Spencer Cullum

Spencer Cullum is a Nashville-based, London-born pedal steel player, singer-songwriter and guitarist. Cullum is co-founder of Steelism, Echolalia and Shrunken Elvis, and also plays as a session member of Miranda Lambert's band. Cullum has also recorded with artists including Kesha, Dolly Parton, Angel Olsen, Erin Rae, Ruby Amanfu, Tristen, Jessie Baylin, Andrew Combs, Caitlin Rose, Herman Dune, Dylan LeBlanc, and City and Colour. His new solo release, Coin Collection 3, is the concluding album in his Coin Collection trilogy. As a way to make sense of everything from the climate crisis to late-stage capitalism, the musician turned to the folklore of his native England. He found comfort – even answers – in the occult-tinged tales of ancient relics and midnight rites rather than in the extreme Christian views that tend to warp his adopted home in the American South. “I felt more settled in that,” he says of the folk narratives that have found their way into his music. “I love reading about standing stones and old folk stories about how men would get enticed into the woods and murdered by some sort of witch.” These stories gifted Cullum an outlet through which to voice his frustration with the modern world and craft a more just plane beyond the here and now. Several of the album’s offerings are written through this folk lens where nature prevails over the evils of humankind. As he puts it: “I made my own A24 horror film.”