Whistle While You Work-A Conversation with Southall

Photo Credit: Dalton Latham

"We are more of a band than just than just me individually, I'm just not a guy on a guitar. There's five other people on stage with me that really, really make our sound happen. I couldn't do it without them" Read Southall says in our interview Friday afternoon. Southall is currently touring on their 10 Years of Six String Sorrow Tour, the second tour since their name change from Read Southall Band in 2023. The six-piece band features Read Southall, Reid Barber, Jeremee Knipp, Braxton Curliss, John Tyler Perry and Ryan Wellman

This is the first album that you've put out under the new name Southall. What really inspired that change from Read Southall Band?

It's always been a group effort since Six String Sorrow... I wrote all those songs and recorded that, and that was before I put this band together. Then we started touring on that Six String Sorrow stuff, I feel like our sound really kind of changed and in a better way, it just got more expansive, with drums and bass and the whole nine. The first record I put out was just acoustic, and it really began to take shape of a band, you know, sounded like a band. A lot of people, a lot of our close friends and stuff, referred to us as a Southall just, you know, my last name, and I just thought it rolled off the tongue better. It was a little easier for people to grab on to. And the biggest thing was they started writing songs. And by they, I mean the guys in the band...up until this record, I wrote every song, and I think it was a good way for us to represent this turning of a new leaf, and how we are more of a band than just than just me individually, I'm just not a guy on a guitar. There's five other people on stage with me that really, really make our sound happen. I couldn't do it without them.

I know you co-wrote the whole album, all six of you. Wha is it like with six voices in the mix and in the studio and writing, and how does that work for you guys?

A lot of it is everybody kind of bringing their songs to the table individually. A lot of them were 75% one guy, the rest of us kind of jumped in on that other 25% and I think that's kind of how we kept it all cohesive and made the project sound somewhat similar. Scared Money, for instance, I think (Barber) wrote the first verse in the chorus, but he didn't really have a second verse, and he knew that I'd been in the oil field, so he bent my ear a little bit. And I had that first verse and the chorus wrote down on notebook paper in my pickup for six months.

Scared Money was the first track that dropped under your new name. Why that song, was there a rhyme or reason? Did you just love it? Could you kind of elaborate on that?

I think a lot of that picking that song for the first single, a lot of it was just the vibe of it really, you know, it's such a feel good song. It was kind of one of the first ones that we started testing out live, if you will...and it was always received really well. I usually say every night before we play it "this one's for all you hard-working some bitches out there". I think that people need that. People need a whistle while you work song. I think that that's kind of what we were going for there, that's what Barber was going for. I would say 95% of our fan base is blue collar people that have to get up and go to work, right.

Coming out Oklahoma, did you think you'd be playing the BOK center a decade later?

No, absolutely not. I didn't think I'd be playing the BOK Center even when we were playing, it was surreal. Yeah, it was really, really cool. I sure appreciate the Whiskey Myers guys for having us...they've opened a lot of doors for us, and really, kind of reached down, picked us up, and helped us, you know, check off some of those bucket list, shows and experiences....we're really, really grateful to them.

Last question, if you could collaborate with anybody right now, living or dead, who would it be? Who do you want to see on the next album?

I've answered this question before, but I'm going to change my answer to someone that is not with us anymore, guy named Jim Croce, and I just think that I've just fallen in love with his songwriting. He passed away really young, I believe he was a Chicago guy, but just absolutely killer songwriter, killer guitar player, and just fun, just fun, like he just radiated a good time. And I would say that I emulate that, or try to. I'm just such a fan of what he did.

Then as far as living my favorite songwriter, that's Jason Isbell, and I would probably give my kidney to write a song with him, but also, I don't know that I would, because I'd be terrified, because I think he's the best. I think he is our generations, you know, Bob Dylan and Townes Van Zandt.

Listen to Southall here, or catch them on tour.