COMING atcha outta Richmond, Virginia, EggHunt Records is sure to be blowin’ up big time in an old skool, proper country music way when latest signing Sara Bug’s album drops at the end of next week; ahead of which the singer, who goes by her family nickname due to her diminutive stature, has dropped a wholly knowing, sweetly sad tune about her adopted home, the cradle of the country sound.
It’s totally possible, of course, to see the humour in something, the mild absurdity, and still think the thing in question is beautiful and vibrant – see Jon Spencer, fr’instance – and Sara describes herself thus, showing her own innate humour: “World’s finest southern-kitsch artist. born in Mississippi, raised in Louisiana, stuck in Nashville.”
So yeah, there’s a little knowing grin, bite me; but just listen. She can really sing out, with a touch of the Dollys in her cadence. Has she hooked you in? There. Job done. Tune!
And Sara reveals a deeper yearning delivered with fun as she talks of the song: “I set out to write a cheesy country song and I did, but ‘Back In Nashville’ is for someone really special to me.
“But every time, it gets harder to go back to Nashville alone because truth be told, I hate living in the city.”
The ten songs collected on her self-titled debut recount seven years lived well, lived truly, and show her growth from an adolescence spent in the Big Easy, dreaming of being a singer-songwriter.
“I was so deep in the music. ‘Oh, I’m going to be a famous musician. When I get out of high school, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to go have a career in music,’” she says.
“I think I held on to that for so long, I had finally kind of let go, like that pressure. Now it was just fun.” And it’s fun that gave her the freedom to get it going on.
She moved to Nashville in 2013, to be at the heart of the sound, but it hasn’t quite worked out that way for her: “I thought, ‘Oh, this is going to be awesome. I’m going to be around other musicians all the time, it’s going to be inspiring and force me to work harder on my music.’ It kind of had the opposite effect for me unexpectedly,” she confesses.
“It feels hard sometimes to do your craft and your thing in a real way without feeling super judged or feeling if you’re not at a certain level your art doesn’t matter.
“And honestly, that’s part of the reason I kind of grew apart from the idea of even making music at all. I didn’t like the pressure in Nashville that I felt when I first moved there.”
“Back In Nashville” then mocks the pressure that led Sara question where she was going.
“I told myself, I wanted to write a cheesy country song about not wanting to be in like the most country city in the United States,” she laughs.
A thinking woman with a heart full of country who wants away from the heart of country; kinda paradoxical, but also a lot of musical fun.
Sara Bug’s self-titled album will be released by Egghunt Records digitally, on trad black and on limited edition pink vinyl on May 14th; you can pre-order your copy over at Bandcamp right now.
Connect with Sara Bug on Facebook and Instagram.
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