Between Guitar Strings and Mountain Springs: Sterling Drake's Adventure

And one of the biggest supporters and ladies that I always shout out Besides my wife is Elaine Campbell . She is a photographer in the Pacific Northwest , a rodeo photographer , and I'm just shouting her out because she was elated to know that you're on the podcast , so shout out to her . And she definitely said that's great .

He plays a mean banjo , so that's amazing .

You know whether they're whatever their parallel may be , maybe their craftsman or leather worker , silver Smith , Rancher , horse trainer it's just really cool . So I don't know if I'm very big , but I feel that the people that like my music , I'm just honored that they would . I met some really cool people that I think are way cooler than me , so All right .

I was born on a ranch in South Florida , so you could say that I understood agricultural world at a young age , but I wasn't really heavily involved with it until later in my teens . But that being said , every time I could find a patch of trees or a creek or something , I always was looking to get into trouble .

So maybe being outdoors , I think , just my love for nature , it kind of permeates all and and then , uh , yeah , I'd say so .

You didn't need to make a bunch of noise and also girls thought it was pretty cool , so that you know that's pretty important when you're a 13 year old boy . So , um , but I didn't really ever take it too seriously until until I was just about getting out of high school .

Uh , always was around music , always looked at , always always enjoyed music and writing music before I could even play or really sing . And then the singing thing just kind of came by default .

I tried to start bands and when I was a teenager and could never find like a vocalist , I was like I don't know , I don't know , I didn't really have a vocalist that would stick with it and sing the songs that I wrote . So I just happened to start singing them and so that's how I came about that , yeah , all right .

And they , uh , they have a open back banjo and I always was trying to , I've always been around it , I always just like been around that sort of music , a lot of bluegrass and all time .

But , um , I wanted to kind of have like a winter project or summer project , something I could do around a campfire , and uh , but I love that old traditional style banjo banjo too .

So I got got one of their gut string banjo or one of their open back banjo and I put gut strings on them , just kind of like you would have seen at the chuckwad hundreds or something . So , just learning and I love Irish music too and they use a lot of banjo , so so really just using it as another voicing to understand music a little better .

But , like I said , I like culture and history , I like storytelling and nothing says that better than American roots music , country music , whatever it may be , and also a story . Me , I think maybe if I had more of an urban understanding then I would probably play a different type of music .

But to me it's just the songs that kind of permeate our American catalog that I feel are so beautiful and often times forgotten . You know , everybody's always trying to write another hit , write another song , especially you go to Nashville on Music Row everybody's trying to write something new .

There's so much inspiration , there's so much to learn just with what came before us and just because you know music doesn't have an expiration date .

I'll never understand that and we've seen music become commercialized and turned into a commodity and I just think substantive music and storytelling has been around for a long time and there's a thing or two to learn from people that came maybe a few generations or iterations before you . So I go back , man , it trickled down .

I liked you know guys like Keith Whitley from the 90s and 80s and George Shrape , but then you look at Willie Nelson , who to me is like the pinnacle , honestly , in Wayland Jennings and those folks and who were they ? And who was Merle Haggar inspired by ? It was Bob Wills and Ernest Tubb . And who were they inspired by Jimmy Rogers ?

And who was Jimmy Rogers inspired by ? Now you've gone down the rabbit hole , so trying to find whatever the essence is of the music and yeah , that's my , it's a in that framework . It's a lifelong pursuit .

I'll never get burnt out or tired of music because it's always a pursuit of obtaining more knowledge and looking at the past to build the future , and I really enjoy that .

My mother liked to paint and draw and I knew I had more of an artistic kind of leaning , but mine was . Maybe I found it found it through music , not through visuals . And then I think what inspired me to sing and write the music that I do is , you know , my father , my grandfather and maybe mentors and horsemanship , maybe other folks in that country .

Music seemed to be , you know , their frame of reference . My grandfather listened to a lot of Roger Miller , wayland Jennings , ernest Tubb , so that's kind of as I got older , but full circle and I was like man , I loved all that stuff that he used to play .

I'm hoping one day you hit Washington . But you play with a variety of stars yourself . You know what ? Jared Morris , jesse , right .

Really , when I kind of decided I wanted to do this , I went to Nashville in 2019 and kind of did all that and I realized as I started to come back to Montana that there is all the workings of a great potential music scene and I think you have a lot of things going on at once and you've got a lot of cultural uniqueness or significance to that area .

You've got a beautiful history and , matched with the beautiful landscape , it's very romantic just looking at your front door , right . So it's easy to write a song about a bird being inspired in a place like that artistically .

But I think now you're seeing the emergence , obviously with the democratization of music you can see , with things like Spotify and social media elevating individual artists that are helping every , I think , region have a localized kind of sense of music , right , and you're seeing a lot of people everybody's kind of finding their , you know , artists are having a better

pathway to making a living playing locally , releasing music on their own . But it's also paired with development of the Northern Rockies . You're seeing a lot of folks move into Idaho and Montana and Wyoming . In fact I read something this morning that I think Idaho is the most like .

According to the US census was like the most moved to state in the past two years . So you have a lot of like folks moving there which is bringing in new income . There's a big tourism industry in the Northern Rockies and it's growing and with that is kind of like a you know , culture , kind of the sound or the culture there is kind of elevated .

But I think it's important in that there are people that are , you know , trying to . The people that are getting that attention are people that are probably adequately representing that culture and what that place stands for . You said you saw it in Texas in the nineties with , like the Red Dirt movement .

You had a lot of folks , a lot of oil , money came into Texas and a lot of development and it brought a lot of attention to their , to the arts in that area and so I think that coincided obviously the rodeo boom in the nineties in Texas , but also the Red Dirt music scene , and I think Montana and Idaho are having that day and a place that has never had

really a voice for , like you know , I can name the artists that made it big out of that area , you know , on one hand , but you have folks like Ian Tyson and people that maybe , like Dave Stamie , although he's from California , he wrote a lot of songs that represented Montana and there's just like a need for it's such a cool place , such a cool culture and

there's a need for something about it , I guess . And money's moving in there and folks are moving there . That would be my long .

But you know , growing up in Kentucky , virginia , that sounds man , it's quite potent and just hearing it I'm like yeah , I'm telling my wife , I'm like this is the stuff like I didn't , wasn't drawn to .

But as you get older you start listening to the lyrics , you start listening to what they're singing and it's just like , all right , man , this is , I can get behind it , and it's just like maybe it's age . But , man , I am full till into this movement up north and it's unbelievable to see and know that it's not all in Appalachia .

But I will say that I agree with you . I think that one thing I've noticed is Montana , wyoming , south Dakota , idaho . These places are kind of elevating their own artists at the moment and people from those areas , but as artists are growing .

One thing I guess maybe my unique perspective is like is having coming from a reference of like cultural or historical relevance or like being a little having a little bit more context within the frames of the American catalog . I think a lot of artists now that are getting popular don't really have much rooted foundation in the older styles of music .

So this like sound that's emerging maybe is a little bit more rock based and maybe it's like not as based in like a timeless sound , right , and I have a lot of great buddies that we might sound a little different , but I love their music , I love everything they're doing .

So I have noticed it has been harder for younger folks in those areas to have this appreciation for the history of the music or the older stuff . Like when you go down to Tennessee or Kentucky or Virginia you talk about the generations that came before them . They have such a admirable perspective of them .

But here people don't really even like , regard often the older stuff or have even collection of it . There's like there seems to be this like black hole within the timeline . Like there's all these old venues still around Montana .

Like I play at Trixie's Antlers Saloon , that's like our local bar in Ovando and they still have the old pinwheel wagon wheel stage there and old photos of like cowboy bands used to play there and all this stuff and at some point it seemed like it just dropped off in relevance , like somewhere around the 80s or something and like and up until there's not much of

like a , there's not much of a . You know I have to sell younger people in the Northwest on the old stuff sometimes but you go elsewhere and it's not necessarily that way and maybe it's because we've had lack of a representation , cultural representation , in those decades . I'm not sure . Maybe people don't like music , I have no clue .

But I'm not a everybody's cup of tea , and I don't expect to be , but I'm always striving to , just , you know , paint a lens that is , I guess , has context or is bigger than myself .

Just it's not there sometimes , but then I'm like I need to listen to this guy more often . So , yeah , when did you know it was time to make music ?

So I was , I was familiar with the landscape , but I was really on this , like I wanted to be a horse trainer . For a long time , worked for a lot of different horse trainers , I'd worked at jobs , kind of learning that industry , and I had this realization like I had accomplished a good deal of what I wanted set out to do in that world .

But I realized if I was going to jump in full bore , then I would not have time for any other pursuits and it was kind of a make or break moment . So I was able to step away for a while from that world and jump into music and I just I lived in Nashville for over a year in 2019 and just like consumed everything like in more .

So the musicians and songwriters and that were living there became friends . A lot of people now that like are almost just dang near household names and it's just wild , like the people I met and ran into at that time and to see them grow , and it was invaluable for me to do that .

But I realized I had to just jump in and you need in the musical world I think you need maybe in any profession or any I guess you know subculture you need a moment to just jump in and like free roam , like not have too much of an agenda .

I think a lot of people move or jump into music early on and they're like I'm going to do this and put out a music and everything is kind of network oriented and you kind of rub people the wrong way . So I spent a lot of time playing drums for folks in Nashville .

I was taking online school and course classes and I was writing songs for a publishing house and I was playing , fronting bands down on Broadway and just doing everything . And I ended up playing drums for a lot of folks out of town and playing drums for Caitlyn Butts and some folks in Mallory Eagle out of Oklahoma . It took me a tech everywhere .

So that moment was it . I was like , okay , I need to immerse myself in this and just learn everything . I can become a better guitar player , singer , songwriter learn the industry . So yeah , that was the moment for me , for sure .

In that second record we it was rough around the edges and we wanted to do something a little different . We didn't have as much of like an intention with the production and those are all young pursuits of mine . I have another record actually it's live from the station in .

It's about to we're going to release in the fall and I've got like four other projects I'm releasing throughout 20 . So that music feels so far behind for me at the moment . But but I think I don't have a preference , man .

I think that voicing all my idols , like folks like Marty Robbins or Willie Nelson , they were never like sonically pinned down by a production element . They but they always sounded like themselves , whether Marty Robbins was singing Honky Tonk or pop or like cowboy tunes , like it was obviously Marty Robbins .

And I think for myself it's been a deliberate part of my artistry to not be pinned down with , like you hear , sounded that sterling Drake I want . You know he sounds like Honky Tonk or he sounds like Western , sounds like this I want . I want to be able to take a left turn and people follow me so so I'm doing early on .

People like what the heck is that ? So that you know , this next record that we're putting out as a live performance featuring a lot of the folks that were original time jumpers , which is a band that Vince Gill used to front at the station in for a long time , so these best Nashville country pickers you could find .

So it's like definitely an homage to , like my foundation and like just classic country music . And then I have a record coming out in the future that I really can't wait to talk about .

It's about it's all like Western traditional tunes , just re approached in a lot more stripped down setting with Gustering , banjo , hanukkah and like cello and all this sort of stuff . And all that music is going to go to helping a nonprofit group that helps benefit folks throughout the West , from Montana all the way down to Texas .

So , and when the time comes , love to talk to you about that . But all that is completely different . It's completely different than that record and we're hoping , you know I'm spending some time in different parts of America throughout the next year and after , and actually abroad , to study some music .

We're going down to Mississippi for a while , we're going to be in North Carolina and go to these different places and learn their catalog and then approach their songs in a way that , like you know , that I threw my .

I guess so that's an attempt of my own is that if you keep following the music he's going to , I'm going to spend time in some certain areas that I think I need to spend time in .

Man , that's assuming he's gone and I appreciate , I appreciate that reference and he's like I'm a fan of his . So it's not a diss at all , but I just find it funny . It's insinuating , you know , like I guess I that people feel like I'm going to maybe grow here soon , but maybe but you are man .

Yeah , I find it funny , especially with all these , these , these projects .

We were talking about how how nowadays there's so many artists that are getting like massively huge , like obviously Oliver Anthony and folks like that , and to like a unreal level , but it's wild to see how now in the public's eye , they can see an independent artist and have a frame of reference in the country music world of like , oh , I understand generally what

they're doing with their life , you know , but it wasn't that way for a long time and it's due to guys like Chris Stapleton or Sturgill Simpson that just like paved the road and made it a lot easier for folks , not taking away from somebody like Oliver Anthony , but but newer , newer folks like their name of reference with each generation that comes by and paves

the way for independent country music Like . But I so I appreciate that Sturgill Simpson reference because that dude did it the hard way , like he played every till he became big . You know there was no easy rise for that dude , so right .

you know .

But but also Joe Spivey plays fiddle on our version , but he also invented and created the you know fiddle . That's on that original track . So he was in the studio , played that down and that is like the defining Production element of that song , if you ask me . So it was just like a cool experience , you know Opportunity .

Here we are at the station in playing with some of the most iconic musicians ever play the station in and that song . It all just kind of came together . So , yeah , that's , we had to cut it . There's no option .

I mean the message is about like the landscape and conservation , and then you know there's like elements of that and like the fact you know talking about how Mankind has developed land and you know , sometimes for the worst and and that's a sad story there in Florida , I mean , my family had a had a generational ranch property that my grandfather you know operated ,

that at one point was up to three seconds but kind of diminished as Florida developed . So that story that I think the Northwest has gone through and I've seen in Montana now Happened generations ago in Florida and to the point where you you say Florida to people and they think of Disney World and Strip malls in . Miami .

Yeah , yeah , and that was world that Florida had been and still isn't . There are parts of it , but it's . It's diminishing and dwindling every day , but it's they're faced with like equal on calamities or or Development . I'm from both ends . It's just been challenging . So , yeah , that's a good story .

Like Texas country , he , you know , grew up on Western swing , like defined Nashville in the 60s and wrote songs for Patsy Klein and Ray Price and then studied , you know , everything from Django , reinhardt , gypsy jazz to like blues and soul like he never he was Mistake . He is unmistakably country music but he never Like insulated himself with his own sound .

He always went outside the purview of what's of country music and played songs . He played like a Risa Franklin . Songs would cut him , but it was unmistakably country because of who he was . It was never an intention but more of a deliverance , a delivery that he had rather . So , yeah , willie Nelson , that's , that's who catches your eye now .

Like a new , newer artist and that I enjoy , and there are so many I'm so proud to like have contemporaries that I am just like big of . Well , one of my my good Merging out in Asheville at the moment is a guy named Timbo . I met him in 2019 .

I got to play drums for him and Probably for a while , but like as a songwriter and musician and he's one of the guys I think he's gonna put out a new record here shortly and he's he's great . Sierra Farrell , another good friend of mine .

I love her music , love her lens and and I think she does a similar thing she she's rooted in in old-time bluegrass classic country . Yep , yep , um Polter wall is great . Charlie Crockett he's great too . Love Jesse Daniel . I get the list goes on and on . You know , really does .

I love Celtic music , though I it leaves , leaves the camp of American music too often and I Really don't it really at this day and age , my life do not really like rock music though I admittedly , like I I do approve , but I spent so much time in my youth listening to it .

My girlfriend jokes that like I really can't , I cannot stand , I viscerally cannot stand rock music is what she's always saying . But I Don't know , I don't know if that's gonna make a lot of people , you know , not like me , but I think I picked rock drummer in my in my teenage years that I am a rocked out . Yeah , I've done it .

It's not to say that , like I don't know , I played in a little run with Jesse Daniel and like had a fiddle player on a few of those shows and like we didn't even have a set list at all until , like sound check or anything . You know , I could probably do more in the way of preparing , but I try to like drink water . That's it , yeah , that's it , yeah .

I wish I had a better answer for you .

So doing that , I'm looking at playing in the West Coast a little bit in the wintertime and potentially nothing's announced yet . And then we're looking at going abroad in the new year , as we're going to Europe , which will be announced in the next coming months and then . But really I'm in the studio as much as possible .

Like my aim , other than that , is just getting in the studio . So I have this record coming out , but I've got a pretty stacked release schedule all the way in the next summer . So I've kind of been holding my cars for about a year and a half or so .

I left a distribution deal I'm glad to be going independent at the moment which has allowed me to release stuff on my own accord and partner with whoever I'd like to . So yeah , that's it Recording and releasing music and playing certain select festivals and stuff in the West Coast and Europe and abroad .

I play music and my goal for as an artist is to be able to sustain my ability to continue to pursue music and art and creation and make enough money on doing those things and to marry culture and history and the new with the old and the old with the new , like dig back to find something , a fresh perspective on something .

And I think the best art is that all the time it's not completely disregarding the box or it's not so conservative that it's nothing new . It's that balance . It's really hard to find , but it's when you find it and that pursuit towards it is such a rewarding pursuit as an artist .

So I hope to do that and I hope to be a voice for just the open spaces , rural places . I think that's my lens , the voice I like to have . So , yeah , that's my goal continue to do that makes sense .

But yeah , just knowing what's ahead , just knowing the future , just knowing how you put your music down , man , I could only imagine what the future holds for you , especially you know , musically and personally . So , man Sterling , thank you so much , man . I want you to continue to rock out . You know , make the music that you do .

I'm fortunate to be a part of it . I mean , you allow me to interview you , since you've never been on a podcast . So just be prepared , you're gonna be on more podcasts , man .

a lot of work for the West . So that's coming up soon . So if you're interested , just stay in touch , follow me on social media and we'll talk soon .

I mean that those two times . So I'm trying to revamp the whole thing . It's all coming soon .