Words: Slade Rand
Photos Courtesy: Ric Robertson
Ric Robertson plays it loud and honest on his latest project.
Ric’s new album ‘Choices & Chains’ washed ashore today full of sharp lyrics and family-style guest players. Friends from across Ric’s musical universe come together on the talented songwriter’s third solo album.
It’s nine tracks of stylish, spacey Americana, where Ric’s vocal chops shine and the playing sounds inspired. On the title track, Ric and Sierra Ferrell harmonize over a fuzzy, rocking dive bar beat. Later during ‘The Rain,’ Ric creates space with airy strings before playing a delicate piano on top. The music covers lots of creative ground in just under 40 minutes, recorded at a sprint inside a big old house full of books near Nashville.
We caught up with the songwriter this month ahead of the album’s release.
“We all care about each other. That’s the idea, right, all relationships are important,” Ric told After Midnight. “Remember that there is a chain reaction to the choices you make.”
Ric lives in western upstate New York, on a large, green piece of land, with a half-dozen family members and friends. There’s a couple homes, a barn and stage. He recently added a little spot in the backyard where he writes music.
“My neighbors are Amish, they did the frame,” Ric said.
Before surrounding himself with hills and waterfalls upstate, Ric lived in New Orleans for seven years. He traded skateboarding to downtown gigs for rural seclusion and “a long drive to the next place.” Ric wanted to live somewhere beautiful for this next phase, but he couldn’t shake his want to be near water.
“It’s pretty integral to my life up here, and one of the reasons I was drawn to living up here is the rivers and the waterfalls,” Ric said. “Water is freedom, and I suppose I do try to get close to it when I can.”
Rain and sun and steam were on Ric’s mind as he sang about the deep connection between all of life’s decisions on ‘Choices & Chains.’
Friend and founder of legendary band The Horseflies, Richie Stearns, left behind a colorful sketch of the precipitation cycle his four-year-old daughter had made during a prior trip through the ‘Choices & Chains’ house. It caught Ric’s eye.
“We put it on the piano and that drawing became a theme of the record – that’s how two songs got written: ‘The Rain’ and ‘The Cloud,’” Ric said.
Ric wrote just a few full songs ahead of the week in Tennessee when ‘Choices & Chains’ came together. He partnered with Gregor Bone to write most of the album, who lives near Nashville after sprawling out from the same New York musical world Ric calls home.
Gregor is a huge reason why the new record exists, Ric will tell you.
“He has that quality of being able to illuminate when something is happening,” Ric said.
The beautiful old Nashville mansion Gregor looks after became Ric’s sandbox and recording studio for ‘Choices & Chains.’ A librarian had owned it before Gregor moved in, and the Beetlejuice looking house was perfect for the music, Ric said.
The core band of six mingled with other friends and artists hanging out through a big weeklong session. The dreamlike home behind the trees ebbed around the album as it took form in the living room and kitchen.
“Whatever you wanted to do there you could do. It was free. It was like showing up to this kind of haunted house that was a party, with a lot of people who don’t get to see each other often,” Ric said.
Lots of old friends including Sarah Jarosz, Oliver Wood and Sam Grisman join Ric on the album.
Ric plays guitar or piano on all of the songs. Nicholas Falk is on drums, with extra guitar from Aaron Lipp, keys from Sam Fribush and production by Kai Welch. Grisman plays bass and other instruments on the album, with guest features from Jarosz, Wood, Sierra Ferrell, Dori Freeman and Logan Ledger.
Ric said he kept the music from his pals he’d be playing with until they arrived at the house on the hill. Outside of his writing partner, guests weren’t in on the recording schedule or song structures until it was all just happening.
Gregor and Ric grew close while making ‘Choices & Chains.’ They met through friends a few years ago when Ric was passing through town and needed a place to stay. On top of hosting, writing and coaching, Gregor voices the narrator in ‘Shellfish Bastard.’
“He kinda flipped my whole world with his catalog and approaches to writing,” Ric said.
Gregor said he and Ric shared a communal brain during the ‘Choices & Chains’ sessions. He remembers living in a world for ten straight days where the song was the only priority.
“You forget how unbelievable it was, this eye opening experience. Everyone there was seeing the same thing,” Gregor told After Midnight.
Gregor has made music for years with different groups, and writes songs for a living as Hawk Alert. He’s a seasoned veteran. He was stunned by the skill and free-flowing creativity the close-knit players indulged in through the ten days making ‘Choices & Chains.’
He remembers waking Ric’s old buddy Sam Fribush from a nap to record one afternoon, and Sam quietly slinking into the room. The keyboardist picked up an accordion and sank back out of the room to sit on the staircase and play a new layer on ‘The Cloud,’ but from a distance. Gregor said that faint, unplanned melody landed just beautifully. You can hear it.
“I was like, ‘What the fuck? Huh? I didn’t know you guys existed?,’” Gregor laughed. “They didn’t have to talk about everything. These guys were just talking through the language of music. The whole album is hugely conversational.”
They recorded the album live, standing around without headphones. On ‘The Hole,’ Ric and Dori Freeman sing beautifully together over a twangy guitar and rowdy rhythm section. The shouted countdown and rolling drum crash at the track’s start are residual of the house-party energy the music was born into.
Ric listens to Randy Newman and Warren Zevon somewhat religiously, among other writing heroes. A hand-annotated book of Newman piano arrangements never strays too far out of reach, for ‘nourishment’ Ric says. During the ‘Choices & Chains’ days, Ric and Gregor wore out the Arthur Russell compilation ‘Love is Overtaking Me.’
The duo would spend days at a time talking over specific word choices. Gregor said he hopes the songs apply to the larger human existence – with its beauty and hardships both.
“Writing about nothing, or writing about everything – that’s sacred ground,” Gregor said.
The ‘Choices & Chains’ band dove into Ric’s project as a group, without habits already formed within the songs. The musicians improvised based on first reactions during that week of recording, together. Ric says he feels most at home in times like that, with a lot of people around “doing their thing.”
“I like to leave an opportunity to record people falling into a song, and see what they do in that moment,” Ric said.
The music videos for ‘Shellfish Bastard’ and ‘Brother Sparrow’ are also thanks to help from old friends within Ric’s world. High school buddy Noah Gray, who went to college for puppetry, builds and plays the underwater creatures used in the ‘Shellfish Bastard’ video. Another friend, Cameron Scoggins, directed that one.
Ric and his friend Jack Moser cut colored paper scraps together for the animated music video for ‘Brother Sparrow.’ Jack animated the video and also hand-crafted the album’s cover the same way.
“I just love making stuff with other people. It’s the best, most fun thing you can do,” Ric said.
Ric is currently writing and playing and living up North. He’s been touring the new album for audiences in NY and Pennsylvania this month, and he heads Southeast in November. Ric plays Saturday night at Hollerhorn Distilling in Naples, NY. Catch him if you’re near – and check out full tour dates here.
“Time keeps talkin’
She says ‘Do what you like,’
But what you do with your day is what you do with your life”
– Ric Robertson, ‘Choices & Chains’
Click here to listen to ‘Choices & Chains’ on Spotify.
After Midnight 
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