Fox and Bones interview
Fox and Bones is a Portland, OR based power folk rock duo consisting of singer-songwriters Sarah Vitort and Scott Gilmore. Their latest album Long Time Honey dropped on May 17 to rave reviews and should rightly be considered as one of the best Americana albums of the year. Recently the duo spoke with Americana Highways about the record and their music. The resultant conversation, edited for length and clarity, is below.
Americana Highways: How would you describe your music to someone who hasn’t heard it?
Sarah Vitort: I think one of the key words in describing our music is that it is optimistic. It’s a mixture of traditional folk, rock, and pop and Americana that has an optimistic and forward looking vibe that kind of colors everything we do.
AH: Where would you say that optimism comes from in your music?
Scott Gilmore: I think it comes from the whole journey of emotions you experience with being in a creative environment, atmosphere, and career. You have to explore your successes and setbacks in a life of music. You also have to be able to feel the despair of being away from your family and friends nine months out of the year in pursuit of a dream. The optimism comes from knowing where the depths of your sadness comes from. It comes from us choosing to be optimistic as a brushstroke on our creative palette.
SV: I would add that Scott is really good at being optimistic while I am a little more of a realist. So in that sense, the hard nosed optimism in our music comes from a combination of our two personal ideologies.
And as far as the music on the album goes, we can’t talk about any of it without crediting our wonderful songwriting partner and producer of this record Greg Holden. We wrote these songs as a trio under Greg’s sometimes brash but always appropriate guidance.
AH: Who would you consider to be one of your biggest musical heroes?
SG: I would say John Craigie because he is one of those artists whose career is a blueprint of how to be successful in the music world. He took a dream of developing his show and performing on a national stage and made it come true. There are a lot of other modern songwriters like David Ramirez and the group The Lone Bellow that we are inspired by as well. We aspire to be like artists who, like us, are continually working, living on the road, and continuing to create for a modern audience.
SV: I think we look up to John Craigie so much because he created his own path. He didn’t have rich parents or connections in the industry that we know of, he just did the road dogging thing and built up his audience over time like we are trying to do. His success gives us hope that we can find success in the music world too.
AH: How would you best describe the new album?
SG: This new album feels like the pinnacle of the eight years that we have spent on the road playing and performing our music.
Take the title song “Long Time Honey.” It comes from something me and Sarah say to each other – “We have been doing this for a long time honey,” meaning that we have been pushing for this career for a long time now. Sometimes we feel like we are slogging through the mud and other times we feel like we are on a bullet train moving across the country and through it all we find that it is something real. I think the songs on the record reflect those feelings.
SV: I think I would add that this album feels like we are coming home to ourselves.
Our first album was a concept album where we created these characters and then sent them on an adventure and that mirrored our career at the time.
The second one had songs that were all about traveling and being on the road, which reflected the fact that we were out there on the road and spending a long time away from home.
The third album was written during the pandemic and reflected a different world view. We started looking at the big picture of everything and everything on a global scale.
This album really is like coming back home in the sense it’s like a hero’s journey where the hero comes back to himself and realizes the answers he was seeking were inside of himself the entire time. I think that’s a lot of what this album is about.
AH: What does music, in general, mean to you ?
SV: I think for me, having been exposed to music very young and having grown up in a musical family, it is a huge part of my identity. I also feel like with me being a highly emotional person, it’s a way for me to express my feelings.
I also think music is a way to take the darkness, the chaos, and everything that happens in the world and filter it in a way that you can turn it into art. It’s a way to condense things down so that people can understand them and feel what you are feeling. It helps us all see, hear, and realize that we have common experiences with each other as human beings.
To know that is something that we are doing is the highest honor. It always feels so cool to hear people bring their own perspective to our music.
SG: I think music is an easy connector to the current moment. Our lives always feel so hectic and music is an access point to our understanding of the things that are going on. It is one of the easiest ways to communicate things that can’t be communicated any other way.
I feel like creating and playing music is a service industry that we are happy to be a part of and participating in.
AH: What can you tell us about the touring plans for Fox and Bones this summer?
SG: Starting in June we will do a number of dates with the band Fantastic Cat and then do a West coast tour through October.
Thanks very much for chatting with us! Complete details and tickets can be found on our website.
The new album from Fox and Bones Long Time Honey is also now available on their website.
Enjoy our coverage of Long Tome Honey here: REVIEW: Fox and Bones “Long Time Honey”
