Photo: Mandi Fountain

The title of Eliza Thorn's debut album, Somebody New, says it all. The 26-year-old from Connecticut has burst onto the Nashville Honky Tonk scene, and her record is introducing her blend of bluesy, soulful country music to new audiences. When Saddle Mountain Post sat down with her during AmericanaFest, her single, Alibi, was climbing the radio charts. 

Saddle Mountain Post: So you are bursting on the scene – Alibi has been climbing the charts, which feels even weird to say these days. Huge congratulations on the success so far. But before we go there, would love to learn about you. So I just want to start from the beginning. Where are you from?

Eliza Thorn: I’m just kind of this feral rat kid that came from rural western Connecticut. Our little town had one real store, called Eastern Village. It sold sub sandwiches and wraps. There was an antique store, and not a stop light but a yellow blinking light at the time.  Growing up it was all we had, so we spent a lot of time in nature. There was a post-Woodstock group of folks who migrated from upstate New York over here. And my mom was a native New Yorker. She moved to Connecticut because my grandparents had moved to Connecticut to kind of restart life in a more rural environment. My grandma was a playwright in New York City, but retired out of it as I grew up. She had some notable plays. Her biggest was called, Seven, which toured internationally. She wrote books too.

SMP: How many artists were in the family?

ET: My mom paints some. Dad is in sales. My brother can sing better than me, but refuses to sing in public.

SMP: What kind of trouble y’all getting into in Connecticut?

ET: It was interesting. We moved around a lot between towns in western Connecticut. But it was school, and singing and running around in nature. It was pretty innocent, honestly. Sneaking out to see concerts and stuff. Music was always a pull for me. I started singing when I was in about first grade. I would write little jingles with my friends, but it was never like, I’m gonna be a singer.

SMP: When did that happen – when did you start thinking about going down this path?

ET: Really thinking about it professionally, just really the last few years. But since I was about ten years old, I picked up the guitar and got more into writing and playing. It was just for the love of music. It got me through tough times.

SMP: That’s young.

ET: Yeah, it was. I had some friends to write with and just have fun. My grandma gave me some of those chord books, and I started to train myself. Then my mom realized that I had an interest and started taking me for lessons. I went to one of those chains, School of Rock; they had a bunch of those in New England. It was a very encouraging time. But I also think that my mom recognized that music was really helpful to me, kind of getting away from what was going on in my brain, my mental health. So she was like, go shred some guitar and make some friends, you know, and have a little community of friends that are doing it too. And then she just fed me tons of classic rock. That’s when I fell full into the love of music.

SMP: Were you a sad kid?

ET: I was wild, feral kid. Maybe depressed. There was some heaviness for sure, my parents splitting up. It fed the get out and be out mentality I had.

SMP: You mention classic rock. I wanna know how you developed your sound and started writing for a specific direction.

ET: It’s a long wondering path. I kind of starting on this trajectory, playing classic rock. I’m making some friends that are really good, like, still to this day. I have an incredible friend in Memphis that plays really good rhythm and blues guitar. There are some people that came out of that chapter in my life that I see doing it and see what they’ve grown into and what we’ve done in the different paths that we’ve all taken, in honing our sounds, you know. I’m really proud of all of them and that time we had. I also got into writing a lot, journaling, not even thinking about songs really. My mom was definitely the strongest pillar in my life, that upheld and supported me. She wasn’t pushing on me like, you’re gonna be a singer. She was happy I was happy.  I don’t even think that professional singer was on the table. My dad was like, you need to get a job too. I worked steadily throughout high school.

SMP: You graduated high school yeah?

ET: Yes, but I was not a great student. I actually discovered there was this program in my high school where if you get enough credits, you can graduate early. So I buckled down and got out of there as quick as I could. Then I traveled. All over the West. I was just transient exploring, working on some farms learning about agricultural systems. I did some busking. California, Oregon, New Mexico, Arizona, Durango, Colorado. I set it up decently beforehand as best I could. I thought I was going to be a farmer, so I went to go get some experience. It was really beautiful. I didn’t have a car, so just on buses and trains all over.

SMP: A 17-year-old young woman busing her way around the West. That’s confident. I like it.

ET: Yeah, I graduated right at 17. I turned 18 on the road. My parents weren’t thrilled.

SMP:  So, where do you settle down?

ET: Well, I got a scholarship to a school in Victoria, Canada. I’m half Canadian. My dad’s from Canada, so that was my choice. They were like, you can go to Canada, bye. And I was already out West. I went for a college up there for a year. And then I took some herbalism classes for a little bit on Vancouver Island, and I just felt very cold up there. I wanted to move back to America. So yeah, I drop out. I have no idea what I wanna do. I’m just listening to delta blues and being sad in this old farmhouse I was living in and wanting for warm weather. I eventually move back home for a few months with my mom before I set out across the Bible Belt to explore some more and kinda find a new place to live.

SMP: That’s fun. Where did you land? What year?

ET: Asheville, North Carolina. 2019. It’s my favorite smaller town. There’s a lot of blues going on there. I got into a part time school program and started working at a pizza place.

SMP: You mention the blues again. A strong influence clearly to anyone who listens to your album. What pulled you into the world of the blues?

ET: The blues was the foundation of all the music that I grew up with. Whether it was rock or folk or acoustic guitar, I always tended toward the bluesier songs. And then as I was writing I was drawn to the delta blues, the piedmont blues. That was kind of my bridge into learning slide guitar and then really falling for country guitar.

SMP: Do you start playing gigs at all in Asheville?

ET: My first year there, no. I had seen a lot of music that summer, and I came back and needed to work, so I was working in service, not really sure what I wanted to do. I was taking classes. I wrote some songs; I was dating one of the line cooks at this restaurant that I worked at; he was the best guy, but he just wasn’t the guy for me. And I wrote this song called ‘You’re Not My Guy.’ I showed it to my friends awhile later that worked at the restaurant at the time. And they started crying and all were like, what are you still doing? Go play music. That encouragement was like a definitive turning point. I met some of my first bandmates through recording that song and making a video. After that I kind of had a band and we took it to the honky tonk occasionally.

SMP: What’dya do during the pandemic?

ET: I went back out West, to Arizona; that’s where I finished that song. I did some singing in clubs. I was staying at an artist housing old row house kind of place. It was cool. I would sit in with other bands. There was a really good blues band there, good cosmic country. I was getting my chops up; those were some of my first shows, reading songs off pieces of paper and stuff. I was just learning how to be on a stage and play with other bands with way more experience than me.

SMP: Amazing you made your way to this education during a tough time. And I love your solo missions out West.

ET: Totally. I had no money. I’m living in this place for free. The music was kind of my way out of that financially. And also it was the fire under my ass that I needed to feel motivated as a creative and inspired. I didn’t have a job. I needed the money. And I also loved the experience of being on the stage.

SMP: So now, finally, you’re like this is what I’m doing forever?

ET: Not yet. I still in my mind just didn’t think that that was an attainable path for me. But I was moving in the right direction. I just didn’t see it yet.

SMP: Ok then you come back South, play the song to your friends that you had been sitting on and they all start crying? Is that what happens next?

ET: (laughing) Yeah – that experience was beautiful and reinforced the feeling that I had when I lived in Arizona playing more than I ever had. I was like ok maybe I can do this. And then the band started doing more gigging in Asheville. We played at the Double Crown quite a bit; there’s a video of us on YouTube from then. We used to close our sets with the Willie Nelson ‘Nightlife’ cover. It was our way to wrap up the night.

SMP: Are you thinking about Nashville?

ET: Everything was priming me for this leap to Nashville. I had this fire under my ass that never left, and I found a window of time where it made sense for me to relocate. I had just come off a bad breakup. I was just going through a big overturn of previous commitments, and I felt my roots overturned. It felt like this closing of a chapter and a healthy transition for me to move to Nashville.

SMP: What has entry been like coming into town?

ET: I would really say, the past year and a half, almost two years, like everything set in a real way. I moved here. I had already been connected with my producer on the album, Mose Wilson. He was a friend of mine. I’d sat in with him and his band before, and we just knew each other through the honky tonk scene. And his partner, Hannah Juanita is a good friend of mine. We immediately got down to business. I love his sound. He has the good kind of traditional, true Nashville honky tonk sound down. And I feel like I was coming from a different angle. I love this fusion of blues, soul music, country, rock.

SMP: Question. Do you love Bonnie Raitt?

ET: I love Bonnie Raitt. I love the New Orleans sound she moves toward as well. We’ve spent some time down there, and I just love the mix of jazz and blues and funk coming into all the music that pours through that town. You hopefully can feel that on the album.

SMP: It is the quintessential American musical melting pot. Throw out another name while we’re playing this game. Amy Winehouse. I think the easy comparison here, so I’m curious how you think of her and address that.

ET: Huge influence. It was so cool to witness this powerful woman with the tattoos and the big hair, the eyeliner break through into a major pop icon, while playing not pop. It was her music the way she wanted it to sound. She was a big pioneer for me.

SMP: Two huge pioneers, Bonnie and Amy, who clearly influence you but yet you’re finding your own sound. Pinpoint for me where you see yourself in that musical matrix.

ET: Well, the album sound is eclectic. I have some of the same backing band as Melissa Carper did on “Daddy’s Country Gold.” I think we had one or two different players. We hired Dennis Crouch, who played upright and Jeff Taylor on keys. My goal was to take all these great players and maintain a true country blues but stretch into Western swing and other places here and there. It’s so hard for me to pick a flavor, like the Western swing, the soul, the jazz, the New Orleans jazz; brass sections. I want all that. I wanted a little taste of everything on the album. I wanted it to be a new and exciting experience for music listeners, and I kind of love that, because there are people who are here who say, oh, she’s kind of this country Amy thing, because that’s popular, you said it, the easy comparison. But I like being a little bit undefinable at the moment.

SMP: Let’s see where it takes us?

ET: I think that time will shape the sound however it will.

SMP: Time must feel pretty fast right now in album release mode. What are you looking forward to?

ET: Create, make new connections, continue to write and create. The thing I’ve really been looking forward to the most through this release process is actually, quite literally, releasing it emotionally, energetically. I think, what the future looks like for me is just continue to dream and not trying to dream too small, and continuing to build my art and grow stronger as a musician. I’m excited to let the album take to the wind and see what comes. I know that when the right opportunity comes along, we’ll be able to sense it. I don’t want to rush anything. Everything’s got to feel good.

SMP: When did you actually record the album?

ET: Mid-October of last year we finished. I learned so much about the music business, just invaluable information about how to be on top of the business side of things. So I’m excited to let go of that and focus again on writing.