Grant Maloy Smith is a Billboard Top 10 recording artist and a MusicRow CountryBreakout charting songwriter of AMERICAN ROOTS music. He is a widely regarded singer-songwriter known for his intense and riveting storytelling style. Recently, the artist spoke with us about his work and his new album, Penny Ballads. The conversation below is edited for length and clarity.
Americana Highways: What inspires you as a songwriter?
Grant Maloy Smith: There are two answers to that question. One is what I would call normal songwriting. I’m inspired by things that I hear and see. There’s a song on the new album, Penny Ballads, called “I See You,” which is about how older people feel like they’re invisible in today’s society. The idea for the song came to me after hearing older people talking in a mall in Texas. They were having a meal and talking about what it feels like to walk down the street and have younger people look right through them like they weren’t there.
Another time, I wrote a song called “Man of Steel”, which is about our soldiers who came back from Iraq and were dealing with the mental and physical aftereffects of their service over there. The song idea specifically came from meeting a young man at an airport who had an artificial leg because of the war injuries that he suffered over there. We ended up talking for hours because the plane was late, about his life and how he made it through his days.
So any real story that touches me or affects my emotions in some way and makes me think about things differently than I thought about them before often inspires me.
The other way I write songs is thematically. While my new album, Penny Ballads, is not a theme album per se, all the songs are ballads.
I also have a series of albums released over the years called “The American Stories.” One was about the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, another was about the region of Appalachia where my family comes from, and the third, from last year, was about life on the Mississippi River. In those cases, the songwriting inspiration was different because it was like I had an assignment with each one of them.
Even though they are slightly different processes, the inspiration remains the same because I’m still looking for a good blend of story and emotion.
AH: When did you know you wanted to be a songwriter or that you wanted to lead a life in music?
GMS: There were kind of two pivotal moments. One was when I was young, like four or five years old, when the Beatles were the biggest group in the world in the early ’60s. They just turned the whole world on its ear in a positive and kind of crazy way. They inspired everybody under about 30. I was, too, and that excitement never really left me. I eventually got a little cheap guitar and started to learn how to play, and it went from there.
The other pivotal moment was when I chose to be a musician over being an artist. I was good at both and even went to art school for a while, but eventually my passion for music won out.
AH: So, who do you consider to be some of your biggest influences and why?
GMS: I have so many, it’s a tough question to answer. The Beatles, when I was much younger, like I said earlier. And then I became influenced by a lot of the classic rock groups like The Who, the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, and Bad Company. I was always sort of drawn more to the artists who were bluesier.
After high school, I started applying myself to music and learning more about it. I’ve even taken to learning more about classical music at this point. Mozart is my favorite classical composer, and I also enjoy Bach and Strauss. And of course, there are American Roots music artists that I love too, like Allison Krauss and Vince Gill.
So my influences are a real melting pot. When I was a little kid, my grandmother, who was from Eastern Kentucky, would visit, and she would give me records of the music she liked, which was bluegrass, which she called mountain music. It was like Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley, people like that. And to be honest, I loved her so much. I listened to it, but I didn’t like it, but it left an impression on me, too.
AH: So over the years, I know you’ve worked with several artists. One of the ones I wanted to talk to you about was on Mississippi: American Stories, you got to work with the wonderful Janis Ian on the song “Memphis.” Can you talk a little bit about that?
GMS: It happened accidentally. The record was almost done, in that all the songs were recorded, and I was in the mixing process.
So this is like last March, and one night I was playing crossword puzzles on my phone, and one of the questions was, “folk singer Janis” with three letters for her last name. So, of course, I typed it in, took a screenshot, and emailed it to her. I’ve known her for some time but never worked with her. She came to one of my shows in California. Anyway, I kept in touch with her over the years, and when I sent her the screenshot, I mentioned that I hadn’t seen her in a while. I told her I thought she would get a kick out of her name coming up in that crossword puzzle.
She called me back and said that she noticed that I had been posting that the Mississippi: American Stories record was almost done on my social media. And then she told me that she had written a song called “Memphis,” which she had recorded with Willie Nelson. She thought I might like it and sent me a link to the song. Upon hearing it, I thought it would fit perfectly with the record, because of the story it tells of the historical rise and fall, economically speaking, of the city. It’s a great story and song.
So I asked her if she would like to record it with me, and she said yes. We had a great time recording it. She did a great job playing the piano and the acoustic guitar on the song. I wish she could have sung on it, and so did she, but she was not able because of her condition, which prevents her from singing. It was a real thrill to work with her, and I think we’ll do it again sometime.
AH: So Penny Ballads, your new record, comes from the leftover songs from your three previous albums, correct?
GMS: Yes, but they didn’t only come from those albums—some of those songs I wrote like 30 years ago. The album is kind of a mixed bag of songs in that sense. I play all of them at my shows and wanted to finally put some of them on a CD due to the many requests I’ve received for them.
AH: What can you tell readers about your plans?
GMS: So other songs fit into the category we just talked about. There are approximately 30 more songs that I want to release. So I’m thinking of making two more records that gather them up on one album like Penny Ballads did with my ballads. I am thinking of doing one more that is country-oriented and one more rock and roll-oriented.
AH: So, did I also read that you were also planning on making another theme record like your previous three that we discussed?
GMS: Yes, that is correct. It’s not a hundred percent, not a lockdown, but the theme is going to be about when the country started moving westward on the continent. There is a lot to write about concerning that historical movement, and I plan on touching on a lot of it with the album.
AH: Last question, Grant. What does music mean to you?
GMS: Wow. What does it mean to me? Well, it means a lot of things to me. I mean, as a listener to other people’s music, I get a lot of inspiration from other people and what they create. And then as a writer, I mean, that’s maybe my favorite thing. Writing can be kind of lonesome, unless you do a co-write, which I don’t do a lot of, but it’s also very fulfilling when you get it done.
And there’s also playing live in front of people. There is nothing else like that either. It’s extremely powerful when you play your music in front of an audience. I’ve been mainly doing acoustic shows where it’s just me and the guitar, and you can hold people in the palm of your hand if you know what you’re doing. You can bring them along on that little journey with you in a room where you could hear a pin drop. I don’t want to be background music when I play. I want people to listen, and I want to play for interested people.
So I guess to answer your question, I think music means a lot to me, but maybe not everything, because I love my family and my dogs too. Those things mean a lot to me, too. But with that being said, I know that I wouldn’t be the same person without music.
Thanks very much for chatting with us, Grant. Penny Ballads, the new album from Grant Maloy Smith, is now available on his website .
Enjoy our review of the album here: REVIEW: Grant Maloy Smith “Penny Ballads”
