Keeping ‘90s alt-country alive while bringing new music to new audiences.
If Nick Gusman and The Coyotes are an indicator then grassroots americana is still alive and well in St Louis, Missouri. The band who earned an 8 out of 10 Americana UK review for their third album, “Lifting Heavy Things” take their inspiration from what were considered local bands in the ‘90s such as The Bottle Rockets, Uncle Tupelo, and Wilco, and their songs are rooted in the gritty reality of everyday life in St Louis, rather than some pastoral idyl. Americana UK’s Martin Johnson caught up with Nick Gusman at home in St Louis over Zoom to discuss the new album and the importance of St Louis to their overall sound. He explains that he is the band’s lyricist and songwriter, but the band chooses which of his songs to record and they all contribute to the arrangements. To try and get some St Louis grit into the record Nick Gusman explains that “Lifting Heavy Things” was recorded live, except for some background vocals. While they have never played in the UK, Nick Gusman recounts how pleasantly surprised he has been by the reception the band has had when they have toured Germany and the Netherlands. He also explains that he has various solo projects on the go as well as his work with The Coyotes and that he hopes to play solo in the UK in 2025.
How are you?
I’m fine. I’m just hanging at home with the snow coming down.
The Coyotes have very eclectic musical backgrounds, why do you think you blend so well together?
It does seem natural. I guess it works because three of the band members are so damn good, they all have musical backgrounds and studied music in school. So, they’ve learnt every genre possible, they have learnt jazz, country, classical and whatever, our fiddle player Sean Kamery, our lead guitarist Garrett Rongey, and our drummer Jeremy Reidy. They really help out a lot with creating the arrangements and stuff like that, it is really a group effort there, I come in with the lyrics and the bones of songs, and then we work them out together. I feel this album specifically sounds like St Louis, like this part of the country, when I listen back to the songs I don’t think it sounds like alt-country americana that’s coming from Texas, or coming from Kentucky, or coming from Oklahoma, I think it sounds like St Louis.
What are the key characteristics of the St Louis sound with its long history and proximity to the Mississippi?
I think it sounds a little hard and gritty like the city itself for one, we weren’t going for an exploration of the roots of americana in a nostalgic kind of way, and a lot of the songs are city-driven, they are about living in the city. I have family in southern Missouri and I’ve experienced a lot of country down there in terms of what you might hear in a normal country or americana song, sort of maybe cliched topics, where these are all about the city where we live. When I started playing out in town twenty years ago when I was about 19, I was meeting folks and at that time, the Bottle Rockets were still very big, Uncle Tupelo, Wilco were popping off and everything, and they were all from this area. The Bottle Rockets are from less than forty-five minutes from here, Uncle Tupelo was birthed here, and all that music was really popular with everyone around town. Those were the people I was looking up to and meeting out playing live, and I started saying this is what I want to sound like, this is what I want to do. Those are some of the musical heroes and roots that started shaping me from the beginning, and then I just went from there.
What’s the St Louis music scene like today?
From my perspective, it’s a little less active. I don’t think our style is as popular here may be as it is regionally, we are visiting Oklahoma and going to Nashville this weekend and whatnot, and trying to find the venues that really love it. There are a couple of venues in town that really support it here in St Louis which is a great base for us but I’d say the alternative country scene was stronger a while back. That doesn’t deter us, we do what we do, we love the music we play and we travel to play it.
You have your own recording space in St Louis where you’ve recorded all your albums?
The studio we use is great, this will be the third record we’ve done there and it’s Native Sound 
Recordings on Cherokee Street a few blocks away from here. Cherokee Street is quite a vibrant arts district here full of Mexican restaurants, grocery stores and stuff, and a lot of cool bars and whatnot. We love that studio, and I can’t really get away from it. It’s the best studio I’ve been in, and I’ve been in just about all of them in the city at one point or another working on different projects. David Beeman was the engineer on this, and we cut it all live in the studio. We didn’t do any over-dubbing or any retracking, we just kept the best takes for the vocals and everything, so it’s exactly what we sound like. There are background vocals on three tracks that we added later.
It’s pretty brave to record live these days, with all the available technology not many people choose to do that anymore.
It’s not as popular, and with our first two albums we didn’t do that, but I felt we’ve really honed our sound in and we play together so well and tight and we just wanted to capture the energy of a live performance. I know what you are saying because even after the fact we knew we had good takes when we were listening back, there are things in there that I hear and I’m like we could go back and fix it, I could fix that guitar right there, or I could change the vocal right there, but we wanted it to have grit and for it to sound real and not too polished.
How protective are you with your lyrics as far as the other band members go?
They don’t really mess with the lyrics, I have all that ready. I’m open to that but the way we’ve evolved I just write the songs and bring them in, and they say yes or no. We’re pretty democratic with that, but sometimes there’s a song I really like and I’m like, we’ve really got to do this one. I bring lots of songs in and we test them out, and we learn them and then we start testing them out live if we get them to that point, and they either stay or just fade away. That’s OK, I’ll use those songs for other things like playing solo in different smaller arrangements. With the lyrics, I write all the lyrics, but on this album Garrett our lead guitar player wanted to put one of his songs on there, and it became a hit live when we played it and it’s one of our set closers, a real fun song. It’s kind of goofy, and he wrote it and it’s called ‘Trucker’, and it’s put together from some stories that he heard from meeting lots of truckers from working in gas stations. It’s a real fun one, we like it.
You released the title track ‘Lifting Heavy Things’ and ‘Sound of a Broken Heart’ as singles. What’s the response been?
We’ve been really excited about people getting to hear them, and we’ve been getting a lot of good feedback, Rachel, our PR lady, has been helping us premier some of our singles at different outlets. That was really nice because we would get a review on the single, and people would be able to get to listen to them. Everything we’ve been hearing lately has been really exciting, everybody’s been really happy about it and we’ve been noticing people streaming lots of the songs. We will be playing a show in Nashville on the day the full album comes out so that will be a kind of a celebration then, I mean, we’ve been stoked, everything has been great. When we get home we have a week off and then we play our album release show here in St Louis on 13th December with a great band, Al Halliday & The Eastside Rhythm Band. They are amazing, they are like a nine-piece band and they have horns and everything, they are like roots rock soul. I’m just glad to get the album out for everybody to hear, I think it’s the best musical thing I’ve done. And the band has done, and we’re really proud of it. We are going to be touring and trying to support the record.
Post pandemic the live scene everywhere seems to have got a lot tougher.
I’m finding it still fruitful and exciting, but there are some venues that shut down, and there are places around town here that are shutting down because they kind of never fully recovered. We’ve been to Europe a couple of times and we know it’s hard everywhere because there are one or two venues we want to go back to that we are not sure are going to be open, and that’s sad to see. It sucks, but we are just making the best of it and going to visit those cities that we love and immerse ourselves out there, and support those venues and play out there.
What have been the reactions of European audiences when you toured here?
It was really good. We’re small beans compared to the larger and more successful artists out there that are really popular, we are still working our way up there. We didn’t know what to expect out there, and we’ve been twice, and next year I’m going solo for a few weeks and then the band’s going later on in the year. So, I’ll be there twice next year in the Germany and Netherlands area, and maybe the UK. The reception was so good and they treated us so well, and I think they are really craving the sound of the music that we’re making. We had a couple of shows that were sold out too in places we’d never been, they were ready for music and they’d been looking forward to us coming. We’d just been in St Louis playing to a small room of people who were excited for us, but we didn’t expect to go over there and play to 150 people and have everybody just losing it. It was an experience for sure, and we didn’t fully realise that the music we play was appreciated in certain areas of Europe.
What would you say are the differences between European and US audiences?
I think the European audience is kinder, and maybe the US audience is possibly over-saturated with our style, or something, with so many American bands playing. It seems a little harder to break through, but the biggest thing is that the Europeans did seem a lot happier to have us there, it was almost like when you see an old friend. With an American audience, it’s like they’ve been to four shows that month of a similar style, whereas the European audience hadn’t seen a band like ours in months. That’s what it felt like, and I think it was a big factor in the receiving of it. It was great and I can’t wait to go back.
At AUK, we like to share music with our readers, so can you share which artists, albums, or tracks are currently top three on your personal playlist?
The album I was just listening to is the new Dawes album, “Oh Brother”. I’m just a few songs in and I’m really digging it, it’s got humour in it, he’s a great lyricist and the band sounds great. Another record I can’t get enough of is “The Bootleg Series Vol.10: Another Self Portrait”, it’s long there are fifty-three songs but I’ve just been playing it over and over, and it’s getting me really inspired. There are lots of live tracks with the Band. You wonder how much more stuff is still out there that will blow your mind. Dylan is a favourite artist of mine and it’s always nice to dip into his catalogue because it’s so rich. I’ve dipped into Kristofferson since he passed away and I was blown away. Someone like that is really inspirational, and I don’t think he got the full recognition he deserves as a songwriter.
Do you class your own music as heartland rock?
I would say the closest artist to that genre that I look up to I would say is Bruce Springsteen. He can be pretty rock and pop at times, but at his core, he’s an amazing songwriter. He has that big sound and that energy, and he is definitely someone who has worked his way into my psyche. Tom Waits is not in the heartland rock genre, but like Springsteen, lyrically he writes about the romance, the nostalgia, and sometimes the real-life stories from the city he lives in and the gritty underbelly of the neighbourhood and stuff, and I think some of that came out in this album.
Finally, do you want to say anything to our UK readers?
The big thing is about the new album but I’ve got some other projects cooking that are interesting. I have a solo acoustic album that’s finished and should be released about June next year, and that will be the time I come back over to Europe solo. I’m excited about that too, and it’s more reflective, quiet solo acoustic material, there’s other instrumentation on it but it is something completely different to this and it’s another side to my writing. I just hope I manage to get over to the UK to play.
