Singer/songwriter Logan Ledger is back with his second full-length album, and it’s a captivating exploration of the multifaceted spirit of California. ‘Golden State’ delves into the wild-eyed idealism, unpredictability, and boundless promise of rebirth that the Golden State embodies.
Hailing from the Bay Area and now based in Nashville, Ledger draws inspiration from California’s legacy of relentless reinvention. He seamlessly melds genres, at times fusing British folk with rowdy surf rock, to create a musical experience that defies expectations. At the core of ‘Golden State’ is Ledger’s captivating baritone and poetic lyricism, resulting in a body of work that is both meticulously composed and endlessly surprising. We were thrilled to grab some time with him recently to talk all about it.
Thanks for your time today Logan, it’s lovely to touch base with you. Congratulations on your ‘Golden State’ album. What an intriguing and beguiling record it is.
Thank you, I appreciate your kind words.
You hail from the Bay Area of California. What prominence did music have in your early years and when did you first know you were going to do what you do for a profession?
I was always into music, even as a small child. I always liked to sing and was fascinated by music although I didn’t start to play guitar until I was about 11 years old. My dad played guitar and I think that was, initially, why I wanted to do it. We even had the same guitar teacher at one point although I never imagined that I would be a professional musician. That didn’t really occur to me until I was in my 20’s, maybe?
It wasn’t until I recorded my first album with T-Bone Burnett that I began to realise it was something I could do for a living! (laughing) Up until that point I was, like, ‘man, I just don’t know?’ (laughing) but now I am too deep in.
What would you have done if you hadn’t gone down the ‘music route’?
I went to a liberal arts college where I initially thought I was going to get a degree in History. I thought maybe I would go to law school. I liked school, I was comfortable being in school and around academia but when I got to college I kinda had a moment where I realised music was more important to me. I’d started playing in Bluegrass bands and that began to take over my life.
I followed the Bay Area scene in the 90s thanks to bands like Counting Crows but I never realised there was a Bluegrass scene too?
The Bay Area has it’s own little Bluegrass history because of David Grisman and Tony Rice, really. All of those classic Tony Rice records were made in the Bay Area. A lot of important music came out of the Bay Area from just that small group of people. California, in general, has had a pretty strong Bluegrass scene since the Folk revival of the 60’s. It is probably the third biggest area in the country for that type of music behind Colorado and the south east of the country.
In the south, most of the bands that are playing Bluegrass are doing a much more refined style, smoother style of music influenced by bands like The Lonesome River Band and Tony Rice. California is in a different kind of space, almost like it’s in a time capsule. i played in a Bluegrass band called Windy Hill and we wore white shirts and all that kind of imagery.
What’s it like for a Californian boy living in Nashville. What do you like about it and what do you miss about the west coast?
Nashville is like the Alamo for musicians! (laughing) It’s the last place left in North America to go if you play guitar. Other cities might have strong music scenes but they are not like Nashville, where you literally can swing a dead cat and knock over a bunch of guitar players. The connections here are good too, in terms of the amount of musicians around to help and advise you.
In the Bay Area right now the music scene is in a pretty much anaemic state. There are people doing it but a lot of people left to go live in L.A. or to move here so it’s a hard place to be as an artist right now.
‘Golden State’ is quite different to your debut album. How have you changed and evolved as a writer in the last 3-4 years?
My first album had a lot of songs on it that were up to about 15 years old, you know? I can’t even remember who I was when I wrote some of them whilst this new record is a snapshot of who I am now in this most recent period of my life.
What did Shooter Jennings bring to the project as your producer?
Shooter kinda reached out to me. I was kinda in a weird spot with my label deal and he was looking for something to do and he found me! He put the fire under my ass and motivated the record label too. Shooter is a collaborative dude who empowers you to make the record that you want to make and not what somebody else thinks you should be making!
He’s a hard worker, he has a great ear and he’s a great piano player too!
What was the easiest song to write on the album and what song was the hardest to finesse into where you wanted it to be?
The title track took a long time because I had the melody for a long time but didn’t have any lyrics beyond the first verse. ‘All the Wine in California’ was a long process too. ‘Midnight in LA’ was pretty quick in terms of going from the idea to finished version.
Are you driven by lyrics, melodies, song titles or a combination when it comes to ideas and inspirations?
It’s usually kind of a combination. Sometimes a phrase will come to me and I’ll build a song around it. Typically I’ll put a melodic idea or fragment together with a lyrical one and go from there. I very rarely have written a song from a straight up melody, that just doesn’t work for me as there has to be some sort of lyrical idea behind the song.
The songs on ‘Golden State’ aren’t really co-writes, which is unusual for Nashville, right? They are typically my songs that some people have helped me out with. These aren’t songs that were generated from nothing at 10.30am in a Nashville writing room, they really were like my babies that were polished or finessed into what they are now.
‘Midnight in L.A.’ has my favourite line on the album when you sing, ‘For every dream that’s born, another has to die.’ That’s so evocative of Los Angeles to me.
It’s interesting because I’ve had people say, like, you know, people go to LA and they chase this dream and try to be a star but it wasn’t really what I mean’t with that line but it does work on a number of different levels. For me, that song was very much written ‘for’ the album, it was very much composed on the spot in the studio for very deliberate reasons. It was kinda like a ‘meta’ song about the album, for the album.
Did you agonise over the sequencing of the album at all? Is this an album that needs to be listened to in order?
I don’t think it ‘needs’ to be but it helps. Shooter and I talked about that some and there were only a couple of sequences that worked for us . I think we knew that ‘Golden State’ would be the opener and that set us on the pathway for the whole thing.
Let’s talk about ‘Till it Feels Right,’ which is an incredibly bleak song. Does the guy hang on to the girl at the end or do you want the next step to remain ambiguous?
(chuckling) Yeah, it certainly is! Well, in real life he did. (pause) For the sake of the song narrative it needed to be ambiguous. The album can be seen as the playing out and the disintegration of a relationship on some level from there to ‘Where Will I Go?’. It’s a much older song, probably about 2-3 relationships ago now, thankfully.
‘Obviously’ is a really evocative song that puts me in mind of songs from artists like Elvis and Billy Fury that my dad used to listen to. Tell me about the inspiration behind that song.
That one has a kind of New Orleans, ‘swamp-pop’ thing going on. The song is just a 32 bar, simple melody and it’s a Country song but it also could be a rock ‘n’ roll song too. I wanted to make a stylistically eclectic record and that adds to the vibe. I’d been listening to a lot of Fats Domino and Bobby Charles at the time and I wanted to channel some of that sound onto the album.
What’s the plan for the rest of the year in terms of getting this music out to as many people as possible?
I got a couple of tours on the books. One which I can’t talk about yet but one which I announced with my friend, Vincent Neil Emerson, who is a great songwriter. Pretty much every show I’ve played this year has been on the west coast, which wasn’t intentional but I do like being out there.
What’s your favourite venue to play in Nashville?
You know, I really love The Basement. To me, that’s a great room. It forces people to have to shut up because it makes people feel uncomfortable if they talk! (laughing) That’s a magical component of a true listening room.
Check out Logan Ledger’s ‘Golden State’ album right here.
