It’s approaching “fish and chips time” in London when the members of Ida Mae — husband and wife Chris Turpin and Stephanie Jean — join a Skype call to discuss Click Click Domino, their impressive new album, which will be released Friday. The British roots-rock duo moved to Nashville in 2019, but they’ve been back in the U.K. for a couple of months when we talk. They’ve been visiting family, as well as preparing for a live performance of their new material that would be streamed from a studio in London in late June. They’ve also been making music videos for the singles from the new record.
“The video for ‘Click Click Domino’ was done in about two hours,” Turpin says. “About 6 a.m. on a Sunday morning, we ran around London, which was still in lockdown, just with our director friend Tim Hyland and a camera. It actually ended up snowing, and it very rarely snows in London.”
Turpin is the group’s primary lyricist. He explains that the title track is a reaction to the political upheaval in the U.S. and to the power of social media.
“I wanted to write a song that was kind of intuitive Twitter statements that pointed the finger at some of that stuff,” he says of “Click Click Domino.” “I’m the one that comes up with the strange lyrics and ideas, and Steph kind of comes in at the end as more of a director-slash-editor.”
Ida Mae seems like an act on the brink of something big. With their good looks, mod attire and engaging personalities, they ooze star quality. But if a quick ride to fame and fortune was what they were chasing, they could have remained in England and built upon the success they had in the critically acclaimed alternative rock band Kill It Kid. No, the pair were in pursuit of something deeper and more fulfilling than stardom: musical freedom. After the breakup of Kill It Kid, they were working on new material in Turpin’s hometown of Norwich and performing occasionally in a nearby town on the east coast of England.
“We had a load of new acoustic songs that we just wanted to play,” Stephanie Jean recalls. “So we’d go to this pub in Lowestoft, and we’d try them out once a month.”
“As it happens, one of the guys in this small seaside town filmed us playing one of the songs and put it on Facebook,” Turpin adds. “And that ended up getting watched by an A&R man from Decca Records, who then picked us up for the first album.”
Through Decca, they connected with renowned producer Ethan Johns, who signed on to produce their 2019 debut Chasing Lights. After the band had cut half the tracks, the label raised a complaint about the music.
“It wasn’t commercial enough, and we weren’t willing to compromise,” Turpin explains. “And neither was Ethan.”
Rather than comply, the couple split with Decca and ultimately formed their own label, Vow Road Records. With help from their manager at the U.K. office of Nashville-based Vector Management, they arranged a distribution deal with Thirty Tigers. Before Chasing Lights came out, they moved to Nashville and hit the road in support of the record.
“We did nearly 100,000 miles up and down the U.S.,” Turpin says. “We did 43 states in about a year-and-a-half.”
Their travels included slots opening for a pair of artists who are also now based in Nashville, Marcus King and Greta Van Fleet. That led to King and GVF lead guitarist Jake Kiszka making guest appearances on Click Click Domino.
The new record builds on the sonic foundation laid on Chasing Lights. Blues is one of Ida Mae’s fundamental building blocks, and folk is another, which is itself informed by rural blues. The couple chose the name Ida Mae in part because of their mutual love for bluesman Sonny Terry’s song of the same name. It was the first song they ever sang together. Stephanie Jean brings her love of gospel into the mix as well.
Because of COVID, Turpin and Stephanie Jean tracked the new album at their home in Nashville with Turpin wearing the producer’s hat. They then sent the tracks to Johns, who added drums at his studio in the U.K. Bassist Nick Pini added his parts remotely too.
The record further establishes Turpin as an emerging guitar god. He plays a variety of guitars and other stringed instruments on it, making them sing, ring, cry, moan, growl and howl. As a classically trained pianist who was performing lunchtime jazz recitals when the couple first met, Stephanie Jean is herself no slouch on the keys.
But Ida Mae’s soulful and unique vocal harmonies are the key to their captivating musical appeal. They have a special kind of vocal chemistry usually heard only between blood kin. The magic was present from the first time they sang together, and it hasn’t diminished.
“Sometimes we can’t tell who’s who when we’re listening back, which is weird,” Stephanie Jean says with a laugh.
