Americana duo Boo Radley chatted with Digital Journal’s Markos Papadatos about their latest endeavors.
What was it like working and recording demos for the legendary record producer Clive Davis?
“I was working with Nashville engineer, Bill Deaton, and songwriter/producer Monty Powell, in the historic RCA Studio A. Monty was in the process of pitching us to Clive Davis. However, I reached a place in my heart that caused me to think about the dark nature of the music we were creating in the band ‘Salem’s Lot,’ named after the Stephen King horror novel.”
“Stephen King gave us permission to use the name. I was really into black magic at the time. In the end, that was not what I wanted to put out into the world. I walked away from the project. Our sound engineer on the project, Chris Armstrong, ended up going on to work with Roy Clark, Brooks and Dunn, and Diamond Rio, among others. Shortly after this, I ended up leaving the country to live in the Philippines,” they said.
With October being Blindness Awareness Month, what advice would you give to visually impaired musicians as a one-eyed man who has not allowed his affliction to hamper him?
Learn to accept your disability and don’t try to play like a sighted person. Embrace it and you will reach a much better understanding of your instrument. It won’t take as long as you may think it will. I haven’t looked at my guitar neck while playing in probably two years.
What was it like being a household name and touring across the Philippines for seven years? What cultural influences did you absorb into your musicianship?
In many ways, it felt like a dream come true. Most artists would agree that they would love to hear their songs on the radio, to play in front of tens of thousands of fans, and to be recognized for something they’ve worked hard at.
It was also great to work with some amazing artists in the writing and recording industries. However, it’s often not what people think it is.
You have a lot of responsibility for what you say and do, and how you influence lives; especially the lives of younger people. Within the past year, two well-known rock artists there have committed suicide, creating traumatic fallout within their fan bases. It’s sad, because there is a trust placed in artists by their fans; it’s imperative to recognize and respect that.
I don’t think I really absorbed any influences into my music. I was exposed to more indigenous styles that were more tribal-oriented, for example, the music of Cynthia Alexander, but I didn’t really carry that over into my own music.
Patty, you wear many hats, what are your roles in this duo? As the member with complete vision, what practices do you use to help stay grounded with managing Boo Radley’s career? Where do you pull from for lyrical inspiration?
I do most of what needs to be done on the computer: booking gigs, writing copy, graphic design, advertising, social media updating, deciding on and ordering merchandise and supplies, all issues having to do with copyrighting, BMI registration, CD ordering, sales tracking, emailing, and online sales.
I’m sure there are probably a couple I haven’t thought of. Because of Michael’s vision, it’s really difficult for him to see a computer screen. Thanks to technology, though, he does have a really cool phone for the visually-impaired. Between that and voice text, he does manage to make quite a few phone calls for us and keep us active on social media.
His vision prohibits him from driving, so I also do all of the driving. I really enjoy driving for the most part, though, so it works out just fine. Not that either of us would turn down a driver, though!
I think what grounds me is starting my day alone (Michael sleeps later than I do), reading my Bible, sipping a fresh cup of coffee, and enjoying a light breakfast as I read. It puts things back into perspective for me. I try to keep the world out for that space in time. I’m pretty selfish about that.
Another thing that grounds me is my writing. We have been through some agonizingly tough situations. I can write my way to some kind of understanding about them sometimes. It’s a great release for me, whether anyone ever sees what I’ve written or not.
Because of this ability to use my writing to work things out, many of my songs are inspired by sincere pain. My son is a recovering addict who is currently in prison, and has been for most of his adult life. That alone is enough to keep a person writing! It seems like many of our songs really touch listeners deeply. I think that maybe they have experienced the level of pain that the song was written about, and it helps them touch it and hopefully work through it a little bit. That’s our hope, anyway.
What’s a typical writing session between the two of you look like?
We’ve written only a handful of songs by just sitting down and saying, “Okay, we’re going to write a song.” Those are the songs that, looking back at the notebooks, took pages and pages of lyrical changes to get them ‘right.’ But they also ended up being some of our most-loved songs. Most of our songs are created bit-by-bit.
They kind of simmer for a while. Michael plays his guitar six days a week, usually for hours per day. When he comes up with a good riff, he records it using our little hand-held recorder. We have hundreds and hundreds of great riffs on that little thing! It’s one of our most-used tools. At any given time, we have multiple songs in the works.
The songs just kind of brew, and certain ones start becoming prominent. Then Patty is called in. Patty has bags and bags of notebooks full of poetry and lyrics, dating back to when she was a young teenager. You’d think those would be the go-to for lyrics, but it seems that something new always wants to bring itself to light, and new lyrics are written. Sometimes, an entire song just seems to spit itself out all at once, and she can hardly write fast enough!
That doesn’t happen often, but it is always amazing when it does! A good example of this is our song, “What I’m Gonna Do.” A friend of ours talked about her husband’s infidelity being captured on video. Patty felt her pain really deeply, and all of a sudden this song almost demanded to be written. Women of all ages seem to really relate to it, sad to say.
Michael is no stranger to throwing out some great lyrics either. He has written some of our best, most popular songs. Patty may have helped tighten it up with a line or two, but he’s a very good writer too, don’t let him fool you!
As older artists in the industry, what do you think are your advantages?
One advantage is our level of stage experience, which leads to comfortable connections with audiences of any size. We each started playing in bands in the 80’s, so performing is second nature to us now.
Another advantage is the industry connections we’ve been able to make. We are so grateful to be working with “the top of the food chain,” as Michael would put it, when it comes to recording.
We’ve been blessed with the opportunity to work with some of Nashville’s finest musicians and recording, mixing, and mastering engineers, in one of the most iconic recording studios around. We take working relationships very seriously, and appreciate the level of respect we receive from people for whom we have respect. This, in itself, feels like an accomplishment.
Also, we have learned to not be afraid to just give it our all. Patty quit a really good full-time job in 2014, and we’ve not looked back since.
If there were an artist Boo Radley could collaborate with, who would you choose and why?
That’s a tough one. If we were choosing someone from the past, we’d both agree on Mother’s Finest. They were amazing, and defined the word ‘funk.’ (We’re kind of a rock band trapped inside of an acoustic duo!) But they are no longer together, so…
Michael’s answer: The Doobie Brothers. “They were among my biggest influences when I first started playing guitar.”
Patty’s answer: “I sure would love for us to be able to harmonize with Alison Krauss!”
