The Imaginaries - Fever Secrets and Oklahoma Roots

The Imaginaries - Fever Secrets and Oklahoma Roots

Rick Troutman aka The Trout is thrilled to introduce the imaginaries and American folk rock duo from Oklahoma for today's YouTube and podcast interview. Featuring husband and wife Shane Henry on guitar and vocals and Maggie McClure on keys and vocals, their soulful pop Americana evokes Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac, blending gritty blues rock with heartfelt ballads. With 75-plus sync placements in film and TV, including Netflix's Mending the Line and a cameo in the Dennis Quaid-led Regan, their sophomore album, Fever, boasts guest solos from Vince Gill and Joe Bonamassa.

Proud Oklahomans, they've shared stages with Judy Collins and the Gatlin Brothers. Now here's The Trout with Maggie and Shane, enjoy! Guitarists, unleash your tone with westerlundaudio.com. Our debut pedal, the Westerlund One, is the preamp, overdrive, and boost pedal, trusted by guitar greats like Vince Gill, Ariel Posen, and Josh Smith. It's your ticket to iconic sound.

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How did you two get together? I mean, how did that happen? I mean, it's really simple. Music. Music is how we got together.

The first keyboard player that played with me when I was starting out, and I was going to blues jams when I was 15, 16 years old, because I grew up in Verdon, Oklahoma, and you had two options there, which was to play sports or be in like FFA or whatever it's called, you know. And I wasn't interested in either of those. I was, I found music early on, and so I started going to blues jams and meeting musicians, and I met a keyboard player that recorded with me on my first record, and he played in my band all the way until I was a senior in high school.

And then I moved to Minneapolis, had some opportunities to work with management there, lived up there for a while. I want to say it was about a three-year period. And then when I moved back home, I put my band back together, and I had a gig at this place called the Red Dirt Cafe, which is a line we use in one of our songs on the new record.

It's called I Knew It Was You. But anyways, we had a show there, and I called Jim to play keys in my band, and I said, hey, are he actually, I'm teaching piano lessons to this girl, and she's only played like Borders books and Hastings. Could she open the show? And that's how we met.

Yeah, at that time I was 16 years old, and Shane was 20. And so we met then, and we were friends for a few years. And the, you know, the rest is really history.

It's been really cool to see how things have developed since then. As you, as they say, you're an overnight success, 14 years later, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we've had our solo for a long time, and you know, we had a lot of opportunities to back each other up when we first started dating and collaborating.

And so we played a lot of shows that were mine that Shane would play guitar and sing with me and vice versa. And we really developed a very natural chemistry. And throughout the years, people would ask us, why are you guys not doing this together? Why is it Maggie or Shane? Why can't it be both? And so it wasn't until 2018, when we finally did that, and the One Mic Series that you may be aware of, is what... It was a catalyst.

Yeah, we got asked to be a part of this thing called the One Mic Series, where we both submitted our solo projects, because that's all we had at the time. And John Cunaberti, who was the person putting this on, he called me, I listened to both of your songs, and I really think you guys are talented. I'd love to have you on, but I've only got one slot.

Do you think y'all can just do something together? And that was it. I mean, it was literally like, okay, well, we're not going to miss the opportunity to go to Muscle Shoals and cut a song at Jackson Highway, you know. And so we went on down there, and we met, you know, the players, and we had a couple of songs that we thought were pretty cool.

And they were like a nice intersection of the middle of what I did and what Maggie did. And so... Yeah, so we cut those, and then it was just kind of like electric after that, you know. We got, you know, that feeling you get when you're like a kid, and you pick up a guitar, and you finally learn how to play a song for the first time.

You get really this overwhelming excitement, because you're like, wow, I just played a song. You know what I mean? So it was like that for me all over again. And I think for Maggie too, we had this sort of like, just new found love for music after that experience.

When did you guys realize that you had something different than everybody else? Well, you know, we have just been very true to ourselves and our art forms. And I think that's why it took us a little bit longer to do this together, because we didn't want it to feel forced or contrived or formulated at all. So all of this has just been very authentic.

And I think that's been really important for us. But definitely with the first album, we knew that this was... It was a new sound for us. It was fresh and different and unique to ourselves, you know, to our two voices, the production, the kind of authentic, you know, cutting records like they used to be cut.

Yeah, there's bleed over and that's okay. And not everything's perfect. But that's kind of what we were going for.

And that's kind of the thing with the imaginaries is we want it to be kind of real and authentic and let the song speak for themselves. And, you know, us both coming from being the person, you know, it's been fun for us to take turns and support the other person and be able to create these arrangements like we have, where some of the songs are more duets and some feature Shane more and some feature me more. And it's just been, like I said, very natural and authentic.

And we hope to always keep that at the center of what we do. That whatever you're trying to say or your story, it has to come from your heart and soul. You can't go on an AI app and try to write songs or... I mean, I've never even opened... I've never even tried to do that.

We've been in the studio one time and our producer, one of our producer friends was showing us how it worked. And, you know, it's... I could talk about that for days, about my disdain for that. But, you know, it's never going to replace the true emotion that humans have.

It comes from the experiences. Right. How long did it take you guys to get traction? I mean, really, where you saw... I mean, I've seen your bio and all that stuff, but, you know, all these places that you've been getting press, when was the moment, though, that you kind of looked at each other like, hey, man, I think we're on a roll? Do you remember that time when something happened with you? Well, I think for me, that happens all the time.

It's not like one moment that changed everything. It's like when something cool happens, like a few weeks ago, we were in Nashville and we got to hang out with Vince Gill on the 4th of July at his house. Moments like that, it's like, wow, this is so cool.

I could have never made this up. And this is just amazing to be considered one of his friends and to have gotten to collaborate with him is just a dream come true. So I think for me, I'm constantly grateful for all of the things that happen, all the little milestones.

But I think probably the biggest moments are when we get those opportunities to open for larger acts, like last year when we opened for Sixpence, None the Richer, and the Gatlin Brothers. I see you're doing that in Kansas City later this year. Yeah, we opened for Sixpence last year at Knuckleheads in Kansas City, and we'll be back at Knuckleheads this October headlining our own show there.

But yeah, shows like that, we definitely are acknowledging the significance of that and very grateful for those opportunities. Anything else that you can think of? I think sometimes, too, it's hard to see when you're in the middle of it. You know what I mean? At this day and age, artists are expected to not only just be songwriters and musicians, but you have to be great at a lot of things, and you have to be a jack-of-all-trades, really.

That's what's really cool about Maggie and I is that we fit together like this. The areas where I really excel, she may not, and vice versa. And it really works well for the business model of the imaginaries, and we really do complement each other well in that regard.

But yeah, sometimes it's just hard to see the forest from the trees because you're just grinding. Yeah, I think one moment for me is when I'm on YouTube and I see all of the music videos and live performances and all the things we've done on there. I'm like, man, that's so cool.

Nobody is sitting there making us do that. We had to pay for all of that ourselves. We had to come up with all those ideas.

We had to do the work. And I'm reminded when I go back through our catalog and our videos, I'm like, wow, I can't believe we did all that. That's really cool.

And you think to yourself, look at what we did then, how much better we can do it now because you've done it so much. And you're a business. Yeah.

There's no substitute for just hitting the road and the repetition of playing live night after night, refining yourself. Like you said, you can play in your bed, you can practice at home, but there's that different feeling when you're doing it in front of a crowd. And we've just had the blessing of playing a lot over the past couple of years, and we've really gotten tight from doing it.

I was trying to explain it to my dad the other day. We work so hard on all the other things, and then when we get to actually play the show, that's like, oh yeah, this is why I do all this other stuff. And the bad thing about that is it goes by just like that.

You get on stage, you're doing your first tune, and then you turn to each other, this is the last tune already, how long, you know, that's the other part about it. It warms up, yeah. So, excuse me, tell me about the new album.

Tell me all about it. I know I could read about it, whether you're from the people that actually did it. Well, our first record was started in the fall of 2018, and we didn't get to release it until 2021 because of the pandemic and everything.

So, I mean, obviously during that time, we had a trunk load of new songs. And so, we were really like, fronting to get back in the studio. And so, we started in February of 23 on this record, and that was our first trip to Muscle Shoals, the first batch we did.

And we just kind of dove in, I mean, we felt like we had a lot of great songs to choose from, and I think we cut eight on our first trip. And then we had a lot more, we wrote more, and then we went back in November or December of 23. Was it November, December 23? Yeah.

Can't remember, it all runs together. And then we cut another six. So, we ended up cutting, I think, 14 or 15.

Yeah. And so, Shane and I self-produced this. And so, we left the sessions both times with a ton of files, and we're like, okay, here we go.

And so, we were in our home studio now, we brought it back here and kind of sifted through everything. But we realized we were going to need some help editing, sifting through stuff, and doing overdubs, and doing it in a timely manner. So, we called up our good friend, Steven Laiweke, who has a studio in Nashville called Yak Land Studio.

And we ended up working there for probably a few weeks. A few weeks, yeah, to finish it. Finishing things, cleaning things up.

And actually, that's where Joe came over and played his solo on Crossroads. And Steven was so helpful with the whole process. And I don't think we could have gotten it done in a timely manner without his help.

So, I really appreciate it. But there were so many people involved that helped us create this album, from co-writers to musicians. Engineers.

Engineers. Ryan Lipman in LA mixed it. David Glasser in Colorado mastered it.

And we trimmed it down to 12 songs. We had 15, but we felt like that was too many. So, there's 12 songs.

And for vinyl, it's six on each side, and it's the perfect amount of time. Yeah, you can't really go any further. You start getting that over compression by the back of each side, you know? Yeah.

So, these are songs that we've had for... Some of them we've had for a while, and some of them are brand new. Yeah, like the title track to the record, Fever. Usually, we have everything written when we show up, but that song had been started and never finished.

And we got to Muscle Shoals, and we kind of just... I pulled out a guitar, and it just kind of finished itself, you know? And there's a cool Muscle Shoals-ism in the lyrics of that one. And that was kind of fun because we finished it. Well, we got a line about... What's his name? Against the Wind.

Against... Yeah, Against the Wind on the radio. Bob Seger. Bob Seger, yeah.

And it was just such a great... All his stuff just sounded so fantastic that he cut down there. But we just were feeling the vibe when we got to Muscle Shoals, and that song came, and then we cut it the next day. And that's really fun.

Yeah, that was a really fun experience, getting to do that. And getting to play with everybody in the room is really important for our sound, and it was such a blast to get to do that. And so excited that it's finally coming out.

This has been a long time coming. We've been working really hard on it, and we're self-funding all of this. So we're paying for all of the marketing, all of the tour expenses, everything.

And so we wanted to do it right. And so we took the time we needed, and it's finally here. The Joe collaboration is because I've known Joe for years.

I was actually on the B.B. King tour when I was up and coming when he was on the tour. And I met him then. Then when Maggie and I moved to L.A., we reconnected at Norm's one day, and he invited me to his house.

And anyways, we just Were you at Nerdville? You were at Nerdville? Oh, yeah, I was at Nerdville. Steepest driveway you'll ever drive up. I'm not kidding you.

I had a Honda Odyssey minivan at the time, and it barely made it to the top of Nerdville. I mean, the driveway's like driving like that, you know. It's crazy.

Anyways, but Joe's awesome. We really kind of connected. We connect a lot over our love of old cars.

We both love old cars, you know. I thought you were going to say guitar cars. And I rescued, we talk more about old cars, actually.

And I rescued this 55 Chevy pickup from a barn in Arcadia, Oklahoma. And it's kind of my hobby when we're not on tour. I love to do that.

It's a great place to just, you know, I don't know, take your mind off everything and escape. I love doing it. So I brought this truck back to life and got to enjoy it with my grandpa while he was still alive.

And I posted a few photos of it and Joe saw it and he was like, hey man, if you ever sell this truck, I want to buy it, you know. I said, well, it's not for sale, you know. I'm enjoying it.

And, you know, a year or so went by and he just kept kind of nagging away at me. And eventually offered me like vintage Les Paul money for it. So I said, okay.

Oh yeah. I was going to say, he came to a number once, you came to a number and he goes, okay, I'll do it. And then you can't say no.

He came to a number I couldn't say no. So I put it on a trailer and drove it to him to Nashville. And oddly enough, he wasn't on tour while we were working on these overdubs in Nashville.

Saul, we were in town and he had just gotten the truck back from this place called Tri-Works Hot Rods. They took the truck. It was an original truck with like a 235 six cylinder, beautiful pateen, right.

You know, they took it, pulled the body off, put it on a modern chassis, the whole thing, you know, the dream, right. To have all the upgraded suspension and everything and still look old and classic. So he brought it by the studio basically.

And while he was there, we had that song pulled up and I said, Hey man, why don't you give this song a shot at a solo? And he, he's like, all right. So he grabbed a strat out of the pickup that he had in the back of the pickup. I mean, literally he was like, Oh, I got one in the lane, in the bed of the truck.

I'm like, what? And he goes, yeah, I just bought it. It was like a Lake Placid blue 64 strat or something, you know, he comes bringing it in studio and just plugged into my rig and turn the deluxe reverb all the way up to eight, the magic number and proceeded to play a kick-ass slide solo. It's really cool.

But we hope that they play on our music because they like us as people and also that's one. What's the other one? That's one reason they like our music. Yeah.

You're, you're really good at what you do. You're really good at what you do. And, and I don't mean, I mean that with all sincerity, you cannot believe how many famous people I've talked to and say, and they don't know.

I mean, they know what they don't know. It's something you don't say to yourself, because if you're really, and you, you seem, both of you seem really nice people. You don't go around and pat yourself on the back, you know, because then you lose your friendships with people.

But I've just learned over the years of knowing people and talking to people that sometimes they like, yeah, I don't know why is that? Because you're good. People are not going to, people of the Joe, you know, Joe Bonamassa are not going to put anything on any album. I don't care who they are, unless you're good.

And the other thing, I think Maggie, you reinforced it by naming everybody that was involved with it. Here's the engineer's name. Here's the producer's name.

Here's the mastering guy. I mean, I mean, tell me, I was like, okay, I know you're running your own business, but also tells me that you're genuine, kind people, which is sometimes hard to find because music industry can eat people up. You know, that really can.

And that's the, that's the sad thing about it for, for me is see people I know probably won't make it even though they're really good, but you have shown the drive of two people that are determined. But the ultimate thing I assume is exactly what you said. I think earlier was the fact is it's the music.

All the other stuff is superfluous, the marketing and all this stuff. God, I got to go on Instagram again. I got to go.

Here's a t-shirt order. It's about the music. And it is, it all points back to that.

That's not, if that's not good, none of the other stuff matters. It doesn't matter. That's the thing you have to realize.

It's like you're doing all this to support a talent. So you have to make sure that you don't stop writing songs and stop playing your instrument in the process because that's what it's all about, man. So how did you get into the same business? How did that happen? Well, I think it, it started with me getting my solo music shows in like 2006, 2007.

And I put out my first album self-titled Maggie McClure then. And almost all of the songs started getting licensed on shows like the Young and the Restless on CBS and The Real World. Oh, it was always hilarious because, you know, Maggie's like the sweetest, you know, Christian girl and her, every time, man, they would license a song at a hot steamy sex scene.

And I'm going, oh my gosh, another reality show that's using your song in a sex scene. Hey mom, I got a song on a TV show, but don't watch it. I mean, there was a lot of those and we would always crack up about it because it's like, what are the chances? Yeah.

At that point, we didn't know until it was airing how it was used, but that really started it. And in 2010, I got, or 2011, my song Good Morning and Good Night got chosen to be the opening credits for a movie called Cowgirls and Angels. And that director is the same director of a Cowgirls story and a Cowgirls song, the movie that we co-star in and did the entire soundtrack for just a couple of years ago.

So it's been just, you know, one thing after another. And a lot of it is, is actually unrelated. So it's a lot of connections that will pop up, you know, this guy's working on this project and then this person's working on this, but they keep us in mind and they remember that they like us and they like our music.

So people have started just coming back to us. And throughout this process, you know, Shane's music has been licensed and now the Imaginaries obviously too, and as well as our Christmas songs, I decided to start my own music licensing company so I can represent our friends' music as well as our own. So when I'm pitching to music supervisors or editors or directors, I have a larger catalog to pitch.

And so then that has led me to now music supervising projects. And so I am music supervising a film right now that we are actually in and features many songs that will be coming out in November called The One, starring Martin Sheen and Jana Kramer and a bunch of other people. Basically the short version of it is Maggie is a go-getter and she hustles like nobody's business.

And the one thing Maggie does not like in life is doing nothing. She does not like sitting still. She likes having a busy plate.

Not busy, productive. And you love chasing your dream and you're relentless. Yeah.

And you smile the whole time and people don't understand. They just think, he's a bulldog, man. So something really cool that we just found out like in the last couple weeks is that the movie Reagan that came out last August starring Dennis Quaid.

We got a little cameo in it. I don't know if you've seen the movie or not, but we did a version of Frankie Valli's My Eyes Adored You. And we were the band that was cast for the inaugural ball scene where Reagan becomes president and they come out and dance.

And so we're singing My Eyes Adored You on the screen. And they ended up licensing our version of the song. And it was pretty cool because with Maggie's music supervisor background and history, she kind of knows how this works.

And usually nine times out of ten, a production is going to be over budget by the time they get the production, the movie made. And by the time they're cutting the film, they don't have any money. So usually they can't afford to license a song that's on a label, major label like a Frankie Valli tune.

So two days before we were supposed to be on set, Maggie goes, hey, we're going to cut a version of this song ourselves. And we're going to have our version cut to the same tempo. And they're going to end up licensing our version because they can get it for about half the cost of the original.

And it took a little convincing. And anyways, that's what happened. That's what happened.

It's really cool. So that happened. And I don't know why, but the soundtrack is coming out a year later at the end of August this year.

And we are on it. And along with Bob Dylan and Clint Black and a bunch of really random like like Kenya Tucker, Scott Stapp, Scott Stapp from Creed. This is the Reagan movie we're talking about.

The Reagan movie. There's going to be one album that's a song that were in the movie. And then there's another album that's going to be like songs inspired by Reagan's life or the film.

But it's going to come out on Curb Records. And we just got invited to perform at the soundtrack release party in Nashville there at the Johnny Cash Farm. So we're really excited.

That'll be in a few weeks. But don't you even now, because even time you write a song and you hear it recorded and played back, you go, well, how did we how did we get all that together? I mean, you ever think about that? Yeah, we just actually thought about that last night. We were listening to the test pressing of the vinyl record and we sat there together and we definitely had many of those moments because you're kind of you're kind of in this like focused fog when you're working on a record.

You know, you're just dead laser focused. That's the only house can be burning outside. You don't even notice it.

You're right in the music. You know what I mean? You're so in the music moment that you're just you got blinders on. You're just trying to to to do what serve the song and get this get this creative vision done into fruition.

And then you've heard it a million times because you're working on it. And then when you're finally done recording it, it's like you don't want to listen to it. And then finally now I think we're at the place it's like I listened to that record last night and I was like, really proud of it, you know? Yeah.

It just was it was it was like and I know what you're saying because I'm like, man, we worked our asses off on this thing. You know, there it is. But I think that's the magic of what you do.

And and the fact that you then get the notification that you're doing good by when you go out and perform live. I mean, it's nice to sit there and listen to it and go, wow, this is really good. But it really that what you really get is when people say, I like that too.

And the fact they start singing your song when you're doing it. It's pretty cool. Yeah, we've seen we've seen people on the front row recently.

And it always like is I don't know why. I mean, but it always feels like surreal when you see somebody singing along. It is it's weird.

It is. It's a great feeling because I don't know if it's just like the music business is so hard. You're like, wow, I finally arrived at something working.

You know, I've cut through the noise to somebody who really gets what I'm doing. You know, what's the overall goal, like, say, in the next year or two? Yeah, I think that the, you know, underlying goal for both of us and our music and the reason why we do this, the big picture is to encourage people and bring hope to people. And as long as