Raven and Red is a folk-Americana group that is refreshing in today’s entertainment climate – they have actual talent. The trio made up of Brittany Lynn Jones and brothers Mitchell Lane and Cole King released in February their album of all original songs, We Rise Up to accolades and for the right reason. They can sing and perform their instruments without the aid of modern technology. With music that borders on traditional folk, country with a tinge of Celtic influences they bring a refreshing approach to their music.
You guys are just a little over a month removed from releasing your first album. What’s going through your heads right now?
BLJ: It’s been really exciting. It’s one of the first times we have gotten a lot of reviews for one of our albums. This was our first album with original music on it. It has been exciting to see the reviews that are out there and our fans have had a really good response to it as well.
ML: Our fans have had a good response as well. Some of our fans have been hearing some of those songs – we have been doing them live – for the better part of a year now. It’s pretty cool to have that out officially for people to put on whenever they want to.
BLJ: We have been getting some radio play too. We have been getting some radio play in the Netherlands and that’s been cool, too.
Were you nervous waiting for the reviews to come out? What is it like waiting to see what someone else thinks?
ML: It is a little bit intimidating, waiting to get your first review, because you don’t know what they are going to say about it. We were hoping that the people who were willing to spend time writing about would have something positive to say.
BLJ: We were lucky. The first review came out in December, right around Christmas, and it was a good one. That made us really happy. We get excited when a review comes in but we are always concerned for a few minutes. Like, “I hope it doesn’t say anything terrible.”
(laughter)
Recording music is a lot different than performing it. What was it like, making the album?
ML: It was interesting because we had been working on these songs and arranging them, just to perform live. Then, when we to start recording them, it was an opportunity to take a step back and listen to them. We also had some demo recordings that we would make and listen to from the perspective of a producer and an arranger and look and see what we could add, what we could take away. We were coming in to make adjustments as we wanted to.
BLJ: We would listen to the first version of how we recorded a song. When we would step back and listen to it, we would sometimes come up with more ideas or we would hear a part where we wanted to add another instrument. So, we would add some instrument fills to a section that did not have it before. I think the songs really came into their own once we recorded them.
How self-critical when you recording and listening to playback or even listening to demos you’ve made? It has to be different hearing yourself live when you are performing and then hearing yourself recorded. What was that like, hearing yourself?
Both: We’re very critical.
BLJ: It is very rewarding when it comes out like you want it to come out. However, we also would go through and if we heard a certain word or phrase that we did not like the sound of, we would go back and change how we were doing that. It even kind of shaped our live performances to because it makes you more aware of what the songs sound like.
ML: This was our first kind of real record that we were recording and also it was an independent, self-produced CD, so when we were first doing those demo recordings, what we were able to achieve. The vocals, combined with the violin, are our strengths, the three-part harmonies … when we were listening to the demos, we were like, “The vocals could sound better.” I did not know if we could record those in the best way to sound the best that they possibly could. So we ended up talking to someone who was going to help us mix the album and it turned out he had a great recording microphone for our vocals with all the right pre-amps. We were able to fine-tune those vocals and we added those back to everything we had done. It really gave it that sparkle that we were looking for that we are able to get performing live.
When you were putting this album together, was it easy for you guys to pick which songs to put on the album or did you end up adding new material to the mix? Was there any kind of a theme to the material?
BLJ: Originally, when we went into it, there wasn’t a theme but, as time passed a few developed. The first five or six songs were some of the first songs we finished writing together and we we wanted to have all of those on it. We have a really good friend who wrote “Grandpa’s Beer” – a songwriter in Nashville and we wanted to add that to it because we really liked that song. We knew we wanted to record the classic folk song, “Today,” because we play that a lot live. We like a lot of songs that are considered classic nowadays and people kept asking if we were going to record that. The first seven songs came together easily and then we were doing a songwriting competition where we wanted to have a few extra songs to be able to pull out during some of the rounds. We wrote, “Another Empty Bottle” and “Lead Me Back to You.” Those two came together pretty quickly. Towards the end, we wanted to end the album on a positive note and we kind of struggled. Then we came up with the idea for “We Rise Up,” which became the title track.
How did being trained vocalists affect what type of music you guys play? You are labeled as being in the Americana/bluegrass genre …
BLJ: Yeah.
Did that training have any influence on why you chose that style of music?
ML: I went to school for classical voice. I did songs in four or five different languages. I studied opera and stuff like that. Brittany was doing her classical stuff, moved on, and did a bluegrass/folk/old B time Celtic program at East Tennessee State in Johnson City. It was exciting to see all the stuff that was going on out there. It was a neat opportunity because a lot of the instrumentation in folk/bluegrass/Americana is acoustic and we were already very used to doing things acoustically in the classical realm. When we combined the history from Bach to Celtic music and then into the American traditions like Bill Monroe and the Carter family and such, it just kind of was a continuation of our musical education going into that. We actually did not write songs when we first started. We were just interpreting and coming up with our own ways of doing folk music. Now, we kind of combine of our techniques and all the things we’ve learned from all the different places we’ve been to create our own sound. If you listen to the album, even if I’m putting on a little bit of a country twang for a song, I’m still using many of the techniques that I would use in singing anything classical. We are known as a bit of a variety group. We can do a bit of everything in our live shows, so we wanted to reflect that in our songwriting and on our new album.
What is the writing process like for you guys? Being trained vocalists, do you come up with the words first or is it a bit of give and take?
BLJ: It’s really been a blend. A lot of the songs we did begin with writing the words and then there’s somewhere we might have come up with a little idea for a melody and we’d record that on our phones just so we can remember it. Sometime it can even just be a chord progression that we like. Then we try to write words that fit if the melody came first. Most of the songs, it has been easier to write the words first and then try to come up with a melody that reflects it and a rhythm can fit the words. When we are putting a melody with lyrics, we will try to reflect the way you would almost speak something or act out the words with the inflection in pitch with the melody going up and down. When we do that, it usually comes out sounding a little more natural.
With We Rise Up having been released last month, how do you feel your songwriting has evolved since the beginning of writing material for that album and where the band is now?
ML: I think that as we continue writing, we get a bit quicker at it.
BLJ: And more and more ideas.
ML: Now, getting though that first song or two was a big step because you’re still trying to discover how you want to do things. We try to create things that can be familiar to people, as far as lyrics are concerned, but try to write the music in a way to make it as original as possible so that you feel like you are getting something fresh but it also has that folk element …
BLJ: That has a familiar sound.
ML: That helps audiences go, “Oh! This is me. I love the violin solo in this.”
BLJ: “Or it reminds me of another song I like but it’s something different at the same time.”
ML: The writing has gotten easier and easier.
BLJ: Different approaches to familiar themes can still make original songs.
Were there any songs that you wish had made the album that didn’t?
ML: There are some songs where we were like, “I wish this was a twenty-song album.” There also was a part of us that was like, “Let’s hold some back. That way, we can put out a new album in the next year or two.” A song that John Denver recorded that really speaks to us was going to go on the album. However, there are a lot of ballads on this album, so it felt like we might need to hold that ballad for the next album. We like to have one track that is a very traditional folk song that has inspired us and, on this album, that song is “Today,” written by Randy Sparks and performed with the New Christy Minstrels. That song has been a big hit for a long time and many artists have recorded it.
BLJ: Been a while since it has been popular.
Are you touring right now? I know you are coming to Chattanooga next month.
ML: Right now, we have some selected dates and we are working on trying to get a tour together for the spring, summer, and fall. We have been working toward a new recording because we know we are only going to get busier from here on out. We have been using this time to do that. We did some shows for the St. Patrick’s Day weekend. We were in Knoxville Friday and then we went to Owensboro, Kentucky, Saturday. We have been playing on and off. We also like to do various open mikes and writers’ nights here around Nashville.
BLJ: The past few years, usually it’s around May when our schedule really picks up. We have a few select shows January through April and then in May, when the different festivals start, we really get a lot busier.
– Dave Weinthal
Raven and Red perform April 6 at Chattanooga Brewing Company.
Tags: Americana Bluegrass Brittany Lynn Jones Celtic Cole King folk Mitchell Lane Raven and Red We Rise Up
