Interview: Grits and Soul from Asheville, NC | Live at Magnolia Festival at Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park| October 14-18, 2015

by • December 22, 2015

Grits and Soul is two (sometimes three) good folks who love music. Smart, contemplative folks. The Americana/Bluegrass duo, sometime trio, from Asheville, NC, played two sets at Magnolia Fest 2015, each creating more fans of their gorgeous songwriting and excellent playing. People dancing in the dirt and hollering their love after every tune. John keeping us transfixed playing fiddle songs on his mandolin. Anna’s soulful voice, and beautiful, sometimes haunting lyrics hypnotizing us into a celebratory frenzy.

When we sat down with Grits and Soul, after their first of two sets at Mag Fest, John Looney, Anna Kline, and Dakota Waddell carefully considered every query like an interesting drinking buddy. Though we were sober, it felt like a good bar talk. Playing in Europe, “Seminole Wind,” and tunes like “Ram it up a Gun Stump” are just a smattering of the topics discussed. As you do when your “drinking” buddies are three wildly talented musicians playing a festival in the happiest place on Earth.

Shows I Go To: You mentioned during the set about playing in Italy, Belgium, and France. What was that like?

John: It was awesome. We had a packed house at an art gallery in Paris, and the festival [in Belgium] was well attended.

SIGT: I’m fascinated with the difference between European and American audiences. Did you notice a difference? Did the crowds get rowdy?

Anna: They did!

SIGT: They have such a reputation of being reverent.

J: That’s kinda what I felt.

A: There were the line dancers at the festival.

J: Oh, those people. That’s a whole different set of individuals. Nah, they will not dance. They sit very quietly and listen to us. It was great. Even if a European band comes here, it’s more intriguing, than seeing someone from, you know, a state over. So you are kinda at an advantage over there.

The first thing I heard over there was Van Halen. (Author’s note to self: Give Van Halen a nineteenth chance. I swear I’m being followed by that damn band.) You turn on the radio and it’s full of American music.

A: It was a little strange riding through the Belgian countryside and you’re sittin’ there listenin’ to “Jump.”

J: There are little pockets of people all over the world that are into bluegrass, Americana, alt-country. You wouldn’t expect that.

SIGT: Are you still getting energy from a reverent, European-style crowd?

J: It’s different energy. I like both.

Dakota (bassist for Grits and Soul): You play so many places doing bar gigs, it’s actually really refreshing when someone is sitting there listening to your art.

A: I love it when the crowd interacts with us. I like when we can get a banter going.

J: I like when they get drunk, too.

A: Until they try to play your guitar.

SIGT: Well, you got what, like a 6:00 set today? So, be careful what you wish for!

J: I don’t mind it. Anything is better than this. (mimics someone playing on their phone.)

A: It’s so different [at Magnolia Festival]. It’s got such a great vibe to it.

SIGT: It’s the happiest place on Earth

J: Anything goes. You had that crushing funk band, The Motet, and Del McCoury in the same day.

But, all those things are kinda connected.

SIGT: Quality is quality regardless of genre.

John and Anna simultaneously: That’s true.

A: I feel like the bands here, we all love the same things. And even though our music might be different, we all listen to the same fundamentals that we’ve grown up on. There’s a core connector.

SIGT: What does the creative process look like for Grits and Soul?

A: Really, it kinda starts with some ideas on my end, those kinda ruminate for a little while. We have been traveling so much this summer, that I haven’t had time to sit down and write.

SIGT: So you need that headspace, whether at home or wherever?

A: I do. I can gather ideas while we are out. But I’ve never sat down and written a song while in the van. I need that space to be kinda quiet. I bring it to John, and then we’ll bring it to Dakota. The main thing we do is try to get a song in rotation as soon as we can and get a feel for it, let it kinda, do it’s own thing.

D: A song grows and develops .

A: It does.

J: Absolutely.

D: I’ve always had my bass part needing between five and ten times playing it live. Then I’ll hear what it’s supposed to sound like.

A: We all know what we want to hear musically. We know each other so well at this point that we know what we want it to sound like.

D: Hours and hours in a van listening to the same music. That’s the thing, all the licks you have are all the same ones you have heard for twenty years. It’s not reinventing the wheel. It’s just presenting it in a different way.

J: It’s sorta like Derek (Trucks, who played the night before), his playing is so classic. All his playing is so rooted in classic blues and R and B. He just takes that stuff and presents it in a different way.

D: And it ends up sounding like Derek Trucks.

SIGT: The fiddle songs that you play (on the mandolin), John. How can we get you to make a whole album of those? 

J (humbled): Drew Matlich, he’s from Valdosta. He plays in a bunch of bands. Just a monster mandolin/guitar player. We have been talking about making an album of fiddle songs for a while now.

Asheville’s great for that. There’s a whole bunch of us. When you’re sittin’, playing along with You Tube videos, you don’t get as good as when you sit down with people. Even if you are just sharing these tunes. There is such an awesome tradition of these fiddle tunes that goes in all sorts of directions. There’s a whole community of guys that want to play those tunes like they sounded a hundred years ago. Then there’s a whole other community of guys who want to take them completely other places. Just trying to take those things as far as they go. And you got both those things in Asheville.

D: It’s great for bluegrass and old time music.

A: There’s some funky old time tunes.

D: There are some tunes, I told you, I wanna teach you but they are squirrelly as hell.

SIGT: Like what?

D: I play claw hammer banjo too. There’s this one: I know it as “Cider Mill”, but some people call it “Down at the Still House.” There’s three or four names for the same song. If you had to write ‘em out in sheet music, I don’t know that you could do it. There’s all kinda weird time signatures in it. It’s just something you feel.

A: And they have great old time fiddle tune names.

D: Oh, yeah. My favorite new one is “Nail the Catfish to the Tree.”

SIGT: As you do. (Laughs all around)

John and Dakota: “Ram it up a Gun Stump”

J: “Cricket on the Hearth”

D: “Indian Ate the Woodchuck”

A: “Indian Ate the Woodchuck?”

J: There’s these communities of Old Time music. Then there’s Bluegrass people. And then the rest of the world can’t tell the difference between those two.

And they are so entrenched in what they are doing. I love it all. I love those old ways of playing, and I love that super far out stuff like the Punch Brothers.

The four of us simultaneously realize with a smile that John Anderson’s “Seminole Wind” is being covered in the distance.

A: Is that John Anderson being played? What?!

J: We have a thing for John Anderson.

SIGT: I recently walked into a wine bar in the kinda hipster neighborhood where I live, and John Anderson was playing. I looked around like, “does anyone else recognize the oddity of this?”

D: Nothing says class like John Anderson.

SIGT: John Anderson is great, man.

D: He’s killer man.

J: He is a great songwriter. His first album came out in ‘79. That was tough back in the ‘80s. You couldn’t just start a kickstarter. You either had a record label or you didn’t.

SIGT: If you could put together a dream jam session of players from Mag Fest, who would be on stage with you? I’ll limit you to four.

J: That’s rough. Ronnie McCoury is one of my favorites.

A: I wanna get a women’s chorus and do some soul and…

J: If you took Susan (Tedeschi) and Rachael (Price) from Lake Street Dive, you’d have a serious session.

SIGT: Shoot, one of the best vocalists you’ll ever hear, Mama Blue, isn’t even playing. She’s just walking around enjoying the music.

J: I’d like to play with that keyboard player from The Motet. He’s an animal.

Grits and Soul’s first album Floodwaters is a refreshing blend of Bluegrass, Americana, and Folk compositions written by Anna and John. Classic murder ballads, fiddle songs, and folk come together seamlessly. Floodwaters was released in 2013.

SIGT: What’s next for Grits and Soul.

A: We are writing more tunes and looking toward the next year.

Sit a spell and write some new foot stompers, Anna.

Grits and Soul just announced that they will be part of a steller Suwannee Springfest lineup in March 2016, alongside such names as John Prine, Keller Williams, The Infamous Stringdusters, and Dave Simonett (of Trampled by Turtles). Stay tuned to Shows I Go To for extensive coverage of Springfest 2016.

Grits and Soul Interview by Jason Earle, edited by Matthew Weller. 

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