Mercy Bell: The Cream Interview

In a year notable for lots of great singer-songwriter records, Nashville’s Mercy Bell made one of the best. Released in October, Bell’s self-titled album has picked up praise from the press for its obvious merits, and Bell — who grew up in Massachusetts and California and moved to Nashville in 2012 — is an up-and-coming Americana artist. 

Mercy Bell is a very accessible record that sums up decades of singer-songwriter strategies for keeping the music as interesting as the words. Bell cut her new album over a couple of years at Nashville studio The Bomb Shelter, and Mercy Bell ties together all of the artist’s considerable gifts. Somehow, Bell manages to evoke Rosanne Cash, The Zombies, girl-group singles, alt-country and rock ’n’ roll. It’s a sonic and thematic work of the highest order.

Bell was born in 1985 in Boston. After graduating from college in 2008, she moved to New York, and did a stint in Arkansas before relocating to Nashville. She released the full-length All Good Cowboys, which sounds like a warm-up for Mercy Bell, in 2011. Bell is queer and Filipino-American, and she recently played a bill at Nashville venue Dee’s with a group of popular queer country artists that included Karen and the Sorrows. Monday, she’ll pitch in on a benefit for Oxfam at City Winery. Bell says she plans to tour her new album in early 2020. I caught up with her via phone, and we talked about her take on country, the genius of Max Martin and much more. 

What are your early memories of music? You grew up in a music-loving family, correct? 

Growing up, I was always around all these adults — a lot of my uncles and aunts who were always around, and they all had competing musical tastes. I was this little kid who was always absorbing all the music of all the adults that was going on, so there was a heavy ’60s folk presence. My uncle and my dad were definitely listening to singer-songwriters — the beginning of Lilith Fair, in the mid-’90s.  

My parents put me in choir as soon as I was old enough to participate in activities; maybe I was 7 or 8. From age 7 all the way until now, I’ve been involved in either choir, musical theater or a band. We did Oliver!, West Side Story, Carousel and Jesus Christ Superstar. A lot of Broadway revues where they would cobble together different songs and standards and things like that. Lots of Christmas revues.

I hear some ’60s and ’70s soul in your new album. Did you listen to a lot of that? 

I would try not to sing it, ’cause my range back then wasn’t as good as it is now, so I could never do the soul singing. But the songwriting — the three-minute song, it gets straight to the point, and it hooks you from the get-go.

What about country music? How has it influenced you? 

I never set out to be a "country musician.” I got my start in indie rock, in the do-it-yourself New York scene. I was the one who was writing songs for stuff. We all were, but I was the one who was turning them out. I wanted to learn how to write a song that wasn’t just an amorphous rock song. There was a lot of people coming in and out of Nashville, learning to write songs and kind of parlaying their knowledge to me.

I learned when I was out of college that Nashville formatted writing a song, which just happened to be country. It’s like, “Be very specific with your lyrics.” You start from the first verse, get ’em with that, and get to the hook really quickly, and set them up with that. There’s just a very specific formula, and I latched onto that. I never pretend to have had any life experience that is country, but I definitely learned how to write a song from Nashvillians. 

Your latest album took a while to record. 

It took me three years from deciding to do it, and gathering the songs. Me and my bandmates didn’t have any money, so I had to make some money. I’d make money, then I’d book some studio time, and then I’d make some more money and book some more studio time. Any time we’d have a spare weekend where all of us would be free, we would emergency-book The Bomb Shelter.

I understand you’re a fan of pop songwriter Max Martin, and you also like ABBA. 

I just love a good melody and a good hook, and something that gets stuck in your brain. I’m obsessed with finding earworms.

What does “queer country” mean to you? 

When I’m playing at queer country showcases, or anything that’s labeled queer country, I feel like I can fully be myself, because it’s a safe space. Not that other parts of Nashville, or where I play elsewhere around the country, are not safe — but there is something about walking into a room that has already been labeled queer, you know, that makes me relax a little bit more. It’s about me being extra at home.