For a guy who excels at making emotional music, John Paul White sure is chill.
In interviews, between-song banter or hanging at his studio Sun Drop Sound, White converses in such a laidback manner he’s, figuratively, horizontal.
But sounds can be deceiving.
"I don't get nervous. I don't," White says. "But I do have issues with anxiety, so sometimes it can be the simplest little, just me and a guitar and all I've got to do is three songs, and it'll feel like I'm like playing Carnegie Hall. It's an interesting thing that your brain does to you at certain moments when you do this for a living. It's funny. I have a hard time recalling a moment that I was nervous about playing with somebody, because I tend to be really prepared. That doesn't faze me too much. But everyday little things, I can get short of breath and have a hard time walking in the room."
White sounds plenty comfortable on his new album, “The Hurting Kind.” Released via Single Lock Records, the Florence label he co-owns, the solo disc, White’s third, finds him in countrypolitan crooner mode. Following the indie-folk sound of previous LP, 2016′s “Beulah,” it’s a deft, smooth lane-change.
“The Hurting Kind” is the best record he’s ever made. And that’s saying something, since White was once half of The Civil Wars, the folk-pop duo that lit up Grammys, soundtracks and big stages in the early 2010s.
On a recent morning, White checked in for this phone interview from his Florence home.
Edited excerpts are below.
John, “I Wish I Could Write You a Song” is a standout track on the new album. When you’re writing a song, how soon can you tell when you’re working on something special. Is it when you have one good phrase? A first verse? Chorus?
Sometimes I write songs that are like verse-hook, and so I'll have like a special line that I think really sums up things that are going on and it works for every verse. And sometimes when you have that hook you know you're on the case. But I would say the vast majority of the time when I really feel like I've hooked a chorus top to bottom that can be repeated throughout the song, when you have that in your pocket you've got so many more options at that point.
But the way I end up writing songs more often than not is like a theme paper. Like an English paper. I usually get an overarching theme in my head, and I might have a title and I might not but I have a storyline in my head and so there's an opening, an ending, a climax, body, the exposition.
I don't know when that started working that way for me but generally if I'm writing I've got to know where I'm heading. And I might mix up those sections. I might start with the ending and work my way toward what caused this. Or there'll be a cause and I'll work my way through the effects of that thing, and that works for me. It makes little mini-movies for me and makes it a little more visual, and I think that's more powerful.
There's a lot of pedal-steel guitar on this record. What does steel bring different out of you as a singer? How does it change the vibe of an entire track?
Man, steel guitar is very nostalgic for me, because I remember growing up listening to records and the radio with my dad. And invariable all his favorite stuff would just a moaning, crying steel guitar on there. Something about that instrument. And fiddle can go that way too, but especially with steel guitar there's an emotional thing about it for me that pulls at your heart strings and especially in country music in a way that no other instrument can.
Because it's fretless, because there's pedals that bend the strings for you and there's so much sliding going on, it can mimic a human voice really easily and that mournful quality of it just is a perfect thing to use in the palate when you're writing songs that are emotional, like I do.
And it should be said really quick that's Todd Beene, he's a local boy who's playing on about half the record and plays with me out on the road and Spencer Cullum Jr is playing on some of the record, who plays with Steelism, a Single Lock artist.
Album closer "My Dreams Have All Come True" is another of my "Hurting Kind" favorites. Where did you write that one and what made you want to write it?
I was here at the house in my living room and a lot of these songs, anything that wasn't cowritten was written where I'm sitting right now. And that song was an early example of me testing out the waters of what this record could or would be. Me indulging my (Roy) Orbison fantasies, my Patsy (Cline), Chet Atkins, Fred Foster, those records, I wanted to harken to that. But there's a little Elliott Smith in there. There's a little Kris Kristofferson, subject-wise.
That song was really a cornerstone of a lot of this record. And not only did it help me figure out where it was heading, but we used it back in the fall to put out there (as a single) and whet people's appetites, and make sure people didn't have whiplash when they heard this record. They had a little sense of what's coming.
On your last tour the set included a cover of the ELO song "I Can't Get It Out Of My Head." Do you have cool cover planned for this tour?
Yeah, we've got some surprises this go around, and we've actually also been a little more proactive about talking to friends in each of these cities and pulling some folks onstage. Whatever city people are in, out there, you never know who might show up and play with us. I've been trying to do more of that lately because any time I do anything collaborative I enjoy it. I stress about it until the moment, but it's always constructive and always something I walk away from saying, "That was a great moment. I'm so glad I did that."
Is it true (former Drive-By Trucker) Shonna Tucker is playing bass in your band now?
Yeah man. We've known each other for about 15 years, maybe long and always talked about pickin' together and never worked out. She was always in someone else's band or I had somebody playing with me. When Matt Green and his wife moved up to Pennsylvania, obviously I was in need and (Shonna) had recently moved to town and she was playing with Pegi Young and then (Pegi) recently passed away. I've loved her playing for a long time. She's definitely the one onstage that's always smiling. And that becomes infectious for me.
I looked at some of your previous setlists and didn't see any Civil Wars songs in there. How close have you come to adding a Civil Wars song or two to your shows? Has management ever tried to talk you into doing so?
No, no one has ever tried to talk me into it, and they wouldn't because they know that I'm a bit of control freak when it comes to what I'm going to play at shows. [Laughs] And I've got a good group of people around me that trust me enough that I take care of all that myself.
But no, I haven't … I mean, some people request those songs and stuff and I'm very proud of those songs.
But the thing is those songs were written two voices, for those two voices and I just feel like what was powerful about that would be lessened doing that with just the one, and I don't think that's something I'm interested in doing. So, I think those just need to exist as they did.
Single Lock Records turns six years old this year. What's something new helping run a label has taught you about the music business?
Man, I tell you what: everyday there's something new I've learned from this label. One thing about having a record label and being a partner at a label and having your boots on the ground is you intimately see how much the business is changing. Daily.
Just the rollout for "Beulah" to the rollout for "The Hurting Kind," it's completely different and where we put our put our money is different. Where we put our promotional dollars is different. How much physical we press versus how much we expect from streaming and digital downloads is different. And that's just three years ago.
And from the time of The Civil Wars, when we first were doing our thing, Twitter was a baby and we jumped in with both feet with social media and it was a big part of the breaking of the band. Well, now everybody does that, so that’s not anything cutting edge at all. Film and TV sync were really in vogue with “Gray’s Anatomy” and “The O.C.” and that changed the whole culture of that and became radio for a lot of artists. Well, now everybody does that, so that’s not a super viable thing for most artists unless you’ve got some really good connections. So, it’s an interesting thing as artist I feel like I’ve got my finger on the pulse, but as a label owner I realize how much of the inner-workings I was missing and unaware of and that’s made me a better artist.
You mentioned film and TV syncs. Earlier in your career with The Civil Wars, you had a big one with "Safe & Sound," which was cowritten with Taylor Swift for "The Hunger Games." Taylor Swift was already a star at that time, but she wasn't a megastar yet. Did you see anything in the way she worked or wrote back then, that she had potential to become such a music-biz supernova?
Well you know, it was a kindred thing there, because she had spent so much time in Nashville and done so many cowrites. Really young, she’d written with just about everybody in town there at some point, and everybody’s got a story of writing with her because she worked so much and so hard. She came at writing the song in a similar way to me in that Nashville craft kind of way. But I was instantly struck by how focused and driven and meticulous she was. She didn’t micromanage the song, but she just had a really good sense of what the song needed, not only to make us happy but to connect with people who were fans of that movie franchise, because it was for “The Hunger Games.” The first movie hadn’t come out yet but we had the books and were fans. It surprises me in no way the heights that she’s achieved, because she’s a very driven, strong, intelligent person that I could see running through any wall that was put in front of her.
John Paul White and his band will perform 4:30 p.m. April 28 on the Showcase Stage at Huntsville’s Panoply Arts Festival, held at Big Spring Park, address address 420 Church St. N.W. Advance weekend passes are $18, available until 4 p.m. April 26 via artshuntsville.org. Day passes are $10 and available online or at the festival.
