This weekend…man I am so super stoked to be experiencing a new festival, this is the twenty fifth year for this wonderful building block of the community, but it’s MY FIRST. You see I work for one hundred seventy five yearly festivals, and sometimes yes they all run together and I can only physically cover so many a year.
Master Musicians Festival we are ALL getting ready to converge upon Somerset Kentucky and quench our thirst for GREAT music from SO MANY genres, DON’T HATE that I deviate from Traditional Country sometimes. I love so many genres and that’s why I choose to specialize in festivals, because I meet SO MANY bands in one area.
So this evening I sat down on the phone with one of the Saturday acts Mr. Coby Langham since I knew of him and I enjoy his music, very little was featured about him. Well now let’s change that and get him out there to YOU my dear readers, so PLEASE greet him out there, buy some stuff to give him gas money. Let’s show this talented young man some LOCAL LOVE HERE!
GHC:
You are one of the ones on a few rosters that doesn’t include as much bio on, so I wanted to get you on here. More than almost any one else because I’m really enjoying your music, and I’m not as familiar with you. I became familiar with you this year through W.B.Walker’s Old Soul Radio Show, whom I hope to get to chat with soon. It’s so damn hard to get each other at once..but that’s a GOOD thing.
So why don’t you tell us all more about ‘Sober Bible”, and what you got going on? Tell us what you are doing lately buddy?
Mr. Coby:
Well, that song is like most of the stuff I write. It comes from personal experience and that’s kind of why I started writing songs, it was just kind of a way for me to deal with things that were going on in my life. I never expected this to go anywhere, or anything like that.
That’s one of the most personal ones that I ever wrote and it’s pretty close to how things were in my personal life for awhile. It’s about stuff that my wife was dealing with at the time, it was really just for my enjoyment and all of a sudden everybody kind of started digging it. I decided to put it out there, and it’s really one of the only songs I actually recorded in the studio. The very first day ever in the studio we got that one down!
GHC:
Who all played on that recording for you?
Mr. Coby:
Linda Jean Stokley from The Local Honeys played fiddle and sang backup vocals on it, and Zane Hilton played guitar on it, and my nephew Tyler Downey was on that as well.
Now, that was at Shangri-La in Lexington Kentucky, and Tom Hnatow produced and engineered that track for me.
GHC:
Now, do you do a lot of touring right now?
Mr. Coby:
I’m not really, you know I’m a working guy and I have kids at home. It is growing however, I mean this year it was kind of a hobby playing around town a little bit. I live in Danville Kentucky, so just these last few months we have been getting out a little farther away.
We have been playing Somerset, I haven’t really done any touring stuff yet but we talked about it. I haven’t had the opportunity to do it with all of my responsibilities or the time really. It’s hard to do that and feed the family when you are just starting out.
GHC:
Well, we’re going to try to help you!
Mr. Coby:
That sounds good to me buddy!
GHC:
How did you get hired to play Master Musicians Festival, let’s talk that?
Mr. Coby:
I got a call from them out of the blue, I’m not really sure. I know a few of the people that are on the board that operate it, and I think some of them came out to hear me play in the past. I knew they liked my material, but I got a call from them and that was the EASIEST YES I ever said, along with opening for Colter Wall.
GHC:
What do plan on bringing us at Master musicians Festival?
Mr. Coby:
We’re going to have a full band, lead guitar, bass and drums. We only got thirty minutes, so we cut out slower stuff and we will rock it out a bit. We will get everybody going and it should be a lot of fun!
GHC:
Will it be all original music, or will there be covers?
Mr. Coby:
Oh no, it’ll be ALL ORIGINAL MUSIC. That’s what we’re trying to do mostly, I mean on some of the longer sets I may have to throw in a few covers. Most of the time we are just doing all original stuff though.
GHC:
I look forward to covering you, I really do. I like your style and your music this spring at the V Club was really enjoyable. It was terrific meeting you!
Mr. Coby
Thank You it was nice to meet you too. We are defiantly a work in progress, and every show gets a little bit better. And feels a little better, and the boys Iv’e got playing with me are phenomenal. I feel really good about the direction we are going in by all means.
GHC:
And who will be playing with you, are they the Citzen’s Band?
Mr. Coby:
Yeah, JJ Waters named them that, it was his idea. Iv’e got Zane Hilton on lead guitars, he is fantastic. Everybody keeps trying to steal him away from me. My friend Jason Sinkhorn he is playing bass. He basically learned to play bass guitar just for me, so he can help me out and I really appreciate that.
We just got a gentleman named Jason Foster to play drums, which has been a little fluid problem for us. But he is going to start playing with us as of the festival here this weekend. He is amazing man, he just jumps right in and plays with everyone. It’s a hot little band right now, It’s nice to have these guys to help me out.
GHC:
What got you started into music?
Mr. Coby:
I learned guitar when I was young, when I was fifteen I took lessons and I was really into the whole grunge thing. I played in some grunge cover bands when I was a kid, and I tried to write a little but back then it wasn’t going well. Now, there was a long time I didn’t pick the guitar up, I just had some babies and just kind of put it off to the side.
Just a few years ago I picked it back up after a really long time and I started back at it.
GHC:
Who influenced you more than anybody? Any genre.
Mr. Coby
Well I always liked the old Country stuff, Dad played it around the house. A lot of Bob Seger, Tina Turner, but what got me really interested into music was my brother in law. He would invite me to his house and say hey you gotta listen to this. He had Jason Isbell on, and he played it for me. I had never heard anything quite like it before, that talked about things the way he did.
He amazed me so much it made me want to start writing again, Kind of sparked me once again. I really like the old Waylon and George Jones, and I have been on a Huge Fred Eaglesmith kick lately.
GHC:
Good deal, well listen it sure was nice talking with you and I hope this turns on more people to your music my friend.
Mr. Coby:
It sure was a pleasure, Gary and we will see you this weekend for the festival!
