Interview with singer-songwriter Lo Wolf

                       "Just cause I'm broke don't mean I need fixed" Wolf sings in Kill No More, the opening track off her latest album Country Pop Hit.  Lo brings to mind Gillian Welch with a sense of humor and irony, but no less sincere and heartbreaking, as evidenced in the somber closing number Gone Are the Days... "of nothing left but the stain". Poetry, grit and wit are all effortlessly woven throughout a record that feels equal parts timeless and modern. "I think a true musical education requires you to face the parts of yourself that present struggles, darkness, misunderstanding, secrets—a lot like good lovers" Lo says, when asked from whence inspiration comes, quite simply or not so simply; different lovers. Here Lo walks us through "a house called Girl Island, misguided romances along the way, despair, time spent walking. busking and talking to people in the city" while leaving us with the sound reminder that we don't get to choose what saves us.


AHC: What has this journey in music, so far, been like for you, the highs and the lows, and what life lessons do you feel you've picked up along the way?  

Lo: I have a fantasy of opening a music club called Lo’s, where the tag line is Less Talking More Music. What can I really add besides my songs themselves? Then, I’m reminded of being a little girl, getting back pictures from the developer and after sifting through countless landscape shots, imploring my mom, “More People!” Lone wolves do not exist—every living being needs a pack, needs guidance, needs to hear their yowls being yowled back. The highs come from these moments of connection and the lows represent the reverse. I’ve learned the only way out is through—if you don’t like it now, you will probably feel no differently with greater success.

AHC: What first drew you to music and what was your early musical environment like growing up? Were there pivotal songs for you then that just floored you the moment you heard them?

Lo: When I was four years old, I heard a man play the harp while telling stories at some kid’s event. I still remember the shape of his hands on the strings and the low timbre of his speaking voice. I think it’s the first time I realized words and music could be combined into a single experience. I used to listen to 92.5 Kiss Country every night as I fell asleep, to the bemusement of my Yankee family. I remember the feeling of my nerves being quieted down—country music of any kind still has that effect on me.

AHC: Do you remember the first song that you ever wrote or played? Or that first moment when you picked up a pen and realized that you could create whole worlds just by putting it to paper? 

Lo: My first song was called Oh MaDilda and it consisted of three notes played on the piano in the living room. I played it incessantly and refused to change the name to the more commonly known Matilda.  

AHC: Which musicians have you learned the most from? Or writers, artists, filmmakers, teachers/mentors etc? 

 Lo: I’ve learned the most about music from different lovers. Is there anything more edifying in the whole world than listening to someone you love’s favorite songs? I think a true musical education requires you to face the parts of yourself that present struggles, darkness, misunderstanding, secrets—a lot like good lovers.

AHC: What do you think makes for a good song, as you're writing and composing, is there a sudden moment when you know you've found the right mix, that perfect angle of light, so to speak? 

Lo: A good song can be played in any any genre. A good song messes with your head. You can dance to a good song. I listen to songs I think are good over and over and over. That’s how I know it’s a live one, I think. Playing a song of my own to a close ear can help me know if I’ve found the light, but even then I am stubborn as hell in believing that whatever came to me in the trance of writing has purity to it. In schools for writing, they will tell you to murder your little darlings, the phrases to which you become attached that may not serve the piece. To me, songwriting demands you keep the little darlings and then find more.

AHC: Do you consider music to be a type of healing art, even if only partially, an imperfect vehicle through which to translate the taste of a particular feeling, a state of rupture/rapture, hope lost and regained? Does the writing and creating of the song save you in the kinds of ways that it saves us, the listener?

Lo: Music affects the unseen world—it charges the molecules in our environments with vibration, senses, memories, emotion. Music is not the only thing that has saved my life, but I sure as shit wouldn’t be alive without it. I don’t know much about all the ways of saving, but I had a dream once where Marvin Gaye and Bob Dylan sang “A Change’s A Gonna Come” to me in a barn. Danny DeVito made a guest vocal appearance as well. I guess you don’t get to choose what saves you.

AHC: What are your fondest musical memories? In your house? In your neighborhood or town? On-tour, on-the-road?

Lo: People laughing at lines in my song. The time someone said Lo Wolf fucked me up. Kissing in front of a street preacher. Sitting in the backseat on the way to Muscle Shoals and Memphis, tuning in and out. When I surprise myself with my own determination, in the bedrooms and living rooms and front porches and stoops on which I’ve written the songs. Singing Bottom of the World with a coworker in the dish pit somewhere in the coffee jungle. Laughing at myself when I am sitting cross legged on my bed, for tearing up while I’m trying to get out the words to a song. Everyone who has put a 5 or 10 or 20 in my tip bucket. One rainy June evening when I dripped into a bar downtown and heard a real live country duet band in Asheville and I shared a smoke with the lead singer. The way the song Mr. Tambourine Man has been stuck in my head for most of the seasons I’ve spent walking around this town.

AHC: When you set out to write a song, how much does 'where the world is' in its current moment, culturally, politically, otherwise, influence the kinds of stories you set out to tell?

Lo: In a live recording of Arlo Guthrie singing Amazing Grace,  he tells a story where he says “There’s a whole lot of stuff in this world that needs to be turned around. The funny thing is, if you can’t do it for you, well then you can’t do it for the world.” Creating anything forces a political stand, regardless of affiliation or intention. I try not to set out to write much of anything—I pick up the guitar and if I’m good and lucky I end up with something to sing about.

AHC: Do you have any words of advice or encouragement for other musicians and singer-songwriters out there who are just starting out and trying to find their voice and their way in this world? What are the kinds of things that you tell yourself when you begin to have doubts or are struggling with the creative process? Or what kinds of things have others told you that have helped push you past moments of self doubt/creative blocks?

Lo: You sound how you sound. When people tell you what your songs mean after gigs, tell them you agree.  Follow the exact opposite of my advice for people who are thinking about taking up smoking: Wait as long as you can and do it as little as possible for as long as possible. Keep banter to the barest minimum at open mic nights, for fucks’ sake. For myself, I have memorized a few key phrases to repeat when I have doubts. Before performances I often recite Eminem:  “Better lose yourself in the music the moment you own it you better never let it go. You only got one chance do not miss your chance to blow this opportunity comes once in a lifetime.” When I have lulls between writing songs, I use Beyonce: “When they want a smash I just write another one.”  And when I encounter the ubiquitous modern scourge of negative nellies, also known as haters, I use another one of her lines: “Radio says speed it up I just go slower.”

AHC: You just released your new EP, Country Pop Hit, could you talk some about this record, how long it took to write and record and what the specific muses are for you on this one? 

Lo: I wrote the song Dead Boyfriends, the third track on the EP, about three years ago. It was the first song I wrote on guitar, in a house called Girl Island in West Asheville. I wasn’t going to include it on the record, but my friend Justin convinced me by telling me it’s his favorite. I do love playing this song out because I often find the audience laughs at certain lines. That is my favorite. The other three songs I wrote over the course of six months or so, last June to November 2016. Each of them were written far more quickly than Dead Boyfriends, which has morphed since its inception. They were written in a tiny hut in South Asheville, often practiced to the accompaniment of applause echoing from the nearby baseball stadium.  I chose my friend Nathan to record it, because one time at a party he told me I made him believe in country music again. Laura Blackley sings and plays guitar on the record. We had some memorable rehearsals in that tiny hut and I traumatized her with the leftovers of my classical harp training. My journey to sobriety (from alcohol), some misguided romances along the way, despair, time spent walking and busking and talking to people in the city—those are the muses. For details: spin record.


Country Pop Hit is available now via lowolf.bandcamp.com