Grace and Tony

A Phantasmagoric World When husband-and-wife duo Grace & Tony began writing songs for their new album, Phantasmagoric, they didn’t plan on crafting 10 tracks that sound as if they belong in a macabre Broadway musical. But these dramatic tales of plagues, serial killers, mass suicide, Frankenstein’s nameless creation and similar subjects are so inherently theatrical, they’d be right at home in a Sondheim or Brecht-Weill classic. Embracing literary influences from Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft to Stephen King, the duo blend history and fiction into songs that share equally vivid plot and musical twists. They call their style “Southern gothic” — a fitting term for music made by a pair raised in Loretto, TN, “the last town before you get to Alabama,” according to Tony White. The couple still lives there — 90 miles from Nashville, but less than 30 from Sheffield, AL, aka Muscle Shoals, where they recorded the album at Jimmy Nutt’s Nutthouse Recording Studio. Nutt was recommended by Tony’s brother, John Paul, who lives in “the Shoals” (Florence, actually). Grace and Tony didn’t know one another growing up, but managed to fall under similar musical spells. Tony, of course, wanted to be a musician just like his older brother (who would later gain fame in the Civil Wars). Through John Paul, he got exposed to hard rock music. “He played me my first Pantera album,” Tony recalls. “It was lots of heavy rock influence.” Grace also admits going into “metal kid mold” for a while; after middle school, she’d practice on the sly the Metallica riffs she heard in her uncle’s album collection. It might have been a far cry from the guitar style her grandfather taught her as a young child, but he made a huge impact, too. After his death when she was a high school freshman, she turned to writing poetry and songs. Though she grew up in a Southern Baptist family, Grace insists her parents weren’t overly strict. Her mother read Poe to her as a baby, and did so again when she couldn’t sleep during a bout of mononucleosis. “Mom was the one who introduced me to mystery books, and then murder mysteries,” Grace recalls. “I started with her collection of Nancy Drew and then moved to Elizabeth Peters (aka Barbara Michaels) because of mom. We also watched Poirot mysteries and ‘Sherlock Holmes’ and old horror and monster films.” But it was her grandfather who had encouraged her to pursue medicine. And when she wound up working in a nursing home as part of a high school class, much to her surprise, she loved it. That led to nursing studies, which certainly raises the question of whether her lyrics are a manifestation of a rather strong attraction to, well, gore. “I think it's a personality thing that qualifies a person to want to care for people and be interested in the blood and guts part, too,” she answers. “I've never really thought about it; I just enjoy helping people. “I do have limits,” she adds with a laugh. “If they started sawing or drilling into somebody, I might keel right over, even though my songs sound like I would enjoy that!” Yes, they do. Take “Invitation to an Autopsy,” for instance. Grace’s crisp, distinct lyrics and mandolin enfold cello and other strings as she narrates the “Sweeney Todd”-like true story of Messrs. Burke and Hare, a pair of pre-Victorian-era gents who sold corpses for use in anatomy classes — corpses they created from living humans. “Adam of Labour” takes the perspective of Frankenstein’s nameless creation. Tony’s clear baritone drives that melody (he also plays guitars and keyboards), aided by Grace’s mandolin and strings by bandmates Kimi Samson (first and second violin and viola) and Chris Wilson (cello, basses and sitar), who arranged the album’s intentionally dominant strings. Tony says the dramatic “Lullaby of the Red Death,” influenced by Poe, suggested ebola to Grace. She says she envisioned “a post-apocalyptic world where things are simple again and a mother is singing to her newborn baby, telling it that they were going to die because of this disease, and she feels like God is punishing her because she cast out the baby’s sister from fear of contracting it.” “The Marsten Prologue” and “A Lot Dies Today” are based on King’s book, “Salem’s Lot.” The album’s first single, “The 1,” tells a story of their own imagining, about a girl and her stalker, whom she decides she wants to meet. “The 2” revisits the 1997 mass suicide known as Heaven’s Gate. There is some leavening, however. They tell their love story in “072713,” their wedding date. It’s a follow-up of sorts to their 2013 album, November, which was released on the anniversary of their first date — which came about when Tony, after meeting her and becoming infatuated, invited her via Facebook to jam with him. They took songs he performed with his previous punk band and rendered them as acoustic versions. That started their merger of punk and bluegrass, which evolved into the classically based, yet rootsy sound they’ve created for Phantasmagoric (a favorite word of Poe’s to mean “out of this world”). They describe it as “theatrical, dark and epic.” Their friend Andy Baxter, of Penny and Sparrow, quipped, “It’s like if Tim Burton had a folk band.” Except Phantasmagoric is far more orchestral than folk, even though it owes its storytelling sensibilities to folk and bluegrass traditions. “I think a lot of that comes from Grace being such a fan of English murder mysteries and getting in that mindset, that regal sound,” says Tony. “When you’re writing a dark story, pairing it with something classical and proper makes it even darker. “We wanted to make something that was truly different,” he adds. “Something memorable. We really wanted to blaze trails — and make music that we would enjoy, with lots of layers, that would be as pleasing to the mind as it is to the ear.” They attribute their success at realizing that vision in part to Nutt, who co-produced with Tony. “He really pushed our limits and got the most out of us,” says Tony; that included putting the whole band together in the studio to give the album its very-much-live feel. As for the album’s cover photo — a pair of sinister-looking children standing before a dilapidated house — that’s actually the home of Grace’s late grandmother, whom she calls “one of the most important people in my life.” Her uncle is repairing it; they still hold holiday gatherings there, and know she’s there with them, Grace says. Perhaps her spirit will permeate the pages of their upcoming book, “Grace & Tony’s Phantasmagoric Stories, which will feature tales from each song illustrated by U.K. tattoo artist Nick Devine. Or maybe she’ll show up in their next album, which they hope to turn into an actual theatrical production. In a perfect world, they’d get to hook up with King, Burton, or another of Grace’s heroes, who include “Science Guy” Bill Nye and composers Hans Zimmer and Danny Elfman. Not that she intends to give up her nursing shifts should that level of success arrive. “It makes me feel good to make a difference in someone's life, or to save a life,” she says. “To be there for a person when no one else is.” Of course, it also provides inspiration for Phantasmagoric songs — songs intended to make listeners question everything they’ve ever known, to remind them, say Grace & Tony, “to think, smile, laugh and even cry,” and most of all “to dream — the wonderful way you dreamed when you were a child.” Southern Gothic. TN. Twitter: @GraceAndTony Insta: @graceandtonymusic Tumblr: @graceandtony