How did you and Sera Cahoone (see Sera interview here) decide to work together and have her produce your records?
I was getting a batch of songs together for what would be my debut full-length album, Pohorylle. I'd made a lot of EPs through the years, but it was always, "I have a grand and two days off of touring." I was tackling what to do about having a producer, or not having a producer, and how to approach this. It takes out some of the guesswork when you don't have a label budgeting $50,000 for a record.
Does anyone?
Let me believe, Larry.
Sorry![laughter]
Let a gal dream, right? I watched a video of Sera that I found on YouTube, and the way she performed really spoke to me. It resonated immediately. I checked out her album that she co-produced and played drums on, 2017's From Where I Started. I could feel how intentional the percussion was. In the world of singer-songwritership, percussion makes or breaks the record. Most songwriters that I know of are not drummers, so pairing with someone who has a different angle is helpful. I'm all about complementary situations. In the studio, too, I love it when people that have different strengths end up complementing each other.
We need someone there that can pick up the slack.
I can't believe how much trust I put in Sera. I am surprised at how I just trusted the process. She had the vision, and we both committed to trusting each other and getting to the end goal. It works out because Sera and I both have similar tastes; a good palette to start from.
Did both records start by meeting up and working on the songs in person?
I had solo acoustic demos that I sent to Sera, but then we got together with the trio: Drums, bass, and guitar. It was about finding the grooves for the tracks and tying up arrangements. With this style of kind of adhering to some tradition of country song structures, it definitely helps with arranging. I don't have the most abstract song structures. I like the traditional structure and then taking liberty with lyric choices and such.
I assume working with John Morgan Askew was through Sera.
Yeah, it was Sera's suggestion. She had worked with him for From Where I Started, and he was still working out of his basement at the time. Bocce [Recording Studio] wasn't even built out yet. From that time, 2017 to 2019, John had moved into Bocce, and we were one of the early records to record in there – for that era of the studio.
It's a cool old-school studio building, isn't it?
I love it, yeah. You're in this neighborhood, and then you zip into the studio. It's not even in town. John's done a lot with the yard area and the fire pit. I wanted to get out of Enterprise, Oregon, because I was living out there at the time.
What's been the appeal for you of living rural after growing up in the Bay Area?
I grew up in the suburbs, in picture-perfect, idyllic suburbia. I moved to the rural South for college, and I was chasing music. I wanted to learn more about the tradition of songwriting. I felt more inspired the more I immersed myself in rural places. I followed my husband, Forrest Van Tuyl, out to Enterprise, and that was a wild decision that I certainly didn't foresee myself making at the age of 25. But we're both songwriters, and his songwriting was good enough for me! [laughter]
Do you find that being there gives you more time to work on writing, or a different inspiration outside of a city?
Yeah, the inspiration abounds. Do you know the songwriter Greg Brown?
Oh, of course.
He uses so much beautiful imagery of the outdoors. Pines and...
