Louder Than Weapons – Engagement Celebration

I did not assume we would be doing one other episode a couple of mass taking pictures so quickly. However right here we’re.

As a group.

That is from a vigil in Nashville.

Thanks to our artists for sharing the reward of music. You’re the custodians of that particular reward.

I have been to this place, and I do not imply some type of memorial after a mass taking pictures, however Nashville particularly. I lived there for a couple of years masking the South, and it is not a giant metropolis. It is dominant industries of music and publishing could make it really feel even smaller, like everybody is aware of everybody. So when First Woman Jill Biden visited town to attend a vigil for the taking pictures victims of the Covenant College, it was an absolute given {that a} nation music artist can be there.

Will the circle be unbroken?

By and by, Lord, by and by.

That is Ketch Secor, founding member of the Grammy Award profitable band Previous Crow Drugs Present. I did not even get an introduction on the vigil, however that is as a result of everybody within the crowd already is aware of who he’s, not only a well-known musician, however a member of their group and a guardian of two faculty aged youngsters. In truth, the varsity his youngsters attend in East Nashville, he co-founded it in 2016. It is known as the Episcopal College of Nashville.

So I am sporting two totally different hats right here when a faculty taking pictures occurs in our city. It is each as a guardian and it is as any person who’s on the opposite facet of the decide up line as nicely. When a rustic singer will get off the highway, chances are high at 8:00 within the morning on Monday after the massive weekend, that man or gal is in line dropping their child off at a faculty in Nashville, Tennessee. In the case of your private home, it is totally different.

And the sky lowered within the sky.

Ketch Secor lately wrote an op ed for The New York Occasions that caught our consideration. It was titled Nation Music Can Lead America Out of its Obsession with Weapons. In it, he requires nation musicians to talk candidly to their audiences about gun tradition. I wished to have him on the present to speak about that op ed, like, can nation music actually assist lead the U.S. out of a gun debate? And what are the stakes for a musician within the style if they really take a stand? And what’s it wish to stay on the heart of all of it as a guardian, educator and musician in Nashville, Tennessee? That is the task. I am Audie Cornish.

The taking pictures on the Covenant College type of prompted you to jot down an op ed for The New York Occasions. However can you are taking me again to that day a little bit bit? The place had been you whenever you heard it occurring?

Certain it was on Monday, two weeks in the past, and it was at 10:13 within the morning. I bought a textual content message from our faculty lawyer saying, I am so sorry, and I had no thought what was happening. And prayer hand emoji is fascinating.

So getting an emoji like that or getting the compulsory “are you okay” that all of us begin to ship one another now when there is a taking pictures, particularly at a faculty, you are saying it it hits you in a spot of what? Panic. Worry. What? What do you are feeling?

It is. It is all of the above. It is. It is your youngsters. It is another person’s youngsters. , the pinnacle of college was murdered. The connections between our faculty are very current, and it is as a group member in Nashville, this stunning realization. Oh, this factor that occurs in different cities has come to our city. And it is come not simply to our city, however to our youngsters, to our the place that’s most sacred.

And even to your nook of that world, Proper? Prefer it did not occur at a public faculty. It did not occur at a giant college. It occurred at basically a small Christian main faculty. Proper. Which is what you what you based one, proper? It had connections.

Yeah. And our colleges are very totally different in that regard and serve totally different populations. Nevertheless, it you realize, we’re all the identical. We’re all each faculty, public, personal, constitution, each stripe is within the enterprise of believing that children are our future and should be stewarded and beloved on and guided. And, you realize, that is an actual elemental precept for me.

Can I ask, how previous are your youngsters and do they go to the varsity you based?

Yeah, they do. And so they’re 9 and 11.

So did the varsity you based this Episcopal faculty, did it go into lockdown? Form of what what did you you all should do because of this?

No, the faculties adjoining to Covenant did, however the others in Nashville didn’t. And so the factor I feel that was so unhappy that first day was the message that went out saying your kids haven’t but been notified. The workers is aware of, the lecturers know, everyone is aware of, all of the mother and father know, everyone is aware of however the youngsters. And we will discuss it tomorrow. However we wished to provide the likelihood to speak about it first. So should you can think about a decide up line, anyone who’s who’s been by a faculty taking pictures of their group is aware of, you realize, the decide up line that first day is stuffed with tears.

Proper. And for individuals who aren’t conversant in how massive ups and drop offs work today in colleges, there’s a line proper, the place like there are type of they’re chaperoning your child the actually to the curb and also you decide them up. There’s not similar to wandering out of the constructing the place I feel should you had been a child within the nineties is what you grew up with. Yeah, it is hand at hand go off.

That is proper, Audie. You could have youngsters.

Effectively, the juxtaposition of youngsters stuffed with vibrant pleasure and life and oldsters stuffed with grief and unhappiness coming collectively. This assembly to me was very highly effective.

Which means you are standing on the curb ready to get your child. However each guardian’s face is simply drawn.

And each guardian is taking a look at each instructor and simply, you realize, holding again tears as is each instructor. However each baby continues to really feel very secure. And but everyone knows as mother and father that no baby is secure any longer as a result of this tragedy is in our yard. It is come to Nashville, it is come to us, to our children.

I suppose I wish to begin possibly with Wagon Wheel, as a result of if folks go to look you up, that is likely to be the primary track they find out about. And also you even write about it on this op ed. Inform me a little bit bit about the place you had been in your profession whenever you wrote this.

Certain. Effectively, Wagon Wheel is my most profitable track.

Headed down South to the Land of the Pines. I am coming my strategy to North Carolina, staring up.

And it is a collaboration with Bob Dylan. I wrote it after I was about 17, going to high school up in New England in a prep faculty known as Exeter, and I used to be had simply discovered to play the banjo up there.

So rock me mama like a wagon wheel. Rock me mama, any means you are feeling. Hey mama rock me

You discuss the concept that your greatest recognized track, Wagon Wheel, is usually blasting out of a truck, so to talk, that has an NRA sticker. And also you point out this particularly, and I need you to speak about why.

If you make the type of music that I make with a fiddle and a banjo and concord singing and a specific model of songwriting, you are partaking in a group that is likely to be totally different than your individual kind of background, and it is not. Effectively, there is a prepare going by proper now. That is kind of proof..

I bear in mind the prepare. Yeah.

The trains are all the time going by in Nashville.

Simply bought to maintain it happening the podcast. It will add a little bit little bit of coloration and speaks to what I am speaking about. , the trains are going by. The vehicles have NRA stickers. , after I was a child, there have been Accomplice flags all over the place. That is The South, y’all. It is totally different than the opposite components of the nation now, for higher or for worse. However it’s what it’s.

And whenever you’re round Nashville and you’ve got political conversations, wherever the particular person falls on the spectrum, inevitably somebody makes use of that phrase, Effectively, that is The South.

Like, that is imagined to cowl quite a lot of issues.

Yeah. And whether or not it is imagined to be that means or, you realize, I feel we’re in a state of appreciable progress down south, however the vestiges stay, they usually’re necessary to speak about on this regard, as a result of one of many vestiges is gun tradition, and it is largely thought-about just like the insurgent flag previously, simply one thing that exists right here. Cope with it, y’all. When in truth, we’ve all the time had the facility to drop the insurgent flag. There’s one vestige that has been challenged successfully.

And effected change in a technique, or not less than elevate the type of societal stakes partaking in sure language.

Completely. And so I see the change in gun tradition is rather like one other step in direction of The South’s evolution.

To my thoughts, nation, Americana, these genres so intently align with their audiences. It’s totally very like hip-hop, like folks in hip-hop discuss concerning the tradition and their ties to the music, and the music ties to fairly actually the identification of the folks listening. And nation feels very a lot the identical means. However because of this, it has quite a lot of like guidelines. , there is a couple strains you they folks do not such as you to step out of. Are you able to discuss how that performs out in trendy nation?

Certain. Effectively, right now’s nation singer may not come from The South and is faculty educated. So that they are in has already modified the stereotype of who sings nation music. , it is it is not coal miners anymore. The coal miner’s daughter like all of us love Loretta, however that is not who’s on primary proper now. In order that a part of it has modified quite a bit. However what hasn’t modified a lot are the attitudes of the viewers.

Which to be clear. The nation music viewers is also wealthier and are determination makers and our usually managers, there’s been kind of like quite a lot of analysis into many people who find themselves within the viewers, and the viewers in all probability seems a little bit totally different than folks count on as nicely.

Effectively, I did not know to enter this, however however I am excited that we’re, Audie, as a result of, you realize, nation music actually particularly, and to make clear, modern nation music on the radio is an actual secure house for us to not discuss political divisiveness and never discuss issues of of substance. However as a substitute we’re all kind of studying the Pulp Fiction collectively. And it is it is

Which is why it is widespread, proper? I imply, through the pandemic, I heard the expansion of listening to the music or streaming possibly was up 15%. It was larger than some other style.

Individuals welcome that secure house.

Journey story. It is you realize, it’s totally a lot tales, intergenerational household tales. That is the type of stuff that goes primary is the track about grandpa and what a superb man he was and the way if we may very well be a little bit bit extra like him, then the world can be a greater place. So this kind of, you realize, hallmark type of these beliefs which can be tossed round may not be that real looking for right now’s actuality of, you realize, I labored I am a part of a worldwide financial system working two jobs. And, you realize, I am hoping my youngsters are going to go get out of state tuition or no matter. And but we nation music actually offers in nostalgia. And that nostalgia is a an necessary antidote to all the ache that one can witness within the click on of a mouse.

Proper. So how does gun. Tradition work together with that nostalgia, storytelling, since you’re saying in a means that that is constructed into the music, too.

Johnny Money singing I Shot a Man in Reno to Watch Him Die. Hank Jr Singing about. Yeah, I would wish to spit some seaside nut in that dude’s eye and shoot him with my previous 45 as a result of a rustic boy can survive. It is a strategy to for nation music to retain authority in a altering world. And guns–

However do you hear it within the trendy music? Are there? You do not have to pick any artist. However do folks nonetheless discuss that?

No, Audie. And that is the factor. We do not discuss weapons. If we do, it is a track about I took my boy attempting to find the primary time. It is once more, dealing within the nostalgia. What it is not saying is I’ve bought an AR-15 in my assortment. However the actuality is that many, many listeners do. And but it is a secure house the place they aren’t confronted by the music to a altering actuality. As a substitute, they’re allowed to say, I taught my baby easy methods to, you realize, I imply, after I was a child within the eighties, like I went chook hunt with Dad, I discovered easy methods to fireplace a weapon. I discovered easy methods to clear a weapon. These items are necessary to the ways in which gun tradition could be a constructive, however the secure house is that we’re not speaking about what it means in right now’s America. As a substitute, we’re just about hanging in yesterday’s.

So what’s it like for artists corresponding to your self to boost this problem?

Individuals preserve saying, thanks for being courageous. And I am like. who’s courageous is the child that pulled the hearth alarm, you realize, within the hallway below gunfire in our city in a faculty, a child that was a 3rd grader. Now, that is courageous. All I am doing is simply I am a singer and I will sing concerning the stuff that is actual. I am a author, and I will inform what I see.

I do not wish to learn an excessive amount of into the zoom, however I. Are you getting emotional speaking about that?

Oh, yeah. I imply, I have been I have been crying for 2 weeks, ya’ll, prefer it’s… When this involves your city they usually bury the identical age child as yours. After which after which, like, whereas the graves are nonetheless contemporary, the information cycle strikes on to Stormy Daniels, and that is the fact. It is like, Good God, the place can we stay? What can we not care about youngsters in any respect? It is simply over. So that is my means of claiming it is not over and it will not be over till these deaths, these three deaths of American kids gunned down within the third grade, till they imply one thing, that is when it’s going to be over.

Extra with Ketch Secor in only a second.

You’re demanding a brand new type of motion come out of the south. And that it partially be led by people who find themselves cultural figures as nicely, not simply politicians, folks corresponding to your self. Why do you assume it may make a distinction?

Effectively, I feel that Nashville stands uniquely poised to steer a response to the varsity taking pictures epidemic.

However why do you assume that? Proper? We simply watched the Tennessee State Home expel two members as a result of that they had a protest associated to gun coverage. Expel, not censure, not reprimand. Attempt to kick them out. So what what to your thoughts leads you to assume that?

Effectively, Nashville, even if the state legislature is what it’s, Nashville is a really progressive metropolis. And I am not saying that Tennessee goes to cleared the path. I am saying Nashville.

Yeah, however is not that the robust half? If in all these states and it is not simply Tennessee, you have bought these blue cities, these little blue dots in a sea of pink, and by pink I imply very conservative, very pro-gun, pro-Second Modification legislatures. This appears like an uphill battle. What you are calling for.

And I do know it is price it. I do not wish to as a result of everyone knows it is price it. However I need I wish to perceive why you assume nation musicians are in any means uniquely positioned to have this dialog.

Effectively, and I wish to I recognize you difficult this Audie. Very first thing I wish to say is that altering segregation was an uphill battle in Tennessee. And and when Nashville within the early Nineteen Sixties, within the late Nineteen Fifties mentioned its first foot ahead, this was the proving floor, different components of the South had been too unsafe. However folks gathered in Nashville, a metropolis of schools, a metropolis of progressive thought within the South to interact in nonviolent civil disobedience. That is the place John Lewis got here. That is the place the Freedom Riders first cease was.

Their trainings, proper, with James Lawson and at Vanderbilt.

All of that coaching at Fisk and Vanderbilt occurred proper right here in Nashville, Tennessee. That reveals our means as a as a group to exist exterior of the state. Now, similar to in that point, the state legislator mentioned, what are you speaking about? That is not going to occur in our state. We solid the deciding vote on on ladies’s suffrage. I imply, Tennessee has been a bellwether place in these two different cases of nice significance. That is the third. That is the a part of the loss of life knell of the previous South, which goes to have to vary. , 50 years from now I feel we will be trying again at these couple of years because the deciding time for a assault weapons ban in america.

Once more, I wish to convey it to the query about nation music artists, particularly mainstream ones who given what we all know concerning the music, primary, have been socially punished for activism by what we name Music Row, by music radio, by nation music radio particularly, which nonetheless has a really type of robust grip in a means programmers do, and even current historical past. Proper. When you consider the Dixie Chicks, and many others., their entire story is a narrative of being ostracized for his or her activism.

, for a man like me, I am not beholden to too many individuals in any respect, however I am not a mainstream. I am not on the Jumbotron, you realize, I am not on the awards present with the highest ten performers of the yr.

Do you want these folks for the motion you are speaking about?

They’ve a very far attain and the facility to speed up an inevitable motion to vary this for our children. And I am asking them by this piece and likewise head to head in my group, by conversations of textual content. , I’ve reached out to so many singers previously two weeks.

And what sort of textual content you ship.

Hey, I am simply reaching out to all my Nashville music group within the wake of the taking pictures and sharing this story that I wrote that got here out right now in The Occasions. If you happen to get a sec, please have a look.

What’s been essentially the most constructive response? What’s been essentially the most irritating one?

Essentially the most irritating one is silence. I say within the op ed piece that I feel silence is complicity. I went into the studio and I and I recorded a brand new track on the topic. For the reason that taking pictures, which is barely two weeks in the past there have been so some ways to be engaged with this horrible story, and it is highly effective resolution.

I imply, the rationale why I am asking is as a result of your op ed mentioned one thing fairly particular, proper? That there are artists who’re drained at being on the type of mercy of the whims of fearmongers, you mentioned, and that they are prepared to talk to an impressionable viewers. And since different genres, like we talked about hip hop earlier or pop, they do wade into societal points. They are often confrontational about politics. It is not like there is not a mannequin on the market. So I suppose what would it not take, do you assume, for folks in your trade? To begin to do one thing comparable, which is which is, in impact, what you are calling for.

It’s starting and it is, I feel, in its infancy, nevertheless it’s already began.

And so it is about fanning the flames and constructing a giant bonfire out of what is already crackling kindling. For instance, we have got a profit live performance right here in Nashville that helps Covenant College. And whenever you have a look at the the roster, who’s on the marquee, it is not the same old Americana people who all the time say, you realize, we stand with youngsters, we get up towards gun violence. As a substitute, it is primary chart toppers. They’re there. They’ve put their hat into the ring.

However is it as a result of it is is it going to be a secure house from politics? If it is a second of a memorial, is that what makes it okay for a giant artist to be there? Proper. As a result of no person’s going to stand up and say we must always have gun management.

There’s nothing however up right here as a result of we we’ve began on the very baseline the place music popping out of Nashville on the radio says nothing about violence towards kids in our colleges or about the necessity to rethink the kinds of weaponry that’s related to the Second Modification. Kelsea Ballerini talked about it on an award present. These are the sorts of issues that when any person takes one step and the motion can rapidly comply with it, then the following step is not as exhausting to make. And what I am asking for is that subsequent step. , I’ve gotten quite a lot of suggestions from my viewers. And like I say in an op ed piece, you realize, I see the NRA sticker on the again of lot of vehicles blaring in my tunes. So, you realize, and we’re out on the highway with Hank Jr. this summer season. So, I imply, I am I am used to enjoying to an viewers that’s our nation folks. However I really like my nation folks viewers. And I and I need to have the ability to be actual with them. I can transfer freely in each of the areas that the 2 massive silos within the nation. Like, I would go to work in a single silo and are available residence and the opposite one. And I am good with that as a result of I really like these folks.

What’s your message to these artists who’re simply nonetheless very reluctant?

Nation music has an incredible future in these occasions to swing out previous the fences which have corralled it in so tightly. That I imagine on this style. And I imagine that it has the facility to hold that fact. , it’s totally a lot rooted in a gospel custom of of the lamentation, the calling out to the nice spirits. Assist us, Lord. We’re simply your kids. We do not know shit. We’re we’re dying down right here. Assist!

Are you able to discuss concerning the track that you’ve got written out of this second?

New materials? , usually, similar to I am in a songwriting temper right here, I am in a a second in time with quite a lot of totally different alternatives as a author to interact on this, whether or not it is, you realize, writing the best caption for {a photograph} on Instagram or writing an op ed piece for The New York Occasions or being on this podcast with you, Audie. There’s so some ways to decide on my phrases proper now and attempt to have them be resonant for the ache that we’re feeling in Nashville, Tennessee and across the nation as a result of we’re simply so drained, mother and father, that our children should not secure of their colleges. What meaning for me as a songwriter is that I even have the possibility to jot down new music about this and to place my cash the place my mouth is. So I bought a brand new track that is popping out known as Louder Than Weapons. That is yeah, I simply recorded it two days in the past.

Give me a way of the tune or lyrics.

Effectively, gosh, I really feel like I should not even introduced it up as a result of it is so…anytime you get a you realize, persons are cagey about their new stuff!

You are coping with a dude that wept by the entire songwriting course of. Let me sing it for you.

All proper. awakened this morning. It was Groundhog Day. I noticed the identical black veil on a crying face and a flag flying half means. This time it was folks I do know gunned down in a minute or so. Solely God is aware of when it’s going to cease. However ideas and prayers ain’t sufficient. Louder than weapons. Extra highly effective than bullets flying. Is the voice rising up saying it is about time to place the final nail within the coffin, put the final physique within the floor, calling on each city, shout. Louder than weapons There is a legislation on a dusty scroll.

Ketch Secor is the daddy of two youngsters in Nashville, Tennessee. He is additionally a singer, songwriter and founding member of the band Previous Crow Drugs Present.

Now The Task is a manufacturing of CNN Audio. Our producers are Madeleine Thompson,Jennifer Lai, Lori Galarreta, Carla Javier, and Dan Bloom. Our affiliate producers are Isoke Samuel and Allison Park. Our senior producers are Matt Martinez and Haley Thomas. Dan Dzula is our technical director. Steve Lickteig is our govt producer. Particular due to Katie Hinman. I am Audie Cornish and thanks for listening.

I am the louder than weapons. oooooo. Louder than weapons. I do not wish to get up on one other Groundhog Day. No, I do not wish to hear one other rat a tat tat tat echoed down the hallway. Freedom’s simply one other phrase for letting each voice be heard, each coronary heart, each hand. Each city take a stand. Louder than weapons. Extra highly effective than bullets flying. Is the voice rising up, saying it is about rattling time. We put the final nail within the coffin. We put the final physique within the floor. I am calling on each city. Louder than weapons.

Sending that one out to Louisville right now.

Ketch, thanks a lot for sharing that with us.

Yeah, we bought. We bought to. We bought to do it, y’all.