After a good run with his first full-length release, Sunrise and Cigarettes, staple of Murfreesboro’s country-Western and folk scene Levi Massie sat down on a truck bed with a cold beer earlier this month to discuss his upcoming sophomore EP, Angels Around My Barstool. The new full-length was independently recorded here in town, mastered in New York, and is set to be out at the album’s late-August release party.

Congrats on the new album. Tell me a little bit about this release party.
It’s going to be Aug. 30 at Liquid Smoke. . . . The acoustics in there are better for what I do.  Hopefully we’ll have the actual CD to sell. If not, I’ll schedule [a show] shortly after that, but we’re definitely going to promote it.”

So there’s a chance it won’t . . .
[Interrupting] No, there’s a great chance it will be.

What was the process of making Angels Around My Barstool? How long have you been working on it?
We started on it last . . . well, it’s been a process of writing all the songs since the first album came out around Halloween 2010. I wasn’t going to do any of this [live show or recording] shit anymore until that last [Nashville review] came out [in April, 2012]. I got pretty excited about it again, so I had a show booked. Then the day-of, they cancelled . . . so I got tired of beating my head against the wall [again], ya know? I’ve been so damn close a lot. Pretty much promised I could get publishing deals, play label showcases. I’ve been so close to making it by the standard definition of making it.

So, you’re the jist of a struggling musician in Murfreesboro right now?
[Chuckles] Oh, there’s no jist about it. Anyways, so, I met Sammy [producer and bassist] around then and talked about making a second album, and he pretty much said, “I’m gonna record this album because I want to hear it.” So, that’s how it started.

Glad to hear you’re back. Does the new album’s title have anything to do with those dissuading times?
Well, I had just got done playing a show in Johnson City, Tennessee [at The DownHome] a couple of years ago. I was supposed to come back and go to work that evening, but I didn’t go. I’m glad I didn’t because I ended up writing that song that night sitting at The Boro, thinking about a story about Townes [Van Zandt], telling his son that the only reason he didn’t fall off his barstool when he was playing is because there were angels around it. Then, some shaman priestess came up to tell [Van Zandt] that same thing within earshot of his son. That kind of blew me away that this guy was really looked after and followed because of what he meant to the world. The concept of that song came from that story. Now it’s the title track.

You’ve been noted as the Townes Van Zandt of this Murfreesboro generation.
[Laughs] Print that.

Are you aiming for that with Angels . . .?
Ah, the feedback I’ve got off this one . . . it’s going in sort of a different direction. It’s still the same stylistically but I have an absolutely and totally nonsensical song called “Nonsense Is What I Talk When You’re Not Around” that’s getting as close to John Prine as I’m gonna write. It’s 2 or 3 minutes about goats and mushrooms and Billy Plant being a genius, before tying it up with “That’s as nonsensical as I talk when you’re not around.”

So, it’s a “Prine-ish” homage to Billy Plant through and through, eh?
[Laughs] I felt like he needed to be immortalized in a song. And he is now. It’s more of an overdue immortalization in a song. But, there’s that song, and another song I wrote about this ghost called Hunter Wayne that’s a little bit about my musical reincarnation. It’s about this guy in a diner that suddenly morphs—in his own mind—into this ghost back in the 1800s in Charleston, South Carolina, wearing a pin-striped suit. He was a big womanizer. I was very happy I got to use French in this song. Sammy put a nice jazzy beat behind it.

Will there be a single out soon?
Yeah, there’s a song we kind of made a quasi-video of called, “Down for the Count.” We put a picture of me and Stone dog (Levi’s beagle/blue heeler) up with it; it’s on Youtube.

And among the other things different about this one, you’ve changed the band line-up, too?
Writer’s note: Instrumentation-wise for his first album, Massie recorded with Charlie McCoy (yes, that Charlie McCoy) on harmonica, David Santos on bass, Peter Young on drums, Ron DeLaVega on cello and Tony Paoletta on the slide guitar, all of which are well known Nashville studio musicians.

Tony was the soul of that project. He made it come alive because he was all over [Sunrise and Cigarettes], and he’s all over this one, too. No harmonica, though. There’s a good female backup vocalist on this: Vicky Kremer. She’s playing the fiddle, too. And then there’s Sammy Baker playing the bass, who I love to death. He’s very thorough, and he has a saying I’m sure he’s said a hundred times during this: “Whatever we do, I want to make sure we’re doing on purpose.” Ya know, there’s not going to be any accidents on this thing at all. That’s why I love working with him. He has one of those mindsets. [Also], there’s a guitar player from Memphis we had: Steve McGraw. He actually plays on a couple of them.

Looking forward to it, Levi.

Levi Massie’s release show for the upcoming album, Angels Around My Barstool, will begin around 9 p.m. the night of Aug. 30 at Liquid Smoke on the Murfreesboro Public Square. There will be no cover, but the show is 21 and up. Hard copies of the new album will more than likely be on sale at the show and in digital form shortly after. The single for the album, “Down for the Count,” can be found on Youtube. Copies of his first release, Sunrise and Cigarettes, can be found at the Hastings music and book store on Memorial, or in his trunk in some parking lot somewhere, and digital copies through iTunes, Amazon and CD Baby. Updates on Massie’s performances can be found at facebook.com/levi.w.massie.