Mike Montrey Band – “Fortune Teller”
Americana Highways brings you this premiere of Mike Montrey Band’s song “Fortune Teller” from their forthcoming album Love, Time & Mortality, set for release on Aug 23. The album was produced by Mike Montrey; recorded, mixed and mastered by Adam Vaccarelli at Retromedia Sound Studios in Red Bank, NJ; with album artwork by Josh Matson of Dogmatic Live Art. Photography for the cd was courtesy of David Zeigler of Photobomb Productions.
“Fortune Teller” is Mike Montrey on guitars and vocals; Jen Augustine on vocals; Jack Stanton on pedal steel guitar; Santo Rizzolo on drums and percussion; Mike Noordzy on upright bass; Nicole Scorsone on violin; John Ginty on Hammond B3 organ, Wurlitzer, and piano.
We had a brief chat with Mike Montrey about this song. The premiere appears just beneath the interview:
Americana Highways: What is this song about?
Mike Montrey: “Fortune Teller” delves into the record’s mortality theme. Should you go faster, do more, live life while you have time, reflect on a life lived, or both, somehow? This life we know is finite, and no matter what you do with it, one thing is for sure: It will end.
I think that the only “religion” or ethos that I carry is that of this life that we are currently living. It is the only thing we know that absolutely exists for certain, so we can’t waste it. I pictured an older person as the main character in this song, contemplating watching the sunset on their last days or holding the sun up with their shoulders. It’s great to think about and see the beauty and value in both, actually.
AH: Who/what were some influences when it came to writing the song?
MM: When I initially wrote “Fortune Teller,” it was just a solo acoustic piece built on the intimacy of the lyrics and the story; “Listen to the fire burning on the side of a mountain creek, follow the stars, they burn forever.” In that way, I felt connected to Eddie Vedder’s Into the Wild record, and I still think that works, but when I took it into the studio and we added the haunted violin intro from Nicole Scorsone, it started to lean into the Jackson Browne folk thing with David Lindley on fiddle, or even something off of The Decemberists’ album, The King is Dead. Finally, we gave it a groove, and that groove is like a cross between 80’s Bruce Springsteen and modern-day Chris Stapleton stuff to me. It just had that vibe of a thick groove. I think it all plays out in the track, which was never really intended, but everybody’s songs come from something they heard somewhere.
AH: Any cool/funny/interesting stories from writing/recording this one?
MM: Kind of piggybacking off the prior question, it was very cool and interesting to me to hear what the song became. I think it might be my “favorite” final result on the record, which is hard to say about a group of my own tunes. Again, it began as potentially a solo acoustic number, but now it really rides as a full tune. And it wasn’t intended. As I’ve said before, my own production techniques tend to be centered around putting the players in place, and letting them play music, and that’s what happened here. Musicians make music, not producers.
Mike has a vocal tone that’s frail with vulnerability, and as he sings over low fiddle and a mid-tempo Americana beat with pedal steel and lovely harmonies, you’ll feel moved to a tear or two before even listening to the lyrical message. But then the lyrics come in and he’s confronting mortality, and the waterworks begin in earnest: “you should speed up, not getting enough of your sh-t done…. listen to the fire burning on the side of a mountain creek….you can be a fortune teller and a master of your own dreams and still, this life won’t last forever.” Profound and poignant.
You can find more information here: https://mikemontreyband.com/
Check out our previous coverage here: Song and Video Premiere: Mike Montrey Band “I Can’t Wait Any Longer”