ISSUE #46: Lizzie No On Fighting For a Better World, Inside and Outside of Country Music

And the glories of Keith Urban

Our conversation with singer-songwriter Lizzie No was such a treat that we couldn’t help but go a little long here. For the uninitiated, Lizzie is a genre-busting but decidedly country artist who grew up in New Jersey and now lives in Nashville — they just released their third album Halfsies, a deep, raw, conceptual journey through No’s own experiences with trauma and healing via a character named Miss Freedomland that also happens to be catchy as hell. We obviously had to chat with Lizzie about it, about her fearless political advocacy, about her relationship to genre — all the good stuff (so much good stuff that the rampant silliness is mostly confined to the full podcast version, which is available to paying subscribers).

If you’re in North Texas, Lizzie is headlining an incredible event in Fort Worth this weekend, the Fort Worth African American Roots Festival — I will be there, and heartily recommend you check it out. I can hardly think of a better rejoinder to the existence of the Stockyards (which I also enjoy quite a bit) than a festival featuring a No alongside Jerron Paxton, Corey Harris and more in the heart of Fort Worth, and I definitely can’t think of a better afternoon of music.

Support Lizzie’s work by, of course, buying Halfsies, by listening to Basic Folk, and by donating to Abortion Care Tennessee, where Lizzie is the president of the board of directors (they’ve got great merch!).

A lightly edited and condensed version of the conversation is presented below; if you’re a paying subscriber, you can listen to it in its entirety here!

NW: First and foremost — you're playing soon near me in North Texas, headlining the Fort Worth African American Roots Music Festival. What was your reaction when you first learned about the festival?

My friend and she-ro Kaia Kater has played the festival, and she was like, "You need to go there. It's the best. It's for us, by us." I really cannot wait — there are artists of so many different stripes that are going to be playing all on one stage. I feel like it's gonna be a big party, and I'm very excited.

NW: You also have plenty of experience on our side of the mic as the co-host of the excellent podcast Basic Folk. What made you want to get involved with the media side of things?

Cindy Howes and I just had like, an instant bestie vibe. I was actually a guest on Basic Folk years ago, and in 2021 Cindy was looking to bring on a guest host maybe once a month. She reached out to me, and even just being asked was like, so scary to me — like, I don't know what I'm doing, I've never done this before, there are too many podcasts out there…the why me vibes. The minute I started doing it, I realized that I loved it. I love interviewing people. I've always loved doing research. I love to be able to sit across from someone, having spent several hours like researching their life, and just pick their brain about like the most interesting things about them. I actually can't believe I get paid to do that.

It's also a different kind of autonomy. If you're an indie musician, you write your own music, you can choose your own band, you can choose if and when you go on tour —  there's a lot that's self directed. But the conversation around genre, deciding which artists are important right now, which artists are a part of a canon, if there is a canon — all of those bigger conversations are so out of our control. Especially as a woman artist, there are a lot of times where I've been frustrated with how people have talked about my music and with the hoops I've had to jump through to explain what it is that I'm doing. So being on the other side of the mic is a really empowering experience because I get to ask questions that I think are important. Like I always ask people, "What was your day job when you were getting started?" Or just real life stuff from being on the road, or what their vision is of what they're doing with their music.

MM: You moved from New York to Nashville not that long ago — how have you found the scene so far?

It's been great. People really reach out and check in. So many people have been like, "Hey, can I help you? Do you need to use my car?" I also feel like there's more of a culture of like…a low key hang than in New York, which is really fun. Nashville has this reputation as a very white music scene, and after living in Black neighborhoods for years, I did not want to suddenly move to a predominantly white neighborhood and feel like an outsider. So I moved to the Jefferson Street area, which has a ton of Black music history, and most of my neighbors are Black. And so it feels really homey to me. Good food, good vibes.

NW: How are you relating to and engaging (or not) with genre at this point in your career? A lot of different genre terms get attached to your music — which ones do you prefer?

At this point, for me genre is very similar to gender and they play similar roles in my life. Deep down I am just like — Lily Gladstone said recently, "I'm a spirit having a human experience." That's how I feel in my body, in my soul and as an artist.

With that being said, genre is a reality that has been socially and economically constructed, and there are pros and cons to being included in one or another genre. I mean, there are so many interesting things going on with genre right now. It's kind of fun to be a folk music podcaster and watch this swing back to like, the Lumineers-emo-style-country-pop-folk that's having a moment. It's fascinating to see what's going on over in mainstream country, where for the first time since Lil Nas X gatekeepers are actually having to answer for the segregation that we all have gotten used to. It's literally the '50s in country music: My friends who have normal jobs and my friends in other genres are like, "The shit that goes on in country music…" They can't believe it, because it's so far behind. These moments have to do with bigger things that are happening in our culture, conversations about who gets to decide what art means, and who gets to decide which stories are central and which are fringe. 

I've had a really frustrating journey with this, and I think it's taken me a long time to find my audience because of these very black and white ideas that the mainstream has about genre. That I'm not really a folk artist, I'm not really a country artist or not really a rock artist. I feel equally at home in all of those genres, and I love to have jazz and blues influences as well. But society has decided that I am a folk artist, because I'm not allowed in country. 

So what do you do with that? Knowing in your heart that you've studied the canon, your roots run deep, you know what you're doing… I released "The Heartbreak Store" last fall, and we even had a line dancing video. There's pedal steel, there's three-part harmony — it's a fucking country song! The number of outlets that were like, "Here's indie folk song, 'Heartbreak Store,'"...I'm like, did you even actually listen to it? I feel lucky that I don't take it personally anymore. I just work in a segregated workplace where country means blues music played by white people. Artistically, it doesn't really have any rigor. There are no standards. There's trap beats and all the pop production you could find in any other genre all over country music — but when white people do it, it can still be central. When people of color do it, it is fringe. There's value in being on the fringe, but there's also value in continuing to be like, "By the way, we're still here." Shout out to Rissi Palmer and Miko Marks, I love that song. 

MM: I think this falls in line with a lot of conversations that we've been having for a really long time, but with, for example, people joining this conversation in the past couple of weeks with the Beyonce song, we're constantly returning to the idea that genre and who we put in whatever genre box really has nothing to do with what the actual music sounds like. It was so interesting to hear you talk about people putting you in like an "indie" category and sort of unpacking the reasons why…

I don't feel that strongly about what genre my music is in, but each one has its connotations. I like being an indie artist when it means I can put together shows with people of all different genres. Folk music is great, because of its history of political agitation, which really speaks to me; country has this real storytelling quality, and it's maybe the most formal still, as far as the formats that people are writing in. I always loved writing sestinas and villanelles, because it's really fun to have those restrictions. Given the choice, I think artists would move freely between all of them. It's just such a shame that people have to narrow themselves down. I had so many well-meaning friends be like, "Figure out your elevator pitch," and that just never felt possible to me. I'm hoping that we're moving into an era where I will be able to make a living and not have to choose a box.

NW: I know you started with harp, which is amazing. When did country and songwriting and folk and all that stuff enter the picture for you?

My mom listened to Peter, Paul and Mary and James Taylor, so we had it in the house. I also think that I grew up in a really great time for country music — I mean, the Chicks, Shania, Faith Hill…they were all on mainstream radio. As far as when I realized that I personally liked country, it was such a specific switch: I had a friend who went to a school in another state, and she was like, "I'm coming home for the weekend. Are you busy tomorrow night?" Once I committed, she told me she had Keith Urban tickets. I was like, "I don't know about all this, but I've already said I'll go…" And then I saw Keith and I was like, "Something's happening in my heart. I need the merch. I need to know the lyrics to every song." And then I was kind of off to the races. My friends in high school were really into like Nickel Creek and the Avett Brothers and Brandi Carlile and Bob Dylan and Old Crow Medicine Show… there was a singer-songwriter vibe, so it was fun to harmonize with friends. That was my first taste of participating in it.

Keith is just such a star — I was amazed that I could be in an arena and feel like he was singing to me. That's so tender and cliché, but it's true! He has songs on songs: "Days Go By," "Stupid Boy" — to be a teenage girl and hear "Stupid Boy" — "You'll Think Of Me." I have written more than one song with Keith in mind. If he ever runs out of material and needs a full album written by me, I am…pretty much ready to do that.

NW: In the interests of talking about your own great music: Halfsies is out now, it's a concept album centering the story of a character named Miss Freedomland. Would you tell us a little bit about the inspiration and conceit behind the project?

I don't know if I'll ever be able to convey what it took from me to create this album, and what it has given me. When I wrote the songs on Halfsies, I was not aware that I had PTSD. But I knew that there were weird gaps in my memory, moments where my brain would just sort of freeze and I didn't have language for it. But at the same time, I was trying so hard to get better. A lot of times, you think the journey from deciding to love yourself to feeling better, is [short]. It's not. All of these songs occupied a similar geography in my brain. I call it the velvet world, it's like the place where your brain goes — I don't know if the neurodivergent girlies can relate — like, there's a place that your brain goes when you're trying to heal yourself, and it's very soft and tender and kind of velvety, kind of cave like. 

That velvet world became the first theme of the album, where the soft songs like "Sleeping In The Next Room" are. The title track starts in the velvet world, and then goes up to the outer space level — and then there's like a street level as well where the everyday work of life is happening. The space world is like the imagination place, but it's also scary — like, there's fire out there, and meteors. That all started to click after the songs were recorded. I was having conversations with my management and my producer, and a couple of times people were like, "Oh, I don't know if this song fits on this album." And I was like, "No, they do, and I can't explain why they are all about the same thing." They were all about these places that I would go in my mind when I was trying to fight for my life, and fight for myself. There were so many battles I was fighting, whether in a relationship, in a work setting, or experiencing suicidal ideation. I wanted to be able to tell the story of a person who made it. That's why "Babylon" is the last song, because it's about choosing your freedom above everything else. 

"Halfsies" and "Lagunita" start very much in the thick of battle — everything's very close to your face, and you don't know why. But as you start to get political consciousness, and go to therapy, and gather friends around you — who are represented on the album are through vocal harmony — to gather your allies and figure out like, "What are my strengths? What do I have to offer?", you start to become more and more confident and more and more dissatisfied with the way you're treated. So the album is kind of about how, by investigating these halfsies memories where I knew trauma had taken place — by investigating those and demanding freedom and healing for myself… 

There's a lyric on "Lagunita" about "withholding of the blessing," which is from Genesis — I think it was Jacob who slept out in the desert, and he wrestled with an angel all night and in the morning, he was like, "No, you can't go until you bless me." That song is all about how getting better is about demanding and insisting, and it's kind of brutal. So you go from that to a little bit more confidence, to being big enough to say you're sorry, being big enough to walk away from bad situations. And then walking off into the sunset, hopefully of freedom and community and a better world.

I'm really glad I didn't plan to do that, because I would have been like, "That's too much to take on." I just looked back at what I had in the songs, and I was like, "Oh, this is the story I'm trying to tell."

NW: As an artist who is vocal about political issues, someone who takes stances that might be deemed radical depending on which of the many genres and spaces you work within we're talking about — how has your experience as an activist been within those spaces?

It's an interesting little struggle, and it's so tiny compared to what a lot of people are going through in other workplaces where you can literally be fired for saying, for example, that we shouldn't be funding and arming a genocide. As an indie artist, I don't have it so bad — I'm okay. I'm really grateful, actually, to be in this moment in history and in the music industry because I feel like we have great opportunities right now. Social media has made it possible for artists to say things, unfiltered. If you're someone that you think people might listen to, you have a responsibility to be talking about what matters. 

I have a hard time taking artists seriously who could have just been dropped into any decade, and their whole vibe would be fine. Like, what are we doing if we're not trying to advance the cause of species survival? Which is what I feel like I'm up to. I'm not going to be the one person that changes the world, my opinions aren't the most important. But if I have a few thousand followers on Instagram, and I'm not letting them know how to get reproductive health care, or make environmentally friendly political decisions — if I'm not doing something, it's very useless. Because I don't make a lot of money. Like, there's not enough like glory and reward in entertainment anymore to be doing it just for fun and ego. You have to have a reason.

It's exciting to be in this moment where Beyoncé has stepped into country, because she's one of the greatest artists to ever do it. She has the money and the power and the almost-universal approval to break down some of the walls in country. Unfortunately, she will never take a stand on anything that will lose her money, including the genocides going on in Palestine and the Congo right now. Like, why have millions of people listen to you, if you're not going to at least say the one thing that could save a life? But she's making room for those of us who are about that life. Like thank you, Beyonce for opening the door. Now let Sunny War run through it, and see what she has to say about war. 

There are so many of us who really fucking care, and it's not just about getting a seat at the table and getting included in country. I don't care about that. I care about getting a little bit of a bigger audience, so I can try to get people abortions. Sorry, I get really emotional about this. I feel like I am trying to grab power for myself, so that I can do something useful. And it's dark times right now. We can't just be singing about like, what's fun, even though that's also really important.

NW: I think that's so admirable and important to try to make that at the core of your work and like you're saying, many people even in the supposedly liberal and/or progressive Americana space don't do that.

And I get it, people are intimidated. I get emails. When I talk about Palestine, people get mad. But what else are we doing? I don't know if someone else has like, cracked the code and they're able to make a comfortable living in music that would be threatened by their speaking out. But I'm like, what do we have to lose? We can't make money on recorded music anymore. We're on tour all the goddamn time. We're exhausted. We'll never retire. Few of us have health care. What are you afraid of losing? I think it's only worth it to keep putting yourself out there if you have people that you're arm in arm with. I went on this great tour with Patrick Haggerty of Lavender Country two years ago, and he was really real with all of us. He said, "I always put my politics before my career, and it meant I didn't get to have a career. But that's okay, because I was doing what I actually really cared about." And then a generation later, when people were ready to embrace his music, he had a whole lifetime of experience being a community organizer, taking care of a family and speaking truth to power. He was ready to step into his moment, and foment the revolution. That's what an artist should be, to me.