"Singing odes to cigarettes, chiding lovers who treated her badly, and sweetly--if not hesitantly--announcing next to whom she wants to wake up, Mallory Graham's commanding singing voice seems to give a megaphone to her innermost thoughts and feelings. At first glance, Graham seems to be nervous that her audience might not like her -- it's just that she's put so much of herself into her songs that she's wary of how you'll receive them. But from the moment her band strikes up a chord, it's obvious that each of Mallory's songs are slaved over meticulously. Every ounce of energy and passion she has for writing from the heart comes through in her energetic performance. It's hard not to walk away mesmerized.
These days, Mallory Graham leads a band of guys who fill in the drums, bass riffs, guitar solos and keyboard melodies that perfectly frame her clever songwriting capabilities. She calls them her Invisible Friends, and with their support, she has struck a balance of belting out bad ass melodies and sweetly smiling at the crowd all the while. The only thing confusing is her band name: When you see her troupe of friends and musicians share the stage with her with complete gusto, you'll be certain that her friends aren't invisible. In fact, you'll probably want to befriend her yourself. I do, anyway."
--Megan Pacella, Nashville freelance writer
and then there's this:
Mallory Graham Thinks About Her Invisible Friends or How Did We End Up In Kentucky
Halloween weekend, 2009, Mallory Graham and myself crammed 5 guitars, a couple guitar amps, enough pizza rolls to feed a family of 18, my grandma’s old Wurlitzer accordion and our bass player, Mike Shannon, into the backseat of my Toyota Corolla and we drove from Asheville, NC to Nashville, TN. Mike sat, for the entire trip, in the backseat with his feet on the accordion case and his left arm up at a 90 degree angle so the pot of soup balancing precariously on top my guitar amp wouldn’t spill on top of him as we took the winding detour through Hot Springs, NC.
We recorded 7 of Mallory’s songs that weekend in producer Chris Leonard’s living room, bedroom and select closets throughout the house. Andy Black was there too. And so was Danger. And Stephen Sebastian stopped by just in time for an awesome guitar solo. We recorded all the tracks live with additional overdubs over 4 ½ days and it was relaxed, intense, and magical. Nashville friends stopped in and out to listen and to wish us luck and Nathan Crandell even brought beer and sang some buttery and beautiful background vocals.
Mallory’s songs usually start out as small things; minute details, sentence fragments and a couple chords, and if you listen closely you can still hear that hesitation and the fear of speaking and creating something that lives and exists outside of herself. This isn’t a fearful record and Mallory isn’t a cowardly songwriter. It’s quite the opposite, actually. Not one to hide behind metaphor and ambiguity, quite a few times I’ve seen Mallory write a song about someone, and call them over and say “Hey, I’ve written a song about you.” It’s embarrassing to watch that person squirm in the songs’ accuracy. I’ve thought a few times, that Mallory might gain too much pleasure recalling the stories we’re not so proud of, using them as two-headed snakes and bearded ladies to lure the curious behind her curtain of human eccentricities. Maybe she does. Like on the last song, “Speak Up,” she writes about a friend’s infidelity from the perspective of the man-on-the-side. This is classified information, you know, the kind of stuff you whisper, not sing about. Not when you’re friends with Mallory. We layed down tracks on Halloween night, lit candles and turned off the lights so trick-or-treaters wouldn’t ruin our takes. We performed this to tally live, vocals, accordion, everything, and you can hear us standing uncomfortably in the open space, shifting our weight in our chairs, and gathering our breaths as quietly as possible. When we finished our last take and finally exhaled, I was struck by this thought; Our history exists, whether we want it to or not, and it’s best to speak of it, call it our own, put a tune to it and sing it to whoever listens, because what is left unsaid and undone is really what controls us. I think Mallory knows this and wants us to know it too.
Well, all the pieces have finally come together and this delightful EP is available for you to hear. I couldn’t be more excited.
--Scott Tyler, http://scotttyler.tumblr.com/
now isn't that some credibility?