An artist’s passion for music is ingrained in their being and when that love is shared between like-minded souls, there is a bond so deep that they become a family. Artists who share not only the bond of music but also that of blood perhaps create an even more powerful connection. Sharing both bonds are Bryan Russo and Chris Shearer of the duo Boys Called Susan, first cousins who have been surrounded by music since childhood. The pair recently released their debut album Pennsyltucky showcasing their raw, genuine sound along with their knack at writing storytelling songs.
We caught up with the cousins to talk about their influences, their new album and how Boys Called Susan came to be.
CN: For our readers who may not be familiar with you, can you tell us a little bit about yourselves?
Chris: I’m 31 and currently living in Tempe, AZ. I’ve worked all over the music industry since I was 18. Playing in bands, driving a tour bus across the US, I’ve spent years behind the board running front of house sound, I spent sometime at Fender Musical Instruments Corporation and even managed to bag a Great Lakes Region Emmy award for a track I contributed to a film short soundtrack. The two truly lifelong passions of mine have been history and music, so given that I think this album is exactly what people who know me would expect it to sound like.
Bryan: I live in Berlin, Maryland, which is a quaint little town eight miles off the beach where the films ‘Runaway Bride’ and ‘Tuck Everlasting’ were shot. It’s kind of like living in a Rockwell painting. That allusion should also indicate that I am a bit older than Christopher.
CN: You both are first cousins. Were you always close growing up?
Chris: Bryan and I were always on good terms, but geography limited how much time we could spend in each other’s company when we were young. It wasn’t till around 2013 when we realized that we were very much two sides of the same coin.
Bryan: We grew up on opposite sides of the country, and there was a significant age gap, but I always tried to be the “cool relative you can say stuff to that you would never think to tell your parents”, like his parents were for me. I also like the fact that he is now that for my kids. My teenager’s passion for punk rock is totally Chris’ fault.
CN: When did you discover you had a shared passion for music?
Chris: Bryan and I both grew up classically trained musicians and spent years in the orchestra, so we always knew the other was musical. It was my mom, who Bryan had a very close relationship with that pushed us to work together around 2006. Shortly after she passed away in 2013, I went to visit Bryan to get a change of scenery and in talking about her we both realized that she had independently made us promise that we would play together in the last conversation we had with her before she passed. Once we found “our sound” casually bouncing guitar kicks off each other in Bryan’s kitchen, we both were taken aback both by how much we liked what we sounded like, but also by the fact that my mom was so convinced that would be the case despite never hearing us play a single note together.
Bryan: I distinctly remember Grandma bringing back pictures and CD’s and what nots after she and Pap would visit you guys out there in Arizona, and I think that’s how I followed your early music career…whether that was orchestra stuff or the band stuff. I still have the picture she left on the counter of you and that Emmy of yours. I also remember your mom saying to me while I was working on my first record that we should think about working together someday. She reminded me of that conversation during our last conversation when she made me promise that we would actually make music together. When our voices blended together the first time, it was almost comical because I was filled with the feeling of “she’s STILL always right.”
CN: Which musicians have influenced you both personally and as an artist?
Chris: We’re both very much musical old souls and I owe my good taste in music to my parents. Bryan and I both are massive fans of the old guard like Ray Charles, The Beatles, The Everly Brothers, The Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan. But we also are very into more contemporary acts like Conor Oberst, M. Ward, Blake Mills, Jason Isbell, and Sturgill Simpson.
Bryan: I love good writing, and I love a song that expresses emotion or tells me a story in a way I’ve never heard it before. I don’t care what the genre is: Kendrick Lamar is just as important as Jason Isbell and Brandi Carlile are when it comes to the songwriting craft today. When it comes to influences, I am consistently blown away by Randy Newman, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Tom Waits, and the Beatles. Additionally, I’ve never ever been the same after I heard Jeff Buckley sing “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over.”
CN: When did you begin writing songs? Do you remember the first song each of you wrote?
Chris: I always say that Bryan and I are the yin to the others yang. I’m not very good at coming up with the initial spark of a song, its melody and its lyrics, but I am very good at arranging music and I play just about every instrument we’d wanna use so he sends me the raw metal ore and I try to hammer it into something useful and beautiful.
Bryan: The first guitar I bought was from a pawn shop in Ocean City, MD for $93 dollars. I was 21 I think. I just figured, if I can play Mendellsohn on the violin, I should be able to figure out how to play along with Sublime. Shortly thereafter, I moved to Glasgow, Scotland to finish college. I wrote my first songs in my flat and started busking on Sauciehall Street for change. Thankfully, I don’t remember the songs, but I remember drunk passersby telling me how “daft” they were and I realize now, in hindsight, that they were not wrong.
CN: Your debut album Pennsyltucky was released on October 26, which includes 11 remarkable songs, well not just songs but stories, which are co-writes by you both. Most are about personal experiences such as “Girl from Pennsyltucky” and “Forbidden Fruit.” Can you take us through your song writing process?
Bryan: Just as we sort of found our sound together and found a creative momentum, Chris moved back to Arizona for a job. So, in order to keep the creative partnership going, I started recording really rough demos of songs I had just written on a little voice record app I had on my phone from my radio journalism days. I’d send them to him in the rawest of forms, and he would then take them, dump the files into an app on his phone, and then fully arrange and orchestrate the tracks. We just kept repeating that process as fast as I could write the songs. Looking back on it, I feel like the muse broke down in my town and lived in my basement for a few months, repaying me only with these gems of songs. Writing songs has always been one of my favorite things to do and something that comes relatively easy, but there was something about tapping into my past and the stories of my past at the time in my life when I was at a massive turning point that just felt different and surreal. I guess in order to figure out what my next chapters of life were going to look like, I really needed to dig back into the previous chapters and find the proverbial canaries in the coal mines of ‘Pennsyltucky’ that have survived all the hard miles and long years in my memories. To write these songs 3000 miles apart and somehow attract the type of players that made this record sound better than we ever could have imagined, is something that is likely much bigger and otherworldly than us. That fact is not lost on us.
CN: How did you go about choosing the 11 songs for this project?
Chris: Once I spend so much time with a project I have a really hard time deciding if it’s actually good or if I just don’t want to admit that I’ve wasted how every many hours toiling away at something to have it be mediocre, or worse, that I’ve accidentally rewritten a song by one of our hero’s. I have a small group of very good friends and family who I will play things for to sort of check my work in that regard. Once those people gave us two thumbs up we started sending our favorites out to producers in the area. This was when we decided to shoot for the moon and see if Phil Madeira would be interested in working on them with us. A few months later he said yes, and we started the song selection process with him which got us down to the final 11 you hear on Pennsyltucky.
Bryan: There were many lists, many text messages and late night conversations where we argued over which tracks should make the cut. I did consider buying a dry-erase board at one point, but decided against it. We often talked about the fact that we were trying to write an “album” in the age of Spotify, so some songs that may have been better singles were left off because it didn’t fit the idea of “Pennsyltucky.” I was happy for the process though, and I am very pleased with the 11. I’m also very pleased that we have some ripping bangers and devastating bawlers left over for the next album.
CN: “Company Man” was recently released as your debut single. Another personal track, it was inspired by Bryan’s father and all the hard working “blue collar workers.” How meaningful was it to you guys to feature a song like this on the album, honoring those who work at the heart of this country, holding hold jobs that aren’t necessarily what they would dream to do, but do what they have to in order to provide for their families?
Chris: To me, being a lifelong student of American history, I feel very strongly that these people are the unsung hero’s of our country. Our history books know the Rockefeller’s or the Carnegie’s or the big men who’s name was on the building or owned the company, but it is the working man who swears, and bleeds, and sometimes dies in the name of progress and enterprise. These are people who’s only goal is to ensure their children have a better life than they did and they willingly sacrifice their minds and bodies their whole lives to that end. I personally can’t think of a more honorable and truly American ideal than that.
Bryan: My first job was at a dirt race track in Western PA at the age of 14. I worked in the concession stand. In hindsight, I learned more about rural America and its people from there, so when I started writing ‘Company Man’ those blue collar workers started coming to mind. It’s definitely an homage to the guys like my father-in-law who have worked for the same power plant in PA for well over 40 years, and my dad and the guys who used to work at the factory where I used to work in the summers in college. It’s an interesting juxtaposition when we are raising a generation where “everyone gets a trophy” and this song celebrates the people who didn’t necessarily get any recognition for their life’s work. It is about the sacrifices you make for the greater good of the people you love.
CN: Let’s talk about Phil Madeira. What was going through your minds as you waited to hear back from him after pitching him your songs? What was it like working with him on the album?
Bryan: I met Phil in 2013 when I did a public radio story on a songwriter’s retreat that was happening near Crisfield, Maryland. He gave me a copy of “Mercyland, Volume 1” and I remember halfway through the second song being so moved by it that I decided then and there that I would work with him someday. That said, when we were waiting to hear back from him, I had convinced myself that a polite decline email from him was probably best cast scenario. Him taking a chance on us and bringing us to Nashville to play with all of these incredible players is one of the most amazing musical things that have ever happened to us to date. As far as working on the record, he’s got tremendous vision and is such an incredible musical mind. We worked incredibly hard, and were blessed with top notch players who were a joy to work with. It was a magical week, but I was determined to show Phil and all those cats that this wasn’t ‘fantasy camp’ for us. We came to make something special. My other favorite thing about working with Phil is that he made us all a pie and brought it into the studio when we were tracking with the band. I knew Phil was a musical badass, but its almost not fair that he can bake as well as he can.
CN: “Boys Called Susan” is an obvious tip of the hat to Shel Silverstein’s poem that Johnny Cash turned into the iconic “Boy Named Sue”, but it also pays tribute to a request by a very important person in both your lives – Susan Knudson. How important was it to fulfill her wish? How proud do you think she would be to hear this album?
Chris: Bryan and I have talked a lot about this during this roller coaster ride, she was an indescribably important person to both of us in terms of shaping who we are as individuals and as men so the importance of this project really can’t be understated. She was the type of mom who would be proud of you even if you botched your solo or let the game winning hit go through your legs at second base, so I am certain that she would be bursting at the seams over what’s going on now with this project of ours.
Bryan: I know she would be so proud of us, and I know these are the type of songs that she would appreciate for their depth and their humanity, and the fact that they dig into some tough subjects. I can never truly articulate how much I adored that woman and how much I miss chatting with her, so I guess this album is the best attempt to do that. It’s funny because in trying to fulfill her final wish, Chris and I became closer than I think we probably ever would have otherwise. I am forever grateful to her for that, and countless other things.
CN: Do you have a dream collaboration in mind?
Chris: I would love to sit down and do an album with Blake Mills, I love his sounds and his composition skills. Just because you can write and record a song in 6 hours doesn’t mean that you should. I appreciate artists who take their time and make sure that everything is in its right place.
Bryan: I know there are certain artists you are supposed to say when you get asked questions like this, but if Chris and I could be in a room with some instruments and Elvis Costello for a few hours, I think we could come up with something cool. Additionally, I’d love to perform a song with Randy Newman leading an orchestra behind us, and then afterwards, I’d love a dark hotel bar at closing time, two pianos, a bottle of single-malt scotch and Mr. Tom Waits.
CN: If you could describe yourselves in one word, what would it be and why?
Chris: How about persnickety? Haha I am the sort of person that will sit with a guitar sound or obsess over a lyric until it’s acceptably close to the high standard I hold for us in my head and sometimes I can be a tad abrasive in my critiques. Luckily Bryan and I both have thick skin and the freedom to be totally honest with each other about our music has only improved it in my opinion.
Bryan: A believer. I believe the world can be ok. I believe in the kind of love that lasts forever, and I believe there are so many questions that still need answers. Songs can sometimes help us do that, and I think we need good songs that do that now more than ever. The difference between chasing the dollar and following the money is pretty much whether or not you’re writing pithy party songs in 2018.
CN: What was the first concert you ever attended?
Chris: I was 14 when I went to see Blink 182. I’ll love those early 2000s pop punk bands till I die!
Bryan: I’d like to tell you it was Aerosmith or the Who, but it wasn’t. It was that Christian rock band Petra.
CN: Debut single. Debut album. With only a few months left of 2018 – what also do you have planned to close out the year? Any plans in the works for 2019?
Chris: We’re just rolling with the punches the same way we have been since this time last year. Every time we think we’ve hit a plateau something else happens and we’re off and running again. Bryan is ridiculously prolific, so we’re always sending song ideas and demos back and forth.
Bryan: We have a plan, but we are ready to deviate from that plan depending on how the record is received. First step is getting Chris on the same coast and in the same zip code as me again. Then to be honest, I’m ready to get back to work. We’ve got the whole next record finished already.
Pennsyltucky is available for purchase and streaming here.
For more information on Boys Called Susan, visit their website www.boyscalledsusan.com and follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.