Parting Shots: Margo Price
Margo Price and John Prine, Newport Folk Festival, 2018: photo by Dean Budnick
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“When you’re a woman playing country music, no one wants to hear your opinion. They just want you to stand there, look pretty and smile,” Margo Price says in midJuly, a few days after the release of her third LP, That’s How Rumors Get Started. “But, since my first record, I’ve talked about sexism in the Nashville establishment. I spoke out about Trump when nobody else was doing it. I’ve continued to talk about gun control and abortion rights. I’ve pissed off a lot of my fans.”
Though she grew up in Illinois, the 37-year-old singer-songwriter has long been part of a new class of Americana-leaning Nashville voices, helping reclaim country music for the festival generation. Her songs have always been personal and often heartbreaking, yet the past few months have been particularly challenging. Shortly after the novel coronavirus hit the United States, her husband and cowriter Jeremy Ivey contracted COVID-19, and the virus took the life of her friend John Prine. The global pandemic also delayed the release of her new, rock-oriented album, which was produced by Sturgill Simpson and recorded at both Los Angeles’ EastWest Studios and The Butcher Shoppe in Nashville.
In addition to caring for her husband and children, Price has lent her voice to a number of important causes in recent months, promoting maskwearing, supporting the Black Lives Matter movement and calling out the Grand Ole Opry’s complicated history.
“This pandemic has amplified all the struggles of humanity— the health-care crisis, the loneliness that everyone already felt, the hate that’s been ignited in our country. I’m also worried about smaller, independent venues,” says Price, who paired her album’s release with a campaign to promote local restaurants. “I’m not trying to push my agenda on anybody, but you have to support the causes that are going to make future generations thrive.”
You’ve been associated with the Southeast throughout your career. What led you to LA for your new record?
I wanted to record in December, and it’s so gray and dark here during those winter months. I also thought that LA fit the vibe of these songs. Pet Sounds and Wildflowers were made at EastWest; Fleetwood Mac recorded there. The bathrooms have mirrors on the ceilings—there’s a lot of cocaine lore floating around. [Laughs.] But I couldn’t do any cocaine because I was knocked up and sober as a nun.
You and Sturgill are old friends, but you‘ve been hesitant to work with him in the past. What changed this time?
Sturgill approached me about producing my second album, but I wasn’t sure that it was a good idea for us to work together. I’m very opinionated and Sturgill can also be very loud with what he thinks. But he just kept persisting. And I thought, “He’s going to do a great job because he’s motivated to be involved in the project.”
He’s not going to sugarcoat everything. I really admire that in a business where a lot of people tend to bullshit you—he’s blunt and he’s honest. We’ve known each other since we were scraping to get by. We really bonded over being outcasts because we weren’t cool in the hip indie scene.
Has it been equally difficult and rewarding to work so closely with your husband?
I’m not going to lie—sometimes we get into really bad fights. But we bring out the best in each other. It’s important to have somebody to bounce ideas off of. Even if I write a song on my own, he’s going to tell me if it’s good or if I need to keep working on it.
Work and success can get in the way; they can alienate best friends and lovers. The two of us have had to work through my career taking off—me being gone all the time and him co-writing but not always getting the glamour. When you write together and challenge each other, you have to work at your marriage and partnership every day.
Have you found space to be creative at home during the quarantine?
The first three and a half months, I just isolated with my husband and our two kids. I wasn’t really sleeping. My one-year-old daughter still wakes up a couple of times a night. Jeremy got sick, so we weren’t able to write. It was: Get up, make breakfast, have play time, lay down for a nap, clean up the house, do over.
I did try to pick up my guitar and, for the last month and a half, my mom has been here nannying so I’ve been able to write and play more—make music videos. But she just left. Now, I have a newfound respect for single moms. When I’m out on the road, I always have a nanny and I have my husband— we have a whole support team. But this has been a challenge.
When Jeremy got sick, it was really scary. He was weak for a month and a half, maybe two months. He got an indeterminate test twice. John Prine’s test also came back indeterminate, and we lost him. If we only knew then what we now know about this disease, then maybe John would still be with us. But, at that point, nobody knew anything.
Now that Jeremy’s healthy, we have a new lease on life. The world’s shit—you can’t go anywhere, it’s boring. But at least we have our health.
You recently contributed the liner notes to the Wake of the Flood reissue included in a Vinyl Me, Please box set. What was your gateway into the Grateful Dead’s world?
I had an ex-boyfriend who was a Deadhead. The only good thing I got out of that relationship was a newfound love for the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin. American Beauty was massive for me—rock-and-roll songs with these country-blues and bluegrass elements. When we used to play “Casey Jones,” my drummer and I would do double drums.
I’m friends with Bob Weir— we text each other. It’s just amazing to talk to him and listen to his stories. I sang with him at The Ryman recently; he gave me a guitar. I can’t wait to hear the album he was working on with John Prine. He’s been recording it for a long time— he’s working on an opus.
I also sat in with Phil Lesh at the Hollywood Bowl. We were opening for Willie Nelson on the Outlaw Music Festival Tour, and Phil and I got to walk out arm-in-arm.
The first time you attended Bonnaroo in 2003, you got to go backstage. How did you manage that?
My cousin was dating The Wailers’ drummer. I went with $15 in my pocket—I was 20. I didn’t bring food or a tent; I just slept in my car. I got lightheaded after smoking a spliff with The Wailers in their dressing room, and some strangers in the audience stopped me from fainting and gave me some water. I saw My Morning Jacket, Neil Young, The Roots, Keller Williams, Emmylou [Harris]… I stayed out there for three days and walked around with no shoes. All the cops were on horses and the drugs were cool. It seemed like a new Woodstock.
I was so excited when I finally played there that I ate some mushrooms. Ed Helms was leading a SuperJam and tried to track me down to sing, but I was to the moon on mushrooms. He spotted me creeping around, came over and was like, “Do you want to sing?” And before I could even say no, my mouth was like, “I’d love to.” So I got up there and Aaron Lee Tasjan helped keep me grounded.
