WEBVTT - Margo Price 0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:15.280 Pushkin, Margot Price is no stranger to struggle. In early March, 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:18.440 a tornado raged through her home base of Nashville, just 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:21.439 as she was preparing to release her third album. A 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:23.800 month later, as Tennessee residents were ordered to shelter in 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:27.240 place to prevent the spread of COVID nineteen, Margot's husband 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:31.640 and longtime collaborator, Jeremy Ivey, tested positive for the coronavirus. 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:34.720 While taking care of her sick husband and two young kids, 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:37.680 Margot decided to push back the release of her new album. 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:41.400 It may seem like a no brainer, but for Margot 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:44.640 it was a really tough decision, and with her simultaneously 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:46.400 not being able to be on the road like she 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:49.160 usually is right now, things in her life just feel 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:53.040 a bit upside down. But Margot Price is a gifted 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:57.440 songwriter who always manages to turn adversity into a great song. 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:00.160 In the past, she's written her way through personal a 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:02.760 station like the loss of a family farm and the 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:06.160 death of an infant son. Her new album, That's How 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:09.959 Rumors Get Started pulls from that same well, but musically 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:12.480 it was a debt to more carefree rock music like 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:16.520 The Stones, Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac. In this interview, 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:19.679 Margot tells Bruce Headlam how playing an open mic at 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:23.320 a Best Western hotel made her a better songwriter. She 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:25.759 also talks about hockey, her wedding ring to record her 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:28.720 first album, and how spending a weekend in jail was 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:35.840 all the inspiration she needed to refocus her career. This 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:38.760 is broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:47.160 justin Richmond. Here's Bruce Headlam and Margot Price, who connected 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:50.360 recently on zoom. So you get at home with your 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:57.000 two kids now for two months? Yeah, sixty six days. 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:02.920 I'm one of the psychopaths still keeping fresh. Who Well, 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:05.760 my son was asking the other day, So I sat 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:09.400 down and did the math and your husband got sick 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:12.480 in the middle of all this, didn't he he did? Yeah, 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:16.480 your husband who's also your co songwriter and you know, yeah, 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:20.720 a great musician. Yeah, partner in crime. How is he now? 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:26.120 He is still not fully recovered, but slowly getting better 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:30.760 every day. It's been a long it's been a long road, 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:36.600 and yeah, I'm just glad that he is not going 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:39.600 into the hospital and we've been able to treat it here. 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:44.800 He's been doing like nebulizer treatments, the breathing treatments and 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:49.760 sleeping twelve hours a day, taking a lot of vitamins, 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:53.480 drinking a lot of water. Just there's nothing you can do. 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:57.880 So you go into the emergency room. And then they 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:01.480 just were like, yep, I hope you make it. We're 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:03.360 just going to send you home now because you're not 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:06.080 bad enough to admit and we can't really give you anything. 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:13.280 So they gave him like an inhaler and wished him luck. Yeah, 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:16.440 and you've had to postpone releasing your new album, which 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:19.880 is what we're here to talk about. Yeah, I mean 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:24.920 I didn't have to. I just everything came on so quickly, 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:28.640 and I thought, Okay, well we'll be able to tour 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:31.760 this summer, so I'm just going to push it back 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:34.520 a little bit. And then I've finally came to the 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:37.600 realization that, like, no, there's not going to be tours 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:41.839 for probably the whole entire year, and so now I'm 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:45.640 just focusing on getting it out. But at the beginning 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:49.040 of quarantine, we could just been hit by the tornado. 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:53.720 Our friend John Prine died and Jeremy got sick, and 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:57.560 all those things combined plus having two small children at home. 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:02.000 I just I couldn't proper release a record. I didn't 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:04.920 have any like any more music videos to put out. 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:09.240 I didn't really have any content to work with. You 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:11.840 mentioned John Prine, who's you know, at the head of 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:14.360 the list of great musicians who've been lost to this. 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:17.599 You know, there's a terrific version online of you doing 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:21.960 Unwed Fathers with him. When did you first meet him? 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:27.480 I met John on his seventieth birthday at the Rhyman 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:31.560 and I was asked to come sing in spite of 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:36.320 ourselves and Unwinded Fathers with him, And it was just 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:40.400 really surreal because I'd been a student of his songwriting 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:44.440 for decades and he was so down to earth and 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:48.880 so nice and funny and real. I just feel like 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:53.159 there's very few people that remained that grounded throughout that 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:57.520 kind of success, and he was one of the realest 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:02.279 people I ever had the pleasure to. Still kind of 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:05.280 doesn't seem like he's gone because we're not seeing anybody, 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:08.080 so I just kind of feel like I'm going to 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:10.640 see him down the road. But every once in a 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:13.600 while kind of like clicks that you know and you 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:17.600 remember it. Yeah, just such a loss. Yeah, I mean 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:21.719 you guys, you have the same tendency. I think, particularly 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:26.800 in sad songs, you both come up with the kind 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:31.520 of perfect image, you know, riding high and low expectations 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:36.640 and why don't you do the math pay gap, ripping 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:40.919 my dollars in half? You know, there are things you 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:43.000 can't turn money back into time, which is a line. 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:46.240 I just love those. A line sound like John Prime 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:49.760 lines to me. Have you ever sat down and said, yeah, 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:51.880 I'm going to write a Joeing Prime song? Or is this? 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:59.240 Is this just? Is that just Midwestern sensibility? Well that's 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:01.760 very high, and I thank you for that. I don't 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:05.200 I don't think I've come close to his greatest works 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:09.680 in any capacity, but I definitely have, you know, studied 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:13.080 what he's done. And I just the thing that I 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:17.400 love about John is that he uses his entire vocabulary 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:24.120 and he's not afraid to use quirky, strange words that 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:26.360 most people would think were too ugly to put into 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:29.600 a song. You know. And my husband and I actually 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:34.920 wrote him recorded a couple of summers ago an album 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:37.560 that we shelved, and it was a psychedelic gospel record, 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:40.640 and I think on that album, I was you know, 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:44.040 really trying to mimic his work because we had been 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:47.640 on the road with him a lot. And of course 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:50.039 I haven't put that out yet, but there's a couple 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:53.200 like songs that are floating around out there on YouTube. 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:57.240 Once called the Devils in the Details, and I've played 0:06:57.240 --> 0:06:59.520 that acoustic for John and he told me that he 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:04.360 really liked that song, and that was the highest compliment 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:07.800 I ever got. Really, you're so good at those kind 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:10.880 of lines. I'm just wondering and what I'm jumping ahead 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:14.440 because we'll talk about songwriting more, but do those lines 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:17.440 kind of emerge and then you think that's a great line, 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:19.280 I'm going to put that in a song at some point. 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:22.560 Are they just things in a notebook that find their 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:25.720 way in or do they emerge while you're writing the song. 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:28.640 Some of them just emerge as I'm writing a song. 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:32.000 Can't Turn Money Back to Time. That was something that 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:36.880 happened like while I was strumming and my husband and 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:38.560 I were kind of I had written most of the 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:40.760 song and then we talked through a little bit of 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:43.960 that chorus and we like it just clipped at that point. 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:48.360 But I do tend to find lines like that and 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:52.360 make a note of them, or like if somebody in 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:55.000 the room says something that's really witty, I'm like, Okay, 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:57.640 you're not going to write a song about that, and 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:03.080 I'll write it down. Well, yea the album title. That's 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:05.640 how rumors get started. That actually was something my guitar 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:07.880 player said in the bus when we were drunk one night, 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:13.960 and I just was like, I'm taking it all right. Nice, 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:17.360 Actually that one another I'm thinking about it. That that 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:21.040 line you can't you can't turn money back into time? 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:25.000 What's the line after that? Take it from me, Darlyn 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:28.440 of mine? Yeah, that's what makes that line that there's 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:30.320 such a shift, and to take it from me Darlin, 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:33.440 that to me is just you know how everybody remembers 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:36.000 the first line of Hallelujah that they say there was 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:39.360 a secret cord David played. What makes it is the 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:42.520 second line, which is but you don't really care about music, 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:45.360 do you, which I think is that people always leave 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:47.240 off that and that's just that's the killer. And I 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:49.400 when I heard that, I know, but when I heard 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:52.040 that song, that's what I thought of. Well, I wanted, 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:55.079 you know, I had written Hands of Time long ago, 0:08:55.240 --> 0:09:00.000 and I remember this woman in North Carolina. She said 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:03.200 she was an old family friend and this old hippie lady, 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:05.880 and she was all drunk one night She's like, you 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:11.200 gotta write a song for your other kid, and I said, okay, 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:15.080 I will. And so that was me kind of writing 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:18.600 like a note to him, like you know, when I'm 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:21.360 gone on the road, but also when I die. And 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:26.439 I've been thinking so much of that line as I'm 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:32.199 home these last couple months, like Okay, well here's your time. 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:37.000 You know, I'm not bringing in money, but I have time, 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:40.560 and I'm really trying to enjoy it and savor it. 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:44.520 So I mentioned you and John Prime were both Midwesterners, 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:49.560 ended up in Nashville. Where were you born. I was 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:53.520 born in a town called Rock Island, but my folks 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:58.600 always lived in Aldo, Illinois, and it's like, you know, 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:02.480 west of Chicago. It's just how I explain it. And 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.280 the town had three thousand and seven hundred people in it, 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:09.360 and it gets smaller every year. More and more people 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:14.800 move away because there's less opportunity and there's a really 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:19.840 desolate area. I mean, after the eighties farm crisis and 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:23.280 how things have kind of continued to go with corporate farms, 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:26.280 and it's a great place, but I just I don't 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:29.280 think I could ever live there because it's it's a 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:31.040 hard way life. I think for a lot of people, 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:34.320 how did music start then? For you? I think because 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:38.120 there was nothing to do. It felt like such an 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:44.360 important lifeline in my life. You know, my father always 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:48.000 had the oldies station on, and so there was a 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:52.320 lot of like classic rock, and he always liked to 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:54.960 play the dad game in the car that was like 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:58.679 you know who this is, lots the Beatles, you know who? 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:01.360 That's Carol King, you know, and he wanted to like 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:06.760 school me on that's Rod Stewart. So it annoyed me 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:10.480 and I didn't like that music at first, but then 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:13.079 it really started to grow on me. There was there 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:16.040 a particular song or a particular moment that it really 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:21.520 hit you musically. I loved Tom Petty songs. I loved 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:26.640 like you know, American Girl and a lot of those songs. 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:30.720 I felt like he was talking directly to me, and 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:33.280 he made it seem like it was like okay to 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:36.800 be from Middle America, like a small town and being nobody. 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:40.880 He like romanticized it in a way that I really appreciated. 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:45.480 And in school we still had some good programs, Like 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:50.920 in fourth and fifth grade we did like these show 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:54.920 choir things, you know, singing and dancing. And in fourth 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:58.720 grade the theme that year was like country music, and 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:02.920 so I got my first a little solo to Patsy 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:08.240 Klein walking after Midnight, and I did, you know, kind 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:11.760 of start at that point to enjoy country music more. 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:14.199 I wasn't always sold on what was on the radio, 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:17.200 but my grandmother she played a lot of the old 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:22.440 stuff for me, Loretta and Dolly and Johnny Cash, and 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:26.200 that was cooler to me than even the nineties country. 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:28.800 There's still some nineties country that's like okay, you know, 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:31.280 and now it's like obviously having a big resurgence. But 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:34.880 my heart is in across the board, whether it's rock 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:38.920 and roll or country music. It's like the sixties and seventies, right, Yeah. Now, 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:40.840 I'm always it's always funny to me when people are like, 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:43.800 you know, I like the old stars like Garth Brooks, 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:48.400 like Rooks. You know, it's like I thought you meant, like, 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:52.920 you know, Ray Price or Merle Haggard or something, you 0:12:52.960 --> 0:13:01.400 know exactly. We'll be back with Margot Price. We're back 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:05.560 with Margot Price. So when you decided to become a musician, 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:08.240 I mean, you could have gone to Los Angeles or 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:12.640 New York. You chose Nashville. And why was that? Well, 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:16.240 I wanted to go to Los Angeles and I wanted 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:18.760 to go to New York, and I think my parents 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:21.199 were just terrified to let me go that far away 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:25.960 from them, you know, just being nineteen years old and 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:32.160 fearless and you know, very trustworthy. And I came to visit. 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:35.320 I had a cousin living here in Nashville, and she's like, 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:40.280 I swear it's not all you know, cheesy country music, 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:45.360 because at that time, I just wasn't into any really 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:47.760 a lot of the music being made on you know, 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:50.800 top forty radio or country radio. I just I didn't 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:54.600 feel like I was going to fit in. But I 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:58.439 came on my spring break of my sophomore year of college, 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:01.480 and she took me down to like Rock Block, which 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:04.880 was like Exit in in the End and all these 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:08.000 cool like rock clubs, and I went to the spring 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:11.400 Water and just you know, lots of grungey dive bars 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:15.600 that kind I kind of started like go into these 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:20.320 open mics and go into shows at Mercy Lounge and Canary, 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:23.760 and I thought, okay, I can I could live here, 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:26.840 and I dropped out of college and moved here just 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:29.640 two months after I visited. How long had you been 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:34.560 writing songs by that point? Well, I started writing just 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:41.040 poems and making like acapella demos when I was I 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:44.920 don't even know, maybe seven years old or something. Wow. 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:47.960 And then around that time too, my mom put me 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:53.080 into piano lessons, and so I took piano for several years, 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:57.880 and then with my eighth grade graduation money, I bought 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:03.320 a Japanese guitar, about a salmon guitar. My parents were like, 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:06.360 we really think that you should buy a computer for 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:09.320 your school work, and I was like, well, I had 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:16.480 my eye on this guitar, and I immediately started learning 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:20.880 how to play chords and learning how to play songs, 0:15:20.960 --> 0:15:23.800 just kind of self teaching. That was. That was when 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:25.960 I really got bit by the bug. I'd say, like 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:29.880 thirteen fourteen. I mean, you did have an uncle who 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:33.720 was a songwriter in Nashville. Yes, Bobbie Fisher who wrote 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:39.160 You Live for the McIntyre. He has written so many songs. 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:42.840 He's still writing songs and he's in his eighties and 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:46.600 just sharp as ever, he sent me a song last week, 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:48.720 and I'm going to try to put and put some 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:52.000 music too, if I can find five seconds to pick 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:56.840 up my guitar. But he I mean, he wrote for 0:15:56.920 --> 0:16:03.720 George Jones, he wrote for Charlie Pride, Tanya Tucker's. He 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:07.920 was just really driven and also came from the middle 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:11.240 of nowhere and got a start later in life. So 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:14.480 it was inspiring to see that. And we'd come down 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:17.840 to go to Florida and we'd always stop in Nashville 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:19.760 and stay at his house and I'd like look at 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:23.080 his gold records on the wall, and you know, he 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:26.040 had stories about Garth Brooks and stuff then too. That's 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:28.240 who he was hanging out with, like Rebot and Garth 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:31.960 and all the top Nashville cats at the time. Right, 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:36.240 did you play your stuff for him? I did when 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:37.960 I first moved down here. I think, you know, my 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:39.520 mom thought it was going to be easy to like 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:42.400 connect the dots, like, oh, you go to your uncles 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:44.400 and you play him your cute songs and he's just 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:48.080 going to find you record label and you know, a 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:51.560 manager and plug you in with the right people. And 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:53.800 I went over to his house and we went in 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:56.480 his writing room and he's like, all right, well seeage 0:16:56.480 --> 0:16:59.200 you up. He sits there and I tune up and 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:01.200 I play him a song that I wrote. It was 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:04.520 called no Love Lost, and I thought it was pretty 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:09.159 decent and played him to other songs and he just 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:15.080 sat there in complete silence, stared at me, and he's like, well, 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:17.879 this is what you need to do. I need to 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:22.720 go to your apartment. You need to get rid of 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:26.479 your TV, get rid of your computer, and you just 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:29.040 need to sit and just keep writing songs. Just write 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:33.040 a song every day and you'll figure it out. And 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:36.760 that tough love like hurt so much because I knew. 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:39.160 I mean, he didn't say. He didn't say it, well 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:41.040 I like this, but I don't like this. I mean 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:47.000 he basically was just like, just keep trying, and so 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:48.719 I would, Like I said, I was going to all 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:52.000 these like open mic writers nights, and one that I 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:54.520 was going to pretty frequently. I'd go almost every week. 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:57.480 It was it was the best Western and there was 0:17:57.520 --> 0:17:59.359 a bar in there. It was called the Hall of 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:03.000 Fame Loud and there was never really a wait, like 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:07.679 to play, and there was a lot of good unknown 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:09.680 you know, I didn't know who a lot of these 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:14.120 writers were, and I assumed that, you know, not many 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:16.160 of them had a lot of cuts because they were 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:20.840 just playing in the in the hotel bar. But but 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:26.200 I made friends with some of the like older pickers there, 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:30.240 and you know, I was hanging out with like sixty 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:34.440 year olds as a twenty year old, and they'd buy 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:40.440 me drinks and kind of would sit and swap stories 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:43.160 and I'd get advice, and I was really just studying 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:47.480 the crowd's reaction to like everybody who played, like, okay, 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:51.640 well why did everybody laugh and like clap for this guy? 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:56.560 But nobody nobody reacted when you know the next person played. 0:18:57.320 --> 0:18:59.760 And I think at that point, you know, I was 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:01.600 just trying to get my head around, like what is 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:03.960 a good song. There has to be humor and darkness, 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:06.760 a lesson, but not too many cliches that you know, 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:10.560 all these things started kind of firing off, and that 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:14.879 is where I really began to study, you know, what 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:19.479 makes a sound good. But you know, in retrospect, your 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:22.960 uncle gave you great advice, oh, without a doubt. But 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:26.119 it must have hurt at the time. I cried. I 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:28.359 called my mom. I was like, I don't know if 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:32.000 I should be here. He said my songs weren't good. 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:34.240 She's like, did he say that? I'm like, oh no, 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:39.200 But I'm reading between the lines. And he's really proud 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:42.119 of me now though, and he's very complimentary and he's 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:47.160 always sending me different articles and telling me stories. He's 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:50.520 got this guitar that just everybody has like tattooed this 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:52.760 guitar with. He has like a tattoo gun and you 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:54.480 at your name in it. And the day that he 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:57.760 asked me to sign that guitar, I really felt like 0:19:57.800 --> 0:20:02.399 I'd accomplished something amazing. There are two things I do 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:04.399 want to ask you about from your early days, which is, 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:07.720 did you really hawk your wedding ring so you could 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:12.200 make your first album? I did, Wow, I got it back. 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:17.280 I got it back at the last minute. But yeah, 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:20.639 there was We sold a ton of music gear, a 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:26.199 lot of cool microphones and reels, real machine, and of 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:30.000 course my husband sold the car, which I thought he 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:32.199 was absolutely nuts for doing. But once he did that, 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:35.160 I was like, okay, well, let's just try to get 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:38.119 as big of a budget as we can and do 0:20:38.200 --> 0:20:41.240 this right. Because I didn't want to do another kickstarter. 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:47.119 I had done that. I didn't want to ask anybody 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:49.760 for money. I didn't have anybody I could ask for money. 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:54.720 I'd already begged my way out of multiple problems at 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:58.560 that point, so there, Yeah, that was seemed like the 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:03.080 only option at the time. The other thing I wanted 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:06.760 to ask you about is after you did your first album, 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:11.399 you signed with Jack White's company. How did that come about, 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:16.720 because you've gone through a lot of rejection. Yeah. I 0:21:16.920 --> 0:21:22.360 sent that album out to probably fifty record labels, but 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:25.880 I had this write up in Rolling Stone. We did 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:29.680 a video in a hotel room for Since You Put 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:33.080 Me Down, and Rolling Stone wrote it up and they 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:37.800 said sounds like Jack White produced Loretta Lynn. So I 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:40.119 always wonder if that's how it got on his radar. 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:44.480 But my Pedal Steel player, Luke Schneider, he told me 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:48.920 that Ben Swink was interested in hearing my record. And 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:52.960 Ben is, you know, Jack's right hand man, and so 0:21:53.600 --> 0:21:56.640 I sent it to him and he was like, oh, 0:21:56.680 --> 0:21:58.879 this is good, Okay, I'm coming to a show. And 0:21:58.920 --> 0:22:01.359 he came out to a show at the Basement East 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:05.119 and I heard he was there like afterwards, and I 0:22:05.280 --> 0:22:07.440 was like, I can't go talk to him. I'm too nervous. 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:09.200 I don't I don't want to go talk to him. 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:11.199 My friend Amanda was like, no, come on, I know 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:13.480 I'd be super nice. He's really down to earth. And 0:22:13.600 --> 0:22:15.960 I went out there and he was like kind of 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:19.480 slur in his speech, and he was just really drunk. 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:23.360 He's been, he's sober now. He's one of my very 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:27.040 best friends, and I'm so grateful that he came out 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:33.359 and washed our watched us perform. Like the record was 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:38.280 very instrumental in everything coming together. I don't want to 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:42.200 talk too much about your early Nationville days because you've 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:46.480 written about it so beautifully. Your first album starts with 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:51.440 the Hands of Time, which is like a memoir that 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:54.119 would take somebody else three hundred pages, it takes you 0:22:54.160 --> 0:23:00.280 six minutes. Are all your songs still that autobiographical? Um? 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:04.960 I think this third album that I am putting out 0:23:05.040 --> 0:23:11.120 here is it is still autobiographical, but there's other elements 0:23:11.200 --> 0:23:15.200 of like I don't know that really could be more 0:23:15.240 --> 0:23:19.200 about anybody else. And some songs have you know, it's 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:22.359 like I I wrote them to multiple people, if that 0:23:22.440 --> 0:23:26.520 makes sense. Like that's how rumors get started. It's not 0:23:26.640 --> 0:23:30.480 just to like one of my friends that didn't make it. 0:23:30.480 --> 0:23:34.800 It's to like multiple friends that are kind of struggling 0:23:34.840 --> 0:23:40.760 and like caught in their same bad habits, and and 0:23:40.800 --> 0:23:44.560 then there's um like I'd die for you that that's definitely, 0:23:44.640 --> 0:23:47.640 you know, Jeremy and I's relationship based off of that 0:23:47.920 --> 0:23:51.200 letting me Down. Jeremy and I we each wrote a 0:23:51.280 --> 0:23:54.399 verse and we wrote to both of us wrote to 0:23:54.480 --> 0:23:56.560 different people in our past that we went to high 0:23:56.600 --> 0:24:00.800 school with that you know, we had different experiences with 0:24:00.800 --> 0:24:04.359 both of them. But like, his friend was a burnout 0:24:04.640 --> 0:24:07.200 drug addict who like joined the army, and he wrote 0:24:07.200 --> 0:24:11.600 it to that friend, and I wrote it to a 0:24:11.600 --> 0:24:14.800 friend of mine who had been raped and had a 0:24:14.840 --> 0:24:18.320 really tough childhood. And so we we wrote them towards 0:24:18.359 --> 0:24:21.600 different people and then worked on the chorus together. So 0:24:21.760 --> 0:24:25.959 it's each one's different. We'll be back with more Margo Price. 0:24:31.000 --> 0:24:34.320 We're back with the rest of Bruce's conversation with Margo Price. 0:24:34.920 --> 0:24:38.520 So you've switched labels on this one, right, Yeah. I 0:24:38.560 --> 0:24:42.840 had two albums with Third Man, and then for this 0:24:43.000 --> 0:24:47.280 third one, they're still doing their pressing the record at 0:24:47.280 --> 0:24:52.160 their pressing plant in Detroit, which I think is really cool. Yeah, 0:24:52.240 --> 0:24:55.919 I just had the opportunity to Loma Vista was like 0:24:56.080 --> 0:24:58.600 there and ready, and I wanted to get this out. Actually, 0:24:58.680 --> 0:25:02.960 last spring within I pregnant, so it's just taken a 0:25:03.000 --> 0:25:06.080 while to get it out. Did you make the album 0:25:06.080 --> 0:25:09.399