Margo Price: Feeling The Ghosts Of Country Legends In The Air

Margo Price is at her house "just north of Nashville" at the time of our chat and tells us about an exciting discovery her husband Jeremy Ivey and son Judah stumbled across while hiking up "a couple of massive hills" at the back of their property. 

"They walked up there and then my husband was very excited," she recounts (of the moment Ivey clocked "a couple structures at the top of the hill" that turned out to be disused moonshine stills) and then he came back down - I don't think my son would know what they were at all; he just took it as trash, probably. They were all rusted-out and very old but, yeah! Then I had to hike up there to see it myself [laughs] and it is not an easy hike, it was very steep and very slippery. But I wanna make some trails in the back of our property - we have a four-wheeler and a little dune buggy-go kart out here, and so I wanna make some trails so we can ride out there and more easily access it. 

"There's these giant piles of rocks and then these barrels that are built into the ground, and we started doing some research about this property here and the whole area used to be moonshining territory... maybe I need to study up on that so that I can get in on the 'shine business," she chuckles. 

A lot of the real-life stories Price tells sound like songs just begging to be written, including the fact that her husband sold their car and she pawned her wedding ring to pay for the Midwest Farmer's Daughter recording sessions, the album that propelled her into the spotlight. "I kinda tried to talk 'im out of it and told him it wasn't really responsible," Price recalls of Ivey's suggestion that they sell the car. "And, you know, he really gave me the confidence, because he just said, 'There's not another option. This record's gonna be amazing and we're gonna succeed, and it's going to be an investment,' and so he really had the premonition and the faith in me to make everything happen. And there was no doubt in my mind that without him I wouldn't be where I'm at today; he helps me co-write my songs, he has believed in me when nobody else in town did - I mean, absolutely nobody. And so I'm really happy that we crossed paths and that we've kept it together, 'cause it's not always easy, you know; we went through a lot and we've been struggling for so long - and really floundering in the business - that it would've been really sad if we'd sold the car and nobody would've put the record out [laughs]. But he stayed positive, he stayed really positive, through the whole thing."

Price's star has risen steadily since her debut album dropped, with Willie Nelson even featuring on Learning To Lose from her second record, All American Made. "It was one of the most thrilling days of my life when I found out that he really liked the song and that he wanted to sing on my album," Price admits of the Nelson collab. "I was pretty floored, you know, my husband and I both were. We had recorded the song with Sam Phillips and I just sang it all by myself, but then I sent it to [Nelson] and we went to Texas and had him do the vocal and lay down the guitar part. And, I mean, we were just - we had tears in our eyes the whole time. And then he was kind enough to let us stay in the studio for the rest of the day and we were able to listen to [Nelson's 2017 album] God's Problem Child and a bunch of the tracks that he had recorded for that, and we got to hear him actually lay down a lot of the guitar parts on that. And so that was just really thrilling, like, to hear unreleased Willie Nelson songs," she laughs in disbelief. 

"I really think his album should've got more press," she continues. "I think it's just such a beautiful album and his guitar playing - it's like a fine wine, it just gets better, you know? It's incredible to hear his phrasing and just how developed his style is, and how unique it is."

After admitting she listened to "a pretty wide variety of music" growing up, Price singles out Tom Petty as her "number one back in those days and maybe even still now". "As a child, hearing his voice come through the radio in the '80s, it was a beacon of truth and light, and so I really, really love him. I also really liked listening to a good amount of rap music. I liked Snoop and Gin & Juice; it was always... you know, my parents didn't really want me to listen to it so that was incredibly appealing." We're guessing Beastie Boys would've been cranked up in her bedroom to potentially piss off her parents as well, then? "I listened to Beastie Boys, alright," she confirms. "I grew up in the '80s.

"But, you know, I also even had a lot of interest in what my grandmother was listening to and she played Johnny Cash and a lot of Elvis. And then my dad was very into the rock'n'roll music of the '60s and '70s, and so he always had the oldies on - that was where I was introduced to The Beatles and The Beach Boys and The Stones - and we'd play a car game that was, 'Who's this on the radio?' - it was back before you had, like, Sirius XM and you could just see who the artist was. I got really good at identifying bands because my dad would be like, 'Alright, who's this?' And I'd be like, 'Fleetwood Mac?'" 

So was Price fortunate enough to catch Tom Petty live before his untimely passing last year? "Yes, I did see Tom Petty live. When I first moved to Nashville he was playing at a place called Starwood Amphitheatre and I wasn't even 21 yet, I couldn't drink. I had this guy who was kind of a little bit older, for my age, and he asked me if I would be his date to go see Tom Petty. I didn't really like him, but I wanted to see Tom Petty and when I got there I said, 'I have to go to the bathroom,' and then I ditched him and I watched Tom Petty all by myself," she laughs. "Then I called my boyfriend for a ride home. 

"I mean, [the show] was incredible. I wanted to see him the last time he came through Nashville. He played Bridgestone [Arena] and my husband went and my producer went, and they were sending me pictures and little video clips and I was just so upset I couldn't be there, but I never thought that that would be the last time that he came through Nashville and it just breaks my heart that his life was cut short, you know. I think he had a lot more work to do and it's sad he's not here; the world misses him." 

Another All American Made album track, Pay Gap, sees Price addressing gender wage inequality. Price acknowledges, "I've been very fortunate that I've been on a lot of festivals and I know we put on a very good show and a lot of times I feel like I have to work twice as hard as men to get the same respect, or the same billing, when it comes to festivals and opportunities like this. So I would say - you know, especially in the States - we need to make line-ups a 50/50 gender balance because they're really great opportunities: it's a good chance to get people in front of different audiences, and gain a lot of fans, and tour without headlining. I think it would be a really great start just to give women an even playing field. 

"I think at times that things are evening out and other times I get frustrated when I look - there's actually a site, it's called Book More Women and they have, like, an Instagram page and a Twitter [account] and they take festival line-up posters and then they remove all the men's names, and then you see how many women are actually booked. And, you know, I'd say 80 to 90% of the time it's just totally imbalanced and you're gonna only have two women on the line-up out of 50 people or something." 

And sometimes only one of the band members is female, right? "Right, exactly! Yeah, yeah, it's so true. But, you know, I think that there are a lot of women out there writing great music, a lot of great songwriters, and I think sometimes things have to get really bad - and then you just point out that it's bad - and then hopefully everything kinda will start coming the other way and be in our favour. 

"And, I mean, when it comes to radio there's obviously a lotta issues there, but, I dunno, that whole subject is a difficult one to even delve into... Yeah, I think women are in kind of a tough spot at this point." 

But Price is certainly leading the way, showing other female artists what's possible, and experienced a career highlight in May of this year when she performed a three-night stand at Ryman Auditorium. "I was pretty nervous," she shares of how she felt before taking the Ryman Auditorium stage, "but we had been on tour basically since January so we had four and a half/five months of being on the road and perfecting playing my songs live, and we were throwing in new covers, like, every week. And so I felt really prepared, but emotionally I was kinda worried that I was gonna break down crying out of happiness and not be able to sing!

"After the first night, I did have a moment where I came off stage and I was brought to tears, but I kept it together... It was really special to headline there and play my first actual show that had my name on it; that was really something."

When asked whether she took a photo of her name up in lights out the front of the venue on one of the nights she was performing at this legendary venue, Price confesses, "We took a lot of photos. I think my favourite spot there to take photos is in the back alley, where there's just so many ghosts and country legends walking around back there you can almost feel it in the air."