On The Widow’s Walk: How Shooter Jennings helped The White Buffalo unlock the best album of his career

The old music business adage is that you have your entire life to make your first album, and then a year to make your second. But what about your third? Or fourth? Those artists prolific enough to have a deep discography generally stick to a sound that has served them well (AC/DC, Ramones) or are adventurous enough to take chances that push them forward (Radiohead’s Kid A) or alienate most of their fanbase (see: U2’s Pop, most of Neil Young’s output in the ’80s).

For the Oregon-born and California-based Jake Smith, who performs as The White Buffalo, sonic adventurousness has never been an issue. Over the course of a half dozen albums, Smith has remained excitingly noncommittal when it comes to genre; The White Buffalo can effortlessly move from dark folk-rock to high-octane rock n’ roll from track-to-track, making the records almost feel like mixtapes from a friend with a stacked record collection. His songs are often described as “cinematic,” so much so that he eventually developed a close working relationship with FX’s Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter; numerous White Buffalo tracks appeared on the show, and Smith was even nominated for an Emmy for “Come Join The Murder” from the series’ finale.

Yet after 2017’s Darkest Darks, Lightest Lights, Smith admits that he was in a “dark place,” and found it difficult to put together any new material. Thankfully, his manager decided to set him up with outlaw country singer and producer Shooter Jennings (son of the legendary Waylon Jennings), which proved to be just the spark of inspiration Smith needed. Within weeks, Smith had completed the backbone of the Jennings-produced On The Widow’s Walk, an eclectic and moving collection that often seems to be directly addressing the COVID-19 nightmare we all find ourselves caught up in. It’s also the best record Smith has made to date, from the rousing Americana-rooted opening track “Problem Solution” to “The Rapture,” an eerie county-rock anthem that sounds like the soundtrack to an unseen apocalyptic western.

We caught up with Smith to discuss how Shooter Jennings influenced the new album, how he continues to challenge himself at this point in his career, and the ways he’s navigating the current musical landscape as it all moves into the virtual world.

On The Widow’s Walk is out on April 17th via Spinefarm Records. Pre-orders are available via The White Buffalo site.

Bad Feeling Magazine: How are you holding up?

Jake Smith: I’m OK, I’ve been pretty good. We did this little livestream thing [via Cadenza TV] the other day, that was full-band and we had production that went really well. It felt great to play with the band, so that was really fun, even though it was odd a little bit with no clapping. It wasn’t the full kind of close connection or interaction, but it was good to do it, to try to give people a little escape, both for them and us. Hopefully, it’s giving fans a little time to keep their minds off things or the heaviness of the anxiety that some people might have during this time. It’s cool to be able to provide a little respite for at least a moment. A lot of people tuned in, I was shocked at how many people we got.

Did that help scratch that performing itch for you given that touring is off the table?

It really did. I wasn’t sure if it was going to. I mean, as creative people I feel like you kind of go up and down and ebb and flow mentally, just because your self-worth is based on your creative output [Laughs] or your productivity or your performance or that need to give and receive with crowds and stuff like that. So, I think when you take all of that away, or a lot of it, it can get a little weird.

Does anything from On The Widow’s Walk resonate with you in a new way given this outbreak?

Yeah, it does. Depending on your situation and your environment, even in different times in your life, song meanings change. I could hopefully see people kind of attaching it — hopefully, not in a bad way to this time — but in a way that’s emotional at least, you know? But definitely, there’s some loneliness and isolation in the album. Quite a bit actually. I am definitely thinking about different spots and just thinking about — not the importance of it — I mean, I think music is important. Maybe I’m downplaying it, maybe it’s in the highest scale. I think it’s one of the only things you can really just totally lose yourself in. You put on a record, you put on something that you love and you don’t need to think about anything else, it can carry you away to a place. And you can just repeat that, and then you attach nostalgic things to your life, or your own emotions to it, and your own situations to it. I think good music really does that. And in this time, people need that more than anything.

“Problem Solution” has the line “Let’s just get through the day,” which is likely a mantra everyone is repeating to themselves these days.

I know, that one didn’t really occur to me until we put it out as one of the singles. I was like, “Oh shit, it’s almost like I wrote it for this.”

You’re in an interesting position for an artist: you’re a few albums deep at this point. How does that affect how you approach writing a new album?

I’ve been doing interviews every day and I’m kind of figuring my own shit out as well. [Laughs] I was talking to a guy yesterday about how bands seem to kind of lose it, even my favourite bands ever, there’s a moment in time where they either jump the shark or they don’t have their hand on the pulse anymore. Every band, and it’s a singular album, and it’ll be almost the entirety of that album and then forevermore I don’t like them anymore. I’m not excited about their next output you know? I don’t know why, I’m not going to name any names, but it’s almost everybody, other than Bob Dylan, who had a weird time and then he came back stronger than ever. But there’s not that many people that can sustain writing intelligent, emotional things, you know?

I think I’m getting better at crafting songs, so at least I have those tools. But a lot of it is just luck. My inspiration for songs often come out of nowhere, they come out of silence, so I just wait around for them to happen. But that being said, a lot of the time there’ll be this desperate moment where it’s like, “Oh man, you’ve got to do it,” and something will inspire me, or something will happen to open those floodgates. But ultimately, I want to make every song a mini journey, a mini movie. I want every moment to count, and I want every word to count. You have an opportunity to say something or tell a story, or do something that you’re trying to draw the listener into, and to not use that or abuse that in a way that’s either frivolous or pointless or something that somebody else has said just seems stupid to me. That being said, I don’t know if people are consciously doing that you know? Maybe people are chasing different goals, but that’s never been part of my agenda. I’m never trying to write a single, or write a hit, or trying to cater to anybody’s genre or needs. I just do what comes out of me, you know?

What was the collaboration with Shooter Jennings like?

It was all Shooter on this album, as far as inspiration. I was in a weird kind of dark place. Our manager set us up together, so we went and hung out, and I didn’t know what to expect [from him], being the son of Waylon Jennings, and he was super cool, and we ended up hanging out and drinking for four, five hours in the daytime and getting proper drunk, and having a proper time. Not really talking about how we were going to work with each other at all, really. We were just talking about music and life and kids and ex-wives, you know what I mean?

And then the next meeting we had, I went over to his house, I was going to bring my guitar, he was going to sit at the piano and we were going to talk about songs. And I didn’t feel like I had anything, I hadn’t put out an album in years, but I wasn’t confident in anything I had in the well. I had some ideas but I didn’t really think they had much worth. I had a dream, and I had this melody and this lyric, and so I kind of sang 20-30 seconds into my phone, and I was like, “That’s a pretty good melody in there.” And I said, “I’ll bring that to Shooter tomorrow,” at least I’ll have something to show him, instead of going in blind or dry. I showed him the song, thinking we were going to spend all day on that, and he’s like, “You already have it realized.” And then in 20 or 30 minutes, he was like, “Let’s move on, you’ve got it. What else have you got?”

I kept on playing him different things, and every one he was like, “That’s amazing! Let’s explore that.” And it just filled me up, it just inspired me. One, just the validation, and two, this artist in his own right is saying, “Go, do that, that’s a great idea.” And he was just surprised how my mind works, how I think about how songs could go before they’re written. And after that, I wrote the bulk of the album in a week and a half. Even the album I did before was kind of out of desperation. This one was more inspiration than desperation because we didn’t have anything on the books, but I knew I had to put something out. The time before was like, “Hey, I know I haven’t played you guys any songs, but let’s start recording.”

And obviously [Jennings] is capable of sprinkling some magic dust on things, so let’s see what happens in the studio. I was in a weird place, I was in one of those places where I hadn’t been doing shit for a while, and one of those darker places that I go to sometimes, where I’m asking all the big questions. What’s my purpose? What’s fucking life worth? What’s the point? And [Jennings] helped me get out of that.

Now that the album is almost out, do you have any plans to do more online shows or anything else to support the record?

Yeah, I’m going to bring back this stupid series called In The Garage. It’s an easy setting. [Laughs] It’s just me in my garage, where a lot of the time I go out and I write, and it’s just a space away from other distractions. And I’ve often written songs in there, so I go out there and tell stories or just be kind of a jackass and be silly and then play a super serious song. [Laughs] That’s pretty much the format, but it’s nice. They’re four-ten-minute little snippets, so I’ve started getting back into recording those.

I was out of a garage for a while, I was in a studio apartment guest house situation where I didn’t have a garage. Luckily, I moved — maybe not financially — I moved right before this shit hit, I moved on March 1st. Otherwise, I’d still be in this tiny transitional place where I’d been for a couple of years, and it was nice that I got some space and I got a garage back.

I might take over somebody’s livestream and do that kind of thing, I haven’t really officially done that stuff. It’s definitely a different way of doing it. I’m not a huge fan of going into radio stations and trying to push yourself. It’s weird to not be out on the road and trying to sling albums like that, but that seems to be the most honest, regular way to do things. [Laughs]

The thing that I really loved with [the livestream] we did with Cadenza is that there was some production value. It sounded good, it looked good, you have a couple of different cameras. Because all the Instagram and Facebook live stuff is really pretty spotty for the most part. It’s all pixelated and the audio is terrible. I felt like we gave people more of an experience, which is what our goal was.

I felt like my most successful time [on Instagram Live], I didn’t really play much, I just talked to people, almost like Facetime in Instagram Live. I was just talking to fans, and I would click and check in on people and see how they’re doing for half an hour, or talk to someone for five minutes to say hello, and see someone else’s face. Which seemed like almost a better format, you know? It was kind of cute and funny at the same time.

On The Widow’s Walk is out on April 17th via Spinefarm Records. Pre-orders are available via The White Buffalo site.