MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Michel Martin.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
And I'm Steve Inskeep with the musician Zac Brown. Mr. Brown.
ZAC BROWN: Yes, sir.
INSKEEP: You don't have to call me sir, by the way.
BROWN: It's either sir or ma'am. You got to pick one. I'm from the South.
INSKEEP: (Laughter) Well, sir, then I'm going to call you sir, sir.
BROWN: Sounds great.
INSKEEP: For years now, I've listened to Zac Brown songs that celebrate simple pleasures.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CHICKEN FRIED")
ZAC BROWN BAND: (Singing) You know I like my chicken fried, cold beer on Friday night, a pair of jeans that fit just right and the radio up.
INSKEEP: The Zac Brown Band is known for taking you on vacation while singing in harmony.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TOES")
ZAC BROWN BAND: (Singing) Adios and vaya con Dios.
INSKEEP: Yet I always felt there was more to his getaways - something unsaid, something he was getting away from.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TOES")
ZAC BROWN BAND: (Singing) Life is good today. Life is good today.
INSKEEP: Life is good today. Now Zac Brown says he's found a way to tell the story of a darker time. The Zac Brown Band's new album is called "Love & Fear." Brown says it's inspired by his troubled youth, growing up outside Atlanta, even though the songs are still upbeat.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I AIN'T WORRIED ABOUT IT")
ZAC BROWN BAND: (Singing) Everyone's gunning for that milk and honey, and some folks are so broke. All they got is money. I ain't worried about it. I ain't worried about it.
BROWN: And I haven't really - unless someone knows me very well and is very close to me, I haven't shared a lot of what drove me into music.
INSKEEP: That is the story he now means to tell.
BROWN: So the situation at home - my mom had suffered from some mental illness, and my stepdad had some mental illness. So I grew up in a really crazy environment, you know, in and out of battered women's shelters. And as a kid, trying to make sense of that, trying to protect my mom, trying to figure out what the hell is going on in my house or whatever, that drove me into music. It really became my safe place. And then when I was 7, I started playing guitar. Then that became like my woobie, like my blanket. Wherever I was and I had my guitar, I could be at home. I was - I had a place to belong and be that was safe for me. So I don't say any of that from a victim mindset.
INSKEEP: Yeah.
BROWN: Like, it's a - those are the things that forged me and made me the person that I am. It gave me my resilience. It gave me my resolve. It gave me - the level of empathy that I am able to hold, it can be kind of crippling in a way, but I think it really serves me well as an artist. Those were all gifts, but you don't know them at the time.
INSKEEP: Yeah.
BROWN: At the time, it's just...
INSKEEP: It's just suffering.
BROWN: You're trying to make sense out of something that doesn't make sense.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BUTTERFLY")
ZAC BROWN BAND: (Singing) Innocence doesn't last for long, but whatever don't kill you makes you strong.
INSKEEP: Zac Brown's desire to pull inspiration out of that dark backstory explains the tone of songs like this duet with Dolly Parton.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BUTTERFLY")
ZAC BROWN BAND AND DOLLY PARTON: (Singing) Butterfly, you will see. You're so much stronger than you think you are. You just have to believe. You can fly, mend your wings. Any moment, you can free yourself and fly out of the darkness, butterfly.
BROWN: I'm not a religious person. I'm a very spiritual person. But the faith that I found through all of that has served me well, and it's helped me to do incredible things outside of just things for myself.
INSKEEP: I think I understand, but why don't you describe the difference between being a religious person and a spiritual person - what that means to you?
BROWN: People are very specific. Like, if you don't believe this, you're going to hell. And I don't participate in any of that. I think the further you get from loving each other and, you know, living by example and trying to be a good human being. And when you get away from the governance and the manipulation and then the - you know, the money, you get away from the money side of it and into trying to be your brother's keeper and live by the golden rule and leave things better than you find it - that, to me, is being spiritual, as opposed to being religious.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE SUM")
ZAC BROWN BAND: (Singing) If we try to act like Jesus and end up on the cross, remember we can rise again, no matter what we've lost. You need the dark to see the stars. That's the sum of who we are.
INSKEEP: Are you telling me things you would have had trouble expressing 10 or 20 or 30 years ago?
BROWN: Absolutely. You live and you learn these things, but you're also - in my journey, I've had a lot of miles. I mean, since I was 16 years old and I didn't have - I was on my own. And when I was 17, I started touring. And I started playing in coffeehouses and stuff when I was 14, but I started touring when I was 17 years old.
INSKEEP: He learned a writing style that has remained consistent.
BROWN: It's a slow process to get it to the point where we feel like we've rung out every right harmony, note, where things don't need to be. 'Cause there's nine people in my band. So what you don't play is just as important as what you do.
INSKEEP: There might be a part you wrote or a track you recorded that you just pull out of the song at the end.
BROWN: That happens all the time. So we all play together, and then it's time to subtract. And if it's not adding something, it's taking something away.
INSKEEP: Subtraction explains why some of his songs are just him and a guitar.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHAT YOU GONNA DO")
BROWN: (Singing) What you going to do?
INSKEEP: Other songs build on elaborate harmonies, and that comes from another side of Zac Brown's youth.
BROWN: You know, I grew up as a choir nerd. First grade, I was in choir, singing barbershop a few years after that and then chamber choir in college. So when you can wrap the right story with the right melody with the right harmony, that's how you get that visceral feeling. That's how you get the chill bumps. And as songwriters, we call them money bumps...
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
BROWN: ...When we're writing something and you have something that hits, and it's like, oh, we got them. That's the money bumps coming up. But the goal is to - you know, and I long for that as a fan. I'm a music fan first, and I long to hear things that really move me.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ANIMAL")
ZAC BROWN BAND: (Singing) Fire is my spirit, and the earth, it is my flesh. Water is my blood, and the wind, it is my breath.
INSKEEP: Well, Zac Brown, it's a pleasure talking with you. Thank you so much.
BROWN: You got it. It's a pleasure.
INSKEEP: Rather than subtract, Zac Brown is adding to this new music, recording with an orchestra, choir and video for a residency over the next couple of months in the Sphere, the giant performance space in Las Vegas. The first show is tonight.
(SOUNDBITE OF ZAC BROWN BAND SONG, "ANIMAL") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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