From stray dogs to Tom Petty, Cash Langdon is a musician who pulls inspiration from a variety of sources. Following the release of his most recent album Dogs, the Birmingham native is leaving his mark on Alabama’s music scene.
He has received recognition and support from significant figures in the Birmingham community, including Dan Drinkard, owner of Seasick Records, and Eric Wallace, owner of the Firehouse Community Arts Center.
In an interview with APR student intern Aisha Smith, Langdon provided insight into his life as a musician—detailing his journey from jazz band kid to national touring artist.
Aisha: For those who haven't heard your music yet, how would you describe your sound?
Cash: I historically have a really hard time with that question, but it's sort of country rock influenced guitar music. I always tell people, there's lots of guitars. The songs are mostly pop structured with a tinge of kind of Americana or country, but, like I said, I'm bad at that question.
Aisha: How did your relationship with music begin? When did you first start playing?
Cash: When I was, 10, 11, I started playing guitar, and then bass… I almost exclusively played bass and was in jazz band and really thought that was going to be my life and my passion... I played in bands around town growing up.
Then, in my later high school years, started writing songs, started playing guitar more. I moved to DC. I was playing in a band there called Saturday Night, where I was writing songs and playing guitar. That was the launching point for me really starting to think about songwriting in a serious way…
That band ended. Me and one of the other members of that band, Nora, started a new band called Caution, which is still a band now. Then, I started doing this thing under my name when I moved back here. So, I just had a set of songs that didn't fit anywhere else, and wanted to record them, and then it just started taking up my time.
Aisha: Do you have any musical influences and have they changed throughout your career?
Cash: Both my parents are pretty big music fans, so I grew up around a lot of music, especially my dad. He loves the regular dad rock type stuff. He loves classic country music and rock and roll and stuff like that.
Tom Petty was always a huge influence on me. I sort of rejected a lot of the music my dad liked as a young person but ended up coming around to a lot of it. Tom Petty was always one that I liked.
When I was a teenager, I played in punk bands and listened to a lot of punk music, heavier music, but at the same time, I was playing in a jazz band in high school. I was a really serious music listener, I would say. Even more so than I am now, but it's definitely changed a lot over the years. I really am somebody who likes everything.
Aisha: Are there any misconceptions that people may have about the Alabama music scene or music in general?
Cash: People make a lot of assumptions in general about the South. I lived in DC for a while, and the amount of people that just couldn't believe I, one, don't really have a strong Southern accent, and two, that I'm just somebody who can hold a conversation. The expectations are low.
There's so much going on in Birmingham that really feels more representative of someone's understanding of a bigger, more metropolitan-type city, as opposed to a place in Alabama.
Specifically, just the ignorance—that we're all beer drinking country music fans. No shade to that. I am a beer drinking country fan also.
Aisha: Are there any specific spaces or people in the community who are significant to your music or have supported you?
Cash: A lot of the music scene in Birmingham have been pretty consistently supportive to me for a long time, which is incredible, but specifically, the Firehouse is a big part of that. I started playing music there when I was a teenager and I have many friends that have been in that world the entire time.
So, definitely that community, and a lot of the people who host and do DIY shows. Saturn is a big one too. Both of those places, I feel, are so essential to the push for art to be prioritized.
Aisha: Have you noticed any changes in the music scene from when you first started to now?
Cash: Definitely. I’m 29. When I was like 14,15, I started going to shows at the Firehouse. Avondale was so different from how it is now, and to me, that neighborhood is almost like the poster child of gentrification in Birmingham. No disrespect intended. I love that neighborhood.
It was more sparse. It was smaller. I would say that the of expansion of the Firehouse and the expansion of social media too has made it so that a lot of things are more accessible than they used to be.
Which I think, honestly, has a lot of pros and cons, but the major pro is that people are more aware of things that are happening. So, there's a lot more bands now than when I was growing up. There’s more diversity in the music.
Aisha: How does the cultural or even the physical landscape of Alabama tie into the themes of your music?
Cash: I think that “working against the grain” mentality is super prevalent to why anybody here remains an active artist. It’s because you are a little bit of an outlier in terms of the norms here.
Alabama certainly can be a challenging place to live. But more specifically, this last record, “Dogs,” is pretty directly influenced by living over in East Lake, northeast Birmingham. The main touchstone for the record is all the wild dogs that roam East Lake.
A lot of people are breeding dogs over there and fighting dogs, and then a lot of people just abandon them or dogs are chained up outside and get loose. I think that was a reaffirmation of this idea: nobody asks to be born. Dogs certainly don't ask to be born, and they're just dealing with the material reality of their world.
Aisha: Do you have any upcoming projects or events that you're looking forward to?
Cash: November 6th, I’m playing a show at Seasick with Wishy, and then I'm going on a tour in November. It's mostly East Coast and Midwest.
