Crystal Wise
Perusing South Main with a professional photographer in tow, Simon Flory insisted we not do a photo shoot with him on the train tracks. “Come on, man,” Flory says in his Texas-by-way-of-Arkansas-by-way-of-Midwest drawl. “You can’t shoot a musician on train tracks.” Calling out my cliché idea, Flory, despite being covered head to toe in denim and having an Americana sound that would seem ripe for a train-track photo shoot, doesn’t want to be placed in a box.
After all, Flory’s musical exploits have been as varied as the menu at The Cheesecake Factory. While his latest solo efforts are full of rustic twang that harkens back to Hank Williams and the Carter Family, he’s toured regionally and the world in groups that classify themselves as everything from bluegrass to dreamgaze to bootgaze to kindie rock. Flory is equal parts talented musician and stellar songwriter, harnessing the ability to play off others’ grooves while having the creative chops to write his own lyrics and melodies.
We eventually settled on a photo shoot that included a burn barrel. I showed up with everything one would need to make a barrel burn — minus the knowledge of how to start one. Flory, tapping into his days as a construction worker in Arkansas, got the fire blazing in a matter of minutes.
A couple days later, we had a three-hour chat over a couple bowls of Guatemalan soup and what would amount to a six-pack of horchata (Flory hasn’t had a drop of liquor in some time) at one of his favorite local restaurants, El Meson Chapin. Flory, with a Willem Dafoe jaw line and an ageless look — I’m sure people have guessed he’s anywhere from 25 to 47 — waxed poetic about the proper way to kill and clean a hog and his childhood days wearing raccoon-skin hats while taking part in frontier festivals.
“It was called Rendezvous,” Flory explains. “It’s where you dressed up like pre-French and Indian War — like frontiersmen — and you lived like that for a weekend at a state park.”
Crystal Wise
His old-fashioned music sounds so genuine because it’s rooted in truth. His experiences growing up weren’t too far from the musicians of the 1930s and 40s who inspire him.
Flory would major in creative writing at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, before going to Chicago to attend the Old Town School of Folk Music — the country’s largest community arts center.
“Chicago is where I really got into folk music,” Flory says. “While I was there, I saw Steve Earle at the Lincoln Park Zoo. He mentioned that he was in town to teach a class about Bruce Springsteen over at the school. My 18-year-old brain exploded all over the stage.”
As a side note, Justin Townes Earle was Steve’s roadie, and at the time, Flory handed him the first CD he ever recorded.
“I didn’t know who he was, so I asked him to give it to Steve,” Flory laughs.
Like many musicians, Flory went on to have a six-year stint in Austin. Dabbling in a solo career and as one-half of kindie rock group, The Que Pastas, Flory eventually landed in bluegrass supergroup High Plains Jamboree, where he teamed with notable artists Beth Chrisman, Brennen Leigh, and Noel McKay. The band toured extensively, got mentioned in Rolling Stone, and were on their way to a major record deal. But, as Flory perfectly summarizes it in his rustic eloquence, “there was a little cascade of a downfall kind of thing.” Ultimately, like many musicians, his Austin experience left a bad taste in his mouth.
“Austin is too monochromatic for me,” Flory says. “Everybody’s sort of the same. People would say, ‘Well, you can’t really go anywhere else in Texas, right? This is the only cool town.’ I’ve always replied, ‘No, there’s a town that’s cooler than this. It’s called Fort Worth.’
“You got some weird dichotomies here, man. This place is way weirder than Austin.”
Since arriving in Fort Worth, Flory has been busy with his solo career. He’s released two full-length albums and one EP that accompanied a poetry film, “Paper Thin Lines,” that he also directed and premiered, appropriately enough, at the 2020 virtual Thin Line Fest in Denton.
“I didn’t know what a poetry film was until I made that thing,” Flory says. “I looked it up. It’s either you’re showing the poem on the film or you’re reciting the poem to film.”
Flory shot the entire film, which features a real-life family (the Kirks) in one day.
“[The film] follows the Kirk family, who have seven adopted kids, around in their day. And it’s beautiful,” Flory says. “It’s like a day at their places. They make biscuits; it’s just a day growing up anywhere for anyone.”
Following the debut of the film and its soundtrack EP, Flory released Haul These Blues Away. The album, chock-full of mid-tempo dueling guitars and beautiful vocal harmonies that would feel right at home on the “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” soundtrack, is less a departure for Flory and acts as audio proof of a man who found his voice decades ago. He sings and plays with the confidence of someone comfortable in their own skin.
Crystal Wise
Concerning his time here and what the future holds in Cowtown, Flory’s clearly found a place where he’s at peace. Despite coming off two recent releases, ever the prolific creator, Flory will be recording for the first time in his new adoptive home.
“Having come here and started playing with all these people [in Fort Worth], everything started making sense,” he says. “Recording started making sense, touring started making sense on my own. What I actually wanted started making sense.”
You can listen to Simon Flory’s latest albums, including Haul These Blues Away, via all your streaming services. You can also follow him on Instagram at @slflory.
