April 18 (UPI) -- Singer-songwriter Torres is releasing a new album with Julien Baker, and she says the country record represents a return to her Georgia roots.
The album, Send a Prayer My Way, is out Friday, and Torres, aka Mackenzie Ruth Scott, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview that the collaboration with Baker comes after a nearly decade-long friendship.
"She had just released her first album, and we were put on a bill together in Chicago almost 10 years ago. She opened the show, she played by herself. She was amazing," Torres recalled. "She was so young and sweet, and I felt like a little bit like -- she obviously didn't need it, but at the time, I was like, 'Oh my gosh, I should take her under my wing.'"
She said the idea of teaming up for a country album came during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when she was working on her solo album Thirstier.
"I had this idea for a country album that I wanted to make. And I was like, 'Well, I'm writing the next solo record. So maybe if I want to do a country album, I should make it collaborative,'" she said.
Torres said Baker was "the first name that came to my mind."
"I just reached out to her and I was like, 'Well, how would you feel about making a country record together?' She immediately texted back, and she was like, 'Hell yeah.' So that was the beginning."
Country roots
Torres, whose solo records usually have more of an indie rock vibe, said she and country music have a complicated history.
"I grew up in Georgia and there were phases of my life where all I listened to was country music. And then there were phases of my life on where I sort of rejected it as a genre, 'cause I was trying to get away from everything about my upbringing," she said.
She said she eventually came to understand that country music was a part of her that would never go away.
"I think in country music in a way, like when I write," she said. "It begins in my mind as like, 'Well, this could be a country song.' The way that I write is very southeastern United States, I can't get away from it."
The decision to finally record a country album does not signal a permanent shift, however.
"I have been dancing around it a while. I wanted to make something straightforward country that just acknowledges that that's what it is. And then maybe I can move on -- like, I just wanted to make one country album."
Some of Torres' biggest country influences include the radio stars of her youth like The Chicks, Shania Twain, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Deana Carter and George Strait.
She said that, as she got older, she became more aware of "outlaw country" artists like Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson, as well as the "classic" artists like Loretta Lynn, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson.
"My heroes are both Johnny Cash and Shania Twain, you know what I mean?" she said.
Collaborating
The process of making Send a Prayer Down My Way with Baker was very "split down the middle," Torres explained, with each artist arriving at the studio with lyrics to half of the songs that ended up on the record.
"I don't want to speak for her on this, but it seems like we have a very mutual trust in the taste and decision making about this record," she said. "And neither of us was trying to strong-arm the other into doing something that the other didn't want to. Julian's flair is all over this ... a solo Torres album wouldn't sound like that. But that's why I love the collaboration."
The pair came together in the studio to refine the songs they each brought to the table.
"The songs changed a lot from inception to the final recorded studio versions in a really exciting way," she said. "I think the record kind of started very slow and a bit dirty. And ultimately, it became a very well rounded, rhythmically diverse spectrum of feeling as opposed to just feeling like one long lamentation."
Future plans
While she doesn't have anything in the works right now, Torres said there are other genres she would like to experiment with in the future.
"I would really like to make something heavy -- like really heavy, grungy, sludgy rock. I'm not going to say Chelsea Wolfe-style, but something, you know, heavy and dark. That would be awesome."
Torres, whose first experiences with performing music were in musical theater, said that is also a genre that's always on her mind.
"I really love really dramatic, dark musical theater, like the Phantom of the Opera or Les Mis. Like that would be awesome. I'm interested in all aspects of that. I would love to write a musical," she said.
She is a bit less confident about a return to acting, but said it's not off the table.
"I think I sort of convinced myself, and this is part of why I switched gears into performing my own music, I convinced myself that I don't actually have the Broadway voice. I don't have the range, which is true, like I can't sing the phone book. But I could write one that I could sing, and pop myself into it."
For the immediate future, Torres' focus is on her upcoming tour with Baker to perform songs from Send a Prayer My Way.
"The most fun thing for me is performing. I like, I love it. I love it in a way that is just so pure, there's only one thing in the world that can make me feel like that, and it's performing," she said. "That is ultimately why I do it, but that's such a small part of a tour. It's like 90 minutes a day, so you have to love other things."
Torres said one of the "other things" she loves is getting to travel to new places.
"I think it would be hard for me to have a job that required me to just always be in the same place," she said.
The artist said she also looks forward to sampling local coffees and bakeries, and just being able to hang out with her friends on the bus.
"It's like going on a road trip with a group of friends and being in the closest of quarters for weeks on end, which can be exhausting and can be annoying at times, but ultimately is a really [expletive] good time," she said. "As I get older and as I do it more, I get better and better at making tours something that I love and not just something that I'm like trying to get through."
Send a Prayer My Way by Julien Baker & Torres is out now in record stores and on streaming platforms. The duo's tour kicks off April 23 in Richmond, Va.
