Tony Kamel photos by Josh Abel
Tony Kamel Finds His Inner Fight For We’re All Gonna Live
Tony Kamel is releasing his next full-length studio album, We’re All Gonna Live, on April 18th, 2025, via Blue Corn Music. Steeped in bluegrass tradition, and a passionate live performer, Kamel decided that the new album would be recorded live to tape with a handful of close comrades in arms, some of whom are also part of his live band. The songs on We’re All Gonna Live are distilled from a particular period of upheaval in Kamel’s life and the lives of his family members, such that it brought home some truths for him about the ways in which we handle darkness in life. It led to a new philosophy of tackling those times for Tony Kamel, which included sitting with darkness until a directing light eventually appears.
The songs on We’re All Gonna Live are propelled forward with an inspiring energy, venting frustration and shaking off inertia in favor of those little hopeful little signs that often keep us going in life. I talked with Tony Kamel about how the album was recorded, the experiences that led to his choice of cover art, and the colorful backstory behind the album’s title track which led to an unforgettable punchline and album title.
Americana Highways: I think a lot of your work is geared towards live performance, and that’s the way that you recorded We’re All Gonna Live, too, right? It has that kind of energy to it.
Tony Kamel: Thanks for saying that. For me, my favorite part of the whole deal is playing live. We recorded this live in a circle. If you look at the videos that we’ve released, that is us playing the recordings on the record. That’s not lip-synced. We just documented everything. The easiest way to capture that live energy is just to play it live. When I do my live shows, I over-think the setlists. I think about the way that things move throughout, and I put myself in the place of the audience.
But I think it just happened naturally, too. I think if you get together with good musicians and just play, and you feel the energy, it just comes across. Also, it’s a much quicker way to make a record! [Laughs] We knocked it out really fast, in just a few days.
AH: When you’re going to do that, is there a lot of playing through before you record? A lot of bands only do that when they’ve just come off the road.
TK: Yes and no. The drummer was in a drum booth for about half the songs, out of it half the time, and three of the four guys who played on it, I play with a lot in different bluegrass things that happen around Austin. Two of them also play in the band when I play live. Though we didn’t have a lot of experience playing the songs, we have a lot of experience playing together. So, we didn’t really prepare the songs, but I think that has its own value.
When you play with people who play a lot together, and you come together on a new song, that’s exciting. I think that initial excitement is what you’re after when you go into the studio. You want to capture that excitement you get when you get the arrangement right. I think we did a pretty good job on that. That’s kind of what I’m after. It’s hard to put into words.
AH: I don’t know the words for it either, but it involves people reacting to each other, and also a feeling of discovery as you find those things together. It’s like setting off on a drive and not knowing what’s around the bend.
TK: I think that’s well put. Yes. It was so much fun!
AH: I feel like the songs have a particular current relevance, even though there’s nothing in the details that would tie them to 2025. I think it’s in the frustration, and some of the issues that you’re wrestling with. Were these all recent?
TK: They were all written between 2022 and up to the beginning of 2024. I do hope that there can be some inspiration for people who are frustrated right now, who understand that if you’re reading this right now, then you’re alive, and as difficult as things are, you’ve got to live your life. In many of our cases, though we’re still wondering what to do, there’s a point where we have to dust ourselves off and start fighting. I’m not just speaking politically, though I don’t shy away from my beliefs. But just in our regular, day-to-day lives, when things get hard, it’s okay to feel the pain, it’s okay to accept the darkness and, really, you should almost bask in it, until you can see a place where you can find some light, then you can head straight towards it.
You can see some hope that comes through. Most of these songs are based on personal experiences, but I want nothing more than for people to relate to them, and hopefully find some fight within themselves through them in any given situation. That’s whether you’re going through the death of a family member, or a friend, or your kids are growing up too fast, and it’s hard to reckon with, or someone in your life has had an addiction issue. The last song, “Lying Through Your Teeth” is about that. This record, for me, was sort of cathartic in the way that it gave me a sense of acceptance and some fight. I hope that people can relate it to their current situations.
AH: I think that a lot of the people that I know have been in survival mode for a long time, and it’s economic, and everything else. When personal stuff comes up, it seems even worse against a bigger, bleaker landscape. That’s an interesting thing you mention about staying in the dark, because I think our initial instinct is to back up, out of it, but you’re saying that, potentially, there will be a time when you can or must step forward through that, and thereby reach a different state.
TK: Definitely. One of my fears with people seeing the name of the record, We’re All Gonna Live, is that they’ll think it’s this rosy thing. I want the record to be overwhelmingly positive, but I also wanted to say that you shouldn’t shy away from the darkness that enters any of our lives. I want it to come across that an important part of getting through those kinds of times is to feel the darkness, and let it hit you, and don’t deny any of it. It may be so dark that it feels like it never ends, but in my experience, and I’ve been through a lot of difficult things, eventually you’ll see that light, and once you see it, you’ll start going towards it.
AH: I think interpreting the title of the album is helped along by pairing the title with the cover art, right?
TK: Yes! It’s funny, I tried to explain that to people beforehand, but I don’t think they got it. But once the pictures came out, they teased me at first. Some people actually thought I got my ass kicked! I think, now, people are starting to understand, to see that you’re going to take the hits in life. There’s a quote on the back of the record from my grandmother, and that’s what the cover is based on. At that time, my dad was really sick, and my brother was going through some stuff, my dog was about to die, and it felt like the hits just kept coming.
It was a lot of things all at once. It got worse, later, where my family went through some horrible things. But my grandmother said, “Eventually life starts to knock you around, and you’ve got to be ready to fight with a smile.” She was always very poignant, but that really struck me. After my dad passed away, there was a time where we all came together, and she was very strong. She had a little smile on my face, and her words came back to my mind. I don’t remember when it hit me, but I thought the cover might be a cool way to convey the whole thing. I didn’t want it to seem too contrived, but it felt right.
AH: We’re so used to violence in our culture, through film, TV, and news, but the cover still has a pop to it to that’s pretty attention-grabbing. The title track is also an interesting one, with this strong storytelling, and the punchline isn’t idealistic or glamorous, just real. It’s not fluffy. How did that song come about?
TK: The first part of that story is true, where I gave ten dollars to a homeless guy, and I watched him go straight to a liquor store, which initially bummed me out. But the truth is, he should be able to buy whatever he wants with that money. But at any rate, he was making change, actually, and gave the money to other homeless people around, that was camped out with. He also needed two more dollars to catch a bus. The real part of the story ends there. Me, I just like to write about other people, and sometimes that’s stories. I came up with the image of this story that’s the “why” around him going back to his hometown, and that’s where the story started for me. And I grew up along the Gulf Coast, in Houston, and I’ve been all up and down the Gulf Coast. My last record, Back Down Home, is more Gulf Coast-themed.
I also had this desire to have little easter eggs from that record on this one, as well as liking that imagery. So I started thinking, “He’s going down to the Coast, to maybe get a job, and go back to his family.” I’ve always liked the imagery of fisherman and surfers, and in this part of America, the coasties as a peculiar and specific breed. I know that because I’m one of them. The rest of the story, of him going to San Benito and working cleaning fish for fisherman who had come in from guided trips, I just thought it was kind of cool. I was just trying to find a way to incorporate that. This was the last song that I wrote for the record, but there were other songs on the record, with the phrase, “We’re all gonna die.”
AH: Yes, I noticed that. It pops up a few times.
TK: As those songs were coming together, and the themes were emerging, I was trying to incorporate them. I even toyed with the idea of calling the album We’re All Gonna Die, but that seemed like too much. Then, the positive spin popped up. I had part of the chorus for a number of years, and part of it is from an old bluegrass song by Bill Monroe, “The road is rocky, but it won’t be rocky long…” I love stealing stuff from old bluegrass songs, but Bill Monroe does get a credit for that. I merged that element.
I wanted the song to feel both real and inspirational at the end, so that story of him ripping apart the sign from some nutjob street preacher, was me thinking of those churches who always protest at Planned Parenthood. I had seen some recently, so I pictured that. They didn’t have a sign that said, “We’re all gonna die,” but I liked the idea of this guy ripping it up. Sometimes these stories just pop into my head when I go for walks. I’ll jot them down, and eventually, I’ll find a way to interpret them.
Thank you very much for chatting with us, Tony Kamel. You can find more information here on his website: https://www.tonykamelmusic.com/
Enjoy our review of the album here: REVIEW: Tony Kamel “We’re All Gonna Live”