By: Dave Gil de Rubio
The small town of Roseburg, Ore., may seem like an odd place for a bona fide blues talent to emerge from, but so it goes when you’re talking about ZZ Ward. While it’s been barely over a dozen years since she dropped her 2012 full-length debut Til the Casket Drops, Ward has shifted gears and delved deeper into a genre that’s inspired her, dating back to a childhood that found her being captivated by the likes of Tina Turner, Etta James and Muddy Waters.
Her new album, Liberation, continues the journey toward becoming an independent artist that started with the release of her third studio outing, 2023’s Dirty Shine. Inspired by motherhood and the challenges working moms face, Ward found an ally for this current batch of songs in producer Ryan Spraker (Eli “Paperboy” Reed/Weezer), who Ward connected with on her last album.
“I knew I wanted to go further into the blues and soul influences that raised me,” Ward explained. “I knew that, so I kind of went into the project, got together with Ryan Spraker, who I had written a song with for my Dirty Shine album called ‘Friends Like These.’ In that session, I heard him play and knew he was the right guy. I got together with him, told him what kind of album I wanted to make, and we started working on it. I started writing about what was going on in my life, which included having my first son. I wrote a lot about the changes in my life from becoming a parent and just really opened up a big chapter of writing for me. It was kind of that, in combination with tackling the blues head-on—that was kind of the inspiration behind the album.”
Ward’s feel for the blues means the originals she’s had a hand in penning mix well with the covers she’s included. Opening cut “Mother” (which Ward co-wrote with Spraker) uses meaty riffing and a dollop of piano accompaniment to set the tone that echoes with hints of Buddy Guy and Etta James. From there, the 38-year-old vocalist/multi-instrumentalist tears through a snappy reading of Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s “My Baby Left Me” and a gritty and filthy cover of Elmore James’ “Dust My Broom.” While the title track has more of a tragic, R&B vibe to it that brings to mind the late Amy Winehouse, “Love Alive,” the album’s first single, is no less heart-rendering as Ward taps into the desperation generated by a relationship being tested by the rigors of family life. It’s the kind of passion Ward promises she’ll be bringing to the stage when she’s out on the road promoting Liberation.
“We used to use a lot of tracks to back us up because there was a lot of production on my older material, but now I’ve really stripped it back and it’s a four-piece,” she explained. “It’s me, my bass player, guitarist and my drummer. It’s more old school and simpler with a lot of storytelling. I talk about what’s behind the music and the inspiration behind the album. It’s been really fun.”
For Ward, the blues have always been a constant dating back to a childhood that found her playing music when she was only 12. (“I remember being surrounded by the blues and the live music set-up. My dad really introduced me to that and encouraged me to get up there and sing in front of people.”) Influenced by her pop’s blues collection, Ward figures the combination of her parents’ support and her own single-minded determination were the jet fuel that has her navigating through the music industry during such uncertain times.
“I guess what inspired me was that I just felt like there has always been a part of me in everything that I do, and I think you’ll hear this kind of energy in my music,” she said. “If I want something, I just go for it. I think at that early part of my life, I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to be a professional singer—that’s what I wanted to do. I remember the person teaching me how to play guitar said I wasn’t ready for that. They were right that my guitar level of skills at that point—yes, I probably wasn’t ready to go play in a band. But, I was so creative about music at that point that I was able to take the guitar and write music with it.”
She added, “You can put two chords together. Some of the best songs in history are three chords. Grabbing the guitar and deciding to play my own gigs and four-hour restaurant sets of music I’ve written myself—that was me. I think I was encouraged by my parents to go after what I wanted. But, actually doing it definitely came from inside of me.”
The biggest challenge Ward faced was going from the considerable financial and marketing support offered by a major label like Hollywood Records. It was here where she recorded a pair of albums, including her sophomore bow, 2017’s The Storm. But the pull of being free to make her own creative decisions proved to be too alluring, and in 2021, she left Hollywood to fund her own label, Dirty Shine Records. It’s proved to be a risky, yet worthwhile, life decision.
“One of the pros of being an independent artist is that I have a lot of freedom to make musical decisions that aren’t influenced by as many people around me,” she said. “I feel really free with being able to do whatever it is I want to do. The challenge of that is financial because now if I want to do a music video or an album, it’s just different. When I went to make Liberation, we had to think about what this album was going to cost to make. I had to get together with Ryan to see what it would take to make the album. We had to think about all that non-sexy stuff. But it had to be thought about to figure out if I could sustain it. I went and made the album independently. But I think musically, it’s a real win for me because I feel like being able to really wholeheartedly do what I want with music is more important than anything else.”
