Country singers love to jot down songs about large struggles, arduous occasions, deep loss, and surviving all of it. However when Margo Value writes a tune, it’s as a result of she’s been there and performed that. The 42-year-old mother of two dropped out of school to maneuver to Nashville and take a look at her luck at turning into a star. Six albums later, Value is a fixture in Music Metropolis and an internationally-known singer-songwriter. She’s additionally suffered unimaginable loss, fought habit, and are available out on the opposite aspect — despite the fact that she admits she’s nonetheless studying and nonetheless striving.
On Friday, Value will launch her sixth studio album, Onerous Headed Lady, which, after just a few albums that experimented with new sounds and genres, is a return to nation, folks, and a woman and her guitar. It’s additionally, like all of her albums, a deeply felt truth-bomb that sounds straight from the guts.
Value sat down with Scary Mommy over Zoom to speak about all of it, from her new alcohol-free life, to her political activism, to what it feels wish to grieve the loss of a kid after 15 years.
Scary Mommy: Let’s begin off speaking about your new album. What’s thrilling about it? What’s the identical, what’s totally different?
Margo Value: It undoubtedly seems like house to me. I’ve actually tried to middle the storytelling and the lyrics in a giant manner.
These final couple albums have been possibly exploring some totally different sonic territory that I had not embarked upon, and I had a lot enjoyable doing it and haven’t any regrets. However I simply needed to get again to a spot the place I may choose up the guitar and — the entire music’s there. You do not want a number of further drums or synths or any of that. That is all the time been interesting to me. Simply the folks and nation storytelling facets of songwriting.
SM: Is there a music or two that you simply wish to spotlight and inform me somewhat bit about?
MP: There is a music that known as “Nowhere is The place,” and it was written with my husband Jeremy Ivey and one other buddy who’s a songwriter, Morgan Nagler. It is a piece about the place I come from. It is actually simply paints an image of center America and type of a desolate space, nevertheless it’s a spot that also may be very expensive to my coronary heart and it is acquired a enjoyable little type of outro that’s about burning the previous and beginning over and shifting on. I am all the time eternally looking for that.
SM: You bought sober a pair years in the past. Has that influenced your album in any respect and the way has it affected your life?
MP: I am all the time very cautious to make use of the phrase sober, however I am alcohol free.
I nonetheless partake in hashish and psilocybin and plant medicines — so not sober — however feeling a lot more healthy with out drowning myself within the liquor and the wine. I feel that whenever you’re a musician and an artist and a author, there’s considering that you need to destroy your self simply to have the ability to produce. And I undoubtedly have been hooked on a few of that masochistic mind-set that being a failure is a part of the method.
Now, I’m feeling my emotions in a manner that I ran from as a baby of the 80s and 90s when have been have been taught, do not speak about something, simply hold all of it blissful on the floor.
So I am doing all that “my internal little one” bullshit, and it is nice ingesting my magnesium at night time and waking up not having to fret about who I slept with or what I mentioned. So it is good.
I nonetheless hand around in bars on a regular basis, which is probably the most hilarious factor — it is all wrapped up in there with the bartending and the singing within the bars and residing in that manner. So it is like I’ve acquired the perfect of each worlds as a result of I am nonetheless socializing and nonetheless capable of exit and see bands.
I simply learn a pair books and had what you name virtually spontaneous sobriety. It wasn’t actually something deliberate. I wrote a memoir about my wild days of struggling in the music business, misplaced a baby, relied very closely on booze, and fairly frankly, it saved my life and I am very grateful that I had it for that point and season. However now I am simply in a unique season and it occurs to be psilocybin and low and mountain climbing within the woods and telling all my troubles to the timber.
Joan Baez gave me some actually nice recommendation, and it is like simply daily, simply do one factor, one factor, shifting in the fitting course.
SM: You talked about little one loss and I do know that you simply misplaced considered one of your twins. An enormous a part of our Scary Mommy group is coping with comparable losses. Is there something that you simply wish to share with our viewers about what it appears to be like like 15 years down the highway?
MP: It is humorous as a result of I’ve come a good distance on my therapeutic journey, however there is a particular earlier than and an after, and I feel it is one thing that you simply by no means recover from. You simply be taught to cope with it in another way.
Really simply two days in the past was the anniversary of shedding my son. It has been 15 years, nevertheless it nonetheless hurts. And a few years it hits you somewhat bit tougher. I do know a number of girls have been simply taught to not communicate on miscarriages and loss. It makes individuals uncomfortable. However I feel having the ability to speak about it and to do some remedy, it was transformative for me.
I’d simply say to anyone who has handled one thing like this, a mom or a father, simply watch out with your self. And if you’re married and you’ve got a partner, I feel they are saying that the statistics are 85% of {couples} that lose a baby divorce, and we already know that fifty% of {couples} simply divorce anyway, so do not decide your associate for the way they’re grieving. Simply proceed to attempt to be with these uncomfortable emotions and never run from them. I undoubtedly did not do all the fitting issues proper off the bat, however I am in a a lot better place now.
SM: And actually, how will you be anticipated to do every little thing proper?
MP: I feel we overlook that when you have got grief, that is usually because there was a complete lot of affection there. So I’ve even grown actually connected to my grief and love the individual that I’ve grow to be due to it, as a result of I simply have this utterly totally different outlook and a sympathy for people who find themselves going by means of loss in any manner that it occurs. Simply seeing all these mother and father who misplaced their youngsters in Texas, within the flood, and I imply clearly simply the wars which might be occurring, it is arduous to exist in a world the place there’s a lot ache. However we do should allow ourselves to really feel pleasure after nice losses and proceed to know that it is okay to really feel blissful once more.
SM: I am sorry on your loss. Did you do something to mark the day?
MP: I even have a group of moms that I communicate with, and all of us attain out to one another on these days. And so I had a pair actually deep telephone calls with some buddies, and I’ve an aunt who misplaced my cousin, her solely daughter, and we all the time join. So I feel simply being collectively by means of these arduous occasions — it’s simply good to have individuals to lean on.
SM: You talked about conflict. You are actually energetic politically, and I really feel proper now that mothers possibly do not know easy methods to how they will get on the market and make a distinction. Are you able to speak somewhat bit about your activism?
MP: I’ve tried to be current at a number of the protests, particularly round gun violence. When the Covenant capturing occurred in Nashville, I went out and sang and protested, and I didn’t convey my daughter as a result of I worry for her security.
I do suppose that one factor that we are able to all do proper now could be name our representatives, write our representatives, e mail them.
There’s so many issues occurring that it may possibly really feel actually overwhelming, however I feel Joan Baez gave me some actually nice recommendation, and it is like simply daily, simply do one factor, one factor, shifting in the fitting course.
I feel you actually should spend your time properly nowadays. And prior to now, it does really feel good to get on the web and blow off some sizzling steam and hearth off a sizzling take. However what actually goes a good distance is asking the individuals which might be stripping our rights. Flood their inbox, depart them a message.
SM: You might have an age hole between your children that is fairly important — 9 years. What’s your expertise been with it? What are the professionals and cons?
MP: Oh my goodness, there are such a lot of of each.
Individuals typically ask us, whoa, what occurred there? The reply merely is that we aren’t planners. However they’ve each been the enjoyment of my life, and I’ve raised them each so in another way as a result of I used to be a unique human at 27 than I used to be at 37.
I grew up seven and a half years older than my youngest sister. We’re finest buddies now, and I’d simply do something for her. And I feel my youngsters, regardless of having this huge age hole, they nonetheless argue. They discover methods to control us and pit us towards one another. However my son, he is the older one, he has been very useful with babysitting right here and there, studying books to her. But it surely was undoubtedly a giant adjustment. He was used to being an solely little one. And my daughter Ramona is a really outgoing, very steal-the-show type of character. She’s large character power for positive, however she loves him a lot and he or she appears to be like as much as him. We’re nonetheless figuring it out.
You’d suppose it could be simpler with them being far aside, however typically I simply wish to pull my hair out.
SM: What’s your finest parenting recommendation?
MP: My finest parenting recommendation is let your youngsters make their very own errors. Allow them to do issues which might be somewhat bit harmful. We’re residing in a time the place we’re making an attempt to wrap all people in bubble wrap, and we actually must let our youngsters reside messily and get soiled and climb timber and go break into deserted buildings and do all of the issues that we have been doing in our early years.
This interview has been edited for size and readability.
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