About That Song: Mac Leaphart
About That Song #55
In our special series, singer-songwriter Sarah Morris interviews artists about the songs that shaped them.
Hi! I’m Sarah Morris. I’m wildly in love with songs and the people who write them. There have been a few songs in my life that have been total gamechangers—songs that made me want to be a songwriter and songs I’ve written that made me feel like I am a songwriter. About That Song is a space where I can learn more about those pivotal songs in other writers’ lives.
For our 55th edition, I was happy to connect with Mac Leaphart! We talked about the songs and experiences that set him on his artistic journey and about his upcoming record.
Mac Leaphart. Photo credit: Gabe Ford.
Sarah: Hi Mac Leaphart! Many moons ago, I was fortunate to spend a week traveling around the middle of Texas in your big silver van with a few other songwriters. We’d sit in people’s living rooms and swap songs and stories. It was magical, and I sure loved the opportunity to get to hear your songs night after night.
You are set to release a fantastic new album, Motel Breakfast (available everywhere on 9/13). This feels like a perfect chance to learn a bit more about you and the songs that have brought you to this particular place on your musical journey. Do you remember the song you heard that made you want to be a songwriter? Tell us about that song.
Mac: I tuned into music at a very young age: 5 years old, riding around in my Daddy’s Cadillac Seville listening to cassettes.
Sarah: I’m having “my childhood was not nearly this cool sounding” envy…
Mac: He had the Beatles greatest hits, the 62-66 one, and I couldn’t get enough. He also listened to a lot of Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson. Listening to Kristofferson, even though I wasn’t following everything he was singing about, I gathered there was something very substantial in the lyrics. But it was definitely John Prine, sometime after college, that made me really focus on the singer/songwriter folk country thing. I had all these influences because I loved music, but Prine was the blueprint for the path I took as an artist.
Sarah: John Prine is a blueprint for many of my favorite songwriters—in a big family tree of songwriters, I imagine him as the trunk. Or maybe he is the ground…
Once you began writing, did you feel like a writer immediately? It took me a few years of writing before I believed it—was there a song that gave you that “a-HA! I AM a songwriter!” moment?
Mac: Yes and no. I started writing songs in high school—just basically writing my version of songs that I heard on the radio. I started playing guitar in a band with some older guys when I was a senior in high school. That was kind of a “southern pop” thing; we sounded kind of like Sister Hazel or something. I wrote a lot of songs for that group, but that just made me feel like the guy in that band who happened to write the songs.
Sarah: That’s an interesting distinction to make.
Mac: When I was in my early 20s, I wrote a song called “Losing Young” that felt like a genuine song. I brought it to the band, and it didn’t really fit the vocalist’s style, so I held onto it, and honestly, that’s when I decided it was time to do my own thing.
Sarah: Well, as a listener, and a fan, I am grateful for that song tuning you towards doing your own thing. In 2021 you released the acclaimed album Music City Joke. It contains quite a few of the songs that I got to hear night after night in people’s living rooms—when I listen, they act a little like a time machine for me. Particularly the song “Every Day,” which I remember first hearing sitting outside on a Texas November night (very different than a Minnesota November night would be). If I recall, at the time, it was fairly newly written. Can you tell us about that song?
Mac: So, my wife is the breadmaker for our family, so to speak, and she was going through a hard time. I remember one day she came home and just started crying. And she is not somebody who just starts crying. I felt kind of helpless because I wanted to say “If it's that hard, take a break,” but that’s not a possibility. So I set out to write a tribute to her, for essentially being the piece that holds our family together.
I had some ideas, but nothing was working—love songs can easily veer into a Hallmark place, and it had to be genuine. I was sitting outside a grocery store one night, and an image and line popped into my head, “She stayed in the car for a while when she got home, scrolling through old pictures on her phone.” That opened it up for me.
It was probably the hardest I’ve ever worked to get a song right. And the interesting thing is, I’m not even sure Ashley likes it. I know she appreciates it, but it’s essentially a tribute to how hard she works for our family, and so, to be honest, it's probably a little hard for her to listen to. I have since written her two other songs, “Ain’t No Pistol” and “Girl From Tuscaloosa”—they both appear on Motel Breakfast—that she appreciates and enjoys! They’re both upbeat and lighthearted tributes.
Mac Leaphart. Photo credit: Gabe Ford.
Sarah: “Ballad of Bob Yamaha or a Simple Plea in C Major” is a song that hits me like a perfect short story. Without fail, listening to it will make me smile and also feel (because I anthropomorphize objects that are dear to me). What can you tell us about that song?
Mac: As I’m sure most of us singer/songwriters all do, I have a section in my iPhone notes of song ideas, and I’d put in, “I’m just an old guitar, everybody picks on me.” Then I remembered that wasn’t a song idea; it was the name of a song I’d heard on the radio and wanted to find on Spotify. It's an old Pete Drake novelty song that uses a voicebox (the thing Frampton uses in “Do You Feel Like We Do”), and I was bummed because I really wanted to write that song.
So I was kinda sulking, running it over in my head, and I got another idea, about a guitar that just wanted to be played well once before it ended up in the great pawnshop in the sky. That song was just one of those lightning rod gifts—once I started writing it, it all came together pretty fast. I love playing that song, but I don’t always get the chance to because it’s definitely geared to insider guitar nerds.
Sarah: I am here for the nerdery! Your current single “Rock & Roll, Hey” is the first listen off of your upcoming album, Motel Breakfast. Can you tell us about that song?
Mac: That song, like a lot of songs on Motel Breakfast, was written very intentionally to fill a hole in the live setlist. Particularly the first song hole. I like to ease into a set, no big introduction, just the crowd kinda looks up from their drinks and it's happening. That song is good for that, it starts off easy but takes off once it gets going—it's a gradual build. The blueprint of that song was the Jerry Jeff Walker version of “Pick up the Tempo.” But it ended up sounding more like the Stones.
Sarah: We found ourselves on that Texas tour through the Kerrville New Folk contest. On this new album, you cover “Letters from the Earth” by Ben Bedford, who we also met through Kerrville (because it’s magic). Tell us about that song.
Mac: So, I didn’t really hear that song until we went back the next year and played together again. Ben was playing it and you were singing harmonies, and I was just floored. I drove back to the airport the next day taking the scenic Hill Country route and listening to that song over and over. It just checked all the boxes for me.
I continued to listen to it a whole bunch, and eventually I turned it over in my head and started hearing a way I could make that song work, put it in a Mac Leaphart frame, so to speak. A lot of the songs I had for Motel Breakfast were upbeat—I knew I needed a few more midtempo, somewhat melancholy numbers—so I called Ben and asked if I could cut it. He said ok, and we made it happen. Ben really likes the finished product, which obviously makes me really happy!
Sarah: Yeah! Well, when I received my copy of Motel Breakfast in the mail and saw that, it made me really happy, too! Thank you so much, Mac, for chatting with me, and congrats on the new album!
Be sure to pre-order Mac Leaphart’s new album Motel Breakfast, which comes out September 13, 2024!
Listen to “Rock & Roll, Hey”
Motel Breakfast Album Credits
Produced, Engineered & Mixed by Brad Jones
at Alex the Great Recording
Mastered by Alex McCollough at True East Mastering
Cover Art by Adam Howard Donald
Project Manager & Administrative Director Julia Price
Mac Leaphart on vocals, various guitars, & harmonica
Brad Jones on bass & mandolin
Logan Todd on drums & percussion
Tom Reschke on drums
Fats Kaplin on fiddle, pedal steel, button accordion
Matt Menefee on banjo, dobro, mandolin, & baritone electric guitar
Al Backstrom on rhythm electric guitar
Kenny Vaughan on lead guitar
Glen Martian on bass & vocals
Belly Full Singers on background vocals
Carey Kotsionis on vocals
Ben Chapman on vocals & lead guitar
Quincey Meeks on slide guitar
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sarah Morris. Photo credit: Tom Smouse.
Sarah Morris is a superfan of songs and the people who write them, and a believer that certain songs can change your life. A singer-songwriter / mama / bread maker / coffee drinker who recently released her fifth album of original material, she’s been known to joyfully sing with people in her Big Green Bathroom.
