ZZ Ward didn’t start out as a blues artist. Her 2012 debut album, Til the Casket Drops, produced hits like “Put The Gun Down,” which broke into the AAA Radio Charts Top 10, and “365 Days,” which reached #2. That said, her sophomore album The Storm in 2017 peaked at Number 1 on the Billboard Blues Charts and featured collaborations with GRAMMY-Award winners Fantastic Negrito and Gary Clark Jr.
Seven years later, she’s on the newly-formed Sun Label Group under Primary Wave with a single “Mother” that is characteristically edgy with lyrics that include: “If you think you might break/Then you can relate to the brand new mother in me/ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.”
The first question I asked her was why she chose to switch from a genre like AAA that was a money-making hitmaker for her to blues which isn’t.
“The blues was really my introduction to music, my introduction to performing, singing in front of people. The first song I think I ever recorded was like Albert King’s “The Years Go Passing By.” So, for me it just feels so natural for me to sing the blues, to play the blues and the language of the blues on stage – playing with people, listening to musicians, giving out leads to different people on stage, knowing when to give somebody else the time to talk to their instrument on stage, the dynamics on stage.
“I learned all that from listening and playing to the blues. So, when I went into pop music when I first started playing, I took all those lessons with me and also, I never hid the fact I love the blues. My music was always a combination of influences of the blues. ‘Little Darlin’’ on my first album was like a blues song.
“I think I would always sneak it in where I could, but I don’t think I ever felt the confidence to go there and really do that. Yeah, I just think it’s the core of who I am, and you have to find the right producer to work with that appreciates and makes things sound a certain way because you can make blues or anything sound polished, or you can make it sound vintage. You can use vintage equipment, or you can use modern equipment. So, there’s different ways to do it. You want to find the right person to do it with.”
Speaking of vintage, recording with a label like Sun that practically invented rock and roll when they recorded Elvis singing Arthur Big Boy Crudup’s “That’s All Right Now, Mama” is a solid move into blues. “For me, it’s just such a magical highlight. For me, everything I’ve been through in my career and personal life, I think to decide to take a risk and really kind go back to a love of the blues, to have Sun work with me — I could never have imagined this could happen at this point in my career.
“It’s really exciting, and I grew up listening to a lot of blues, a lot of soul, a lot of rockabilly. So, when I usually listen to music it’s like I don’t really listen to current music. I love vintage, different types of rap music and things like that. I do listen to other music especially now I really don’t listen to pop music very much. I love listening to older music. When I listen to the Sun playlist now, it’s like I’m just so happy that I’m connected to that level, especially what they stand for. I think it’s really special that I can be part of that relaunching.”
“Mother” is not about the kind of mother most of us ever had. ZZ is quoted in the press release: “Suddenly, I was faced with a new job that’s 24/7 with no breaks, and that’s what I wrote about. But when you get tested, you discover who you are, and this song comes from a feeling of empowerment.”
She expanded on that quote in our interview. The idea of even becoming a mother came to her during the pandemic. “Basically 2020 happened, and we cut our tour short. We went home. and I knew I wanted to have kids. I was nervous to have kids because I was like how the hell am I gonna have a career and keep playing my music and have a family? I feel if I have a kid am I gonna be perceived as old?
“I just felt so scared of doing it, and it seemed like the world had changed. I thought, you know what? I’m just gonna go for it. I’m on my first kid, and kinda turned around right after having my first kid I put the brakes on myself without having a label.
“I was like, ‘Okay, everything I thought that I knew I don’t anymore. I felt like I had nothing as far as any promise of when is the tour going to come back? Are we gonna book those dates? Like I had no idea what was going to happen. I think the beauty about that is you find some kind of creative outlet to write yourself out of really scary moments in life, and this is what came out of that which is like having this enormous life change.
“I became a mama. I felt like making this completely changed my life, and I at the same time became an independent artist at the moment. I started my own label Dirty Shine Records, and I was just gonna invest everything I own. I keep putting out music. I knew the next thing I wanted to put out was blues, and I couldn’t wait to do it. And then I just got down with this idea of the chords for ‘Mother’ and the feeling of it, and I thought the only thing I know how to do is with writing is write about what I’m up to.
“I don’t write about things that are make believe. I write about the way that I feel because when I grew up into the blues, it’s no bullshit. It’s people talking about their pain. And you feel that it’s not fake, It’s so authentic, and So, I learned from the blues growing up. I was like, what do I want to talk about? I want to talk about being a mom, and how freaking hard it is, and how I’m so challenged with this new job of being a mom.
“So, that was the first song that I wrote for my new (record) I’m putting out. I’m like, ‘Is this cool? Is this cool that I’m talking about this? Is this something people are going to relate to? Are men gonna feel like they don’t relate that I’m going through this?’ But they were totally empowering and they were like, ‘This is your story, like you need to tell your story.’”
I told ZZ that the song is edgy, and that I expected her to be much edgier than she was on the phone. I started to tell her that she was… She interjected, “I’m nice?
“Well, you know it’s interesting because I’m very feisty on stage. I feel like – I’m a balanced person and I try to be a very kind person. I’m definitely an even more kind person than I ever was having two children. That totally changes your perspective of life, but I think that on stage in my music that’s where I always feel comfortable – comfortable with life having that angst and saying what it is and being on stage and leaving it on stage. It’s always been my outlet. Like I said, I grew up playing the blues. So, in a way, it feels like home to me.
“I think about where I’m at in this life at this point in my life. What do I want? Do I want hit songs? I don’t know. Does a hit song make things easier? Yeah, probably! But I mean a hit song is hot one day and not the next. It just seems a little superficial. I would much rather have a hit song doing what I love and making the kind of music I love. If it takes off and becomes a hit song then that’s the perfect thing for me, and if it doesn’t then I’ll be doing what I love, and I’m making music that I’m proud of.”
ZZ Ward is currently on tour with Slash. “I have a three-and-a-half year-old and I have a six-month-old on the road with me. We’re all living on a tour bus. My mom is out here helping us take care of that, and I’m running back and forth to the stage doing interviews while I’m taking care of two kids.”
Susan Tedeschi did the same thing with her kids; I asked ZZ if Susan had given her any pointers. “Yes, she did actually. I just didn’t know when the right time was, and she was like, ‘It’s never the right time. She was like, ‘I have my kids on the road.’ She was like, ‘They just get acclimated to it.’ You just gotta live your life, you know? So, yeah, she did actually.
“When I get off the road my next thing is to get back into writing. I think the first six months of a kid’s life they’re pretty in demand so – actually more or less with my three-and-a-half-year-old, too. He needs me so much. It’s such an important life change, you know. I think that’s such a balance of being a mom and music, which is like trying to (be with) your kids first and give them what they need and then give you passion, your music, what it needs. It’s a very delicate balance. You need support around you to help make it happen.”
