Best of What's Next: Cary Ann Hearst

Photo by Mike Ledford

Cary Ann Hearst is a force to be reckoned with. You know this from the beginning of “The Hardest Thing,” from her March-released EP, Are You Ready to Die. Her twang-tinged voice overlaps acoustic guitar strums and steel guitar melodies as she bluntly inquires, “How much fight have you got in you? / How much shit are you willing to wade through?” and thus the ode to the tired, overworked and heavy-hearted begins. Hearst was born and bred in Nashville, but now lives on John’s Island, S.C.—just south of Charleston—with her husband and musical partner Michael Trent, their dog Townes, and about a dozen hens, a rooster and a duck. Trent and Hearst accompany each other on nearly all of their own tours and in 2008 released the foot-stomping Shovels & Rope LP as a duo via their own Shrimp Records label. Just after her solo track “Hell’s Bells” appeared in a recent episode of HBO’s True Blood, Paste chatted with Hearst about Charleston’s signature oyster shots, breaking up bar fights and the give and take of co-owning a record label with friends.

Paste: How is your solo work different from what you’ve done with your husband? 

Cary Ann Hearst: It’s weird because it’s really not that different and it sort of all blends together. With solo stuff there’s never anybody to sing with, which is never as much fun. On the other hand, it’s a really good litmus test for whether a song is good or not, which is scary and awesome. … I haven’t made a solo acoustic record and I’ve always been scared to do that because I’m always afraid that somebody might think it’s boring solo. You know, just a songwriter—a person with a guitar—can be the most beautiful thing but it can also be boring. So I’ve never recorded anything like that. I’ve always had a band or one or two more people playing, but with Michael it can be a little bit more rock sounding because he’s got more of a rock sensibility.

Paste: You guys both co-own Shrimp Records with some other people, right? 

Hearst: Yeah. We made it up. (Laughs)

Paste: That’s the way to do it.

Hearst: We got together, you know—we’re kind of cliquey, our gang—not in a bad way. We just happen to be a group of people that spend time together—in particular, eating together like a family or working on projects. We always end up playing music together so we decided to call it something so that it would feel organized and we could work under the umbrella of that—call it a unifying force and give it a name. Hopefully it will be more than that someday, but right now that’s what it is—it’s a clubhouse.

Paste: So the other members are musicians you met once you got to Charleston?

Hearst: It all happened real organically over a slow period of time—over the last 12 years as I’ve been here. I think I met Bill Carson really early on in a coffee shop. I saw him on his bicycle. And I had met Sadler Vaden when he was 18, which wasn’t a terribly long time ago because Sadler’s a young one. Joel’s also young and I remember being jealous of his career early on (laughs) because he’s in The Working Title and they got some great opportunities. I remember being like, “Those young whippersnappers and their opportunities! Us old timers, we’re in our late 20’s for God’s sake!” (Laughs)

Paste: So you guys had already established yourselves as musicians independently and then just came together to create the record company?

Hearst: Over time we just kind of used each other on different projects and comped each other’s resources and tried to barter as much as we could to afford the technology and innovation we couldn’t afford to pay for. Over the years it got to the point where it had to be given a name because it would feel too much like a clique in a bad way if it didn’t become an organization and we didn’t call it something. (Laughs)

Paste: What made you decide to call it Shrimp Records?

Hearst: That was Michael’s idea, for a few reasons. Michael and I are physically small—we’re like short, compact people. But I feel like between us we pack a lot of heat in small packages and we’re also like the little guys—the little shrimpy, wimpy record company that could. We also live in this estuary and shrimp is big in Charleston. And we’re local.

Paste: Have you put all of your records out through Shrimp?

Hearst: So far. The cool thing about Shrimp is … I don’t feel like I’m shopping a record around. If I get a great record deal, awesome, but I’m gonna stipulate that they do a co-release and put that Shrimp Records icon right next to whoever should ever put our record out. Quite frankly, we have done all the work and we deserve the recognition.

Paste: Wasn’t your song “Hell’s Bells” featured on True Blood recently?

Hearst: Yeah, it’s pretty dope. I got a lot of attention from that. I couldn’t believe it. It’s a TV show! It’s not credited or anything. It’s not like there’s a thing at the bottom that’s like, “This song by…” You have to listen to it, go online and track it down. … They went to a lot of effort to find out who I was.

Paste: That’s awesome. I wanted to ask you about that song, too, because I feel like it’s a lot different from some of your other songs. It’s just a little bit more rough around the edges. What inspired that song? How did it all come together? 

Hearst: Well, it started out as a commentary on this drunk d-bag that was getting a bit aggressive and semi-violent with this friend of mine in a bar. And he was kind of the preppy guy, probably coked out of his mind. … And what happened was he was about to pour his glass of beer on my friend and, out of the shadows of the darkness, another friend of mine—who’s like a guy you want on your side, and you don’t want to be on this guy’s bad side kind of a guy—just knocked the guy out. Cold copped him with a beer bottle upside his head and put the fire out and walked right out the door. Nobody told on him. I mean, he’s like the hero. This guy had it coming. He put it down and he walked away. It was poetic to me. And I felt really safe and I felt like I was in a gang and I was like, “Nobody messes with my friends.” (Laughs) So the song is a battle cry—it’s a “don’t mess with us” kind of battle cry. … The chorus is meant as an insult, like, “You’re a drunk, coked up piece of crap,” is what it’s supposed to say. But I think that maybe people take it the wrong way and think its like, “You think you’re tough? I’m a fuckin’ drug addict!” But it’s not like that at all. I’m totally anti that. I don’t like cocaine and I don’t like people messing with my friends. … I have pretty strong feelings about it.

Paste: Have you ever done an oyster shot?

Hearst: I love oyster shots.

Paste: I hear that’s the thing to do in Charleston.

Hearst: I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s “the thing.” I mean, if you’re bringing somebody and you’re trying to show them the town, one cool thing that we do that’s special is the oyster shot. 

… I could eat oysters all damn day. I really could. I could chug an oyster. Oh my God.

Paste: You’re in the perfect place, then. You know, I kind of figured you lived in the country because I was looking at your Tumblr earlier and I saw pictures of chickens. Are those your chickens?

Hearst: Those are my chickens. Some of them. We have a bit of a high turnover rate because certain kinds of chickens have even less defense mechanisms than others. At night some chickens just go to sleep and it’s almost like somebody turned an off switch. You can just walk up to ‘em and grab ‘em and pick ‘em up and they don’t make a peep. So varmints (laughs) can come out of the woods and just eat ‘em real easy. But these chickens that we have are alive and awake and they have the sense to wake up and scream if somethin’ stirs. So we haven’t had as high of a turnover rate, but it does make you wonder if maybe you ought not to be foolin’ with husbandries if you keep losing chickens to the varmints that live in the forest (laughs). Nature is cruel, my friend.

Paste: How many chickens do you have?

Hearst: Right now we have a dozen hens and a rooster and a duck. A duck that’s just like a stray duck we took in. (Laughs)

Paste: Do you have any other animals?

Hearst: We have a dog named Townes that’s our best friend. He tours with us sometimes, as long as it’s not real hot.

Paste: Are you guys planning any upcoming tours? 

Hearst: We’ve got some weekend stuff so that we stay busy and continue to build our regional fan base—to make sure people know what we’re up to and what we’re doing. … What we’d love to do is get a sweet opening spot on somebody’s awesome bill. The most recent one I had was with Amos Lee and that was short and sweet. I got a lot of good work done out there. It felt really good. But I don’t have another one coming up. I’m looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to somebody saying, “Hey kid, wanna come open these dates?” (Laughs)

Paste: And you’d say, “Uh, yes!”

Hearst: Yep. Like Steve Earle. I would really like that. I’m trying to subconsciously plant myself in the mind of my idols so they’ll look down at their awesome tour schedules and invite me to come on.