Summary

From 2012. At the end of this episode, well, she did exactly that.

Margo Price of Buffalo Clover dives deep into her musical journey, sharing how her roots in family music and her self-taught guitar skills shaped her unique sound. With a blend of candid reflection and playful anecdotes, she reminisces about her early days, from awkward piano lessons to the exhilarating thrill of writing her own songs. The conversation takes a heartfelt turn as she reveals the therapeutic power of songwriting, especially during challenging times, including the loss of one of her twins. Margo's infectious energy shines through as she discusses the evolution of Buffalo Clover's music, exploring the delicate balance between rock and country, while also hinting at her new solo project. As they chat, it's clear that Margo's passion for music is as vibrant as ever, and she’s excited about the future, hoping to captivate audiences and make a full-time living doing what she loves.

Show Notes

On this episode of Country Fried Rock, Sloane Spencer sat down with the ever-charming Margo Price, lead singer of Buffalo Clover. Here's what went down:

• Kicking things off: Margo brought her signature wit and down-to-earth vibe as she chatted about her early days, starting out on piano, teaching herself guitar, and growing up in a musically rich family that clearly shaped her path.

Musical tastes? All over the map:

• Think Beach Boys' chill harmonies one minute…
• …and Eminem’s gritty edge the next.
• Margo’s playlist growing up was wildly eclectic, and you can hear it in her music today.

A walk through her songwriting journey:

• Her first songs? Not your typical teenage love ballads, more like deep dives into social issues that left early listeners both intrigued and a little confused.
• Over time, she and Buffalo Clover found their groove, blending folk, rock, and country while staying true to their roots.

Behind the scenes with the band:

• Working with her husband Jeremy Ivey added a whole other layer to the creative process.
• Co-writing with your spouse? Equal parts magic and madness—but it works for them.

The real talk:

• Margo opened up about the tougher stuff: motherhood, personal loss, and the ups and downs of the music biz.
• Their latest album, Low Down Time, became more than just a record: it was a lifeline, a way to process grief and find healing through music.

What listeners walked away with:

• A deeper look at Margo not just as a musician, but as a human being navigating real life with grace, grit, and a healthy dose of humor.
• A reminder that the best songs often come from the most personal places.

Chapters

• 00:09 - Introducing Margo Price
• 03:06 - The Evolution of Musical Influence
• 08:10 - The Evolution of Buffalo Clover
• 11:12 - Navigating Change: The Journey of Creativity and Loss
• 15:18 - Exploring Musical Identity
• 20:51 - Navigating the Music Scene

Takeaways

• Margo Price shares how her musical journey began with piano lessons, inspired by family musicians.
• The transition from piano to guitar was fueled by a desire to create original songs, showcasing her creative independence.
• Buffalo Clover's evolution reflects a blend of genres, mixing rock and country, creating a unique soundscape for listeners.
• Margo discusses the therapeutic nature of songwriting, especially after experiencing personal tragedies, highlighting music's healing power.
• The band's dynamic shifted towards collaboration, fostering a competitive yet supportive environment for songwriting among members.
• Margo's thoughts on the struggles of navigating the music industry, emphasizing the importance of marketing and audience connection.

Links

• REMINDER: IGNORE ALL LINKS OR EVENTS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE FROM 2012
• Margo Price
• Buffalo Clover is still on Bandcamp
• You may also enjoy this conversation from 2015 with Cale Tyson
• Toss a few in our Tip Jar!

Mentioned in this Episode

• Buffalo Clover
• Palaver Records
• The Beach Boys
• Alanis Morissette
• Fiona Apple
• Stanley Brothers
• Joan Baez
• Joni Mitchell
• Bob Dylan
• Reba McEntire
• Blackhawk
• The Kinks
• Wanda Jackson
• Sam Doores and the Tumbleweeds
• Steve Soto and the Twisted Hearts
• The Full Tones

Recommended If You Like

Country Fried Rock, Margo Price, Buffalo Clover, country music podcast, songwriting inspiration, Nashville music scene, creativity in music, folk music influences, Americana sound, music industry challenges, acoustic guitar, recording music, live performances, music collaboration, songwriting process, music therapy, Buffalo Clover albums, music production, indie music scene, music career development

Transcript

Speaker A

00:00:00.800 - 00:00:13.600

Welcome to Country Fried Rock, where we talk with musicians to find out what inspires their creativity. Country Fried Rock music uncovered. My guest today on Country Fried Rock is Margo Price of Buffalo Clover.

Speaker B

00:00:14.000 - 00:00:15.360

Hi, Sloan. It's Margo.

Speaker C

00:00:15.600 - 00:00:18.000

Thank you so much for being with us on Country Fried Rock.

Speaker B

00:00:18.080 - 00:00:18.720

Thank you.

Speaker C

00:00:19.200 - 00:00:21.360

How did you learn to play music originally?

Speaker B

00:00:21.760 - 00:01:30.810

Well, I started taking piano when I was pretty young. My parents don't really play or anything, but my grandparents and great grandparents, they all played.

And so my parents got me piano and started getting me taking lessons and everything. And I wanted to learn my own songs, you know, I wanted to learn songs that my piano teacher wasn't teaching me.

So after about seven years, my mom was just like, I don't know, you don't really seem like you want to do it anymore. And so then I ended up getting a guitar and kind of teaching myself how to play.

But I always did, you know, like chorus and all that kind of stuff, like show choir and stuff like that. But it really was kind of a therapeutic thing for me, I think, from the get go.

I kind of started like writing my own songs when I was really young, even before I knew how to like put music to them. And I had like all these horrible little tapes and me singing acapella and I used to do a lot of like dance and theater and stuff like that.

Then I just really decided that I didn't want to do that so much anymore and I just wanted to play. So kind of gave up all my other 20,000 hobbies, all the sports and cheerleading and all that, and decided I was gonna play guitar.

And now in the project I'm playing in now, I really just sing mostly. I mean, I write a lot of the songs on guitar, on piano, but then I end up just kind of singing. I still play on some of the.

Speaker C

00:01:31.120 - 00:01:37.760

When you first jumped over to guitar and you were writing your own stuff, what were you listening to that was influencing where those early things were coming from?

Speaker B

00:01:38.160 - 00:02:30.190

Hard to say. A lot of it is embarrassing because I think that, you know, the 80s were just such a bad time for music in like early 90s and stuff like that.

But I remember one of the first songs that I remember hearing when I was like maybe 10 or 11 was that Stanley Brothers song Counting Flowers on the Wall. And I don't know why I thought that song was so cool.

And my mom hated it because it was, you know, said like smoking cigarettes and all that, but that was like the coolest song. But, you know, I listened to a lot of bad stuff too. I mean, I was of course like, Alanis Morissette was awesome and Fiona Apple and.

Not that anything wrong with them, but I just don't. I just don't really relate to it much anymore.

Yeah, I was big into Fiona Apple and I mean, I always, you know, my parents listened to a lot of like 60s, 70s type of music and so I always had that kind of in the background. But I. I didn't really think it was cool until, you know, I was about 20 or something.

Speaker C

00:02:30.590 - 00:02:33.390

What was it that you could handle listening to that your parents were playing?

Speaker B

00:02:34.030 - 00:03:05.900

My dad always had the Beach Boys on and I really liked that. But then after a while I got really tired of it and I'd always be like, can you put something else on? You know, And I mean I.

Even when I was like 13, 14, I like into rap and you know, all the, all the stuff that teenagers get into. So I really like, you know, I'd be like, I want to listen to Eminem and all this stuff. And my mom was like, what are you doing?

This is horrible music. We always kind of could agree on something.

I think it's just that, like those early teenage years that were hard to understand where I was coming from or where they were coming from.

Speaker C

00:03:06.540 - 00:03:10.620

As you were writing these early guitar songs yourself, where did that lead for you?

Speaker B

00:03:11.100 - 00:04:54.020

I really just got into folk music and I wanted to be like Joan Baez or Tony Mitchell or, you know, and then Bob Dylan. Like when I found Bob Dylan, it was like right about when I moved to Nashville. And I'd always heard of him and I'd heard his, like, his main hits.

But somebody gave me like the essential Bob Dylan. And I didn't have a job yet down here. I was like staying alone. I'd wrecked my car. I had no way to get anywhere. Like I was just.

I was living in Antioch. It wasn't even Nashville, 20 minutes outside of Nashville. So I really got into like the folk movement of the 60s and stuff.

And I met Jeremy, my husband, and he knew like every Bob Dylan song under the sun. So he would just sit around and pick like old folk songs.

I think like that's what I started off really like focusing on was like country and that whole side of things, the softer, more like lyrical side of things. And I started recording on a rolling eight track digital recorder and making all these demos.

And then after a while I was always hanging out with all these guys who were playing rock and roll and I guess it started to wear off on me. And I always felt left out. Because they were always jamming, and I just had an acoustic guitar. So they started playing drums with a couple.

I started playing. Jeremy was playing with this guy named Jake Shore, who, immensely talented and just kind of has never, you know, just never got out there.

And I played drums with them for a little while, and then I just got to playing, like, with a band behind me, and I realized how much more powerful it was. I just don't think many people have the attention span to sit and listen to folk music really anymore.

I mean, there are venues that, you know, like, that do that. But I just realized that if I had a band behind me, people had to shut up and listen. So that kind of. It was like. It was an eye opener for sure.

Speaker C

00:04:54.420 - 00:05:01.540

So you're kind of late to the game then, or late to the appreciation of country music. What sort of country was impacting you at that point?

Speaker B

00:05:01.860 - 00:05:51.510

I remember somebody taught me how to play Long Black Sail. My uncle, My great uncle. He had moved to Nashville and he wrote, like, a bunch of songs in, like, the. I guess through the 70s.

So he had written a bunch of songs for, like, I don't know, Reba McIntyre and Blackhawk and, you know, kind of, like mainstream country artists stuff. But he had known the person who, like, wrote that song and that kind of hit home with me. And I went back and dove into all the.

All the older country stuff. I always feel just this great pull of, do I want to play rock and roll or do I want to play country music?

It's so hard to narrow it down because we just get bored really easily. I don't know.

We try to stay open to doing a lot of that, but I feel like it's been sort of destructive in a way, because we'll have a song that's like country song and somebody likes that, and then our next song is psychedelic rock and roll, and it can scare people.

Speaker C

00:05:52.630 - 00:06:02.350

So then you wandered through some different things, from playing folk to picking up the drums to play for another band. So what led to the core of Buffalo Clover forming?

Speaker B

00:06:02.350 - 00:08:09.960

Originally, oddly enough, Jeremy and I started a band that was called Secret Handshake. And we looked it up online, and I didn't see anybody with that name. And so we started playing with that and.

And at that point, we'd gotten into the Kinks. That was like our bread and butter. We just learned, like, every Kink song. I just. I loved that they. Many of their songs had, like, political messages.

And so we were writing all these. I mean, every song. We decided that we didn't Want to write any song about love or anything that anybody was doing we wanted to write.

We wrote a song that was called Bloodshed, another one called Architects of War. I mean it was songs that were like Dead End street and stuff like that. We cleared rooms for sure with our views.

And after a while we just realized that it was just not easily digestible to people. I mean, some people would find us and they would love it. I mean they thought it was amazing, but it was like most of the time it just scared people.

So we ended up changing our name of that band because there was another band that was called the Secret Handshake and they were. They'd been around longer. So we decided to change our name and kind of refocus what we were doing.

And Jeremy and I had been real on again, off again and just in our relationship. And so I of course started writing songs about him and writing songs about love again and all that.

So then we just kind of reformed and looked at what we were doing and kind of adjusted some things. And so then him and I started playing together. And Jason, who's still with us, he plays bass with us.

Jason White joined and then we've been through a whole slew of drummers finally. Then we met Matt Gardner and things kind of started to click into place a little bit more. And so since then it's been.

I mean it's definitely been the three of us. Jason's been kind of on and off a little bit because he went to nursing school and he finished up with that. But now he's kind of.

He's wanting to tour even more than we possibly can now. So he's got a good basis going. And my friend Dylan's been playing with us for a while and he. I feel like he has really.

Now that we have a drummer, it's just kind of like really shaped everything. Drummers are so important, so hard to come by in town. There's just. They just are always in like a million projects.

We're just lucky that he's kind of committing himself to us.

Speaker C

00:08:10.440 - 00:08:17.240

So talk about the first releases that came from Buffalo Clover. What led to you all recording those songs?

Speaker B

00:08:17.640 - 00:09:57.050

The first release was Pearls to Swine and I think I wrote about 10 of the songs and then Jeremy and I co wrote two.

So that was kind of just our first project and we recorded it at the bomb shelter here and everything was done analog on tape and everything even back then. And so we kind of recorded those songs. But then, you know, we didn't have anyone to help us with booking or. We didn't have a publisher.

Like, we didn't. I didn't even, like, copyright the songs. I just was like, well, if somebody wants to feel them, that's fine, because I'll just write more.

I just didn't want to deal with the paperwork, you know, it just. All of it overwhelmed me, and I just didn't really know how to go about anything.

I have, you know, I had my uncle who's in the music business, but I just, you know, I wasn't going to bother him by asking him how to do anything. So we just kind of wrote him and then we went out.

I mean, I booked for myself under a fake name for a while and just, you know, the songs just kind of sat there. And then we have slowly been taking it more seriously. I mean, I've always wanted, you know, wanted to do it. It's just.

It's just so hard to get the right things in the right hands of the right people. So after that, then we recorded Strong Medicine, and that was with Matt Gardner. He was with us on that.

And then from that, then we met the guys from Palover Records who've just been kind of helping us out doing what they can. They're, you know, they're really sweet guys, and they just are helping us out of the kindness of their own heart and their pockets.

It's good to have, you know, just to have people keeping me on my toes with like. Like, okay, you need to send in your songs and you need to make sure that they're copyrighted and, you know, things that I.

That I do not want to do, they forced me to do them. Hey, this is Margot Price from Buffalo Clover, and you're listening to Country Fried Rocks.

Speaker C

00:09:57.130 - 00:09:58.970

The creative versus the business end.

Speaker B

00:09:58.970 - 00:10:10.970

Yeah, exactly. And that's what I feel like that's what we've been lacking for just for so long is I just don't have the patience to do it.

I mean, I get, you know, I get online and I do some stuff, but it's like pulling teeth to get me to fill out anything.

Speaker C

00:10:11.130 - 00:10:19.530

I've heard a little bit of Pearls to Swan, and then I've heard all of Strong Medicine. So what led to the changes that led to this third record, Low Down Time?

Speaker B

00:10:20.080 - 00:10:59.700

Well, we had taken a break because we had kids, and so I had. Basically, it was like....

Welcome to Country Fried Rock, where we talk with musicians to find out what inspires their creativity.

Country Fried Rock music uncovered.

My guest today on Country Fried Rock is Margo Price of Buffalo Clover.

Hi, Sloan.

It's Margo.

Thank you so much for being with us on Country Fried Rock.

Thank you.

How did you learn to play music originally?

Well, I started taking piano when I was pretty young.

My parents don't really play or anything, but my grandparents and great grandparents, they all played.

And so my parents got me piano and started getting me taking lessons and everything.

And I wanted to learn my own songs, you know, I wanted to learn songs that my piano teacher wasn't teaching me.

So after about seven years, my mom was just like, I don't know, you don't really seem like you want to do it anymore.

And so then I ended up getting a guitar and kind of teaching myself how to play.

But I always did, you know, like chorus and all that kind of stuff, like show choir and stuff like that.

But it really was kind of a therapeutic thing for me, I think, from the get go.

I kind of started like writing my own songs when I was really young, even before I knew how to like put music to them.

And I had like all these horrible little tapes and me singing acapella and I used to do a lot of like dance and theater and stuff like that.

Then I just really decided that I didn't want to do that so much anymore and I just wanted to play.

So kind of gave up all my other 20,000 hobbies, all the sports and cheerleading and all that, and decided I was gonna play guitar.

And now in the project I'm playing in now, I really just sing mostly.

I mean, I write a lot of the songs on guitar, on piano, but then I end up just kind of singing.

I still play on some of the.

When you first jumped over to guitar and you were writing your own stuff, what were you listening to that was influencing where those early things were coming from?

Hard to say.

A lot of it is embarrassing because I think that, you know, the 80s were just such a bad time for music in like early 90s and stuff like that.

But I remember one of the first songs that I remember hearing when I was like maybe 10 or 11 was that Stanley Brothers song Counting Flowers on the Wall.

And I don't know why I thought that song was so cool.

And my mom hated it because it was, you know, said like smoking cigarettes and all that, but that was like the coolest song.

But, you know, I listened to a lot of bad stuff too.

I mean, I was of course like, Alanis Morissette was awesome and Fiona Apple and.

Not that anything wrong with them, but I just don't.

I just don't really relate to it much anymore.

Yeah, I was big into Fiona Apple and I mean, I always, you know, my parents listened to a lot of like 60s, 70s type of music and so I always had that kind of in the background.

But I. I didn't really think it was cool until, you know, I was about 20 or something.

What was it that you could handle listening to that your parents were playing?

My dad always had the Beach Boys on and I really liked that.

But then after a while I got really tired of it and I'd always be like, can you put something else on?

You know, And I mean I.

Even when I was like 13, 14, I like into rap and you know, all the, all the stuff that teenagers get into.

So I really like, you know, I'd be like, I want to listen to Eminem and all this stuff.

And my mom was like, what are you doing?

This is horrible music.

We always kind of could agree on something.

I think it's just that, like those early teenage years that were hard to understand where I was coming from or where they were coming from.

As you were writing these early guitar songs yourself, where did that lead for you?

I really just got into folk music and I wanted to be like Joan Baez or Tony Mitchell or, you know, and then Bob Dylan.

Like when I found Bob Dylan, it was like right about when I moved to Nashville.

And I'd always heard of him and I'd heard his, like, his main hits.

But somebody gave me like the essential Bob Dylan.

And I didn't have a job yet down here.

I was like staying alone.

I'd wrecked my car.

I had no way to get anywhere.

Like I was just.

I was living in Antioch.

It wasn't even Nashville, 20 minutes outside of Nashville.

So I really got into like the folk movement of the 60s and stuff.

And I met Jeremy, my husband, and he knew like every Bob Dylan song under the sun.

So he would just sit around and pick like old folk songs.

I think like that's what I started off really like focusing on was like country and that whole side of things, the softer, more like lyrical side of things.

And I started recording on a rolling eight track digital recorder and making all these demos.

And then after a while I was always hanging out with all these guys who were playing rock and roll and I guess it started to wear off on me.

And I always felt left out.

Because they were always jamming, and I just had an acoustic guitar.

So they started playing drums with a couple.

I started playing.

Jeremy was playing with this guy named Jake Shore, who, immensely talented and just kind of has never, you know, just never got out there.

And I played drums with them for a little while, and then I just got to playing, like, with a band behind me, and I realized how much more powerful it was.

I just don't think many people have the attention span to sit and listen to folk music really anymore.

I mean, there are venues that, you know, like, that do that.

But I just realized that if I had a band behind me, people had to shut up and listen.

So that kind of.

It was like.

It was an eye opener for sure.

So you're kind of late to the game then, or late to the appreciation of country music.

What sort of country was impacting you at that point?

I remember somebody taught me how to play Long Black Sail.

My uncle, My great uncle.

He had moved to Nashville and he wrote, like, a bunch of songs in, like, the.

I guess through the 70s.

So he had written a bunch of songs for, like, I don't know, Reba McIntyre and Blackhawk and, you know, kind of, like mainstream country artists stuff.

But he had known the person who, like, wrote that song and that kind of hit home with me.

And I went back and dove into all the.

All the older country stuff.

I always feel just this great pull of, do I want to play rock and roll or do I want to play country music?

It's so hard to narrow it down because we just get bored really easily.

I don't know.

We try to stay open to doing a lot of that, but I feel like it's been sort of destructive in a way, because we'll have a song that's like country song and somebody likes that, and then our next song is psychedelic rock and roll, and it can scare people.

So then you wandered through some different things, from playing folk to picking up the drums to play for another band.

So what led to the core of Buffalo Clover forming?

Originally, oddly enough, Jeremy and I started a band that was called Secret Handshake.

And we looked it up online, and I didn't see anybody with that name.

And so we started playing with that and.

And at that point, we'd gotten into the Kinks.

That was like our bread and butter.

We just learned, like, every Kink song.

I just.

I loved that they.

Many of their songs had, like, political messages.

And so we were writing all these.

I mean, every song.

We decided that we didn't Want to write any song about love or anything that anybody was doing we wanted to write.

We wrote a song that was called Bloodshed, another one called Architects of War.

I mean it was songs that were like Dead End street and stuff like that.

We cleared rooms for sure with our views.

And after a while we just realized that it was just not easily digestible to people.

I mean, some people would find us and they would love it.

I mean they thought it was amazing, but it was like most of the time it just scared people.

So we ended up changing our name of that band because there was another band that was called the Secret Handshake and they were.

They'd been around longer.

So we decided to change our name and kind of refocus what we were doing.

And Jeremy and I had been real on again, off again and just in our relationship.

And so I of course started writing songs about him and writing songs about love again and all that.

So then we just kind of reformed and looked at what we were doing and kind of adjusted some things.

And so then him and I started playing together.

And Jason, who's still with us, he plays bass with us.

Jason White joined and then we've been through a whole slew of drummers finally.

Then we met Matt Gardner and things kind of started to click into place a little bit more.

And so since then it's been.

I mean it's definitely been the three of us.

Jason's been kind of on and off a little bit because he went to nursing school and he finished up with that.

But now he's kind of.

He's wanting to tour even more than we possibly can now.

So he's got a good basis going.

And my friend Dylan's been playing with us for a while and he.

I feel like he has really.

Now that we have a drummer, it's just kind of like really shaped everything.

Drummers are so important, so hard to come by in town.

There's just.

They just are always in like a million projects.

We're just lucky that he's kind of committing himself to us.

So talk about the first releases that came from Buffalo Clover.

What led to you all recording those songs?

The first release was Pearls to Swine and I think I wrote about 10 of the songs and then Jeremy and I co wrote two.

So that was kind of just our first project and we recorded it at the bomb shelter here and everything was done analog on tape and everything even back then.

And so we kind of recorded those songs.

But then, you know, we didn't have anyone to help us with booking or.

We didn't have a publisher.

Like, we didn't.

I didn't even, like, copyright the songs.

I just was like, well, if somebody wants to feel them, that's fine, because I'll just write more.

I just didn't want to deal with the paperwork, you know, it just.

All of it overwhelmed me, and I just didn't really know how to go about anything.

I have, you know, I had my uncle who's in the music business, but I just, you know, I wasn't going to bother him by asking him how to do anything.

So we just kind of wrote him and then we went out.

I mean, I booked for myself under a fake name for a while and just, you know, the songs just kind of sat there.

And then we have slowly been taking it more seriously.

I mean, I've always wanted, you know, wanted to do it.

It's just.

It's just so hard to get the right things in the right hands of the right people.

So after that, then we recorded Strong Medicine, and that was with Matt Gardner.

He was with us on that.

And then from that, then we met the guys from Palover Records who've just been kind of helping us out doing what they can.

They're, you know, they're really sweet guys, and they just are helping us out of the kindness of their own heart and their pockets.

It's good to have, you know, just to have people keeping me on my toes with like.

Like, okay, you need to send in your songs and you need to make sure that they're copyrighted and, you know, things that I.

That I do not want to do, they forced me to do them.

Hey, this is Margot Price from Buffalo Clover, and you're listening to Country Fried Rocks.

The creative versus the business end.

Yeah, exactly.

And that's what I feel like that's what we've been lacking for just for so long is I just don't have the patience to do it.

I mean, I get, you know, I get online and I do some stuff, but it's like pulling teeth to get me to fill out anything.

I've heard a little bit of Pearls to Swan, and then I've heard all of Strong Medicine.

So what led to the changes that led to this third record, Low Down Time?

Well, we had taken a break because we had kids, and so I had.

Basically, it was like.

I felt like a year and a half.

I was just out of commission and I couldn't go into any of the places I wanted to go into.

And, I mean, it was a good break, but at the same time, it was just so hard for me to sit back and not do anything.

We've had a really rough year.

And out of that came a lot of writing and also a lot of therapy in the writing.

Because, you know, after a certain point, you're like, okay, well, do we keep going on with this or do we quit?

But the answer in the end was, it's just.

You just can't.

Because I don't.

I just don't know what else to do with myself.

Right.

But it's been.

It's been really good to have it as a tool because we've just had a really hard year.

We lost.

I had twins, and I lost one of them.

Oh, my goodness.

At 11 days old.

So it's just been.

It's kind of been the only thing that, you know, keeps us going.

But after that happened, it was like, all right, well, maybe, you know, maybe this just isn't even important anymore.

Yeah.

But.

Yeah, in the end, it was.

It was good that we kept writing and kept going.

But I think really also with.

With low down time, it was kind of wanted to try to get more of a cohesive sound.

So there were no banjos, there were no acoustic guitars, you know, mandolin, fiddle.

All the stuff I had used before that was, like, tying together.

Tied together rock and country and all that.

You know, we'd have a song with, like, really crunchy electric guitar and heavy drums, and then it'd be like, well, let's just throw a fiddle on there.

But we just tried to give somebody, you know, everybody, like, something that was, you know, you can put it on.

And it's.

It is what it is.

It's not 40 different things.

Or maybe it is.

I don't know.

It's funny.

It's funny to me that it's like, it's on Americana radio.

And I'm like, well, we were trying to be really rock and roll here.

Well, so did that direction then come from you all, or did it come from working with someone in the production process?

I think it came from us, but we.

You know, our.

Our friend Andrea Toky, who runs the Bomb Shelter.

He is.

He doesn't claim to be, but he is also, you know, a producer, and he has the best ideas.

He's always having us try different things and trying to get the best sound for us.

And, you know, he did put some direction into it, and he was the one all along.

He was like, you need to have this guy Dylan playing drums with you.

And I'd always be like, no, we Got a drummer because, you know, Dylan usually gets hired for session work.

And so we just were like, no, we're not going to pay anybody if we can get someone to do it for free.

So that kind of, you know, worked itself out in the end because he's definitely along for the ride now.

I think a couple things that came out of the sound were our friend Michael Holscher, who's been on tour with Wanda Jackson, did like, almost all of the keys on the album.

And so he'd be like, you know, we had the one song, St. Kathleen, which is kind.

You know, it's kind of got more of like a country rockabilly feel.

But he put, like, Farfeeza on it, you know, which is something you would hear, like, on a Doors record.

Right.

I think everybody just kind of chipped in to, like, make it sound the best that it could.

Jeremy and I are good songwriters, but I think as far as musicianship goes, we're the weak link in the band.

It's hard and natural.

You know, everybody's just always up on their chops, so we try to keep up, but we're just songwriters.

So how does that process work for you all?

With writing your own stuff and then ones that you end up collaborating together on as a married couple, it gets hard.

We get a little competitive with each other.

I'd say, like, I wrote the second song on album is for me, and I wrote it all by myself.

I mean, the chords and everything and then.

But it was like a waltz.

It was like a country waltz.

And he's like, no, I think, you know, we should change the tempo.

So then it does, you know, it becomes a co write.

And other times, you know, we'll have song and mind that we really like.

And, you know, we need something in that kind of tempo or that vein.

And so we'll sit down and then sometimes it's like we just go into this.

I don't even know what you call it.

We'll just start writing and then the song's written and we go back, like, two months later and it's like, who wrote this line?

I don't.

Who wrote this change?

I don't know.

It just becomes like an argument over who wrote what.

We need to just, like, have a tape recorder on and the whole time settle the score.

Yeah, we get a little competitive.

Like when I write a few songs by myself and he thinks I don't need him anymore, and then he'll write a song by himself and I'll feel like I have to keep Up.

I don't know.

I feel like it's good to write with somebody because it's a good filter of, you know, we'll write.

Like, we just.

We write a lot.

You know, I think I'll have something really good.

And he's like, eh, I don't know.

Like, we keep each other on our toes for sure.

When you've got songs and they come to the band.

I know you just said that y' all are the songwriters and they're really the monster players.

How does the song end up getting fleshed out together?

Well, lately we have been doing a little more.

Like, we'll just kind of come with a little more bare bones.

Like, you know, maybe we still need a bridge or a breakdown or something.

And everybody kind of throws in their ideas.

And so that's.

That's been interesting.

And now we've.

We've got a couple girls that have been singing backups with us.

So then we'll, you know, build parts for them or kind of build the song around that.

Whereas before, I mean, that you wouldn't even think of doing anything like that.

But it's been interesting.

I think the.

I mean, just how everything's changed because, I mean, it started off just me and Jeremy playing together, you know, just very, very simple.

Me just like chucking on an acoustic, Chucking, like, bar chords and stuff.

And now it's like, you know, there's like several riffs going on.

Like, Jeremy and Matt will build, like, riffs kind of back and forth with each other and, you know, almost kind of like Muddy Waters type stuff where there's just little.

Little riffs being filled in here and there.

Yeah, it's definitely come a long way from where it started.

Where do you think that these changes are going to take you musically?

You know, it's hard.

I feel like our name confuses people because it sounds like an Americana name for sure.

Lately we've.

We've really been getting into like, throwing in like a cover, like Janis Joplin cover or Adores cover.

I mean, I think we'll probably keep doing this for a while, but at the same time, I just get so antsy.

But I'm trying to separate the like, really country, really folky stuff into another project.

I just started this other project with a bunch of guys that I know and had like, pedal steel and, you know, all that good stuff.

So I'm trying.

I'm trying to keep it a little more separated.

I don't know.

Actually, when this finally airs well, it'll be funny.

To see.

Can you give me the name of that project, or is that still under wraps?

We haven't quite named it.

We've thrown around a million names.

The name we used on stage, we just played last Tuesday.

We called ourselves Margot.

And the price tag.

I understand the wanting to kind of categorize your various sounds into different projects for the listener, but how does that benefit you in terms of your creation and songwriting?

How is that helpful to you to have different projects to think of them for instead of trying to make every song work for one band?

And good as far as not confusing the listener and also, like, still having that outlet?

Because as soon as, you know, I remember Jeremy kind of, like, giving me a project.

He was like, all right.

Because usually, you know, he would come up with, like, the more, like, rocking, like, frames, and then I would fill in, like, I'd make a melody and.

And fill in the words you need to write a really fast, like, rock and song.

And as soon as he told me that, then all I wanted to do was write country, because I guess, I don't know.

So it's just been helpful that I can still do that.

And now, actually, I feel like I can write anything I want.

And it's not.

You know, there still will be a place for it, because it's such a shame to, like, write a song and be like, oh, well, this is, you know, too bluegrass to play in our band.

But it's a really good song, you know, And I think it's just been healthy to kind of open that door back up again for me, because I.

That's where I started.

I just miss it when I don't do it.

And then every time I go out and see, like, there's a great band called Sam Doors and the Tumbleweeds.

I went out and saw them, and I was like.

That was right when we were, like, really focusing on, all right, we're gonna.

You know, we're gonna be a rock and roll band now.

And I was like.

Saw them play, and I was like, no, I want to play country.

Like, I have multiple personalities or something.

So I think it's just been therapeutic to still be able to do that.

Hey, this is Margot Price from Buffalo Clover by our latest record, Load on time at www.buffaloclover.com.

You'Ve got this record out.

Came out this summer.

What is it that you hope for with it over the next year or so?

I really hope that we can keep our attention focused on it enough that we keep playing it, because playing out live and stuff Because I feel like we get.

We just want to keep ourselves from getting bored.

But I know, you know, most people, like, put on an album and then they play the song, like, the same set every time for like a year.

I think that the reason that we don't do that is because you play so many shows in Nashville and we have so many of the same people come out.

I don't want the crowd to get bored, but I want to try to tour as much kind of like regionally as we can in this little pocket of the Southeast Coast.

I just really want to be able to focus on marketing it because we just have never really done that before.

And I feel like this is something that is a lot more easily digestible than anything we've put out.

I'm hoping that we can just kind of get the right.

The right people booking us and stuff like that, because I know, you know, we book all over in town and never a problem.

But booking out of town, tricky, because you have.

You know, you have to be making money.

But I think it's really important to tour.

So that's my hope, is that we can tour and keep playing, you know, playing songs.

And we have to vinyls.

So I suppose we have to keep playing songs.

Keeping it fresh is a challenge.

Yeah, exactly.

It's also hard, too, because we have a couple that are, you know, strictly, like, kind of piano driven.

And husband left his keyboard in Liverpool because we didn't have enough money to get it back.

So we haven't had keys at our last few shows, unless Micah comes out, which he has a couple times, but we just borrowed somebody's keyboard for the tour here.

So now we haven't been able to play, like, Seek Me out in a couple of those.

So it kind of, you know, gives them, like, a rebirth.

Taking your son's toys and putting them in the attic for a while.

They're new again or something.

Specifically, what songs have changed for you all or what has changed in the field over time, what keeps it fresh?

You know, a lot of times we try to pick a song and then like, all right, well, let's push the tempo on it this time.

Let's do it.

Three, four.

You know, because there's a lot of songs that I want to keep playing, but it's just to keep everybody on their toes.

And I think going back to Dylan, too, he did that a lot.

He would just throw everybody for a loop and be like, all right, we're going to do this.

You know, I mean, he wouldn't even tell him, he just counted off different.

Like skip a beat on the third line just to throw everybody off.

I really like doing that.

Luckily, everybody around here can usually keep up with my neuroticness because even with the little country projects I just did, the last week we covered a Henson Cargill song, Skip a rope.

Every time we would go back to the course, I would.

Sometimes I'd wait four counts, sometimes I'd wait three, sometimes I'd wait one.

And they followed me every time.

It was like.

It was just really funny.

I think at first they just thought I was like not knowing what I was doing but just kind of seeing if they could follow me.

If the sun and moon and stars aligned for you all over the next couple years, what would you want?

I would really like to get more attention in my hometown.

So much around here is about elbow rubbing and going out and networking with the right people.

I hate that word networking.

So we've gotten a couple write ups in the local paper.

Maybe like two.

Two mentions.

It's crazy.

We go to Liverpool and we can play on the BBC and do all these things and then you come back to town and it's like pulling teeth to get someone to write about your album release.

Even though the ryman has become like a cesspool for good and bad music now, I would really, really like to play the rhyme.

And the biggest thing for us would just be able to make a humble living full time at playing music.

I never want to wait another table in my life.

I just can't even.

Can't even think about going back to do that.

But you know, we've both worked a million odd jobs and so it's, you know, it keeps the songwriting good.

I'm sure, you know, if we would have arrived a couple years ago, probably would have nothing to say, but it just would be really nice to.

To not have to worry about health insurance and stuff for my son because we are all without health insurance right now and it's chilling.

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