Artist Spotlight - David Serby

David Serby’s Broken Heart in a Honkytonk twangs (“Little Ol’ Bruise”) and twirls (the title track) with effortless elegance (“If I Weren’t Me”). We recently spoke with the Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter about the superb new collection.

“These are all news songs written since the last record (2024’s Low Hanging Stars),” Serby says. “Well, ‘Bordertown Romance’ was written right at the tail end of the last record. I pulled the song back out when I put this new band together.”

Alt. Country Specialty Chart: Explain the album title.

David Serby: The title is from the title track “Broken Heart in a Honkytonk.” I had that chord progression going and didn’t have a lyric yet. I was just singing nonsense over the chords. I just blurted out the words “broken heart in a honkytonk” at the tail end of the verse and based the song off that phrase. I really love honkytonk music and the tradition of the genre. The title seemed to fit what the other songs were doing.

Explain how you escape cliche while writing ‘Broken Heart in a Honkytonk.’

I think an interesting thing about country music is being able to take a cliche and twist things a little so there a shred of originality in the song. I think I do that on most songs that I write, but I will admit that I wrote the title track as a kind of joke to myself once I thought of that phrase. I honestly thought people would think it was stupid. So many country songs have so much cliche – pickup trucks, neon lights, cigarettes.

Explain how you framed the story differently.

Well, the twist I wrote is that one of the main characters in the song doesn’t have any knowledge of the honkytonk world. She just stumbled into that place and probably doesn’t understand it like the others who have been there their whole lives. I thought, Well, that gets me out of the cliche, but I think everyone has a song like that. I’ve made fun of them for years, but people seem to like this one.

Mainstream country takes those songs seriously. 

You’re right. There’s a level of commerce that pays the bills with that stuff that I’m certainly not dealing with. I’m not trying to sell somebody a culture or lifestyle. Commerce doesn’t play into any decisions I’m making whatsoever. I just like recording songs and making music with people I love.

Explain how these new songs represent your evolution as a songwriter.

I’m not really comfortable revealing a ton of personal stuff about myself so I populate my songs with characters who feel the way I feel about things instead. I have them experience the things while I hide myself in the writing. So many great writers do write autobiographically, but I’m not really comfortable doing that.

Why not?

Good question. There probably are a million things that happened to me since I was a child that shaped how I view the world. My parents were modest people who lived a very conservative life. They let their actions speak for themselves. I was raised to not make myself a center of attention. “Don’t show off.” I don’t know that was looked down upon, but you would hear, “Don’t try so hard to get everyone to look at you.” Ironic that being a musician and songwriter is what I chose to do.

– Brian T. Atkinson