Tag: Chad Viator

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A look at the ingredients of Neustrom’s ‘Jambalaya’ urged on by the pandemic with a side of her Swedish culture

Emily Neustrom brings her record release party to the Blue Moon Saloon, Saturday, April 2, 2022. submitted artwork

by Dominick Cross

LAFAYETTE, LA — The pandemic gets a lot of blame for a lot of things and nearly all of it deservedly negative.

There’s probably not another side to this COVID coin, you know, where some good would ordinarily be found, so perhaps one should zoom in along its edge.

And it’s here, during the past two years of downtime, that some people examined their lives, or looked at their own mortality, or even pursued a long-sought goal.

Emily Neustrom, a Lafayette native living in New Orleans, is all of those people.

“I’ve been dreaming of making a record for 20 years,” said Neustrom. “I think the pandemic made us all question our lives and death and what do we want to do and what haven’t we done.”

This thought pattern resulted in Neustrom’s debut CD, “No More Jambalaya,” a solo effort and genre-bending recording that’ll make its Lafayette debut Saturday, April 2, 2022, at the Blue Moon Saloon, 215 E. Convent St.

“And so, for me,” Neustrom said. “This was the biggest thing I wanted to make sure I did before I died.”

The lively program gets underway at 7:30 p.m., and features, in order of appearance: Band Practice, Yates Webb, Neustrom and Pinecone Brothers.

Neustrom’s all-original release does not neatly fit into any particular music category.

“It doesn’t matter to me, but apparently the Internet wants you to define it,” said Neustrom, addressing the issue as only she can. “I did put non-binary country. But I don’t even consider myself country. Maybe non-binary Americana. I don’t know.

“Sometimes I describe myself as singer/songwriter, sometimes it’s like country/folk, or just straight up folk,” she said. “Some of songs, to me, feel more like indie pop.

“So, it’s kind of a combo,” said Neustrom. “If Americana is a catch-all, then that’s fine.”

No matter the style of music, the subject matter of the songs will be familiar.

“I would say they range from death to dancing to love, or ex-boyfriends or something,” Neustrom said. “The name of the album is ‘No More Jambalaya,’ a feminist rant, or just a song for the ladies.”

‘When you share your own story, whether it’s heartbreak or joy, I feel like that’s what people connect to. It’s stories that are true to me.’

Emily Neustrom

While the pandemic may have spurred Neustrom to take care of business and get the recording out, she also got a nudge from her Swedish heritage.

Neustrom said the release of the album is a part of the “Swedish Death Cleaning of my soul,” she said.

“Swedish Death Cleaning is you live and keep your house and your things with death in mind,” said Neustrom. “So, imagining someone is going to come into your house after you die and have to deal with all of your shit. So it would be better if you just deal with your shit before you die.

“That’s what I’m trying to do on a soul level,” she said.

And the outcome?

“I feel amazing. It’s so liberating. It’s so scary, but it’s so liberating,” Neustrom said. “For me, it was like a weight on my heart and mind not having put my songs on an album to share with people publicly. So, this debut record is accomplishing my goal of sharing myself.”

While she shares herself through her songs, they story they tell should be familiar to everyone.

“When you share your own story, whether it’s heartbreak or joy, I feel like that’s what people connect to. It’s stories that are true to me,” said Neustrom. “There all either happy times or sad times. It’s just life.

“So for me, it’s sharing my stories through song and I hope people resonate with the emotions and feel comfort maybe by connecting through music and hearing someone else’s story.

“I think it makes us feel less alone,” she said. “That would be my goal if someone can feel less lonely.”

The CD was recorded at Chad Viator’s home studio and where Neustrom recorded demos over the years.

“Chad Viator is so talented and thoughtful as a producer. In the studio, you can make things sound ways that really bring them to life in a new way,” said Neustrom. “I showed up with just my guitar, lyrics and melodies. I mean, songs that I had written and were complete, and some were not complete and we finished in the studio.

“He just was able to add a lot of emotion and support the lyrics and the sentiment of a lot of songs,” she said, referring to the production and arrangements and instrumentation or ornamentation of the songs.

Artists featured on the record include Viator, Tif Lamson, Chris Stafford, Leah Graeff, Marie-Isabelle Pautz, Michael Doucet, Chris French, Peter Dehart, Josh Leblanc and Julia Price.

Neustrom had one word for Lamson’s contributions on drums and vocal harmonies.

“Incredible,” said Neustrom, who also gave a shout-out to “my old college roommate and Swampblossoms bandmate, Marie-Isabelle Pautz.

“I had a blast making this record with friends that I love and who are so supportive and that makes all the difference in the world,” she said. “It was a beautiful experience.”

Neustrom has enough songs written for a second release. But she’s got plans in the meantime.

“I’m going to start gigging more in New Orleans and Lafayette,” she said. “I’d like to play a bunch locally in Louisiana and get to know Louisiana dancehalls in that way.

“I’d love to go on a tour,” added Neustrom. “But you kind of need to be better known, or partner with other local bands.”

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When a Cajun makes music, it’s not always Cajun music

Dustin Dale Gaspard’s release is Hoping Heaven Got A Kitchen.

By Dominick Cross

On his Hoping Heaven Got A Kitchen release, Dustin Dale Gaspard takes listeners and viewers on a musical journey, one that hits close to home for the singer/songwriter.
“It’s basically taking you on my musical journey between where I’m from in southern Vermilion Parish, all the way back up to Lafayette (where he now resides,)” said Gaspard.
The release is also a nod to his grandparents, whose photos are featured on the front and back covers. Gaspard’s grandmother died during the recording process.
“I said, ‘Man, I just hope heaven got a kitchen because that’s what would make her happy.’ I said it in passing and then when I’m leaving the studio I’m thinking I need to start writing these songs because time’s so short, I need to start melding this gap,” he said. “I need to represent my grandmother’s and grandfather’s stories.”
The process led to the hook in the album’s title song and his grandparents’ photos on the covers. On the front are his mother’s parents, Burton and Margaret Lege; on the back, his father’s parents, Emily and Ronald Gaspard.
You can find music videos of some of the songs all over social media. Gaspard calls the videos, online before the album debuts digitally on February 28, “The Road Release.”
“I wanted to connect all the dots,” he said. “Kind of make it a visual representation, almost like a visual album release.”
All but two songs (This Should Go On Forever and Feed the Flame) are originals on the album Gaspard said, who recorded the album at Chad Viator’s studio.
“He likes to do this thing before we record, he just checks in with me which I always thanked him so much for,” said Gaspard. “It’s when I ended up realizing that he was never in it to do a job. He was always in it for us to make good art and a lot of good art comes from just knowing people. You’ll be able to create better if you’re really comfortable with somebody.”
Viator also plays lead guitar on the release; Lyle Begnaud, steel guitar; Chris French and Kent Beatty, bass; Eric Adcock, keys; Bill Smith, drums; Chris Stafford, fiddle; Blake Miller, accordion/fiddle.
Background vocals: Sarah Russo, Sharona Thomas and Hanna Mitchell. “I wanted it to be like, really raw, truly authentic — somewhere between gospel and just soul and make sure it was all feminine voices that could really carry those call and responses,” said Gaspard.
Wayne Toups, Wilson Savoy, Sweet Cecilia, and Gracie Babineaux can be seen on the music videos, but are not on the release itself. More on that later.

The physical modes of the recording are set to be released March 31 at the album’s CD release party at the Acadiana Center for the Arts.

Bayou Hack Press, personified in the form of of its publisher, Dominick Cross (DC), caught up with Gaspard (DG) as himself, before his Mardi Gras string of gigs to talk about the new release.

DC: Where’d the idea for the videos come from?

DG: I’ve always been a fan of the scenery and landscape out here. It’s always inspired me. And I’m a big fan of movie soundtracks and movie scores and such, and sometimes when I’m just out playing my guitar, I like to envision a whole orchestra of sorts to be the soundtrack for the area. So I guess some of that all ties together, just being out and inspired by the visuals from home.
DC: You’ve got Cajun musicians (Wayne Toups, Wilson Savoy, Gracie Babineaux) on the release, but there’s really no Cajun music. It’s more like folk, Americana…

DG: I was just talking about this the other day about how trying to make it as folk/indie/singer/songwriter out here is just an uphill battle. Everything’s so saturated in the zydeco and Cajun lore, that it’s really hard to break through. And specifically, just to have a sustainable career or gigs that will pay you to be something other than Cajun and zydeco.
I took that as a big negative thing in my youth when I first started performing and thinking that there’s no way — like it was irredeemable — and so it made me turn my back on that. Yet, what I’d ended up coming later to realize is just like it’s so bred in the culture here, that even some of my melodic melodies I was coming up with as folk artist were completely stolen from songs of those genres.
And it was kind of me thinking I needed to find a way to bridge the gap. So on the record itself, I do sing a couple songs in French that there’s French instrumentation. Some of the songs have accordion and some have fiddle. Some have steel guitar in the indie landscape, but it’s still more of a honky tonk instrument which is something that I would have never been open to before until this record.

DC: Guest musicians on the release include Wayne Toups, Wilson Savoy, Gracie Babineaux. That’s the three I’ve seen. Anyone else?

DG: On the live videos, a lot of the artists I’m actually performing with aren’t featured on the record itself. What we’re doing is just doing a more traditional change in arrangement for those videos. Just because it’s easier to travel with (I wouldn’t be able to bring a 10-piece band to Cow Island to play in a field somewhere), but more so to do something different than what’s on the record and not over-do what’s on the record.
We’re going to do one more with Sweet Cecilia. They grew up in that vein of music, too, so I think the last one’s going to be a Cajun jam-style song. Just mainly to pay homage to the music of my grandparents.

DC: What made you go ahead and do this with this vision you had? I can visually see what you had in mind with the videos, of course, but what prompted you?

DG: My musical tastes, like I said, when I started, I was more into very ambient listening songs. I don’t even know how to describe it exactly, but things that just wouldn’t work here. It was a struggle and it was really kind of screwing with me about why I wasn’t as successful as I thought I should be and that’s a very selfish and self-centered thing to think. So, it just took years to find perspective.

Chad (Viator) had been working together for about two years now and I told him I’d had this rumbling, especially since I had the Freetown Sounds as a soul band. We were doing so well and it was mainly because it was live, high-energy rock-and-roll music, which was something that people can get behind over here in the Acadiana bubble where music events come with drinking and dancing; they usually don’t come with, ‘Hey, sit down and just listen to these song.’

So I was telling Chad how one day I wanted to reconcile and find a way to bring them together and maybe that would be both a singer/songwriter and still be a successful performer in this area. When we started talking about that, I started experiencing artists that were venturing out and doing the same thing. Folk artists that I looked up were covering old school soul songs and basically they were doing them straight from the roots with new age instruments, basically.
All these songs that my grandpa listened to, they are at the root of all my songwriting. So I was listening to old swamp pop by Van Broussard and the Rod Bernard tune and Warren Storm and think, ‘Damn. These are awesome songs that I really love and really connect with and I just thought maybe there’d be a new way for me to update that, do them with more folk instrumentation and still get what I wanted out of them, as well as deliver a song that was a lot of people liked.

DC: Are you satisfied with that? Did you reach your goal?

DG: I have never felt like I hit the nail on the head more with some of these ideas. I should mention this. I stumbled upon an old Bobby Charles vinyl and I was like this is exactly what Bobby Charles was doing back in the day. So I just wanted to find a way to meld all that together and have a good chunk of me in there and I think I just kind of grew into the role.

DC: You look at Bobby Charles and he definitely wasn’t a Cajun musician, but he’s Cajun.

DG: That’s the whole thing. I’m never going to be able to play accordion, maybe not even fiddle,” said Gaspard. “But I’m as Cajun as they come. I want people to know that you don’t have to be a Cajun musician to be a voice for these people, you know.