Nick County Goes Back Home on A Colorful Corner of Northeastern Pennsylvania

"I feel old-fashioned in that I still revere the album," singer-songwriter Nick County tells New Times. "The popular narrative in music now is to put out a single every month, which is cool if you can do it. But I love an album where all the songs have connective tissue and interlacing themes."

In honor of that philosophy, County has released his latest album, A Colorful Corner of Northeastern Pennsylvania. For the record, the ten-year Miami resident decided to look back into his youth in Pennsylvania for inspiration.

"I write from personal experience and create a kind of fiction out of it," he explains. "The death of my father inspired this, which took me down a rabbit hole into my childhood."

It was during his childhood that County started making music.

"My mom would play John Prine tapes in the car," he explains. "When I was eight, she signed me up to play cello in the school band. Then I started playing bass guitar. I'm left-handed, but I could never find a left-handed bass. I still play guitar right-handed, which has probably limited my playing."

When he was younger, County played in rock bands. He was always attracted to country music, he says, "But I couldn't find anyone who liked country music like me." It always shocked County that there were people who couldn't appreciate the genre.

"If you're serious about songwriting, you find yourself exploring country and folk," he says.

For him, there was always something romantic about the genre.

"I'm not a cowboy. I did grow up in a rural area, so the music always did something for me. There are things about America I don't agree with, but country music to me showed off the good parts."
The music in A Colorful Corner of Northeastern Pennsylvania isn't the overproduced country you hear on commercial radio, but rather the more soulful Americana reminiscent of Wilco. It's a type of music that doesn't make its way down to Miami very often, but that doesn't bother County.

"The music is lonely, and I'm not afraid of being lonely. I've found a community of songwriters in Miami," he says. "Miami is more than just EDM. There's a lot of music history that took place here. You always have the choice. You can move where something's happening, or you can create something where you're at."

For A Colorful Corner, County invited local musicians to his Pennsylvania hometown to record.

"We loaded up the van with Miami players and camped out in Pennsylvania. We all had an intense, immersive experience," he says. "We were all in a pod together after doing some testing, and we didn't go anywhere for a couple of weeks. A lot of people were dealing with loss. They could imbue the record with that spirit of ghostly music."

Funding for the album came from a source that would make County's country music heroes proud.

"Poker paid for this record," he admits. "Poker is actually how I survived the last few years. I was playing poker seven days a week online. During the shutdown, I was playing all these virtual home games that got pretty intense."

While poker will continue to be a part of County's life, he's aiming to spend as much time as possible promoting this record he worked so hard on.

"We did a documentary on the making of the record, and we want to do an event for that documentary in September. Rick Moon and I are talking about doing a tour together in the fall. We'd go out for a couple of weeks and turn people in other cities on to our music."