Allen Stone sings the blues and speaks of great gratitude

Allen Stone is the kind of artist who defies convention simply by being himself. For a guy that describes his personal style as “a cross between your great-aunt and great-uncle”, you can’t help but love him.

Yet his blonde flowing locks and relaxed demeanour belie one of the most vibrant voices going around. There’s a tacit sense of warmth and experience to Stone’s music; his soulful tones and shivering falsetto offer more than mere homage to the songwriter’s roots in soul, funk and R&B.

Hot off his performance at LA’s Arroyo Seco festival, we sat down with Allen to talk musical influences, gratitude and his Australian connection. In September, Stone will play a single show at The Croxton Bandroom in Melbourne — a gig he’s teed up with marrying his Australian fiancé down under.

“Singing was an everyday part of my family life growing up”, he explains to The BRAG. “My father’s a preacher, so I was always exposed to musical influences. My folks were pretty tight on what sort of music we could listen to in my house, though.

“I picked up the guitar when I was about 12”, he continues. “My pops taught me a few chords. At first, I started writing really corny songs for the neighbourhood girls. Then I hit 15, 16, and fell in love with the soul tradition. I started singing along all day every day to Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Gladys Knight, D’Angelo, Soulchild. Never took any music classes, never had any formal training. Just sang and sang to these beautiful voices.”

Much like his musical mentors, both social and personal reflection runs richly through Stone’s songwriting. He finds his strength in gentleness; in guiding rather than instructing. Music, in his case, is always the message.

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Inspired by his adolescent experiences with the church, he tapped the politics of religion on 2009’s “Last to Speak” — There’s four thousand different interpretations / we disagree from Genesis to Revelations — and the religion of politics on 2011’s “What I’ve Seen”, singing: The heart of man is just blackened with greed / wanting more than he will ever need / cancerous from the root to the seed / gain a fortune, but your soul is the feed.

His most recent single, “Warriors”, shows him at his most spirited. Produced by Jamie Lidell, it’s a lively ode to everyday courage in a time mired in palpable uncertainty. Walk tall like warriors, he sings. We don’t run from our opponents / Even when we’re close to broken. There’s more than a hint of Nashville in his music — where he recorded an album due later this year — a bit country, a bit rock & roll, and powered by a six-year-strong backing band.

“I performed this new record with my full band. This is the first time that we all got in the studio together, about 16 or 17 songs in Nashville”, he explains. “It sounds like a live show, much more than any other record I’ve done before. It’s a real record, it feels real, it’s not an organised spreadsheet in a computer program that most music seems to be nowadays.

“It’s human, it’s got a pulse. There’s real electricity to it, and I feel it really connects.”

With a childhood founded in religion, Stone has endured more than a few struggles along the way. He left the church at 19, paid off a very expensive contract severance (300+ days a year on the road helped) and, most importantly, recognised and addressed the bitterness steeped in those experiences.

His hard work hasn’t gone unnoticed, either: collaborations with Jamie Lidell, Magnus Tingsek and producer Benny Cassette; appearances on The Late Show with David Letterman and features in the pages of New York Times; and opening for one of the ultimate soul masters, Al Green. Despite hitting major heights, Stone has stayed as humble as ever.

Allen Stone sings the blues on Letterman

“I think gratitude is the one ingredient that specifically Western culture seems to forget about. Having more than we need, we don’t often take stock and we take life for granted. The people that we celebrate are people that are financially successful. We don’t celebrate doctors, teachers, the people on the ground making a daily difference to people’s lives. We celebrate movie stars… people that can act really well not being themselves.”

At a point where attention seems our ultimate social commodity, Stone’s raw, revealing style is especially refreshing. Like all great storytellers, he communicates the unspoken and speaks to us with universal feeling. It’s a form best enjoyed live, as his recent heart-wrenching TED Talk revealed.

“We’re living in a very strange and incredible time. If we make it through this time without any major disasters, this will definitely be one of the strangest four years in the history of democracy. Sometimes I have to ask myself – Are we in some sort of simulation?!

“It’s so crazy and random that you’re alive today. Our being here, the chances of us existing and expressing warmth, love, life, on the randomness of this rock floating in space. It’s all absurd. It’s moments in time.”