Larkin Poe: Blood Sweat and Tears
On a picture-perfect mid-July afternoon, 5,000 miles from their Nashville, Tenn., home, Larkin Poe’s sibling duo, Rebecca and Megan Lovell, have made it to the top. After a relaxing morning spent answering emails, posting to social media and sipping coffee in the seaside Italian village of Trieste, the sisters went all in for the payoff. They ventured on foot—up a dauntingly steep incline overlooking the glistening Adriatic to Castello di San Giusto, a 15th-century fortress that will transform itself this evening into the port city’s finest venue for rock-and-roll.
“We walked up an insane amount of stairs to this castle,” says Rebecca, lead singer and elder Lovell sister. “It’s a remarkable place to play tonight. It’s incredibly beautiful.”
Larkin Poe’s European summer tour may be winding down, but the pair will actually only have a few days off before joining Willie Nelson’s traveling Outlaw Music Festival back in the U.S. Then, their upcoming schedule is jam packed, thanks to a range of appearances in Canada and Mexico, a support slot for Dave Matthews Band and another month with Nelson. And it all culminates with the November release of their new album, Blood Harmony. Just as the title intimates, the Lovell sisters are, as they say, “a package deal,” speaking on a conference call together an hour before soundcheck.
“Being siblings is definitely the axis upon which everything else spins,” says Megan, Larkin Poe’s lead guitarist and singer. “It’s a big part of the way we create music; the way we create a vibe onstage. That’s what’s behind the title, Blood Harmony. Sibling harmony is unlike anything else.”
Lead singer and guitarist Rebecca jumps in, her voice nearly identical to Megan’s. She’s acutely aware. “This is Rebecca,” she says, courteously identifying herself the first of a dozen more times before interview’s end. “We are very much connected at the hip. We’ve lived our lives in sync, essentially, since we were born. We’ve made the choice to put ourselves in this position: choosing to make music together, choosing to be in business together, choosing to travel the world together. I don’t think that we would alter any of those choices.”
One of their more recent joint choices— the deliberate introduction of chaos into their tightly contained creative space— triggered an evolutionary turn for Larkin Poe. The first and most obvious disruption came from Texas-bred musician Tyler Bryant, co-producer of the record, and Rebecca’s spouse of nearly three years. “Bless my husband. He’s a very forward[1]thinking man and absolutely onboard with being married to an incredibly strong woman,” Rebecca says. “And having an incredibly strong sister-in-law.”
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Over their careers, Rebecca and Megan have made nearly a dozen records with anything but intentional disorder. Their relationship is so symbiotic that during their decade of time as Larkin Poe, the duo has developed a near-telepathic style of nonverbal communication. Success followed their self-produced efforts—2018’s Venom & Faith earned a Grammy nomination and peaked at No. 1 on Billboard’s Blues Album chart and 2020’s Self Made Man also landed at the chart’s top spot. The pair issued all five of their previous studio sets, plus 2021’s live Paint the Roses, via their own, self-financed Tricki-Woo Records.
“We never want things to become rote. We never want to keep solving the same problems with the same solutions we’d come up with,” Rebecca says. “In having Tyler in a co-production role, it was really fun to have someone else’s opinion. [He was] open to being the chaos factor; throwing in those two cents whether or not those two cents actually would be used.”
Larkin Poe started writing the record in December of 2021 and their formal 26-day recording sessions at Lovell and Bryant’s Nashville, Tenn. home commenced in mid-January. They elected to take only one day off—Rebecca’s 31st birthday.
As much as possible, the sisters, alone, constructed their previous albums, applying their multi-instrumentalist talents to nearly all the parts, including the programmed drums. This time, however, Bryant, who co-wrote several of the 11 songs, recommended that the duo forgo the machines. Instead, he encouraged them to emulate their radiant live performances.
The sisters agreed, and invited drummer Caleb Crosby, of Bryant’s The Shakedown band, to the sessions. They also welcomed bassist Tarka Layman and drummer Kevin McGowan from Poe’s touring outfit, and Megan’s husband, multi-instrumentalist Mike Seal. “That was another great palette of colors to play with,” Megan says.
Again and again, Bryant advocated for a raw approach, frequently pushing the duo to listen to and consider their first takes. “I feel like I was a broken record for the girls,” he says. “Megan has this way of playing, where sometimes she just sounds like she’s angry, and I love that. Sometimes, I’d say, ‘Hold on. Before you do it again, will you listen to what you just did? Because that was really cool and off-the-cuff and instinctual.’ Their instincts are so good.”
The Lovell sisters grew up in rural northern Georgia, the middle two of four siblings. Their parents were open-minded quasi-hippies who homeschooled their children, without a TV in the house. For fun, the girls built forts in the woods, and listened to rock-and-roll and roots music.
During their regular visits to various aunts and uncles in neighboring Tennessee, they’d consume retro shows on TV Land and watch VHS tapes of the Knoxville PBS-produced, Heartland Series, hosted by Bill Landry, celebrating Appalachian life. They also took in the local live entertainment, honing those natural instincts. “A lot of porch-pickin’ and people just playing music for the joy of music,” Megan says.
From a very young age, the sisters were drawn to an older generation. They loved visiting the Opry in Signal Mountain, Tenn., where diverse crowds of hippies and old folks, children and babies in bassinettes have been coming together and communing every Friday night for decades. “To have been able to take part in that tradition, and really get a hands-on approach to the way in which music can serve as a bridge for people, was really impactful for us,” Rebecca says.
As teenagers, they teamed with their older sister, Jessica, forming a bluegrass/ Americana trio, the Lovell Sisters. The outfit disbanded in 2009 after two studio albums and a live release, with Rebecca and Megan assembling Larkin Poe a year later. They issued four conceptual EPs during their first year as band—each representing a different season—and, finally, dropped their debut LP, Kin, in 2014.
In March of 2014, producer T Bone Burnett enlisted the sisters for session work on Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes, a collection of original material drawn from unpublished Bob Dylan lyrics that features Elvis Costello, Rhiannon Giddens, Taylor Goldsmith, Marcus Mumford and Jim James. That summer, they performed a festival[1]stealing spot at Glastonbury and, in 2016, they collaborated with Steven Tyler as he ventured into country music. In short, Larkin Poe was rising fast, widely respected and admired by their peers and their musical heroes, alike.
“We are very blessed and fortunate to have been at the right place at the right time and, with a lot of work, to make friends with many incredible mentors,” Rebecca says. “I’m not trying to do that humble-brag bullshit. We really care about what we do.”
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Blood Harmony is as much a Southern record as anything. It blooms from riffs rooted deeply in Delta mud and lyrical metaphors rich in regional imagery; the wistful driver on a dusty road hoping Tennessee keeps Georgia off of her mind. There are hooks aplenty: Megan’s sensational slide guitar keeps ferocity in one back pocket and jaunty melody in the other; on every instantly memorable chorus, Rebecca grips the heart and the soul.
“I don’t know how anybody could listen to Rebecca’s vocal on ‘Might as Well Be Me’ and not think it’s one of the best vocals of the last 10 years,” Bryant says.
Recording the album at home awarded Larkin Poe the time, freedom and comfort to experiment, without the pressure of potentially siphoning off their hard-earned touring money in a proper studio. They could flesh out parts, and attack songs in a variety of ways.
The album opens with “Deep Stays Down” and never stays down. Before it reached its final form, though, they tried it as an upbeat hoedown and as a cinematic epic. The last idea—a haunting blues stomping onto the scene with assurance—was the keeper. Bryant calls it throwing paint at the wall and hoping for a pretty picture.
They walked away from the home sessions with a host of basic tracks. Then, they took the keepers to Roger Alan Nichols’ Bell Tone Recording studio in Nashville to cut the vocals and guitars. Ironically, working with Nichols, a friend and past collaborator, was, instead, another dose of chaos.
“We got out of the space we were so comfortable with, and we were able to have some freshness,” Rebecca says. “Figuring out the areas in which you have chaos—and the areas where you search for home and comfort—is another angle of finesse and nuance that makes recording so fun. The arenas in which you push and the arenas in which you don’t is fascinating.”
Megan adds, “We are always seeking, to do better and better as far as fulfilling our own inner critic.”
The Grammy nomination was a particularly special reward for their inner critic and for the fanbase that has enabled their slow-burn success. “Getting a Grammy nomination as an individual is great,” says Rebecca. “But getting one for the fans who have believed in you for 10-15 years, who bought your records— for them to see a little win—that’s what makes it gratifying.”
Together with Bryant, the sisters dug into the preproduction process more than ever before. And they all agree that the constant writing and rewriting, as well as their numerous demos, ultimately pushed them to turn inward. The result is an undeviating, succinct and dynamically penetrating collection.
“It doesn’t feel like there is any filler on this record,” Rebecca says.
In the bigger picture, the timing of Blood Harmony may be ideal. The sisters point to a rock renaissance occurring, citing the success of Greta Van Fleet, with younger fans discovering guitar-driven, blues-based music. And though the ladies appear as a badass duo in throwback faded leather and patchwork denim on Blood Harmony’s faux wrinkled and dog-eared cover—a conscious nod to two faves, Black Sabbath and Fleetwood Mac—the sonic statements within are anything but affectedly retro. The album’s first single, “Bad Spell” sounds like an evolutionary next wave, a searing modern-day descendant of Albert King’s “Born Under a Bad Sign.”
“They’re able to do that because they know where it comes from,” Bryant says. “With this record, they took even more ownership of what Larkin Poe actually is. And on the road, they’re pushing it even further. I can’t wait to see how the evolution continues.”
On their European run, Larkin Poe opened a few shows for Jack White, the vanguard of modern blues-rock. They stood in awe of his captivating performance. For the sisters, witnessing White’s live show, and playing alongside Costello, were humbling opportunities to reassess their own approach.
“Being onstage over the years in jam scenarios with musicians that are transcendentally magical, my mind is so blown. It is like, ‘Wow, what a gift,’” Rebecca says. “The biggest thing about being a lifer in music is being willing to be shook.”
The sisters, no doubt, plan to take notes on the Outlaw tour. They’ll be playing bigger venues and, for the first time, able to witness Willie in the flesh. “We are emotionally prepared to get wrecked,” Rebecca says.
The Lovell sisters, too, are ready to do their own damage. They made Blood Harmony with a conscious ear toward an earlier era when fans read an album’s liner notes, had a glass of wine and dropped the needle—letting it run from tip to tail. It was a time when music was honored, not consumed in single, disposable servings on a phone.
“Authenticity has always been our guiding light. We always ask ourselves, ‘How can we be most ourselves in most moments?’” Rebecca says. “Now, here we are in 2022 and what does being most us look like? We answered that question with this album, and I think we did it really well. The more you lean into your gut, the more your gut will speak up and tell you. If you pay attention, man, it’s like the gloves are coming off.”
