Interview with Randy Houser (From the 9513)

Randy Houser is a true Mississippi son. Born in the small town of Lake, he was introduced into the bluesy depths of southern soul music by his father who was also a professional musician.

After his parents divorced when he was seven, Houser spent summers with his father; the rest of the year, he lived with his mother in public housing until she remarried. Partly out of necessity, partly out of his need for a musical creative outlet, the young Randy Houser was playing in Mississippi clubs when he was 15.

When he finally made it to Nashville in 2002 and subsequently had success on a couple of large hits as a songwriter, Houser did it in a style that had all the wonderful baggage of the musical influences of his youth. He signed a record deal with Universal South Records in 2008 and his first album had two top 20 singles in “Boots On” and the title track, “Anything Goes.” His current album, They Call Me Cadillac, is filled with even more bluesy country songs that represent his original home. On nearly every track, it’s evident that Mississippi’s musical influences are permanently embedded in his soul.

Houser was kind enough to sit down with The 9513 during his busy promotional andtouring schedule to talk about his brand new album–as well as a wishful conversation between Elvis and Jesus.

Should I call you Randy or Cadillac this month?

You can call me whatever you want to, buddy. (Laughing) I’ve been called a lot of things and that’s just two of the nicer ones.

On one of your press releases, you are quoted as saying, “We went into the studio with a direction in mind conceptually for the album, and the result is something I am proud of.” Randy, what was that direction and that concept?

Well, I think the main thing was just to make something that I was most proud of, something that I could give to my buddies back home. They don’t give a damn about the music industry or business or anything like that, they just know what they like. I gave them something that I feel like they could play the whole way through–the whole album–and enjoy it. Just kick it around. I wanted to make a record that my good ole boys would want to hear.

How much of either the single or the albumThey Call Me Cadillac is an autobiography?

Pretty much all of it. It’s pretty much the things that I’ve gone through, the things that I was thinking during the time I wrote all the songs. I guess there are some contradictory things on there, but you’ve got to realize that some of those songs were written five or six years ago.

So in that sense, they are kind of a snapshot in time of you, five or six years ago.

Yes. Well, and some of them were written right before we recorded the album. The better part of the album was written pretty recently.

The album seems to spiritually and sonically borrow from a few different genres. I know there are a little bit of blues and soul and some southern rock mixed in for good measure on this one. How do you as an artist define your sound?

All those genres you talk about, blues and and soul southern rock, are my categorization. I think they are all country these days. I think it’s all country to me. When you listen to country music now, it is a lot of different things. It is just a good dose of the things we listen to as country people. We grew up in the country, we hear so many things, we hear a lot of blues and we hear a lot of southern rock. We hear a lot of old school country. I guess those are influenced by different things, but they are still country to me.

Where is that line drawn from where you cross country to maybe blues or R&B or something like that?

I think it has to do with the person singing it. I think my music comes out country, because I am country. You know?

How did you manage to score Lee Ann Womack to come sing beautiful harmony on “Addicted”?

I just asked her. She is a cool, cool person. We did a lot of stuff this last year together for radio together and she’s one of my favorite singers of all time. So I just called her and asked her if she’d come over and do it and she was very cool by agreeing to come over and sing on it.

Any favorite tracks on the new album?

That one we were just talking about (with Lee Ann Womack). It’s one of my all-time favorites. I like them all. “Somewhere South of Memphis” is a lot of fun for me. That is one of my favorites because it’s done in such an old school way. There are no overdubs on my part. It’s just me singing and the band following me. It’s not like I went there and laid down guitars and then chopped in vocals along with everything else. Everything went down at the same time. There’s no technology on that one. We just went in and did it. No computer technology. Pretty cool if you ask me. I like having things on there that are done in an old school way like that.

That leads me into my next question pretty well. You visited The 9513 a few months back and made some comments about the balance between the artistry of songwriting and making music within the commercial constraints of radio. On that song, “Somewhere South of Memphis,” there’s a line that says, “Where music isn’t about business.” Is that somewhat a reference to that process?

It is. Where I grew up–and the way I grew up–we played music because we loved it. We weren’t worried about offending anybody or the status quo. It was just about the music and pushing it to its limits. It was about doing something you were proud of and doing something that was you. The music there isn’t about business. It’s just part of your life. The people there that do it with their own style of music are pretty amazing.

On that line of fine artistry and commercial viability, where do you think Cadillacfits in that balance?

Gosh. I didn’t really play a whole lot of attention to commerciality. I just made the record I wanted to make at the time. I don’t pay a lot of attention to commerciality. It would be a lot more poppier sounding if that was the case. We didn’t go there. I don’t know. I don’t know how it will be embraced as a commercial process. I just don’t know. That’s somebody else’s thing to worry about. (Laughing)

It’s probably somewhat appropriate that you and your pal, Jamey Johnson, released albums within a week of one another considering your approach to albums are similar.

It is. I love Jamey’s album. It’s a major piece of work. 25 songs. But I think it’s really cool to have the albums out around the same time. We’ve been both working hard to get them done and hopefully it’s an exciting time for fans of our kind of music. Over a couple weeks, they can buy a couple albums that are awfully real.

Randy, thanks for your time. I’ve got one last question for you. You’ve got a table for four at Nashville’s swankiest restaurant. You’ve got space for three other tableguests and they can be past or present. Who are they and why?

Let’s see. Elvis would be the first. I want to hang out with Elvis and see what he’s about. I’ve read a lot about him and I want to check him out. I think he’d be fun. I’d probably have Jesus. Heck, if I can have anybody, I’ll have Jesus. I’m going to ask him a lot of questions. (Laughter)

Man, to be a fly on that wall listening to Elvis and Jesus talking with one-another would be fun…

(Laughter) I think there’s a song there. I’ll have to write that one. We’d sure have a lot of interesting things to find out. If we’re going to do that, we’d have to go with Jesus, Elvis and Johnny Cash.