Q&A: Old Dominion’s Matthew Ramsey On New Music, Hawaiian Food And Meeting Bruce Springsteen

For country superstars Old Dominion, the COVID pandemic afforded them an opportunity to go deeper with their songwriting and connection as a band. As Matthew Ramsey explained to me over Zoom when I talked to him a few days after the CMA Awards, the group gathered together at a house in Asheville, North Carolina to make their new album.

The result is Time, Tequila And Therapy, a stellar collection with equal doses of all three according to Ramsey. Asheville was definitely the right place for the Nashville group. Just look at how they ended up working with legendary vocalist Gladys Knight, who happened to live down the street from the studio where they were recording.

I spoke with Ramsey about the new album, how Hawaiian food helped fuel the record, developing their camaraderie as a band, working with Knight, meeting Bruce Springsteen and more.  

Steve Baltin: Are you guys playing Palm Springs this weekend?

Matthew Ramsey: Yeah, we have a show tonight and tomorrow night here. It’s like back to normal for us. We’re hitting it hard for sure.

Baltin: How did CMAs feel the other night?  Did you find that you did really miss it? And if so, how much fun has it been to be back out there doing all this stuff?

Ramsey: Yeah, we absolutely missed it. I think when it first happened we were sort of looking forward to a little break, already. We were sort of looking for a lighter year anyway. And we kind of were at a point where we needed to take a breath. But then we literally only thought it was going to be a couple of weeks, just like everybody else. So once it started to turn into this big question mark, then we started to get a little uncomfortable and we really missed it. Our whole career is really built on two things — songwriting and touring. And you take that touring away and the ability to sit face to face in a room with another person and write a song, we were really left with nothing. So it’s been really great to be back. And to step on that stage at the award show and see everyone there in one room and have a taste of normalcy. It was very familiar and very fulfilling.

Baltin: Was this a COVID album or a pre-COVID album?

Ramsey: This was a COVID album. We had all this time and then we had all this time away from each other. So we had always dreamed of being able to go into the studio, kind of like the bands that we idolized and just spend all day or all night or whatever for however long to just make something in the moment rather than pre-write all the songs and then book two days of sessions and cut them as fast as we could. We wanted to go see what we could create from scratch. We had all this time. So we went to Asheville, North Carolina, and spent three weeks in the studio writing and recording everything in the moment right there.

Baltin: So when you go back and listen to Time, Tequila & Therapy which of the three would you say was the driving factor of this record?

Ramsey: They were all equally prevalent, for sure. There was a lot of time spent together and apart. There was a lot of tequila flowing and music is therapy and actual therapy was happening at the time. So, and still is.

Baltin: I also am a big believer in how environment affects writing. So talk about being in Asheville and how that influenced the writing of this album.

Ramsey: It was definitely picked because it was not home. We definitely wanted to get away from Nashville and away from our everyday responsibilities and distractions, so that we could just sort of immerse ourselves in that creative process. And Asheville, North Carolina, is sort of this creative sort of epicenter. There’s a lot of great creative energy there and this beautiful studio that allowed us to just kind of go be there in the moment all the time. And they had a great little house for us to live in and so it was easy enough to get away from Nashville, get back if there was some sort of emergency, but far enough away that we could really just be there and live and breathe the music the entire time.

Baltin: What was the food that went with the tequila? What was the Asheville culinary that propelled the album?

Ramsey: Well, that’s actually funny. The food did propel the album, and in some cases, in a major way. We have a member of our crew. Her name is Kelsey Maynard. She is assistant tour manager. And through the quarantine, she learned to cook and she came along with us and she cooked big family meals every day for us to eat together as a band and as a crew, we would all get together and eat. One day we walked in to the studio in the morning, and she was making a Hawaiian themed dinner. It got us talking about our time in Hawaii and how much fun we had there and how we should just go back to Hawaii and we wound up writing a song called “Hawaii” that day because she was cooking this Hawaiian food and it made it onto the album.

Baltin: What was the Hawaiian food? What was the center piece?

Ramsey: There was a lot of pineapple and coconut. I remember this really good coconut rice that was like I was obsessed with. And there was also a coffee mug that said Hawaii on it that was there. But, she just knocked it out of the park, obviously.

Baltin: By the way, Carlos Santana, Willie Nelson, Steven Tyler, a lot of people have homes in Hawaii, If you were to record there and if so, who would be the dream artist who lives in Hawaii to do a duet with?

Ramsey: Oh man, you just named some good ones. I think it’d be pretty great to go hanging out with Steven Tyler and make an album. [laughter]

Baltin: You’ve worked with one of the all-time greats on this record. When you listen to Gladys Knight sing, I don’t care if it’s 1978 or 2021 man, that is chills. How’d that come about?

Ramsey: Man, that was just a serendipitous moment, fell in our lap, really. We had written this song and we’d cut it, we called it “Lonely Side Of Town.” And I was sitting there in the control room listening back to it and thought like, “Wow, this has this kind of great groove and would be really cool if we had somebody like Gladys Knight on it.” And we didn’t realize at the time that she lived in Asheville, North Carolina. So someone said, “She lives right down the road.” We went like, “No way.” And so we asked the studio manager if she knew her and she said, “Yeah, I’m great friends with Gladys and her husband. I can give her a call if you’d like.” We said, “Please do.” And she answered and said, “Yeah, I would love to be a part of it.” So it was amazing to work with such a legend like that. We booked a separate time to come back to Ashville in December. So, we recorded in September, October and then came back to Ashville in December to work with her in her part.

Baltin: When you’re watching Gladys Knight, the person who sang, ” Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me” and “Midnight Train to Georgia,” sing one of your songs, is that just one of those moments that as a kid, you can never in a billion years dream off?

Ramsey: Never. I was sitting there with Shane McAnally and I was sitting there with just tears in our eyes because as a songwriter, first off, it’s an honor to get anyone to sing your words. And then you have a legend sitting there in the studio and she’s doing what she does with the song that you created. It’s hard to even wrap your head around it and we just let her keep going. We just watched in awe, we gave her a zero direction, of course, she’s Gladys Knight. What do you do? You just let her do her thing and watch and learn and that’s what we did.

Baltin: When you go back and listen to this record, are there things that emerged in the writing that surprised you?

Ramsey: Yeah, absolutely. I think not just the more time (to write) but I think the location played into it too. Because there are songs that we wrote out there that we would have never written if we were in Nashville, I don’t think. If we would have had a booked writing appointment from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM and we had that time period to write our hit song, we would have never written a song like “Something’s The Same About You.” And if we did, it would have never made the album because it just sounds kind of out there and trippy and artsy and not necessarily a cookie cutter radio song. But the location that we were in and the time that we had and the pressure that we took off of ourselves, we just explored things. And it was a really, really creative and magical time.

Baltin: Does this now carry forward for Old Dominion recording in different ways? And if so, where’s the next location to record, besides Hawaii?

Ramsey: Yeah, Hawaii is definitely on the list but I think it will be a hybrid. I think it’s now a part of our repertoire. I think we could probably do this now that we know what we are capable of, I think we could probably bring that back to Nashville and do it. And we have now opened that door for ourselves and yes, I think we would go and record to some other places. We were looking at a studio in Joshua Tree or some places like that at some point. Or Key West there’s a little studio down there that we love. I think destination recording is definitely in our future but I think just the way we all made that album together, writing it from the ground up is something that will bleed into our process. And also the other ways we’ve made records will probably be mixed in the pot.

Baltin: As a band, do you feel like you guys got closer from being in one house?

Ramsey: At first, no. But this album definitely created that for us. We always say the first few months of quarantine was really hard on us because it was like suddenly we found ourselves doing all of the not fun parts of being in a band. We still had all the business and decision-making. But it had to be done over Zoom or text message or a phone call. We weren’t on the tour bus together, drinking coffee, laughing our way through these things, and we didn’t have the pay off of playing the show and getting that release. So it just became very tense for a while there, and we weren’t together being creative. So once we got back into the studio, it brought us much closer together in that moment, and to finish out the rest of quarantine.

Baltin: Have there been new songs you played live that the audience response has surprised you?

Ramsey: I mentioned that song earlier, “Something’s The Same About You.” We haven’t played that live yet, but we better because that’s one that’s getting a lot of traction as far as streaming goes, so we’re gonna start playing that soon. And then other songs like a song called “Don’t Forget Me,” which is getting a big reaction when we played it live.  We thought that would just kind of be one, people go get a beer, but it seems like they’re sticking around for it.

Baltin: One of the ones I really love is “Walking On Whiskey.” Do you find as an artist, when you put yourself out there more that the audience does respond to it more?

Ramsey: Absolutely, I think we had to learn that throughout the course of this band, to not be so guarded. And that’s the way you’re gonna connect with people, is the more you open yourself up emotionally and lyrically and musically, people are gonna respond to it. And our fans have been so gracious throughout our career that they’ve sort of come to expect that whatever the next song is gonna be is not gonna sound like the previous song, so we can sort of constantly push what it means to be Old Dominion.

Baltin: So when you think of those songs growing up that you would notice their vulnerability who influenced you?

Ramsey: The one that really comes to mind is the box set, Live 1975 – ’85, from Bruce Springsteen, where you really get a lot of the storytelling, and he talks about his father and he really starts telling that narrative that’s so personal. He’s playing in front of a football stadium, but he’s really breaking it down, to this very personal moment and talking about his journey. And that really touched me as a kid, and I think about it all the time, and I think that’s probably one that played a huge role.

Baltin: If there’s one Springsteen song, you wish you could have written what is it and why?

Ramsey: It is so hard to pick one of those. I guess the one that’s coming to my mind is “Badlands.” That’s got that fire and there’s so much angst to get out, but also this sort of joyous feel at the same time, which is always attractive to me — the rub of the happy, sad. And I don’t think that one is probably in there. I just got to meet him, by the way, so that was a huge moment. I went to his Broadway show and got to meet him there.

Baltin: As an artist everyone gets more confident and more comfortable opening up as they get older. So are there those moments now on this album that you could not have said before?

Ramsey: Yeah, I think even the fact that we’re mentioning therapy, is a pretty big change, at least in the country music culture. So I think something like “No Hard Feelings,” where we got the album title from. The first line of the song is “I took time, tequila and therapy.” And those were all true in my life and I don’t feel weird about talking about it. So I think that’s probably one where you just talk about the process of being angry at yourself and the world and pushing through whatever it is, until you can get to a point of grace. So I think that one was probably pretty vulnerable.