Basements and Brews - Abby Webster Tours Colorado. Plus an Interview With The Artist
Opened by Adda Boyd
Abby Webster, joined by Adda Boyd, filled the Black Buzzard venue at downtown Denver’s Oskar Blues with their dulcet tones on Nov.13. They made their way south to play another show at the Colorado Springs Oskar Blues on Nov.14. This was Webster and her band’s first headlining tour outside of Montana, and they surely made a name for themselves.
The dim and antiquated brick basement that is The Black Buzzard was an excellent host for the night. Adda Boyd set the mood instantly, stepping on stage boasting a dusty cowboy hat, boots and bell bottoms, paired with a denim vest, and a silky scarf to top it all off. The small crowd knew they were in for a downtown Denver hootenanny. Hailing from the South Dakota-Wyoming border and telling tales of her ranch-handing, we had an authentic cowpuncher on stage. Boyd showcased her wrangler-made and self-written acoustic songs, as well as some fantastic covers, and was a splendid kick off to the show.
Webster ushered in this tour for the release of her debut album, Livin’ by the Water. You’ll guess why it’s titled that way during the interview portion. This is a fantastic record packed full of odes and lays, perfect for a road trip, campfire, day at the park and everything in between. Featuring album art that is oh so precious, playful, and aligned. This is Webster’s first full length release, although she is no stranger to the scene, as she’s got a plethora of singles all worth listening to.
Abby Webster and the band came out with full energy, vanquishing the tame atmosphere that Boyd fostered, in the best way possible. The band’s chemistry was incredible, with enough grins, giggles, and glances going around to make you feel like you were at a dinner party with them. I’ll bring the wine if you bring the twang. Their constant extending of gratuity to the teeny group of listeners reinforced that growing relationship. With all the members having met in the same minute Montana town, it was clear their kinship and affinity had a huge impact on their playing. The band consisted of Abby Webster with her honeyed vocals and guitar, Meesh Metcalf on fiddle, Zander Chovanes on guitar and mandolin, Issac Winemiller on bass, Cabot Metz on pedal steel and banjo, and last but not least Josh Poole on the drums. Now I am unsure if these are entertainment aliases, but those are some inimitable names, suitable to the group's personality. All the members did a fantastic job, however Metz was incredible, maybe that’s just some personal bias as he played my two favorite instruments, and I don’t think I’ve seen a last name that is that similar to mine. During our interview Webster mentioned that Metz hand built a portion of her guitar, about which he was much too humble when I spoke to him, he was an effortlessly suave gentleman.
Webster balances her songwriting flawlessly. She does very well at mixing in jumpy, amusing, and easy-going tunes with her more earnest and profound songs, while also having some that blend that line. All the great folk musicians have done this, it’s an important quality of the craft. With such a powerful genre, keeping it all somber and all weighty withdraws from its influence. The same applies if it were solely gleeful, and this can be said for any genre. Webster finds shade in the sun, and the sun in the breeze, and brings you, the listener, into the cabin to stay away from it all after a long and toiling day.
Webster granted me the pleasure of sitting down with her after the show to ask some questions. Both of us equipped and ready with a fresh beer in hand, we sat down in the blaring and beeping, dusty, and cramped green room, ready to chat. She was an extremely down to earth individual. I enjoyed every minute of it and I hope you do too -
So I know that you bounced a lot around the West. Do you have a favorite place that you've lived in?
“It's hard to pick a favorite, I want to. I mean, I love my life right now. Sometimes I think back to when I lived in San Francisco, and I miss a lot of things about California. I also miss a lot of things about when I lived outside of Jackson Hole for a long time, and that place is really special to me. And all of the places are really special to me in their own way. But my favorite place that I've lived in the West is where I live now. I think it's because that's where I met these guys, it's where I feel like I've been able to, I don't know, live my life a lot more full. A little less fast and a little less intense, but it feels more fulfilling.”
And that's Bozeman?
“Yeah, well, I live right outside of Bozeman. It's about 30 minutes outside of Bozeman.”
How's the music scene?
“I love the music scene there. It's not that you're gonna hear about it on the radio, or on the Grammys, Grammy towns like Nashville. But everybody who I know in the music scene is so incredible. I've lived in all kinds of cities, I lived in New York for a little while, I lived in California, and I feel like the musicians I know in Bozeman are the best. The best around, and they're also the most fun when hanging out.”
And that is where you met the band? How long have you been with the band?
“Yeah! I guess now it's been, like a year and a couple months, so not very long. I'm very lucky that they want to play with me.”
The chemistry was amazing. Lots of grins. You guys were absolutely killing. And the pedal steel has a place in my heart. And that dude killed it. And then when he jumped on the banjo too, Oh my god!
“He also made my guitar that I was using. He is the coolest person ever. He's just the sweetest there is. And he went to Berklee School (Berklee School of Music).”
That is really cool. Do you have any other creative outlets outside of song crafting and music?
“I have a lot of them. I feel like I haven't always been focused on music. I've done a lot of different things. I taught yoga for a really long time, and for me, that's a creative outlet. I know it's different for different people, but that was always a creative outlet for me. I danced growing up. I wasn't a very good dancer, but because I think my ADHD made it so that I couldn't pay attention in class or something, I don't know. Now the thing that I love to do that's creative is just cooking. I love to cook and I'm plant based. So I love to make plant based, vegan food. I'm a gardener too. So those things kind of go hand in hand for me. I think music is, obviously, my number one creative outlet, but it comes with some pressure, I think. But cooking, there's no pressure. That's like, when I get to just chill the f*ck out.”
I found your GoFundMe from a few years ago talking about your album polyphony, and in that you talk about working as a special education educator. That's my day job, so that stuck out a lot to me. How long did you do it?
“That's what I did for a very long time, not a paraprofessional specifically, but I have worked with kids for forever, and I just recently quit the job that I had. So I was a preschool teacher for a long time, kind of like Montessori inspired, but not in a Montessori Preschool. I did that for many years, and then I was a professional nanny for a very long time. What I loved about that was, it's really rewarding, but I'm also really introverted. So working at a school was tough for me for that reason. I did that for a long time, and then I worked for a nonprofit called Farm to School of Park County most recently, and I taught food, farming, and agriculture education kind of stuff, and that was a serious big girl job. I loved it so much. I was a program manager for them, but it was just too much to balance both. And so finally I got to the point where I was ready to just do music. So working with kids has always been my thing. And I actually, just recently, built a proposal to start this music class for young kids that I'm calling, little folks, that's gonna be like a folk style music class for kids.”
That's such a personal connection to me, I just absolutely love that. So what would you say about the skills or emotions that you take from all your experience working with kids? How would you apply that to your music?
“That's an interesting question, I don't know if I've really thought much about that. I think I would say working with kids is something that always has come really naturally to me. I have, I guess, just a desire to nurture. I can remember what it was like to feel like a kid, and the ways that I felt in certain situations as a child. I do think that some people kind of forget what that feels like, and I feel like the reason why I did well working with kids is because I remembered. So maybe it's that empathy piece or something that I really value. Empathy and compassion are top of my list of values. I feel like music is so related to that, or at least songwriting. I feel like in order to be a successful songwriter, you do have to have the ability to feel things for other people, a type of emotional intelligence that you also have to have to be good at working with kids.”
So going back to that, that GoFundMe was honestly the end all be all of GoFundMe’s. Your description, just how much emotion was in it, you poured your heart out. Did any of the songs from that ever get released?
“I recorded some of them, and I think that some of them became other songs. But yeah, it was for whatever reason. I'm almost 35 and I kept trying to make stuff, and things just kept not working out, like I just kept hitting roadblock after roadblock after roadblock. I mean, I could have released them. They just…I didn't resonate with them at all once I had recorded them. I think that those songs still served a really important purpose to the trajectory of my music , because I think they were building blocks for what was to come. Maybe one day I will record some of them again. I think that I wasn't ready to really make something serious. I had a hard time before, really devoting myself to improving at my craft, and it wasn't that I wasn’t talented at writing, but I couldn't execute things the way that I knew I wanted to execute them. Especially, for example, I learned to play guitar very late, when I was 28 years old, so I was still really learning how to play, and I couldn't and I didn't play with a band or anything. So it was just not quite time yet. I was able to channel that into building a band eventually. And then I did end up making a record finally, after so many years of trying to do it. It's tough, you know, because I want to live in the mountains. I want to live in nature, but that comes with… it's hard to find people who can create, help, or co-create the quality that you want when you're not in Nashville or something.”
This one changes the subject a little bit, and it's a little bit of a heavy hitter. So myself, you, and probably everybody in this room, are very upset about recent events in the country (The Election). Do you hope, at the very least, to find some sort of positive in that and use that dismay as fuel for song-craft and creativity?
“I do. I've been kind of viewing it like, and this is kind of funny, but It just occurred to me one day, I think maybe I was in a yoga class or something, I was like, You know what? I feel like I'm dying of a disease. I know that that sounds really dramatic, but it feels almost as if somebody has told me, you only have this amount of time to live, and so what are you going to do with it? So it has me already feeling myself become a lot more present, a lot more willing to connect with people who I otherwise wouldn't connect with. I'm trying to be willing to be proven wrong by the things that I am afraid are gonna happen, while still maintaining my values. I'm particularly concerned about how we are extremely divided. For the longest time, I've felt like that is what they want. I'm trying to be willing to have conversations with as many people, from as many different walks of life as I can and just remain open. My concern is mostly for the environment. It's for people of color, and the LGBT community. I just feel like it's so sad that we are being represented by somebody who is so willing to be so hateful and is so willing to encourage, or at least allow other people to express the same ideas. I feel terrified. In some ways, maybe somehow, we can strengthen our communities. We can look within and work on ourselves and be more present with the people we love. Live our life more fully now that there's so much at stake.”
Being a folk musician, which is inherently a political genre, what do you hope that you can do or influence in the upcoming years?
“I think the way that we influence people the most effectively is by being as completely honest as we can. I really value honesty and I think that's the key to a kinder world, authenticity. I really feel like, and I know it sounds kind of cliche and like something from a wellness social media post or something; I really think that by being as true to yourself as you possibly can, that is how you can make the most impact in the world. Recently, I've had a hard time with music, where I'm like, this is so f*cking hard, and I'm losing all this money every time I go on tour. But it's beyond that, it's beyond me. It's for something deeper than my own self gratification and sometimes it is f*cking hard. And so what? That's part of being on this planet, that's part of Earth school, you're never gonna have a break from growing and evolving. And looking deeper into yourself, almost like becoming more yourself. I feel like that's the path, and then when you do that, you inspire other people to do that too. It's contagious.”
What do you hope for the future of Folk and Americana?
“I feel like this is a genre… I mean, I kind of cross genres a lot, and I think that a lot of folk musicians kind of do that, and it's hard to define; But what I do love about this genre is it's so rooted in the past, but then it is also so forward looking. I think that it connects people from so many different walks of life, people that otherwise would not communicate with each other. People were following me because they liked my music and they connected with my music, and they think differently than I do politically. I think that that's one thing that's really cool about this genre in particular, is there are a lot of people who come from different schools of thoughts and different backgrounds and that we all kind of like to come together in this same space. And so I think it's a really great safe space to express and connect with people who we otherwise wouldn't. And so that is kind of how I see the future of Folk and Americana.”
Do you have a favorite modern Folk artist who's in the scene right now?
“It's really interesting, because I don't listen to this genre. I mean… I guess actually, that's not true. I have a lot of favorite bands... my favorite modern band, it changes a lot, but Big Thief is one of my favorites, and they're a folk band. They're folk rock. What I love about her so much (Adrianne Lenker)... and I've seen her live a few times, she just is somebody who shows up 100% as herself. I'm really inspired by that. It's so embodied in her work. My favorite band growing up, and one that I still like, was Bright Eyes. I feel like Connor Oberst is one of the most underrated songwriters there is. He just is such an incredible songwriter. I don't really ever feel like I have idols. When people ask me that question, I have kind of a tough time, but I would say he might be one of my influences. I was so in love with the fact that he writes about such mundane experiences, and particularly experiences with partying, having issues with substances or whatever. But he makes them into these really deep experiences. He makes them mean more than what most people view them as. He'll take a scene where he's just wasted with his buddy. And it is so heartfelt. I grew up with those older albums, and so those really influenced me in my writing.”
How much more do you value the importance of being within nature, versus having a more commercially advantageous life by being in a music city?
“I think that there are amazing benefits to both. I think it would have been maybe a lot quicker for me, had I decided to live somewhere that's a little bit more integrated in that way, but then I wouldn't be true to who I am. So then maybe I would have somehow been less successful. And I feel like I met the people who I play with, and I feel like we're meant to be playing music together. I'm happy that I made the choices that I did. I have struggled with my mental health so much in my life. So for me living in nature was so important for me and my mental health. I wasn't going to be able to continue to live happily in San Francisco. There's a lot of beautiful nature around San Francisco, but it's very condemned. It's a very condensed city. It's like a really small city, but with a f*ck ton of people all shoved in there, and that became really, really challenging for me and my mental health. The way that I connect spiritually is through nature. It's top of my list of things that I care about preserving in this world. It's definitely the thing that I am feeling the heaviest and the saddest about, even though I know there are many things to feel sad about, the way that things are unfolding in our political landscape and political culture. So I like living close to it, it helps me to keep it close and also to remind me of the sacredness of it, so that I can continue to make the choices in life that help to preserve it.”
What's your favorite thing to do in nature?
“I think what I like about it is that there's no one specific thing. I like to just exist within it, you know? I hike and I camp and I ski and I do all that stuff. But I think, honestly, every day I go on a walk by the river, it's right by my house, and that was the first thing that came to mind. I didn't want to say it, because it doesn't feel as cool as being like, I like to go rock climbing. Which I do like, but honestly just that daily ability to just walk by the river. To notice things, and especially animals. That's probably my favorite part of nature. I just love animals so much. So to be able to see animals around me and feel their presence around me. To just sit down outside and look up at the freaking trees, it's so simple for me. Every day I have a non-negotiable walk by the water.”