Appalachian Voices: Fighting for the “Losers” with Colby T. Helms

Don’t look now, but there’s a musical movement coming from the Appalachian Region. As a native of the Appalachian region in Ohio and an alumni of Ohio University and West Virginia University, it’s on me to share some of these voices! Today we have singer/songwriter Colby T. Helms! Helms is a native of the Southwest region of Virginia. He’s releasing his sophomore album ‘One for the Losers’ next month! Check out what he had to say!

You are part of an emerging group of singer/songwriters and bands on the scene coming out of the Appalachian region (I’m from there too!). Can you share how the region has impacted your sound and upbringing in music?

“I grew up in a small town in Boones Mill, Virginia. It used to be a thriving town until the 1920’s. Highway 221 wasn’t built until the 1950’s and Boones Mill is just South of Roanoke. Plants grow well in that area, much of the region of Appalachia isn’t great for growing crops. We have a very unique culture in Franklin County, we have springs and fruit that grow well. All this rotting fruit would be used to make mash and moonshine. It’s a hotbed for bluegrass and old time music. I took a cultural geography class in college, the landscape led to lots of bluegrass music. Growing up, I got to be around these world class bluegrass jams, they even jammed at the local Dairy Queen. My dad had me late in his life, and was more of a grandpa. He had all these old time stories and he was raised when Route 220 was born.”

“This area has a lot of history, my family settled here in the 1750’s. When my dad passed away when I was 12, when I was about 15 or 16 all this Appalachian stuff like Tyler Childers started blowing up. I felt like ‘shit, if these guys can do this, I can too’. There wasn’t anyone from Southwestern Virginia. I wanted to have people think of the Blueridge Mountains, I wanted them to think of Colby T. Helms. I started writing songs with a friend, which became my first record.”

Your latest effort One for the Losers champions the cause of the every day person. It particularly ties into the issues facing those in the Appalachian region. The world has seemingly left those of us from this area behind, or outright exploit us economically and socially. Coal mines have evolved into data centers as a means for keeping those from this region down. I love the title for your record, as that’s how the greater United States views us from Appalachia, as “losers”. Can you touch on why this issue/cause was so important for you to dive into with your second record?

“It makes me frustrated because I think some of the Appalachian people are some of the most in-touch with their roots. As I’ve traveled, I have started to meet people in the Southwest that were forced out of Appalachia in the Trail of Tears with Native American lineage. There are a lot of people that want to let it out. People look at us as a bunch of dumb people, they don’t care that we’re exploited because we’re a bunch of dumb hicks. One for the Losers is in touch with those that have been forgotten. To your point, Americans are the worst about doing something until it’s too late. They like to think ‘Oh that can’t happen here’ or ‘How can this happen’. In Franklin County they put a business park on the land one of the best farms. Then they couldn’t get anyone to start a business there, so now they want to build a data center. It’s so ironic in a way, we have had such a strong source of water, which is why the crops grow here. We’re starting to run low on water because we’ve been selling water to data centers in North Carolina. If we’re running out of water without a data center, what is going to happen when we actually get two or three here in this location? This was a rural farming community, with orchards and dairy farms. Now its’ full of mega farms, with the richest of the rich and the small farmers have shut down. We have all these celebrities that have come and built mansions, Michael Jordan and the woman who owns Black & Decker have mansions here. My family has 55 acres and a plantation we’ve had countless offers for the property that we’ve turned down.”

Your sound is rooted in bluegrass, country, and folk. You also have a great balance of more stripped back tracks that feature your dynamic vocals and an acoustic guitar and/or banjo. Additionally there are tracks that feature a backing band giving One for the Losers a little bit of something for everyone. Can you touch on how you arrived at some of the musical choices you did for the record as it features some great picking, fiddles, and more. It definitely makes me long for my home in the Appalachian Mountains.

“It’s actually not as fun of a story as you would imagine. The record company was like ‘the obvious choice is to get you connected to a bigger producer’. This one big singer/songwriter said he would produce it, then we got a sudden message from the manager and said that he was out. We sent it to more producers and my wishlist was David Ferguson, who has worked with Tyler Childers, Johnny Cash, and Sturgill Simpson. He wanted me to do a Nashville backing band, and I said ‘look this has have my sound’. The record company didn’t like the finished product. They asked me not to trash the whole thing and go back and try again. We ended up with three tracks that were more stripped back. At first I was pissed, however, I came out and thought it was okay. I want to use the tracks we lost later with my own band. I went down to North Carolina and recorded “Clouds” three different times and the time I did with my band and they didn’t like it. I re-recorded it and it came out okay in my mind. It still has the David Ferguson feel and it has my sound.”

As a person who is sober from both alcohol and drugs, I really appreciated the heart and soul that you poured into “Young and Dumb”. The track is a cautionary tale of sorts based on a friend who battled addiction which ended in badly. Addiction and sad endings related to it is something that is unfortunately too familiar a tale for those of us from this region. Would you mind sharing a little on the background of this track?

“It kind of ties into the record, we may have people in our lives that you learn to love and care for that don’t make good decisions and go down a bad path. I had several people like that, it’s about one of my best friends who was dating my girlfriend before she was my girlfriend. It started out as fun, but then he wanted to go beyond “fun”. I wanted to help him, and he started getting addicted to pills. He went to Alaska and got sober, we were talking and he kind of let out some evil laugh and was talking about how he fooled everyone into thinking he got clean and that the ship captain he was working for let him into his house so he could clean. While he was cleaning his house he found all these pills and stole them. That’s kinda where the “young and dumb” comes from. He moved away, and now that woman is my girlfriend. That song is about how sometimes you can’t do anything about a situation but let it be a lesson. This song is from his perspective and he always seems to blame others. Maybe one day he’ll hear it and he’ll not hate me.”

“Armed and Dangerous” tells the tale of your girlfriend’s father who went to Mexico as a young man and experienced hardships few can imagine. The track is a bit of a fusion of country/blue grass and traditional elements of Mexican music. I lived in Corpus Christi for over a decade and of course come from the Appalachian region. It’s somehow authentic to both musical traditions and it just works. How did you come to develop this one?

“It intertwines with “Young and Dumb” and the guy we talked about who left, and I started dating my girlfriend and met her dad and he’s had a lot of hardship. When we first met, he would tell stories to try to scare me as sort of his role as my girlfriend’s dad. I kept just asking him more questions. He was put in a detention center after his family came here illegally. He worked with the cartels and got his girlfriend pregnant, he got deported. He came back over the boarder many times. He was kind of this outlaw and it got me thinking about outlaw country and how kind of cheesy it can be. It is about hardships, I think of Merle Haggard who was raised in a train car. When he first started, he was a Mr. America guy. Maybe the real outlaws are the ones that don’t talk about it. He had witnessed his friend dying and had to cross the desert. That’s me playing the guitar, we had some session musicians that played with Kenny Rogers and Roy Orbison. We had Ronny Bowman (rest in peace), who sang harmonies. He passed in a motorcycle accident this year and it was great to work with him. Much of this I dedicate to him.”

What are you most looking forward to about sharing One for the Losers with the public both in the ether of the internet and in live settings next month?

“The hard thing is, them taking away the songs from my band. The way we play it live may be different than what is on the record. One of my girfliend’s family friend’s was like ‘I didn’t care for the recorded version of your music, but I’ll never miss a live performance’. It’s so hard when your music is emotional, it’s hard to get that across on a studio album. I’m thinking on doing a live record with my band and I think that will be a little more true to my sound.”