Photo by Alysse Gafkjen

Today, Margo Price released her fourth studio album, the mind-altering desert trip Strays. On the 10-track project, Price addresses loss, failure, trauma and substance abuse and sonically reveals how she tackled her demons with an indomitable vigor.

The result is an album unbound by genre and expectations, one that celebrates freedom in all its forms. Much of the inspiration for the album came after Margo quit drinking; her newfound clarity allowed her to create something musically ambitious and also thematically unabashed, on which she sheds her unique light on self-worth, self-image, self-love, bodily autonomy, and the purest of pleasures.

Price spoke with Relix about the creation and recording of Strays in the cover story of 2022’s October/November issue. When asked about recording with Jonathan Wilson and his connection with her songs, Price said, “I’ve always been a big fan of Jonathan Wilson’s production. I’ve also been a big fan of his solo work. I never had the chance to meet him, but as I started talking on the phone with a bunch of different producers—this was deep into COVID—I immediately felt a really calming spirit from Jonathan and so much enthusiasm about the songs. I sent him some pre-production demos. He also sent me photos of the studio that he just built in Topanga Canyon, and I wanted to be able to go out there and feel the vibe of that area.”

She went on to add, “The band and I had a spiritual experience making that record. I used session players on my last album. Then, as COVID was coming around, I felt like I needed to get back in the studio with my band because we had not been able to play music together in so long. [Wilson] saw the best in my players and was able to get the best out of us as a band. It was a lot of fun. We worked hard, but we also got to bond and be together. It was right after we’d gotten our vaccines, so we were joking that it was like ‘hot vax summer’ before the other variants showed up. We were passing joints and just hanging out in the canyon. When you walked out of the studio, you could go hike up in the woods. When you’re in a Nashville studio, it’s dark in there, and then you come out, and you’re in a parking lot. This was a whole different vibe. David Briggs’ old house was right across the street, and I would go wander off into the canyon and see rattlesnakes and all sorts of things out there.”

One of the stand-out tracks on the project that takes off is “Light Me Up,” which features Mike Campbell; in the interview, Price also detailed the nature of the song’s arrangement: “We wanted to write something that was very Zeppelin—that was acoustic, but then just explodes. I knew my band could really pull that off,” Price said. “So we started writing it, and then we had all these different sections, all different chord changes and ideas. When we brought it to the band, they were able to solidify where everything goes because they’re such a huge part of the writing and arranging of my songs. When we started writing that song, Jeremy [Ivey] was just doing this kind of fingerpick-y thing that sounds like the Grateful Dead’s ‘Friend of the Devil.’ We were like, ‘What should we write the song about?’ I said, ‘We should write a song that’s about making love. We need to write a song about sex. I feel like there’s just not enough women singing about their orgasms.’ So that’s how that came about. We’ve been playing it live for about a year, and it really slays.”

Read Relix’s full cover story with Margo Price here.

Listen to Strays below.