“I’m in the car outside of the movie theatre,” she happily reports. “My husband and I are about to head in to see Blaze, the new Ethan Hawke movie about Blaze Foley. We’re both huge fans of his music, and we’re really interested in learning more about his life.”
Until the trailers start, however, Price is all business. After all, she’s one of the key figureheads of contemporary Americana and alt-country, scoring praise from the likes of Rolling Stone and even Jack White, who has put out both of Price’s records on his label, Third Man.
All American Made has received some of the strongest reviews of her career – and Price, who doesn’t think of herself as any kind of perfectionist, is incredibly happy with it. “I try not to look back too much,” she says.
“After all, once you’ve put a record out you’re going to be spending a lot of time with it – you’re playing these songs more or less every single night for a good stretch of time. You can get caught up in the little things – ‘Oh, I could’ve played or sung this better’ – but in my opinion, there’s only one way to look. That’s ahead.”
Indeed, Price is already thinking ahead to album number three – though not in absolutes. She notes that it’s easy to find yourself writing a lot when you’re married to a fellow songwriter – in this case, guitar player Jeremy Ivey. “We tend to encourage each other,” Price says. “We push each other to keep going.
“It sounds full on, but it’s very organic and relaxed. I don’t think either of us could cope with the idea of writing specifically to fill the quota for an album – having to come up with 20 songs in a month or something like that.”
For now, Price and Ivey are happy to work at their own pace. They have a couple of “keepers”, as Price describes them, and they’ve been working their way into the set but Price is somewhat reticent about playing them prior to recording. “When we were making All American Made, I didn’t want to play the songs at all before we’d recorded them ourselves. After awhile, I figured that it didn’t particularly matter in the grand scheme of things. Besides everything else, it gets boring when you’re just playing the same set of songs over and over.”
With this in mind, expect a mix of the old and new when Price and her band make their maiden voyage down to Australia this month for a mix of headlining show and festival dates. “I’ve been told to expect a lot of flying and travelling,” Price says with a nervous laugh. “I know we’re on a pretty tight schedule, but I’m excited to take a look around a place I’ve never been before. I’m a little frightened of the animals, but I’m sure I’ll be okay.”
Indeed, Price has already had a close encounter with one of our most intimidating fauna. When Price was a musical guest on Saturday Night Live in 2016, the host was none other than our very own Russell Crowe.
“He was very kind,” Price recalls. “We only had brief words in the hallway during the week there, but he came alive in the after-party. I was drinking this champagne, and he was mixing that with vodka and some papaya juice that he’d had imported all the way over from Australia.
“I was done for after two of those, and he just kept going. He did come to see me play about a year later at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, though. That was very cool.”
