Combining the best of Americana, country and blues with timeless Southern storytelling, award-winning vocalist Stephanie Adlington and guitar virtuoso Aaron Lessard, as A Tale Of Two, draw influences from Tom Waits, The Lone Bellow, Ray LaMontagne, alongside bedrock artists like Patsy Cline and Hank Williams Sr.
Their new album, Renegade, the duo’s first full-length release, is set to hit the streets this Friday on October 4. It was produced by Jon Estes and recorded at Jon Estes’ Studios where the duo were joined by some of the top-tier players in Nashville: Billy Contreras (fiddle), Elizabeth Estes (fiddle), Jamie Dick (Percussion), Ross McReynolds (Percussion), and Jon Estes himself on bass and various other instruments. All songs are written by Stephanie and Aaron, with the exception of their rendition of the Tom Waits song, “Gun Street Girl.” We first got introduced to Stephanie and Aaron back in 2021 when we spoke to them around the release of the self-titled debut EP (read HERE) so with the news of this first full-length album on the way, it gave us a long overdue opportunity to catch up and hear all about the new project.
How are you both doing? It’s been ages since I spoke to you both, I didn’t think it was that long but it’s been about three years. “It’s been a while. We’ve been good and we have FINALLY got to making another record and now getting round to it being released. This has been a good year, I feel we have made a lot of significant strides as a group, we did Americana Fest in Nashville this year, we are putting out this record on the fourth and we finally have a booking agent after four years. That can be really hard, for some people it’s really easy and for others that takes a while but for us things are finally falling into place and we’re going to be on the road quite a bit next year. We are actually hoping to get over there to the UK as well, maybe next fall, so we will see.” (Aaron)
Oooh that’s exciting to hear, so fingers crossed we can grab some beers if you do get over. You mentioned Americana Fest and it’s quite funny because I was literally just speaking to Sunny Sweeney on another Zoom call about the same thing and a lot of my friends headed out there this year too where they had an amazing time. It’s tempting me more and more as an event because I have done the whole CMA Fest lark or been in town with friends trying to avoid Broadway at all costs but all I hear about Americana is that it is the Nashville which people want. I’m glad that it went really well for you both and like I say it just looks a really fun vibe. “Yeah, it’s just more low key you know, it’s not like CMA which is obviously bigger and there are so many people downtown, Americana feels more chilled and has the whole alternative country thing going on.” (A) “I feel like they host shows in venues that are truly local venues where we would actually go to. I always tell people, if you see me down on Broadway, please call someone because apparently I would have been abducted or something is wrong because I am never there unless we go to the Ryman or the Symphony.” (Stephanie) “I will say that at Eric Church’s place called Chiefs, they do have an original artists type venue where a lot of writers have been playing and they are doing some cool shows where they are trying to do something different and promote some original artists on Broadway, so that’s a good thing.” (A)
That’s really cool, I know Ward moved Whiskey Jam downtown, so original stuff was starting to get played on Broadway but any opportunities for people that come to Nashville to experience original music for me is awesome. Even for us as tourists, it’s basically if you are heading to Broadway, you just head to Robert’s. I think people have a dream of what Nashville is before they go there and when they typically spend a lot of time downtown, Broadway is not really the idea that they have of writer’s rounds or stumbling across the next big thing, it’s covers catering for the drunken Nashlorettes and Chads. However, since Stephanie lived here, we have somehow inherited one of the worst things that you have in town as you now see pedal taverns going round the streets of London. “Oh no! I’m so sorry ha ha. I’ve been in Nashville quite a while now and not that I has been to Las Vegas but with the changes here it feels like Nashville has become the Honky Tonk Las Vegas. It’s not what we were or why I moved here. Obviously you want tourism and want people to come to town, you want people to have a good time but I also would like for them to remember their trip ha ha.” (S)
I know we have gone off on a bit of a tangent but as I was going to talk through a couple of tracks on the project where going off some of the line notes with the press release which talks about some of the themes on the project, what we have been talking about actually links quite fittingly to ‘The Canyon’. This is the second track on the album which has the perspective of changes, worries and challenges that affect making music right now. Putting out a record now is not just here are nine or ten songs that we have worked our asses off to make and we are really proud of, there is almost more focus on have we got a twenty-five second hook that is really catchy and take off on platforms like TikTok where the marketing and editing becomes more time consuming than making the songs themselves. “Yes there is that feel of having to be an influencer at this points and I think there is this segment of artists who will commit to that. I really feel for artists who are in more of the pop scene where it becomes make or break, if you don’t blow up on social media and become a viral thing, it’s not going to happen, as a pop artist, you can’t be independent, it’s virtually impossible. However, we are very fortunate to be in the Americana space where independent artists are promoted and you can really market yourselves a s a grass roots artist. You can do a lot of listening rooms right across the east coast and make decent money, especially as a solo artist or a duo. It has changed in that regard though and it’s hard because I think people are starting to become numb to social media advertising if you start running ads on Facebook or Instagram.” (A) “There’s so much all the time and people are just constantly being inundated with things and at the same time attention spans are disappearing and concert etiquette is another thing that feels it has completely been destroyed. (S) That’s another topic that a lot of people are talking about over here, how since the pandemic our country and Americana crowds are getting a little rowdier as standard. That’s a total rabbit hole that we could likely get stuck down for a long time so let’s come back to the record. ‘Renegade’ is the title track and I love the cowboy Bon Jovi type ‘Wanted Dead Or Alive’ and ‘Blaze of Glory’ vibe with that melody but ‘Renegade’ isn’t just the title, it’s theme that you have gone with throughout the record. In your song notes for the track, you had said “Our aim is to embody an identity that defies the norms of Nashville.” I know we have the Tom Waits cover in there but were all of your songs on here written post the first EP and when you were working towards the new sound that you wanted to go for? “Yeah it is. The first record was really a lot of prohibition influence and folklore, we wanted to maintain some of that but wanted to dive more into some personal feelings. Songs like ‘The Canyon’ were really at a point where we were feeling quite pessimistic about certain things that were going on within the business with the really wanting to write a song about wishing that things were like how they used to be. ‘Once Upon A Summer’s Day’ is a really personal song about home for Stephanie and ‘Renegade’ is where we wanted that real driving, high energy song and we wanted to write something that was really an overview of the entire project, where that song really is the whole theme of the record.“ (A) “It’s interesting too that when you have a body of work, we write songs depending on what is going on and don’t really sit down to think strategically until you put the collection together and you can see the train of thought which was happening. It’s always interesting to me that when you do put the body of work together and put it out, you see wow there is a theme here which we didn’t even realise was going on behind the scenes. I think a lot of it is trying to forge ahead and trying to find a place where we can settle into all of the chaos of what is going on but then there is a lot of nostalgia. I do miss things from pre-covid, I do miss a lot of that and that even starts to trickle back like ‘Once Upon A Summer’s Day’ about growing up and my childhood. That song was very hard for me to write because every time that I would sit down to think about it, I would just start crying and put it away. I think there is a lot of trying to move forward and trying to be who we are within the mix but there is also a lot of nostalgia about how there are changes happening and how you adapt so I guess there is a lot more going on when we start to analyse ourselves.“ (S)
Just taking “renegade” as a word, over here people would only tend to use it if you put “maverick” into a thesaurus. Thinking about that along with the songs on the record where you have ‘1934’ which is a song about Bonnie and Clyde who most people would use mavericks or renegades as words in reference to them. “Absolutely, ‘1934’ is still one of my favourite songs, I’m very proud of that tune. I read a biography about them which brought up more questions than answers. I started writing all of these questions down then said to Aaron how I was so into this book and so into this journey of these two people, it’s like who were they? We see film about it and see who Hollywood thinks they are but who were they really and why do we keep talking about them years on? Aaron sat down and came up with the lick which sounded like oh my gosh, we’re off on a car chase and we’ve got to write this tune. There were a lot more verses in that but I thought we can’t have a ten minute song. There is literally that much material that I found mesmerising about the time period and the people so, it’s one of my favourite songs on the record.” (S) “I really enjoy when we arrange songs, I enjoy the arranging process. People sometimes say things like your music is theatrical but I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s theatrical. I grew up listening to a lot of older music, mostly pre nineties where I feel there are a lot more hills and valleys, you know more quieter moments or big build ups and things like that which feel organic, where I feel that more modern music is more flatline where everything is the same volume. What I like about ‘1934’ is the arrangement, how it grows and dies in moments, then we were also lucky to have Billy Contreras play fiddle on that, who is like the fiddle god of Nashville and is just incredible. He played a great solo on ‘Devil Did The Deed’ as well. Being a guitar player, I’m always for a self-serving ego, guitar solo but I was more than happy to forfeit that for him.“ (A)
Then the last track on the record I want to talk about is the Tom Waits cover. He is someone that I hear a lot of people talk about as a big influence and that people really admire but I have to be honest, I haven’t really delved into too much because musically he has this stigma of being quite dark or depressing where you have to be in the right mood to give it a try. I know that ‘Gun Street Girl’ is a song which you had been playing at shows for a while but how did you first discover that song and decide it was a good one to start playing around with because reading into it, it wasn’t one of the bigger or better known songs off the record which it comes from. “When I first started listening to him, I kind of felt the same way where you have to really be in a mood to dive into it and really be committed to get into it for the first time. What I think is really cool about Tom Waits who really had that real eighties, New York, performance art that he was doing for quite a while with the textures with his voice but it that’s beauty within something that on the surface can be really tough to listen to. If you really sit and take it in, you think yes, this is amazing. There is another great song that he did called ‘Green Grass’ which is gorgeous and just a beautiful song.“ (A) “My discovery of Tom Waits was not necessarily like album to album to album, like a lot of my influences, it was just random songs. I would go on YouTube and it would play random songs at random times and I feel about Tom Waits is that he’s like Beauty and the Beast where he would have this rough voice and this amazingly melodic song which really is the darkness within the beauty as a contrast. ‘Gun Street Girl’ popped up one day, where I’m listening to it and I just remember sitting down listening through the whole song on repeat. I love the song and I think I was driving one day when I just started humming it in my head then thought Oh my gosh, we could cover this. I thank YouTube and Pandora a lot for making me listen to things that I’m not specifically looking to listen to because it has really introduced a lot of different music to me that I probably wouldn’t have heard before.“ (S) “That’s why the radio format of playlisting on the streaming services is really cool because you can listen to an artist that you really like and it does take you in these different directions.“ (A) “I try that more and more, so I don’t just get stuck in my little group of the same songs but I highly encourage people to get into Tom’s music. I know his voice is a little weird and you listen to some songs thinking maybe this is not one for the moment but when you tear apart the lyrics they are devastating. ‘Green Grass’ is about being dead in the ground and talking about what is going on above you, it’s crazy. If I could meet anyone, have a beer and talk about life, he’s the man.“ (S)
Well fingers crossed we can also grab a few beers if you are able to get over next year, hope people enjoy this record as much as we are and let’s try not to leave it this long before we next catch up because this has been fun.
‘Renegade’ (produced by Jon Estes)
Renegade [Stephanie Adlington & Aaron Lessard]
The Canyon [Adlington & Lessard]
By The Light Of The Moon [Adlington & Lessard]
1934 [Adlington & Lessard]
Is It Me? [Adlington & Lessard]
Devil Did The Deed (Not Me) [Adlington & Lessard]
Gun Street Girl [Tom Waits]
Once Upon A Summer’s Day [Adlington & Lessard]
‘Renegade’ is the debut album from A Tale Of Two which is out now and available HERE. You can find out more about the duo on their WEBSITE or keep up to date with Stephanie and Aaron socially on FACEBOOKINSTAGRAM & YOUTUBE.