{"id":2455072,"date":"2020-02-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-27T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=321265"},"modified":"2020-02-27T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-27T07:00:00","slug":"zz-ward-discusses-new-songs-returns-to-belly-up-aspen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/zz-ward-discusses-new-songs-returns-to-belly-up-aspen\/","title":{"rendered":"ZZ Ward discusses new songs, returns to Belly Up Aspen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
ZZ Ward during her 2019 Jazz Aspen Labor Day Experience set. The blues singer will headline Belly Up on Wednesday, March 4..<\/strong>
Lynn Goldsmith<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Near the end of her blistering September set at the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Experience, blues singer and guitarist ZZ Ward<\/a> teased that she\u2019d be returning to Aspen for another show soon.<\/p>\n

Six months later and propelled by two new singles, Ward is back in town to headline Belly Up on March 4, one of three Colorado stops on her late-winter tour.<\/p>\n

She has released two winter singles looking at both sides of a break-up: \u201cSex and Stardust,\u201d a bad-girl empowerment anthem about cheating and \u201cliving lies and lust;\u201d and \u201cBreak Her Heart,\u201d a break-up anthem about being done wrong and wishing the worst for her ex\u2019s new woman (\u201cI hope you break her heart like you broke mine\u201d).<\/p>\n

The songs, both accompanied by slick new narrative videos, are the first of many to come as Ward works toward a new full-length album (her first since 2017\u2019s \u201cThe Storm\u201d) and the continuation of a fearlessly personal songwriting that\u2019s defined her career.<\/p>\n

\u201cWriting is my best therapy and always has been,\u201d she said in a recent phone interview from home in Los Angeles. \u201cI don\u2019t want that to change, because that\u2019s what people connect with at the end of the day. And even if they don\u2019t, it\u2019s making me feel better, which is all I really need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Performance, she said, has a similarly cathartic effect but it gets dulled when she\u2019s doing long runs on the road. After spending months focused on writing new songs and working in the studio on a new full-length album, she\u2019s hungry to get back onstage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I\u2019m doing it a lot, I get used to it,\u201d she said. \u201cBut when it\u2019s been awhile and then I go out and perform it\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, whoa, it\u2019s crazy that I get to go out and do this.\u2019 It makes me feel euphoric.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ward\u2019s themes may be old as the blues \u2014 vengeance, heartache \u2014 but her sound brings a contemporary vigor into the form, with notes of hip-hop and soul and pop. In concert, along with showcasing her songs, she\u2019s been known to bust out covers from artists as varied as Son House and Drake.<\/p>\n

Writing \u201cSex and Stardust\u201d began with the swaggering stop-start chords of the chorus, which struck the defiant mood that inspired the song.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew the mood it was representing from things I\u2019ve done in my life,\u201d she said. \u201cSo it was easy to go back to what I was feeling in that time and put it in the song.\u201d<\/p>\n

And, from the start, she knew it\u2019d go over well live.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome songs you have to figure out what to do with them,\u201d she said. \u201cThat one, it was just so natural and simplistic in a way. I think it\u2019ll be a banger live.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ward has found a loyal fan base in Colorado. She started coming to Belly Up soon after her debut album, \u201cTil the Casket Drops,\u201d was released in 2012. Since then she has made regular stops playing to full houses in ski country and on the Front Range (after this Aspen stop she\u2019ll play the Fox Theatre in Boulder on March 5 and the Gothic in Denver on March 7).<\/p>\n

Ward\u2019s afternoon set was a high point of last summer\u2019s Labor Day festival<\/a>, opening the sold-out Saturday of the festival with a blaring version of \u201cPut the Gun Down,\u201d her biggest hit single.<\/p>\n

Raised in Oregon \u2014 the daughter of a blues singer and harmonica player, she started singing and playing in her dad\u2019s band as a child \u2014 she relishes the rare opportunity to have a tour stop in a place surrounded my mountains and forest that remind her of home.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love it there,\u201d she said of Aspen. \u201cIt\u2019s one of my faves for sure. \u2026 It lends itself to being in a good headspace.\u201d<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ZZ Ward during her 2019 Jazz Aspen Labor Day Experience set. The blues singer will headline Belly Up on Wednesday, March 4..Lynn Goldsmith Near the end of her blistering September set at the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Experience, blues singer and guitarist ZZ Ward teased that she\u2019d be returning to Aspen for another show […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2455072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-23 16:18:43","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455072\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}