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- We’re happy to be speaking today with fast-rising and celebrated singer/songwriter Cody Brooks; greetings and salutations, Cody! Before we begin kicking the proverbial tin can down the dusty road, how has your 2022 been treating you?
The pleasure is mine and thanks for having me. Been loving your publication and it means a lot to be a part of this…. and my 2022 has been a whirlwind. So much is bearing fruit and I’ve spent so long just tilling ground, I almost forgot there was a crop to harvest.
- Congratulations on the June 3 release of your debut album First World Problems! Is it at all surreal after all of the hard work you’ve put into your music that you’ve finally arrived at this milestone?
Thank you so much! Surreal is a soft word for how overwhelming it is to see such a positive response to my little album. I’m learning how to deal with it.
- What was the genesis of First World Problems? Is there a Secret Origin story you could share with us on the creation of your freshman album?
I’m a native to Nashville. Music City USA, the home of the music industry..aka. The fucking man. So, I became a rebel and developed an appetite for scaring big wigs and making session musicians cringe. Too loud, too weird, too aggressive. Ken Coomer (Wilco/ Uncle Tupelo/ Clock-hammer) heard me early on in this eruption of rebellion and took me under his wing. He fed my punk, which fed his own and we quickly wanted to create something to make a point about modern albums coming out of Nashville. So we wanted to burn the Fucker down until all the plastic melted away. That’s where FWP came from.
- First World Problems is a potent cocktail of different music genres – Gutbucket Blues, Gypsy jazz and back porch rock ‘n’ roll – yet it all feels remarkably whole, as if there’s a solid through-line which connects all of these disparate and unforgettable styles together. Can you talk to our readers about your style of music and how it’s evolved to the point which has brought us one of the most impressive debuts of an artist in years?
Well thank you for those words. I can say that I don’t believe it is my responsibility to label myself, the world will do that, but I am striving to just find my souls voice without worldly intervention. I want to hear what my soul sounds like, not what my body tries to translate into this plane, but what it sounds like underneath the muscle, beyond the bones. I was raised with eclectic freedom and I didn’t know genres were a thing until I had to pick one to categorize myself within. I hated that process and quickly just started doing my thing. A little Bill Monroe with my Bill Withers, a dash of Waits with my Hank Sr. etc etc. I’m constantly in the process of forgetting what I’ve learned to make space for what I will create.
- Is it fair to ask you if you have a particular favorite tune on First World Problems, or is that a little too Sophie’s Choice of us?
Ohhhh… that’s tough there. Well, I can say I love playing them all equally for different reasons, but I never get tired of listening to Dirty. Ya know how it can be hard to hear your own voice, and Dirty is no different, but how it was recorded and how it makes me feel like a stranger to my own song… that’s special and kinda spooky ya know?
- Who was your producer on First World Problems and what did your collaboration look like in the studio?
Ken Coomer produced the album. He’s a Nashville native as well and my favorite drummer alive… so we had a lot to rebel against with this album. We would meet up for a session early and set up, then he’s hand me an acoustic guitar and I’d just sing a song of mine off the top of my head. If a song rang a bell in him, he’d send me in the tracking room and we would lay it down right there. Usually a couple takes would be enough for us to start stacking other instruments. He’d hand me a bass, I’d go lay it down, he’d hand me a keyboard, I’d go lay it down. Now, keep in mind… I hadn’t worked up any of these arrangements or parts on the other instruments. Literally on the spot improv, I’d make up a part on the instrument and Ken would then come and lay down drums and percussion. It would go so fast and momentous, and we never really sat and over thought any of it. Once Ken laid the beats down, I’d go in and lay an electric guitar or two and maybe a harmony or find a weird noise that made us feel like medicine men. It was freedom. No charts. No stress. No fucks given. The gear was blown. The tape was tired. The mixing board was as fickle as old wives tales. That’s how the songs stacked up session by session, and all without any predetermined plan.
- First World Problems is released through Pasadena Records. What makes Pasadena Records the perfect home for you and your music?
Pasadena coaxed me out of the underground. I’ve spent my whole musical life in the gutters, alley ways and basements, sweating out angst and arrows made of punk and gut-bucket blues. Pasadena gave me the courage to bring my music to the surface, to let it bathe naked in the sun… and be damned who stares or cares. It was that push that showed me how Pasadena Records doesn’t just get my music, they get where it’s coming from.
- You grew up in Tennessee (Me too, by the way!). How do those roots inform you as a musician and as a human?
I come from a wild anachronistic upbringing that was always tucked in the hills and hollars of the American south. The birth and raising of American music is a southern commodity. Jazz, Blues, Rock, Country, Bluegrass. Tennessee has housed all of these original genres from their infancy. That gives me a sense of pride and responsibility as a native to not just carry on, but to contribute without diluting such a musically fertile region.
- As a singer/songwriter, which comes first for you – The lyrics or the music?
Ha! What comes first- The kiss or the hug? Haha. It all depends on the environment for me. A lot of the times, I will blindly play until it evokes a deep sensation that needs to express itself. I’ll then see if I can unearth that sensation with words… but I try not to get in the way of that feeling by trying to be clever or “crafty”
- What do you hope that fans walk away feeling after listening to First World Problems?
I really want people to feel the humanity. I’m not chasing perfection, I’m chasing connection. I hope it can be a reminder than the most beautiful things in this world aren’t far from chaos and I believe the more you try to perfect something, the less soul has a chance to germinate inside the art into something that’s alive. You know what I’m saying? All this technology that snaps everything into some sterile perfection, leaves me feeling deaf. I can’t hear it anymore once it’s all in time and in tune. So, I’m doing all I can to fight that from being what people experience when it comes to my art.
- Can fans look forward to seeing you on the tour circuit in the coming weeks and months?
I am so excited to say that I am currently in the process of booking a full tour for 2022. Working with a group of incredible players and veterans of the industry to bring my thang to your scene.
- Are there any artists – living or deceased – who influence your music?
My father, Ed Brooks is my favorite songwriter and has had the most influence on how I approach music, and life really… but, Howlin’ Wolf, Louis Armstrong, Robert Johnson, Django, Tom Waits, Captain Beefheart, Billie Holiday, SRV, Marc Ribot… hell, umm Guy Clark, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Cake, Taj Mahal, Tinariwen, Big Mama Thornton, Allison Mosshart… I mean, I’m influenced by the raw and pure.
- As a music aficionado, I’m quite jealous: You play to brilliant perfection a 1929 B&J Victoria parlor guitar. Is there a special story behind this beauty of an instrument and how it landed in your musical life?
Haha, don’t be jealous my friend. This guitar is an extension of who I am and I am beat to shit. So is “Lemons” here. It plays like the weather and it moves just as much. The old hide glue will soften and the bracing will slip under my “one hand band” approach, if you look at it wrong, it will cut you, or pop a string as if it’s meant for your neck at the gallows. I grew up with it hanging as decor in my dad’s house, something he had picked up in his travels. It had no strings and was covered in dust and dirt with a big gaping hole in the bottom here. Well, when I started playing guitar as a teen and found the Pangea of delta blues, I immediately wanted the guitar. Dad pulled it off the wall and laid it in my hands. my life had changed in that moment…it couldn’t make a note… Hell, it was basically firewood, but I took it to my stepdad who helped me restore it to a playable condition. In fact, it was this very guitar that gave my stepdad the epiphany for his new calling – to build and restore instruments. To be a luthier. He has since built hundreds of handcrafted instruments, but “Lemons” was the bell that rang inside him. How fitting huh? One father brought it into my life, one father helped bring it back to life.
- We’re big fans of Stay Gone from the First World Problems album. How did this song come into being?
“Stay Gone” escaped me in a single breath, finished and unrevised. It felt accidental, just a Freudian slip on borrowed lips and it all started when I got in an argument with my selves. I won obviously, but it was close.
- Final – SILLY! – Question: Favorite movie about the music scene – Almost Famous, Walk the Line, This Is Spinal Tap or La Bamba?
Of the choices presented, Almost Famous. The movie infects you with the depression and humanity of the touring 1970’s rockstar lifestyle. The movie spends most of its time trying to tell you this whole thing is a bad idea, yet you still want to submerge inside all of it. That’s a particular kind of sticky.
THANKS again for having me VENTS.
