Issue #80: The Waxahatchee x DRTI Interview!

A chat with Katie Crutchfield about Tigers Blood, country music and that Miranda Lambert song with her name on it

All photos by Molly Matalon

By Marissa

Hello DRTI readers - I know last week we told you that this playlist was our last post of 2024, but that wasn’t entirely true (sorry! Hope you will forgive this accidental lie). Today we have an early holiday present in the form of an interview with the architect of the album I have probably lived with most with this year, the now Grammy-nominated Tigers Blood: Katie Crutchfield aka Waxahatchee. I’ve long wanted the chance to chat with Katie about the country sounds that inform her music - from the sly twang backbone of her 2020 breakthrough Saint Cloud, to her more directly country project with Jess Williamson, Plains, that I was quite obsessed with and told you about often, to Tigers Blood, which is so strongly rooted in country and Americana instrumentation and warmth but lives such a distinct lane it feels signature at this point. Katie is an exquisite lyricist, a master of the idiosyncratic vocal and also a keen melody-maker - the tracks on Tigers Blood tend to imprint in both the heart, the gut and the intellect all at once.

When I love a record, I actually don’t spend much time worrying about where it exists category-wise (what a boring exercise, no, when you could just be listening to the music?), but it makes sense for Tigers Blood to live in Americana, and Katie (mostly) agrees. “If we’re talking about categories, I think I feel more at home in Americana than I do in alternative,” Katie told me, Zooming from home in Kansas City. “But I feel like I actually exist somewhere in between.”

That between, though, is actually a sweet spot - even though Tigers Blood feels more rootsy than 2/3 of the stuff on country radio, which I suppose is beside the point. It’s a record that unites folks who don’t generally think they gravitate towards country sounds (spoiler alert: that was probably just your unchallenged stereotypes!) as much as it does those who are tied to the traditionalism of the genre. Part of that is how fluidly and freely the songs are composed, using the building blocks of what we’d call Americana music alongside some hit-me-in-my-90s-sweet-spot guitar courtesy of MJ Lenderman, and part of that is the subject matter: singing about navigating a long-term partnership, or the draw and dangers of nostalgia, or even the act of being a traveling artist itself all feels pretty country to me. I never came to country for the party, I came to it to think about happens when the party stops, and Tigers Blood meets me right there. “It plays on my mind, how the time passing covers you like a friend.”

Katie grew up in Alabama and drifted away from country music in her teenage years, while I grew up in a city and drifted towards it - I think so many of us don’t have a straightforward relationship to the records that raised us, and most of what sounds best ends up being more dynamic than easily categorizable. We want music that feels at once revolutionary and nostalgic, a red stain of tigers blood on the teeth of a modern mouth.

We hope you enjoy this chat with Katie about all things Tigers Blood, the craft of music making and, naturally, The Chicks. While this post is free, our holiday sale is still running if you’d like to become a paying subscriber and support our work while we build a new place for music writing while world burns, etc. Happy holidays!

---

First off, congrats on the Grammy nom for Tigers Blood! No artist wants to pigeonhole their work, but I think there is a significance to this record being in that particular category, in terms how we think about the actual sounds that make up a record, not context or proximity or anything like that. We all know that what gets called “country” often doesn’t sound much at all. How do you feel about being a part of that category?

I think Tigers Blood feels more at home in Americana. I know Saint Cloud wasn't submitted in Americana when it was submitted for the Grammys, and I didn't know that at the time, and it's a big regret of mine. I really thought that's where it belonged. But it's funny, I feel like such an outsider in the Americana world, not in a bad way. I came up, as far as my music career goes, in this indie world, and as long as I've been making music up until maybe five or six years ago, the things that I would have counted as my big inspirations stemmed from underground indie punk rock, that type of world. But when I really dig deep into it, the foundation of my love of music and my understanding of music all comes from country. Obviously I grew up in the South, so it's really felt like this beautiful return to form. And I kind of feel like I've gotten closer to my soul, as corny as it sounds, by embracing that.

It’s so interesting to hear you say that you feel like an outsider in Americana, because in a lot of ways, Americana exists for people that feel like an outsider in country. Brandi Carlile refers to Americana as “the island of misfit toys.” Does that resonate?

I think a prerequisite for even being a part of Americana is that you sort of feel like an outsider.

Musically, you’ve never been afraid to integrate country sounds into a project, even before it became the trendy thing to do. But there are still some people in the rock and indie worlds who are afraid of the (false) connotations that a banjo or steel brings. How do you keep free of that mindset? And how has it changed over time, leading into this record?

All those sounds and and ideas for me, when I'm in a studio, it’s a bit like like trial and error. I think that if we're going to trace when I started integrating that stuff into my own music, I would kind of have to say it starts with my first collaboration ever with (producer) Brad Cook, who is very often inclined to integrate those types of instruments into his recordings. Brad heard my songs and heard my voice, and was just like, '“texturally, this is what fits here.” And he was right. I had barely recorded in a studio properly before I worked with Brad, everything was so DIY and kind of just duct taped together and that aesthetic was exciting to me. So with Brad I was like, I'm gonna really do this properly, and trust this person who makes these recordings that I think are amazing. So I do have to credit him a good bit. But I feel like it was an experiment from the first time we tried it, and it just worked. And we haven't really looked back. We’ve just leaned all the way into it. And when I decided to lean more into country music, I really just wanted to focus on the music. I felt like, I don't want this to affect the types of songs, I don’t want this to affect my songwriting. I think that has helped the whole thing feel a little more natural.

When I think of you I always think about something being country vs. feeling country, and one of my favorite uses of the steel guitar – Mazzy Star and “Fade into You.” Which isn’t country, but feels country?

The first time I ever heard Mazzy I was young, like a teenager, and I was really into indie rock and stuff like that. And when I heard it I was like, “this is country music,” because some of the textures and stuff. So that's a really good categorization of, what even is it? It's not country. But it’s not not.

I was just watching your NPR Tiny Desk, and your band definitely leans into rootsiness, so it’s interesting to see how you perform songs like “Fire” now. How has the way you and the band have been playing changed how you approach older songs? And maybe even songs you decide to skip this go around? I was lucky enough to see you at Cains Ballroom in Tulsa, and that was incredibly dynamic and also a perfect setting to both toy with and buck tradition.

When I think about what's different about Tigers Blood, just even just in the context of the last couple records I've done, I think of it as a little rougher around the edges. It's got - and I think all that is mostly [MJ] Lenderman’s influence because of his guitar playing - but from moment one, I was like, this is going to be a little more guitar heavy, or the guitar tones are going to be a little dirtier, and it’s just gonna lean a little Southern alternative rock from the 80s, 90s, early aughts than classic country, which is sort of where we were leaning for Saint Cloud. So for all those reasons, when I thought about the live show, I knew I really wanted everything to just feel a little bit more energetic.

It’s been a much different tour and process than the one behind Saint Cloud, which came out right at the start of the pandemic, though.

By the time we finally toured years had passed, and I don't know if these numbers are exactly correct, but it felt like my audience had doubled since the last time I toured, which was amazing, and such a blessing, but also totally overwhelming, getting out of the pandemic and having lived in my sweatpants for 18 months. So I had some growing pains. It was a little sloppy for me at first, mostly dealing with some new feelings of stage fright and anxiety on stage. By the time I got to Tigers Blood, I knew that the audience was gonna be even bigger and the rooms were gonna be even bigger, and I felt a little bit more prepared. So I was really thinking, all right, I'm gonna be the focal point of this big performance, in this big room, in front of this big audience, so how do I do that? How do I embody that? And I really was getting into watching Michael Stipe in the late 90s, early 2000s, watching REM performances. I grew up a dancer, so I was just trying to feel really comfortable my body. I don't need to be doing choreo or something like that, that’s not me at all. But I feel like trying to make the performance feel a little bit more embodied and bigger and more powerful was kind of a fun journey for me. And now I love performing so much, and I feel like I like get a workout and work up a sweat when I'm on stage in a way that I never have before, which is fun.

You never know when it comes to choreo, though. Stranger things have happened.

Like I said, I grew up a dancer. I could do it if I really wanted to, but I don't know that it suits my whole thing. But you never know.

A lot of this record had me doing a very country kind of thing: reflecting on what it means to grow up, on the nuances of settling into ourselves and finding contentment, or learning to live with disappointment or boredom or mistakes. “Right Back to It” in particular is such a rarity in a world of either love songs or heartbreak songs. This is one about figuring out how to just be still and content with long-term partnership. How did it come about? Was there a hole you wanted to fill?

I feel like it's just never gonna feel correct or authentic for me to write a mushy love song - that's no shade to people who do that, but it's just not who I am. So I think it was a little bit of me trying to challenge myself. I knew that a lot of the songs on this record were going to be about other stuff, they weren't going to be about [partner] Kevin [Morby], they weren't going to be about my relationship. They weren't going to be about romance, but I think that it all comes back to the melody. I remember exactly where I was when I wrote it, in our little back house studio. And I was just kind of like, this melody is not going to be for me, this doesn't feel like a song I would sing. I just was really sure that it wasn't going to be something I did. And then I was kind of toying with maybe me and Kevin, since we've talked about making a record together, maybe this could be for that. I could hear him singing it, you know? Then I tucked that melody away in my back pocket. But then I was on tour with Jason Isbell and Sheryl Crow, and I had a hot hand. I was writing a bunch of songs, and I wrote a bunch of songs for Tigers Blood on that tour. One day at Wolf Trap in Virginia, I was like, “I'm just gonna dust off this melody and see.” And I really think, in hindsight, the melody feels kind of romantic. It feels sweet but not overly saccharin or anything.

It’s really a refreshing, relatable theme, especially for long partnered folks like myself. Where there isn’t hot drama on all sides, just steady, sometimes rocky but never breaking, contentment.

I really do love to hear that people who are long married or whatever, or feel underrepresented in love songs, feel seen. Because that was kind of my intention. This actually to me describes what it’s like to be with someone for a long time.

If we’re talking about what makes something American or country, a love song that’s actually about everyday domesticity is a very country feeling thing.

Yeah, I think so too. When I think about classic country, especially women of classic country, sometimes I think about the drama of it all. But there are so many examples of songs about stable, sweet, domestic love as well. So that’s really true.

And not to shit on Tammy Wynette, but without the sort of, like, blind allegiance to a husband kind of thing.

This isn’t a stand by your man situation.

I could list off countless favorite lyrics on this record (“I’m defenseless against the sales pitch, am I your moat or your drawbridge,” for one) and was intrigued by reading about you keeping “bankers hours” when it comes to songwriting. How has your discipline and structure changed over time?

I find that when I'm really in the groove of a record, I'm doing all this creative nesting. That's kind of what I call it. When I'm having certain conversations and I'm reading certain books and I'm doing certain things to plant little tiny seeds so that eventually an album will grow. And that's all the stuff I do, before I sit down to make the record. Once I'm done doing all that, it's good for me to be structured, and part of that is because I'm such a morning person. I'm really useless after the sun goes down.

That seems tough for someone who plays live at night!

Yeah, exactly. I really have to train myself to stay awake. I have to start staying up late when I'm gonna go on tour, because otherwise I'll just be so tired.

Are you “creative nesting” right now?

Brad keeps telling me to stop saying this, but I keep saying that I'm not gonna make a record till I'm 40. I turn 36 in a few weeks. And he's like, please don't say that! Though I say stuff like that and then I'll probably be in the studio next year.

I love that you started to write “365” with Wynonna in mind, and have such a great creative relationship with her. Do you hope she will sing it eventually?

With “365” I really sat down to work on a song for Wy, because we had so much fun making the one song we did together and we had been talking about trying to do something else. So the melody was for her but then very quickly, in the same sitting, had to be for me. Because it’s this super personal song. But I would love to hear her cover it.

Is that something you are interested in, writing songs for other artists?

I think so. I think if the right thing came along I would love to. And I would love to write with, like, one one other person. I kind of feel terrified by, and don't think it would suit me, to be in a room with like, six other songwriters all trying to chip away at something. I just don't think my specific skill set would be very helpful in that scenario, and I don't think I would thrive in that way. But I do think that if the right artist came along that wanted to write together, I'm totally interested in that. Honestly, I've been really interested in producing for other people, and I love just doing behind the scenes stuff.

Growing up, I know you were a Chicks and Shania Twain fan – and I wonder if you internalized what happened to their careers, when they started having public opinions about things. I always feel like that must have pushed artists away from the genre in the way it pushed me away from listening at first, seeing the way country music treated them.

I was a kid when everything went down with The Chicks. And even then, I remember being like, “I think George Bush sucks, too.” I remember feeling very defensive of them, and being like, I don't understand why anyone cares this much about this. Honestly, The Chicks music means so much to me, and Natalie Maines and Michael Stipe are my two vocal heroes. I feel like the way that she sings, I've modeled that a little bit subconsciously and consciously. But it didn’t push me away.

I know you covered “Goodbye Earl” on tour with Plains, but do you have a favorite Chicks song? Actually, that’s an unfair question. Too hard to choose.

It is! I did see them on the Gaslighter tour, and I thought it was amazing. And I love the production. It’s so hard with a show like that, though, because I'm like, “you played so much I wanted to hear, but also didn’t play so much that I wanted to hear.” So that's a situation where you're just like, if only I could just make the set list!

The Plains album is an absolute favorite of mine. What did you learn from that project, and did it inform the transition through to Tigers Blood? Did it feel like an important step in your trajectory?

I think it did. I think that for me personally, Saint Cloud was such an important record. I really think when I look back at my catalog and everything when I'm older, I'll really be able to trace this giant fork in the road with Saint Cloud and how it really led me in a direction. It's brought me so many good things, and so much creative clarity to have chosen that path. And I think that because it came out right as the pandemic hit, it messed with my schedule, my spiritual, creative schedule, so much. Because typically I would have put that record out and then gone on tour for a year or two, and then made another record. But because I had so much time off and couldn't tour that record, I was just sort of ready to start writing again. And I think Plains felt a little safer. I just didn't feel ready to follow up Saint Cloud. I was scared. I had more eyes on my music than ever before. So I felt like Plains was a good, safe, soft landing, because I was writing some fun songs. It was fun to bounce those ideas back and forth and write songs that weren't necessarily fully autobiographical. I think it was just a really good little placeholder for me to not put that pressure on myself to make another record before I was ready.

It’s fun for the fans, too, those little diversions and special projects.

I think about doing that now. Will I make another Waxahatchee record right away or think about another similar project? What would be fun to kind of keep working out my songwriter muscles without totally jumping into another record? And Plains was a way to play with genre, to really lean all the way into country in a way that maybe I didn't totally want to do with my regular music, so maybe I'll do that again with something else, I don't know.

I know nothing is set in stone, but do you have a lane you’re thinking about heading down?

I have said this a lot, and I think we will do it: I really want to re-record like 10 or so of my old songs with Brad, with [MJ Lenderman], with my crew that I've been making music with, and just kind of reimagine a bunch of those songs how I would play them now. I think that would both be fun creatively, but it also will be fun for our set list live, to be able to kind of interpret those old songs.

Country music has been very flexible this year, not to mention popular – Cowboy Carter come out, and I loved reading about how you heard it everywhere on a visit to Nashville on your Substack. Chappell Roan has a country song, which I am obsessed with already. And, of course, a certain kind of white dude is having a lot of success right now. A lot of critics have spent time trying to figure out why this sudden popularity explosion. As someone who has been comfortable with those sounds for a while now, what’s your view on why?

I think the writing's kind of on the wall, you know? I think people have been ramping up to this. And I think there's a snarky take but I honestly think it's just such a net positive for guitar, banjo and pedal steel based music for people like Beyoncé and Post Malone to travel around and be making country music. I think that it's good for everyone who makes that type of music. I think there was such a long time in the indie space, when I was sort of more in that world, that the conversation was always a culture of fear around guitar music: like people don't like it anymore, and it's gonna go away and it's gonna become obsolete. So it's beautiful to be in this time. People are actually way into the guitar, and that's great! I think that's my take on it. I think the Post Malone record is very good, and I think the Beyoncé record is so good. And Chappell’s, I heard her on SNL, and I thought it was amazing. I loved it. She can do no wrong, in my opinion. But yes, I'm into it. I think that that's my official take.

What are your favorite records when comes to country and Americana this year?

If I’m looking at country and Americana I really like Merce Lemon, I think she put out some really good songs this year. I obviously am biased, but I love the MJ Lenderman album. I listened to it a lot last year because he's been working on it for a while, and it was cool to get to experience everyone else hearing it for the first time. I am obviously so proud of him, and I love, love the record so much. I love Cowboy Carter. I listen to Cowboy Carter a lot. This record is more indie leaning, but it has a lot of really good, sort Americana moments, which is This is Lorelei. Oh, Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings! That album is amazing.

Last, weird question – have you heard Miranda Lambert’s “Waxahachie”? I realize that her Waxahatchee is Texas and yours Alabama but, still. I had to ask.

That's so funny, I have not heard it. But I remember when she announced that record, and seeing the song title, and being like, Okay! I know she's from Texas, right? I remember I was in Texas at the time, in Marfa, and the aesthetic of the record was very Marfa, so it was just so many intertwined things. But yeah, I would cover it, absolutely. Why not?

Tigers Blood is out now on ANTI-. This interview has been edited and condensed.