Back from the wilds of Topanga Canyon with a “psychedelic” new album fired by weed and tequila, MARGO PRICE is moving far beyond her country-tonk roots. But will inner flight, personal loss and newfound wisdom tame her wayward impulses? “It’s been a long, weird road to get to the person that I am,” she tells Stephen Deusner. “But here I am.”

MARGO PRICE

Desert trip: Margo Price inApril2022

Photo by ALYSSE GAFKJEN

“W HEN I sing this song, I get really emotional,” Margo Pricesays, standing on the makeshift stage in her band’s rehearsal space. It’s a drab, windowless warehouse, with a few couches tucked away in the corners and tables full of snacks and lukewarm Chinese takeout. Today, she and her backing musicians have been working on the transition from “Change Of Heart”, a country-rock barnstormer with a heavy riff, into “County Road”, a piano-led ghost story that recalls late-’70s Springsteen and serves as the tender heart of her fourth solo album, Strays.

It’s a tricky tonal shift between defiance and remembrance, between kiss-off and eulogy, yet that contrast only makes “County Road” sound more haunted. Dressed in a black T-shirt with Bob Dylan’s silhouette on the front, a fannypack around her waist, Price slams a tambourine against her hip as she leads the band. It’s only a rehearsal, but she doesn’t hold back, belting the tune and conveying a bone-deep heartache when she sings, “Hey kid, you know it’s been three years since the change/The band broke up, the boys don’t talk, and this city’s rearranged”. It looks for a moment like she really is trying to maintain her composure behind the microphone.

Beside her on stage stands her husband, Jeremy Ivey, strumming an acoustic guitar and looking on sympathetically. The couple wrote “County Road” about a friend of theirs named Ben Eyestone, a drummer for a band called The Lonely H and a member of her ever-evolving circle of friends, musicians, peers, mentors, mentees, heroes and hopefuls. After moving to Nashville from Washington State, Eyestone gigged around town, played with Price and other local singersongwriters, until he developed colon cancer and died. Like many musicians, he didn’t have health insurance.

“The song,” according to Price, “is about those five to 10 years when we were all struggling and hanging out at The 5 Spot. It’s about how everything has changed since then, which I guess makes it my ‘Boys Of Summer’. I love playing the song. It’s gotten a good response from fans so far, but it still hurts just thinking about it. I have to disassociate from it so I don’t start crying.”

Twice the Price: backstage during CMT’s Coal Miner’s Daughter: A Celebration of The Life & Music Of Loretta Lynn at the Grand Ole Opry, Nashville, October 30, 2022

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Price’s band remain on stage checking levels and discussing parts and noodling, as she retrieves her large iced coffee and finds a couch in a quiet corner of the room. She’s only in town for a few days between gigs at opposite ends of the country; tomorrow she’ll head to North Carolina to play benefits for Healing Appalachia in West Virginia and FarmAid in North Carolina. With kids in school this afternoon, she’s spending her downtime running through songs from Strays and ironing out kinks in the set.