Shovels & Rope partners Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst were wrestling with how they should answer some of their daughter Louisianas questions. At three, shes quickly grown into an inquisitive child who now has a baby brother and wanted to know more about some of the popular (and frequently gruesome) fairytales every kid hears.
Its like, Rapunzel has been kidnapped right at the beginning, as a little tiny baby, and locked in a tower, says Trent, from the duos home base in Charleston, South Carolina, where they recently hosted their High Water Festival. As our little girl gets a little older shes only 3 and a half, but she understands a little bit more. You look at her face when you say that, all the questions [she asks], like Well, why?'
Why would anybody do that? chimes in Hearst.
Why would somebody take somebody away from their mommy and daddy? Trent says again. It definitely stirs up some hardcore emotions as parents.
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The obvious real-world parallel here is the separation of families at the U.S. Mexico border, a Donald Trump immigration policy that sparked outrage and horror in 2018 and continues to have significant reverberations today. A slightly fictionalized version of that humanitarian crisis serves as the backdrop of CMon Utah, a track from Shovels & Ropes new album By Blood: the story centers on a man disconnected from his family by a border wall and the magical horse that returns him home. The pair wrote the song before detainment and separation began dominating the national discourse, but it began to take on a life of its own once people in the audience began to hear it.
We were out there playing it before it was recorded or anything like that, says Trent. We played it all across America and it goes over better in some places than it does in other places. Nobodys for parents and children being separated from each other, really. Right now, its hard to see hope and maybe that song resonated with people. As simple as this magic horse is, its just a little bit of a symbol of hope.
Family is a recurring theme on By Blood, as the title suggests, but its also an ever-present fact for the couple, who have been making music together since 2008 and now have two young children on the road with them. The title track is at once inspiring and unnerving, jarring and comforting. With production that joins fingerstyle acoustic guitar with the gloomy, cavernous atmosphere of early 4AD albums, Trent and Hearst sing of unbreakable bonds and of claustrophobic closeness.
Were all just trying to be supportive of each other and keep everything going and learn together, says Trent. Then we would all go out on the road and tour together its really sweet but it felt really complicated.
You might not be the best parent in the world, but if youre a good parent and youre worried about being a better parent, youre already ahead of the game, says Hearst. At least you care about whether youre shortchanging your kid here and there.
Familial dependence pops up again in the exhausted travelers tale Carry Me Home, which boasts a massive production that borrows the chords from Tommy James & the Shondells Crimson & Clover (We only rip from the best! quips Hearst) to accompany Trent and Hearsts harmonized shouts. Similarly, the rest of By Blood retains much of the wild energy of the duos earlier records, but harnesses it or even expands it into something larger and fuller. Their narratives spring to life in vivid fashion, as with the main characters of The Wire or Mississippi Nothing and their frustrated attempts to change course. Trent and Hearst also apply their Mad Max aesthetic to more traditional song forms, like the fiddle-heavy work song Hammer, or the walking R&B rhythm of Twisted Sisters.
Its more of a big, cinematic-sounding record, says Trent. We werent afraid to add as much stuff as we wanted whenever to any song and then slowly scrape it away and see what worked and what didnt work. If there ever were rules for us, there were zero rules on this record.
When Little Seeds came out in 2016, Shovels & Rope were grappling with racist violence in Charleston, family struggles and the death of a close friend, all of which bled into the music and made for heavy listening. This time around, theres a more hopeful atmosphere, but one that doesnt gloss over the daunting task of raising a family or the struggle to be a better human.
Since Little Seeds, theres two children in our lives, and weve had some loss as well, says Trent, but I feel like its easier to see some of the hope at this point, just where we are, sitting on our porch this morning.
Later in 2019, Trent and Hearst will incorporate the story from CMon Utah into an childrens book by the same name (and featuring illustrations by Julio Cotto Rivera), with the thinking that it might help parents struggling to answer some of their kids questions. And as complicated as it can be, as a married couple who work together and take children on the road, its also likely the best reason stay focused on the bright side.
Basically you have to make the best world you can for your children, in the everyday moments of life, says Hearst. If you focus on all the awful stuff in the world you might as well just not have em, because life is brutal and it is just gonna be all that. Yeah, they slow you down in a good way and make you really live in the moment and find happiness in little things.