Ted Russell Kamp, a Los Angeles-based musician, songwriter, producer and country music dad, joins Dave and Donnie to talk about the evolution of modern country music from his perspective as one of the forefathers of the modern alt-country movement. Ted’s balance between touring, producing, songwriting, and building a family is unique and inspiring.

We also explore his time with Shooter Jennings, his recent solo work and drop a boatload of stories from his time on the road and in the studio.

Show Notes

2:23: Ted tells us a bit about his background and entry into the country music space and how he grew up not liking pedal steel. But once discovering The Band and Whiskeytown, things really changed.

5:27: Ted’s move to LA introduced him to many of the great California country legends, like Merle, Buck and Dwight — and having the opportunity to play with those who played with them — pushed him further into this space. 

6:01: The Shooter Jennings Relationship starts like most great music relationships — a Hollywood jam session in a dingy practice space.

10:28: Slappin’ the Bass — Ted has always loved the bass and that is how he can build trust with bands, musicians and production partners. 

11:32: Six Degrees of Ted Russell Kamp gets us to Diplo and how his bass line got onto “Use Me (Brutal Hearts).” To quote Ted, this is a totally weird and wonderful LA rock star story. 

18:09: The guys talk about Ted’s semi-autobiographical album and the push and pull of the road and family life. Luckily, Ted and his wife worked together to create a balance that worked for them, but it wasn’t easy and it took work to figure it out.

27:20: The Dads talk about the resurgence of roots music and freedom the LA Music Scene allows for exploration and creativity in this space. Ted finds the genre orthodoxy from some in the scene to be an interesting aspect of this renaissance and provides a few examples for those looking to dip their toe in the alt-country Americana space. 

31:30: A quick discussion of the nostalgia loop and how what was on the radio when your parents were driving you around as a kid influences you as an adult. But as the world gets more complex, people long for things like music that they can understand, Ted explains. 

36:12: The Dad Life Sound Check provides a chance for Ted to tell stories about Waylon Jennings being a mensch, Dave shares some great news and Donnie talks about the passage of time while using the word “vibe” too many times. Ted also provides more insight into  his song writing process.

Thank you for listening. The best way to support us is to subscribe to the show on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or whatever podcast platform you use. If you want to see new episodes and more content delivered straight to your email inbox, please subscribe to our newsletter: countrymusicdads.substack.com. You can find everything we do on our website: countrymusicdads.com. And we’d love to hear what you think, so send us comments, suggestions, friendly banter on Instagram @countrymusicdads, or via email countrymusicdads@gmail.com.

Mentioned in this Episode:

• Shooter Jennings  
• James Taylor 
• Ted touches on how discovering The Band, Old 97s, Whiskeytown, Sun Volt, Uncle Tupelo and several others, paved the path to his chosen career in the alt-country and Americana space. 
• Diplo and Sturgill Simpson partnership
• The Godfather’s final scene’s explanation of a man’s job
• Alan Jackson 
• Tyler Childers 
• Chris Stapleton 
• West of Texas 
• That 70s Show, The Flying Burrito Brothers and Emmylou Harris 
• Waylon Jennings stories from the road

References:

• Theme Music: “Dark Country Rock” by Moodmode
• “Put the O Back in Country” – Shooter Jennings  
• “16 Days” – Whiskeytown 
• “The Weight” – The Band 
• “Use Me (Brutal Hearts)” –  Diplo, Dove Cameron, and Sturgill Simpson
• “The Ballad of the Troubadour” – Ted Russell Kamp 
• “July 4th/He Stopped Loving Her Today” – Shooter Jennings/George Jones
• “Lonesome, On’ry and Mean” – Waylon Jennings 
• “Another Leaf” – Charles Wesley Godwin 
• “Daddy’s Mugshot” – Laci Kaye Booth

Transcript

This is Country Music Dads, the parenting podcast with a twang.

We’re driving a highly subjective, comically contrarian, often irreverent conversation about fatherhood and country music for people who have a passion for both.

My name’s Dave, and I’m a country music dad.

My name’s Donnie, and I’m also a country music dad.

This episode, we will welcome Ted Russell Kamp, a Los Angeles-based musician, songwriter, producer, and country music dad, to talk about the evolution of modern country music from his perspective as one of the forefathers of modern alt-country and Americana.

Ted Russell Kamp has always been a musician.

However, after college, while working and making music in Seattle, something didn’t feel right for him artistically.

While unwinding after another show in another city, he was in his motel room.

As most great stories about rock stars and country music legends start, he was watching PBS in the background.

Whiskeytown and the old 97s were the guests on the long running Austin City Limits music special, and a light bulb went off.

He packed his bags and headed to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the emerging Americana and alt-country space.

After a few months of working in clubs and dive bars and taking any cool gig that came his way, he learned that two of his friends had passed his name and number along to someone looking to put together a killer country album, one rooted in history while also looking forward.

Since that time, he has been at the center of many of the greatest albums in this space, one earning him a Grammy, as he’s helped dozens of independent artists develop their sound and be part of a loving family as well.

This is likely the right place to welcome Ted into this conversation so we’re not talking about him anymore, but we can talk with him as we get into this incredible story and his history.

Ted, we’re very happy to welcome you to the Country Music Dads podcast.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you for that great introduction and thanks for having me as a guest tonight.

So I hope I got most of that right, but could you tell me a little bit more about how you found your path into the alt country and Americana music space?

Sure.

I grew up in New York where we did not have access to a lot of country music.

I was in the suburbs of New York City in Westchester County.

And so there was almost no country music around.

I remember listening to James Taylor and thinking, wow, I really like him until the pedal steel comes in.

Why is he doing this and ruining his music?

So I had those thoughts.

Then I went to college in upstate New York and then moved to Seattle.

And when I was in Seattle, I was playing a lot of different kinds of gigs, blues and pop and rock and anyone who would call.

And I ended up playing with a couple of great guys who loved what is called dog music.

So we had a killer mandolinist in the band, a killer violinist in the band, and they loved David Grisman, whose nickname is the Dog.

This music was kind of gypsy jazz, kind of bluegrass, kind of folk, some kind of Allman Brothers jams.

And playing with these guys became my favorite gig that I was doing.

And then the pivotal night at the motel in Salt Lake City that you’re talking about.

I saw the Austin City limits of Whiskeytown and the old 97s, and I just said, wow, this is like the singer-songwriter music I’ve loved, but the country side to it.

And also they both had kind of a punky, youthful energy.

All that appealed to me in all these different ways.

And it was also right around that time that I discovered the band, and I saw The Last Waltz for the first time, and that really changed my life also.

And it was kind of really a combination of that, really a combination of Whiskeytown and the band.

And the band was fascinating.

I didn’t really know it at the time, but they had such a deep history with Bob Dylan and being influenced by his songwriting.

So it’s this singer-songwriter songwriting with blues and gospel country and soul.

It was like, before Americana was really called Americana as a musical genre, band was doing it.

And they helped really, in my opinion, they helped pioneer it.

I will say that most of the people I like playing music with know the band and their music deeply and how influential they have been.

As a fan, it was those few groups.

And then of course, it branches out.

And then when I moved to LA, there was a huge love of the Bakersfield sound.

And so, Merle Haggard and Buck Owens.

And then Dwight Yoakam and Gary Allen, who is from here.

And then starting to play with the people who played with all of those artists.

You know, the Byrdes and the Burrito Brothers, Flying Breeder.

You know, it’s like, it’s pretty awesome to be part of this very specific part of not just the world, but America that had this wonderfully deep musical community.

And now to be a part of it is a joy.

So, when you came down here, you were working and playing, and the person that your number was passed along to was Shooter Jennings.

So, how did that relationship start off?

Let’s see, for my first two or three years here, I was just playing bass with lots of different people.

Some was country rock, which I love, and some was just rock and pop or singer-songwriter music.

This was the mid-2000s.

Big record labels still had money, and were still selling actual albums and CDs, and were still sending A&R people to clubs to see new acts.

One of the ways I made a living, someone would meet up with me or get my number from someone, and then they’d get me their CD, or I would go to the Roxy and pick up their CD.

Like, meet, you know, the door guy who had the CD waiting for me in a brown paper bag.

And then I would get the CD and I would learn it, and then we would do one rehearsal, and then we would play a gig somewhere in Hollywood.

Genghis Cohen was one, the Whiskey, the Roxy, Molly Malone’s, The Joint.

There were a ton of these great gigs.

And so I started playing three or four or five or six different gigs with different artists every week.

Almost every night of the week, I’m learning someone’s music and going to play with them in the hopes that they’ll get signed.

And you will too.

Well, yeah, as their bass player, and I was doing my own gigs at the time as well, I was doing all these eclectic gigs and realizing that I like the roots side of it more.

And so I made a decision to do this rootsier stuff that I felt was more real and more mean or honest.

Yeah, maybe less current or less cliche, but more timeless is what I started going for.

I started playing with a lot of the roots rock and country rock bands and artists.

And so when Shooter decided to put together the band, he had a great drummer, he had a great guitarist and was looking for a bass player.

His previous bass player, she was very talented, but she was much more hard rock.

She did the rock side but didn’t understand the country side.

So he asked our guitarist, a guy named Leroy Powell, who I had played with a bunch, and he asked another old friend of his named Matt Reeser, who was a buddy of Shooter’s from Nashville.

And I played with both of these guys, and they both said, you gotta call Ted.

He gets the outlaw, he loves outlaw country, he loves the 70s aesthetic, he loves the singer-songwriter thing, he’s totally gonna understand music.

And then Shooter called, he had a great in terms of classic, but a funky band rehearsal studio in the middle of Hollywood, which smelled and had way too many beer cans and pizza boxes and all that, and broken old guitar chords that have been sitting there and guitar strings lying around everywhere.

But I went and immediately it sounded great.

About half the songs we did that night ended up on the first Shooter Jennings record.

And I just instinctively knew where they would go.

And it was very natural and cool.

He also did, there’s a great Willis Allen Ramsey song called Staten Sheets.

And Shooter had did a very cool hard rock kind of version of it.

It didn’t make the first record.

We never recorded it.

But I was like, Oh my God, I love Willis Allen Ramsey.

The fact that you’re doing a song by him is just awesome.

Giving it this kind of Leon Russell swagger.

I was like, I immediately like and respect where you’re coming from.

If you’re going to choose this wonderful and somewhat random cover and then do this super cool version that I immediately understand.

We did that first kind of jam slash rehearsal and it went great.

And within a week, I was considered to be in the band.

It was very natural and very organic.

You know, it was not like a big Hollywood audition thing.

It came through friends of friends and a recommendation, which is also kind of a testament to Shooter.

Now that I’ve known him for 20 years, he’s a very loyal and deep and sweet human being.

It’s been a friendship that’s just been growing and getting heavier and more wonderful every year.

Did you always think that bass would be your way into the industry?

Was that your specialty early on?

I discovered and got a bass guitar when I was 13.

I love doing the singer-songwriter thing.

I love producing records.

I do that a lot, but being a bass player is the deepest and most effortless thing that I do in terms of music.

So playing bass with Shooter and playing bass with lots of other people.

And many of my gigs as a producer evolved from me being someone’s bass player.

And then they trust me and my musical instincts and my ideas of, oh, maybe we wait a little longer before we go to the bridge.

Or maybe, hey, why don’t I groove like this for a second and set the mood more, and then we’ll go to that final chorus.

I make enough little comments like that, that people go, wow, that’s a great idea, that feels better.

A lot of my production gigs evolved from that.

When I play with my band, I sing and play bass.

I’ve developed a personality as a bass player that I’m very proud of, and it’s very kind of uniquely me, somewhere in between all of the greats that we all love and respect.

I thought it was really fascinating to see that you played on a couple tracks with Diplo, so how did that come about?

Diplo happened because of Sturgill Simpson.

So Sturgill was from Kentucky and actually was the first show that Shooter and I played in, I think it was Lexington, Kentucky, which is where he’s from.

He was in a band that I had never heard of, and then he was on our second show with Shooter, and he eventually got on the tour bus and hung with Shooter, and they became friends, and I got to meet Sturgill a bunch of times without really becoming friends, but he loved our music.

If you listen to a lot of the Sturgill Simpson records, he’s a great artist and he’s wonderful, but you will definitely hear the Shooter Jennings influence that he was inspired by.

He definitely has moments and songs where it’s, okay, that’s a Shooter-ish arrangement or song while he’s figuring himself out as an artist and being himself and growing.

You know what I mean?

I did a few sessions with Sturgill over the years with Shooter.

Sturgill and Diplo have the same manager and they had the idea to do a collaboration, which would potentially be for a movie soundtrack.

So they got together and it was Diplo, Sturgill, and Diplo’s main engineer.

And so they recorded the whole song and the engineer was a good bass player.

So he was playing bass on the track.

It was one of the classic LA things where it’s like, let’s go to Diplo’s house and stay over for two and a half days and do this track and just live together and make it happen.

Anyway, so they did it for about a day and a half and they realized the bass is just not as good as it could be.

And so Sturgill called Shooter and said, hey, can I get Ted’s number?

And the funny thing is he got my name wrong.

He asked for Jamie’s number, who is the drummer.

So Shooter gave him Jamie’s number.

And then Sturgill’s like, hey, Jamie, yeah, are you free tomorrow night?

Great.

Come by at eight.

Here’s the address.

It’s this great home studio in Malibu.

And Jamie’s like, great.

I’ll be there.

No problem.

He’s like, so just bring your bass and we’ll see you.

And then Jamie’s like, I’m the drummer.

He’s like, oh, Dave, who’s the bass player?

He’s like, Ted, that’s right.

I remembered.

So then Sturgill has to call Shooter back again and said, can I get Ted’s number?

I actually want to tend to.

Yeah.

Sorry, Jamie.

So he calls me up and go by.

Have you heard the track?

Yeah.

This is Use Me, right?

Yeah, it’s really good, it’s really good.

The bass line is very central.

Thank you, yeah, yeah.

It kicks off the song.

Really proud of it.

So the engineer, and I’m embarrassed, I don’t remember his name, I only met him that one night.

He played very well.

So about half of what I did, I was just copying his parts and his melodies.

But I felt like it could be hookier, felt like it could segue from one section to the next.

There’s a thing that happens when you do loops, like making music in GarageBand.

It’s the same bass part every time you have a verse, and the same other bass part every time you have a chorus.

And there’s a magic and there can be a simplicity to that, right?

That can be very powerful and very zen.

But if you have one performance that goes all the way through the whole song, and I can change ever so subtly what I do on the second verse from the first verse to make it a little more intense and a little more melodically interesting or rhythmically interesting.

And then when we get to the third verse, do even a little more or even break it down and get even simpler than the first verse.

There’s a way to through compose music to help keep it building.

And that’s ultimately what I did with that track, because the bass player who was the engineer for Duplo was very good.

I’m thankful that they had the instinct.

I’m sure it was Sturgell’s instinct to say, let’s bring in a bass player who can really make music and have it evolve over four minutes.

They all just went, well, how did you do that?

You just made it better.

That was a moment of being very proud of my abilities, which takes many years to develop.

Where you can show up in a room with one guy you know fairly well, but not really, and two other guys you’ve never met before.

Especially Diplo, who’s famous in a genre that I don’t really operate in.

And so it was pretty awesome to be able to show.

And they play the song down, I write my chart out.

And Sturgill was like, dude, you’re one of those guys that can just write a chart?

How do you do that?

Right?

I write the chart out the first time.

I play it through from beginning to end.

The second time I hear the song.

And then the third time I play it.

And they’re like, man, that was perfect, we’re done.

And I was like, no, one more chance.

I know I can do it a little bit better.

I don’t know, man.

That was pretty good.

One more chance, please.

And the fourth take, that’s what you’re hearing.

Fourth take.

That’s pretty impressive.

I’m evolving and getting it better, and setting up, you know, cause there’s like these disco overtones, and Martin R&B overtones, and there’s also kind of this weird 70s country island in the stream overtones.

It’s a cool, quirky song.

And so I wanted to kind of like pay respects to all of the influences I felt in the song, and hopefully have the bass part not only pay homage to it all, but help glue it all together.

So anyway, that was a wonderful night.

I was there for like an hour and a half.

Like, it happened very quickly.

You didn’t get the two and a half days at Diplo’s house, huh?

I was in traffic longer than I was at Diplo’s house.

I think he bought Tommy Lee’s house.

Okay.

It was actually Tommy Lee or Kid Rock, one of the two.

Either way, right?

I was previously owned by this Rockstar Party Machine.

But it was one of those like, dude, this is a totally weird and wonderful LA-like Rockstar situation.

How did I even get here?

Speaking of how you got there, last year, you put out a semi-autobiographical album, and one of the songs on there that spoke to me when I first heard it was Ballad of the Troubadour.

And it’s really stayed with me.

I like the story arc.

I like the way that it’s presented.

I like the conflict in it.

And I think it actually speaks a lot to what we hear a lot from musicians, especially musicians who have families at home and kids.

It’s this push and pull of the road and home.

You obviously wrote about it in this song.

We’ve talked about it before.

Can you talk a little bit about your own experience with creating this balance for your home life and your professional career where you are pretty much a traveling musician?

You’re that troubadour on the road waiting for the taxi.

I will say one of the things that makes me happier now is I’m in a little more control of how much I’m away and how much I’m home now.

For the years I was touring with Shooter, basically, if you’re a sideman or woman and you’re touring with someone, they decide how much you’re gone and how much you’re home.

There are some artists, they’re home for a year and then they’re gone for a year.

And you just have to accept, I’ll be gone for a year.

You think about all the guys in the East Street Band and all the guys in the Heartbreakers and even the guys in the Black Hearts.

Let’s not even talk about the iconic people we’re always thinking about.

Or the guys in Willie Nelson’s band.

Yeah.

Clint Black’s band.

It’s like the boss decides when they want to go and how long they want to go.

And they’re making that decision with their business manager.

In general, they’re not making that decision with…

Maybe when you’re young and you’re starting, you can make that decision together because you’re all in a van together.

The drummers, oh man, I just got my girlfriend pregnant.

I really got to be home in April and May.

And then everyone else, the man’s like, okay, fine, I’ll get my job at the Frames Shopping.

That happens and that’s real.

And I’ve been in bands where that happens.

But when you get to a larger level, there’s a lot of money changing hands.

And there are artists that wanna say what they wanna say and also make the money they wanna make and live the life they wanna live.

As a side man, you’re like, okay, my boss just said he wants to tour nine months next year.

And do I want to keep my job?

Do I want to risk my home life or lose my home life?

Or simply not have a home life?

And that’s up to you.

My first big touring and where we had a tour bus and stuff was with Shooter.

And so our first three years or so, you probably did 180, 200 dates a year.

That’s a lot.

And then you throw in the day after the gig where you’re flying home and flying out and you’re day off on a Wednesday in between your gig in Louisville and Lexington.

That’s a lot of time away.

Shooter had his first child the same year I had my son with my wife.

So he automatically wanted to stay home a little more, which allowed me to stay home a little more.

There was maybe a couple years when I wasn’t playing with Shooter, 2011, 2012.

And so I started to tour and do my own music on my own.

My rough plan for that year was I’m gonna be home for ten days a month, while I’m pacing around my living room, feverishly booking myself, so I can be touring the other 20 days of the month.

And I did that for about a year, and I realized I wasn’t actually that happy.

And my wife and my son was young.

None of us were as happy.

And we all decided together, I should be home more.

Not only so that I could be there more for them, I was also realizing that I moved to LA to make great music, with great talent and people.

I didn’t move to LA so I could hang out in my dining room and hang out on my cell phone and book myself.

I love being a solo artist.

I love doing solo shows and bonding with an audience, and the storytelling and all that stuff is great.

But I really love playing with other musicians.

And I love being the bass player, and I love being in a band and helping it all glue together, feeling the energy from each other and being inspired by each other.

When I was the front man all the time, I was laying it down and people were following me.

It was like, I want the feeling of that amorphous thing that happens with great jazz groups and great rock groups, where we’re all following each other, and we create something that none of us was expecting.

And I also realized I don’t want to be 60 and have the only way I can make a living to be on the road.

So there is definitely some professional decision, but also very much a family decision.

It’s really hard to be gone for two weeks and come home, and my wife has had a whole different life without me, dealing with being a single mom, dealing with professional stuff, dealing with just aging and growing, trying to find wisdom, and deal with the pains of regular life.

And I had times when I would like, you know, my son is six years old, and we’re loving Thomas the Trains or Harry Potter or something.

And we have this great running joke and this great conversation.

And then I leave for two and a half weeks, and then I come home, and all I want to do is rekindle that little fire and like enjoy the same joke again.

And he’s not only noticeably taller, but he doesn’t even remember that joke that we’ve been hanging on to for the last two weeks.

And he’s moved on.

I’m like, oh my god, I just missed a chapter.

That happened enough.

And I thought I’m going to do everything in my power to be a part of my wife’s life and my son’s life more.

If I was 100% deeply satisfied with being on the road all the time, my job and my life is to make music for people.

When you hear Willie Nelson or you hear Bob Dylan or some musicians talk about the road, yeah, you reinvent yourself every night.

And yes, we do.

And it’s wonderful.

And it’s a phenomenal feeling.

And that’s why I still go out and want to play live.

I want to get out and I want to keep doing it.

But I want to be able to have the home life that’s going to be good for all of us.

Part of the magic of having a marriage is understanding where your spouse is coming from and helping your spouse get where they want to go while you’re getting where you want to go.

And providing for each other and understanding each other.

When my wife was very real with me and saying, hey, I’m having a hard time with you being gone two weeks every month.

Is there some compromise or something we can do?

She didn’t say stop touring tomorrow.

She said, this is your life.

I love you and I love what you’re doing and I respect what you’re doing.

There’s a way we can reconfigure this so that we can both be happier.

We talked for a while about getting an RV so that she could travel with me.

We talked about a lot of different variants and I was like, I’m not actually happy out here alone either.

That’s when I made a conscious decision to still tour with Shooter, still do a little touring on my own.

I want to be home more and part of the local community more.

I sensed that my life with my wife and my son was suffering by me exploring.

And now this is a decade after we’re having this conversation.

How many great movies are there like The Godfather where Michael Corleone closes the door and K is stuck on the outside?

You know, that scene at the end of The Godfather when he’s…

Sorry, this is what guys do, this is what professionals do, this is what men do.

It’s a different generation.

And of course, it’s a piece of art.

Doesn’t have to be any of our realities.

That’s a really classic way of looking at the world for podcasts.

And I decided I don’t want to give up on my dreams.

I’m still going to play music and I’m still going to get out and tour.

I’m going to find a way to do it where we’re all happier.

That’s awesome.

You’re able to find something different.

We hear stories from our friends that have just demanding jobs that require a lot of travel and those things take a toll.

You don’t usually hear the stories from touring musicians.

You imagine how much pressure that might put on a family.

You don’t hear the stories of those conversations.

And it’s awesome you’re able to work that out and find the right spot for yourself, both creatively and for your family life.

It’s going to make you happy.

Well, thanks for saying that.

It’s a beautiful part of life, when you can find that balance.

And that’s totally relatable to us.

And that’s aside from just writing songs and doing the record I want to make, and playing with the musicians I want to make, that’s another deep and internal part of my life that keeps me going.

And I’m sure it is for you all and any adult who’s trying to juggle a profession they love or care about with a family.

It’s actually a great transition into kind of a different part of the conversation.

You’ve been working in this industry and in this part of the industry as a bass player and a producer for about two decades.

What do you think of the evolution that you’ve seen in this kind of alt rock, alt country Americana space?

I love that there’s really, there really feels to be this resurgence in roots music.

And there are a lot more people loving it and caring about it.

One of the things I loved about Los Angeles for so many years is that the big money making music industry doesn’t really care about roots music because it’s not a money maker.

So they let us do whatever we want so we can be creative.

We’re not trying to chase a record deal.

We’re not trying to chase what we think might be trendy.

When a lot of people who don’t like pop country from Nashville, one of the reasons is, oh, you’re just sounding like the next guy that’s real popular.

Whether that’s R&B-influenced or even go back a while to like when Jason Aldean was getting huge and everyone was sounding like, wow, this is like a Southern rock ACDC pop country.

The way that a lot of big labels work is they want to find something that works, and then find other acts that sound like it so they can plug more into the machinery that works so they can make more money, and help some wonderful soulful musicians make a better living.

And I don’t want to discount that at all.

There are a lot of great singers and a lot of great artists and a lot of great musicians that have benefited from that.

But the tendency is to find something that sounds like something that’s already successful so you can just do more of it.

There really is this resurgence and there are more younger country artists and roots music artists.

It’s very interesting to me that many of them are more very genre specific.

A lot of the great younger artists are like real classic Honky Tonk or real classic Western Swing or real bluegrass with a little bit of country and a lot of them are great songwriters too.

But when I make a record, I want it to be eclectic.

I want to have a little bit of all of my influences.

I don’t want to just choose one or two influences.

One of the things I got from the band and from Bob Dylan and from Jackson Brown and then also Whiskeytown and Son Volt and Uncle Tupelo is that we’re writing our own music, trying to be different.

Whether we’re successfully doing that is a different thing, but it comes from this kind of personal songwriter place.

I’m not as interested in doing 12 songs that sound like Western Swing or 12 songs that sounds like the Burrito Brothers.

Or 12 songs that sound like Tom Petty.

I’d rather try to sound like myself and draw upon all of these things.

And so it’s very interesting to me to see that a lot of younger artists, they feel a comfort in the genre they’re in.

Though they stay closer to home.

And some of that is very like, I love Alan Jackson and I’m going to be right here.

I love the Kentucky Tyler Childers sound.

And I’m going to be right here.

Or I’m going to do Western Swing, and I’m going to stay right here.

Who do you think is a good newer artist, who’s a good ambassador of roots or Americana music right now?

Oh, there are many.

There are many.

You don’t have to pick the best one.

No, there are-

We’re not making a value judgment.

And there are some that are bigger and easy to find, like Chris Stapleton is great.

And he brings this great southeastern country thing with this bluesy, raspy voice.

And he’s an incredible songwriter.

Tyler Childress, who I just mentioned, is also great.

Zach, he was out of Texas now.

He’s great.

We’ve got a bunch of locals that I loved.

I just worked on a record with Jerry from west of Texas.

If you want to explore more classic country sound, western swing, Jerry’s awesome.

There’s a ton of great music where we’re inundated with it now.

Because of the way the internet works and the way that we can find anything from anywhere in the globe in a way that was harder to 10 or 20 or 30 years ago.

You mentioned Zach Topp.

I am obsessed right now with the nostalgia loop.

I find it to be fascinating.

And I think it’s a big part of why we’re seeing more folks who are taking a more orthodox view of where they find themselves in the genres.

I’m only doing honky tonk.

I’m only doing western swing.

I’m doing neo-neo traditional country music, whatever you want to call it.

It’s quite interesting to see as younger folks, even people who weren’t alive during the first iteration of it, come back and say, we’re going to make new popular music once again, mostly made by these kids who are new to it and are excited by it, perhaps for the first time.

And if we go back, there was also a very well-placed cameo from George Jones on a song about July 4th on an album that you may have been-

Oh yeah, definitely.

There’s this great nostalgia loop, and I think that it’s an interesting concept.

And as you’re producing these different artists here in LA and around the country, is it a broader set of influences that are coming in from the past?

Or are people really diving into those specific time periods and then staying very much, a very strict view of how they understand their genre?

In some cases, it’s breaths.

The artist is really choosing, wow, this is what I love.

Out of all of this stuff that I’ve researched and I’ve played, this is what I want to do.

I think a lot of it has to do with what your parents liked.

In fact, I’m going to say a lot of it has to do is with what your mom liked when you were six years old and she was driving you around and you were not really conscious of what you were listening to and where you were going.

You were going to go to your friend’s house or you were going to go to the mall or you were going to go to the toy store and Zack Top’s mom was listening to Alan Jackson, probably, right?

When I was in high school, 90s country was not cool.

When I was in high school, the guys in the Alban Brothers cover band were cool and Elvis Castello was cool, not the late police, but the early police was cool.

So I was going back 10 or 15 years and then when I moved to LA, there was a really wonderful scene that loved Graham Parsons and the real classic late 60s birds, burrito brothers, country rock, which doesn’t really exist in LA anymore.

Now that’s not really a fashionable thing.

But when I was here in 2000, 2005, 2003, people were wearing bell bottoms and dressing like they were in the 70s.

And the stuff that was 70s was cool.

And now that we’ve moved on another 15, 20 years, that’s not really cool anymore.

There are some younger artists think the 70s are cool.

But it’s the 80s.

And it’s the 90s that’s cool now.

You know what I mean?

I definitely remember when the 70s were cool.

That 70s show was on TV.

No, and that 70s show was part of that retro thing.

And as our culture marches forward, what we enjoy as retro keeps shifting.

And of course, like will Amy Lou Harris and the Hot Band and the Burrito Brothers really ever be bad music?

No, it’s awesome music.

It will remain being awesome music.

But the way many artists who are in their 20s and they’re like 25, like Zack Top is a perfect example.

Yeah, he’s crawling back to a very specific era when he was a child.

Yeah, exactly.

Parents were going out dancing to that music.

And that’s what he grew up with.

And it’s on a subconscious level, that’s home to him.

Talking about the cycles of retro and searching for the traditional.

I feel like the world is getting so technologically complex and politically complex that people are going to music and going to a conservative and understandable place in music.

And that’s what we want and that’s what we need.

And that’s why when people hear Zach Bryan or Chris Abelson, this is a really seemingly sweet soulful guy with an acoustic guitar, talking about his feelings in a way that James Taylor was, in a way that Neil Young was, maybe not Neil Young crazy horse, but Neil Young acoustic.

It’s like we long for something we can understand.

And the world is just crazy and weird and there’s misinformation everywhere.

When people are coming to music, it’s a place to get comfort and support.

We have a recurring segment that we do every week called the Dad Life Soundcheck that we’re hoping you’d be a part of.

And so in that segment, we just share some song that is speaking to us at the moment for any reason that you can think of.

So what song is speaking to you, Ted?

One of the ones I was thinking of was Lonesome, Ornery and Me by Waylon Jennings.

It’s a great song and it’s the mythology of being on the Greyhound bus and traveling, and it’s making me lonesome, ornery and me.

The girl I meet, we live together, and she’s lonesome, ornery and me.

There’s a survival instinct I love about it, and one of the things I deeply love about Waylon Jennings is very often when you hear him sing, you can’t tell if he’s belting or he’s not singing loud at all.

His voice just sounds and it sounds so Waylon.

Was he singing really quietly or is he screaming?

I can’t even tell.

Anyway, one of the great things about playing with Shooter, and actually one of the things that kind of helped me decide that I was going to really play with Shooter.

When we started, we were just like playing occasionally, and then we did a little tour in Texas and they were recording.

And it took a year or two to evolve into being like the Shooter Jennings band, or Shooter Jennings in the 357s.

And one of the amazing things that happened is we went to Nashville and we traveled around the country a little bit.

And almost every single time we did a gig, someone showed up who was like, I was Waylon’s bus driver for a year in 1988.

Or I was one of his tour managers for a while.

Or I was the door guy the seven times he played this gig in Tulsa.

And every single person told me about how what a great, deep and soulful kind of a mensch Waylon Jennings was.

But people were telling me how he changed their lives, not just with the music.

I’m sure the mythology was part of it, because he was already famous when a lot of these folks met him or worked with him.

But they just talked about what a deep and sincere human being he was.

And I remember thinking, wow, I already feel that way about Shooter.

And if he’s like a third of what everyone is talking about Waylon, I’m working with the right.

And Lonesome Morning and Mean was one of the first songs I used to sing when I would do Waylon Jennings tunes in my bar band gigs long before I met Shooter.

The song symbolizes personal strength to me.

The world rarely goes your way.

You have to fight for it.

It felt like every lyric from Lonesome Morning and Mean is like an autobiographical thing that I hope that I’m here.

I’ve got a dream.

I’m going to make it happen.

That’s what this song symbolizes.

Even though I don’t go out on the road, I’m quite the opposite.

I’m a stay-at-home dad.

There are lots of days where I’m lonesome and owner and mean.

I think it’s got universal appeal.

Yes.

Great song.

Good.

I’m glad you agree.

The song that I picked for this week is by Charles Wesley Godwin.

It’s called Another Leaf.

I thought this latest record, Family Ties, and it’s on my mind because Kim and I happen to be adding another leaf to our family tree.

Congratulations.

Congratulations.

Thank you very much.

It’s becoming more of a public thing.

Parents that I don’t even know are approaching me at the pickup line and saying congratulations because they heard about it through the grapevine.

Oh, that’s wonderful.

Congratulations.

Yeah.

Very excited about it.

It’s our fourth kid.

I think it matches with what I think is kind of a frenetic pace in the song.

It kind of builds up and it gets faster and faster.

That’s how I feel the summer is going to go.

The closer and closer we get to Jamie’s arrival.

You very well be right.

It’s going to be a little crazy.

That’s a great song.

Big choice.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I think I’ll be firing that up for comfort and to match my heart rate as the big day comes.

That’s pretty exciting.

On quite the opposite note, I went with Daddy’s Mugshot by Lacey K.

Boots.

This song came up in some new music you might like in my social listening, and my active trying to listen to new music moves.

But the opening line of this hit me pretty hard.

When I was younger, I thought he was a god with a guitar, which was a reference to her father who left.

Obviously, none of us are in that world, but that’s a storyline that’s very deep within the country music lexicon, this idea of loss and family loss.

And that one spoke to me pretty directly as my older son is much older every day, more mature, understanding faults, and very happy to point them out.

I don’t have that godlike power anymore.

It’s an evolution in my understanding of being a dad.

Beyond that, I don’t really associate, I don’t feel much connection to this song as I didn’t go get arrested or leave my children, but the song is great.

It’s got this kind of dark pop vibe to it with a real kind of early 2000s power woman ballad vibe to it.

There’s a lot of energy in this.

So that’s why I picked that one.

Not so much of a deep connection as the two that you guys picked this week, but it just, I liked it.

And it jumped out at me as something a little bit different than what I normally listen to.

And it really hit me in a way that was great.

And that’s a great song too, a great choice.

It’s also a metaphor.

Are we to believe that Lacey’s father is that completely autobiographical?

I’d be willing to bet she’s a great songwriter.

I only, and I’m embarrassed, I only found out about her once you said, this is the song I want to do.

And she’s great.

But being a songwriter, often I’ll come up with an idea and I’ll think, how can I make it more intense and have it hit home a little harder?

If you’re gonna have a movie, you can’t just injure the best friend.

You gotta kill off the best friend so that the main character can learn their lesson and then go on and be lonesome or you’re mean for a while and then turn over the new leap and then succeed.

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

And I think a lot of songs are like that.

It’s a wonderful song.

And it very much ties into, as we’re all fathers, sometimes you can teach your children’s thing on purpose.

Sometimes the things you’re not trying to teach, they learn and they pick up.

And it’s not like we’re lying to them, but they just pick up the other stuff that you’re not doing on purpose.

She got the smile from her daddy’s mug shot.

That’s a great line.

It’s a great line.

It’s a great line.

A great line and a great song.

You pick up the stuff that you’re not intending to do.

You know what I mean?

Like the weird habits or the mannerisms, your attitudes.

And that’s the stuff that happens from parents, child, parent, child, parent, and generation, generation.

That’s one of the hard things, but one of the beautiful things about being human being.

And that’s why we’re here talking about it, because we have this great vehicle for telling stories in this type of music where the story is so central.

And it provides a really great way to talk about figuring out how to be a dad, and teaching those things we want to teach, and trying better about being the example for the things our kids just see.

Ted, it was an awesome conversation.

We had a great time talking with you, some great stories.

So thank you all for listening.

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And we love to hear what you think.

So send us comments, suggestions, friendly banter on Instagram at countrymusictads or via email, countrymusictads.gmail.com.

And Ted, where can we find you?

Well, my website is tedrussellkamp.com, which is A-M-P.

I’m on facebook.com, TedRussellKamp, Instagram, plus TedRussellKamp, YouTube, got a channel.

And that’s it.

So just type in my name and you’ll find me.

Stay tuned for our next episode, as we will discuss the dangers of wearing jeans and how that impacts dads and country and Western styles.

So it should be an interesting one.

Until next time, whether you’re at the dance hall, the playground or the schoolyard or just folding some laundry.

Thanks for tuning in.

We’ll talk to you soon.