Philadelphia-based Anti-Folk artist Adam Brodsky recently released his first new album in over 20 years, titled American Epitaph. Previously driven by an aggressive touring schedule, Brodsky is known for setting a 2003 Guiness World Record by playing 50 shows in 50 shows in 50 days. While he had set that way of life aside, it didn’t stop him from increasingly discovering songs while doomscrolling or showering in the current decay of democracy. Those songs might have stayed demos, without a final form, but they were nudged to completion.
Thankfully, Brodsky had two friends who were determined to see him finish an album based on the strength of these new songs, namely Jesse Lundy (who appears on guitars on this album) and Butch Ross (B3 organ, mandolin, Appalachian dulcimer, and more). Alex Meltzer also appears on the album on drums and a Fender Rhodes, Chris Bixler plays bass, and the album was Produced by Matt Muir. Brodsky’s whole philosophy of making the album was to present it simply and directly, and that definitely comes across, but the album is also sonically proficient and musically artful, making the songs pleasing to listen to even when they carry heavy subject matter. The songs keep the audience in mind and prize communication and a shared experience above all.
Previously, on Wildfire, we premiered Brodsky’s very moving track about his late sister and the state of America, titled “Birthday Cake”, which you can still check out here. We followed that with a conversation with Adam Brodsky about his album, American Epitaph, the state of America right now, and why keeping peoples’ energy up for resistance may be more valuable than focusing on changing peoples’ minds. It seems particularly impactful that we had this conversation as America approaches its 250th anniversary as a nation.
Hannah Means-Shannon: You could really write a book about music audiences across America. You certainly have a broader scope than most people.
Adam Brodsky: That’s true. But it wasn’t just the fifty-state tour. At that time, I would do two or three national tours a year, it was just that I’d take six to eight weeks to get across the country, not just 50 days! It would be much more leisurely. The most amazing part of that tour was my manager, Mary Krauss, who found seven consecutive places to play on a Monday night. That ain’t easy! Some club in Wyoming cancelled on us, and that was a real problem. We had to re-book a show, on that date, and it had to meet the Guiness World Record requirements, and I had to get witnesses to sign things. It was not a great show, but we did it. The hotel I was happened to be having a police convention.
HMS: Wait a second! That happens Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas!
AB: Oh my gosh. I haven’t read that book in 30 years, but you’re right! Wow, I hope my story ends better than Hunter’s.
HMS: You could easily do some kind of observational writing about American audiences, for sure, but I think that New York has played quite a part in your life, a formative one. My impression is to say that New York audiences are a little bit chillier than New Jersey, where I live. They are a little bit skeptical at first, but then you win them over.
AB: Absolutely. Because a lot of places in New York are these tiny places, with chairs shoved in. And people are just there to keep out of the street, because they can’t go home, since they live in closets.
HMS: Yes! True.
AB: Sometimes they are there to see the show, but sometimes they are there to get a plate of pasta, and you have to win them over. And I have. I’m usually successful, but not always.
HMS: I can see that with your music, it’s important for people to be able to hear your lyrics. These are places where the sound must be good enough to do that, right?
AB: Yes. Because of the kind of music I play, when I was young, I would open up for Punk bands all the time. And I’d come out to play, and there would be all these kids ready to mosh, who would look and say, “What’s with the acoustic guitars? Is this guy a hippie?” I’d have to win them over, and I would. They’d listen. It’s tough to dance to my music, but you can listen. I don’t always get good sound, but I have tricks to communicate, like any performer. I have a could of sing-alongs.
Sometimes the “f-word” will turn a head, so you drop that strategically. It’s really fun to see how you can get people, one by one, to turn around from the bar and face you. It reaches that tipping point, at Malcolm Gladwell would say, and once you get 30 percent or so, the whole entire room shuts up, and they are listening to you. That feels really good, because that’s what I’m here to do. I’m here to communicate some ideas.
HMS: This album has got plenty of them, those ideas. I know that it’s been a while since you recorded a whole album. Was it just the sheer horribleness of things in the United States that wrung the songs out of you, that forced you to do it?
AB: Absolutely, I was perfectly content to sit in my backyard and play songs to Queequeg [the dog]. He’s not such a big fan of harmonica. Sometimes he leaves the backyard when I play the harp. But I had done my time playing thousands of shows and traveling all over, but then there were those freakin’ fascists!
I was reading about different tried and true methods for throwing sand in the gears of fascism. There are all kinds of people that you need, like organizers, motivated marchers, and all those sorts of people. But number six or seven, towards the bottom of the list, said, “You need musicians and artists, especially those fluent in satire.” I said, “Okay, I guess I’m getting off the couch!”
I had most of these songs anyway. They come to you when you’re in the shower, or doomscrolling, or while you’re watching the news. You just get angry and write songs. I hadn’t even been playing them out, so I didn’t know if they were any good. But I started playing them for my friends, and they said, “Wow! These are really good!” There are two people who really dragged this record across the finish line, and those were Jesse Lundy, and Butch Ross.
Jesse booked the studio time for the band. I lack the follow-through of a lot of the artsy types. Butch was rolling through town last summer, and we’d done some recording before that was just kind of lying around. He had a show in New Jersey and asked to crash with me, and I said, “Of course!” I got up and walked Queequeg, and when I came home, there were microphones set up all over the living room. He said, “Make yourself a cup of coffee, because we’re finishing your record today.”
HMS: That’s awesome! The enforcer.
AB: If you listen to this one song, “Don’t Break Bread”, it just feels a little rougher than some of the other songs. I said, “I want this song on the record, but it’s not finished yet.” He said, “Okay, you have 30 minutes.” I finished the song, and it ended up on the record, and I’m really proud of it. But yes, I owe a debt I may not ever be able to repay, to Butch and Jesse, for getting this record dragged over the finish line.
When you’re making a record, and you get it back into your grubby little hands, you’ve usually heard yourself so much that you hate it. You hate Folk music, you hate Anti-Folk music even more specifically. But with this record, I was listening to it in my car over and over, and I thought, “Wow, I really like this!” I’m really happy with how the record sounds.
HMS: Me too. I really enjoyed it. Thank goodness for your friends. Sometimes someone has the skills to make a project, but lacks the component in their brain to bring it together. Sometimes you need someone pushing you, looking out for you to help you complete projects and get them out there. It’s great to have those people in our lives who are determined to see us succeed.
AB: Yes, I am very lucky to have those folks. So is the world, because now they get to enjoy my art [sarcastically].
HMS: Actually, you’re reminding me that years ago, I had left journalism to focus on editing, but was then offered a journalism job. I was thinking about it, and then the 2016 election happened. When I woke up that morning, and couldn’t believe Trump had won, I accepted the journalism job. I was aware that now journalism and freedom of speech would be very threatened, so it felt like the right thing to do.
AB: Yes! That had become important again. I had always felt that playing old protest songs around the turn of the century that I was playing, to hillsides full of hippies who already agreed with me, made me think, “What am I doing?” Then, I felt a sense of re-focus, that it isn’t about convincing people. I’m not going to try to convince them. But it’s exhausting fighting fascism, so hopefully we come together, and we hear some songs, and we laugh, and we get re-energized.
Because these are the people who are going to change things. We are going to do it together, and hopefully with a sense of enthusiasm. Hopefully the people who leave my show leave energized, and ready to go. Knowing that we’re in this together. That is one of the reasons that I play these songs, and the other reason is so that when people ask later, “What did you do during the war?”, I have something concrete to point to. I have something to show them.
HMS: That’s a harsh point, but it’s so true. For yourself, even, when you look back, you can see that you were in motion. You weren’t just frozen, which would have been understandable. I feel the same about the energy needed to keep fighting, but to me, the music and the writing is to keep that flame from going out. To keep the people from giving up.
AB: Throughout history, every single time, we eventually put oligarchs’ heads’ on pikes, and hopefully they will realize that is going to happen, and take the easier option, which ends with paying taxes. They can build a freakin’ island, they can go live on that trash pile island, and have their own rules!
HMS: This song “Achy Breaky America” could be taken as just a simple little song, but like a lot of songs on this album, I think you find a certain feeling that’s going on in the world, and you find a way to articulate it. To me, the feeling is the embarrassment of being American right now in relation to other people I know who are not American. I feel so apologetic and ashamed of what’s happening here.
AB: My friends who have travelled abroad say that once you identify yourself as one of the good guys, saying, “I don’t know, man.”, they warm up to you. They are still baffled why we [Americans] are not in the street every damn day. But they understand that this is a radical and vocal minority for whom Democracy was just a gentlemen’s agreement this whole time.
HMS: Right, it was an “at-will” contract. That’s when you can walk out of a job or be fired with no repercussions. It was a hand-shake deal to them.
AB: They wrote so many of those Federalist Papers, and very few of them predicted this scenario. They predicted a despot just exactly like this. What they didn’t predict was literally half of the congress being treasonous traitors.
HMS: They assumed that if it happened, it would be counter-balanced. They didn’t assume that the same attitude would take over the elected majorities.
AB: They gave the benefit of the doubt that everyone in this congress was a good guy. They said, “We all love America.” And that was the baseline. And if that ain’t true, actually, the system don’t work.
HMS: I feel like you could have put a million details in that song, so it must have been hard to pick, but you mention the history books, and what has been taught. We all know that we’ve been taught the sanitized, white-washed version of American history, but it’s literally happening in front of us right now. That museum exhibits are being edited, archives are being burned, this is really happening. It’s like someone got the handbook to Nazi Germany and just pulled out the highlights.
AB: Yes, literally! They printed a handbook. They’ve been looking for an opportunity to use it. They needed this guy to be such a stupid bull in a china shop to carry it out. Ten years from now, everyone is going to claim that they were Oscar Schindler and stayed in to see what help they could give. But that’s not true. They think they are acting with impunity.
