ifitbeyourwill #167 • Sister Ray Davies

ifitbeyourwill Podcast sits down with Adam Morrow of Sister Ray Davies — a shoegaze duo based in the legendary music town of Muscle Shoals, Alabama. They dig into the making of their debut record Holy Island, the duo's deep love of ambient and post-punk sounds, and an upcoming remix EP dropping April 20, 2026. Plus, a  track from Holy Island closes out the episode. Essential listening for fans of atmospheric, genre-defying music.

Transcript

elcome And Holy Island Preview

colleyc 0:34

Okay. Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of If It Be Your Will podcast. I'm reaching down south today, probably to a much warmer place than I'm at. I'm in the far north, and I'm reaching down to Adam from Sister Ray Davies band, who's down in the Tennessee area, the south. And we're going to talk about his record that came out called Holy Island. Well, he's a duo with uh his buddy Jamie. And they put out Holy Island November 3rd of last year off of the Sonic Cathedral. And they have a remix of sorts coming out. And they've added Holy Island baby to it, which is coming out April 20 of this year, April of 2026. And they are beautifully shoegazy ambient poster punk rock. You gotta listen to it. And we're gonna play a song at the end. So, listeners, please stay tuned for one of their great tunes. Adam, thank you so much for coming in and talking about this amazing record that you guys put out last year. I must say it's been on replay. It just seems like when it ends, it just folds so nicely back into itself again for a re-listen. There's such depth and sonic space for people to find their way in it. I just have really been enjoying it. So thanks for putting that out in ether for us all.

uscle Shoals Roots And Meeting Jamie

Adam Morrow 2:03

Oh thank you, and thanks for having us. Having Amy Yeah.

colleyc 2:07

Well, regards to Jamie as well. I know that you guys are a duo and this is a fully collaborative effort that you guys do. And I wanted to, Adam, like you guys had dabbled together pre this this band that you put together, Sister Ray Davies. You've you you did stuff prior to that. Can you kind of paint that picture a bit? Like how you and Jamie started working together and and why that collaboration was became so valuable to you guys.

Adam Morrow 2:33

Sure. We live in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and it's a pretty historic music town. If there's any record nerds out there, you probably know about a lot of the stuff that was cut here in the 60s and 70s, but there's still a strong music community and a great number of those studios are still around. So it's a pretty amazing place to, you know, live for pretty cheap. And the pace of life is if you if you don't mind a slow pace of life as an artist, it's pretty amazing. But I I guess about it's been a little over 10 years, started playing with bands in town, and Jamie was playing in bands, but also starting to run studios. He's a studio engineer, so who now he has Portside Sound, which is in the former Muscle Shoal Sound Studio. So yeah, it's it's pretty amazing that we get to just goof around in there. But I think we met in his studio, but you know, it is a small town, and so you just know everybody pretty quickly. And we kept kind of coming back to one another and realizing that we had similar interests, and you know, there's a lot of a Nashville connection with the shoals now that is more kind of Americana-driven and or just straight up country and that old way of like songwriters and players and all of that. And Jamie and I wanted to talk about the Velvet Underground and Shoe Gaze and all this other stuff. So I think maybe what took the band a while to come together is we played in other projects together and worked on stuff in the studio because it is a music business town in a way. But this, you know, when the session would end or we were just hanging out, it's like, oh, let's put Suvlaki on. Let's listen to the new slow dive record when that came out in I guess 2016, or let's revisit the ride stuff. Let's how are they getting that reverse reverb sound on Loveless? You know, just being the typical dorks and slowly realized, oh, why don't why are we not just making things that we love instead of sprinkling that stuff into these other projects? Let's just like, you know, it we assume no one would ever hear this, that we would make it and we'd put it on band camp, and that would be that. But yeah, that's a long answer to how we this came about. But very complete classic two introverts made a shoe gaze record.

rom Velvet Underground To Shoegaze

colleyc 5:04

That's your thesis statement for the record. Awesome. And what what was what were the two complimentary sides? Like I had also read where you guys had kind of different influences, but they kind of started to merge nicely together. You know, you were more post-Rocky, and you know, Jamie was a little bit more of a the indie, the folky, and and correct me if I'm wrong here, this is what I I found online. What were those those merging styles that you both brought into the mix to make this new I you called it post-genre? Like it's it's hard to pigeonhole in in a sense that what genre is it, because there's these two uh big influences coming from both of you. Can you paint us that picture a little bit of how those how this how your sound kind of got developed through these two kind of different perspectives on on what influenced you guys?

Adam Morrow 6:02

It's definitely the easiest way to describe it is shoe gaze for sure. I think the post-genre thing is is more about like how we're taking music in now, but I don't think you know shoe gaze became such a a dirty word in England at a point after that initial rush. And I I think now, you know, who who cares? You know, the you no longer have to take your record to the counter to buy it from, unfortunately, from the record store clerk who's gonna, you know, either approve or disapprove of what you're doing. But I think, you know, Jamie, I definitely came from kind of an indie rock, maybe a little folkier kind of background, but also very, very interested in ambient music and anything that sounded kind of cinematic is a word that gets thrown around a lot. That that kind of world. Jamie is into that stuff as well, but just has an encyclopedic knowledge of like late 50s, 60s, and 70s, 45s from garage rock bands. Like he loves that, loves punk, early punk, loves CBGBs. He's would probably be an encyclopedia of the roster, the lineup for every night of Hits Hey Day. But so there's and anything that wasn't at the center of the Venn diagram, we both still loved, I think. So there was no like, hey, leave that influence at the door, we're we're doing this. It's let's just put it all in the pot and see what happens.

colleyc 7:37

Yeah, yeah. And so Holy Island is considered a concept album. I like that was thrown around, like where you first start the idea came from that you wanted to create this concept record. Can you put some meat on that bone? Sure.

hy Make A Concept Album

Adam Morrow 7:54

And I'll start by saying I was texting a buddy a couple weeks ago, and we were just laughing because he has a metal band, great metal band called Lagerhead, and they do concept record kind of stuff as well. And we're like, it is ridiculous. The idea of a concept record is so nerdy and so it could feel self-important in a really off-putting way, but at the same time, it's it's like again to go back to the nerds entertaining themselves thing. It's you know, there's no expectation, so why not try it to do something that would interest you as a listener? And I think we were already kind of experimenting with some of these sounds and didn't have a it wasn't called a band yet. It was just like a new set of songs that because me and Jamie are always texting demos back and forth. And I remember where I was walking when I thought I should try to make Jamie laugh by saying, What if we did a record about these monks on this island off the coast of northern England that I went to last year when I was on tour? And but then I thought about it and it was like a beautiful early spring day. I was like, I think to borrow your phrase, there's some meat on the bone here to maybe get into some ideas that me and Jamie are in regular conversation with us anyway. So yeah, it just became and then it happened really fast because it once you have that framework and you kind of agree on it, it's like, all right, you can you can put the house up now.

colleyc 9:29

Right.

Adam Morrow 9:30

Yeah.

colleyc 9:30

And how did how did the record come together? Like, was it a purely collaborative, or did you each bring kind of your own songs or structure of a song in? Like, how did that collaboration work between the two of you?

ollaborative Writing And Studio Polishing

Adam Morrow 9:43

Jamie would say that I wrote most of the songs, but I would disagree with Jamie on that because it does start in the front room of my house here most of the time. And I'll try to put something together in logic and you know, just whatever, if it's a pedal or like a new bass line or like a guitar part that's cool, whatever, you kind of just build around that. And I would send it to him. Technology makes it so easy to be like, I just had this idea of three minutes ago, what do you think? And he would listen to it on his phone, and we'd just go back and forth. And so at pretty much all points, one of us, if one of us is even alone, the other one is still involved, if that makes sense. And it there's no way Jamie would say I wrote these songs, and I if Jamie ever listens to this, he knows I disagree with him. But I didn't. It was a thousand percent collaborative, and everything once once it was kind of in place, we took it to Portside Sound to Jamie's studio, and that's where like the bulk of the the polishing of the record happened. And we tried to be as consciously unsential about the editing process as we could be, and moved parts around and deleted things, and yeah, just tried to make something that held our attention and was fun. You know, if it I've said that a few times, like if it stopped being fun at any point in the process, we just it's like, oh, this is boring. You know, this shouldn't this shouldn't feel like work. So let's let's move on.

colleyc 11:22

And what were some of the first songs that started to come together where you guys started to realize that there might be some legs for these songs, you know, like they might sustain themselves, you know, and and people will get something from them. W like were there certain songs that started to like pop forward as you guys were going through that process?

Adam Morrow 11:42

The writing process only took about two weeks. And it was, it's funny, it was two years ago this time of year at this, you know, and well, you noted you're a good bit further north than me, but we're kind of starting that transition to spring here, and it's you know, just it feels like a magical time of year. I love being outside. That's a big influence. And so the energy felt really good, and we ended up writing the record in the order that the tracks are now. So Linda's Farm was the first song, and it was very consciously to make like kind of a a haunted feeling dusky kind of thing about this place that I had been, and as we worked for, I thought, oh, there's some cool sounds here, and then you kind of start moving forward, and you know, I was into everything. Iona came together pretty fast. Aiden was took a lot of work from both of us. Like we spent a good bit of time later on that summer following that writing period. I think I felt really good about big ships while it was happening, but I think Rowan's was the one to me where it's like, I think we have something kind of special here.

colleyc 12:52

Right. Yeah, yeah. And what's your process, Adam? Like, how do you how do you know that that you're onto something that you would want to share with Jamie? You know that it's worth his like what where does that something happen in in your process itself? Like, do you do a lot of like phone notes or like do you really just sit down and just start noodling around to find, you know, a line or a bass track? Or talk to us a little bit about your your process of creating.

Adam Morrow 13:23

It usually if there's a phone recording, it's almost never like an acoustic guitar and vocal. And I've written like that before, and I don't, you know, I mean, I've recorded a lot of music, and I don't think that the results of that are very interesting at this point. Sometimes I'll like a melody will happen and I'll just kind of hum it. And Jamie does the same thing on guitar, he'll like send me something melodically that he comes up with, or is the cool part, and we'll kind of collect pieces to drop in later, if that makes sense. Like you don't even necessarily know where it's gonna go, but you know, we have that in the in the back pocket, same thing with lyrics. But starting a song, I'll use the word unsentimental again. The more unsentimental I can be about like sitting down and saying, okay, this is an interesting set of chords, or this is a great guitar texture or lead or whatever, and then immediately start writing a song structure on a piece of paper, and then just build that grid in logic in the you know, just on in the computer, and then try to flesh it out from there. And then of course that can change and and should, but that's a really easy way to just like forward momentum is very important to me, and it being interesting and again fun is like the kind of the driving factor.

inding The Sound Through Simplicity

colleyc 14:48

Absolutely. And so you put out this holy island in in 2025. I think it was November, right? Yeah, November great 2025. So it's been out there for a while. What has what have been some surprises with putting that out there or unexpectedness that that came to you guys that you didn't expect?

Adam Morrow 15:08

It coming out in the way that it did was a surprise. All everything from the time that we stopped working on the record has been unexpected. Not to sound all shucks about it, but you know, we the fact that Nat at Sonic Cathedral, which is a label that I love so much and is tied into so much history that we were obviously drawing influence from. The fact that he wanted to talk at first, the fact that the record ended up coming out with him, all of that, the artwork that his buddy Stewart put together, everything has just been like such a pleasant surprise, beyond pleasant. We feel very, very lucky and fortunate that it has gone the way that it has. And so any it connecting with with those guys first, and then anybody that's connected with after that is yeah, just it feels like again, we made it thinking we'll probably just put this up online, and if anybody hears it, then cool. But to you know, people really engaging with it and everything from like reviewers saying nice things to just people messaging us and saying I listened to this while this was happening, and it meant a lot. And yeah, I think I think maybe the strength of it is that Shoe Gaze is a a nice like tribe identifier, you know, like if it's for music like this, if it's for you, it's probably really for you. And I don't know that that has that much to do with what we're doing, it's just like the ingredients that we're using resonate with people.

colleyc 16:42

Yeah, yeah. And can you can you pinpoint those things like because I I'm throwing my hat in that ring too, like it resonates with me like so much. Like the first listen, I just had to listen to it all over again because it it's got so much space for you to move around in in your mind as it's playing. What what were some of those things that people like grabbed onto that told you, you know, what they told you about like why it meant something to them so much? Like can you put that into words? It's hard to put into words, right? Because it's like this feeling and this like mood and this ambient structure that you guys put in there. What is it that you think that people responded with it would be?

elease Surprises And Listener Connection

Adam Morrow 17:28

I think that's kind of what you're saying is what they respond to and what I respond to in this genre, or really any, it feels silly to pigeonhole just a specific genre. Obviously, it can exist in a lot of music where there's that space to kind of it's not like you're getting lost, but it seems to be almost like more, say more lyrics or busier parts would get in the way. You know, and I think great art is greater than the sum of its parts, you know, to where you can't really pinpoint, and I'm in no way saying that we made great art, but the effect of like, I don't know why I like that so much. Especially when it's something simple. I listen, there's there's a great Brian Eno interview where he says when he knows a song is great, it's because it's so simple that he's pissed off that he didn't come up with it. I love that. Yeah. And that that's like such a great thing to remember as you're working, is that you know, I I remember like deleting lyrics, like there's too much in here. Just let the let the space happen. You know, uh we were really surprised that Aiden, that song, was what Matt chose as the lead single and has done, I don't know what the numbers are, but it's the response to it. I've definitely thought that was like an album track. It's like a long wall of sound. But I think those those sounds have just been a part of people's lives going back to the original run of great shoe gays that you know it it just hits a pleasure center in your brain if you're a certain kind of listener.

colleyc 19:09

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, totally. And I mean, it's great art, I will say. I'm gonna put my my words behind that. I think it's a wonderful, wonderful record. And it seems like everything in there has its intention, you know, it's like it's sparse but has this like richness to it that just uh kind of in envelops you as you go through the listen. So you have uh a remix version coming out April of of this year, fewer tracks to it, but what what what what's the idea behind the Holy Island baby? If I can ask you, I don't know.

Adam Morrow 19:48

Like Yeah, that's it was again Matt at Sonic Cathedral. This was his idea, and you know, he does remix stuff for a lot of his records, which is coming from our world of, you know, I said earlier, like kind of Nashville-y certainly American music has less remix element to it, I think, than like if it's a rock record or whatever, indie record. So, but I had heard you know the stuff that had been done with Andy Bell's records and you know, all of all the great stuff Matt puts out, and it's was really fun for us because we didn't know what the other artists were gonna do. But never been a part of this before, you know. So it was such a treat to see it, see those come back, see the songs come back from Malvapores and Pie Warner Audio. And I mean it was so cool to to hear what they heard in those songs and how they put them back together. And then we did one of our tracks is already out, the kind of dubby mix of Iona, which was really a good time for us because I love I won't I won't wrap Jamie up in this. I love dub music, I love the the Lee Scratch Perry, King Tubby, Augustus Pablo stuff. And it I know it doesn't sound like that and we're a pale imitation of it, but you know, to lay the tracks out and kind of try to reinvent them and run them through some of the effects processors was a really good time. And then the other track that we did was Big Ships, and it's like an acoustic version where we got 10 of our friends here in town to come in and play, all play acoustic guitar at the same time. So it's this just like massive wall of sound. It was fun to just be like, Yeah, do you have a guitar? Let's do it. Come on.

colleyc 21:40

Uh that's a great idea.

Adam Morrow 21:42

And it was yeah, it was a a fun reason to revisit the songs. And you know, things move so fast now, like a record comes out and it's how long do you live with it most of the time? You know, if you just listen on online. I'm guilty of that too. So to maybe Extend that universe is a good thing.

colleyc 22:02

Yeah, absolutely. And do you make like do you take the original tracks and then like you're not re-recording per se? You're taking the original tracks and then mixing around with them, like playing around. Yeah.

Adam Morrow 22:16

That's what we did with Iona, and that's what the other guys did with their tracks. They added on, we added on new stuff to it, but the the core is there.

emixes Dub Experiments And Acoustic Wall

colleyc 22:25

Okay. Nice. And well, I'm excited. April 17th, this will drop, but it's a five five-track kind of remixing of So Adam, to kind of bring things to a close here again. Thanks so much for for carving a little time for a chapter today. Uh I've been really enjoying your stories and your history and the journey that you've been on. What what can we look forward to? What's coming down the pipe for you guys as the band uh Sister Ray Davies? What can we expect?

Adam Morrow 22:58

So the EP will come out on the first day of our UK tour. So we'll be over there for a couple weeks getting to do some all of the shows look amazing. They're gonna take me to some new corners of the UK that I haven't toured in before, and we're gonna do shows with the Absolute Legends chapter house. So I'm I'm very excited to get over there and do that. We're working pretty steady and have been really for a year on the second record and figuring out how to do that, and that's always like a do you wait for the other record to come out first to kind of mentally clear the deck and maybe go play those songs out a lot more to I don't know, just your your mind changes around all that stuff. But the other big thing is Jamie has just had his first kid. Him and his wife. So there's there's a bit of like we're yeah. Huge congrats to them. Obviously some navigating to do for the new the new normal, which we'll get it figured out. But uh yeah, we're gonna just get through this the tour and then the first few months of the new parenthood for him and then see where we're at. Plenty of fodder for songs in there, I'm sure.

colleyc 24:14

Yeah, I'm sure he'll be inspired or too tired.

Adam Morrow 24:17

One of the two. Inspired. I think there could be some good shoe gays playing from a from the depths of exhausted fatherhood.

colleyc 24:24

That's right. Very sluggish and slow. Yeah. And just like your live setup when I mean you're a duo. When you play live, do you uh do you bring in other players to help kind of support that sound?

Adam Morrow 24:38

We haven't so far. We it's both of us on guitar, and I'll use a sampler to bring in all the elements from the record, which is that was a learning curve for me. I'd never done anything like that. And it you know, to actually you're pressing play, but you're also bringing stuff in and manipulating stuff in real time. And it I've I've told folks that like something could still go wrong, you know, which is kind of uh especially with me running technology, something can really go wrong, but it feels it feels good, and uh obviously we live in such there's so many great musicians around us and we have friends that we've played with for years and years and years that we love to bring out at some point. So fingers crossed the opportunity comes up for that.

colleyc 25:27

Amazing. Well, I'm just so happy that you're the music is going forward and that there's writing and there's another album in the purview and like amazing, amazing, amazing. I'd love to see you guys play live at one point. So maybe you want to come to Canada. Yeah, come on down, uh, we'll take care of you and everything.

Adam Morrow 25:46

We need to summer in Canada. We need to get out of Alabama and head up there.

K Tour New Record And Live Setup

colleyc 25:51

That's right, that's right. Well, Adam, thanks so much. This has been a real treat for for me and the listeners. Uh great storytelling, great uh you know, delivery on the record and the music, and it it I just want to go back and listen to it again, so I will. Listeners, stay tuned at the end. There'll be a track by Sister Ray Davies. Thanks so much, Adam.