Interview: JB and the Moonshine Band Tackle Country Music’s Current State, Politics and More on ‘Mixtape’

The beautiful thing about mixtapes -- or, more recently, mix CDs and custom playlists -- is that they can be whatever you want them to be. A little bit country, a little bit rock 'n' roll? Go for it. A track you could fall asleep to up next to a song that makes you want to party? Sure, why not! Something from the '60s followed by something from the '90s followed by a current No. 1 hit? Totally cool.

JB and the Moonshine Band's newest album, Mixtape, isn't a traditional mixtape, obviously -- for starters, all 13 of its tracks are by the Texas-based quartet -- but from the super-Southern-sounding "Shotgun, Rifle and a .45" to the calm and soothing "Back When We Were Kids," it blends styles, tempos and topics like one might.

"The cool thing about this album," frontman JB Patterson tells The Boot, "is that it really lives up to its name."

Most of the songs on Mixtape were written fairly recently, but one, "How Can I Miss You," is about 10 years old. As Patterson explains, "The beauty of a mixtape [is] you cater it to who you're giving it to" -- which is sort of how the decade-old track wound up on this project: It had become a live show staple for the band, and they often heard requests from fans who wanted to be able to buy the track.

"I want the people that buy this to get their money's worth," Patterson says, "so we [recorded] a version of it."

As anyone who's ever crafted one knows, a mixtape is often used to tell a story or convey a feeling -- something that JB and the Moonshine Band especially aim to do with two of Mixtape's tunes. The first is "Where's Woody Guthrie," the record's 11th track, which asks, "Where's Woody Guthrie when we need him / To shoot his guitar gun? ... And where's Johnny Cash when we need him / To be the Man in Black? ... And where's John Lennon when we need him / To sing a song of peace?" The song was written by Rob Crosby and Allen Shamblin, the latter of whom Patterson met on an airplane.

"I went out to write a song with him -- he invited me out to his farm in Franklin, Tenn., and I went out there -- and I was telling him about my feelings about country music, and even my own self, how I have been shirking my responsibility to have something with some meaning and substance," Patterson recalls. "... And he said, 'This sounds exactly like a song I wrote called "Where's Woody Guthrie."' And so I listened to the song and was like, 'I have to cut that. There's no way I can't cut that.'"

The other of those two songs is Mixtape's lead track, "Shotgun, Rifle and a .45," which Patterson says he was inspired to write after hearing "Where's Woody Guthrie." The tune is "basically about our right to bear arms and responsibility to stay vigilant and be good stewards of our liberty," he explains.

"We are responsible for holding people that are in positions of power accountable," Patterson continues. "People who say you're unpatriotic when you question your government are absolutely 180 degrees off. You are patriotic if you hold your government accountable ... We have gotten away from that, and it's my belief that we need to get back to it."

But Mixtape isn't all musical manifestos and political statements.

"There's lighthearted stuff," Patterson adds. "Those two songs happen to have a little more meat, a little more weight, than some of the others."

Mixtape is available via Amazon and iTunes. See a full list of JB and the Moonshine Band's upcoming tour dates on their website.

Listen to JB Patterson and the Moonshine Band, "Where's Woody Guthrie":