apocalyptic love songs with moe reen
Midwestern crooner Moe Reen shares their debut EP
photo by Michael Furman
Just in time for the full swing of spring, Moe Reen’s Grow Again has bloomed. Recorded on a cold December night and inspired in part by the warming earth, the release invites us to defrost.
What is the origin story of your music-making?
I didn’t come from a particularly musical family, but we grew up very Catholic, and my mom sang at church, so hymns are some of my most early formative memories of music come from that sort of space. That continued as I got deep into youth group and choir in high school, where I sang a lot. In college, I was in an acapella group, so I sang and arranged with others, and that was a large part of my music formation as well.
The writing came into play when I graduated college and went to grad school for a PHD. While I was there, I spent a lot of time writing music for myself. I entered a contest (Gems on VHS) on a whim and got selected as a semi-finalist, and I had this wake-up call where I realized that I could share my music with people, and they would listen, and it might actually be a good thing. I decided to start sharing and started to believe in myself in that way.
What did you listen to growing up?
My older sister gave me her iPod and it had indie sad stuff - Sufjan Stevens, Band of Horses, The Weepies. I loved Ingrid Michaelson as a young person. I have a playlist called Girlhood that has some of the classics that I used to listen to. I’ll return to it on the days that I still feel like a high-schooler. Which is more often that I’d like, but it’s nice to revisit sometimes.
Do you know how to two-step?
I was taught, but I was taught wrong. I need the people to tell me if it’s slow-slow-fast-fast or slow-slow-fast-fast-slow.
How have your Midwest roots informed your music?
I grew up in Delaware Ohio, which was once a small town and has rapidly grown. It’s just north of Columbus where I live now. It is a town that used to be surrounded by farmland and is now developing out and becoming more of a suburbia situation. There’s definitely country music influence, but the country I encountered was very much bro-country (e.g: Rascal Flatts). People wonder if I grew up with country music and the answer is not really, not in the way you’d expect– not like the music that called to my soul later in life and shaped my sound.
Photo by Michael Furman
Which artists have called to your soul?
I’ve loved The Fleetwoods for a very long time. I have a good friend Dan who showed me Don Williams, and he has this deep bass voice that just carries me away. The sound of these old-school vocalists, like Eddy Arnold and Patsy Cline, got me into country music initially because their melodies are so dynamic and fun to sing. I was obsessed with them and listening nonstop— there’s such a craft to their yodeling.
Those artists paired with more contemporary alt-country helped me see what was possible with country music today and want to be a participant in this genre and find myself in this genre– especially because so much of my early experience with country was bro-country or more mainstream country that wasn’t particularly meaningful to me. Getting to dive into the history of country music, which has such richness, led to an expansive experience. I’ve really enjoyed developing a sound in this space.
Queerness and country music. Let’s talk about it.
My music has gotten to people mostly through TikTok, which is a very visual format. My nonbinary identity and queer identity and the way that I present has been “there” for people. A comment I get pretty frequently is that my voice doesn’t match my looks. People hear me and expect some Patsy Cline-looking person, but I’m not quite that.
There’s a queerness to how sound and image come together for people and how they expect a classic-sounding country singer to look.
The other part of it really comes down to the performances of myself.
There’s something to say for when I go on stage and put on the cowboy hat. The first time I put on the hat, I was like, “This is who I’m meant to be.” Dressing “cowboy” allows me to perform my gender in a way that isn’t always accessible in my everyday life. Country music itself is very performative, and I find that it lends itself to my own performance of gender. My content isn’t always specifically queer, and there’s no overtly queer music on the EP, but the queerness is in the performance and the way that I’m sharing it with people.
I think that thinking expansively about the word queer is important.
The alt-country genre itself is queer in many ways. It’s at odds with the traditional structures of imperialism, a fraught US history that involves genocide and enslavement. Resistance in this capacity has always been present in country music, given its roots in Black blues and gospel music, though that’s not always reflected in what you hear on country music radio. What I appreciate about the contemporary alt-country movement is how artists reclaim this genre that has been co-opted to promote the nation-state.
Queerness in that capacity. Queerness as being at odds with a binaristic and hegemonic world.
What queer (or queer-adjacent) artists have inspired you?
Creekbed Carter Hogan. I love that guy, I think he’s got amazing music.
Wilma Burgess, a musician active in the ‘60s who was openly gay/lesbian and refused to sing music with male pronouns. That is such an amazing piece of history and when I listen to her I’m always thinking about the power of that.
Nick Shoulders in terms of alt-country.
What do you like to eat after a show?
Whatever is in the fridge, I’m scroungin’.
Ideally, some Taco Bell (cheesy bean and rice burrito, crunchy taco supreme beans instead of beef, Baja Blast freeze) or some jalapeno poppers from Arby’s.
Congrats on your first EP! Who played on the record with you?
West Taylor (drums) & Alex Estada (pedal steel) are mainstays in my band and also co-produced the EP. Alex also mixed and engineered! They started an indie label here in Columbus called Space Canoe Records. Nate Little also plays with me regularly on keys. George Welling played upright for the EP. My friend Dan has also played bass for me, and has an album of his own out! All those guys are in a band called Gilded Sun.
One of my favorite tracks on your new EP is Why Deny (the Climate of Our Love). Can you share some lore about how it came to be?
I love ‘‘50s-esque, Bing Crosby-style songs about the era of the obsession with Hawaii. While I was writing, Hawaiians were actively asking Americans or Mainlanders not to come to Hawaii and were like, “Stop, you’re ruining this.” That was on my mind in addition to the climate collapse.
I wanted to write a song in that style but flipped on its head. I was also thinking about Cold War era songs, like Floyd Tillman’s This Cold War With You, that are truly apocolyptic— but they’re adopting that metaphor and using it to sing expansively about love and life and what’s surrounding them.
What is surrounding us at the end of the world is apocalyptic destruction of the world and I wanted to write a love song about that too. So using the sound influence from Hawaiian music and the way of flipping disaster on its head to talk about love— not just to reach for pretty or beautiful metaphors, but tragic metaphors as well was inspiring to me. And the song was born!
What do you order at a diner for breakfast?
A blue plate special with sunnyside up eggs and rye toast and hashbrowns extra crispy.
What’s next for Moe?
I’ve got a lot of shows coming up locally in Columbus. I’m playing at the Youth Pride Festival in Vermontville, Michigan.
You can find my music on Bandcamp and Spotify, and I’m on TikTok and Instagram @weepymoereen