Megan McCormick always knew her life lay in music. It wasn’t a matter of fancy costumes or the notion of thousands of people clamoring for her attention. The girl who grew up in Alaska – and whose grandparents are in the Western Swing Hall of Fame – could feel it on a cellular level.“Everyone in the family played… so I’ve always been around great music,” says the dark-headed young woman with the glint in her eye. Her parents played too, though not professionally. Her mother was a country singer while her father was more of a rock & roller. “It was never about the glamour, but the grits, you know? Because I’d be doing this whether people listened or not. It’s how I’ve chosen to live… It’s a necessity, not an option.
“And music, if you’re doing it for those reasons, isn’t about the chart numbers, about the money, about the thousands of people, but more the way people feel it. You know there will always be people who want the more superficial, poppy stuff, but I know there are people out there who want more – and those are the people I’m playing for.”
At 23, McCormick has more insight into the human condition than many people twice her age – and her guitar playing has a deep-in-the-blues groove-grounding that adds credence to songs about addiction, obsession, romance, sorting life out and trying to make one’s way in the world. Whether it’s the taut Stevie Ray Vaughan-evoking “Shiver,” the lacerating lost souls’ recognition in “Drifting” or the torchy foreboding of meltdown that is “Pick Up The Phone,” her heart on her sleeve and her truth in your face seems to be this singer’s natural stance.
“I don’t identify with a lot of things other people do,” she confesses. “It’s not about age or education… man or woman… straight or gay… wrecked or sober… I’m just a plain human on my journey, and that makes me more like most people than different. That’s the thing: people like to magnify the differentiation when really there are so many more similarities.
“Even when you’re looking at relationships and different perspectives, what happens between people is pretty much the same. What could be about a lover, could be about a father in a different context – or a friend. Once you get too specific on whatever descriptors you’re using, the more you minimize the people you can reach, the ones who see themselves in the songs… because everyone’s got trouble.”
Pausing, she weighs her words. “When you start looking at it like that, you’d be amazed. There are a lot more fragile people than there are emotionally healthy Buddhists.”
McCormick’s trade is certainly in the darker places, the crevices where life falls in on itself, where urges get a momentum destined to pull the unsuspecting off the tracks and that which saves can suck you under. With a wistful yearning, the young woman who attended East Tennessee State University’s acclaimed bluegrass program reflects on what is lost in the descent on “Wasted” and finds the soul undulations to pick up the pieces on “Things Change” on what can only be considered an eclectically lean rock & roll record.
McCormick's masterful guitar playing adds to the emotional heft, giving a musical weight to each track on the album. Whether tearing through a blazing outro solo on "Shiver" or elegantly finger picking on the album's title track, McCormick's guitar skill helps set her and her songs apart. It also helps to drop jaws at her live shows.
“When I was little, I loved Reba McEntire – the straight-up showmanship and strength of who she was,” explains the brash singer/songwriter/guitarslinger. “But then there was Gladys Knight – and I had a cassette of hers that broke. I went crazy! I remember telling my Mom that they had to fix the tape, ‘because I needed to study it… because somebody was going to have to sing those songs when she’s gone.’…that classic soul thing, the groovy choruses. I was obsessed.
“That’s the thing: no matter how many genres you can detect on this record, it all melts into this one thing, which is my music. It’s genuine, and it’s a true sense of me, who I am as a musician. Maybe rock & roll is more of a mindset, but I think it’s about what’s inside you.”
Certainly songs like “Lonely Tonight” and the gently brutal “Honest Words” mine doubt, regret, a certain kind of agony and a definite vein of pushing off the bottom to face the mess, fix what you can and embrace what you can’t. “Right now I feel more comfortable about who I am, my intentions, what I’ve been through and the lessons I’ve learned than I ever have been.
“The thing about ‘Honest Words,’ it works from a lot of different places – because there are so many stories from whatever side you’re on. The one in it, the child, the parent – and this heartbreaking thing of ‘Why did you do this to me?’ whether it’s your Dad, your partner, God, even yourself! It’s not a good feeling to be walked away from in any circumstance, but it’s in facing it that you can start over.”
Those stories that McCormick tells so willingly and completely are what drew legendary music publisher David Conrad out of retirement. The man who championed the songs of Gillian Welch, Nanci Griffith, Patti Griffin and Emmylou Harris saw something vital in McCormick’s amalgamation of styles, sentiments and truth and signed on.
“David saw me at the Basement,” McCormick says. “He’d retired, but he called Lance Freed, who’d originally signed Melissa (Etheridge). He came to see me, liked what he saw… and that was the beginning of some very major relationships in my life. And they’re music people, really advocates for the song.
“Because you know when you’re making an album, you’re putting yourself out there, making a series of impressions. It’s funny what a personal expression something like this can be, as passion turns to employment – and it takes you away. It becomes your life."
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