“I’ve always told stories,” says alt-country rocker Ron Pope, who is one of the best (and one of our favorite) tale spinners around these days. “I was in a car with my dad and one of his friends, and we were riding back from Yankee Stadium. We were telling a story back and forth about taking a trip together. I was like, ‘Ohhhh this guy!’ and realized my dad is kind of the same way. He can make an uninteresting story interesting in the way he tells it,” he continues. “Also, I’ve always been a little bit full of shit.”
“I was always writing a story or telling a story, some true, some not, I just wanted people to listen to me. If I got a solo in the choir, I would ask if I could stand on the piano to sing it. If they said no, I would do it anyway. Even if I was getting a lot of attention, I needed more,” Pope adds of his rambunctious youth, which may or may not have carried into his adulthood. “As a little kid, I was a barrel of monkeys, I’m sure it was extremely enjoyable to raise me,” he laughs. “To this day, when I get to my mom’s house, I have to go straight to bed with no dinner.”
Pope recently unleashed his critically-lauded new album, Work, which brims with his signature-style stories of love, loss, family, and, as the title indicates, work. A blend of fictional ideas and autobiography, the thread of continuity of the album is the emotional truth each song bears. “I do what feels good to me at the time,” says the fiercely independent Pope of his music. “I let it do what it do.”
Recently, he gave us an exclusive performance of “Someday We’re All Gonna Die,” a track from his album, check it out:
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