Photograph by Brian Cummings
Hilary Scott and AJ Gennaro
If, when nosing around online for a new artist to check out, you stumble upon Hilary Scott, don’t think that she’s some sort of newfound talent to hit the scene for the first time (or that she’s part of Lady Antebellum).
“I have been doing this for a long time—ever since I graduated from college,” says the Washington State native. “I’ve done a lot of traveling and lived in a lot of different places, so I don’t know if the fact that I’ve bounced around the globe has been a part of that. I’ve been doing it for about 15 years.”
With nearly a dozen albums under her belt, (her latest Freight Train Love, won the 2015 Vintage Folk Album of the Year from the Rural Roots Music Commission of the National Traditional Country Music Association) she’s spent six of those fifteen years here in St. Louis, but is moving back to the west coast in December with her husband, drummer AJ Gennaro. Her show at The Demo on November 20 will be her last for a while—at least here in St. Louis. In this exit interview, the Southwest Gardens resident talks about her unique sound, opening for Chuck Berry, and the challenge of turning the words of e.e. cummings into a song fit for recording.
Your music blends in a bit of everything—rock, blues, country, even a bit of soul…how would you describe your style and sound?
I’ve been calling it “Americana-Indie” because it seems to encapsulate a lot of what I’m doing, and I think one of the cool things about the word indie is that it does call to mind for certain people a certain style of music, I think, but when you add it to Americana to it I think it broadens out. And the indie part for me just stands for that ability to, as an independent musician, make the music that I want to make. And I think part of that is being able to look for a lot of different styles.
How do you think that forms your image in the public eye?
I do think that that has presented challenges because I think that the industry in general prefers to have a label that they’re comfortable using to discuss certain musicians. Even though a lot of musicians do cross genres and do a lot of different things. Also, I think being a singer-songwriter alleviates some of that, too. I think it’s easier to say “Okay she writes music, so she explores different genres.” The first thing I hope people think of is that I’m a songwriter first, and then the musical styles come later. I think sometimes having an easy category to place yourself in lets people who might want to come listen to you know if they can identify with you easily or not. I can see how that can present some challenges for new listeners who have no idea who I am.
After six years here, do you feel like you are a part of the St. Louis music scene?
I think the St. Louis music scene is very vibrant and very unique, and I think it would take longer for me to really feel like I was an integrated part of the St. Louis music scene. I think that a lot of the acts that have transplanted here have maybe found it more challenging to break into the scene if they didn’t have the friends and family base to get them rolling. I guess at this point the answer is that I’m living in St. Louis and benefiting from the great live music scene that’s here, but I’m not sure I would say I’m fully a St. Louis musician yet.
What will your last show be like?
We will perform a lot from this latest album, which is Freight Train Love, but also I’ve got some really new songs that have not been recorded at all. It’s going to be newer stuff, but I have some longtime fans that are traveling from Columbia, and we’ll be playing some of the oldies for them too. We’re going to miss St. Louis a lot. It’s one of those cities I think that when you get inside of it and really start to get to know it you just grow to love it more and more, and it has a lot of secret allure.
We’re gonna be back here a lot because I do have a Missouri base. I was also based in Columbia for a while, so I have a pretty solid base in the Midwest and that’s where we do a large amount of our touring, so we’ll be back 3-4 times a year. My husband and I have sort of become the core duo, and we do a lot of our touring just the two of us.
Of your many moments here, one of them included you and your band, The New County Line opening for Chuck Berry in October 2013. What was that experience like?
It was the night before his 86th birthday, I believe. I knew that he came to Blueberry Hill and played at the Duck Room and I thought it would be so awesome if we had the opportunity to open for him, and when they offered us the slot I was stoked. We got there that night, and one of the people working at Blueberry Hill gave us the rundown of ‘Don’t expect photos, don’t expect to talk to him or shake his hand’... and I understand that. But it was the opposite of that. After the show we actually met him and he grabbed my hand and asked ‘Did you have fun?!’ and we got a picture with him. The crowd was really great because it was a very diverse crowd. They were really receptive to us, which I was a little worried about because you’ve got a legend and then you’ve got this unknown kind of local act - and it was awesome.
What’s next for you?
Part of what I did for my last record was an Indiegogo campaign, and I sold original songs or covers that people wanted me to do my version of for them. That was a large portion of the funds that I collected. I still have this full slate of songs that I need to write and record for people.
I think a big part of my goal over the next year is to work through that and record those, and see if I can build the next record around that. I think it will be a year or two before another full studio record comes out. One of my perks was “For $100 you can tell me what your favorite cover song is and I’ll record you a demo version of that. For $200 you can give me a keyword or a theme, and I’ll write you a brand new original song.”
I’m sort of an ‘inspiration strikes’-type writer, so it’s taking a lot longer for me to complete the project than I thought it would. There was someone who wants me to write the music to an ee cummings poem, and it’s really, really challenging because it’s not really set up with the meter to be put to music. It’s one of those things where eventually some of it is going to feel more like work…
