Murry Hammond on Tour Sandwiches and Playing Three Year Old Guitar Strings

Photo credit: Tom Gold

Tell us about your tour vehicle.

I’m in a 2008 Prius! So I can only travel in that with my partner & pianist Annie. It barely gets the job done but the price is right (free + fuel). October we do a tour with 97’s mate Rhett Miller, gonna bring my drummer pal Richard for that, so rental car here I come.

How do you eat cheaply and/or healthy while on tour?

Sandwiches, sandwiches, sandwiches. I eat them constantly.

How many strings do you break in a typical year? How much does it cost to replace them?

I never break bass strings and rarely guitar strings because I don’t use picks, ever, just fingers & thumbs. My current guitar’s strings are three years old. They’re all mellow & perfect. I’ll pop one any day now.

Where do you rehearse?

Annie & I rehearse in my garage studio. Cafe lights, colored spots, cool vintage novelty lights such as an old Atwater-Kent radio speaker with an amber light in it. 97’s music posters, one from Robyn Hitchcock. Would hang a Syd Barrett poster if I had one. Last rehearsal space was the living room in my last house, which had some paranormal stuff going on for years. That was truly uncomfortable.

What was the title and a sample lyric from the first song that you wrote?

No idea about the lyric or the title but it was very Bob Dylan-y. Something about a chair, haha — I didn’t write a truly good one until much later, as you might imagine.

Describe your first gig.

It was a hardcore punk rock party in Dallas, Texas. My Peyote Cowboys with punker pals Mel Coolies. I was really nervous and kept my back to the audience the entire time. I wasn’t the singer so it didn’t matter all that much. I got braver.

What was your last day job? What was your favorite day job?

I did two jobs simultaneously — BBQ catering and office temp. My favorite of all of them was probably painting. I’d “paint off” my rent for my landlord, I’d get his old apartments ready for new tenants. I just listened to music and wrote tunes in my head.

How has your music-related income changed over the past 5-10 years? What do you expect it to look like 5-10 years from now?

It’s been steady for the last 5-10 years. I make about as much as a school teacher. It fits my tastes, I don’t need much.

What one thing do you know now that you had wished you knew when you started your career in music?

Don’t be so impulsive with spending. Realize your interests and feed those, especially if they feed your music. Save money if you can. There will be a point you’ll wish maybe you hadn’t done such things as buying a hundred German 70’s prog rock records in a single month.

Like so many of the characters in his songs, Murry Hammond’s musical history is defined by restlessness — the longing, searching wanderlust you hear in his songs plays out across Murry’s own artistic life. I suppose it makes sense that after growing up in the most rural setting imaginable, Murry would devote his life to exploration, creating music that celebrates everything from the strange to the sublime, visits everywhere from cowtown to the cosmos.

Murry Hammond’s 2025 release Trail Songs of the Deep is his greatest achievement, the perfect distillation of his grand vision, and conclusive evidence of his centrality to the last half-century of American music. From his small-town Texas teen years spent publishing punk fanzines and early Dallas days hosting visiting punk legends (such as Dead Kennedy’s Jello Biafra), to his own 80’s Dallas psych-rock outfit Peyote Cowboys, to our three-decades-strong alt-country band Old 97’s, Murry has been at the heart of some of the most vital and influential moments in American music.

True fans are familiar with his lovely 2008 first solo album I Don’t Know Where I’m Going But I’m On My Way, but the wider world is about to become aware of his solo career which in 2025 will reach a fever pitch as he drops Trail Songs of the Deep and hints at the immediate release of a companion follow-up.

It’s high time the average music fan acquaints themself with the work of Murry Hammond, an artist who has dedicated his life to music, and in turn carved out a singular niche. The average fan can hardly be blamed for lacking proper awareness of Hammond’s individual talents as he so often presents himself in a supportive role.

In addition to his three decades spent on stage left defining the sound of our Old 97’s, a band Murry and I founded in 1993 that’s now almost exclusively referred to as “seminal” or “legendary,” Murry has been a regular presence on projects with Andy Paley (Brian Wilson, etc.), Grey Delisle, and even recently became a member of The Long Ryders, a band arguably even more “seminal” and “legendary” than the 97’s.

Heck, despite 2025 gearing up to be the biggest calendar year yet for Murry’s solo career, he’s also producing a new album for Grey Delisle and Jolie Holland, dropping a new studio album with The Long Ryders (produced by Ed Stasium no less), and he’s producing a new solo album by yours truly, our first such collaboration since he helmed my debut album back when I was in high school in the late 1980’s. That’s what I’m talking about when I say Murry Hammond’s got a restless, searching spirit.

Murry Hammond Trail Songs of the Deep was recorded in Murry’s living and dining rooms on analog equipment into a 1980’s era half-inch 8-track tape machine, and while it explores a world of far-reaching sonic spaces, Old 97’s fans will instantly recognize Murry’s writing here, while marveling at the new elements on display such as cellos, strings, and 1960’s organs and Mellotrons. Listeners will find themselves mesmerized by the audio landscape, a sound simultaneously vintage and novel, a result of Murry’s obvious fascination with 60’s folk and psychedelic music, and his lifelong love of moody sounds.

The thing that Murry’s previous solo outings have hinted at has come to fruition on Trail Songs of the Deep and the world will get its best glimpse yet of the brilliant artistry of this man with whom I’ve been blessed to have as mentor and partner for my entire adult life. Hurray for Trail Songs of the Deep and hurray for Murry Hammond!

– Rhett Miller 2025