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The String: The Solitude and Collaboration Behind Rayland Baxter's ‘Wide Awake’

Concentration has become one of life’s most elusive and precious commodities. So Nashville songwriter Rayland Baxter went looking for it. In late 2016, he booked himself into a unique writer’s retreat in an abandoned rubber band factory near Franklin, Kentucky. A friend of his was converting it into a recording studio. Not yet open for business, it was filled with an all-consuming quiet, save for the murmur of a television that more or less randomly let in traces of the outside world.

 

 

“I did it because I’d read about my favorite writers doing that,” Baxter says in an interview for Episode 71 of The String. “I wanted to be in my own science laboratory with no interruption other than my own impulsive thoughts and the coyotes in the corn fields.”

It was the first time Baxter, already recognized as one of the finest songwriters roaming the badlands between Americana and indie rock, had gifted himself such stillness over so many weeks. It was a novel experience he says, “not having anybody in the house, not having to go somewhere, not being in the back of the van with my audio recorder. I had all the time and all the paper and pencil I ever needed.”

If this was a lab, then the experiment might be regarded as a prize-worthy breakthrough. Baxter wrote about 50 songs that were culled and refined into his third album, Wide Awake. Released in July, it’s undoubtedly one of the year’s finest front-to-back listening experiences. It obliterates some familiar trade-offs. Music that contemplates and describes the contemporary social and political landscape so often plods under a sonic shroud. Yet the opening track “Strange American Dream” pulses with empathy and paints its narrator as a reliable, relatable fellow frustrated citizen. Music that addresses issues often sacrifices lyricism for didacticism, yet “79 Shiny Revolvers” offers a beautifully puzzling image that floats in the air between singer and listener for a delicious four minutes and six seconds. Reflective of a love for The Beatles and The Shins, Wide Awake is a swelling and psychedelic listen that holds up to prolonged contemplation.

Baxter’s sojourn in Kentucky has echoes of a prolonged stay he made in Israel in the 2000s. With an introduction from his father, the admired steel guitarist and Bob Dylan sideman Bucky Baxter, Rayland lived with a family friend who gave him access to a studio. There, on more than one stay, Baxter consolidated what he knew about music, learned a lot more and discovered, he says, his life’s purpose.

 

While never being the most talked about artist on the Nashville scene, Baxter’s talent for self-editing and his deliberate pace in building a career have served him well. He started strong with 2015’s LP feathers & fishHooks (he loved stylized type early on, spelling his name rayLand baxter for a time). A follow-up EP, another LP and now Wide Awake have all earned critical acclaim. Each improved on the prior work. He earned early exposure at prestige festivals like Newport Folk and Bonnaroo, plus opening slots for a variety of influential artists. Over these years, the momentum has built, and Wide Awake appears as a harbinger of further work worth waiting for.

“It’s just the third album,” Baxter says. “There will be twenty more.”

In our conversation, which took place at the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum, Baxter describes the studio dynamics of working with guitarist Nick Bockrath (Cage the Elephant), drummer Erick Slick (Dr. Dog), keyboardist Aaron Embry (Elliot Smith) and bassist Butch Walker, who also produced the album:

"Like most of my favorite records, the musicians were the magic sauce. It was five musicians that knew how to serve the song. Four of five of them were singer songwriters themselves."

On his wide-ranging colleagues and associations across the national music environment:

“Besides my personal friendships, (they are) people drawn to a well-written song. I’m drawn to them because of their charisma and talent. You know, the whole thing where if you’re the smartest guy in the room, you’re hanging out with the wrong people. I want to be the worst musician in my band always.”

On moderating and modulating the flood of information that makes a kind of background noise on this contemplative album:

“Everybody has a voice now. It’s powerful. But it’s also a burden and a responsibility. I don’t want to be accidentally be some guy that’s singing some s**t he shouldn’t be singing about. So I touch on things lightly using poetry and a sense of humor and the groove to just remind that you can smile while you’re thinking about something that’s kind of heavy.”