ZZ Ward is returning to her roots. The acclaimed singer/songwriter, whose twelve plus year career has seen her release three full length albums and five EPs, lists Etta James, Muddy Waters, Big Mama Thornton, and Robert Johnson as some of her earliest musical influences. And although Ward is frequently presented as a blues artist, to date her music has crossed and mixed genres including blues, rock, pop, soul and hip-hop.
But with the release of Ward’s latest EP, the six-song Mother that dropped on October 4, ZZ is returning to a more traditional blues focus. A new album, which will also be blues focused, is planned for 2025.
Ward is currently preparing for the kick off of her Dirty Sun Tour on November 6. The third and fourth nights of the tour will find her in Denver (November 9 at the Gothic) and Boulder (November 10 at the Fox). In advance of those shows, Ward took time to chat with me about her musical journey, her return to her blues roots, balancing being a mom with her career, and her short-lived acting career. And yes, we talked (briefly) about her fedoras.
RW: Thanks for joining me this afternoon, ZZ. I appreciate you taking the time, I imagine you’re pretty busy. Are you at home now just sort of chilling between tours, or are you pretty jammed up getting ready to head out for the Dirty Sun Tour?
ZZ: I’m at home, but I feel this kind of wave that the tour is coming up. So now I’m starting to prepare for the tour, and think about the live show, putting the band together, you know. I want to make the tour amazing.
RW: Do songwriters ever take time off? I mean, you could be relaxing on a beach somewhere, but if inspiration were to strike, you wouldn’t be able to ignore it, right? Or would you be able to put it on the back burner and come back to it later?
ZZ: I think now that I have kids, I don’t really have a choice. I can’t be like, “All right, kids, you know what? You guys can pour your own chocolate milk. I’m gonna go write a song.” I think that if you have an idea about something special, especially like a lyrical idea, write it down. Even if you’re in the middle of a huge situation in your life. Maybe you aren’t ready to write about it yet, but anything you feel, you should write down. I genuinely believe that.
RW: So do you keep a journal with you or something? Or do you just put it on your phone?
ZZ: These days I just put it on my phone. I mean, I remember when I first moved to Los Angeles, I had a tape recorder and a notepad. And some people still do that because they like to be able to write something down. I do too, actually. Sometimes I would prefer to write something on paper. But I just read it into my phone now, or I’ll take a voice note or something.
RW: You just dropped a new EP a little under three weeks ago. Congratulations on that. I think it’s amazing. I’ve listened to it several times, and obviously this is my opinion, and it’s based upon my personal musical preferences, but I think it’s the best thing you’ve ever done.
ZZ: Oh, my God, thank you. Thanks so much.
RW: In the email I received from your publicist, it made the point that you were returning to your blues roots. It just seems to me like this is the music you were destined to make, if that makes sense.
ZZ: Yeah, I really feel that way too. And it took me a while to get here. I think that when you’re first starting out as an artist, you’re trying to figure out how to make a lot of people happy, and how to please a lot of different people around you. And for the first time in my life, when I turned around to make this particular group of songs, I just knew this was the time I wanted to go back to the blues. I wanted to go back to the music I grew up listening to.
I still had people around me saying, “Oh, you could do that anytime.” But no, I think now’s the time. Now’s when I really want to do this. So, I definitely share the feeling, and I’m so happy to hear that you feel that way when you hear it. I’ve been hearing some feedback like that, and it’s wonderful to hear because everything is a little bit of a risk in music. I wouldn’t say I’m changing genres, because I don’t think I am, but I’m going further into one of those genres that’s a huge influence on me.
But, yeah, I’m really happy with how it turned out. I’m really proud of these songs.
RW: It seems to me that blues, as a genre, is the one that calls people back more than any other. I just think there’s something about that genre that people want to come back to.
ZZ: It’s the simplicity of the genre. The blues is the foundation of all American music. It influenced rock and roll and everything that’s come since then. I think when we talk about people going back to it, it’s because it’s always kind of there.
When we think of some of the greatest blues artists that have ever lived, like Son House or Muddy Waters… these are people that did magnificent things with simplicity, with simple playing and simple singing. But what they did with those pieces of music still moves people to this day. So, yeah, I agree with you. It’s the bones underneath all music, which is why a lot of people do go back to the blues.
RW: I want to go back to something you referred to when you were talking about being a young artist. Let me read a quote to you from that email from your publicist, and I want to ask you to help me to understand this. The quote says, “As she rose in the industry and signed with a major label, she often felt steered toward a different direction, pressured to stray from her blues foundation.” When I read that, I thought, wait a minute. This is not clicking with me, because one of the things I’ve always felt about you and your music is that it was kind of your signature style to blend so many genres together and do them in your own unique way. But the quote kind of suggests something different. Or am I reading too much into it?
ZZ: No, you’re not reading too much into it. I don’t think we can look at that quote as exemplifying my whole career. Maybe it does for a certain point in time. When I first started making music, on a professional scale, I was blending genres. I was taking the things I learned from the blues and was mixing that with hip hop and some pop influences… putting things I had learned into my music. And at some point, maybe I wanted to go further into those influences. I can’t tell you what year it was… I don’t know exactly. But I didn’t feel comfortable doing that because I didn’t feel it would be accepted by the industry.
So back to that quote being true… yeah, it is at a certain point. Was it on the first album, Till The Casket Drops? No, I don’t think so. Till The Casket Drops is a really strong album, where I’m blending genres. And I loved it. I loved writing it, and I feel that it was very authentic to me. But of some point later in my career, yes, I do feel that quote is true.
RW: So you gave me a perfect segue there because there are two songs on the new EP that have been repurposed from Till The Casket Drops, “Put The Gun Down” and “Lil Darlin.” Both of those, in their original forms, are blues songs. But on the new EP, they’re really blues songs. I mean, you add the horns in, and they just have this bigger, bolder sound to them. They’re fantastic. But as I was listening to them, I began to wonder if there is a risk to doing something like that, to take a couple of songs from a first album, and bring them forward a dozen years later, changing them up. Were you at all concerned that there could be backlash from people who might say, “just leave well enough alone”?
ZZ: I didn’t have that concern because I felt pretty confident I was going to make them better. I think the style of music I’m making right now supports my voice maybe better than ever before. It’s funny that you would say they were always blues songs. They were always blues songs. And when you bring more instruments into it, and you take some of the pop aspects and the production away from it, it can only support songs like that and make them flourish.
So maybe I was a little concerned that people wouldn’t like it, right? I was concerned when we went in the studio to approach those two songs that there was a really high bar to hit. But once we were in the studio and we were doing it, and we were very, very careful about what we added or what we were taking away, then I started to love it. Because when I’m in the studio and it makes me smile, and it makes me feel excited, then I gotta let it go after that, you know. And I hope that my audience will feel the same way. You never know. You don’t have control over that as an artist… but you can make it so that you love it. And that’s what I did.
RW: Yeah, it’s a dilemma, because when an artist redoes a song it’s inevitable that people are going to compare, and they’re going to want to declare that one version is better than the other. I don’t know that there’s an absolute “better than,” or “not as good as.” But there certainly can be an “I prefer.” And as much as I love those songs from the original album – a couple of my favorite songs from that album, in fact – I really, really love them on the new EP. So for what it’s worth, I think you cleared the bar.
ZZ: Thank you. Thank you. That means a lot.
RW: I know there are plans for a new album next year that’s going to carry forth with this ‘return to the blues’ theme. Is there a target release date, or is that premature at this point?
ZZ: Um, I don’t know that. We’ve not announced that yet, so there isn’t a date set right now. But yes, we do have plans.
RW: I’m not trying to get you to spill the beans or anything, but are you going to leverage some or all the songs off the EP, or is it going to be 100% new material?
ZZ: Well, that’s an interesting question. I’m actually in that decision making process right now. You know, I love vinyl, and I love the album experience. And I genuinely feel like people who listen to my music listen to my albums, and not just single songs. So I take a lot of care and put in a lot of TLC when it comes to thinking about that exact thing you’re talking about. Is it going to be all new songs? Are we going to hear parts of the EP on the album? I’m kind of deciding that right now, but I’m definitely taking my time to really think about it, and what makes for the best listening experience.
RW: Much belated congratulations on the birth of your second son, back in February. You are now the proud mother of two boys, and you’ve made it abundantly clear how dedicated you are to your family. I’m assuming you’re going to have the boys with you on the Dirty Sun Tour?
ZZ: Yeah, I am. You know, that’s a deal breaker for me. I’m so lucky that I live in a time where I can bring my kids with me, and my family helps me, and so I’m very fortunate with that. I know that there are other women throughout time that have been artists… I think of Tina Turner, who wasn’t in the position to bring her kids with her. I can’t imagine how hard that would have been. So that’s kind of a deal breaker for me. You know, I have to be able to bring my kids, or I don’t think I would go.
It is wild bringing two kids under five out there, but they’re my everything, and being a mom to them is first for me. And they’ve both been out on bus tours already. I mean, I was potty training one on a bus tour and nursing the other.
RW: I read that when you were out with Slash on the S.E.R.P.E.N.T tour, you actually had your mom with you to help.
ZZ: Yeah, my mom and dad helped me a lot, and I definitely could not do it without their help. They’re just incredible, and they’re a huge part of both of my son’s lives. It’s really special. I’ve always been close with my parents, but watching my dad and my mom be close with my sons is really awesome. And my parents have always been really supportive. My dad was the reason I got into music, and especially the reason I got into the blues. So, yeah, they support my wild lifestyle.
RW: You’ve gone from being on the road as a headliner for your own tour, to being one of a group of artists for the S.E.R.P.E.N.T tour, and back to being the headliner for your own tour again. What kind of adjustments do you have to make going back and forth between those different roles?
ZZ: You know, when you headline, it’s your crowd. There are some people who are like, “Okay, I’ve come to your show, and I want to see what you’ve got… impress me.” But most of them already know your songs, and they want to enjoy that experience with you.
When you go to something like the S.E.R.P.E.N.T tour, it’s different, because you don’t know who these fans are there to see. Some of them are there to see you. Some of them are there to see other acts. Maybe they don’t even know who you are. And a lot of them are there to see Slash. So I have to act like an artist that no one has ever heard of before. And I need to make these people remember what my name is and want to go look up my music. So it’s definitely an adjustment. I think the best thing you can do is try to stay humble, be open-minded, and keep it about the music.
At this point, I’ve been touring for 12 years. When I first started touring, I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know who I was answering to. I didn’t know if I was the boss or if somebody else was the boss. But it’s different now. I handpick the people that come out with us. They’re my family out there. And I think that energy between band members, between crew members, it all matters, and it’s all a reflection on the artist. And so when fans come to these shows, it’s my job not only to make sure the music is great, but to make sure the energy is great, because it’s all an expression of my art, you know.
RW: I read an interview recently where you credited the song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” by the Beatles, with inspiring you to want to make music. That really resonated with me because of all the incredible music the Beatles gave us, that song is my personal favorite. I knew I had to ask you about it. What is it about that song that would inspire you so much that you would mention it all these years later?
ZZ: When I first started getting into the Beatles, I was in college. I would listen to everything I could from them. And that song in particular really stood out to me. It just has such darkness to it and such an intensity that I feel when I hear that song, even now, it transports me away from where I am and takes me somewhere else. And I think that’s the power of music, you know? I mean, some things will just stop you in your tracks, and they’ll make the hair on your arm stand up, and that’s what I feel like with that song. There’s just a certain intensity to that song that I really connect with.
RW: Let’s shift gears a bit. Are you surprised I haven’t asked you any questions about fedoras yet?
ZZ: No. Everybody asks different things, so I never know what to expect.
RW: I just figured you probably get asked about fedoras in almost every interview, so I wasn’t planning to ask you about them. Okay, okay, other than… I did see an interview where I learned that apparently the fedoras you were selling on your website were all handmade by you.
ZZ: Yeah, I was making them. But I’ve stopped now, because after having a second kid, I needed to prioritize where I put my time. And music comes first. Well, the kids come first, and then music. And at this point, I don’t have the capacity to do anything else. Right now, I’m putting all my energy into the kids and the music. I’m focused on the music, and making it really, really soulful, and authentic.
RW: You’re playing two nights here in the Denver area. You’re at the Gothic in Denver on November 9, and then at the Fox in Boulder on November 10. I expect you get asked this all the time, but this is your opportunity to send whatever message you want to both the folks that are planning on seeing one, or maybe both of those shows, as well as the folks who could be on the fence about showing up. What would you like people to know about what they’re going to see and hear?
ZZ: I would say to the people that have never seen me play before, I think there’s beauty in live music, and when you come to see me sing and my band play, you’re going to see people who can really play live. It’s not just something you’re going to hear on a record. It’s something we do in that room, and it’s a little bit of magic. I hope people will come check it out for that reason.
To my fans that have come to my shows before, I have some tricks up my sleeve. I have some really special things planned for these shows, and I’m hoping to give them the best experience they’ve ever had, coming to watch me on tour.
RW: All right, so really quick before I let you go, I mentioned earlier that I do a lot of research when I’m preparing for interviews, and I think I might have actually outdone myself this time. In preparation for this conversation with you, I actually went back and watched the movie Wally Got Wasted. (Note: Ward had a small part in that movie, which was released in 2018.)
ZZ: (Big laugh) Oh my gosh, that’s wild.
RW: I suppose I could ask if you have any aspirations for future acting roles, but I suspect that would fall far down on your priority list. But how did your role as Officer Sanders come to be in the first place?
ZZ: Well, my brother is a very talented independent filmmaker, Adam William Ward. He’s always been into films and filmmaking, and he’s an incredible actor and a huge inspiration for me. He makes these films on his own, and he hires all the crew and all the actors. He wrote Wally Got Wasted, and he filmed the whole thing. I mean, just tireless hours out there filming. And so, I exclusively act in my brother’s films only (continued laughing), and that was my little role as Officer Sanders. We’ll see what he’s working on next, but he’s such a talent and such a huge inspiration to me.
ZZ Ward’s Dirty Sun Tour kicks off on Wednesday, November 6 in Phoenix, and rolls through Denver on Saturday November 9 (Gothic Theatre) and Boulder on Sunday, November 10 (Fox Theatre). Tickets, including VIP packages, are available at https://www.zzward.com/tour.
Story by Rick Witt www.rickwittphotography.com
Photos courtesy of Charlie Ward
