INTERVIEW: YAINT Plays With Country Machismo On The Softer Side of Me
Howdy, cowpoke! We’re right in the middle of the fundraiser for issue 4 of the Rainbow Rodeo zine! If you want to keep supporting queer country artists like YAINT, pre-order your copy, cop a t-shirt, or make a donation here!
YAINT sometimes go by the name of eryn brothers, hailing from the same Arkansas whirl of queer country that gives us jude brothers (their sibling), Creekbed Carter Hogan, and Willi Carlile. They’re one of the funniest people I know, and their long-awaited EP The Softer Side Of Me drops tomorrow. This is an album of all the lives brothers has lived — and the ones they haven’t. Ahead of the album release, brothers explains the Merle Haggard reference in their EP title, the beauty of queer country, and why they go by YAINT.
Who are some of your musical influences?
Shit. Well, at the top of my head I gotta say Jenny Lewis is number one. Everything about her songwriting, singing style, and genre blending has been incredibly formative for me. I really love it when musicians are able to play around with their sound but still have a core motif of self, if that makes sense. I hope to be like that one day.
The others…I love how beautifully vulgar Nick Cave can be with his lyrics. I’ve always looked up to him for that reason. I also really am a huge Jerry Jeff Walker fan, the album Viva! Terlingua! Not only being a huge influence on me in terms of country, but it’s also one of the reasons why I ended up in Texas for such a long time. I also grew up listening to The Pretenders, and Chrissie Hynde will always be huge for me.
I also love musicals, and I’d have to say that Hedwig and The Angry Inch is up there for me. That whole stage production and movie changed my life, musically and personally. I loved its camp and its deep vulnerability, and still carry it with me to this day. It’s so fucking punk, to write a song for a musical that uses Aristophanes’ speech in Symposium to talk about a break up. I love high brow nods in weird song packaging.
Name a perfect song and tell us why you feel that way.
Uhhhhh this is a hard question because it’s so subjective, and frankly, my opinions can change daily about this. For instance, right now, I’d have to say the song “Worms” by Viagra Boys- everything about the dynamics, the engineering (it’s got such a gritty, intimate recording) and the lyrics make it a perfect love song. I really like songs that are darkly vulnerable and simple, kind of gross. It’s sexual and sweet and morbid and strange.
The other option is deeply personal-when is music not?- but I’d have to say my sibling’s (Jude Brothers) song, “practicing silence/looking for water.” That whole album render/tender/blunder/sunder is complete perfection to me. At first listen, “practicing silence” is a song about a breakup, but as you move into it, it evolves into a love song for a part of yourself that has been wounded, a part of yourself looking for triumph and courage to be who you are and love yourself through that.
By the end of it, you’re left with a very mutual and collaborative emotional communion-you understand your pain and transformation because of Jude, and vice versa. It’s masterful, and I’d say that without being related to Jude. I’ll never not be in awe of them, and can only aspire to be such an incredible songwriter.
Explain the title of your album.
Haha, oh god. It’s a bit of a tongue in cheek. So country fans, or most of them, know ol’ Hag-Merle Haggard. He’s got a tune called “The Fightin’ Side of Me.” It’s a tune about Haggard being salty about Vietnam protesters, and that people not into the US of A are walking on “the fightin’ side” of Hag. Haggard, as you know, had quite a few of these songs under his belt.
I fell in love with Haggard’s music playing dive bars underage. A band I played with in Arkansas before I moved to Austin, The Pope County Bootleggers, had a guy named Butch playing bass. (He even played washtub bass!) Butch would always do a cover of “Rainbow Stew,” by Haggard, and it’ll be one of my favorite songs to this day.
So I chose the title for a two-fold reason: one, to honor my own little roots, as the album is really about all the fucked up things you do to become who you are (or trying to be) and is also a joke on the strange machismo that country music tends to be. Haggard’s talking about America and the Vietnam war, supporting violence with violence, and so I decided to fashion my title about learning how to be softer through the tumult of my life: either by circumstance or my own mistakes. I liked the idea of taking this very masculine idea and turning it on it’s head while nodding to its influence on me.
A lot of country music is so hyper masculine. Orville Peck does a great job trolling the people who use country music to assert their manhood-by exemplifying the inherent campiness of machismo, he’s able to show an audience how inherently queer country music/culture is.
On the other side of things, women in country music are asked to be the pinnacle of conventionally attractive, in terms of looks and social propriety. To go against that concept means being “one of the boys,” which just doesn’t work for everyone, and is still acquiescing to status quo.
I don’t fit into either of these categories. Neither do a lot of us, in country music, and thank every god and Dolly Parton in between for that. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have incredible talents like Creekbed Carter Hogan or Adeem the Artist.
So, to conclude my tedtalk, a lot of the album title is making fun of these circumstances in country music, and of the world. I don’t want to be one or the other, I just want to walk on the softer side of me, without the restrictions of convention or gender.
Does your album have an overarching theme?
I’m a late bloomer, in a lot of ways, and that’s included but not limited to my musical career. I’ve waited a long time to make this EP and release it. I’ve been a lot of people and had a lot of different lives under my belt before going into the studio to make this. THE SOFTER SIDE OF ME is about all those different lives, all the dumb shit decisions we make to transform, all the ugly bits that can lend themselves to living a more tender existence.
I’ve been a lot of tough motherfuckers and dumb pieces of shit. This EP is about them, and how they lived because they just wanted to transform and be softer, kinder, but maybe sometimes didn’t know how. When I approach myself tenderly and softly, I give myself more room to be curious and adventurous, and those two moods are where I am the most comfortable. This EP to me is an exploration of that, because being bad can feel good and being good can feel bad and being shitty has repercussions, sometimes goodness has reward, it just comes in awkward packaging.
So YAINT…THE SOFTER SIDE OF ME, is a little existential country haha about being a fuck up on the journey to transformation, of learning it’s not about being one thing or the other, but just…being you.
And why did you choose to perform under the name YAINT?
It’s also why I picked the name YAINT. One, I never want to be one kind of musician or another. For instance, the full length album I’ve been working on currently is definitely more on the bootgaze side of things, bubblegrungey, heavier. But maybe after that I’ll do a jazz album. My own “Nebraska,” maybe a pop album. Who the hell knows? Music goes on forever, and while I don’t have all the time in the world-none of us do-I want to wiggle around and do as much as I can. I have no desire to be just a country musician because of this.
I wanna go where the wind compels my little sail. A moniker allows me to transform, and not be so beholden to my name. I want to be many people, forever, I want to explore and transform, and I felt that in my musical journey a moniker would help me achieve that. It allows me to be softer and supple, tender and more willing to be curious.
Also, YAINT is just funny and kind of gross: it’s not only a nod to my southern roots, but it sounds like “taint,” which is kind of punk. It’s another little joke I have-I write some sad little bops, and I like to sneak in gross lines and sentiments. Humans can be incredibly disgustingly charming creatures, and I feel like the name YAINT sums that up.
The Softer Side Of Me is out tomorrow, April 12th.
We’re right in the middle of the fundraiser for issue 4 of the Rainbow Rodeo zine! If you want to keep supporting queer country artists like YAINT, pre-order your copy, cop a t-shirt, or make a donation here!
