14 years into their career making bluesy roots rock as Larkin Poe, sisters Rebecca and Megan Lovell had their biggest 12 months yet in 2024. Coming off an album cycle that saw their sixth full-length studio release, 2022’s Blood Harmonyearn their first Grammy and third Number 1 on Billboard’s Blues Albums chart, the Lovells walked away with confidence and swagger to spare.
“It does give you a little bit of a confidence boost to say, ‘Okay, my opinions are valid,’ so then the next time you go in the studio, you hold that in your head a little bit,” Megan says.
For Rebecca, the takeaway from those experiences – plus a world tour, a plum spot on Slash’s S.E.R.P.E.N.T. Festival and winning the Americana Music Award for Duo/Group of the Year – was that the confidence was there all along. “You realize the stuff that actually makes you feel fulfilled as an artist has been there the whole time,” she says.
All the while, the old-time and bluegrass music scene the Lovells left behind to form Larkin Poe in 2010 has officially gone mainstream. Bluegrass revivalist and picker Billy Strings regularly sells out multiple nights at hockey arenas and amphitheaters. Molly Tuttle has reached top billing at festivals across the U.S., and not just those associated with Americana music. Rootsy singer-songwriter Zach Bryan even sells out stadiums. So, during their downtime, Rebecca and Megan reacquainted themselves with the bluegrass scene.
Rebecca, who won a MerleFest mandolin contest at 15, set aside her Strat and dusted off her old instrument for their run of dates with T Bone Burnett. Megan dipped back to her Dobro-slide days for their work on Ringo Starr’s new country album, Look Upwhich also happens to feature Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle.
The duo rode those waves of success and inspiration into recording sessions for Bloomtheir new album. While they’re still deeply rooted in the blues – particularly the loose, hypnotic strain native to Mississippi’s Hill Country – the Lovells have steadily sharpened their songwriting chops and sense of melody.
Backed by their muscular live band again on Bloomthey’ve doubled down on their excursions beyond the traditional blues-rock idiom. Of course, the feverish guitar fretwork listeners expect is there, like the thunderous riffing of Bluephoriathe Black Crowes-inspired slide on Mockingbird and the R.L. Burnside nods on If God Is a Woman. But the success of Blood Harmony led them to dream bigger and build their bulletproof riffs into massive crescendos and choruses.
GW recently caught up with the Lovell sisters to talk about their evolving approach to guitar and songwriting, and how it led them to Bloom.
Blood Harmony marked a transition in terms of how you record. Was the approach similar here, or did you take another left turn?
Rebecca: “We definitely stuck the landing with Bloom in keeping the ethos that we’ve been developing the last few years in our self-production, trying to maintain as much of the humanity as possible while also recording in our home studio. Some of our capabilities in terms of tracking straight-up live are limited, just due to space; it’s a very cozy little space in which we’ve been making records.
“But I’m really proud of some of the songwriting and lyrical advances that were made on this record. I think a lot of the status quo was maintained in terms of not doing a ton of overdubs, not a ton of bells and whistles as per Blood Harmonywhich clearly served us so well. But I think we made some new leaps in the artistic message.”
How did you carry out the theme of Bloom in your guitar work?
Rebecca: “Bloom is all about acceptance of situations and allowing yourself to bloom within those parameters. I think that carries over into playing, because as the years go by, we’re becoming more and more comfortable with what we offer when it comes to playing, singing and writing, and you can kind of relax into yourself and your own sound and be the best version of yourself as a player.
“So, on this record, I was a lot more comfortable in the creation of solos and being able to focus more on the emotion that was coming through in the playing, as opposed to how fast are the notes or how much am I shredding – and feeling maybe uncomfortable and a lot of tension around that – instead of relaxing into it and trying to create something I liked.”
The confidence around self-acceptance turned into confidence all around.
Confidence is a universal theme for the majority of people. Trying to find and then maintain that confidence is probably one of the hardest things any of us do
Rebecca Lovell
Rebecca: “Confidence is a universal theme for the majority of people. Trying to find and then maintain that confidence is probably one of the hardest things any of us do. Especially today, on social media; being able to create highlight reels of our own life experiences and then post it, and then check on all of your friends and what the highlights of their life experience are… It’s so easy to get disillusioned.
“I don’t feel like I’ve arrived at that total of where I’m at as a player, as a songwriter, as a person, as a performer, but it’s like trying to write the mantra to remind yourself, to train yourself, to get back to that headspace of, you deserve to enjoy your life, to relax into your experience.
“You shouldn’t always be at war with yourself and your surroundings. Sometimes enough is actually enough. Just relax, let it go. It’s important to try and habituate seeking out the joy and the moments where you have peace. We don’t need to throw ourselves into chaos or strife.”
A lot has been said about your Hill Country blues influence, but what contemporary music inspires you as guitar players?
Megan: “We grew up playing bluegrass, and it’s really cool to see it coming back around in our lives. Seeing Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle and Sierra Ferrell – that’s been inspiring us to revisit our past and bring some of those acoustic moments into our show.
“Being willing to go out and play some of these bluegrass festivals harkened back to our past in a way that’s been very fun for us. Picking up the Dobro again and delving back in has been really great.”
Rebecca: “We feel like we can re-embrace those parts of ourselves that – for quite a while – sat dormant. In the mid-2000s, we were touring as an Americana string band and we couldn’t pay our bills. Sort of out of necessity, we did pivot and find new vistas in ourselves. It was like, ‘Cool, this can inform who we are now as well.’
“But (it’s great) to be able to re-embrace that and have it be something that can be married back into our sound with these newer records.”
Megan: “I’m inspired by a lot of classic rock. Just using tone as a way to inspire is a little new for me, because I’ve always found my tone and then stuck with it and not played around too much. With this record, we were actually really inspired by trying to seek out David Lindley’s tone, specifically that Running on Empty guitar solo tone.
“We were like, ‘Well, we should try out some Dumble-clone stuff,’ and that was really inspiring because there were a couple of moments where I was like, ‘This is it. I hear it.’ I found that inspiring with some of my solos, specifically Fool Outta Me. I feel like I was channeling a little bit of Lindley in it. It’s probably my favorite solo on the record.”
This is the second album you’ve recorded with your live band. What have those live experiences taught you?
Rebecca: “I think the live experience of a musician is the arena in which I probably learned the most about myself, because there are so many factors that are beyond your control. It’s like a hyperrealism version of reality, because you’re on stage and things are going wrong.”
“Maybe you look out in the audience and you make eye contact with somebody who’s looking at you like, I’m so not entertained by you. There’s a lot of things that are trying to throw you off your game. And it is sort of like a trial by fire to continue to recenter yourself, stay in the moment, don’t think too far ahead. There’s that constant distraction that’s pulling you away from the music and the art and being in that flow with your instrument.
I think I have learned so much about my musicianship and the power of really being in the present through performing
Rebecca Lovell
“I think I have learned so much about my musicianship and the power of really being in the present through performing. I think, honestly, being on stage with a musician like my sister – because Megan is very fearless in the improvisation she will engage in on stage, specifically during her solos – and being able to have her showing me what’s possible as a player is like, go for it. And I’m like, ‘Let’s go for it together. Let’s try to do something new.’
“Even if it goes wrong, who really cares? It’s just a little bobble. It’s a wrong note that lasts for a millisecond. Let’s move on. So trying to be courageous (is important). And then, of course, being off the road and learning covers and having that also inform the playing, to shake up our own perspective.”
Megan: “I’m an overthinker. So for me, if I’m thinking, I’m stinking. The less I can be in my own head, the better. And in that way, live shows are a bit like meditation. I try to just be aligned and keep in that zen moment. It’s fun; we learn a lot, and we take a ton of mental notes about our stage show and how to transfer that to the studio.”
An offshoot of the confidence theme throughout the album – especially in songs like Mockingbird and Bluephoria – is being honest as a songwriter.
Megan: “I think it is hard to be completely honest in songwriting. I think some people come by it very easily, but I think for Rebecca and me, it has been harder to be vulnerable in songwriting. I think we’re both introverted in ways, but we have a little bit of a shell that’s tough to crack. So, when we were writing these songs, we were really particular about line-by-line trying to make sure that what we were saying was honest, and at the very least, something real.
“We haven’t completely gotten there – maybe we never will – but I do think there’s a lot of vulnerability in these songs, and I’m very proud of that. You can really put yourself into the lyrics, and you can look into somebody else’s eyes and know that what you’re saying is real.”
- Bloom is out now via Tricki-Woo.
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