:54
[SPEAKER_02]: That's one of our, one of our sayings in our family because there are no boys, you know, not even the cat.
45:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Everyone's a girl.
45:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And I also have gotten to Francis Harris growing out and I try to put her to ponytail, but she pulls it out.
45:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And then she looks like a little boy.
45:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, nice.
45:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And I call her summer boy.
45:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Summer boy.
45:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I found my question about the ambition.
45:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh.
45:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, the new album is these are the days.
45:25
[SPEAKER_02]: You said, this album is the realest thing I've ever made.
45:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And also, I didn't want to sell it to the highest bitter.
45:33
[SPEAKER_02]: So that really resonated with me as someone who has like fully traded ambition and for a happy life.
45:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
45:44
[SPEAKER_02]: But I can understand that
45:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Letting go of that is difficult.
45:49
[SPEAKER_02]: How hard was it for you to let go of the path you were on in your career?
45:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And it does, does it feel the way that you thought it would?
46:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I...
46:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like I intentionally didn't intentionally let go, but I have learned to let go.
46:18
[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't know how I would do it because of the career that I was building and I felt like I needed to get to a certain level of success before I could have children because of just knowing the realities of a music career and I did not get to that level of success that I thought I would need to when the pandemic hit and it just kind of shifted my perspective where it made me realize oh we have no control over anything.
46:45
[SPEAKER_00]: so it might as well live our lives.
46:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I could put off having children for a longer because I'm a hell bent that I'm going to achieve a certain level of success but I actually have no control over that.
46:58
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was when I shifted and was like let's just just try and have a baby and if it's meant to be a little meant it'll happen.
47:06
[SPEAKER_00]: and it did very quickly on the first try.
47:09
[SPEAKER_00]: So, that, um, and I had every intention of continuing on forward, I, you know, and the world changed again.
47:20
[SPEAKER_00]: My, my mother who was going to be an essential part of me having the support system without having to pay for an Annie, she was going to be my
47:28
[SPEAKER_00]: She had a stroke and she cannot physically help us in any way.
47:34
[SPEAKER_00]: My booking agent that I thought I had on my side stopped paying attention to me and stopped booking me work.
47:42
[SPEAKER_00]: So those two things changed the course of my career.
47:48
[SPEAKER_00]: by having a child.
47:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And for a little bit, I thought, like, man, if I only waited to have a kid, if I only waited a little longer.
47:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I've shifted, and now I'm like, sorry, fuck that, if I'm allowed to curse, through that.
48:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, the things happen, the way that they happened, but it was really hard for me because I felt like I didn't choose to step back
48:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I almost see it as a gift of man, these precious early years with my children.
48:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't had a super demanding career.
48:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I've had a career that I really like.
48:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I love getting to do what I do.
48:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I love also coaching other songwriters, which I do, which allows me to stay home and not feel like I'm attached to.
48:45
[SPEAKER_00]: going on tour all the time.
48:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't had this kind of pull of a machine that I have to keep feeding and taking me away.
48:55
[SPEAKER_00]: So it shifted the way that I have viewed it all and I have shifted my idea of ambition.
49:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just talking to a friend who's a in like the corporate world and I you know and she has two children and I was like you know I kind of have come to terms with that
49:14
[SPEAKER_00]: a new goal, like getting to do what you like to do, but on like a small scale, so that then you have ample time with your family, and maybe from the outside looking in, someone would be like, they're not very successful, but jokes on them.
49:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was like, yeah, absolutely, if I didn't have kids, I'd probably be like in LA as an executive at Netflix, because that was
49:43
[SPEAKER_00]: But that would mean I would sacrifice all this time with my family and I don't want to do that.
49:48
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think this is the one, it's a conversation that a lot of women, especially, are having right now.
49:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And I still get a kind of, you know, a little like stab feeling sometimes of like, man, what I could have done, maybe.
50:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah, but who knows?
50:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah.
50:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, okay.
50:15
[SPEAKER_02]: A couple more questions.
50:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I will add.
50:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to add that, though, because I for a long time have the narrative of, like, uh, last my career, and Erin has consistently been like,
50:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Really, did you lose your career when we were dragging our 14-month-old to hardly strictly lose your career?
50:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
50:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Not have a career when we're going to WXPN for World Cafe for the third time.
50:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, he's like, the evidence is all in front of you, but you've been so stuck in this narrative, but I've still been having a career this whole time.
50:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, here's a question.
50:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Where do you think that narrative came from for you?
50:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Was it military dad?
50:56
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, because my dad is like, he's so, he's like Aaron, and he's so like encouraging and like, you're, you know, he's like, why are you, you know, comparing yourself to anybody else?
51:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you're doing great.
51:12
[SPEAKER_00]: When you have kids, you're on the different, you cannot, you don't have the same time, like all this stuff.
51:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, yeah.
51:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it comes from my own, my own inner,
51:25
[SPEAKER_00]: critic and I mean honestly from industry voices was there like a career like someone did somebody have a career that you're like that's what I want.
51:43
[SPEAKER_00]: When I was younger it was always
51:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Hmm, do you think anybody that is like our age has a career like Emmy Louis Harris?
51:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
51:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, maybe Margot, right?
52:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
52:03
[SPEAKER_02]: But like, didn't it seem like Emmy Louis Harris is like a household name like they were playing her on Yeah, mainstream.
52:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I don't know how much because because I've realized even
52:14
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, watching, like, I had this realization a few years ago, like, who's career would you want to have right now?
52:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, who's in the, like, who's quote-unquote big in the Americana world and they're like, okay, Allison, Russell, or Margot Price or something?
52:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're all, they're friends of mine.
52:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, you know, what though?
52:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I personally don't think I'd want.
52:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And this phase of my life, I wouldn't want to be a way that much right now.
52:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, there's a line in this title in the title track on this album where you say the hum drum is holy and you're talking about the mundane and normal and there's extraordinary in the ordinary.
53:02
[SPEAKER_02]: When did you first start noticing beauty in the mundane and how are you instilling that in your kids?
53:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I first started noticing beauty in the mundane in the hospital with my mom.
53:18
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom was in the hospital for three months, and we got in 2021.
53:22
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's still pandemic times.
53:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I was five to eight months pregnant through that experience.
53:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sure.
53:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And we weren't allowed to be in the hospital room more than one at a time.
53:38
[SPEAKER_00]: So my dad and I, and then eventually my brother, we were like, because they also said only two people could come in total, but we never could be in the room at the same time.
53:47
[SPEAKER_00]: So our experience of that really traumatic devastating experience was also completely alone.
53:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think back on this, and I'm just like, I witnessed my mom and a coma and getting just horrible, horrible stuff, completely by myself.
54:07
[SPEAKER_00]: and I sat for hours, you know, at her bedside in the hospital, um, and I really, I think just out of survival, I had to notice things.
54:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to notice even like when she first started, when she first started kind of, when she first started waking up, but she couldn't talk and we were, you know, I had to
54:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I remember one day that I was like helping her, you know, I was doing.
54:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I was caretaking her like she was a baby.
54:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I was helping like brush her teeth and comb her hair and she couldn't move her entire right side and I was, you know, putting her shoe on her and I remember I lifted her and I was like mom, you know, actually, I guess if you had to have this happen to you, this was the perfect time because your mommy training me aren't you.
55:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was still not really there, but she understood, and she kind of half of her face, that still worked, lifted into a smile.
55:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that is genuinely just survival that I couldn't be pining for
55:28
[SPEAKER_00]: the life that I, and I've spent, I've spent a lot of time planning for the life that I thought should have been.
55:34
[SPEAKER_00]: But in those moments to survive, I had to really notice those little things.
55:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to notice, like, I had to be excited by the way that I, the blanket that I put on my daughter's bed.
55:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to be excited by any tiny little thing in order to survive and get through.
55:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And eventually it kind of just started happy, happening,
55:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm.
55:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Did it happen today?
56:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, as I'm hearing my daughter yell in the background, it has happened today.
56:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, though, actually, we have been in the last three weeks.
56:13
[SPEAKER_00]: We moved to Michigan the beginning of July, our stuff arrived.
56:17
[SPEAKER_00]: We like threw it into our house, and then we drove to Maine.
56:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And for the last three weeks, we've been between Maine and Michigan and New York and playing shows and festivals and radio performance.
56:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And we literally just drove back to our house before I hopped on this call with you.
56:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god.
56:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I walked in feeling overwhelmed by all of the boxes and chaos.
56:46
[SPEAKER_00]: But did have a shift of like, oh my gosh, we now we get to now we get to make
56:51
[SPEAKER_00]: at home.
56:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is creative and exciting.
56:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
56:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Something you are notoriously known for is being an oversharer.
57:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I am.
57:06
[SPEAKER_02]: No shade.
57:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I do love it.
57:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Where do you think that trait comes from?
57:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And like where's your like line in the sand when it comes to like sharing things?
57:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that trait come, well, it's funny because no one in my family is, it's very, I mean, my mom is a little bit in storytelling like with other friends, but she does never on the internet.
57:29
[SPEAKER_00]: She doesn't like to be the center of attention.
57:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I think, oh, I don't know where that comes from.
57:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I think just my inclination for enjoying storytelling and that, you know,
57:48
[SPEAKER_00]: was it Nora Ephronz or Joan Didian who said everything is copy that let our life is I felt very encouraged by this and in the Joan Didian documentary she and her husband were having a hard time and she wrote about it and she talked about in the documentary that he understood
58:15
[SPEAKER_00]: where they where she sought her inspiration.
58:18
[SPEAKER_00]: She wrote about life, everything is coffee.
58:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So that encouraged me that I'm not like some weird, I don't know.
58:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Narcissists, I always say that I share because it's an invitation and I love when people share back.
58:36
[SPEAKER_00]: What was the second part of that question?
58:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Where did it come from and then?
58:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Where's your line?
58:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, where's my line?
58:44
[SPEAKER_00]: My line is probably anything that would make someone I love uncomfortable, so I'm married to not an overshare, who has definitely bent more towards me because he understands that is such an essential part of me to be able to share, but there are lines for him.
59:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
59:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I actually admire how much you share online because I feel like for me, I see your videos where you're like, I'm going to tell you guys a story and I always find that to be really interesting and I watch the whole thing.
59:28
[SPEAKER_02]: But then I'm like, if I ever did that, I would just feel like so ashamed.
59:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Like there's so much shame wrapped in like doing something like that.
59:38
[SPEAKER_00]: But the thing that I think about, I always turn it on like, who are the people that I love to see their stories and their, whether they're sharing them like in work or video or whatever.
59:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is like writer's memoirs, you know, so like a jode who's a memoirist
1:00:09
[SPEAKER_00]: She's married to John Batiste, the musician, and Maddie Smith, the poet, like all of these, and very, and, you know, female artists who share their life through their work and online.
1:00:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And...
1:00:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it so much, and I feel invested by, you know, in their life, but also through all the other people who are connected to their life, and it just, that's what builds my confidence to share.
1:00:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I just, there's a classiness to it, you know, because like, a lot of people are oversharing, but you watch it's cringe.
1:00:49
[SPEAKER_02]: But not you, Michaela.
1:00:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, thank you.
1:00:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Very classy.
1:00:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I just saw Kathleen Edwards perform, and she was sharing very personal stuff on the stage.
1:00:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, this is what, like, I now, sorry, one second, the baby's trying to get in my door just to kiss you in the head.
1:01:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
1:01:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I now know Kathleen, but I hadn't until recently, but I know about her life and her story because she shares them in her songs and she shares them on stage.
1:01:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm just like,
1:01:22
[SPEAKER_00]: What that makes me love her as an artist.
1:01:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
1:01:26
[SPEAKER_00]: If she just shared stories she made up, that'd be cool too, but I probably wouldn't feel as invested in her as a person an artist.
1:01:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been thinking about that a lot, because I'm not into sports at all.
1:01:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember like a long time ago, like working in radio, I was talking to one of my radio mentors who has so good on air and was asking her advice and saying like, you know, should I force myself to get into sports like how do you do it?
1:02:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And she's like, ah, you just like really get into the personalities of the players and I was like, okay, and I never did it because I was just in like so uninterested, but like I feel that way about musicians, like I'm interested in knowing musicians stories and about their lives.
1:02:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And, and it's weird to me to think that somebody wouldn't be interested, like how I am so uninterested in sports that I can't even get into the personalities.
1:02:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:02:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Sports.
1:02:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:02:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Want to do, want to do the lightning round?
1:02:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
1:02:39
[SPEAKER_02]: It's all about sports.
1:02:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess.
1:02:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I will fail.
1:02:44
[SPEAKER_02]: What is one children's song?
1:02:46
[SPEAKER_02]: You never want to hear again.
1:02:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I don't know this is lightning, but I'm so bad at this, um, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh
1:03:20
[SPEAKER_02]: What's your name?
1:03:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Chris and Davis.
1:03:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
1:03:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You missed out.
1:03:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I did accidentally, I have a roach in my mouth from a coffee cup, but it's been it out.
1:03:55
[SPEAKER_02]: No, that must have happened in New York City.
1:03:58
[SPEAKER_02]: No, it happened in Indiana.
1:04:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, okay, unacceptable.
1:04:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:04:03
[SPEAKER_02]: No thank you.
1:04:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, this is the last one.
1:04:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Where is the most beautiful place in the world?
1:04:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
1:04:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Washington State.
1:04:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, great.
1:04:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I love it.
1:04:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Michaela Ann, we did it.
1:04:18
[SPEAKER_00]: We did it.
1:04:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Not too many crying babies.
1:04:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, also neither of us cried.
1:04:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, yeah.
1:04:26
[SPEAKER_02]: No crying babies, including ourselves.
1:04:36
[SPEAKER_02]: This episode of Basic Folk was produced by CJ Nungesser, Dietrich Strauss Composes Our Music.
1:04:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Basic Folk is a production of the Bluegrass situation.
1:04:44
[SPEAKER_02]: You can find all of our episodes there.
1:04:46
[SPEAKER_02]: You can check us out on folkalli.com or folkalli's mobile app, search for Basic Folk and the Series XM app.
1:04:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Find us at Basic Folk.com.
1:04:55
[SPEAKER_02]: or you can listen wherever you get your shows.
1:04:59
[SPEAKER_02]: If you enjoyed this episode, perhaps you should send it to a friend, like maybe that friend who has 27 things going on all at once, and still has time to take a vacation to a foreign country, and also bring her dog with her somehow to that foreign country, and also still calls you to check in with you all the time, send it to that person.
1:05:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Alright, hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and thanks for listening all the way to the end, bye!