Dylan Smucker sits down with our team and discusses his life, music, & inspirations!
Interviewed By: Veda Verner, Delaney Hamilton, & Teddie McCord
A few weeks ago, my colleagues and I were able to sit and speak with Dylan Smucker. Smucker is a man who can instantly teleport you back to the mid-50s with his outstanding vocals. Not only is he incredibly talented, but he is also brilliant. Our conversation started with the regular “Hi, how are you?” but felt more like a conversation with an old friend. Smucker has been in the music business since he was young, “I started to take it seriously when I was 13. Starting as a folk artist, this is where I started as a kid, as a writer, and as a folk artist. At 13, I thought I was gonna be a folk guy like Bob Dylan, then found the blues. I started to play at some cafes and then slowly just worked into it.” Smucker was one of those kids who always said that he would move to Nashville, Tennessee; at the ripe age of 19, he could do so. Once he arrived in Nashville, he started trying to make a living off of his talents.
Before Smucker was a blues-country singer, he was in a rock band. He made the transition from rock to country due to a bad breakup, “I still got the rock ‘n’ roll in me, I still want to rock ‘n’ roll, but in that time of my life, moving away from rock ‘n’ roll felt right.” He continued to talk about how rock music, when performed by men, is very testosterone-fueled. “For me, rock ‘n’ roll is like fury, adrenaline, almost metal based, like anger based.” Smucker has a certain understanding and realizes that he still has the rock ‘n’ roll angst that goes back to where he first started. He loves and appreciates rock ‘n’ roll in its entirety, not just americana or blues.
We discussed how a lot of musicians are limited to one genre and how music is like a family, “That's American music and there's so many nuances in between. It's not like, you know, I'm mixing Indian Middle Eastern sounds with American country. It's like blues I feel like is country's estranged, brother. And then, you know, rock and roll is the angry brother. And it's like, but they're all family. Yeah. All those sounds, all those sounds tie into each other. So I feel like it's not crazy to go from, you know, I mean it's a couple of, it's a couple of beat differences or it's depending on electric or acoustic, you know, and then you can go from country to rock and roll just that easily.” Even musical instruments were discussed and how the American Telecaster and the American Stratocaster were made for country originally and then ended up becoming rock ‘n’ roll instruments.
The previous conversation brought us to the next question; Is there another genre that you would consider dabbling in? To our surprise, Dylan is already there. He starts to tell us more about the new record he has been working on and how many different influences will be found within it. “The new record I have is very like the 50s-60s county, but like Beach Boys too. Big melodies, huge harmonies, and choruses, strings, like symphonies and shit. So, You know, I love country music, but I'm not limited to that color palette. It's just a color spectrum to play with. The biggest sound right now that I'm messing with is soul. To make a long story short, it’s just soul music, American soul music. And so on this, on this record, there's like two or three soul songs. Like Leon Bridges vibe, but, you know, go back to like the Temptations and like Marvin Gaye and Al Green and you know, Curtis Mayfield.”. While on that topic, we asked him who his dream collaboration is, right now. “If it could be anyone, it would be Leon Bridges. He doesn't know me but he's a part of my life. When you're a musician, you're a part of so many people's lives. You might be in the background when someone dies. You might be in the background when a baby's born, you might be on a fucking TV show that someone was watching with their husband and had the best night of their life. Leon is a big part of my life. His sounds influenced me. The people that influence him have influenced me. I can hear his influences in his voice. I feel like if we collabed together, it would be a soul song with harmonies. We'd be harmonized with each other by the temptations. He's worked with John Mayer, so maybe once I get cool enough I'll be on his radar, he'll holler, but we'll see. But that's definitely, I'm like a fanboy for that motherfucker.”
After Smucker showed us his fluidity in music, we decided to ask him what his thoughts were on really well-known musicians going to that mainstream-like sound. “There's a lot of forcing to play there, so, it could be that they're pressured by the producer, it could be that they don't have enough clout to have enough say in those discussions. It could be that they don't have enough credit. It could be that they're too timid, and not confident enough to get their vision across. And so they're constantly listening for the people and their opinion of what they should do. And I think a true artist follows his vision. If you don't have a vision, cause that's why I said all the things at play there. It could be all those things, but mainly it could just be a lack of vision too. If you don't have a vision for the record, or if you're not a songwriter yourself, you don't even write the songs. Elvis had a bunch of them, he didn't write any of them. So he was at the fate of his manager. Luckily his manager was good, but as a manager also, you know, led to the decline of Elvis. And so modern musicians have to have their hands on the wheel. You have to be in charge as much as you can. If you don't have people in your corner that say ‘Let's make the record you wanna make,’ if that's not the priority, you're not gonna get the record that you wanna make. And then you're gonna go out on the road and you're gonna play a fucking record you don't like or you are gonna play other people's songs that were placed on your record.”
Our beautiful and in-depth conversations with Smucker brought us to the next question; If you had to pick one song to explain your outlook on life or how you're feeling right now, what would it be? “It’s a song off my next record, Goodnight, Cruel World,” Smucker explains that this song is a premeditated goodbye to the world. We had the honor of being able to hear this unreleased tune live during his set at the Acme Feed and Seed in Nashville, Tennessee on April 16, 2023. It’s deep, almost kind of like it showed a lot of strength just to be that vulnerable through music, but at the same time, that is a true testament to an amazing artist.
Concluding our conversation, we all had one question to ask Dylan: “If you had one opportunity to go back in time, what would you tell yourself?” We all have our own very unique walks of life and everyone’s answers vary but Dylan’s answer is something I think we can all agree on. “It's all gonna be alright. It's all gonna work out. It's all gonna be okay. Everything that you're gonna go through has to happen.” Each stone that is thrown at you, turn around and use those stones to make a stone walkway to get you to the next chapter in life.
If you haven’t already, go check out Dylan Smucker. His music is available on all major streaming platforms!
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