Tony Martinez is a veteran of the music scene. Though he is relatively unknown to the mainstream world, Tony is ready to make his presence known when his debut album Everywhere West drops on August 16th via Yelawolf’s label Slumerican. Everywhere West is a wild journey through Tony’s life. From songs like “Ain’t Nothing Gonna Slow Me Down," to songs like “Try,” this album makes you feel all the emotions of life. I had the pleasure of sitting down and talking with Tony about the album and the process of writing it. Check it out below and be sure to check out Everywhere West when it is released wherever you listen to music on August 16th.
James Adamski: My name is James Adamski. I'm a photographer and journalist for Music Scene Media. Today, I'm joined by the one, the only, Mr. Tony Martinez.
Tony Martinez: Yeah, man. How's it going, James? Good to be here, bro.
James: Awesome. It's going well. You're based in Nashville, correct?
Tony: Yep. It was supposed to be clear today, and it's just thunderstorms on and off, on and off, on and off. So, kind of just hanging around the house today, getting stuff done here.
James: Hey, those are always good days. Yeah. So, I hear you have a new album coming out.
Tony: I do, man, on the 16th of August. It's called Everywhere West.
James: So, right around the corner. You got Everywhere West coming out.
Tony: Yep. And I'm dropping my third single with it, called "Back to the Wall," with the music video as well.
James: Oh, wow. So, you're just busy, busy, busy.
Tony: Yeah.
James: So, I have questions for you. This is your debut album, correct?
Tony: Yes, yes. I've recorded an EP before and some singles and stuff like that, and I've been a part of so many other people's records and stuff, but this is my debut album, yes.
James: Awesome. So, before we get into the album, could you tell our fans and your fans, really quickly, who is Tony? You're a relatively new artist. What got you into music? How long have you been doing it professionally? Just give us a little bit about who you are.
Tony: Oh man. I've been doing this a really, really, long time. I got into music with my father. My father, Rick Martinez, always had bands, always played professionally, [he was a] Honky Tonkin', son of a gun, man.
So, I grew up around this music industry and stuff like that, and he played old western songs and old country music and stuff like that. I mean, I've played in all the bars and done all that. Spent my 10,000 hours playing well over that. I'm a singer-songwriter, and I write all my own stuff and play all my own stuff. I'm a multi-instrumentalist. I play pedal steel and drums, bass, whatever...just anything that makes noise. I always figured out how to play it. My dad told me when I was a kid, "Son, you learn how to play anything and everything. You'll never be out of a job."
James: Hey, that's not a bad way to do it. I'm a musician myself, so I can completely understand that.
So, that leads me into a question about the album [Everywhere West]. I've had the opportunity to listen to it. Fantastic record, by the way.
Tony: Cool. Thanks, man.
James: All 13 songs kind of gave me a wide range of genres and emotions, and I loved it. Every musician kind of has a story in someone who inspires them. So, who inspires your music and who inspired this new album?
Tony: Well, my dad's band name growing up was Everywhere West and Everywhere West was the name of an old locomotive... an old train that went the Burlington Northern route. He was digging fence holes by railroad tracks one day and he heard a voice go, “Ricky, look up! Ricky, look up!” And the train said "Everywhere West" on it, and I said, “That's going to be your legacy.” So, I thought it was cool, my dad being my first influence ever in music. I stood there by the stage when I was four years old thinking, "How do these five different guys come together with five different instruments to make one sound?" And I was kind of blown away by that. I told myself then and there, "That's what I'm going to do for the rest of my life." So, this album is kind of an homage to my father and him being my first influence and my first hero, musically.
[As far as my influences] I mean, I love all the old country stuff. I love all the old rock and roll stuff. I mean, I grew up with that kind of stuff. On my mom's side was more rock and roll. Of course, Dad loved the Beatles, but he also did a whole bunch of Sons of the Pioneers. Then you get Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash, and just all the greats back then doing their thing their own way kind of inspired me as well. This album is just organic, man, and I think all my different influences have shown throughout this album, you know what I mean?
James: That's amazing. I kind of mentioned, and you've alluded that every song kind of has its own sound and its own emotion. What song was the most difficult for you to write and/or record on this album?
Tony: Well, a lot of them, [like the first track] “Ain't Nothing Going to Slow Me Down.” We wrote that in the studio. I mean, I don't know if there's anything that's more difficult or that was more difficult to write or anything like that.
“Crazy," my first single... I wrote it on my front porch at four in the morning and it came in 10 minutes. And then some songs, like one called “Believe All Believe in”... I wrote that a long time ago when I was on tour with Whitey Morgan. And then there's “I Lost More Than What I've Got Today.” That one, I had lyrics for, but I didn't finish it. I wrote that on the road a long time ago, too. I just started playing this thing. Actually, Peter Keys started playing this lick–that kind of funky lick– and I was like, "I got words that'll fit this," and it kind of just came together that way. So, everything on this album kind of happened really organically and really easy, and that's a blessing for sure.
James: And I mean, it seems like it's a very personal album and every song kind of tells the story. So, you just mentioned your single, “Try.” You recorded that one previously, correct?
Tony: Yes, yes. I have a couple of different recordings. One was never released, and one was on my EP with instruments, but everyone always seemed to like that song by itself.
And so, when I showed Yelawolf that song, he loved it so much. When I sing it just myself and a guitar, it tends to have a lot of emotion in there, and I kind of put myself back in that place of being 19 going through a breakup. So, he was like, “Man, just do it.” We tried to do it with another acoustic guitar, and it started sounding too much like The Beatles. There are parts in the song where it's not perfectly on meter. It goes, and it ebbs and flows; it slows down, has a break, and then picks back up. You can't really do that to a click. So, we just did it live and we did it like four in the morning at the end of a studio day. I had already had a half a bottle of Jim Beam throughout the whole day, and we just went in, and I said, "I think I'm ready to record it." I went in there, and he shut off the lights in the control room, and I just played the guitar and sang it live. We just did it in one take, and when I was done, I went into the control room, and everybody was crying.
James: When I first heard it, I was in tears.
Tony: Well, that means it's doing its job.
James: It is. So, you've already mentioned Yelawolf a little, but how has it been working with him on this album and collaborating together? He’s more in that country kind of rap area, whereas you are more straight country.
Tony: Yeah, I mean, he's a southern Alabama boy, but he is very eclectic as far as his musical tastes go and what he hears. It was incredible working with him on this album. We met in 2013, so we've been brothers for a while. But yeah, I mean, like I said, everything happened really organically. It's just funny how he'd have an idea in the room with the piano, and I'd have an idea while we were trying to figure something out. We'd go run into each other and meet each other in the middle of the studio, and we'd both have the same idea at the same time. So, that was cool.
Like I said earlier, too...me being a multi-instrumentalist and a guitar picker and things like that, I'd tend to want to play a lot more than I needed to. So, he was really able to wrangle me in on this album, and I learned a lot as far as producing goes. He's a great producer, and he has a wonderful ear and great ideas. We just had the best time doing it, man. It was just very natural. Yeah, he's like my big brother, man.
James: So, being a musician, I noticed that this album was recorded in three different studios. As musicians, we know different places hold different energy and different feelings. Why was the album recorded in three different studios, and did the three different studios give it three different kinds of feelings? Talk us through that process.
Tony: Okay. Well, what's funny is how this album came to be. Yelawolf hit me up when I had just moved back to Nashville three years ago, and he was like, “Dude, I got this great opportunity. Where are you?” I'm like, "I'm back in Nashville.” He is like, "Cool, man." He's like, "let's get together.” Riffraff, [a mutual friend], wanted to do a country song and Yelawolf brought me in on that. We started recording that, and things didn't pan out in that way, but it was kind of us being in the studio together again. It was cool because he was like, “Dude, let's just do your album.” And I was like, “Let's go!” So, we did the songs “Ain't Nothing Going to Slow Me Down,” then “Somebody, Someone Else.”
So, we did those two songs there, and then Yelawolf had booked Dark Horse in Franklin [Tennessee], and we had seven days in that studio, where we tracked the rest of the songs there, except for three of 'em. We got most of it done, but by the end of those seven days, I still needed to add guitar parts. And then it was on to Blackbird again, and then East Iris. So, it’s just circumstance and time. That's why we used three studios, but we had the same engineer the whole time, so we can get the same sounds we're getting at any of those nice studios.
East Iris happened because Yelawolf has a studio there, and I did a nine-gram mushroom journey. Immediately the next day, I had written “Wrong Like the Weatherman”, "White Label Lies," and "Alabaster Rose". I wrote those three off this nine-gram mushroom journey. I don't even want to go there because that's a whole other interview. But it's crazy how these songs just came out after that. I showed them to Yelawolf and everybody, and he went, “Dude, those have to be on the album.” So, we got to put them on the album.
James: That's awesome. So, I know you’re a very busy man, but I’d like to ask you some fun, very quick questions because I don't want to take up too much of your time.
If you could record a song with anyone dead or alive, who would you want to record with?
Tony: I mean, Waylon Jennings. Man, I'd love to record a song with Waylon... Jerry Reed, too. I mean, Jerry Reed's probably the top three favorite guitar players of all time, but Waylon would be my number one, I think.
James: Have you ever thought about getting with Waylon's kids or grandkids at all and trying to write something?
Tony: Well, I know Shooter [Jennings] is a friend of mine and I haven't talked to him in a while. He's been pretty busy, but I'd love to do something with me, Wolf and Shooter in the future. That'd be a lot of fun.
James: You could even throw Struggle [Jennings] in there, too.
Tony: Oh yeah. Struggle, too. Struggle is a good buddy, too, man.
Like I said, my dad had his bands and stuff like that, and I lived in Phoenix, and Waylon loved Phoenix. He's buried in Mesa, Arizona. But his stepdaughter saw my dad playing, and the song "Everywhere West" on the album, which is my title track is a song my dad wrote. He played that song live every night. So, she heard that, sent it to Waylon. Waylon called my dad, but never got through to him because I was home from middle school and the phone rang. Nobody was home. I'm the first one to get home. I picked up the phone and he goes, “Hey son, is your daddy home?” And I was like, “No. May I ask who's calling, sir?” And he goes, “Oh yeah, just tell your daddy 'Old Waylon called.'” I'm like, “Okay.”
So, I talked on the phone to Waylon when I was 14 and didn't even know it, and I put it all together a few years later. He never got to do the song because Waylon died shortly [after], so that's another big reason why I loved making this album, you know what I mean?
James: That's amazing. You got to talk to Waylon and didn't even realize.
Tony: Yep. He never left a number. I don't know. I think he thought maybe my dad already had it or something, but he never left a number. But who knows.
James: Who knows. So, I have two kind of final fun questions for you. You’ve kind of talked about how your music tastes are very wide, from Jerry Reed to Waylon Jennings. It's very wide. If you had only one song to listen to for the rest of your life, what would that one song be that you'd want to listen to?
Tony: Oh, dude. I mean, I don't even know where to start.
James: Tell you what, I'll make it a little easier. Top five songs of all time.
Tony: What's crazy, I don't know. A lot of people have these. I've never really thought out top five favorite songs. And since I've been doing this album, man, I really haven't been listening to a lot of music because I like to write stuff that's going to come through me naturally. I like to not be influenced too much by listening to music a lot. That's a hard question for me, man. I don't know if I can answer that.
James: That's completely fine, no worries.
Tony: It's weird, yeah... something that I don't think about too often.
James: Do you have a favorite song on the new album?
Tony: Oh man, I really like "White Label Lies."
James: With or without the Mushrooms?
Tony: Well, you don't have to be on mushrooms to appreciate the song. It's a good song. I mean, I love all the songs on the album, but "White Label Lies" is my favorite. It tells a story about how I grew up, and I think a lot of people can relate to that one, too.
James: So, do we have a tour or any shows lined up to kind of go with the album?
Tony: Well, I just found out that I'm going to be a dad. My first child. Her name is going to be Phoenix Martinez. We found out it's a girl.
So, when I found that out, I kind of hung up the old party Tony as well. I'm 34 days without alcohol as well. I'm going back to the gym and all that kind of stuff. So, I've been really doing a self-care thing right now, and I'm really into it, but I need to be around for a long time. So, we do have irons in the fire for touring; we just haven't heard anything definite yet, but there are irons in the fire for that.
James: Awesome. We can't wait to hear it. Is there anything you'd like to share with your fans and our fans?
Tony: Man, I just hope people give it a full listen. A lot of people, or most people, don’t sit there and listen to full albums anymore. I think there's a lot of people that do, but the majority of folks don't. I really hope that they sit down and listen to it from start to finish and take it in. Hopefully each song can kind of hook them in. I carefully decided what order to put the songs in and everything like that, so I made sure the sequence made me feel something. So, I hope that everything that I do through my heart and out is received the way I needed it to be.
James: Well, thank you, Tony, for this time. Congratulations again on becoming a dad and doing all the stuff.
Tony: Yeah, thank you James. I really had fun, buddy.
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