Rising Appalachia

The views and opinions expressed by speakers and presenters in connection with Art Restart are their own, and not an endorsement by the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts and the UNC School of the Arts. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

In February of 2024, after a year of touring the country, the musical group Rising Appalachia, an ensemble that marries American folk music with a wide array of world influences, made an announcement that might have been surprising only to those who don't know them well. Sisters Leah Song and Chloe Smith, who created Rising Appalachia over 15 years ago, had decided to take a sabbatical year, though they would honor the concerts already on the books in 2024.

Longtime Rising Appalachia fans have been supportive because they know this is a band that has never taken shortcuts in how they manage their artistry and their lives. Since early on in their careers, Leah and Chloe have been advocates for and practitioners of the slow music movement, an ethos of touring and music-making that places sustainability, local engagement and creative control at the heart of their business. The current sabbatical is the latest tool in their slow music toolbox.

Yet though last year's tour was hugely successful and they're about to release an album titled “Folk and Anchor,” Chloe and Leah's decision was undeniably gutsy and far from conventional in the music industry. In this interview, the sisters, speaking from their respective homes in the North Carolina mountains, discuss why this was the right time for a yearlong break, how they prepared for it and the ways in which they and their bandmates keep the slow music ethos at the heart of their artistic practice.

Choose a question below to begin exploring the interview:

• You've announced that you're taking a break. Could you talk about how you arrived at this decision, and why at this point it was crucial for you to take this break?
• How long did you have to prepare to take this year of pause? How did you prepare your band and your support team?
• You decided early on to be more financially independent than most other music acts. How did you know early in your career that that's what you wanted?
• Because you're obviously so close, how did you negotiate when there were disagreements about how you were going to move forward?
• I want to talk about the slow music movement, which you guys were talking about long before this pause. What did you want to change then, and what have you learned since that time?
• Have you encountered resistance to this method of working of yours from any entities in the music industry?
• I want to talk about sustainability as a mother in this industry. How are you planning for your future with the band with a growing child?
• What advice would you have for an up-and-coming musician who might hear this and really love the idea of the slow music movement or taking her career as gingerly and with as much care as you have but might also be really anxious about being a newbie in the industry and stepping on people's toes? 
• In this sabbatical year, what are you most looking forward to creating? Do you have a sense of what's bubbling there under the surface?

Pier Carlo Talenti: I am speaking to you just after you finished touring and you've announced that you're taking a break. Could you talk about how you arrived at this decision, and why at this point it was crucial for you to take this break?

Leah Song: I'll ring in. Chloe will let you know that she's been on a different kind of break over there as a new mother.

As an ensemble, we've been touring for nearly 15 years. Chloe and I started the project real grassroots, and it picked up momentum quite quickly. We’ve toured as a duo, as a three-piece, as a five-piece and in  this last year when we have had Chloe and the baby with us, upwards of nine or 10 members, including the crew. It's been just wonderful, a wonderful, wonderful way to make a living, an incredible way to be in and amongst the people, and also entirely utterly exhausting in ways that I think are hard to explain unless you've worked on the road.

I think the decision came mostly because we've always really believed in the long haul and we want to be able to make art that feels relevant and that feels important and meaningful to us. We want to have time to listen to the world around us, the people and the non-people, the plants and the elements and the muses. The only way to do that really felt like we needed to really pull back a little bit and give ourselves some breathing room to get our houses in order, our metaphorical houses in order, and then to really lean into our own creativity so that we can do well by this work. 

I think the music industry, as beautiful as it is in some ways, can be quite extractive. We have the good fortune of having a career that continues to ask us out into the world, but learning how and when to say no has been tremendously important and very tricky and vulnerable. I think we're excited and nervous and everything in between.

Pier Carlo: Right, because artists are always taught to say yes, yes, yes, and to take whatever work comes their way. 

Leah: Hm-hm!

Pier Carlo: Chloe, you're a new parent. Congratulations.

Chloe Smith: Thank you.

Pier Carlo: I think I know why this break was crucial for you, but this past year, you took your child on the road with you, right?

Chloe: Yes, I’m a new mother. My son just turned a year old out at one of our concerts in Colorado. As any new parent knows, it is quite a lot to juggle work and the transition of becoming a parent, especially for the first year. My band has been really rad and helpful and easeful in letting me come back on the road slowly and at my own pace. Honestly, before I had a child, I was like, “I'm going to be one of those touring artists that just straps my baby to my back and goes everywhere.” [She laughs.] Then reality is different than what you think before you experience something, so, lo and behold, I haven't really felt like strapping him to my back and doing every show. I have felt like doing some shows, and that's just fine. The middle road is a little bit more of where I've been at. 

I've had a different kind of a year being at home and watching the band tour. We had a really amazing woman fill in for me, and it's almost been seeing a different baby of mine out in the world. It's been a very somatic, spiritual thing in a different way of like, “Oh, look, this project that I made is living out in the world, and I'm at home with my other baby.”

Pier Carlo: Did it feel strange? Because in a way it was like that baby was off to college already.

Chloe: Yeah, exactly. It's like my rowdy teenager is doing fine in the world. And the fans have been so supportive. It's been a really beautiful year. and it's been peaceful and restful.

Pier Carlo: I do want to circle back later about being a parent in the music industry, but now I want to talk about money. Of course, touring is crucial to your financial bottom line. How long did you have to prepare to take this year of pause? Also, as you mentioned, you toured with 10 musicians. How did you prepare your band and your support team?

Leah: Great question. It was something that we've been thinking about for a little while, and actually I think we have held the most concern about making sure our team is OK. Rising Appalachia has as an entity been very independently funded. Chloe and I have worked very hard to be able to finance a lot of our own recording processes, and we haven't depended a lot on labels or industry finances. We've been independent in that way, so we knew that we have had a little bit of a foundation that we can still lean into. We are planning on doing a pretty healthy amount of recording this year. It's a sabbatical from the road but not necessarily a sabbatical from some of our creative work.

Then it's been really exciting and inspiring again to see what will happen with our bandmates as they lean into a little more space and a little more creativity. Our drummer is working on the production of an amazing second-year festival in the land that he was born and raised in in Tennessee called “Sanctuary Summit.” Our cello-and-fiddle player is working on the release of a new project that is the early recording years of his work. He's been touring. He's been on the road since he was 14 years old. He's toured more than every one of us, and this is his first album that he's putting out. Our guitar player is the same, these budding recording projects that no one has really had time to tend to because we've been on the road full-time. You can really keep an eye out: Biko Casini, Duncan Wickel, and David Brown, all three of the band members have some really cool stuff in the books. 

I think that also, like Chloe said, it feels like leaning back and watching the creative family grow. That doesn’t mean it won't be a lean year. I think it will be a lean year for all of us, but I also think that that's where a lot of ingenuity can come in. I'm really looking forward to seeing how we all support each other and what kind of things we're able to create from a quieter place.

Pier Carlo: I'd love to hear more about what you were saying, namely that you decided early on to be more financially independent than most other music acts. Could you talk more about that? How did you know early in your career that that's what you wanted?

Chloe: We were raised by a frugal family. Our grandmother didn't raise us, but she definitely instilled a lot of frugalness into us, and our parents raised us in a very frugal way, so I think Leah and I entered our art-making early years with that mindset. When we came across some opportunities in the music industry, we were offered some record labels and different opportunities where people were going to give us a chunk of money in order to record for them and with them but then we wouldn't own the material. I honestly think it was a matter of upbringing but also instinct. Our instinct in those early moments told us maybe you should own what you're doing and maybe you should do it on a shoestring budget and learn the ropes.

We certainly had elders and different people encouraging us along the way. I wouldn't say we had any professional musicians coaching us, but we had enough mentor-type people who had built their own artist careers up from the ground just telling us that grassroots is an interesting route. It's not the only route, but it's an interesting route.

I think because of all that, we had a little bit of a distaste in our mouth for just signing our rights away and signing papers when we didn't really even know what that meant, which I think happens to a lot of younger artists. It can be a bit of a predator-prey thing, where you don't really know in your early 20s or however old you are the whole rigmarole of the music industry. 

It's not all bad. There's certainly great parts of it, but I think a lot of artists have learned the hard way that to own the rights to your music is a huge important factor in making a living and making a name for yourself.

Pier Carlo: You worked your ass off from the very beginning. 

Leah: [Laughing] We worked our ass off!

Pier Carlo: So it's amazing that you didn't just immediately sign the first contract that promised you a chunk of money and a certain modicum of, let's say, fame. 

Leah: I would add in there too, on top of owning the rights, there was this other piece that was so important to Chloe and I when we started, and that was not even that we owned the rights to the music, because at that point, we didn't necessarily even know that we were going to be walking down a long career. I would say even more importantly, we wanted to be in charge of the creativity. What we realized is that nothing is given for free. There would be expectations or requests about how we were presenting the music. We really have, from day one, had our own priorities and concepts and relationship with our art that isn't necessarily the most industry-friendly or even necessarily the easiest to promote, but we've always wanted to do it our way.

Pier Carlo: Right, because you certainly cross genres. If there were still record stores, it'd be hard to know where to place you, for instance.

Chloe: Yeah.

Leah: Yup, and that's been both a thorn in the side of us building a career and also a wonderful, wonderful part of our creativity that I don't think we would trade for anything.

Pier Carlo: Because you're obviously so close and know each other more than probably anyone other than your parents possibly, how did you negotiate when there were disagreements about how you were going to move forward?

Chloe: We arm-wrestle.

Leah: Yeah, thumb-wrestle.

Chloe: Yeah.

Leah: We have not had a lot. I mean, I know that's not an entirely fair statement, but we have to sit and navigate things. We did go to a couples therapist as sisters and co-owners of a business. There's been a few things.

Chloe: We have a very democratic band, so Leah and I make a lot of the decisions but oftentimes if we're at a standstill, we'll ask everyone's input and have majority-rule type thing. There's a lot of different ways where if something's stuck, we'll reach out obviously to the people involved, which are our band members. Or if it's something deeper or different, we'll ask someone's advice from someone who we love or trust.

But mostly, like Leah said, there aren't a ton of disagreements, especially now that Rising Appalachia is rolling and has its personality. In the beginning when it was formulating, I think there were some harder decisions to make in some ways. Now it's this beautiful, 15-legged winged beast [they both laugh] that has its personality in the world. We're doing our best to wrangle it and feed it well. It has its life, so in a way the decisions aren't as difficult these days.

Leah: I love the way you said that: the 15-winged beast. 

The last thing I would say is no one in our whole camp is driven by fame, not a single part of our team. I think that's helped us make decisions in a way that feels integral to our — faith might be too weighted of a word — to our ethics in a way and to our sanity. Fame was never the driver, and it's never been a driver for any of our long-term goals. Good, clear, thoughtful creativity and art that feels well-resourced and storytelling and mythology and our interpersonal relationships with one another, these have all been much more of the drivers of any of our decisions than fame.

I think fame is a very serious monster, and it comes with incredible tangles of power and probably myriads of other things. It's not really a pat on our back as much as it just is that we've built a really special team and our agenda is not fame. If it were fame, I think that there would be some more fighting. There'd be some more disagreements, but it's not. It's like, “What will actually steer this in a way that works well for everyone?”

Pier Carlo: I want to talk about the slow music movement, which you guys were talking about long before this pause. What was your idea for it then? Leah, I think I saw you speak about it in a 2015 TEDx video, which was already a few years into your existence as a group. What did you want to change then, and what have you learned since that time?

Leah: Great, great question. I mean, that TEDx was probably one of the most nervous public-speaking engagements of my whole life.

Pier Carlo: That doesn't come across, you'll be happy to know.

Leah: To try and get our ideology and our musical concept put into a 10-minute talk was really quite a feat. Musically, I think we understand how to hold that space, but in more of an academic realm, it was like, “Well, how do we talk about this concept in a way that fits a TEDx stage?” So that was a wonderful pressure cooker for me and made me and Chloe really sit and get very clear about what exactly our tour policies and ideas and inspirations were. 

The slow music movement was really born out of that. We used to call it sustainable touring, or there were a lot of grassroots and underground music. There were a lot of ways that we titled it, and then we realized actually the concepts are really simple.

We want to work regionally. We want to go and be in a region and then stay in that region for a series of shows, which believe it or not in and of itself is a bit of an upriver conversation. Many, many, many musicians' tour schedules look like a giant Celtic knot all across the world, zigzagging everywhere on planes in time zones. We really said, “We'll go to this region, and then we want a tour that's all within a few hours of our first stop.” That was the first thing was to do more regional touring.

Pier Carlo: That was not just to travel less but also because of a genuine interest in each region. Is that right?

Leah: Even broader than that, to travel less, to have an interest in regions, to actually be able to acclimate to a climate, to have a relationship with the flora and the fauna, to see if we could eat locally. Therefore, if we're performing each night, we're also actually ingesting foods that come from that region. Therefore, it's this symbiotic relationship. I mean, at its very finest, at its best, most realized form, it is that kind of an exchange. 

In its simplest form, it was exactly what you said, just that we are not contributing to any more of the extreme amounts of resources used to jet-set. That was one piece of it. We used to tour in a biodiesel bus. It was a wonderful, radical several years of our lives. We would literally siphon veggie-oil fuel from the back of McDonald's.

Pier Carlo: Oh, so your bus would smell like French fries?

Leah: Oh, yeah. It was an old school bus, and we packed it with gear and musicians. It died many, many times, but it made it all the way around the country, some 10,000 miles or so in veggie oil. That was in our early days, and it was wonderful. We have participated in Permaculture Action Days, which is also a really big part of the slow music movement. 

Again, these are all realized in different arcs of our journey. Sometimes we're able to focus more on each tier of this, and sometimes we're able to focus a little bit less. The Permaculture Action Days are when local organizations gather and use all of the momentum of the concert to then have a volunteer day that often turns parking lots or abandoned yards or sides of barns near the concert into functional up-and-starting community gardens.

Pier Carlo: Oh, do you invite your fans to come volunteer?

Leah: Yeah, the fans will come volunteer. We will announce it the day before. It's an amazing project. It takes a bunch of hands on deck and an incredible organization called the Permaculture Action Network and then local organizations in each town, but then the fans come. They have all the buzz of the concert the night before, and then they just come and gather the next day and put all of that energy literally into tilling the soil. That's been a really, really wonderful factor of it. 

I would say in a more metaphorical spiritual way, it's also part of what we're doing this year. Part of it is also just we want to go at a pace that feels sustainable to us, and we're going to continue to try and meet that crossroads at each leg of our journey as artists so that we can create art that feels authentic. Sometimes that means slower. In fact, often it means slower.

Pier Carlo: Have you encountered resistance to this method of working of yours from any entities in the music industry?

Leah: I would say yes. Not necessarily resistance, but capitalism is a strong muscle. The conversations are often like, “But what about this contract?” or “Why would you not want to take that Saturday night show, even though it's 10 hours in the opposite direction?” or “Sorry, but we can't provide local food for you. We'd rather just swing by the near... .” 

I think sustainability and slowness are inconvenient, and I don't judge anyone for that. Many of us are just trying to get one foot in front of the next, but in order to do things a little differently, often you make sacrifices. Some of those are financial. Some of those are in your time. Some things take a little bit longer. They take more conversations. We have to have more in-depth conversations with a lot of our team to just make sense out of some decisions that maybe aren't the first most obvious ripe fruit to pick. 

So, resistance, yes. No one has ever just been coldly disinterested, but it has often taken just that little bit more time to explain a bit more in the email or to really check and see if there aren't some options in the venue for a more sustainable conversation. Every single gig has a little bit of a different personality, but I think it's worth it even in its bumps.

Pier Carlo: Chloe, I want to talk about sustainability as a mother in this industry. Clearly, it's easier to tour with a young child, but eventually, your son will run around and then go to school. How are you planning for your future with the band with a growing child? 

Chloe: Great question. I can't say that I am planning. I'm in the moment. It's just how I am. I can't fully project my five-year plan. Honestly, Rising Appalachia has never really operated that way. We're very six-month, year-out type people. We obviously are taking the sabbatical year. I am doing my due diligence to talk to other mothers who are touring and who are artists and who are friends of mine and who are on the road.

Pier Carlo: Well, that was my next question. Is there a critical mass of mothers, and are they having an impact on the way the music industry is working?

Chloe: I hope so, and I would like to see that. I really was hoping, even during the COVID lockdowns, that the music industry would reinvent itself. I know in some ways it did, but it almost seemed like once people could just get back out on the road, everyone just got back out on the road. Similarly, I think it's like, “OK, well, maybe we'll give you this little break, but then just get back on the road.” I'm putting my ear out now of like, “Well, what are other mothers doing? How are people doing it?” I can't say there's some consensus or big movement that I'm seeing yet, but I do think there's an underground ... I call it the underground mafia of mothers that just reach out and support each other along the way.

It's definitely more grassroots. It's like, “Do you need someone to come watch your child at the show? If this is your first time touring, I've toured before, and I can give you some tips. Here's some flight tips.” Things like that that have helped me already on my journey. I'm actually seeing the industry work towards mental-health initiatives right now, which is awesome. There's obviously addiction initiatives and different things like that. I would welcome and I'm open to seeing that initiative for mothers of, “OK, well, there's so many women in the industry who are mothers or who want to become mothers. How can we help pave the path for that to be a successful route?”

Not everyone is, like Rising Appalachia, with a sister and a doppelganger fill-in who looks like me. It's like if you're the frontline singer, you can't really just put a fill-in. Leah and I are interchangeable in this way where I almost have felt like if there's one of us, it's basically Rising Appalachia. I mean, obviously, it should be two of us, but during COVID, Leah was out of the country, and I did stuff without her. It was like one of us needs to be there, but yeah, we'll see. I'm not sure what the next five years will be.

Pier Carlo: I mean, in my crazy mind, I'm thinking, “Might venues someday offer childcare?”

Chloe: Yeah, totally.

Pier Carlo: Do you know what I'm saying?

Chloe: Yeah, things like that. Honestly, I think it's harkening back to the slow music movement. I think maybe in this sabbatical year Leah and I can work on the slow music movement and broaden it so other people could jump on. I would see it more as what she was saying, which is not moving every single day to a different town, because it's just exhausting. I have done it with my son, and it was pretty unsustainable. This might be a good opportunity for us to dive back into the slow music movement and when we're not touring and I'm a mother and be like, “OK, how can this broaden out to incorporate families and people who tour with little ones?” That's all in the same conversation.

Pier Carlo: What advice would you have for an up-and-coming musician who might hear this and really love the idea of the slow music movement or taking her career as gingerly and with as much care as you have but might also be really anxious about being a newbie in the industry and stepping on people's toes? What would you tell her? Where would she find her allies other than you?

Chloe: Leah and I started our career busking and playing in small salon-type things in New Orleans and also at different events in Atlanta. I think what we learned through that, which I know is very different with social media and all the stuff that takes a lot of people's attention now, is the real-time, real-world practice years where you can really be honing your craft and making some money and making a name for yourself.

I wouldn't overlook the localized start of, “What is going on in your town or your city?” Could you start something, if there isn't something going on, to hone your skills of singing and performing in front of people, which is really what we're doing?

Pier Carlo: How long did it take both of you to feel like you really had —

Chloe: Honed that?

Pier Carlo: Yes.

Chloe: It took me forever because I had stage fright and it wasn't natural for me to be a performer. I'm an introverted person and I'm shy. I mean, we were performing in front of pretty large crowds for, I'd say, the first upwards of five years, and I was pretty uncomfortable. It was a big learning curve for me to finally get comfortable. For a while, I was thinking, “Is this something I should do?” because I felt so uncomfortable on stage, but I also loved it and simultaneously knew that Leah and I had a spark and I could tell that we had something to share. I just wanted to push through that. 

But there were some uncomfortable years. And there's the piece of wisdom and advice. There's going to be some uncomfortable years. Whether it's because you're not making money or you're uncomfortable onstage or you have to tour and play in venues where only 10 people show up, that's part of it. Knowing that on the front end and being willing to dive in anyway is big part.

Pier Carlo: And keep honing your craft.

Chloe: Yeah, exactly.

Pier Carlo: Leah, do you have anything to add to that advice?

Leah: My thoughts for young artists, it's always been probably an interesting response, but almost all of our family — our mother, our father, both of our godparents and a tremendous amount of our influences and our elders — are all amazing musicians and artists, and they all do it as a hobby and as a passion. I'll speak about our father in particular. There were years where perhaps he would've liked a little bit of commercial success and commercial success didn't come to him. I think that there's nothing wrong with that at all. 

I think it's equally valuable to have a job in your life that is perhaps how you make your living and to have your art and your passion be what you pour yourself into on your off time. That's not the piece that I feel like we're ever told. We're told either you put everything into it and you focus and you make it or you don't, or there's no other way to be an artist. I actually think there's thousands of ways to be an artist. I think it's equally wonderful for your artistry to be your salvation and your passion and the thing that you get to do that you don't have to make a living out of. That might be just as much of a resource to you and your family and your community as being a full-time artist. I think there is a very, very powerful path in finding what works for you. 

Chloe said we don't plan more than six months to a year in advance. That's true, but it's also a choice. We like to be responsive, and it's been very interesting to allow the invitations to come. That's so different than being a hunter or saying, “I'm going to go for the top. Until I get there, I'm just going to focus on the top.” I always encourage young artists to find what the path is, how it starts to open itself naturally, and to really pay attention to that and to totally treasure what that is. If it means that you are running a community folk choir in your neighborhood or if you're a muralist or if you hit it big and become a touring author with a best-selling book of poetry, those are all wonderful. In terms of finding your own footsteps in artistry, to me the biggest gift is just the art itself and figuring out how that gets to be the priority and not the outcome.

Pier Carlo: In this sabbatical year, what are you most looking forward to creating? Do you have a sense of what's bubbling there under the surface?

Chloe: Yeah, we have tons of music. Back to the music. It's like sometimes we have to be reminded these days that it's about the music; it's not about all the other stuff. So this year is digging into tons of songs. Leah and I have been writing for the past four years and really haven't dug deeply into polishing them up and getting them out into the world. So this is the year for studio, for writing retreats, for honing our skills as instrumentalists, practice woodshedding and focusing on the music, which feels really exciting.