Artist Spotlight - Chris Canterbury

Chris Canterbury’s Quaalude Lullabies moves (“The Devil, The Dealer & Me”) and grooves (“Felt the Same”) with endless elegance (Will Kimbrough’s “Yellow Mama”). We recently spoke with the Nashville-based songwriter about his superlative new collection, producing his own record and why he included a cover with the originals.

“I don’t remember when I first heard ‘Yellow Mama,’ but Will put the song out on (Kimbrough’s album) EP years ago,” Canterbury says. “I happened to stumble across it. Also, I heard Cody Canada play it years ago as a toss-around cover song for an encore. He came out and played it acoustic. I thought, Man, that’s such a cool, old-time feel. The lyrics are dark. Right up my alley.”

Alt-Country Specialty Chart: Describe how the new album took shape.

Chris Canterbury: I had more than ten songs that I could record and it’s been a while since I made an album. I thought, Let me at least make some demos. I didn’t know if I had enough tracks to make a record, but these songs turned out to be pretty cohesive and fit together as an album. I decided to go ahead and look at it from an album standpoint rather than just putting out singles.

Yeah, the record needs to be taken in as a whole. 

I think so. I’m an old school guy when it comes to releasing records instead of singles. I think the album is still king in certain subsets of Americana and country music. Also, I like to have other songs to compare it to when someone releases a single. I like to build a bigger picture like I was going for with Quaalude Lullabies.

Explain that title.

Well, most songs are sad downers (laughs). The title is a nod to how the album touches on different struggles, which aren’t necessarily personal struggles but ones I’ve heard about from friends. The album got really dark when I started putting the songs together and I wanted something (in the title) that reflected the tone of the album. I feel like that was a nod to the late seventies and early eighties.

Does writing other people’s stories come easier than writing your own?

I don’t know if those are easier to write about, but they’re easier to frame. It’s easier for me to tell my own stories from a third person point of view, and it’s easier to tell other people’s stories from my own point of view. I find it more compelling that way. Telling a story in the way you feel it

 coming across (allows) poetic license.

Tell the story behind writing the opening track ‘The Devil, The Dealer & Me.’

I wrote that with my good friend Vinnie Paolizzi. I had a couple verse ideas, which were just turns of phrase, but he came in and had a little melody and this line, “A heart only breaks when you use it.” We wrote around that. The narrator is looking in the mirror and realizing that he has a lot of stuff going on. We wrote about this internal conversation that could be anywhere between an hour or thirty seconds.

Takes balls to open an album with such a slow song.

Well, that song setting the tone for the album was definitely my strategy. I didn’t want a full-production album. My internal blueprint for the record was to listen to Springsteen’s Nebraska. I love the fact that it’s basically a bunch of demos. I wanted to put something together that’s similar to that vibe but didn’t want to replicate it. The tone I wanted to set was, “Chris writes sad songs. Most of the time they’re slow.”  

Describe producing yourself.

It was the first time that I did. I’ve always had someone else or hired a producer, but I was comfortable with these songs and knew what they sounded like in my head. I just relayed what I had in my head to the musicians, who understood the music and vibe as well. I didn’t have to do much other than say, “Let’s try it like this.” The album turned out exactly how I wanted it to turn out. I was very well pleased and am looking forward to doing it again.

– Brian T. Atkinson