This week, Diversions writer Thompson Wall talked with rebellious Chelsea Crowell, third generation singer-songwriter and granddaughter of Johnny Cash.
The Nashville native discussed her new indie folk album, Crystal City, a fictitious historical memoir that centers around home and heartbreak in the context of the Civil War. Crowell also spoke about her current tour across the East Coast and how it feels to be back on the road.
Diversions: Was it ever really a question for you to become a musician, coming from such a long line of talented songwriters and performers?
Chelsea Crowell: Uh, I never thought — I guess not, now that I think about it. But no, once I started playing it wasn’t a question.
Dive: It seems like from your songwriting and your music videos you have a taste for American history, especially from the Civil War. What inspires you so much about that era?
CC: I don’t know. I guess growing up in the South. I’ve been a history person since — well, I’m not sure. Everybody’s got their own something cool that they write songs about, and that would be mine.
Yeah, you know, I talk about battlegrounds and I put on blinders and sort of do my homework and find out what’s going on around me.
Dive: So your second album, the one that just came out, Crystal City — it has this really nostalgic feel and I like that it sounds more minimalist than your first album.
CC: Yeah, I guess I originally said as long as it’s better than the last one I’ll feel successful about it.
I get a lot of questions about it being a confessional or something like that, which is how I wrote it, and a lot of it’s made up.
The actual title track on there is about a man speaking in the first person on death row so obviously I made that one up so why the hell can’t I make up one about having my heart broken?
Dive: Do you think your subject matter draws from any particular era of music or any favorite musicians you have?
CC: That’s a good question. I listen to a lot of stuff that sounds nothing like my music, so I don’t think so. We’ve been in the van for, like, weeks now listening to pretty much every record that’s ever been made it feels like.
I mean, there’s certainly been instances when I hear something and I’m like, “Oh, I wanna rip that off!” Respectfully, of course.
Dive: Have you worked on any new material since Crystal City?
CC: Yeah, I have, and I didn’t have very much time at all in Europe or even up until Christmas so what we would do on the road is take some of my old songs and turn them into duets.
So we’ll kind of be like in the back of the van driving for hours and rewrite things or go over them again, so that’s been kind of fun, especially since you get to revisit a lot of stuff that you wrote a long time ago.
Dive: What do you like to do when you’re not writing or performing? Do you guys have anything you do for fun on the road just for kicks and giggles?
CC: Go to record stores. Yeah, we just drive and go to the record store.
But I do a lot of stuff, I promise. I’m having a hard time remembering life off the road right now. I write a lot. I don’t know. And I do some other stuff, too, I just can’t think of it right now.
Dive: Is there anything in particular you want to do while you’re here in North Carolina?
CC: Uh, go to the record store.
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