A Look Inside Nashville's Bluegrass Scene

An interview with Brenna MacMillan

“I read recently that there are studies that show that cows do laugh.”

That’s the kind of anecdote I wasn’t expecting to hear when I sat down with Nashville-based singer/songwriter/banjo player Brenna MacMillan. But it’s the kind of anecdote I was hoping for, to be honest. And I checked. She’s right. Cows apparently laugh. Wild.

Let me back up. I’ve never interviewed anyone before for this newsletter. I’m not a journalist. But I’ve considered talking with some musician friends for my next book project. More to come on that. But in general, I thought this might be a nice place to give it a go.

I spend a lot of my listening time on Bluegrass Junction XM 77. I’ve found my favorite bluegrass artists and favorite albums there. And after following those artists on social media, I started to see patterns. They’re all friends, and a lot of them play in each other’s bands.

Every town has a different music scene (or lack thereof). I’ve been tuned in a little everywhere I’ve lived. And sometimes tuned in a lot. But I’ve never been in a bluegrass scene. I’m curious about it.

So, I thought I’d try to get a first-hand account. And the first act I thought of was brother and sister duo Theo and Brenna. Their album, Dreams for Sale, was my favorite of last year. And Brenna has a new solo album coming out soon.

Luckily for me, she was up for a chat. So one evening, as I sat in the parents’ gallery at our daughter’s gymnastics facility, I got on a Zoom call with Brenna.

I have to admit, I was slightly star struck since we’d never met. I only knew her through her music. But there was really no surprises about her. She’s authentic, and that comes through in person just as much as it does in her songs.

The Kentucky-raised, Nashville-based artist brought her country charm. She wore a tie-dyed shirt; it’s a look she sports often in her social videos. I told her I wanted to record our chat so I didn’t have to try and keep up by taking notes. “I don’t know,” she says. “I talk pretty slow.”

First, I asked about her new record. She’s excited about it. That’s understandable. She’s been crowdfunding it through gofundme.

“I've obviously put out albums with my brother, and I've been on friends' albums before. But for this, it’s all my originals and co-writes with some dear friends.”

On the first two Theo and Brenna albums, Brenna’s tunes are standouts. She writes stories that carry real weight, and wraps them in beautiful melodies. This isn’t an ad. I’m just a fan. And I love to hear about the craft of songwriting.

Theo and Brenna circa 2022

“A lot of that writing that's on this new record is from an emotional roller coaster of the last few years. Just different phases of my life. I think it's already been wild to hear those tunes with a full band in the studio, which is always extremely cool as a songwriter. I’m like, ‘Wow, I never imagined it could be this.’”

Here’s an example of one of her new songs, performed here with fiddler Maddie Denton:

So I had to ask: how do you do it? I’ve known some really good songwriters in my life, and everyone seems to have a different path to develop the craft. What’s hers? What has lead her to this moment—to this album?

“In college, I took a songwriting class. And it was life-changing, totally. I learned all of these different patterns that you can follow when you're trying to compile a thought into a song.”

“As Theo and I have alluded to on Dreams for Sale, a lot of my songwriting comes from when I'm sleeping. I'll just roll over and say something or sing something into my voice memo.”

I asked her about two of my favorite songs from Theo and Brenna records: Little Ghost and Mercy So Tender.

“Little Ghost, that one's from the depths of sorrow, when one's reflecting on one's life and past. So that one spits itself out.”

“And then the other one. I was very inspired by a bird. Animals, God, nature in general are all very inspirational to me. Animals teach some of the most important lessons.”

For example: “For Mercy so Tender, this bird was just... she was being such a warrior on the windowsill. She had her babies under her wing. And it's like lightning and thunder and all this stuff. So I was like, man, she's a good mom.”

The idea that animals provide inspiration is also true in her song, Old Elmer.

“I was just sitting around on the porch I was watching this tree frog, and he appeared to me to be suicidal. And so that's where the song came from. And basically now the mental health of amphibians is my whole thing.”

Our conversation shifted from songwriting to the banjo. Now, I love playing banjo. But I’m no Brenna. She plays three-finger and I play a clawhammer. Both styles are very different, and she is much better at what she does than I am at what I do.

“I started when I was nine,” Brenna says. “I am not a clawhammer player, let's be clear.”

But in a recent video, there she was. Killin’ the clawhammer game:

“The thing is, I wrote that on Clawhammer. Maddie was playing tenor and I was playing my roommate's clawhammer banjo because we were just messing around.”

“And so then I'm like, man, now I've wrote one on clawhammer and have to have somebody else play it. So I'm doing what I can. But on the album, Frank Evans is going to be playing clawhammer on it, and he killed it. So it's much better.”

We talked a little longer about old time music, and she nods at my suggestion that clawhammer is made for fiddle accompaniment. “Clawhammer with fiddle is magic,” she says.

I’ve seen her play bass in social videos. Guitar as well. But she’s hired folks to play those on her record, too.

“In this town, I would never want to play guitar on a record. I actually did think about it, and then I was just like, meh, no. Jake Stargel is playing guitar on the whole record, and he's so amazing. Oh, and Mark Howard also plays guitar on one track, and then Mike Bob plays bass the whole time.”

I asked her if there were any other special guests on the album.

“I have, well, four to five special guests. Everyone on there is special, so I don't even like to say that, because everyone on there is a musical hero to me, even the ones that are my closer friends. But yes, four or five special guests that are just absolutely my dream collaborations.”

But she wouldn’t spill the beans. At least not yet.

That brought the conversation to the Nashville bluegrass community. That’s something I’ve been excited to hear about. When I think of that town, I think of pop country: honky tonks on Broadway. Shredders on Telecasters. Pedal steel.

And there’s a real bluegrass scene there too, if not quite as big and visible. The banjo and mandolin slingers. The folks who pick so fast it’s hard to follow sometimes. But the groove is obvious.

“I’m huge on people and community,” she says. She gets giddy at the mention of East Nash Grass, a popular bluegrass band in town. They recently made their Grand Ol’ Opry debut, and they were touring in Ireland when Brenna and I spoke. Their 2023 album, Last Chance to Win, is another favorite of mine.

Brenna has toured in Ireland before as well. “I'm texting them and I'm like, ‘Have you seen this or done that?’ Because they're hitting all the spots that we did.”

“There's these every few years or so an influx of Bluegrass musicians to Nashville. They bond and stay strong together and also form new throw-together bands. East Nash Grass was basically a throw-together bar gig band.”

“Then everyone altogether is really close as well. All of us know each other. All of us look out for each other. There's a lot of gig passing around. I'll get texts and I send texts for different pickup stuff. I think that's how it works with everybody. It's like, if I can't do it, here's somebody who can. It’s like wildfire around here.”

One of those throw-together bands is Grassaholics, in which Brenna plays. “Paul Kramer, he's an amazing fiddler and singer, and he has really kept bluegrass in Nashville alive, I feel, single-handedly.”

“He's basically kept bands playing down at Layla's and Robert's. Maybe Tootsie's at some point. But basically, where there's a weekly bluegrass gig downtown, he's coordinated it.”

“Grassaholics is an old name associated with him or his throw-together bands. He wanted to bring it back. Me, and Nora Jane Struthers, and Charlie Payton, and him—we just started playing this downtown gig. There's a new bar called Big Jimmy's, and they're booking bluegrass. We had a weekly gig there from maybe April till November or something. Took me away from Dee's on Monday nights.”

It was easy to get lost in her description. I don’t find myself out to hear music/to meet musicians/to play gigs nearly as often as I did in my 20’s. In fact even then, it was tough to find peers whose music I really enjoyed.

But Brenna’s take on bluegrass in Nashville feels different. An atmosphere of support. An atmosphere of collaboration and creativity. I find myself wishing that the experiences I’d had were closer to that and less of what they were—competitive, often contentious, and sometimes impossible to feel seen.

But who am I kidding? I enjoyed those years. And for many different reasons, it sounds like Brenna is enjoying hers as well.

“I feel very blessed with this whole thing. It's been really fun,” she says.

To wrap, we get back to her new record. “It'll come out digitally. But I'm not going to have CDs. I'm going to have vinyls only.”

After we hung up, one last point resonated with me: the music and community support each other. And very often, that’s how it is with art. What even is it without the audience there to feel something? To interpret it. To lend perspective. Without an audience, art is one sided. Less interesting. The audience gives it dimension. Gives it life.

And Brenna seems like a person that loves the audience and the community.

“I just like to see people's reactions live. Because we're all here together for a reason. If it was one person, art would still be beautiful, but you would only have one reaction from one brain, and that's not enough.”

…

Brenna can be found at:
brennamacmillan.com
On gofundme.com here.
@brennamacmillanofficial on youtube and instagram