Rising Appalachia Interview: Thoughts on the Filthy Dirty South

I’ve known Rising Appalachia for a long time now, first as the folk duo of sisters Leah and Chloe Smith, raised by Appalachian and roots music loving parents in the South, and then as the fusion-oriented bandleaders that they are now, bringing an openly welcoming, community-based aesthetic to their music today. Their latest album, Filthy Dirty South, is an eclectic affair based on their lives in New Orleans’ wildly vibrant roots music scene and their travels as far abroad as the communes of Goa in India. Having come from the South, and making the kind of multi-cultural, forward-thinking music most people might associate with the Left Coast, I was curious to find out more about hiow Leah and Chloe thought of the South, and how their music fit both in New Orleans and in farther corners of the region.

Hearth Music Interview with Rising Appalachia

-Where are you both from? Did you grow up in folk music?

We grew up in downtown Atlanta, GA rather immersed and happily steeped in both traditional music: Appalachian, Irish, Jazz, and world harmony singing from our parents and their musical community, as well as in the urban pulse of underground hip hop, soul and the spoken-word movement.  Although that might seem an unusual combination of influences, we had fun navigating the cultural melting pot and bouncing from fiddle festivals in the Appalachian mountains on the weekends to our downtown high-school and underground dance clubs in the city and have found the overlap to be a huge creative inspiration in our work as musicians, performers, story-tellers, and bridge builders.

-What does “folk music” mean to you today? You’ve been in and around the genre for a long time, but have also been looking at what it really means, more than what it sounds like. So what are your thoughts on the benefits of folk music?

Folk music, by one definition, is “music, usually of simple character and anonymous authorship, handed down among the common people by oral tradition”. This rings true to the fact that most folk music across the globe was originally created, written, and passed between poor and/or under served people of all regions, which throughout time, has proved to be some of the best music around.  To us, there is something real, graspable, and authentic in folk music that really defies the common boundaries of stance and stature in all our lives and brings out something common and shared between us all.  Hip Hop is the underground folk of the urban American youth…
We have been able to travel all over the world as song collectors, and although original songwriting and music is often shared and made available to us, often times its the grandmother songs- the farmer songs- the dance songs- and the ancient seasonal chants that people are the most excited to share with us. Folk music can be our common tie, unifying without having a common language, and beautiful no matter how much of the words you understand.  Its humble.  Its grounded and rooted in community and a sense of place as well as history and an understanding of where we come from.  Its timeless…. and in our modern rush paced society… that’s about as valuable as anything else out there.  

-Tell me about the song “Filthy Dirty South”. How did it come about?

Chloe wrote the song Filthy Dirty South a few years back when we had a little time off in New Orleans to write and learn songs down in that musical center of the universe.  It was and continues to be a huge influence in our writing and social lives, providing a social, creative, spiritual and communal frame work for the entire Rising Appalachia crew.  That song in particular was pulling from a few experiences that we all had as a band, which was two fold.  One was the tragic and dirty BP oil spill disaster in Louisiana, and the other was the fracking and mountain top removal chaos that was happening and continues to happen in Southern Appalachia… (which is where our original bass player was from, and told stories of gas companies literally knocking at the door of his family home seeking land rights constantly). The song is about the environmental resources that are extracted from the south in all these dirty and harmful ways, why they happen, and evolves into a call for southerners especially but everyone to pay attention to that and work towards some better options for such a beautiful region of the country.
It also ties into the idea that there are places in all our lives and homes that suffer from neglect, and asks us each to take some time to nurture those parts of the world, and those parts of our homes.

-You both clearly have a strong DIY, community-minded spirit. How has this meshed with New Orleans? Has New Orleans recently become a center for young community-minded artists, or has it always been this way?
 
We cannot really speak on personal reference to what was going on in New Orleans before Katrina and before we got swept away in its magic, but post 2005…. and in our own humble opinion having traveled all over the world, it is one of THE strongest and most DIY communities we’ve had the pleasure to call home.  Because there are limited financial resources in that city compared to most major art centers in the country, there is both a necessity and a sort of old-school “call upon your neighbors” mentality of sharing, collaborating, being transparent, and involving as many artists as you can in any and every project that comes to fruition.  I imagine, in its way, that New Orleans has always been this way and will hopefully continue on this route even as money and new investment filters in.  A hot bed of culture.  A big ol’ gumbo pot of living… people of all race, class, religion, dance styles, education backgrounds… front stoop living,  and song swapping.  There is a very primal need in mostly all of its inhabitants to express themselves and tell the stories that are so rich and unique to that center of the south.  Although we’d all like to keep it a secret, anyone that ever sets foot on the banks of Miss New Orleans can feel that creative power run right through them, and impatiently awaits the next time they can return…

-Do you feel that being on the farther left side of the political spectrum in the South clashes with Southern values? Have you come up against resistance to your songs, especially songs like Filthy Dirty South. Or are you finding that more and more people are coming away from conservative values after seeing their scorched-earth results?

Well…thats a good questions… I am certain that not all southern folk like everything that we have to say…but this is true the world over. THere are no clean lines in peoples belief systems not of any community great or small. We are each our own animal. I hope the latter is the case! That being said, we believe deeply in the positive and powerful parts of Southern culture as well. The music and dance and eating and socializing traditions that brought people together no matter what your background. There was and still is a lot of poverty in the south that lends to certain amount of DYI attitudes that keeps communities strong and independent. We also are big supporters of the re-envisioning of the south… recognizing that it has been the brunt of a lot of negative stereo-types that ALTHOUGH DO lay in some historical truth, are also not the main voice of Southern radicalism, human rights, traditional medicine, and feminism that are also deeply rooted in southern communities. There is a quiet nature to the south…but there is also a hotbed of righteous activists that are doing deeply important work …and that gets overlooked.  

-Tell me about the new EP with The Human Experience? Who are they and how did this come about? Were you going for an “electro-trad” sound specifically?

Ha! Not exactly “electro-trad”…but as big time lovers of deep bass music, we wanted to see if we could bring an element of our personal soul sound into the highly electronically minded world…It is the first step at an urban bridge…a dj dance party…a “swamp/womp” style! We do so much work recreating old music in a way that feels fresh and vital to us, we thought perhaps we should take a crack at adding our flavor to a contemporary sound. David Block is an old friend of ours and his inspiration to make it happen and to really try out a full on collaboration of sounds was compelling to us. It has begun just one more path for sound sharing…

-Do you think there’s a real divide between our generation and the generation of our parents when it comes to roots music? Do you feel like you guys get support from both sides of the generational divide? Or is there a real gap there?

I think there is a gap for sure, but not a canyon. There are some linguistic differences…different words for the same general needs…but i find that most roots music lovers love the same thing. And even with more contemporary styles…there may not be too much of a crossover in listening, but there is alot of respect for powerful minded music of all styles. Music with soul and spirit. Who doesn’t like that?