Louder Than Guns – The Assignment with Audie Cornish

I did not suppose we would be doing one other episode a few 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 present of music. You’re the custodians of that particular present.

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 just a few 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 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That is Ketch Secor, founding member of the Grammy Award profitable band Outdated Crow Medication Present.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 neighborhood and a dad or mum of two faculty aged youngsters. In reality, 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 carrying two completely different hats right here when a faculty taking pictures occurs in our city. It is each as a dad or mum and it is as anyone who’s on the opposite facet of the decide up line as nicely. 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 faculty in Nashville, Tennessee. On the subject of your own home, it is completely 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 stay 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 type of prompted you to jot down an op ed for The New York Instances. However can you’re taking me again to that day a bit bit? The place have been you whenever you heard it occurring?

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 faculty legal professional saying, I am so sorry, and I had no concept what was happening. And prayer hand emoji is attention-grabbing.

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. 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 realize, the pinnacle of faculty was murdered. The connections between our faculty 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 faculty. It did not occur at a giant college. It occurred at primarily a small Christian main faculty. Proper. Which is what you what you based one, proper? It had connections.

Yeah. And our faculties are very completely different in that regard and serve completely different populations. Nevertheless, it , we’re all the identical. We’re all each faculty, public, non-public, constitution, each stripe is within the enterprise of believing that children are our future and have to be stewarded and liked on and guided. And, , 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. They usually’re 9 and 11.

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

No, the colleges 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 academics know, all people is aware of, all of the dad and mom know, all people is aware of however the youngsters. And we’ll speak about it tomorrow. However we needed to provide the probability to speak about it first. So when you can think about a decide up line, anyone who’s who’s been by a faculty taking pictures of their neighborhood is aware of, , the decide up line that first day is stuffed with tears.

Proper. And for individuals who aren’t accustomed to how huge ups and drop offs work lately in faculties, 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 identical to wandering out of the constructing the place I feel when you have been a child within the nineties is what you grew up with. Yeah, it is hand handy move off.

That is proper, Audie. You need to have youngsters.

Effectively, the juxtaposition of children filled with vibrant pleasure and life and oldsters filled with grief and disappointment 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 each trainer and simply, , holding again tears as is each trainer. However each little one continues to really feel very protected. And but everyone knows as dad and mom that no little one is protected any longer as a result of this tragedy is in our yard. It is come to Nashville, it is come to us, to our youngsters.

I assume I wish to begin perhaps with Wagon Wheel, as a result of if individuals go to look you up, that may be the primary music they find out about. And also you even write about it on this op ed. Inform me a bit bit about the place you have been in your profession whenever you wrote this.

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

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 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 approach you’re feeling. Hey mama rock me

You speak about the concept that your finest recognized music, 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.

Whenever you make the type of music that I make with a fiddle and a banjo and concord singing and a specific type of songwriting, you are partaking in a neighborhood that may be completely different than your individual type of background, and it isn’t. Effectively, there is a prepare going by proper now. That is type 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 bit little bit of shade and speaks to what I am speaking about. You realize, the trains are going by. The vehicles have NRA stickers. You realize, once I was a child, there have been Accomplice flags all over the place. That is The South, y’all. It is completely different than the opposite elements 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 alleged to cowl plenty of issues.

Yeah. And whether or not it is alleged to be that approach or, , I feel we’re in a state of appreciable progress down south, however the vestiges stay, they usually’re essential to speak about on this regard, as a result of one of many vestiges is gun tradition, and it is largely thought of just like the insurgent flag prior to now, simply one thing that exists right here. Cope with it, y’all. When the truth is, 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 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 carefully align with their audiences. It’s totally very similar to hip-hop, like individuals in hip-hop speak in regards to the tradition and their ties to the music, and the music ties to fairly actually the identification of the individuals listening. And nation feels very a lot the identical approach. However consequently, it has plenty of like guidelines. You realize, there is a couple strains you they individuals do not such as you to step out of. Are you able to speak about how that performs out in fashionable nation?

Positive. Effectively, as we speak’s nation singer may not come from The South and is school educated. So that they are in has already modified the stereotype of who sings nation music. You realize, 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 determination makers and our usually managers, there’s been type of like plenty of analysis into many people who find themselves within the viewers, and the viewers in all probability seems to be a bit completely different than individuals 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, , nation music actually particularly, and to make clear, up to date nation music on the radio is an actual protected area for us to not speak about political divisiveness and never speak about 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 well-liked, proper? I imply, throughout the pandemic, I heard the expansion of listening to the music or streaming perhaps was up 15%. It was greater than another style.

Folks welcome that protected area.

Journey story. It is , it’s totally a lot tales, intergenerational household tales. That is the type of stuff that goes primary is the music about grandpa and what an excellent man he was and the way if we may very well be a bit bit extra like him, then the world can be a greater place. So this type of, , hallmark type of these beliefs which are tossed round may not be that life like for as we speak’s actuality of, , I labored I am a part of a worldwide financial system working two jobs. And, , 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 essential antidote to the entire 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. This can be 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 individuals nonetheless speak about that?

No, Audie. And that is the factor. We do not speak about weapons. If we do, it is a music 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 protected area the place they don’t seem to be confronted by the music to a altering actuality. As an alternative, they’re allowed to say, I taught my little one methods to, , I imply, once I was a child within the eighties, like I went hen 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 is usually a optimistic, however the protected area is that we’re not speaking about what it means in as we speak’s America. As an alternative, we’re just about hanging in yesterday’s.

So what’s it like for artists similar to your self to boost this difficulty?

Folks preserve saying, thanks for being courageous. And I am like. You realize who’s courageous is the child that pulled the hearth alarm, , within the hallway beneath 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 in regards to 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 recent, the information cycle strikes on to Stormy Daniels, and that is the truth. It is like, Good God, the place will we stay? What will we not care about youngsters 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 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 partly be led by people who find themselves cultural figures as nicely, not simply politicians, individuals similar to your self. Why do you suppose it might make a distinction?

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

However why do you suppose 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 suppose that?

Effectively, Nashville, even though 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 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 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 need I wish to perceive why you suppose nation musicians are in any approach uniquely positioned to have this dialog.

Effectively, and I wish to I admire 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 Fifties mentioned its first foot ahead, this was the proving floor, different elements of the South have been too unsafe. However individuals 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 capability as a as a neighborhood to exist exterior 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 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 loss of life knell of the previous South, which goes to have to alter. You realize, 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 america.

Once more, I wish to convey it to the query about nation music artists, particularly mainstream ones who given what we all know in regards to 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 type of robust grip in a approach programmers do, and even current historical past. Proper. When you concentrate on the Dixie Chicks, and many others., their entire story is a narrative of being ostracized for his or her activism.

You realize, 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, , I am not on the awards present with the highest ten performers of the 12 months.

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

They’ve a very far attain and the facility to speed up an inevitable motion to alter this for our youngsters. And I am asking them by this piece and likewise head to head in my neighborhood, by conversations of textual content. You realize, I’ve reached out to so many singers prior to now two weeks.

And what sort of 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 as we speak in The Instances. If you happen to 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. 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 isn’t like there is not a mannequin on the market. So I assume what wouldn’t it take, do you suppose, for individuals in your trade? 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, 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 take a look at the the roster, who’s on the marquee, it isn’t the standard Americana people who all the time say, , we stand with youngsters, we get up in opposition to gun violence. As an alternative, 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 protected area 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’ve got began on the very baseline the place music popping out of Nashville on the radio says nothing about violence in opposition to kids 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 anyone takes one step and the motion can shortly observe it, then the subsequent step is not as onerous to make. And what I am asking for is that subsequent step. You realize, I’ve gotten plenty of suggestions from my viewers. And like I say in an op ed piece, , I see the NRA sticker on the again of lot of vehicles blaring in my tunes. So, , and we’re out on the street with Hank Jr. this summer time. So, I imply, I am I am used to taking part in to an viewers that’s our nation people. However I like my nation people 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 huge 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 like these individuals.

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

Nation music has an important future in these instances 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 realize, 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 speak in regards to the music that you’ve got written out of this second?

New materials? You realize, usually, identical to I am in a songwriting temper right here, I am in a a second in time with plenty of completely different alternatives as a author to interact on this, whether or not it is, , writing the proper 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 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, dad and mom, that our youngsters are usually not protected of their faculties. What which means 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 bought 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.

Effectively, gosh, I really feel like I should not even introduced it up as a result of it is so…anytime you get a , 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. 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 individuals 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 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 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 government 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 as we speak.

Ketch, thanks a lot for sharing that with us.

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