Left to right: Tristan Scroggins, Justin Hiltner, Vickie Vaughn, Brennen Leigh
When banjoist, songwriter, journalist and activist Justin Hiltner recorded a set at our headquarters for the upcoming 10th Anniversary Picnic Party, he took a minute to introduce a new song about “anxiety and growing Old Tennessee melons, called Muskmelons.”
A whole song about growing melons? We were obviously smitten.
To say we have loved working with Justin for this event would be an understatement. Learn more about him below, and don’t miss the streamed show, which will air Sunday, September 26! Reserve your tickets here!
How did you get into playing banjo and songwriting?
I first saw a banjo on TV when I was six years old and told my parents, "That's what I want to do!" Their response, quite reasonable, was, "If you still want to play banjo in a year, we'll get you a banjo." Now here we are, twenty-two years later, and the entire course of life has been altered by the whim of a six-year-old! I recently realized that that first instance of seeing a banjo was actually in "Cotton Patch Gospel" a Broadway musical that was a bluegrass and southern retelling of the gospel story. Quite a fitting origin story, I think!
I really began getting into songwriting in high school, when I was very much into writing and poetry and realized my own writing was lyrical to begin with—perhaps growing up a musician impacted that? haha – and it really blossomed as a primary vehicle for my art and self expression when I moved to Nashville in 2011 and began surrounding myself with other creators and musicmakers who saw songwriting not just as a craft or a livelihood, but as a modern form of literature and a folkway, too.
What has your journey in Nashville been like? We hear you have a new record coming in Fall 2021?
I love living in Nashville and in the South! I grew up in the country in rural central Ohio and Nashville and the surrounding hills really remind me of home—but with a lot more music everywhere you look. I don't know if I'll stay in Nashville forever, but I've found such a bright, diverse, fulfilling community here and I'm so grateful for the artistic and creative communities I've tapped into as well. One of my main goals when I first moved to town was to record and release a truly solo album, and I'm so excited that that debut project is coming before the end of this year. It might not be in the fall now, but very soon. The project is called 1992 and is just me, the banjo, and my sad, gay banjo songs!
We're so thrilled you're a part of this momentous occasion with us and loved hearing that you've been following our mission. Is food security a passion of yours?
Food security and food justice are two huge tentpoles of my personal mission in life and in music! Food security and food justice will be central strategies to responding to the climate crisis in a way that centers Black, Brown, Indigenous, disabled, and Queer communities. Community-based organizations like the Nashville Food Project have an important and vital role to play in those responses. I'm a hobby gardener and farmer and avid birdwatcher myself, so I've always believed so strongly that connecting ourselves and our human communities to our greater ecosystems is how we will right so many of the unjust problems of the modern world. I was so excited to be plugged in with y'all for the Picnic Party, not only because of how my mission in music aligns with the NFP's mission, but because I just truly love gardening, farming, and modern solutions for solving food insecurity and food injustices.
We hear you have a few songs about gardening and/or farming and other issues that sound quite aligned to our work! Can you tell us a bit more about those songs and your inspiration in writing them?
I truly have so many songs about nature, gardening, birds, fruits and vegetables, bumblebees, and just spending time grounded and connected to the natural world. The real problem was choosing which ones to showcase for this event! I love writing about the things I'm most passionate about, and whether I've sat down to expressly write about nature or I just happen to find that's what's pouring out of my pen, I find myself most fulfilled when I'm making art about the natural world and the sheer resplendent, awe-inspiring beauty in her every day, mundane things. I love poets like Mary Oliver and Theodore Rothke who connect such abstract and ethereal concepts and philosophies to concrete creatures and settings and feelings in nature. I try to do the same in my songwriting, whether I'm writing about migrant workers, or using birds as metaphors, or writing about anxiety and growing melons!
We also know you to be an activist and proponent of inclusion in roots music. Can you tell us more about that and the work you've been proud to be part of in that regard?
Being one of very few openly queer folks in bluegrass, I've always had an activist bent to my art and the community that surrounds my creative process. I believe so strongly that roots music and bluegrass are for everyone, regardless of who you are, your identity, background, or where you're from. Taking that central belief into every avenue of my career in bluegrass has been a North star for me while I've navigated the music industry over the past ten years. It's how I'm able to prioritize events and partnerships like this one, because I have a mission in music greater than just, "Make music cause I like to do it." I believe so strongly that we'll only solve all of the pressing injustices of modernity if we each realize we all individually and collectively have a stake in enacting that justice. That's why I keep my activism as present as possible in my music—there's much work to be done, but together we can get that work done!
Okay, Dolly Parton's America. We must know more. Can you tell us about being part of that?
Dolly Parton's America might just be the COOLEST thing I've ever gotten to do! I'm such a huge fan of Dolly, her music, her songwriting, and her artistic ethos, to get to be even a small part of the Peabody Award-winning podcast about her made by one of my all-time favorite podcast and radio hosts, Jad Abumrad – and his amazing co-producer, Shima Oliaee – was a dream come true. That at one point in the episode I appear in they cut directly from my voice to Dolly's saying, "God made everybody just the way they are" – I still get goosebumps and tears well up every time I hear it. DPA gave me the largest audience and microphone I've ever had to date, I appreciate it so much and I still connect with new folks and fans who found me via the podcast every day! So freakin' cool. Dolly if you're out there reading this, love ya.
