Louder Than Guns – The Assignment with Audie Cornish

I did not suppose we would be doing one other episode a few mass capturing so quickly. However right here we’re.

As a group.

That is from a vigil in Nashville.

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

I have been to this place, and I do not imply some sort of memorial after a mass capturing, however Nashville particularly. I lived there for a number of years overlaying the South, and it isn’t 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 Girl Jill Biden visited town to attend a vigil for the capturing victims of the Covenant Faculty, 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That is Ketch Secor, founding member of the Grammy Award profitable band Outdated Crow Medication Present.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 mother or father of two college aged children. In reality, the varsity his children attend in East Nashville, he co-founded it in 2016. It is referred to as the Episcopal Faculty of Nashville.

So I am carrying two totally different hats right here when a college capturing occurs in our city. It is each as a mother or father and it is as any individual who’s on the opposite aspect of the choose up line as properly. When a rustic singer will get off the street, chances are high at 8:00 within the morning on Monday after the large weekend, that man or gal is in line dropping their child off at a college in Nashville, Tennessee. With regards to your house, it is totally different.

And the sky lowered within the sky.

Ketch Secor not too long ago 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 reside on the middle of all of it as a mother or father, educator and musician in Nashville, Tennessee? That is the task. I am Audie Cornish.

The capturing on the Covenant Faculty sort of prompted you to write down an op ed for The New York Instances. However can you are taking me again to that day a bit of bit? The place had 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 bought a textual content message from our college legal professional 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 capturing, 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 children. It is another person’s children. You recognize, the pinnacle of college was murdered. The connections between our college 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 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 a giant college. It occurred at basically a small Christian major college. Proper. Which is what you what you based one, proper? It had connections.

Yeah. And our faculties are very totally different in that regard and serve totally different populations. Nonetheless, it you understand, we’re all the identical. We’re all each college, public, non-public, constitution, each stripe is within the enterprise of believing that youngsters are our future and have to be stewarded and cherished on and guided. And, you understand, that is an actual elemental precept for me.

Can I ask, how previous are your children 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 college, 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 believe 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, all people is aware of, all of the mother and father know, all people is aware of however the children. And we’ll speak about it tomorrow. However we needed to provide the likelihood to speak about it first. So if you happen to can think about a choose up line, anyone who’s who’s been by means of a college capturing of their group is aware of, you understand, the choose up line that first day is filled with tears.

Proper. And for individuals who aren’t acquainted with how massive ups and drop offs work as of late in faculties, there’s a line proper, the place like there are sort 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 believe if you happen to had been a child within the nineties is what you grew up with. Yeah, it is hand at hand move off.

That is proper, Audie. You will need to have children.

Nicely, the juxtaposition of youngsters stuffed with vibrant pleasure and life and oldsters stuffed with grief and disappointment 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 mother or father’s face is simply drawn.

And each mother or father is each instructor and simply, you understand, holding again tears as is each instructor. However each youngster continues to really feel very secure. And but everyone knows as mother and father that no youngster 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 need to begin possibly with Wagon Wheel, as a result of if folks go to look you up, that may be the primary track they study. And also you even write about it on this op ed. Inform me a bit of bit about the place you had been in your profession whenever you wrote this.

Positive. Nicely, Wagon Wheel is my most profitable track.

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

And it is a collaboration with Bob Dylan. I wrote it once I was about 17, going to high school up in New England in a prep college referred to 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 approach you’re feeling. Hey mama rock me

You speak about the concept your finest recognized track, 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 need you to speak about why.

Once you make the sort 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 group that may be totally different than your individual kind of background, and it isn’t. Nicely, there is a prepare going by proper now. That is kind of proof..

I keep in mind the prepare. Yeah.

The trains are at all times going by in Nashville.

Simply bought to maintain it occurring the podcast. It’s going to add a bit of little bit of shade and speaks to what I am speaking about. You recognize, the trains are going by. The vans have NRA stickers. You recognize, once 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 individual falls on the spectrum, inevitably somebody makes use of that phrase, Nicely, that is The South.

Like, that is purported to cowl lots of issues.

Yeah. And whether or not it is purported to be that approach or, you understand, I believe we’re in a state of appreciable progress down south, however the vestiges stay, and so they’re essential 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 up to now, simply one thing that exists right here. Cope with it, y’all. When the truth is, we now have at all times had the ability to drop the insurgent flag. There’s one vestige that has been challenged successfully.

And effected change in a technique, or at the very least elevate the sort 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 intently align with their audiences. It’s extremely very similar to 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 id of the folks listening. And nation feels very a lot the identical approach. However because of this, it has lots of like guidelines. You recognize, there is a couple traces you they folks do not such as you to step out of. Are you able to speak about how that performs out in fashionable nation?

Positive. Nicely, 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 recognize, 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 so much. 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 resolution makers and our usually managers, there’s been kind of like lots of analysis into many people who find themselves within the viewers, and the viewers in all probability seems a bit of totally different than folks anticipate as properly.

Nicely, I did not know to enter this, however however I am excited that we’re, Audie, as a result of, you understand, 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 speak about political divisiveness and never speak about issues of of substance. However as an alternative we’re all kind of studying the Pulp Fiction collectively. And it is it is

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

Individuals welcome that secure house.

Journey story. It is you understand, it is very a lot tales, intergenerational household tales. That is the sort of stuff that goes primary is the track about grandpa and what man he was and the way if we might be a bit of bit extra like him, then the world could be a greater place. So this kind of, you understand, hallmark sort of these beliefs which are tossed round may not be that sensible for right now’s actuality of, you understand, I labored I am a part of a worldwide financial system working two jobs. And, you understand, I am hoping my children 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 essential 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 approach 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 previous 45 as a result of a rustic boy can survive. It is a approach to for nation music to retain authority in a altering world. And guns–

However do you hear it within the fashionable music? Are there? You do not have to select any artist. However do folks nonetheless speak about that?

No, Audie. And that is the factor. We do not speak about weapons. If we do, it is a track about I took my boy looking for the primary time. It is once more, dealing within the nostalgia. What it isn’t 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 don’t seem to be confronted by the music to a altering actuality. As a substitute, they’re allowed to say, I taught my youngster methods to, you understand, I imply, once I was a child within the eighties, like I went chicken hunt with Dad, I discovered methods to hearth a weapon. I discovered methods to clear a weapon. These items are essential to the ways in which gun tradition could be 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 equivalent to your self to boost this concern?

Individuals hold saying, thanks for being courageous. And I am like. You recognize who’s courageous is the child that pulled the hearth alarm, you understand, 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 will sing concerning the stuff that is actual. I am a author, and I will inform what I see.

I do not need 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 recent, the information cycle strikes on to Stormy Daniels, and that is the fact. It is like, Good God, the place will we reside? What will we not care about children in any respect? It is simply over. So that is my approach 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’re demanding a brand new sort of motion come out of the south. And that it partly be led by people who find themselves cultural figures as properly, not simply politicians, folks equivalent to your self. Why do you suppose it may make a distinction?

Nicely, I believe that Nashville stands uniquely poised to steer a response to the varsity capturing epidemic.

However why do you suppose that? Proper? We simply watched the Tennessee State Home expel two members as a result of they’d 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 suppose that?

Nicely, 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 paved the way. I am saying Nashville.

Yeah, however is not that the powerful half? If in all these states and it isn’t simply Tennessee, you have bought 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 feels like an uphill battle. What you are calling for.

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

Nicely, and I need to I recognize you difficult this Audie. Very first thing I need 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 skill as a as a group to exist outdoors of the state. Now, identical 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 girls’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 demise knell of the previous South, which goes to have to vary. You recognize, 50 years from now I believe we’ll be trying again at these couple of years because the deciding time for a assault weapons ban in the US.

Once more, I need 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 specifically, which nonetheless has a really sort of sturdy grip in a approach programmers do, and even current historical past. Proper. When you consider the Dixie Chicks, and so forth., their entire story is a narrative of being ostracized for his or her activism.

You recognize, 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 understand, 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 extremely far attain and the ability to speed up an inevitable motion to vary this for our children. And I am asking them by means of this piece and likewise nose to nose in my group, by means of conversations of textual content. You recognize, I’ve reached out to so many singers up to now two weeks.

And how much textual content you ship.

Hey, I am simply reaching out to all my Nashville music group within the wake of the capturing 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 believe silence is complicity. I went into the studio and I and I recorded a brand new track on the topic. For the reason that capturing, 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 resolution.

I imply, the explanation 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 sort 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 isn’t like there is not a mannequin on the market. So I suppose what wouldn’t it take, do you suppose, for folks in your business? 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 believe, 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 Faculty. And whenever you have a look at the the roster, who’s on the marquee, it isn’t the same old Americana people who at all times say, you understand, we stand with children, 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 should always have gun management.

There’s nothing however up right here as a result of we we now have began on the very baseline the place music popping out of Nashville on the radio says nothing about violence towards youngsters in our faculties 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 individual takes one step and the motion can shortly observe it, then the subsequent step is not as laborious to make. And what I am asking for is that subsequent step. You recognize, I’ve gotten lots of suggestions from my viewers. And like I say in an op ed piece, you understand, I see the NRA sticker on the again of lot of vans blaring in my tunes. So, you understand, and we’re out on the street 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’d 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 excellent 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 ability to hold that fact. You recognize, it is very 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 track that you have written out of this second?

New materials? You recognize, usually, identical to I am in a songwriting temper right here, I am in a a second in time with lots of totally different alternatives as a author to interact on this, whether or not it is, you understand, writing the precise 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, mother and father, that our children will not be secure of their faculties. What which means for me as a songwriter is that I even have the possibility to write 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 referred to 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.

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

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

All proper. awoke this morning. It was Groundhog Day. I noticed the identical black veil on a crying face and a flag flying half approach. 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 legislation on a dusty scroll.

Ketch Secor is the daddy of two children in Nashville, Tennessee. He is additionally a singer, songwriter and founding member of the band Outdated Crow Medication Present.

Now The Project 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 need to get up on one other Groundhog Day. No, I do not need 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.