Biography

On his new album 'Hang Your Hopes On A Crooked Nail,' out Feb 11, songwriter Rod Picott's lyrics tell stories of working class life with striking poignancy. They ring especially true for a reason - he writes what he knows. Raised in Maine, Picott spent 18 years of his life working in construction, hanging and finishing sheetrock. After moving to Nashville to pursue a music career, he spent his days doing manual labor, performing at dive bars and open mics at night to hone his skills.

"I'd work eight hours a day, then come home, lock myself in a room and take a couple of hours to write," Picott says. "I'd write songs on my lunch break. Looking back, that period was where I sort of formed and became who I am as a songwriter."

After years of work, Picott released his first album at the age of 30, and soon built a reputation as a masterful storyteller and songwriter. Artists like Ray Wylie Hubbard and Fred Eaglesmith recorded his songs, and he found wider success working with childhood friend Slaid Cleaves, co-writing his biggest Americana hit "Broke Down."

Like the photographic subjects in Robert Frank's iconic work "The Americans," Picott's characters are everyday people in unglamorous settings, captured in stark detail. What makes them extraordinary is not their outward beauty, but their unquestionable realness.

"You can't make stuff up that's as potent as real life, and you can't make it real if it's not your story, or you haven't at least lived alongside the words," Picott says. "Songs don't have to be autobiographical, but they better come from somebody's biography, or they sound like lies."

Many of the songs on 'Hang Your Hopes On A Crooked Nail' are drawn straight from Picott's life. "Milkweed" addresses the inevitable passing of his aging father, while "Mobile Home" draws on his memories of the time he spent living in a trailer park. "I Might Be Broken Now" was co-written with Amanda Shires, who he often performed with. The two musicians were also in a relationship together that was beginning to dissolve around this time. "We wrote that song when we were breaking up," he says. "Writing a break-up song with the person you are breaking up with is like helping a burglar break into your house. It worked out nicely, but I don't know if there's a future in it as a writing strategy. That's a lot of heartache to get to ten songs. It could take awhile."

'Hang Your Hopes On A Crooked Nail' was produced by R.S. Field (Billy Joe Shaver, Hayes Carll, Justin Townes Earle), and recorded at Middletree Studios in East Nashville. In addition to Picott on acoustic guitars and Field on piano, percussion, and vibes, the album features Dave Coleman (electric and slide guitars), Mark Pisapia (drums, harmonies), James Haggerty (acoustic and electric bass), Lex Price (tenor guitar, mandolin), David Henry (strings) and Jennie Okon (harmonies).

'Hang Your Hopes On A Crooked Nail' marks a new career high for Picott, and may just be the tipping point that leads to his wider recognition as one of the most authentic American songwriters working today.

"I used to think that the sort of working class, blue-collar thing had been played out and done. I realized a few years ago, though, that I have a different perspective. In the contemporary country market, they tend to write from the perspective of how those people would like to see themselves. They like to mythologize that blue-collar world. I'm here to write the truth, as I know it. Do you know what it feels like to walk into that carpeted bank lobby in front of the tellers in their pant suits and dresses on Friday afternoon covered in drywall dust with metal burrs under your fingernails so you can hardly hold the pen to sign your check? I can tell you. It does not feel heroic."

"I don't deal much with poetry that about escaping the real world. The real world is my poetry. I like fighters. I like the richness and depth of people who have had to fight for something in their life. There is nothing more beautiful in this world to me than someone who won't be denied."