BBR Artist Spotlight: Jason Eady

Credit: Scott Morgan.

​Nestled in the mountains of central Idaho, the picturesque town of Challis bustles every August when it plays host to the Braun Brothers Reunion Festival. Regarded as one of the state’s premier musical gatherings by both attendees and artists alike, the BBR is a family-friendly event that draws thousands of visitors from across the globe, bringing artists and fans together in an unparalleled setting for three unforgettable days. 

This year, the BBR will be held from August 9th-11th and will feature fifteen plus Americana, Texas, and Red Dirt artists including returning favorite, singer-songwriter Jason Eady, who will be releasing his vibrant new album, I Travel On, on August 10th - the day of his performance at the BBR. Ahead of the festival, Eady spoke about what makes the reunion special to him, the forthcoming album, and more.

Once again you’re headed out to Challis for the BBR, what keeps you returning?
The BBR is just an unbelievable festival, with such an attentive crowd. When we first made the trip, we played acoustic and it was like we were in an outdoor listening room. There were about 1500 people there and they were incredibly attentive, and that doesn’t happen very often.
There are so many additional things that make it great as well. The setting is one of a kind, the artists they bring in are incredible, and it’s organized and run so well. I tell people if they’re thinking of starting a festival, they should go hang out at Braun Brothers and watch how it’s done.
And the other thing I absolutely love about it, one of my favorite things, is that after all these years, they have kept it to one stage. I love that whatever act is on stage is what the show is and that is who everybody is watching; there’s no deciding between two or three different things going on, so you don’t have to worry about splitting your time. And as an artist that’s great because you’re playing to everyone who is there at the time.

You mentioned that you played acoustic when you first made the trip. Will you be bringing your band this year?
Yes. Originally, we were not going to bring the band, but once we set the album release date and planned the tour, we were already going to be on the road anyway. We are beginning our CD release tour July 5th in the middle of the country and we’ll make our way to Challis before we head to Montana, Seattle, and California.
What will be great is that the people at the BBR will get two band shows out of it. Courtney [Patton, Eady’s wife] and I will split our set time, not in a song swap style, but in the sense that she’ll do half and I’ll do the other half because we want to have the time to play the songs from the new album. We always perform together when we’re in the same room though, she’s never just watched my shows and I’ve never just watched hers. So, when I’m up there, she’ll sing and then we’ll switch places. We can’t help it, it’s what we do (laughing).

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Many of the artists travel in the same circles as yourself, but is there anyone new you haven’t seen or are looking forward to seeing again?
I’ve seen everyone, but I’m real excited that Robert Earl Keen is going to be there. He’s one of my top five songwriters of all time and even though I’ve seen him a lot over the years, he’s probably the only one of the Texas guys who I haven’t met - which is still cool to have that after all these years. I always find something that I didn’t even know to look for though, and I am sure that’ll be the case this time as well. Ask me after and I’ll tell you what it was (laughing).

We’ll do a follow-up!
The new album, I Travel On, will be released on August 10th, the day of your performance at the BBR. Was that intentional?
Yes, it was very intentional. I love the festival so much so that when the time came to pick a release date, from the five-week window we had, I couldn’t think of a better time to release it than there on the day we play. It made complete sense and came together beautifully. 

What a treat for the fans too!
This album was written over the course of a month, what spurred that creativity?
Last year we released a record in April and toured all over the country. During that time, we not only gathered a ton of stories, but we also zeroed in on our sound. Specifically, it came from a show we did in Bozeman. Since I was a kid, I have loved Bluegrass and everything about it. I never wanted to make a Bluegrass record though because I think it would be a little disrespectful to the genre because in order to do it right you have to be playing since you were 5 years old and everybody on stage has to be a master of their instrument. I’m not a guitar player and I wouldn’t attempt to pass myself off as a real Bluegrass guy. While our lead player in the band is a traditional Bluegrass guy, our bassist and drummer come from different areas. XXX comes from Tulsa and has that swampy groove sound and our drummer XXX is from Philly so he has that R and B thing. When we played together though, we found this groove, and it wasn’t intentional or something we searched for – it happened by the nature of how all of the parts came together. We all latched onto what we naturally do and created this acoustic-based sound that's all our own.
So, when it came time to write, I was ready. It’s something I felt I had been waiting years to do, but didn’t know how I wanted to do it. This time, I was writing for this sound we captured and, also, writing based on the experiences we had on the road. Between the musical part and the content, the well was ready to burst.

Not that you don’t have lively songs, but this album as a whole seems more vibrant.
We’ve been sitting on this thing since December waiting for people to hear it and give us feedback, so it’s cool to hear you say that because that’s what we hope people would get out of it. I’ve always made records that were more lyrically oriented then had the music support the lyrics. This time I tried to lighten that up, still having messages and trying to get points across, but my hope is that if you just want to listen to this as a feel good album and don’t want to even pay attention to lyrics you can do that.

In addition to the energy, another thing I found flowing through the album is a sense of gratefulness. Is that fair to say?
Yes, very much. With this record, before I was starting to write, there was a turning point for me. Last year, around May/June, we were in Paris for a festival and we had the night off, so we were wandering around and were in front of Notre Dame Cathedral when we heard music from a Croatian bar across the street. The crowd was having a great time, and the bartender asked us what we were doing there. We told him we were musicians and he pulled up my music on Spotify and started playing it. Well, I guess my top songs are all sad depressing ones and as he was playing one after the other, even I was getting depressed listening to it. I thought, ‘Oh my God, I hope this is not who people think I am, some sad, depressed person.’ So, I went into this record trying to counter that a little bit. I am 100% not a sad person; I’m a happy person who likes cathartic sad songs. But for this record, I definitely wanted to get across the idea that things are good, I’m a happy, positive person with a good life. 

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