The Grahams have never been short on ambition. In 2013, the Nashville-based husband-and-wife team kicked off a trio of experiential Americana-flavored concept albums with Riverman’s Daughter, inspired by a year spent on a Mississippi riverboat. Two years later, they toured the country by train to come up with the songs for Glory Bound, capping off their trilogy with 2020’s Kids Like Us, a stylistically varied motorcycle travelogue of the storied Route 66. Their mission accomplished just before COVID hit, Alyssa and Doug Graham settled down to raise their young daughter and contemplate their next move. Turns out it was a few moves.
The Grahams established 3Sirens, an East Nashville studio and label, in 2021 as a platform for acts they love and a place where artists can feel comfortable in their own skin. The studio has attracted the likes of John Doe, Margo Price, JD McPherson and David Garza. Meanwhile, Lilly Hiatt, Andrew Combs, Dylan LeBlanc and others have appeared on the label’s two compilation albums. The studio was also ground zero for the 10-day recording session that produced The Grahams (3Sirens Music Group), which reinterprets 10 songs from the duo’s previous releases. Due September 8, it features keyboardist Ray Jacildo (Black Keys), bassist Jack Lawrence (Raconteurs, Dead Weather) and Lucius, whose signature vocals figure prominently on “Lay Me Down.”
Also included on The Grahams is the title track from Glory Bound. Alyssa Graham offers this assessment of the song and video:
“More than any other track on this new album, ‘Glory Bound’—co-written with our childhood friend Bryan McCann—captures our life already lived and our life still to come. Growing up together in Jersey, taking lots of risks, experimenting with lots of drugs and loving so hard it hurts—this song says it all. Appropriately, the reimagined version of ‘Glory Bound’ is more resolved and less agro—as are we, now that we’ve lived and lost, learned a lot and have a child of our own. Don’t get me wrong … We’ll always ‘put the hammer down’ and teach our daughter the same—we’re raising a feisty, outspoken little girl. But sometimes a message comes through stronger with subtlety. No regrets, just reflections.
“The video is capturing a moment in time when the torch is being passed to our daughter. What dreams will she follow, and what journeys will she take? We hope they’re filled with beauty and imagination: ‘This heart may bleed, but it still gets me round/This train is glory bound.’”
MAGNET is proud to premiere the video for “Glory Bound.”
—Hobart Rowland
