About
The line between art and entertainment has always been fuzzy. Certainly, there’s plenty of overlap between the two, but lately it feels like there’s a growing divide, an ever-widening chasm separating our fundamental need for creative expression and our insatiable appetite for disposable content. That’s where T. Hardy Morris comes in.
“I’ve spent a lot of time parsing the difference between the two,” he explains, “not just for myself, but for society at large. What does it mean to be an artist? How do we measure creative success? Where are the boundaries between audience and performer when everyone’s broadcasting their lives 24/7?”
Morris dives into those questions headfirst on his riveting new album, Artificial Tears, and while the answers don’t come easily, the search yields plenty of reward. Recorded in Nashville with My Morning Jacket’s Carl Broemel at the helm, the collection is an electrifying work of existential exploration, a raw, rock and roll reflection on meaning and identity in a modern world that’s simultaneously more connected and isolated than ever before. The performances are blissed-out and hazy here, captured primarily on a four-track tape machine, and Morris’s delivery is subtle and understated to match, fueled by tumbling, stream-of-consciousness lyrics rooted in a dreamy sense of longing and nostalgia. Despite the weighty ruminations at its core, the result is a remarkably grounded, down to earth album that’s at once honest and abstract, a poignant, clear-eyed look in the mirror from a master craftsman committed to his work for nothing more—and nothing less—than its own intrinsic value.
“I’ve found a comfort zone for myself over the years writing music and performing when I feel compelled to, when I’ve got something I need to say,” Morris reflects. “The idea of being an ‘entertainer’ day-in and day-out never had much luster for me. I was always drawn to the shadows rather than the limelight.”
Born and raised in Georgia, Morris got his start with southern psych-rock/grunge outfit Dead Confederate, which shared bills with the likes of Dinosaur Jr. and R.E.M. in addition to making their national TV debut on Conan. When the band split up, Morris hit the ground running under his own name, releasing his solo debut, Audition Tapes, to widespread acclaim in 2013. Over the course of the next decade, he would go on to release three more similarly lauded solo records, prompting love everywhere from Pitchfork and SPIN to Paste and Billboard and earning dates with the likes of Jason Isbell, Drive-By Truckers, Shovels & Rope, and Shakey Graves. In addition to his steady solo output and rigorous tour schedule, Morris also found time to record a pair of albums with the freewheeling side project Diamond Rugs, which featured members of Deer Tick, Los Lobos, and The Black Lips.
“Everything was pretty tumultuous leading up to my most recent record [2021’s The Digital Age of Rome],” Morris recalls, “but it felt like there was a return to some kind of normalcy for a couple years after that. I was just living day to day, writing and watching my kids grow up. It gave me a chance to reflect on what it means to carve your own path and find happiness in front of you.”
In typical fashion for Morris, the songs came slowly at first, then all at once in a rush as he reflected on two decades of highs and lows, on the joys and struggles of a life in music, on the heroes and cautionary tales he’d encountered along the way. When it came time to record, Morris called on Broemel, who ended up not only producing, but playing the vast majority of the instruments on the collection.
“I’ve always been a fan of Carl’s solo records and his work with My Morning Jacket, so it turned out to be a perfect fit,” explains Morris. “He’s phenomenal on guitar, bass, pedal steel, everything, so I was able to show up with my drummer and just immediately get collaborative on everything.”
“Hardy’s got a really direct and honest approach to music—and to life—which was so refreshing,” says Broemel. “He likes to work fast and not get too precious about things.”
After cutting some rehearsals and demos on a Teac four-track at Broemel’s house, the trio headed to a studio in Nashville for the “official sessions,” but something was missing.
“The studio was great for some of the songs,” Morris recalls, “but I often found myself drawn more to the demos we’d done at Carl’s house, so we headed back to his place to finish the record the way we’d started it.”
“The quiet songs needed that raw and simple approach to feel right,” explains Broemel. “As we continued recording back at my house, we elaborated on the four-track process and started recording some more full band tracks there, as well.”
That intentional embrace of the grit and limitations of four-track recording forms the heart and soul of Artificial Tears, which opens with the sprightly “Write It In The Sky.” “When all the world was young / We held it like an egg / We never dropped a crumb,” Morris sings over nimble guitar and muscular drums. “When all the world was young / We swore we’d keep it safe / We held it like a babe.” Like much of the album, the track veers between optimism and cynicism, wondering if unbridled ambition is an asset or simply a symptom of youthful naïveté. “Write it in the sky above me,” Morris concludes. “I’m a means to an end.” The driving “I Guess” makes peace with imperfection (“No such thing as no regrets,” Morris sings), while the bittersweet “Juvenile Years” reaches back for memories of a simpler time and place that hang just out of reach, and the hypnotic “Breakneck Speed” contemplates the comedown that inevitably follows any meteoric rise.
“No matter which way you slice it, whether you’re working some menial job or you’re a bigtime entertainer, you’re a cog in somebody else’s wheel,” Morris reflects. “Everybody gets up and goes to work; maybe it’s in a factory or an office or on a stage or in a tour bus, but there’s no escaping that reality, so you’ve got to figure out what it is that really makes you happy.”
Meditations on the true meaning of satisfaction turn up throughout the album. The laidback “Don’t Kill Your Time (To Shine)” revels in the freedom of unselfconsciousness; the tongue in cheek “Sweet Success” questions whether the grass is ever really greener; and the haunting “Low Hopes” learns to let go of wants and desire and find gratitude for what already is.
“When you focus on entertainment over art, you start reaching for your lowest impulses, for the lowest forms of security and status,” Morris muses. “When you let go of the stuff that doesn’t matter and stop being so overly concerned with material things, you can appreciate the real stuff that’s all around you.”
It’s perhaps the churning “Fight Forever,” though, that best embodies the album’s ethos, with Morris proclaiming, “Keep better measure / Keep a naked eye / Rather be forgotten / Than know I never tried.”
“I’ll always be writing music,” he explains, “no matter who’s listening. Day in and day out, one phrase to the next. This has always been more than a dream. It’s been a calling.”
Spoken like a true artist, indeed.
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