Hurray for the Riff Raff
Songwriter and folk-rock artist Alynda Segarra does the brave work of looking back in time on The Past Is Still Alive, their sixth LP as Hurray for the Riff Raff and an Album of the Year nominee at the Americana Music Association Honors & Awards on Sept. 18. They’ll perform during the awards ceremony at the Ryman and appear on a panel to discuss the album earlier that day. Ahead of the show, Segarra spoke with the Scene about how memory and grief shaped the creation of their tremendous contribution to the Americana canon. They made The Past Is Still Alive at a juncture in their prolific 17-year career when they felt “depleted and very unsure” about their future.
“[I was] feeling very much like I don’t know how to navigate the business side of this anymore, or the extroverted side,” says Segarra. “Just feeling like I was too sensitive for it.”
Born in the Bronx to a working-class Puerto Rican family, they came up in the mid-2000s folk revival and punk scenes of the East Village before moving to New Orleans, where they’ve been based since. After a slew of independent releases, Segarra found acclaim in 2014 with their label debut Small Town Heroes.
Segarra, who is nonbinary, became increasingly aware of painful instances in those early years when they dissociated from the pressures of performing palatable industry tropes and girlhood. “The aspect of presenting myself felt very confusing and anxiety-ridden,” they say. Years of mental gymnastics and looking for affirmation left them exhausted and questioning their place in music. Instead of bending to anxiety, they rooted deeper into their vision for the next record.
Hurray for the Riff Raff
“I was thinking a lot about memory and how I felt like different memories or different times of my life were still living in parts of my body,” they say. Segarra was searching for a “clean vessel” for stories from previous eras of their life — like the period of their teens they spent crossing the U.S. by hitchhiking and hopping trains — that they once felt too protective over to share. Ultimately, they were ready to release them from “the memory box” of their body and put them into songs on The Past Is Still Alive.
The record is a feat of lyrical genius, characterized by quick wit, specificity and vulnerability. Verses recount sparkling images of old friends and wide-open landscapes as Segarra and the listener zig and zag across the country, riding from the East Side of Manhattan to San Francisco’s Castro district with unforgettable stops in between. Every middle-of-nowhere town and new lover is transformative. There are no detours. Or maybe it’s all a detour. The songs of the journey flow together like Midwestern cornfields as you cross state lines.
The album’s centerpiece is the epic “Snake Plant (The Past Is Still Alive).” Segarra revels in the guts and glory of the scrappy lifestyle their revolving cohort of misfits willfully embraces — shoplifting dinner, peeing in bushes, fucking in the moonlight. In spite of general aimlessness and immediate dangers, young Segarra finds freedom and invincibility like nothing they’ve ever known. They sing, “Nothing can stop me now,” over and over until the track ends, like a train that zips by but still rattles in your ear long after it’s gone.
Hurray for the Riff Raff
Traveling back to those moments inspires gratitude and serves as a tribute to the people who touched Segarra’s life, regardless of how quickly or for how long. The idea of “queer time” deeply resonates with them. “Changing my concept of what is valuable — like, ‘If a relationship is longer, it’s more valuable,’” they say. “Thinking about people I knew for a month and how potent that was, how life-changing that was.”
In early 2023, right before Segarra headed into the studio to record The Past Is Still Alive, their father died of a heart attack. He was a huge inspiration musically and artistically, and the out-of-body sensation of grief flooded Segarra. It also helped crystallize what was important.
“When I was recording this record and my dad had just passed, the scariest thing already happened, the worst thing happened — now it’s just a trust fall into making this record,” Segarra says. A nomination for Album of the Year feels special to them for that reason. “The record came at a time in my life when I was like, ‘Fuck it, I’m just going to make the truest, rawest thing I can.’ So for that to get love or critical acclaim at first is disorienting, and then it’s like, ‘Wow.’”
They are excited to see how the genre has changed since their first go-round at the Americana awards as an Emerging Artist of the Year nominee in 2014. “There are so many artists that are really brilliant and really outspoken,” they say, “and I just feel like it’s such a more welcoming place for someone like me.”
Segarra describes the genre of Americana as “a place where storytellers can go.” The Past Is Still Alive sets them apart as an exceptional songwriter and memoirist.
“Let’s say my idea of success is going to be different than what an industry is telling me. Then I want to remember these moments, and I want to remember these people, because that is success to me — to have lived a beautiful life.”
Ahead of AMERICANAFEST, we talk with Emerging Act of the Year nominee Wyatt Flores, run down our favorite shows and more
