Interview: Joshua Ray Walker
There’s a way that Joshua Ray Walker writes about people he encounters, some of them burned out or down on their luck, some of them decked out and cock-of-the-walk, some others just trying to scrape by and keep a smile on their lips. Something in them touches a spark in the Dallas native’s mind that makes him pick up the thread and make a song. The barflies, the long-haul truckers, the pretty girls at the boat show — they all trip some wire in him, and a story begins to form.
Walker filled three albums with those stories — 2019’s Wish You Were Here, 2020’s Glad You Made It, and 2021’s See You Next Time. The trilogy — and his dogged touring — have positioned him as one of a new breed of country music artists reclaiming the genre as a place for people who may have once steered clear of the form. And it’s a safe bet some of those converts will be at the Grey Eagle when Walker performs there Wednesday, March 1.
And make no mistake: these are country songs. They can change from introspective, like “Canyon” on Wish You Were Here, to roadhouse rowdy, like “Three Strikes” on See You Next Time. The albums are full of honky-tonk Telecaster tremolo and reeling pedal-steel guitar, as well as acoustic balladeering and two-step trots. But Walker’s remarkable voice — with its Texas twang and a range that sometimes swings into yodeling territory — is the centerpiece, and he wields it with both strength and vulnerability.
“Country music” is a complicated designation, though. In many households, it’s still defined by the pop, corporate radio sound, even as songwriters from the alt-country and Americana scene ease closer and closer to where the genre’s roots actually lie. Walker has found himself grouped in those newer, broader categories, even though he thinks of himself as a country artist.
Joshua Ray Walker: “I mean, I always thought that I was writing country music. I didn't really even know what ‘Americana’ was until five or six years ago, and that's the genre I’ve been stuck in, because what's defined as ‘country music’ these days, as far as PR and marketing and radio and advertising and all that stuff is, like, Nashville country. And that's what people have come to expect; it’s the way the word’s been used for 30 years now. So when I bring out a pedal steel or fiddle or I yodel at my shows, when I do that stuff, people don't know what to call it and I'm confused. Because in my mind, that's country music. That's what I'm doing.”
Where Nashville drags its feet, though, musicians have been plowing ahead. Jason Isbell calls what he writes country, and so does Margo Price. (Both currently reside in Nashville to boot). But there’s an energy and substance to the songs these writers create, trading in the formulaic beer ad splash for lyrics and themes that you can really dig into. Or to put it more simply: they have something to say. In Walker’s case, his lyrical character studies have made him a champion of people who have been both lionized and lampooned, and he’s examining them for something more human and complex. It’s something he’s been doing as far back as he can recall.
“I remember being a pretty observant kid. I didn't talk a whole lot, but I listened a lot. I was around a lot of adult situations when I was real young. Both my parents worked and my dad was a long haul trucker, so my mom had to take care of me a lot of the time and she worked full time as a PR rep for motorsports companies — like, racing teams and NASCAR teams, NASCAR charities, radio stations, monster truck jams, and stuff like that. So I grew up around her doing business, and she kind of took me everywhere with her. So that’s when I feel like I started kind of paying attention to people. You’re a kid, so you're just kind of there. So there's not a whole lot to do but pay attention to what everyone’s doing.”
The songs on Walker’s records were in his mind as one full project before he started recording, he says. But he had to grow into songwriting with some prodding and encouragement from musicians he played with in bands and along the open-mic circuit. That’s when he tapped into that life-long instinct to see people around him and both wonder about and create the stories that they’re living in.
“I didn't know anything about songwriting. And I never really listened to lyrics much. I would typically listen to the melody or the hook or whatever the different instruments were doing, and so I didn't have a lot of context for how a song was supposed to be written. When I started writing, I had a lot of other friends around me that were songwriters … and they were like, ‘You know you write from a character’s perspective a lot. That’s interesting. You do that in a lot of your songs.’ And I hadn’t really thought of that; it’s just kind of how they came out.
And then after asking myself why that happened, I realized a lot of these characters I make up are an amalgamation of a lot of different people I’ve met, whether it be a one-time meeting or a close friend or family or work acquaintance or whatever, they all kind of get rolled into one character. And I use whatever I'm seeing about that character to look at something about myself that I might be too self-conscious to actually write about from a personal perspective. So most of the characters that I write about have a bit of autobiographical nature, I guess.”
Seeing himself in these characters is the thing that sets Walker’s songwriting apart. In working these lives around in his head, he seems to be trying to pry open some sense of truth or see the world through the eyes of the people he encounters instead of relying on stereotypes and cheap shots. On a song with a title like “Lot Lizard,” it would be easy to go low, but Walker delivers a soulful look into the despair of the protagonist, singing, “Save my soul/We’re on the road to nowhere/Any stop could be our home/Make me whole/I don’t know if we’re worth saving/18 wheels on the road,” while his voice trails into a lonesome, coyote-like trill. And even on “Dumpster Diving,” with its refrain, “I went Dumpster Diving/Did it for a living/I was more than surviving/Yeah I made a killing/Off of what I could find/And I never met somebody like you,” manages to be both fun and funny without having a mean bone in its body.
“I poke fun at a lot of different things in my songs and I guess I make light of situations that might be seen as insensitive or something, but I just want to make sure that the person I'm writing about is respected by the song. I don't want it ever to come off as mean-spirited or that I’m making fun of the character. [On ‘Dumpster Diving,’] when I first wrote the hook, ‘I went dumpster diving/I've never met somebody like you,’ it was originally a mean-spirited line about an ex or whatever. This person that you’re like, ‘Wow, what a piece of garbage.’ But I didn't want to write that song. So that line sat around for years. And so when I finally found a way to twist it into something that was more lighthearted and positive, that's when I [thought] ‘breakthrough,’ and wrote the rest of the song.”
Family also runs deep in Walker’s songs. His grandfather gave him his introduction to music, and he began playing live at age 13. After his grandfather died when Walker was 19, he wrote what he considers his first full song, “Fondly,” which now appears on Wish You Were Here. His father’s cancer diagnosis later down the line led to the song “Canyon” from the same album. It’s a tender, heartbreaking examination of manhood and the sometimes unspoken traits that fathers and sons share. Like the story’s subjects, it’s quiet but with a big heart, gentle but struggling — the kind of song that hangs with you in both music and mood. It’s also a hell of a song to serve up as the opening track on a debut record.
“Very rarely, I'll get an idea and I'll sit down and the whole song will come out all at once. ‘Canyon’ was one of those songs. It's only happened a few times. And it happened with ‘Canyon’ and ‘Fondly’ which is also on the first record, and then ‘Voices,’ which is on the second record, and then ‘Flash Paper,’ which is on the third record. They always come from a real personal, emotional place, and that song came and I wrote it right after my dad was diagnosed with cancer. We were not super close. I had just kind of started to make an effort to have a relationship with him as an adult, and a few months after that is when he got diagnosed, and we were told he might only have six months to a year.
I ended up having him around for a little over four years, which I was real grateful to have that extra time with him. By the time he died, we had mended things and we were on good terms and I spent a lot of time with him while he was sick and doing chemo, and I was there with him for the battle and all that, so that song was written kind of at the beginning of that process, and then ‘Flash Paper’ was written at the end once he passed away. And they both came all at once. I think I wrote ‘Canyon’ in maybe 30 or 45 minutes.”
His effort hasn’t fallen on deaf ears — Walker’s songs have landed him spots on Americana music charts and he’s been hailed as a rising country star by both No Depression and Rolling Stone. He’s played both the Grand Ole Opry and on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” His shows attract a cross section of fans, from the NPR set to tattooed punks to self-styled cowboys. Of course, in a place like Asheville, all that could describe the same person.
“I mean, [our draw] is all over the place. We pull the kind of, Instagram cowboy crowd, the hipster with the fresh cowboy hat and the vintage Wranglers. And there’s a lot of what I call ‘the public radio listeners’ — you know, [in their 50s], probably drinking craft beer. A lot of those guys. And kind of everything in between. I came from a punk background, and there's something about my music that reaches that crowd, too. I think it's maybe how vulnerable some of the personal songs are, but you see a lot of metalheads and punk fans at our shows, especially Hispanic punk rock dudes. Lots of tattoos at our shows.
I guess ‘alt-country’ is the best way to describe it. We’ve been having a lot of younger people coming out in the last year which is awesome. We never used to see [under 21] Xs on people's hands until ‘Sexy After Dark’ came out. I think being on “The Tonight Show” just introduced us to a younger audience, and you see a lot of people riding the rail up front with Xs on their hands, which is awesome.”
As he runs through the list of people he sees from his place on stage, it’s easy to imagine how the songwriter in Walker’s brain could launch into the back stories and daily lives of each and every person he is describing, whether marked with tattoos or Xs, sporting hipster hats or sipping a local IPA. And it feels a bit like he could be collecting ideas for the characters on another record. So, is he?
“I've been writing, trying to figure out what direction to go in next. It won't be a huge diversion from what I do. I think whatever I do will always be country, but it could be something a little different. We toured like crazy last year and our schedule this year is also pretty nuts. When we [start our tour], I don't think I have a weekend off until Thanksgiving, so we're gonna get in the studio at some point, but right now we're just out there working. You gotta live to have something to write about, so I’m just out there having experiences.”
IF YOU GO
Who: Joshua Ray Walker w/ The Vandoleers
When: Wednesday, March 1, 8 pm
Where: The Grey Eagle 185 Clingman Ave., thegreyeagle.com
Tickets: $20
(Photos by David McClister)
