Louder Than Weapons – The Task with Audie Cornish

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 neighborhood.

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 form of memorial after a mass taking pictures, however Nashville particularly. I lived there for just a few years protecting the South, and it isn’t an enormous 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 Girl 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 could 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That is Ketch Secor, founding member of the Grammy Award profitable band Outdated Crow Drugs Present.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 neighborhood and a dad or mum of two college aged youngsters. The truth is, the college 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 college taking pictures occurs in our city. It is each as a dad or mum and it is as anyone who’s on the opposite aspect of the choose up line as nicely. When a rustic singer will get off the highway, likelihood is 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 college in Nashville, Tennessee. In terms of your property, it is totally different.

And the sky lowered within the sky.

Ketch Secor lately wrote an op ed for The New York Instances 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 needed 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 prefer to dwell on the heart of all of it as a dad or mum, educator and musician in Nashville, Tennessee? That is the task. I am Audie Cornish.

The taking pictures on the Covenant College form of prompted you to jot down an op ed for The New York Instances. However can you’re taking me again to that day somewhat bit? The place have been you whenever you heard it taking place?

Positive it was on Monday, two weeks in the past, and it was at 10:13 within the morning. I acquired a textual content message from our college lawyer saying, I am so sorry, and I had no thought what was occurring. 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 college, you are saying it it hits you in a spot of what? Panic. Concern. What? What do you’re feeling?

It is. It is all of the above. It is. It is your youngsters. It is another person’s youngsters. You understand, the pinnacle of college was murdered. The connections between our college are very current, and it is as a neighborhood member in Nashville, this surprising 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 kids, 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 college. It did not occur at an enormous college. It occurred at basically a small Christian main college. 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 recognize, we’re all the identical. We’re all each college, public, personal, constitution, each stripe is within the enterprise of believing that children are our future and have to be stewarded and beloved on and guided. And, you recognize, that is an actual elemental precept for me.

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

Yeah, they do. They usually’re 9 and 11.

So did the college you based this Episcopal college, did it go into lockdown? Type of what what did you you all need to do consequently?

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 youngsters haven’t but been notified. The workers is aware of, the lecturers know, everyone is aware of, all of the dad and mom know, everyone is aware of however the youngsters. And we’ll discuss it tomorrow. However we needed to provide the likelihood to speak about it first. So should you can think about a choose up line, anyone who’s who’s been via a college taking pictures of their neighborhood is aware of, you recognize, the choose up line that first day is stuffed with tears.

Proper. And for individuals who aren’t aware of how large ups and drop offs work nowadays in colleges, there’s a line proper, the place like there are form of they’re chaperoning your child the actually to the curb and also you choose them up. There’s not identical to wandering out of the constructing the place I feel should you have been a child within the nineties is what you grew up with. Yeah, it is hand handy go off.

That is proper, Audie. You could have youngsters.

Properly, the juxtaposition of children stuffed with vibrant pleasure and life and fogeys stuffed with grief and unhappiness coming collectively. This assembly to me was very highly effective.

That means you are standing on the curb ready to get your child. However each dad or mum’s face is simply drawn.

And each dad or mum is taking a look at each trainer and simply, you recognize, holding again tears as is each trainer. However each baby continues to really feel very secure. And but everyone knows as dad and mom 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 assume I wish to begin perhaps with Wagon Wheel, as a result of if folks go to look you up, that is perhaps the primary music they find out about. And also you even write about it on this op ed. Inform me somewhat bit about the place you have been in your profession whenever you wrote this.

Positive. Properly, Wagon Wheel is my most profitable music.

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

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

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

You discuss the concept that your greatest identified music, Wagon Wheel, is commonly blasting out of a truck, so to talk, that has an NRA sticker. And also you point out this particularly, and I would like you to speak about why.

Once you make the form of music that I make with a fiddle and a banjo and concord singing and a selected model of songwriting, you are participating in a neighborhood that is perhaps totally different than your personal type of background, and it isn’t. Properly, there is a prepare going by proper now. That is type of proof..

I keep in mind the prepare. Yeah.

The trains are all the time going by in Nashville.

Simply acquired to maintain it occurring the podcast. It will add somewhat little bit of colour and speaks to what I am speaking about. You understand, the trains are going by. The vans have NRA stickers. You understand, after I was a child, there have been Accomplice flags in all places. 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, Properly, that is The South.

Like, that is imagined to cowl a variety of issues.

Yeah. And whether or not it is imagined to be that means or, you recognize, I feel we’re in a state of appreciable progress down south, however the vestiges stay, and so they’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 prior to now, simply one thing that exists right here. Cope with it, y’all. When in truth, we’ve got 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 method, or no less than increase the form of societal stakes participating 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 carefully align with their audiences. It’s extremely very like hip-hop, like folks in hip-hop speak 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 consequently, it has a variety of like guidelines. You understand, 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?

Positive. Properly, 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. You understand, it is it isn’t 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 type of like a variety of analysis into many people who find themselves within the viewers, and the viewers in all probability seems somewhat totally different than folks anticipate as nicely.

Properly, I did not know to enter this, however however I am excited that we’re, Audie, as a result of, you recognize, nation music actually particularly, and to make clear, up to date 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 an alternative we’re all type of studying the Pulp Fiction collectively. And it is it is

Which is why it is fashionable, proper? I imply, through the pandemic, I heard the expansion of listening to the music or streaming perhaps was up 15%. It was increased than another style.

Individuals welcome that secure house.

Journey story. It is you recognize, it’s totally a lot tales, intergenerational household tales. That is the form of stuff that goes primary is the music about grandpa and what a very good man he was and the way if we may very well be somewhat bit extra like him, then the world could be a greater place. So this type of, you recognize, hallmark form of these beliefs which might be tossed round may not be that life like for right now’s actuality of, you recognize, I labored I am a part of a world financial system working two jobs. And, you recognize, 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 prefer to spit some seashore nut in that dude’s eye and shoot him with my outdated 45 as a result of a rustic boy can survive. This can be a method 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 select 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 music about I took my boy attempting to find the primary time. It is once more, dealing within the nostalgia. What it isn’t saying is I’ve acquired 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 tips on how to, you recognize, I imply, after I was a child within the eighties, like I went hen hunt with Dad, I realized tips on how to hearth a weapon. I realized tips on how to clear a weapon. This stuff are necessary to the ways in which gun tradition is usually a optimistic, 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 comparable to your self to boost this situation?

Individuals preserve saying, thanks for being courageous. And I am like. You understand who’s courageous is the child that pulled the fireplace alarm, you recognize, within the hallway underneath gunfire in our city in a college, a child that was a 3rd grader. Now, that is courageous. All I am doing is simply I am a singer and I’ll sing concerning the stuff that is actual. I am a author, and I’ll 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 and so they 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 dwell? What can we not care about youngsters in any respect? It is simply over. So that is my means of claiming it isn’t over and it will not be over till these deaths, these three deaths of American youngsters gunned down within the third grade, till they imply one thing, that is when it will be over.

Extra with Ketch Secor in only a second.

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

Properly, I feel that Nashville stands uniquely poised to guide a response to the college 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?

Properly, 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 prepared the ground. I am saying Nashville.

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

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

Properly, 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 stated its first foot ahead, this was the proving floor, different components of the South have been too unsafe. However folks gathered in Nashville, a metropolis of faculties, 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 skill as a as a neighborhood to exist exterior of the state. Now, identical to in that point, the state legislator stated, what are you speaking about? That is not going to occur in our state. We forged 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 dying knell of the outdated South, which goes to have to vary. You understand, 50 years from now I feel we’ll be trying again at these couple of years because the deciding time for a assault weapons ban in the USA.

Once more, I wish to carry 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 form of sturdy grip in a means programmers do, and even current historical past. Proper. When you concentrate on the Dixie Chicks, and many others., their complete story is a narrative of being ostracized for his or her activism.

You understand, 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 recognize, 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 via this piece and likewise head to head in my neighborhood, via conversations of textual content. You understand, I’ve reached out to so many singers prior to now two weeks.

And how much textual content you ship.

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

What’s been essentially the most optimistic 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 music on the topic. Because the taking pictures, which is just two weeks in the past there have been so some ways to be engaged with this horrible story, and it is highly effective answer.

I imply, the explanation why I am asking is as a result of your op ed stated one thing fairly particular, proper? That there are artists who’re drained at being on the form of mercy of the whims of fearmongers, you stated, 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 isn’t like there is not a mannequin on the market. So I assume what wouldn’t it take, do you assume, for folks in your business? To begin to do one thing related, which is which is, in impact, what you are calling for.

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

And so it is about fanning the flames and constructing an enormous bonfire out of what is already crackling kindling. For instance, we have 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 isn’t the standard Americana of us who all the time say, you recognize, we stand with youngsters, we rise up in opposition to 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 an enormous artist to be there? Proper. As a result of no person’s going to stand up and say we should always have gun management.

There’s nothing however up right here as a result of we we’ve got began on the very baseline the place music popping out of Nashville on the radio says nothing about violence in opposition to youngsters in our colleges or about the necessity to rethink the sorts 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 anyone takes one step and the motion can rapidly observe it, then the following step is not as arduous to make. And what I am asking for is that subsequent step. You understand, I’ve gotten a variety of suggestions from my viewers. And like I say in an op ed piece, you recognize, I see the NRA sticker on the again of lot of vans blaring in my tunes. So, you recognize, and we’re out on the highway with Hank Jr. this summer time. So, I imply, I am I am used to enjoying to an viewers that’s our nation people. However I really like my nation people viewers. And I and I would like to have the ability to be actual with them. I can transfer freely in each of the areas that the 2 large 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 a fantastic 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. You understand, 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 youngsters. We do not know shit. We’re we’re dying down right here. Assist!

Are you able to speak concerning the music that you have written out of this second?

New materials? You understand, usually, identical to I am in a songwriting temper right here, I am in a a second in time with a variety of totally different alternatives as a author to interact on this, whether or not it is, you recognize, writing the fitting caption for {a photograph} on Instagram or writing an op ed piece for The New York Instances or being on this podcast with you, Audie. There’s so some ways to decide on my phrases proper now and try 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, dad and mom, that our children are usually not secure of their colleges. What meaning for me as a songwriter is that I even have the prospect to jot down new music about this and to place my cash the place my mouth is. So I acquired a brand new music 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.

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

You are coping with a dude that wept via 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 will 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 regulation 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 Outdated 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 because of 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 acquired. We acquired to. We acquired to do it, y’all.