It has been almost a year (yes, this surprised me too) since we last caught up with our good buddy Alyssa Bonagura just after she released her ‘Fly With Me’ EP. In the meantime, she has been incredibly busy playing shows up and down the country with shows of her own and opening for The Shires, along with heading back to her native Tennessee to record her latest project ‘Love Wins’ (listen HERE). As we were both recently at Black Deer Festival in Kent, it was too good an opportunity to resist a long overdue catchup.
We haven’t done this for ages, I think the last time we did like “work” chat, we were sat in a corridor of the basement at The Bedford with chairs and tables everywhere then SJ from Morganway and Tony Moore came and gate-crashed as we were talking about why Starbucks is better than Costa. It’s a bit different and slightly cooler today in this nice cabin. “Yeah, it’s like a tiki bar without any alcohol even though we have both found some anyway.”
We know each other well enough to know that we can always sort that out though. Any way you’ve played pretty much every other festival over here before so have you managed to make it over here to Black Deer before? “No, I’m so happy to be here at Black Deer because it’s my first ever time here and I’ve heard about it a lot, a lot of my friends have played it over the years and I’ve always wanted to play it, so I’m glad to be here. I’m playing The Ridge stage and I’m doing something for Holler, which will be an acoustic set, so I’m going to change sets. They are back to back so I am doing full band then acoustic.” I know you haven’t played yet, but what’s your initial impression of it here? “I think it’s awesome. I think that these festivals here in the UK are really special, I think here is cool because you have a lot of different kinds of country music and Americana music all under one thing. It’s very laid back and it’s got a great family vibe, I like it a lot.”
This is my fourth time here and it is a big festival but it has a really homely feel to it. Like you said you have different styles of country and Americana here. The other thing I get here which I really like is that compared to The Long Road or C2C or Buckle & Boots is that when I walk around the site here apart from friends on the industry side, it is a lot of new faces in the audience that I don’t recognise. As an artist that is obviously great because you have just been on the road with The Shires and you have had your own shows too but a lot of those people that see you there probably know who you are but here it is a new audience to entice. “That’s really nice, it’s really nice to new fans and it has been so much fun to play with The Shires as I’m making so many new fans from their shows, then selling tickets for my own headlining shows so I feel really grateful. This is really great to be in a new audience here and Sheryl Crow is playing tonight, she’s my absolute favourite female artist, since I was a kid I was listening to Sheryl Crow thinking I’m going to play electric guitar someday like her and now I do so it’s cool.”
Then here you are on the same bill as her in a field in Kent! “I know! The UK is magical for me like that, I’ve done so many fun things here.”
That’s so cool like kind of full circle with that but also things like The Staves are playing tomorrow too. “Yeah, they are my mates. Jess and I went to LIPA together, then my friend Tom Speight played today and we went to LIPA together too. It’s really nice to see all of your friends and the UK has been a really magical place for me in that respect, I just felt like it is very much a full circle every time that I come back here.”
I actually discovered The Staves here when they last played here as a trio and that’s what I love about festivals how you hear something that you like and become fans of artists that you wouldn’t ordinally have found. Coming back to the tour with Ben and Crissie, you got to play at Union Chapel. “Oh my gosh, Union Chapel is amazing. I dare say this but I have played The Ryman in Nashville and got to make my Opry debut there where In stood in The Ryman and did that, it was super spiritual but when you stand in Union Chapel it’s like a whole other level. It is so old, there is so much history in that place and there is something so beautiful about that venue, I had the best time and it was a really memorable night that we got it all on film which I can’t wait for people to see that.”
I love it there as well but you have had your own tour that looks like it has been going really well too. “Tour has been amazing, it has been my first ever headline tour. We played three shows and have got two shows more left of my headline tour.”
I guess the other big thing since I last saw you has been the EP. “Yeah, ‘Love Wins’ and I think I was making that when I last saw you.” Seeing what you posted when you put it out, you wrote and recorded it in one day. Was that the intention on the day all along to go in somewhere with Jenn Bostic and a bunch of other people and have a full output by the end of it? “No, we didn’t have any expectations for what we were going to get that day. Initially I was supposed to go in for the week but I couldn’t and I could only do the one day so I said to them I can work from 10am until whenever so let’s just as many songs as we can done. We got five songs done in a day starting with ‘Love Wins’ then the second song was ‘No Stopping This Train’ and there was like six writers and producers all in one house and we just were creating all day. That’s what I have grown up doing my whole life, we wake up and we make music so, for me it was so fun and when the tap is on, it’s on. When there’s the right people I can really create and this was a really amazing environment of feeling super creatively free, having four different producers and six different writers so it was awesome.”
Just touching on Hook Haus, who were the guys that you worked with on the EP, how did you get hooked up with those guys and discover what they were doing in the first place? “I started working with a company called Extreme Music and I was working with them on the last EP where they have got my songs on shows like Love Is Blind, Love Island and all of these amazing shows, then they were putting together this songwriting camp and asked if I wanted to be part of it. It was in Nashville and I am just grateful that I got to spend that one day and Hook Haus are awesome, they are just amazing writers and producers so it was fun for me to let go of the reins a bit to be the creator, the artist and then have them all help to bring these ideas to life. It was really fun.”
It’s a blast catching up as always but I just want to end with what is possibly my favourite “Overheard at a Festival” from earlier today as someone saw you with your amazing glasses on and said “Damn, I wish I could pull off wearing sunglasses that bold like she does!” It is true how you are the only person that can look really trendy in big glasses. “Ha ha, that’s so nice. I’m wearing my Elton John glasses and I love him because it’s all about being yourself and feeling fabulous!”
Alyssa Bonagura’s new EP ‘Love Wins’ is out now and you can listen to it HERE and you can also keep up to date with all that she is up to by checking out her socials on TIKTOKINSTAGRAMTWITTER & FACEBOOK. Black Deer is set to return to Eridge Park in 2025 and you can sign up HERE to be the first to receive information on next year’s dates and gain priority access to Earlybird tickets whilst you can find more details about the festival by checking out their WEBSITE and can relive this year’s event by checking out their socials on INSTAGRAMTIKTOKTWITTER or FACEBOOK.