Jack Barksdale: The Folk Troubadour at 18

Jack Barksdale: The Folk Troubadour at 18

Jack Barksdale has released a new studio album entitled Voices via Truly Handmade Records – and it’s a truly stunning, visionary work from an artist who is all 18 years of age.  Inspired by legendary performers such as Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits, Jack Barksdale is the next great generation of folk troubadours and Voices is destined to leave a lasting impression of all who give a good listen.  With bold, brilliant songs such as The Man, The Myth, The Legend, Martyrs, and God is Dead, I Am Dead, and So Are You, Jack Barksdale is absolutely fearless with his vibrant vocal delivery and thoughtful lyrics.  Highwire Daze recently interviewed Jack Barksdale to find out more about this singer / songwriter on the rise.  Read on..

We are here with Jack Barksdale. First of all, Jack, where are you based out of and what is your local music scene like there?
Well, I’m based out of Fort Worth, Texas, and Fort Worth is really cool. Because it’s got a cool music scene and a good mix of genres, and just really great people and really great songwriters – and a real cohesive feeling to the scene. Fort Worth the city does a lot of really cool stuff with music and the arts. There’s a lot of cool people here.

Let’s talk about this amazing new album, Voices. Is there any overall story or concept behind the titled Voices first of all?
I had a bunch of songs and I knew I wanted to do an album, and I was trying to figure out a way to whittle down what songs I wanted to record and what I was going for. I realized that all these songs don’t generally have a common theme or anything, there’s some similarities between them, but they’re all one work. I just realized that songwriting in general is almost like schizophrenia. These songs coming from different places, and you don’t always know where they come from.  And sometimes you take on a different personality in the song, and it feels foreign and familiar at the same time. So that’s the metaphor I was using. It’s more just a metaphor for the general songwriting process, so that’s how that came about.

Let’s go to the opening song, The Man, The Myth, The Legend. What’s the inspiration behind that song?
Well, I actually wrote that just after I came up with the album title and what I wanted to go for. I wrote that one and the title song Voices, and so it mentions voices in it a little bit. And that song is sort of making fun of myself and how I might appear on the album. I guess is a nutshell description of it.

Martyrs with Sarah Jarosz. What’s the influence behind that one, and how did Sarah become involved?
I started writing that song when we were driving through West Texas, and just thinking about how not everybody around the world gets to see those small Texas towns. And then also thinking about the small southern towns that I’ve been to and been through, and just how strange it is in the wider context of the world.  And in these little pockets, there’s a lot of strange psychology that happens there. So that’s where the song came from -is more taking those things that sometimes get turned into novelties and just taking them seriously and really looking at them for what they are.  That’s what the songs is about. [

But Sarah became involved. We had recorded the main track for the song, so that was guitar, my vocal bass and drums. We didn’t really know what else to add, but we knew it needed something else. Oh, and accordion was added on a couple days later. So we knew it needed something else, and so we thought harmonies would be really, really cool on this song. I had been listening to Sarah and she made a really great album in, I think it was released in 2020.  She’s made tons of great albums, but I was listening to that one specifically.

I just thought that her voice and her sound would fit really well with that song. We reached out to her and her management and she said yes, and it was really, really exciting and cool to know that she wanted to be a part of this song. Then she sent over her vocals and mandolin, and it was perfect, and we didn’t edit anything. We just put it how she sent it back to us, and it was amazing. So yeah, that’s how that happened.

Have you had a chance to perform Martyrs live with Sarah yet or is that something you’d like to do?
No, I haven’t, but I would of course love to do that. That would be really cool.

Let’s talk about your single A Funny Song. Give me the inspiration for that one.
I’m not really sure where that one came from. Well, actually, there is something funny about how I came up with the original inspiration = which was sometimes when I’ve seen a funny video or I heard a funny joke or something like that and I’ll tell my mom, “Hey, you want to hear something funny?” And she says “life“, and then she’ll say, “death“. Then I’ll scoff and tell her whatever I was thinking of. But anyway, I thought of that first line, “Life, ain’t it funny”, and then I thought about that thing that she says sometimes and thought that would be a good way to end the song. Anyway, the song’s – it’s almost like a rebuttal or a response to the happy go lucky songs that you’ll hear like Good Day Sunshine, or What A Wonderful World. I love those songs, but also A Funny Song is just talking about the sort of tunnel vision that you can have either in the positive or the negative direction.  So, it balances things out.

One of the boldest statements I see on the album is, God is Dead, I Am Dead, and So Are You. Tell me a little about that song.
I think it took me a while to really get that song down to where I wanted it. I wrote a bunch of stuff that wasn’t used. But anyway that song just generally, there’s a lot of different aspects to that song because there’s a lot of verses and all that stuff. But generally it’s just about how extremism and really thinking that you’re right and especially in areas that you may not be an expert in no matter what side of any subject you’re on, can be a dangerous thing. So that’s a general description of it.

That song is followed by End Of Days. Tell me about End Of Days.
End Of Days, I think about it as an explanation of my worldview to just a general listener.

I looked up your producer Mike Meadows and his credits, oh my gosh, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Sheryl Crow, the list goes on and on forever and ever. How did you wind up working with Mike Meadows, and what was the experience like?
Mike is a really cool person. I think the first thing I did with him was a show at the Saxon Pub. But then after that he produced one of my singles Painted White Line and did a great job. Then he also produced my album Death Of A Hummingbird, and once again, just did a great job. This time around we really got to plan everything out and really get everything how we wanted – and I was in more of a place to be able to really figure out what I wanted. Yeah, it was a really fun experience.

Have you ever played out here in the Los Angeles or Southern California area?
Yeah, I did. I did this showcase called School Night in Hollywood. It was pretty crazy. But other than that, I haven’t done much in California at all. It was really cool getting to see all the stars on the sidewalk and see all these places that you hear about in movies and songs and all that stuff.

I hope you come back here for this album. That would be incredible.
Yeah, me too.

Tell me a little bit about Jack Barkdales Roots Revival, the podcast, are you still doing it?
Yeah, I’ll tell you a little bit about it first. Before the pandemic I was doing this thing called Guitar Slingers on YouTube, where if there was a guitar player that I really admired or really liked and wanted to get to know a little bit about their playing style and their background, then I would invite them and we would do this little YouTube show, and it was pretty fun, and we got to do some really cool things. But then when the pandemic happened you couldn’t film with people, and so I just transitioned it into a podcast format and just interviewed everybody instead of just guitar players, songwriters, musicians and all sorts of people. That’s how it started. We haven’t done one in a little while, but I’m hoping to do more in the future. I’ve primarily been doing interviews over the last couple years, but I’m hoping to write some actual episodes about different topics and really revive the Roots Revival.

One of my favorite folk artists is Gordon Lightfoot. I was wondering, have you heard of him in his music?
Yeah honestly, that’s one person that I’ve never really done the deep dive so to speak into their catalog. But I’ve heard songs here and there, and yeah, he’s just a fantastic writer. I think John Prine called him one of his favorite songwriters. So what I’ve heard I’ve really liked, but over the last couple months I’ve been listening a little bit more and wanting to really dive in.

Jack Barksdale via Zoom!

A lot of his music’s definitely life changing, that’s for sure. Are you into any music that someone might be surprised to find that you like, like would we hear you listening to Black Sabbath or Heavy Metal or anything like that?
I like all kinds of music and so it just depends. Black Sabbath has some great stuff. I think they had some weird lineup changes in the later parts of it. But yeah, it’s pretty cool stuff. I don’t listen to it very often. Everybody loves Tom Petty. I was trying to think of more rock people, but I don’t know. I like a lot of cool folk music from around different places like Tarantella music in Italy or Basque music.

Since you mentioned Tom Petty, if you were invited to participate on a Tom Petty tribute album and you could do one song by Tom Petty, what song would you do and why?
Well, let’s see. He has so many good ones. Angel Dream is an amazing song, so that would definitely be up there. That’s a really tough one. Yeah, maybe it would be Angel Dream, but there’s also some really great ones like Time To Move On and Wildflowers of course is a great one. Also some of his more mainstream rock songs are really great too. I’ve always loved Change Of Heart. Southern Accents is an amazing song. It would really be hard to choose.

Do you have any messages for your fans who are reading this right now, or maybe people who don’t know you, who want to check out your music?
If you end up listening to my music, then I hope you like it. I don’t think anybody really has to like it – because that’s just the nature of music and art, is that it’s subjective. And so every person has different stuff that they like and different things that they want to listen to. So, I think it’s great if you find something to latch onto in my music. But also, if you want to go your separate way, that’s totally fine too. I hope you do end up liking it, and I hope some people at least can find something that benefits them in some way in my music.

(Interview by Ken Morton)

Jack Barksdale on Instagram