Radio Haw stopped by Live and Local this week, ahead of the May 31 release of their debut album “Counsel of Serpents.”
Radio Haw is the project of Pittsboro’s Matt Gray – who’s only been in music for a few years, though you wouldn’t know it from the quality and complexity of his songs. “Everybody had a pandemic hobby,” he says. “I don’t like to bake, so I picked up the guitar – and it was like every time I learned a new chord progression or a new technique, I felt a song coming out of me.”
Those songs – written in the vein of Townes Van Zandt, Hiss Golden Messenger, and many other influences – form a loose narrative that brings the listener on a journey from despondency to hope.
“It definitely moves from dark to light,” Gray says of the album. “I start by showing how crazy everything is, and then it eventually resolves itself into some form of hope that I believe in. I don’t believe in blind optimism – I prefer the form of hope that’s like acceptance without resignation, recognizing there’s this adverse circumstance in your life and being able to accept it and not give into it. That’s the kind of hope that I believe in, and that’s the story I’m trying to tell.”
Follow Radio Haw on Instagram.
The title, “Counsel of Serpents,” is a reference to the Garden of Eden: “What if the serpent was actually (just) trying to encourage curiosity?” Gray asks. He recorded the whole album with the most basic of equipment – including the same guitar he started with, a gift from his mother when he was in college.
“I love this thing,” he says. “It was 200 bucks. My mom went down to the local guitar shop, didn’t know what she was doing, and, uh, just trusted the guy and he picked out a pretty good one.”
Matt and Leslie Gray stopped by Live & Local and played three songs: the album track of Radio Haw’s lead single, “Someone Dosed the Fiddler,” followed by live performances of “Ghouls in Decline and “Grand Ole Medicine Show.”
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