You may not be familiar with his name, but Marc Copely’s music has probably passed by you more times than you realize. Even I wasn’t familiar with the young man playing guitar with JD & The Straight Shot at Jazz Fest in New Orleans recently. Investigating a little further, these wonderful bluesy concoctions started filtering through the speakers and a humdinger of a guitar riff perked my ears. Who was this guy?
“Why would you know who the hell I am,” Copely said with a big laugh as I told him of my quest to learn more about him. “There’s a lot more successful people than I am. But I, and every musician, really appreciate people even being interested in what we’re all doing because it’s hard, you know.”
Copely is more well-known than he gives himself credit for. Appearing on numerous albums, playing tons of gigs with artists like Rosanne Cash and opening for bands such as The Eagles and ZZ Top, he has become a leading, much sought-after session guitar player, with two solo albums also to his credit. If you’re a TV junkie, you’ve heard his music in the series Pawn Stars, Grey’s Anatomy, American Restoration and NY Ink. His song “Midnight Run” was recorded by Willie Nelson for the 2012 movie Lawless and a rocking swamp boogie he wrote with Toby Lightman called “Long Hard Day” will be featured in an upcoming episode of the new ABC Family drama The Fosters.
On top of all that, he is currently playing with the country-style band High South and writing new music in Nashville before heading to Europe with the band to promote their debut album, which features the single “Now.” “That band is incredible,” Copely tells me as he sits in Central Park watching some old men play dominos. “We got a really, really, pretty big record deal with Universal Decca in the UK but even with a major label behind you with some really connected people, including all of us in that band who have done some professional things in our life and everything, it’s still hard to get press sometimes.”
So who is Marc Copely? I decided to find out more about this up and coming musician before his star rose any higher. With an upcoming project with Lightman in the works, as well as more gigs and recordings, it shouldn’t be long before everyone knows about Marc Copely.
Where are you at today, Marc?
I live in midtown Manhattan, which is a pretty crazy place to live in general. But I moved to New York in 2000 because I got signed to RCA Records as a solo artist. So I ended up moving here and the studio is here and my managers were here. It just kind of made sense for me to live here.
How did you get discovered by these people?
Basically, interestingly enough, I had produced a record by a New England based blues artist named James Montgomery, who hung out with the Allman Brothers and he played with Aerosmith and he came up in the scene around the same time and had some pretty big records in the blues world. And he wanted to kind of rejuvenate his career and he was looking for kind of a sidekick, younger blood in his band, and I went and played with them and he liked me and hired me. Then what ended up happening was I met his manager, a guy named Peter Casperson, who runs a management company called Invasion Group, and they’d done a lot of session musicians, a lot of producers and a lot of bands over the years. And he was helping James out.
Somehow we got in some kind of crazy conversation. He was like, “You sing too, right?” And I went, “Yeah, yeah, I sing.” “Do you write songs?” “Yeah, yeah, I write songs.” And he said, “Can I hear some?” And I’m like, “They’re not that good but yeah, alright.” (laughs) And I played him a couple of songs and he was like, “Man, I love this.” And I’m like, “Get out of here. You don’t love it.” And he said, “Well, you’re producing James,” and he hired me to produce James’s comeback record. We had James Cotton play on it, and he was one of the original Muddy Waters harmonica players, which was a big honor for me. I was like twenty-four years old producing James Cotton (laughs). It was pretty funny. He was like, “Who’s the producer?” and I was like, “That’s me, Sir.” (laughs) But the record did great and got nominated for a WC Handy Award, which was like the blues version of a Grammy. And that’s how it all went down. I was lucky, you know. Right place, right time. I never had a social life, basically just hung out listening to blues records and played gigs, you know (laughs)
You’re not just a guitar player. You also produce, you write, you sing. Do you ever find yourself bumping into yourself, so to speak?
Yeah, I do actually. Right now I have an interesting issue that came up today where I have to learn a bunch of songs for a Rosanne Cash show and I got an email today from another guy I work with who does a lot of television shows and he represents me for Tv shows. I did a lot of the music for Duck Dynasty and Pawn Stars, American Restoration, I had a lot of stuff on that. I’ve been doing this for the last couple of years and built up a pretty good list of tracks. And they emailed me today saying, “Oh, we have a new show that needs a bunch of stuff and it needs to be bluesy and slide guitar and up your alley and we need it in two days.” (laughs) I was like, man, I got to learn Rosanne Cash songs, I got to learn a bunch of vocal things for another gig I have coming up this week where we do like a tribute to Delaney & Bonnie, we do all those kinds of songs. It’s going to be a late night (laughs). But I love it. The whole trick is to make something up that I feel sounds like the television show. They’ll give me vague directions like, “We love slide guitar” (laughs) and it’s like, Oh shit, that’s it?
You seem to have different kinds of music in you: High South is country, I’ve heard you sounding bluesy, almost punk-rockish and alternative. Which one is more you?
You know, I think they’re all me. It’s really interesting sometimes when I’m doing sessions. I’m playing on a record next week for a few days and the producer is one of these guys that I’ve worked with a lot and he’ll just say, for example, “Do your thing.” And it’s like, well, that could be a lot of different things (laughs) because I’m interested in a lot of different kinds of music. I think it all adds up to what is me as a musician because all that stuff really emotionally drove me to do this for a living.
High South will be releasing Our Way Back Home in a few months. Will it available in America?
It’s not going to come out in America because we got signed to a European deal so it’s a pretty European record. There are a lot of strings on it and it was done by two European producers, so it’s pretty limited to that kind of market, I guess. But I think if we can get to a second record, which I think we will, that would come out here.
How long have you been together?
It’s been almost two years now. I joined last. The band had already been together and they kind of felt like they needed the fourth kind of voice and they needed somebody who was more of a songwriter as well as a lead guitar player. So they had been looking for people and Jamey Garner, who is the lead singer, knew me from living in New York for a couple of years. He remembered me and called some people and dug my number up and we got together and it just felt really good. But the interesting thing is the songs were already chosen for the record so going forward I think I will have more say about the sound of the band. On this record, I think I have four co-writes, even though I joined the band like a week before starting the record (laughs)
Where did you grow up?
I’m from Worcester, Massachusetts, which is kind of like a blue-collar sort of town, right smack dab in the middle of the state.
Was your family musical?
Yeah, my dad still sings in a barbershop quartet. He has a really great rich baritone sort of voice. But my parents were both teachers so it was a pretty low-income kind of family with a lot of books around (laughs)
What kind of kid were you like?
I was pretty quiet, kept to myself. I practiced guitar a lot and I loved it. I think I had a fairly pretty normal kind of upbringing; pretty boring.
What is your first memory of music?
The first really important memory I have is when my babysitter brought over a bunch of records one time and one of them was Zeppelin’s IV. I remember it was like Zeppelin IV, it was Aerosmith’s Get Your Wings and Queen’s News Of The World. It was those three records and basically when I heard Zeppelin, I was like, what the fuck is that? And I wasn’t even playing guitar yet. I was playing on the baseball team, going to school.
How old were you?
When I heard that record I was probably about eleven and then by the time I was thirteen, I was playing guitar. It took a couple of years to talk my parents into it.
How did you get your first guitar?
The first guitar I used was a Sears Silvertone nylon string acoustic, like a classical guitar. We couldn’t really afford to buy me a guitar so it was my friend’s older brother’s guitar that he wasn’t using and I just borrowed it.
When did you start writing songs?
I started writing songs actually pretty quick, like just sitting around the room making shit up (laughs) and of course it was all, I’m sure, completely ripped off from songs I was learning. But that’s how we all learn this stuff, right. Copy it until you get your own thing.
How do you write and create music today? How does it come to you?
It comes every way, actually, so I can’t really say it’s any specific way. I can go through songs that I’ve written and say, well, I had the title first or I had the chorus written first, stuff like that. I can’t really say there’s a definitive way for me but sometimes it’s driven by the fact that I have a songwriting session booked at noon and it’s noon (laughs), staring at somebody you don’t know and you’re like, “Let’s make some shit up.”
How is co-writing different from writing on your own? Do you find it easier or more comfortable to work with somebody or by yourself?
I seem to get more done with somebody else because I really like the interaction. I like kind of getting inside another person and they’re getting inside me and it’s a little like Vulcan mind melt or something (laughs). You know, where you’re talking about all kinds of life stuff or if you come up with a theme for the song with a lyric, chances are you’re going to talk about how that lyric or how that story affected you in your own life. So there is a bit of psychology involved with it, which I think is really interesting to me.
What would you say influences your songwriting the most?
You know, that’s a good question. I never thought about it but I think probably all the experiences you have in life on this planet. I live in midtown Manhattan and right now I’m talking to you and I’m sitting outside right at the south end of Central Park on a bench with like all these weird old Spanish guys playing dominos next to me. I mean, if you can’t write a song about this shit (laughs). It’s crazy, you know. It’s a crazy life. A lot of traveling, you’re meeting all kinds of people. I think most songwriters could write about almost anything.
What would you say was the most unique thing you’ve ever written a song about?
Probably the most unique thing that actually made it on a record was a song called “Truth & Oil,” which was on my first solo record, the one RCA put out. “Truth & Oil” came in a funny way. I was playing with a blues band and sitting in with them that night and driving home I was down a dark part of this little weird highway and you know those kind of billboards they put outside like a church or something that’ll say, “Special today, try the veal” or whatever and it’s all lit up. “BBQ here” (laughs). There was a sign that said, “God’s love will always surface like truth and oil.” And I was kind of like, hmm, I wonder what bible passage they got this from? And it was this weird kind of church in the middle of nowhere. But I looked it up and thought about it, forgot about it and about a week later I’d written it down and it kept popping in my head. And I was writing with David Werner, who is really my songwriting partner and producer for that whole record. I sat down to write with him and I said, “Hey man, you got any good ideas floating around?” And he said yeah and he played the opening riff of the verse and I literally sang the chorus of the song. I came up with the chorus dead on right there, sang the lyric and everything. He looked at me and said, “Man, this song’s coming from a deep, deep place, you know. A special place. I think you should write these lyrics alone and really think about what you want to say on this one.” So I went away and thought a lot and kind of drank some whiskey and wrote the lyrics at about 3:00 in the morning.
Limited Lifetime Guarantee, which was your first solo album, has some really good songs. The song that most caught my attention was “Right To My Head.”
Oh, I actually love that song. It was going to be my second single and we just never got to it. “Right To My Head” was another one of those songs where because I had been spending a lot of time in New York City, I had this kind of weird fantasy thing of seeing the girl that was like your dream girl on the subway and just losing your mind over her. A pretty innocent thing to think about but I had it in my head that I wanted to write a song like that. I love the whole thing of somebody being able to be so strong and so special that they really take over your life and your emotions and you can’t stop staring at this girl and they think you’re psycho but you’re really not (laughs).
You’ve opened and performed with a bunch of big names. What did you pick up from them by watching their sets or talking with them about the music business?
I learned a lot. A lot of times I will watch The Eagles soundcheck or we opened some shows for the Dixie Chicks and Keith Urban and ZZ Top and all these people and one thing I took away from it was the level of professionalism. Everybody’s having fun and everything but it’s a serious business and people are doing their job. One of the things Billy Gibbons told me a few weeks ago, the keyboard player in my band and myself happened to sit down at catering to have dinner with Billy and my keyboard player asked him, “Man, do you guys use like click tracks and stuff or are you just letting it fly? Cause it seems like you’re just rocking.” And Billy said, “Man, we’ve been using a click track for years and years and years just to keep it honest. We all have it in our monitors and it’s a set thing every night, it’s a set solo, and some of the solos at the end of the song I’ll cue the ending. But everything is really pretty worked out.” And we were both like, whoa, shit, really? It was surprising to hear that. With the Eagles you can see that it’s all worked out but ZZ Top? They’re singing songs about cars and girls and drinking beer and shit and they kind of give you the image that they just don’t give a shit about the click track or anything (laughs). It’s completely worked out. But they are awesome. Really professional and I took a lot away from that, thinking, alright, so much for ever thinking winging it’s a good thing (laughs).
Who was the first real rock star that you ever met?
That’s a good question. I’ve met a ton of them. I remember meeting Steven Tyler when I was young and I went to see Aerosmith. It was my first concert and I was always really taken by it because I thought rock & roll was the coolest thing in the world when I saw Steven Tyler pass out on stage. This was during his whole drug thing and I was a young kid. I think I was eleven and I had just heard Get Your Wings and I had just heard Zeppelin and I was like, “Mom, let me go to the Aerosmith show!” They didn’t know better so they foolishly let me go (laughs) and I ended up meeting him right after that and he was so fucked up and I was like, whoa, this is really scary but this guy, the charisma was astounding, just astounding. The guy walked into the room and it was like, how the hell do you get that? He just lights up the room. He’s just really, really got a gift for being Steven Tyler.
You were involved in a really nasty car wreck. When did that happen?
That was in 1995, I think. I technically died and was revived at the scene so it was a really bad thing. That’s what kind of led me to meeting James Montgomery because I was moving to Nashville really the next day after that accident. My car was packed with all my gear and my clothes and I was moving to Nashville to be a songwriter and a guitar player. I had to put all that on hold and my whole life took another path because of that. I was like twenty-three or twenty-four.
Did you know what was going to happen after that? I’m assuming you were in the hospital for quite a while.
Yeah, I was in for a bit and I had to live with my parents and recover and the whole thing. It’s kind of a distant memory. Now that I think about it, it was not 1995, it may have been 1997 or something. I can’t even remember now exactly. But I was really scared. I had all these great opportunities and a friend of mine’s wife who had a record deal in Nashville had wanted me to be in the band. So I had a job going to Nashville and I was going to write on the record and really had some stuff mapped out for me. And that all came crashing down. I remember I had other musicians thinking I was dead. They had heard I didn’t make it. It was a trip. I’m a lucky man.
How did you fall into session work?
I’ve kind of always did it. Mary Lou Lord was a street musician, a subway musician, in Boston and ended up dating Kurt Cobain and she ended up getting signed to Sony. For whatever reason, she called me to play in her band and this was right after the car wreck. So I played in her band and then James Montgomery hired me right after that. So I was playing with James and Mary Lou. I was doing Mary Lou’s tours and James’s record and ever since then I’ve kind of always been a session musician.
What is the most challenging part about being a session musician?
I think getting the right sounds and trying to interpret the artist and the producer. Giving them what they want while also maintaining your own style, which is usually why they’re hiring you anyway. They like what you’ve brought, the energy you’ve brought into other records and other projects. I think it’s really fun and I love listening to the artists and the producers explain what their vision is for a song or a sound or some kind of way to support the vocal and then coming up with that. It’s really on the spot and you have to work fast and I love the challenge of that.
Your last solo album, Harp & Plow, came out in 2009. Do you want to make another solo record anytime soon?
I think I do. Being in High South has inspired that in me because they’ve kind of forced me to be a better singer and a more consistent singer again, like I used to be. And ever since that, I’ve had a lot of people rap with me about doing a solo record and a lot of interest in me doing it, which is what I kind of need. I’m not just going to do it on my own. I need people to kick me in the ass to do it (laughs)
What can you tell us about the song “Long Hard Day” that is playing when you go to your website?
I wrote that song with a woman who has a similar story to mine, a girl named Toby Lightman. Toby was an artist on Atlantic and went through the mill like I did. We met about six months ago and we got asked to write that song, or she got asked to write that song specifically for a DeNiro film that is coming out next year. I think they were work-titling it Motel and it takes place in New Orleans and it’s a murder mystery.
And that song is going to be in it?
It’s still hanging in there. You never know at the end of the day when they edit the movie but that’s what that song was written for. Toby and I have actually talked about starting a band because we wrote a couple of other songs that are along that similar vein, kind of aggressive and rootsy, and she and I are singing a lot of harmonies together, things like that.
What about “Midnight Run”?
We got asked to write that song for the film Lawless and Harvey Weinstein sent me the DVD and said, “Just kind of check it out. I need a single for this and I’m having trouble finding one that’s appropriate.” It’s kind of the 1930’s depression era sound with something modern and I watched the movie and took some notes and I wrote the music. Then Jim from JD & The Straight Shot, Jim had hooked me up with Harvey because they’re friends, and Jim and I sat down and really finished the song and wrote the song together.
And you had no idea Willie Nelson was going to sing it?
We had absolutely no idea. We were going under the premise that we were going to record it for the soundtrack. So we went in and recorded it and sent it to Harvey and he said, “Man, I love it and I have Willie Nelson lined up to sing it,” and what are you going to say about that? It’s like the greatest honor of my life.
What was it like working with Bono and The Edge?
I was on the first call to work on Spiderman: The Musical, on Broadway. Basically, their original thought was to get some guys in there that weren’t Broadway musicians and they needed somebody who played guitar and bass and I fit the bill. I play a little bass on records too. Ended up working with them for two weeks, just kind of workshopping songs. They would just throw ideas out there and say, “Hey, can you play this or play that” and we would record it. I did two weeks of recording with them, just really coming up with ideas for songs. It was great.
If you wrote your autobiography today, what would you title it?
(laughs) Marc Copely: The Autobiography. You know, I might do the thing of naming it after one of my songs. I know people do that. A song like “Truth & Oil” would be a great title, of course. Or I also think I could name it Cope, everybody calls me Cope. I’ll be on tour or something and somebody will be like, “Yo Cope, what’s up?” (laughs) I always think, what an interesting nic-name.
What are your plans for the rest of the year?
I’m not sure about the Fall quite yet but I know I have to go back to Europe because the High South record comes out in Germany in September. So the last week of August/the first week of September, I’ll be there in Germany supporting the record. I know we have a bunch of TV shows to do and things like that. I leave for Europe again on June 23. We’re playing a bunch of festivals in Switzerland. We’re hitting Switzerland first and we’re there for about a week doing press and doing shows. Then we go to Holland, then come home for a couple of weeks and then basically back out to Germany and Austria. We’re playing in Vienna too, playing on July 12, doing a thing called Starnacht, which is basically Star Night. It only happens once a year and it’s televised and millions of people see it and we’re psyched.
And work on that solo record
You know, it’s funny, because the project with Toby Lightman, I have hopes for. I love her voice and her songwriting. The hard thing is we’re both so busy so we’re going to try and get seven or eight songs done hopefully by the Fall and start doing some gigs around New York. And then the solo record, I already have songs written for that, just cause I’m constantly writing. I’m going to do the Rosanne Cash thing and then I have the Mad Dogs & Dominos gig which is our Delaney & Bonnie tribute, which is really fun. Then the week after that I’m in Nashville writing.
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