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Whisperer: Piedmont Pastimes – an interview by Lou Turner
Petal Motel is blessed to have contributing author Lou Turner return with another fantastic interview with a musician creating understated intricate folk from Appalachia. Sam Fuller Smith, aka Whisperer’s Piedmont Pastimes is a tender and sentimental collection of tunes, pondering fatherhood, the musical roots of the Carolinas, and the possibility for a future of possibilities for his newborn son. Featuring gorgeous slide, Fuller’s mesmerizing picking, and his gentle vocals and pensive lyrics, Piedmont Pastimes is ultimately about a sense of home and its meaning, both on a micro and macro level. Piedmont Pastimes by Sam Fuller-Smith LT: The record is…
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Wes Tirey, the Writer
Prolific songwriter, musician and poet Wes Tirey released his latest album, The Midwest Book of the Dead, on Dear Life at the end of April. Our wonderful contributor Lou Turner conducted a thoughtful written interview with Wes you can read here, but I was lucky to talk to him a bit more. Wes is an incredible lyricist and naturally his poems aren’t shabby either. I wanted to ask him specifically about his identity as a writer, how he processes poetry vs. songwriting, and how he got into music. I highly recommend listening to the Talking Book podcast in which Wes…
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Sarah Louise
I first became a fan of Sarah Louise’s floral fingerstyle acoustic guitar playing on her albums Deeper Woods and Field Guides, and remained intrigued by her more maximalist turn on 2019’s Nighttime Birds and Morning Stars, but nothing prepared me for Earth Bow. Sarah’s latest album is a sparkling, expansive exploration of meaning and melody, and also Sarah Louise’s most electronic record yet. As an admitted die-hard, erm, curmudgeon about electronic music, this conversation came at a somewhat pivotal time for me. I’m grateful to Sarah for the reminder that humans are after all the ones making electronic music, and that it can certainly…
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Wes Tirey : An Interview by Lou Turner
Petal Motel is pleased to publish our first contributor who isn’t Lara. Musician, poet, and writer Lou Turner was kind enough to conduct this wonderful interview with the most talented Wes Tirey about his latest album, The Midwest Book of the Dead, out April 30th on Dear Life Records. The Midwest Book of the Dead by Wes Tirey Like most of us, Wes Tirey had a tough 2020. The Asheville-based songwriter and poet lost his full-time job and went through a break-up, but emerged with a double album of new songs called The Midwest Book of the Dead—as well as…
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Bill MacKay & Nathan Bowles
When Drag City announced that the super powers that are Nathan Bowles and Bill MacKay were joining forces, music fans rejoiced, knowing the result would be greater than the sum of its parts, which are already pretty great. The two musicians have many commonalities, including their versatility and adaptability to any musical situation, their respective breadth of work as solo performers, their acclaimed collaborative output, and a shared sensibility on genre and improvising. This delightful collaboration seemed as natural and self-evident as the sometimes charming, sometimes enigmatic songs and instrumentals on their album Keys, out April 9th. Keys draws on…
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Josh Kimbrough
We interviewed Josh Kimbrough, the fingerstyle guitarist and composer from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Josh put out his fantastic solo debut record, Slither, Soar, and Disappear last year on Tompkins Square, as well as a Christmas EP entitled Yule Chime. Josh grew up in the Chapel Hill-area and became an integral part of the music scene there at an early age. In the interview, he described how his interests and proclivities shifted from his math rock roots to where he is now as an established acoustic guitar instrumentalist, influenced as much by the classical Fernando Sor and Freddie King albums…
