Carson McHone is an alt-country/americana songwriter from Austin, Texas. On Wednesday, February 10th, she is headed to MOTR Pub with Jeremy Pinnell. She has shared the stage with Ryan Bingham, Lydia Loveless, Charlie Mars, David Ramirez, Jerry Jeff Walker, among others, and in May appeared with Shakey Graves during his ACL television taping, following up as direct support for his June 2015 tour. Carson is promoting her newly released full length album Goodluck Man.
We sat down with the songwriter prior to the show!
Give us some background on Carson McHone…
Born and raised in Austin, TX. Grew up taking classical violin lessons, started playing guitar around 15, had always written poetry and prose, started writing and performing my own tunes shortly after taking up guitar.
When did you decide to make music your career?
Towards the end of high school and up until I left Austin for Conway, AR to study English at Hendrix College, I played gigs around town, mostly happy hour shows, my first regular gig was at The Hole in The Wall, every now and then I'd have a lead player accompany me. I spent a semester and a half in college then dropped out and moved back home. Took me about a year to figure stuff out, but I came home to play music for real and soon I had a band together and I've been writing and playing ever since.
What inspires your songwriting?
My songs tend to be pretty personal, I write about things that happen to me, things I see. Sometimes I'll write songs more as an exercise than a way of reflecting or therapy, like I'll sit down to write a certain type of song, but usually they're written as a process of figuring out how I feel, and an attempt to communicate that feeling becomes the structure and delivery of that song.
What can one expect at a live Carson McHone show?
I have a band, I like to do the rowdy stuff, get a little honky tonk, but I like to do the darker, quieter songwriter thing too, more stripped down, all in one show, change the dynamics up a lot.
What is next for Carson McHone?
I'm writing quite a bit, got a new record in the works, I plan on being on the road most of this year as well.
