Casey Gomez Walker is singing about her old home. Not necessarily the brick-and-mortar, physical Missouri house where she grew up and pasted lyrics to the wall, but the type of home that has attached to her interior, wrinkling memory, stories, and feelings throughout time. The home that will exist in her always, no matter how far down the road she moves.
Prior to relocating to Chicago and putting words to chords in 2018, Gomez Walker never imagined herself writing an album. She never even thought she’d write a single song, let alone label herself a musician. And yet, her time-absorbed debut Last Missouri Exit, set to release on August 22, is far beyond beginner, spawning out every reason why homespun, friendship-made alt-country records are so essential to life itself: cozy basements, a befittingly unbalanced combination of love and heartbreak, and deft lines sung with a Kimya Dawson-esque timbre that wouldn’t dare to take itself too seriously.
Hovering in a mid-range octave, Walker sings about those who formed her childhood and early adulthood, while simultaneously yearning to leave it all behind. Like speeding past the last exit on the highway before crossing state lines, there’s a real sun-setting-in-the-rearview-mirror image on view. Whether she’s reminiscing about a boyfriend still obviously in love with his ex (“Nora”) or catching up with hometown friends (“In a Bungalow”), Last Missouri Exit manifests less like a nostalgic collection of songs and more like an ode to the in-between: painfully liminal and always leaving, unsure of whether to run from – or right back to – the past.
The entire Midwest outfit includes Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy’s son Spencer Tweedy (drums), Max Subar (guitar, pedal steel), Jason Ashworth (bass), Scott Daniel (fiddle), and Nolan Chin (piano, organ), who contribute to Walker’s vocals and guitar. All ten songs on the LP were written by both Tweedy and Walker, who are partners and started Case Oats back in 2018. Most songs on the upcoming album have been played by the band for years, as they were mostly written years prior.
Ahead of the album’s release and Case Oats’ show in New York, we chatted with Casey about the album’s origins and inspirations – covering everything from James Baldwin to high school boyfriends.
[This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.]
You come from an education and background in creative writing and journalism. I know that “Seventeen” is based on a story you wrote in college, and “Bitter Root Lake” is a rewritten version of a story you’ve come across. Does songwriting for Case Oats feel similar to the writing you’ve done in the past for readers? Is the process similar at all?
I think that they’re one and the same. I never thought I’d write songs when I was in writing school – I never made that pathway in my brain. I wrote a lot of poetry and prose with weird forms, so I was sort of there, but I didn’t think of it as a song. Performing does, however, hit on the same satisfaction as writing.
I went to Columbia College of Chicago, where we used the writers workshop method, which essentially involved reading everything aloud to the class. It was called recall, where you read it aloud, and everyone recalls what stood out to them about your story. Songwriting is very similar, where certain things may stick, and that’s what you decide to hold onto. Thinking about what sticks with people and what matters.
In his song “Sense,” Mavi sings “I make the songs you gotta read, baby,” and I think of that lyric constantly.
I’ve always thought that. Since I was a kid, I would go online, Google lyrics, print them out, and paste them to the wall. Almost as if the song lyrics were stories or poems.
That’s exactly what I was about to ask. Growing up, did you play any instruments, or were you always lyric-forward and drawn to words instead of the musical arrangement itself?
Definitely lyric forward. I never thought of myself as a musician. I played trumpet throughout most of my schooling and was in a marching band, I was also in a ska band, yet I never wrote any music. I told myself it was just for fun. My dad is a musician, but he plays blues and jazz, which is a bit different from the music I make.
I also never thought of myself as a songwriter. And still, growing up, my favorite writers were always songwriters. It was right there in front of me, but I never fully figured it out. It wasn’t until I was 22 that I wrote a song on guitar.
I’d love to talk about your track “Bitterroot Lake”. I know it’s based on a true crime story from the ‘80s, but I’m wondering how you came across it and why you were so drawn to write about it.
I found out about it while listening to a Dateline podcast. I’m not a huge podcast head, by the way, but I was driving from St. Louis to Chicago, which is also what the album’s titled after, and it’s a five to six-hour drive. I listened to a two-and-a-half-hour podcast about that story, and it just infiltrated my brain in a way. Spencer, my partner, was working at a bar at the time, so after the drive, I got to Chicago, sat down there, and started writing.
It stuck with me because it’s a story of regret more than crime. And it’s a love story more than anything. The guy wasn’t intentionally trying to kill his girlfriend, but when he crashed the plane and couldn’t save her, he lived with guilt and went into hiding. It was always way more about love to me than crime, and what love can do to you. It could happen to anyone.
It also follows the folk tradition of a murder ballad, because it has tones of love, hiding, and landscape. It came out so easily.
Some songs on the album seem to be inspired, at least in part, by childhood and trying to move on from it. Even sonically, there’s a cozy, intentionally bare-bones hometown kinda feel. Is there a certain experience or memory, or even person, from your childhood that stands out to you on the album?
I don’t know if it’s one particular thing. You do things subconsciously, and I think so much of the writing for the album was done subconsciously. Putting the album together, I realized then that I was writing about the same themes.
Sonically, it was bare bones because that’s what we had. It was special in that way – we recorded it in our best friend’s basement. I’m also such a fan of records that are bare bones, like the Bob Dylan Basement Tapes is one we talk about all the time. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than what you have. That’s how I feel, at least.
But I don’t know if there’s a certain memory or person rather than the landscape in which I grew up, outside of St. Louis. If I had to pick a person, it would probably be my high school boyfriend, but I wouldn’t say that in a normal setting because it’s not that important to me. But I do refer to him a lot in the lyrics.
In one of your recent Substack essays, you write about routinely returning to 12-year-old Casey and asking your current self if you’re doing right by her. I’m curious if, while writing and recording the album, you got in touch with 12-year-old Casey? Does she appear anywhere on the album?
I’ve never tried too hard to grow up. I want to do what I like and think about what I like. I think the album is a lot more pensive and painful than my 12-year-old self was. But it’s still straightforward, and some words are funny on the tongue and cheek, and I think that all relates to my teenage self. And I definitely carry her with me.
I’m wondering how you play the album live. Has the arrangement developed and changed since playing it these past couple years?
We’ve been playing it for so long. A lot of the songs are pretty old, but I’m playing it with the same people that I wrote and recorded it with. I had an interesting conversation down at South by Southwest with our fiddle player, Scott, who wanted to play a little differently than how they played on the album at a certain show, because they had changed as a fiddle player.
I mean, we’re playing the same songs, but we’ve all matured as musicians. Everyone is much older, and I wrote a lot of the songs when I was young. I’m coming at it from a different perspective now, releasing this album at 30. It’s very interesting timeline-wise. But I don’t think it would’ve made sense to release earlier, because it needed to sit, and we needed to come into it.
I actually snuck into one of your SXSW shows at Antone’s in March – because I’m under 21, not because I didn’t want to pay. It was such a great show. How was that week?
That was such a fun show. We had literally just gotten out of the car and played immediately ten minutes after.
But I had never done SXSW before. All of the guys in my band had, so it was nice having their previous knowledge, but for me, it was all still very new. It was chaotic. I’m someone who loves to take naps and have lots of downtime, so it was definitely an adjustment.
You talked a little about your sonic influences on the album, but do you draw on any poets or writers for lyrical inspiration?
Whenever I’m trying to jog my brain, I have this old copy of Great American Poetry that I read. A lot of it is stuffy and outdated. But I love to just go back and read classic poetry and think about how words fit together and feel in my mouth. I’m not approaching it consciously, but it gets into my brain when I take the time and sit with those.
I also love to read James Baldwin, but I don’t know how much that infiltrates my writing besides describing place, which is very much there in Baldwin, as it always is. He is the best to do it, I think. I don’t read as much as I’d like to, but when I do, it really improves my songwriting. I’m always trying to consume fiction, too, because I think it all goes together – songwriting, fiction, poetry, essays – all of it.
You’ve said before in an interview that you wanted to write a novel, but you wrote an album instead. Has one dream taken over the other, or are they still congruent?
They are definitely congruent. When I said that I wanted to write a novel, I just couldn’t imagine writing a record. I still would like to write a novel, but it also rocks to have a record coming out. I’m not sad about not having a book out, or whatever it may be. I thought that was my path – I graduated almost ten years ago, and all my friends in the program thought writing a book was just the thing you do afterward. And I really was trying to for so long, but what was coming out were just very short, weird quips. Turns out they ended up being songs. I’m not spiritual or religious, but I think life has a way of knowing before you do.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the Chicago music scene. It feels so immensely collaborative, with so many good and young guitar bands coming out of the city. I’m partial to Austin, but it feels like Chicago has a scene that doesn’t exist in a lot of other places. Maybe it does, and I just don’t know about it.
I’m obsessed with all the young guitar bands right now. I didn’t grow up in Chicago, but I think there’s something to be said about the people who did that have this idea of like – oh, you can just go out and do it. These people are playing gigs at 15, whereas in most other cities, that’s just not happening when you’re a teenager. It’s not there, no one is doing that.
But I also think there is such a collaborative nature, even in my age group. Everyone in my band plays in three different bands. That’s all goodness, you know? Nothing bad can come out of playing more music. There’s always a show to go to.
When I was young, I spent a lot of time being sad that there weren’t that many guitar bands. When I was like 21, there was a lot of garage rock, but they were mostly bar bands. That was fun, but it’s nothing like what’s happening right now. You know, I love Lifeguard. They’re so good.
I went to their show a few days ago in Austin. It was sort of life-changing.
I work with Asher’s dad, Brian Case. It’s a funny age difference. But I think that they’re so cool. I was in Paris in June and got to see them play there, it was just so fucking awesome. I realized that they’re a type of cool I will never be – to be 19 or 20, tour Europe in the summer, and just absolutely rock out each day.
To close off, what has been the best part of this whole process, ever since Case Oats struck up in 2018? What are you most looking forward to once the album drops at the end of the month?
It’s been a fucking whirlwind for me. I just didn’t imagine it – ever. Pretty much anything that happens sounds good to me. I didn’t have any expectations, nor did I know what it’d look like to release a record. Getting the deal with Merge [Records] was one of the best things to ever happen.
I have low expectations, but not in a way where I’m not expecting anything – I just don’t know what to expect, which makes it all exciting. To have a beginner’s mindset about it is fun.
I’m excited for the album to be out and to see the reaction. A lot of these songs we had to ourselves for so long, or just to our Chicago community, so hearing other people like it is just such a crazy thing to me still. I can’t wait to be on the road and play the songs every night. That’s something I’ve never really done before. And I can’t wait.