4 minute read
NOE WAY
CIS U M NE WS
NOE WAY!
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Kentucky-bred singersongwriter Ian Noe’s spectacular second album River Fools & Mountain Saints may have been conceived and recorded during the recent pandemic, but he didn’t need to tap into those tumultuous times to inform his most recent collection of authentic country-folk ruminations and Appalachian balladry.
By Steve Bell
Back in early-2020 a series of devastating floods ravaged areas of south-eastern Kentucky - including Noe’s hometown of Beattyville - and it was this turn of events that first gave Noe the title of his new collection, and in time the evocative songs which comprised it. Tales full of intricate rural character studies, dissecting the lives of folks already down on their luck but now pushed to the outer limits of endurance, with some finding strength in adversity but others buckling to the relentless pressure. “I knew what the album was going to be, really all I needed was just the title,” the singer reflects. “Once you know where you’re going with the feeling of a record it’s not that hard to get your songs. You just have to be able to see what you want to say, and if you have the vision for it then it should be able to fall into place, if you’re not full of shit. “Essentially, you’re just writing a movie is all you’re doing - if you’re writing to a title like that then all you’re doing is building one big movie and writing all these songs for all the scenes. And the scene that I had was my flooded eastern Kentucky town, and every nook and cranny that I could possibly fit into that vista. It wasn’t aimless by any stretch.” This novel approach to his craft explains why most of the narratives on River Fools & Mountain Saints seem geographically rooted in the same place. “Absolutely, I wrote it with that in mind,” Noe admits. “Already having the title River Fools
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& Mountain Saints I figured that title was so strong that I’m not going to start singing songs about New York City or Los Angeles - no offence to those places - it’s just that a title like that really speaks a lot to me about what that would say, so I wrote the rest of those songs around that image.” When it comes to individual songs it’s not the title that Noe finds imperative to the writing process, rather the track’s opening gambit. “I don’t have a hard time writing a song, what I really try to do is get the first line - that first line of a song is so important,” he explains. “And that might be the hardest thing that you write, because if you can get that first line and you already know where you’re going with the song then it’s pretty easy for me to get it done after that. “But you already have to be going somewhere - the song has to already be there, if that makes sense. You already have to be going in a direction. More often than not the thing that I’ll get first is the second chorus or the second verse of a song - a lot of times the first line of a song is the last thing that I finish, but it will be the thing that ties it all together. “That process of songwriting is my favourite thing to do. My favourite thing to do is sit down and try to figure out a song - or try to pull together a new song - and my second favourite thing to do is go into the studio to lay it down”. Which on River Fools & Mountain Saints Noe did with complete aplomb, hitting the studio with producer Andrijia Tokic (Alabama Shakes, Margo Price) and a team of established musicians and concocting a perfectly timeless roots sound for this batch of tunes. “The people that I work with made the sessions easy, because when you’re in tune with each other you don’t have to go around in a lot of circles trying to figure out what you want,” he tells. “Usually by the third or fourth take if it’s not happening, we’d skip it and go to something else, but most of those songs were pretty easy to lay down. “I figure if it’s a good song it shouldn’t be too hard to put down, you shouldn’t have to fight it too hard. And if it’s a good song you should be excited about singing it, and then it comes pretty easy.” For his impending inaugural Australian shows Noe will be appearing on his lonesome, something that he says doesn’t perturb him in the slightest. “I love playing solo, that’s how I came up,” he smiles. “I’d only really been playing with a band for a couple of years prior to the pandemic, but even when I’m touring at home with the full band, I’ll usually do a small acoustic set somewhere, like a third of the way through. But yeah, it’s in my blood - I love playing solo. I honestly can’t wait to get down there, it’s going to be incredible.”
