Jamie Barrier

When I was a kid, I hated country music. But I was always around it and then I eventually got really into it. We would always go eat Mexican on the night the mariachi band would come, it was the absolute coolest thing in the world. We’ve got to do our version of that, what is our cultural music? I’m constantly trying to find our cultural music. When I go to Mobile, New Orleans, Lafayette, Boston, or Milwaukee with Polka, I know what it is. When I come to The Shoals, what is ours; who knows? That’s part of the search with The Haints, trying to find that. I want songs that are native to this area.

When I heard that you don’t have to know so and so, you don’t have to be a good player, you don’t have to hire a lawyer and a publicist; you can just like music and like playing with your friends. I embraced that. With punk I met all these people all over the world doing that, who have defied it just as much as you have. It’s all about the music. That’s been my aesthetic from day one.