Those close personal connections and years of playing both together and apart lend the band’s songs an easygoing familiarity, even if they’re new like the latest release. “Me and the Lord” is a great example, and one of the most fully fleshed out arrangements featuring the whole band. Over a rollicking organ and piano accented tune that’s straight out of the Leon Russell school of 1970s ensemble rock, Gregory declaims a non-materialistic way of living life and practicing one’s spiritual faith.
“and I ain't got money much
it gets between me and the lord
that may sound funny but
there ain't that much I can't afford”
“There seems to be a way that we do things, and I don’t know what culture this comes from–is it church culture? Nashville culture? In terms of music with formal stuff like lead sheets,” Gregory says. “Sometimes it just happens, sometimes songs are more format based and we can work them out like that.”
Then there are the ones that are more difficult, requiring more work. “Sometimes songs take a long time; ‘Currency’ was one that I wrote three times thinking that the guitar lick was going to be for something else,” Gregory says. “Then finally some other words felt better with it, and it settled, and never turned into anything else–and that was over the course of years. But then, some songs I write in five minutes.”
One result of the recent recording sessions is that they have found some things that really work well for them, Gregory says. “We realized that we really enjoy recording our vocals live, around one microphone, to get the harmony,” he says. “Because our harmonies lock differently in the timing if we try to record separately and then blend it in later. So it has just been moving us forward, on all sides.”
There’s even more movement in the works, Gregory says, with more releases planned out.
“All of the live shows that we did this past spring that were full band, Moses did a multi-track recording off the board feed,” He says. “So there’s going to be a full band live recording from those shows that comes out in early 2026, fingers crossed.”
It’s a strategic release, to put a bit of a marker down for the current lineup of the band which is still playing songs from throughout the group’s discography. “What that’s going to do for people who might just say ‘Oh cool, we get to hear a live version of ‘Currency’,’ but what some may not realize is that when they listen to that original album recording it’s not the people that they’re seeing live on stage now–so this will give them the current lineup playing these songs the way they see them do it on stage.”
There is a method to this multitude of material, Gregory says, even if they haven’t quite figured out what that is, exactly. “What we’re doing with all of this is that I’m trying to commit more to putting out tunes,” he says. “But now the question is if it’s going to happen in a duo format, or in the studio with the band, or did it happen at Mardi Gras last year and now you’ll hear it as that live version? We want to do songs in all these kinds of ways, and I want to make an authentic and earnest representation on a regular basis in town that people can access in different places.”
What the Runout has found, it seems, is their people. “EZ Shakes has been saying it for years, and they do it differently than we do,” Gregory says. “But it’s possible to create your niche, create your community, and they can nurture you. We have found that if you consistently make your music available and you’re patient, there are lots of interesting crowds–and they overlap. We don’t give people enough credit, I think, for what they’re interested in, and they’ll come out of the woodwork to find you and support you. Chris had different people supporting his solo music than we have supporting us, and Moses has different people, too. People are just hungry for that organic experience.”
Jasper Magazine photos by Perry McLeod
