Questions + Answers AND new music

From John J. AND a new track

Hallo Allison.

Is there new music coming from you and from your sister?

Hallo from the Netherlands 

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Dear John,

I’m glad your question was next in the queue. I’ve been trying to figure out how to address this.

First, let me say that I am very much making music. Creativity, inspiration, and willingness to do the work may be at an all time high. However, opportunities for fifty-year-old female singer-songwriters may be at an all time low.

I will also say that my priorities have changed since my early days in the music business. I used to think nothing of getting in a van with a bunch of musicians and traveling around the country playing fair to middling venues and staying in questionable hotels. I used to think nothing of seeing the same old (graphic) drawings on the green room walls. I used to consider being handed a band menu to order dinner from the club I was playing just fine, and didn’t think about it devaluing me.

I used to see a lot of what is required to have a healthy career in a different light than I do now. That’s natural. It’s mostly a young person’s game and I’ve grown up in a lot of ways besides age since I was in my late twenties and early thirties. But I realized when I was about thirty-two that if I continued on the route I was going, I would stay in it the rest of my life, and that was if I was lucky. I didn’t like the route, so I took another one. I left the marriage I was in, got into a new relationship, traveled the world, moved to New York City, took a lot of art and fashion classes, made adventurous records, had my son, got a graduate degree, starting writing book kinds of things, got married again, and on and on and here I am. But my point is, I chose to drastically change my life at that point, and part of the reason was that I knew I needed a broader world than the one I was experiencing through the narrow route I was on.

Now, to get to your actual question, my sister and I both are making new music all the time. She will announce her details when she is ready to do that. For me, I’m concentrating on a new entity, which is called Saint Seven.

Kenny Greenberg and I agreed that we wanted to collaborate as our main personal musical outlets, so Saint Seven is what we’re calling ourselves. We have a special relationship — not only do we share an almost unspoken musical language, we are best friends.

What our vision is: to be free to create any kind of music we want. I don’t care about any of it having anything to do with Allison Moorer records.

And that’s because 1 - We want it to be purely what we want to express and 2 - the world doesn’t really care about Allison Moorer records when it gets down to it. Not enough to have it be my full-time job anymore. The record business has changed a lot since the days when I was first signed, but let’s be honest — I wasn’t commercially successful then, either. The difference is, things were a lot less transparent then. I could look successful and not be. Streaming platforms have changed that, and they reflect the truth, and my truth is that my fan base is very small. Hence, I have no record label to pay for recording and I pay for most of what I record out of my own pocket, I have no song publisher to pitch my songs at the moment, I have no publicist to try to make me more famous. I do have a fantastic booking agent for when the odd gig comes along, and I try to do those when they work. But basically, I’m just thrown in with every other person making music in their bedroom and putting it up on the streaming platforms. That’s fine — but what it isn’t, is a viable living for anyone. So that all adds up to DOING EXACTLY WHAT I WANT TO DO BECAUSE THERE’S NO REASON NOT TO.

Saint Seven music is geared toward something that isn’t about either Kenny or me — the sum is greater than the parts. Our intention is to make records that say something, and sound good and rich. We started the process on Wish For You and we’ve just gone deeper since then, lyrically and musically. From here, we will create, release music under our new moniker, and see what happens. No pressure to tour, no pressure to be anything but artists who are working on their art and craft. Will a living come from that? Probably not. That’s why all working artists have to piece it together somehow. No one ever said being one would be easy. No one ever said I wouldn’t get up every day for the rest of my life and think about how to make it up, somehow. How to communicate at least a little, because I have something to share. I feel blessed that I have a calling.

All of that doesn’t mean there won’t be another Allison Moorer record, either. Who knows?

So the answer to your question, John, is a resounding YES. I just don’t know when it might be. In the meantime, here’s something I love called Trying To Get To You. PLEASE DON’T SHARE. IT’S JUST FOR YOU AND IT’S STILL IN A ROUGH FORM. But this will give you an idea of what Saint Seven is up to musically.

Kenny’s on guitars and bass, Nick Buda is on drums, I’m on acoustic and keyboarded instruments and all the vocals. It feels good to create in the studio for the sake of creating, just because we want to, not because there’s a deadline or we’re on the rat wheel of constant one thing to the next. We’re doing this because we love it and because it’s what we do. I will always make music — it’s a huge part of who I am.

Thank you for the question.

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Y’all have a lovely weekend.

Allison

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