INTERVIEW: DUSTY & STONES

THE COUNTRY DUO FROM THE AFRICAN KINGDOM OF ESWATINI ARE THE SUBJECT OF A NEW DOCUMENTARY PREMIERING TONIGHT IN NYC

Dusty & Stones are cousins and a great country music duo from the African Kingdom of Eswatini, formally known as Swaziland. They are also the subject of a new documentary by the director Jesse Rudoy. The film premieres tonight at DOC NYC.

I’m just going to say it up top: this is a special film that will appeal to anyone who believes in the power of music. It follows the duo as they travel from Africa to America for the first time: they hit Nashville to do a proper country session and they go to Texas to play a small music awards show. The duo’s 10 day journey is singular and universal. Dusty & Stones face serious challenges as African country singers in America, no doubt. Sort of goes without saying. But any touring musician will find a lot to relate to here. The world is often bleak, but music can transcend. 

If you can’t go tonight, for the next week, you can buy a pass to stream the film online. I recommend it. I was lucky to link up with Dusty & Stones and Rudoy yesterday before their guest slot on The Lot Radio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Being from Africa, how did you get into country music to begin with?

Dusty: The influence comes from my elder brother Sicelo, who had country music, Don Williams and Dolly Parton, playing around the house, way back when we were young. So you know what your brother does, you’re likely to copy, or you get influenced in a way. And, again, this being the sound that you hear almost every day, it sort of gets into you.

How did he get into country?

Dusty: I was talking to my elder brother about a month ago, tracing that. He said that there was a tape he got from a friend in high school, it was just one tape, and my brother Sicelo sort of loved it more than he did. So he sort of got us hooked with this tape.

I wonder where that tape came from.

Dusty: In fact, my elder brother was talking about that guy who recorded that tape, saying it would be nice to tell him what has happened just from the tape that he gave me in high school and then what had happened after, up to where we are right now. 

That’s amazing.

Stones: Just besides us, it’s worth mentioning that there are people in Swaziland who love country music. So, wherever that tape came from, it could be from other people who love country music. We have a guy like Issac Gamedze, who went to school maybe in England, so maybe from those trips, that’s where he got the music, then he came back with it in Swaziland.

Dusty: And, again, there’s always been, leading up to today, this country program on the radio. It has always been one of the famous programs.

Armed Forces radio, or no?

Dusty: OK, there are two programs back home. It’s just the local radio, there’s always a country program–the DJ will play some country songs and say something, just sort of bring the music into the Swazi context. And, again, there is another program on the English channel, they had access to this VOA (Voice Of America) country channel, so it was being aired there. And you know, that’s what made country music popular even just for the general population of Swaziland.

What do you think the people related to in this music?

Dusty: I think the simplicity of life, the familiar stories, because Swaziland, at least in the past, mostly people are from the rural areas, you know? As much as now they stay in the city, most of us have this rural background, where life is sort of relaxed and all that and it’s more agricultural and all that. And you’d find those stories in country music. It’s like, they’re not American stories per se, they sort of speak to us, we sort of relate to what they’re talking about. So the lifestyle that we pick from these, about love, about family, about just general hardships that you come across, and some good things that come out of life, that is projected in this kind of music, so we can easily connect.

Stones: Well, we relate to that a lot because you hear Dolly Parton singing about this Tennessee mountain home–Swaziland is a very mountainous country with beautiful mountains. In most of the songs they sing about life on the farm and all that–we really relate to that. It’s a life that we are living as well.

And what led to you picking up guitars yourself and trying to write songs?

Dusty: For us it was just like, when you love particular songs, you find yourself singing them when you are walking home from whatever. Then the idea was what if we were to… In fact one guy suggested–that guy unfortunately, he’s passed on now–but the intention was to play the songs we’ve always heard on the radio. It was not about us becoming artists. We were thinking, what if I play a Don Williams song myself.

And then once you learn the chords, you probably start to realize maybe you can do it yourself.

Dusty: Yeah! Because the people around us are saying, OK. The first performance was in church. It was around Christmas, just a celebration of Christmas. And then when the people react and they encourage you, you think OK. So it started growing and we started playing together again, and people were always encouraging. 

Stones: And I think having that curious mind…

A loud jackhammer breaks up our conversation.

Rudoy: Stones works in construction, so he doesn’t even hear it.

Stones: I can even tell when it's done or not. We still have some slabs to break. I was saying, we have this curious mind, we were curious if we could maybe play guitar, and once we started learning, that curiosity kept on–listening to the music, finding out that there are some guitar solos, and we’re like, I wonder how the guys are doing that. So, it went on and on and on. I think it’s one thing that keeps us going. We always want to learn whatever we are hearing from the songs. 

When you’re writing songs, are you intentionally pulling from the lyrical language of country music? The crossover between your own life and that language seems big enough to do it.

Dusty: For me, it's just trying to tell my own story. Of course there will be things that we are pulling from because you want to maintain and keep it relevant to the genre. Again, it goes back to my brother. He is one person who is very analytical. He will sort of study the country songs, he’s the one who will tell us, “Listen to that banjo, listen to this phrase, you always find this phrase in country music. What’s up with this line? What do they mean when they say this?” But of course, you pick some of those things to infuse them in your own way. It’s not like when we’re writing a song I’m thinking, Let me write it in an American way or whatever. I’m just thinking, this is my experience. I want to sing a song about my mom, what she means to me, or whatever situation. Of course, as a songwriter, again, that poetic kind of approach, you want to evoke feelings. That’s the only thing that I think we do.

So you went to America for the first time and you had a camera following you. There’s gotta be so many levels there.

Dusty: I think the issue of cameras following us, when we came to the US, we were already comfortable in a way, because even back home we had some time with these camera people following us, so we sort of adjusted. Back home, when we had these people following us, it was sort of uneasy at first, but then we got used to it. So, by the time we came over here, we were just ourselves. 

Do you have memories of those first few days in America? 

Stones: Arriving in Nashville, the first thing we saw was a poster of an image, I think it was for the Grand Ole Opry and then we saw this big Johnny Cash poster and we were like, Wow we are really here. So, it was really really exciting. We tried some Nashville foods, we tried visiting Broadway, which was very, very exciting for us, that experience, there’s music everywhere, there’s players everywhere. 

Dusty: In fact, going down Broadway in a way changed our approach. We started weighing what we do back home. As musicians, where we come from, some of us love to complain, Oh they’re not doing this for us. But what we noticed there, those guys are using every little space to play music. They can stand right there at that corner with their guitar–it's fine. So when we saw that, we felt, you know we’re not doing enough back where we come from. There’s a lot of places where people are sitting and no one is entertaining them. So, we took that as a lesson. Down Broadway, every bar there is a band playing and all that. So it was a learning curve for us. Nashville was more like going to a country school. I’m telling you, there was a lot that we took from that trip. It wasn’t just sightseeing for us. 

And you even got to go into the studio with Robert Ellis Orrall.

Stones: Oh man.

Dusty: That was the best thing that ever happened, because like I said earlier my brother would always say, “Do you hear that steel guitar?” Now, had we gone there without that experience, we wouldn’t have actually appreciated what happened in the studio. We’ve always been appreciative of the guys in the back of the sleeve of albums. Who is playing what. And then to see Jimmy Mattingly. We’ve seen him in videos, he’s played in this band and that band, and to have him play on songs with us, and all the other great players. It was just amazing. And to see how it's done, for me, the process. 

Stones: The Rukkus Room was really, it was like doing a bachelor's degree in country music. And the people we worked with, like Bob, we know he was good himself as an artist and then he produced music for big country music artists like Taylor Swift. And then there’s the music engineer Jamie [Tate] who did music engineering for Alan Jackson, a guy who is a big influence in our music. Seeing those guys and meeting them and just paying attention to how they are doing things, we knew we had to pay attention because back home, when we go back to Swaziland, we will find ourselves having to do all this on our own. So, it wasn’t just us going there leaving everything to the guys to play. We were trying to pay attention to how they are doing. So, after this trip we would love to go back home and try to record another album. We still have this homework of teaching our guys, the band, this is how country music is being recorded. 

Dusty: It’s amazing when you talk to the local musicians there. You’re talking about a very foreign concept. What we saw was different. You play a song once for the guys and then they go to the recording side and then they got a song in 20 minutes. It’s amazing to see how they bring everything together. 

There’s an intense part of the movie where you’re playing this small country music festival in Texas. You were definitely outsiders. There were definitely logistical issues. I think any touring musician could relate to that part, on one level or another.

Dusty: You know, it had its own challenges, because you’re trying to have their band play your songs as you would want them, and then you come across some challenges, but you try to overcome them. What I liked was that whatever we came up with for Plan B, it worked, despite all the frustrations, it worked in the end. I think, again, because here you are, two guys from Africa, you don’t know how they are going to react to your music. So, you have that nervousness. As a player on that stage, you want to feel that the people are connecting with you. But, there you are, from Africa, it's the first time this event has had black guys. But you play the festival and the crowd reacts and it's like, OK, let's go. 

Stones: I think what is key in such moments, when things are not going the way that you would have loved to, you have to think quick. Because you are now on stage. You have to take on the stage and you have to connect with your audience, and so if you spend time worrying and maybe panicking, you are not going to give a good performance. 

This whole trip feels like you were forced to push yourself.

Dusty: We try to give it our all whatever we do. Even back home, there was a show we organized and our keyboard player last minute disappeared. What do you do? Do you start to complain? We just hit the stage without a keyboard player. And then he came halfway through the show. I think it comes from our grandfather, who was always about finding a way. Don’t give up. Don’t focus on the problem. Find a solution and then keep on going.

Do you listen to modern country? How do you feel about the slickest new country with weird electronic and rap elements? Do you like that? Does that disgust you?

Dusty: There are some good songs that are in that genre, but I’ll be frank with you, it's the background of where we come from. Because of this perception of what country music is. When you talk about country music [in Swaziland] it's more to the traditional, classic country. There are these sounds that we are looking for, so it's different from any other genre. We’re looking for the steel guitar, the fiddle, and when that doesn’t come through… Again, we understand the progression of things, but we are not much into that. We appreciate it, for those that are doing it, but it's not something that we are going to be doing.

So you’re not going to be adding any rap drums to your songs?

Dusty: We are open, me and Stones, but, again, our audience–we know how conservative they are. Even if you don’t come to the stage wearing your cowboy hats, you can see the disappointment. What’s wrong with you now? Where’s your hat? You don’t want to disappoint your audience. Even if you are open minded, they are not.

Stones: It’s worth mentioning that one of our influences now, Brad Paisley, he did that in a very nice way with LL Cool J and some other rappers. So there are songs that Brad Paisley did and they still have the country sound. It’s not like we would turn it down, but we are more concerned with the music, because for us, or especially myself, what makes country music different from other genres is the instruments, more than the lyrics. It's the arrangements. The instruments that we are playing. So if you now take out the steel guitar, if you take out the drums and are using programmed instruments, you are now depriving your music of some great moments. Whenever you’re recording, there’s some great things that are maybe unplanned–cool licks that a player might make. If everything is programmed, you don’t have that uniqueness–those cool licks that we love. 

Dusty: It makes the music unique. That’s what country music is all about. We don’t have anything against bro country and stuff like that. It’s just not us.

What’s next? You said you were going to start working on a new record?

Dusty: We’ve been writing lots of songs lately, because we have been preparing to make a full album. It’s going to the studio from here, hitting the studio like crazy. Of course, finding other places where we can have this film screened. Especially in [Africa], besides home in Swaziland, where else in Africa, because, again, we have this African following. There are people who really like what we do within Africa itself. So, it would be good to have them watch the movie.

Stones: We have to do that, taking advantage of the moment that the movie’s coming up with. It’s putting us on the map again. We are getting so many fans liking us and following us. We are seeing a huge increase of followers on social media platforms because of the movie. After the movie, we have to make music because that’s who we are. And our friends are wanting more music, more music. After the premiere, we’ll be going home and making more music. Hopefully we’ll be coming up with more shows. Who knows, we might even come back to the US. 

Dusty: After that festival, we’ve tried to collect what we think is necessary gear, because we didn’t have certain gear before. We didn’t want to rush and record. So now we feel like, of course you buy gear, it's never enough, but I think now it would be nice to go to the studio and record. We are ready for the studio.

Follow the film on Instagram and Dusty & Stones on Soundcloud