Singer Songwriters
Three Eastside artists talk about their creative process.
Words by Jessi Devenyns Photos by Eric Morales & Ashley Haguewood
Songs are considered the poetry of the soul. However, those who write them are often grappling with their own insecurities and triumphs as they sift through their real life encounters to create the tunes that audiences love to hear. For three Eastsiders—Carson McHone, Parker Chapin, and Carrie Rodriguez—their words not only tell the tale of a single soul but also create a conversation that pulls the listener in with a sense of camaraderie and shared experience. Blended with rhythms and notes, these three artists create a sound that feels like home.
Carson McHone
“I guess I feel like I’m not a very good storyteller so instead I feel like I’m trying to capture scenes that people can relate to,” muses Carson McHone whose sophomore album just hit airwaves this past October. Her powerful voice can suddenly drop to a sultry whisper that sweetly draws fans into lyrics that demand full attention. Her songs are vignettes that grab anyone who listens into a moment in time capturing the reel of Carson’s imagination. Her songs swell and weave a passionate tale out of a moment. The idea, according to Carson, is to create a corkscrew of emotions that recreates for others the passion that she draws from music.
Surprisingly, for the young singer-songwriter, this zeal for music did not always come naturally. Although she grew up studying the classical Suzuki method on the violin she remembers, “I was not any good. I wouldn’t practice, and I wasn’t really into it.” It wasn’t until she met Darcie Deaville from the Austin Lounge Lizards who taught her Irish reels and Dixie Chick songs that she discovered was, “the spark that ignited my life in music.” Her introduction to the violin as a vehicle to express everyday moments quickly evolved into a love affair with performing, and Carson shortly thereafter picked up a guitar and began writing her own work.
By the time she was a junior in high school, she was performing every night at the Hole in the Wall on the Drag, crystallizing the sound that later established her as a figure at the forefront of a new generation of artists who coalesce roots music with pedal steel country beats. “I feel very privileged to have grown up in a place where young people were allowed to play music in bars and were encouraged to do so,” she remarks. As Carson’s career gains steam, she admits that songwriting has become more difficult. “I have difficulty writing on the road. It’s just something I’m going to have to figure out as I go,” she smiles.
For her, some of her best work comes out of moments with a hot cup of tea and a notebook in a quiet corner of her house. “I remember being in English class where my teacher said,’show don’t tell.’ You don’t want to tell people how it is, you want to show them.’ I think maybe all of me thinks that way when [I’m] creating,” she says wide-eyed. As a result of trying to draw her scenes with words, “I just have notebooks where I handwrite stuff…I end up writing and rewriting stuff over and over again.” Even if she’s not writing though, Carson explains that inspiration comes from all fronts – especially other genres of music. “I’m listening to all kinds of different music these days.” However, she allays any fears that her musical compositions will take a hard left turn. Folk music and bluegrass, Alison Krauss and Dr. Ralph Stanley, “that’s the stuff I [am] attracted to playing.”
Parker Chapin
After getting kicked out of the house at the age of 16 and battling substance abuse, Parker moved to Austin and found his way through a mire of self-doubt and depression through writing songs. Last year, his songs catapulted him out of the shadows to a finalist in the 2018 Texas Songwriter contest. But that was never his plan.
“When I moved to Austin, I had no intention of playing music ever,” admits Parker. However, after a successful open mic night at Strange Brew, Parker says he was unable to deny his impulse to express himself through song. “I just liked writing songs because it was the only thing that ever helped.” He goes on, “Writing songs essentially helped me see I’m not a bad person.” With a smile that is nearly permanently creased into his face and a laugh that bounces off the walls, it’s hard to imagine Parker as a sad personality, but his lyrics – which Parker assures are the equivalent of reading his personal diary entries – reflect a troubled story. “My songs are sad,” he shrugs. Still, “I would imagine as much as I do write, something happy would come around. And it has more recently.”
Even as his musical talents have begun to gain recognition, Parker explains that he has had to put aside people’s opinions in order to continue to pursue his raw style of writing songs that chronicle his life. With a home filled with haphazardly scrawled notes on journals, sticky notes, and scraps of paper, it’s incredible to imagine how rhyme and reason come from the chaos. For Parker, though, expending that chaos is what allows him to find the story in the first place. By putting his thoughts down on paper, he observes that he is able to articulate his feelings with more precision and take a step back from the emotions. Yet, he admits that every time he performs a song, the lyrics plunge him back into the moment. To help him stay afloat, Parker says he relies on his guitar. As he tells his story, Parker strums his guitar creating a backdrop for his words that trill and stretch over the background hum. His smile sinks into concentration as he melts into his song. When he stops he remarks, “It’s just like something that happens. It’s like I’m a completely different person [when I sing].” In conversation he shares that he’s a “fragile flower,” but as soon as he starts putting a melody to those spoken words, the world clicks into place and he finds his purpose. Without song, he admits he doesn’t know where he would be today. “I went to rehab… and talked to a lot of different therapists there, but it never did for me what songwriting did. It didn’t even compare.”
Carrie Rodriguez
At 40 years old, Carrie Rodriguez has had more adventures than most people can dream about in a lifetime. Currently an East Austin resident, Carrie grew up in Austin and traveled the world playing a menu of musical genres in an effort to understand herself and her cross cultural roots. Doing so eventually brought her back home. “It wasn’t until I left Texas that I realized I really miss country music, I miss folk songs, I miss improvising,” she shares. This deeply engrained love of boot-scuffed floors, Lone Star beer, and heart-wrenching lyrics is instantly identifiable in Carrie’s music where she whirls through cascades of notes on her fiddle and emits crystal clear notes containing the story of her life.
At her best, Carrie exudes a freewheeling style that dances along the edge of rehearsed professionalism and improvisation. Her passion and energy are injected into her words, which give them a texture that alters depending on if she is crooning in Spanish or in English. “For some reason, singing in Spanish does access a different part of me, and my voice sounds different…it’s a little bit rougher,” she describes the transition as the difference between a flour and a corn tortilla. Both are familiar and flavorful, but each one is appropriate for a specific occasion. English, for Carrie, is her everyday language, but “I think the Spanish language is…more emotional, and I think part of that is feeling my connection to my family in ways I don’t experience every day,” she grins. By creating songs in both languages, she believes, has helped her find that comfortable place that is true to herself.
Carrie explains that beyond helping herself find her place in the world, writing songs is a way for her to offer a sense of belonging and comfort to those who listen to her words. “I hope people can draw things from my songs that speak to them,” she explains. Having the confirmation that her lyrics move people, she admits, makes all the effort worth it and offers her the affirmation she still needs in order to continue creating. “The biggest battle as a songwriter is self-doubt,” she confesses. Despite being a professional musician for nearly two decades, Carrie freely admits that not all of her attempts to create stories through her songs are Grammy-material. At some points, she even acknowledges that her “not-so-good” songs make her want to go back to being “just a violin player.” But she keeps at it and adds, “Even if I doubt myself on certain days, I’ve got to keep doing this because it made a difference for this one person and that means everything.”
Whether honky-tonk, grassroots, Americana, acoustic, or folk, each of these musicians holds that it’s not so much about the style of the music as the music’s ability to transport their lyrics to the audience. That empowerment through music is a unique process resulting in tunes that speak to the soul of anyone who listens.
Contact:
carsonmchonemusic.com
tim@ninemilerecords.com
parkerchapin.com
parkerchapinmusic@gmail.com
carrierodriguez.com
staff@songtone.com
