March 15: J. Michael Graham comes back home to play The Village Trestle 

GOFFSTOWN, NH – It’s always good to come back to the place where you grew up. You get in touch with your roots while catching up with old friends and seeing how things have changed while others have stayed the same. He might be based in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, these days, but Manchester native J. Michael Graham has a habit of coming back to New Hampshire to perform an array of acoustic tunes. On March 15, he’s going to be performing a mix of covers and originals at The Village Trestle in Goffstown starting at 6pm. It’s a three hour set, so expect a plethora of songs and a vibrant atmosphere.

We had a talk ahead of the gig about an EP he released last year, making his return to New Hampshire, and what he has planned in 2025 when it comes to new recordings.

If you go:

The Village Trestle

25 Main Street Goffstown, NH

Tickets: Free Admission

Rob Duguay: You closed out 2024 by releasing the “Stuck” EP, so what was the experience like making this record and did you aim to do anything differently versus the other recordings that you’ve done?

J. Michael Graham: It was definitely a more involved process and there was a lot more production than with anything I had done previously. I would say that the other EPs I’ve put out were either recorded live or with minimal overdubs. One of them had some overdubs, but the goal of the first two was to kind of put out something that sounded consistent with what I was doing as a live product. With “Stuck”, I wanted to get a bit more ambitious and I definitely wanted a return to that full band rock sound, so Jeff Byrd played drums with me on that. He and I have done acoustic shows together and I had no idea he was a drummer, but he told me that one day and I was like “Oh, great.”

My stuff isn’t super complicated as far as drum parts go, so I asked Jeff if he would be interested in playing some drums and as it turns out, he’s a ridiculously good drummer. I had no idea of how skilled he was on the drums, so once we laid the drum tracks down and I knew that I had a real foundation, there was a lot that opened up. Each track probably has around three or four guitars at a minimum, so I did all of that and I did mostly all the vocals with the exception of the first track “Live and Learn”, which has Christian Caldarone and Annie Jaehnig from High Planes singing harmonies. I played synth for the first time on this record, I don’t usually play keyboards but I kind of took a stab at it to get some synth on one of the tracks. There’s a lot that I knew I wanted to do going in, but there was also a lot of experimentation once we got the process rolling because the musicians I worked with, namely Jeff, helped open things up.

Last but not least, Randy Hunicke, who is the chief engineer at Newcastle Sound in Bristol, Rhode Island, I co-produced the record with him and he also played bass. That was sort of the last step of the process, it’s definitely a much more elaborate production and I think it sounds that way.

RD: When it comes to the collaborative nature of this EP, do you feel that it started new creative avenues for you that you didn’t know were possible? Was it somewhat of a learning experience with Jeff, Christian and Annie?

JMG: Yeah, it’s always a learning experience. At this stage in the game, I have enough experience in the studio to have a pretty good idea of what I want, so the songs and the arrangements were pretty set. However, when we got into the studio, there was a lot of room for collaboration because I respected the musicians I was working with so much. For example, Christian Caldarone had some examples to do some oohs and ahhs at the end of “Live and Learn”, which I wouldn’t have put in myself, but I decided to run with it and it came out great. Randy Hunicke was great the whole way through because as I was playing my pre-written guitar solos he would suggest adding some things, so there was a lot of that type of stuff as well.

Randy was instrumental as far as suggesting embellishments that wouldn’t have been there otherwise.

RD: Very cool. What was the idea for the album cover where it looks like you’re sitting in the middle of the woods with your hands closed?

JMG: As I recorded the songs, it all became clear that they all had something to do with being stuck in time, stuck in a relationship or stuck in a geographical setting. Even the words in a couple songs include “stuck”, so it became very clear to me what we should run with as far as the title. I’ve done some collaborative work through a music festival I run in Pawtucket called River Bend East with David Lawlor, whose specialty is historical documentation of abandoned buildings. He does a lot of work through Rhode Island PBS, the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council and also independently, so he has a lot of stock footage and he knows a lot of different areas. I told him my general concept, we made a video and when we did the video shoot, we took a few extra pictures.

That picture on the cover is actually not in the middle of the woods, it’s in an abandoned mill building in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. There’s an overgrowth of vegetation that’s basically from neglect, so I thought it lent to the theme. The idea of abandoned buildings being stuck in a geographical area, or stuck in a building, and there’s a song called “Stuck In A House” where the video comes from, so we took some of those pictures. David then sent me another stock footage he had done from something previously, which was a rusted soda machine that was inside of one of the buildings that he documented. I’ve always liked those old-fashioned soda machines, they evoke a certain feeling due to how retro they are in nature, so I messed around with the concept a little bit and we put that photo of the machine on the back of the CD.

That tied the whole thing together in terms of completing the general concept of what we were going for.

RD: You have this show coming up at The Village Trestle, so what are your thoughts on coming back home to New Hampshire? Are you playing solo or are you performing with another musician?

JMG: It’s a solo gig and I’ve played at The Village Trestle several times before. As I’ve started to expand my footprint as far as playing gigs, New Hampshire has become a natural place to return to due to me being from Manchester. As I’ve played these shows, a lot of people have continually come out. Some of them are people I’ve known since way back in high school and they bring their friends. I actually know a group that’s going to be coming to this show to celebrate a friend’s birthday, so it’s kind of become this thing as I’ve played more and more shows in New Hampshire. Even though I’m based in Rhode Island now, I would say that my following in New Hampshire might even be a little stronger.

I’m really proud of that, it feels good due to being a New Hampshire native and I’m very fond of where I’m from. Goffstown is right over the border from Manchester, so a lot of the people I’m referring to will be there. As far as playing solo, it’s a challenge. It’s a three hour gig, so I definitely play a lot of familiar covers with the material from the “Stuck” EP making its way into the set. I do a lot of roots rock and stuff that’s in the vein of John Mellencamp, Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty, so I balance that out with my originals. It seems to work well for me.

RD: I can see that approach working really well. With this EP you have out, do you plan on making a follow up to it this year? When it comes to recordings, what does 2025 have in store for you?

JMG: I’d love to work with Jeff again. He’s been doing a lot of acting lately and he just finished a movie in New York City so I know he’s excited about that. He’s got a television show that he’s been working with that’s coming out pretty soon, but if he’s available, I’d love to work with Jeff again and the same with Randy. I have an idea of doing something that’s something like “new wave folk”. I’m a child of the ‘80s, I grew up with a lot of new wave music and recently I’ve been listening to a lot of music by The Cars and early Talking Heads stuff with the synthesizers. I wouldn’t mind going further with that in a sort of “new wave folk” type of album.

I know Christian Caldarone also plays synthesizers and I haven’t spoken with him yet, but maybe having him throw in some ideas to see what he can come up with would be cool. It’s a loose concept, I don’t have anything set for it yet, but that’s the direction I’d like to go in.