(Portrait courtesy of James Eichman)
This August, James Eichman released St. Catherine Street, a collection of fictitious folk and Americana vignettes drawing from the emotional substance of his upbringing in the South. As part of a group of tight-knit young, Nashville-based singer-songwriters like Oscar Lindsey and Emma Ogier, Eichman’s tunes have taken the acoustic-obsessed side of the internet by storm, culminating in this cohesive first release and an extended stretch on tour. Before his show at Baby’s All Right with Renny Conti, STATIC talked to James about the nature of creative influences, the songwriting process, and the interplay between his life and work.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
You do kind of associate with a lot of Nashville-based artists, like Oscar Lindsey and Emma Ogier. How do you feel like they’ve inspired you in certain ways, or aided you in your creative process?
James: Yeah, for sure, I’m from Nashville. I think with Oscar specifically, we’ve been good friends for a long time, and like we have a dynamic where we motivate each other to just make music. Honestly, we work on each other’s music a lot, and then also just kind bounce ideas back and forth, and , it feels like there’s this collaborative, friendly, motivating thing, because we’re both like— to see your homie like grind makes you want to grind, I guess. And then the same thing goes for somebody like Emma or my friend Peter Dark, who I’m in another project called Superhero with. It’s just inspiring to see your friends make cool music, and it makes you want to kick it into gear and put out your own shit.
You mentioned the project that you had with Peter Dark. I read somewhere that you said that early in your musical career, you were never like the frontman, the singer-songwriter type. I wonder: what changed, and was St. Catherine Street something that was always like gestating in your head, or did it represent a complete shift?
I spent a long time developing the self confidence to be my own artist, and I think a lot of things changed. I think at a certain point, in simple terms, I felt like I had just gotten a lot of experience playing shows, and I had just started to get the itch to express myself and play my songs, and I think a big part of it was that I didn’t trust that every time I wrote a song, I would be able to write another one. There’s always that kind of fear that this is my last song, and so I felt like I couldn’t depend on that or try to make songwriting my thing, and I think it took a long time for me to develop trust in myself and my own process. Even if I experience writer’s block or go through a dry spell with writing, I do circle back to it, and I think it took a lot of time to understand it, to get that perspective and know that that will happen. You know what I mean?
It feels like it had to become like an inevitability in your mind that you were going to keep putting stuff out. With St. Catherine Street, was it kind of something that spilled out of you over time, where one song came to the next song came to the next song?
I’ve been writing songs since I was like 14 or 15 or something, and so there’s some material on that record that is pretty old which I was kind of just sitting on, but never had figured out how to record or something. I had like a few songs that I was like okay these are good, and then there came a time where I was like, okay, I’m gonna make a full length record. That’s when the kind of concept and cohesivity of the record came about. It wasn’t until I was like, okay, I’m making an album, this is the thing I’m doing, and there’s no backing out of this, that it started to feel like a cohesive project. The short answer is that there were some songs that already existed. But once I was like, I’m making an album, I wrote like the other half, basically the rest of it.
What spurred this decision for you to be like “this is it, I’m going to make a record?”
I think it was when I felt like I was getting a little more attention. I was getting just enough validation on the internet to to be like to say, I have something that people like could connect with as like a songwriter rather than just a guitarist. Because I had started for some reason, I was just like let me just see what happens if I post some of my songs on the internet and then, it wasn’t anything crazy, obviously, but there were enough people reaching out to me and being like “I think the song is good” that it gave me some confidence, the confidence to say that I can be my own artist.
It’s interesting that you bring up the internet. I’ve noticed that a lot of your songs kind of started off as these kinds of clips. I wonder, does that affect your process at all? Do you ever post a snippet and then like a bunch of people love it and you’re like “I’m gonna turn this into a song?”
No, not a whole lot. Usually, once I’m to the point of sharing a song with people, it’s pretty much done. I’ve only maybe done that one time, where I post an unfinished song and was like, should I finish this? And I never did. For me, I think it takes a lot to feel like a song is in a place to share, and it takes a lot of mulling it over and being like, “okay, is this worth it?” It’s not like TikTok and Instagram, the short form platforms, are a huge part of my process. I like to keep it simple, pretty separate because… I don’t know. I think that the internet can start to feel toxic if you’re feeding on validation. There’s a fine line, you know what I mean, between taking everything with a grain of salt and letting it get to your head. Sometimes people are like, “I don’t like this,” and you can’t let that affect you.
Sometimes people kind of say the reverse, too. They’ll love something when it’s not really like yeah what you’re gunning for, and then there’s pressure to change up.
Totally, yeah. I feel like my perception of my songs is influenced by the people who comment about them on the internet. That plays such a big role in how I view my own art, and that kind of feels weird because I would like to keep it— I don’t know. I like to share my shit with people, obviously, and their interpretation and what they get from my music is obviously extremely valid. I also need to stay intentional about not putting my self worth in the mix, you know, because then that’s a recipe for sadness.
You talk about the kind of the intention behind the songs. read that St. Catherine Street is the name of a street where your mom grew up, in Natchez, Mississippi, though the songs themselves are fictitious. You also said, though, that you ground them in your real life. Would you ever consider making an entirely autobiographical record?
Yeah, for sure. Like, I don’t think that my tendency to write stories that aren’t my real life is like a choice in some ways because if there’s a story that’s materializing, I try to follow that. But it’s not like one day I sat down and was like “I’m only gonna write fiction.” I think if I started having a lot of fun writing songs about myself, then I would follow that. Writing fictional stories, that’s kind of just like when I have the most fun, at least when I was writing [St. Catherine Street], that was what sparked inspiration for me. It was piquing my interest to write about that stuff. But I definitely would make a record that was more autobiographical if that was the most fun thing.
Do you feel like maybe there’s kind of like a truer way of expressing yourself that comes from that fictitious, narrative-based work?
I think it always ends up circling back, yeah. It can be like a long time after I’ve written something that I realize what it’s about and what about myself I’m expressing through it, and I think that’s what makes a certain story work for me. If I come up with a story, sometimes I write songs that aren’t about me, and they don’t strike a chord, and I’m like, this doesn’t feel like anything. I think what makes a narrative based song feel good is when there’s something in it emotionally that’s resonant, and I think that’s when I’m intentionally or unintentionally expressing myself. So, like through the characters I write or the situations I’m describing, I am personifying parts of myself or working through some emotion, just in an indirect way. Instead of being like, “this is exactly what happened to me,” it feels like I get closer to the heart of the emotion by taking it outside of my own experience and making a different story. Hopefully, all the stories that I write feel real in their like emotional quality, and I think the only way to make an emotion feel real is if it comes from somewhere real.
So in that vein, do you think that titling the album something adjacent to real life gave an additive, necessary layer of emotional resonance?
It totally did. As a kid, I would go [to Natchez] every summer with my mom and sister and grandmother, and it definitely left an impression on me. I also have a lot of history there, and Natchez is a very scarred place. Obviously, the Deep South, within the history of the country, has a complicated, dark history, and it was always a fascinating place for me. I had enough of enough distance growing up in Nashville that I was drawing inspiration from that place, but with enough separation that it didn’t feel too close to home. I don’t know how to describe it.
Were you kind of filtering your process through the place and through that history, like trying to write these songs about Natchez specifically?
After the name came, I was like, okay, like how can everything kind of tie into this place? Then, I started realizing the thru-lines with the themes, and that gave me a clear picture. Towards the end of the process, I was like, all these songs seem to fit into this setting, and so aesthetically, I’m drawn to like imagery that feels like that place.
Like a Southern Gothic type thing?
A little bit, and and for whatever reason, I used my uncle’s painting for the album cover, and that was also a part of it, but it all just kind of came together in this way, where Natchez contextualized the emotion in this music.
Was your uncle a major artistic inspiration?
He definitely did have an effect on me as a child. I think it was inspiring to see someone who had made the decision to make art their career. It was validating for me because I think I knew at an early age that I didn’t like school, and I was always kind of resistant to the idea of the nine to five grind, admittedly. All respect to people who do that. I think it’s awesome. But I’ve always just wanted to make art for my job, and so seeing Noah [his uncle] as a working artist is really inspiring for sure. He’s just like an amazingly talented artist, and he would just be around and draw and shit, and I was like, this is so cool.
Do you think that your discography will turn into a cohesive project, or is that something that you’re still figuring out?
It’ll definitely just materialize as I go. I think with each song that I write, I’m discovering more of what I’m getting out of the whole thing and why I’m driven to do it, and sometimes I feel like I lose sight of that, and that’s a scary place to be. But yeah, I don’t know. I still feel like I’m very much figuring out my process as a songwriter and like what the whole point is, and like I think this album is like a huge step for me, like you know, learning about myself as an artist. But yeah, there’s still a lot to discover.
Not to look too far ahead, but do you think the next album will be many steps away from St. Catherine Street?
I talked about this with a friend a few nights ago, and I definitely have some ideas that are floating around in my head of what the next one might look like. I’ve like started, you know, I have a few ideas and songs that I’m, you know, playing around with, but I don’t. I kind of feel like I can have intentions going in and stuff, but at a certain point, the songs I write are the songs I write, and it might look different or might look similar. And I almost don’t feel like I have too much control over what I end up making. You know what I mean? It’s sort of like I have to see what feels good. But I would like some things to be different for sure. I think I’m more at this current moment, more stoked on like maybe some more up-tempo stuff or less slow, soft acoustic and more electric guitar.
Would playing with your own full band kind of be like a full circle moment for you from where you started?
Yeah, totally. I mean, I feel lucky to be playing with a band tonight and like using Theo and Daryl, who are playing with Renny. They were kind enough to play with me too, and honestly, playing more shows with a band has made me want to make more rock or something like that. But we’ll see.
In that forward facing sense, after this stretch of October shows, what’s next?
I have some touring with my project the rest of the year, but I’m sort of just in the state of writing new songs and getting material for another record, but it’s all up in the air. I mean, I’m moving to New York in January, so that’s the focus for me coming up. But yeah, I am doing some touring— I don’t know if I’m allowed to say yet, it hasn’t been announced, but it should be fun. I’m trying to definitely get on the road as much as I can. I love touring, and it’s been really cool to play my songs on this tour.
Can you write on tour?
A little bit. I wrote “Smoking Again” on the road, and that was like a kind of grueling process. Like in the van, I was touring with my friend Annie DeRusso. I was playing guitar, and I was kind of just in a state of being really upset that I hadn’t written a song in a long time. I was going through voice memos, and listening to shit and being like, goddamnit, I don’t know how to turn this into a full song. For some reason, a voice memo of the riff that ended up becoming “Smoking Again” stuck out to me. I just sat there in the corner on my notes app, over and over trying to write verses, and eventually it came to form the song. It can be a grind, but yes, I can do it. It’s just not as easy as when I’m alone in my house.
Do you need a certain environment to get the best work out of you?
I need stillness and time and comfort. Writing in an uncomfortable state, even just physically uncomfortable, is tough. I’ve tried, and there have been many plane rides where I’m trying to like work on songs and stuff, but it’s hard. I feel like I’m just not in my element. But I do constantly come back to notes and ideas, just to see what can be done.