John Moreland will be performing live Wednesday, Nov. 18.

By SAM WATSON
Marketing Contact, Ignition Music Garage

GOSHEN — The November concert series at Ignition Music Garage, voted Top Ten Favorite Venue by the Americana music association, continues Nov. 18, with John Moreland and special guest Micah Schnabel.

Some days, being John Moreland has to hurt. As others bury experiences and stifle regrets, Moreland pokes old wounds until you’re sure they’ve got to be bleeding again. It’s painful. But in Moreland’s care, it’s also breathtakingly beautiful. With the release of his highly anticipated third solo album “High on Tulsa Heat” (out April 21st via Thirty Tigers), he offers another round of the lyrics-first, gorgeously plaintive songs that have earned him devoted listeners across the country.

Moreland started writing when he was 10 years old, the same year his family moved from Kentucky, to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he still lives today. He turns 30 this year, but he’s been slinging songs for more than half his life. He started fronting local punk and hardcore bands in high school. After graduation, he had an epiphany. “I’d just overexposed myself to punk and hardcore to the point that it just didn’t do anything for me anymore,” he says. The remedy? He ditched his music for his dad’s: CCR, Neil Young, Tom Petty and Steve Earle.

“I think what appealed to me about it was lyrics,” he says. “In hardcore, there might be great lyrics in a song but you have to read them off a piece of paper to know it. I was 19 in 2004, and Steve Earle had put out The Revolution Starts Now, and I remember hearing the song ‘Rich Man’s War’ and totally feeling like somebody just punched me in the chest.”

Moreland’s been chasing the chest punch ever since, composing pointedly and prodigiously. “I’ve always written to make myself feel better, I think,” he says. “It’s my way of figuring stuff out — figuring out where I stand. You can’t do that without emotion. You can’t do that insincerely.”

When Moreland released “In the Throes” in June of 2013, the album didn’t just charm listeners — it stunned them. American Songwriter proclaimed that “[t]hose not familiar with the Oklahoma City singer-songwriter should remedy that pronto,” while “No Depression” declared the collection “isn’t so much songwriting as alchemy with words and music.” MSNBC host Rachel Maddow heard his songs and joined the chorus, tweeting: “If the American music business made any sense, guys like John Moreland would be household names.”

If In the Throes ignited Moreland’s 2013 summer, FX’s Sons of Anarchy poured gasoline all over the fire that fall. The hit series featured three Moreland-penned and -performed gems: “Heaven,” off of his Earthbound Blues, the second of two full-length albums he released in 2011; and “Gospel” and “Your Spell,” both from In the Throes.

Micah Schnabel is most recognized as the front man for Two Cow Garage but has also established himself as a formidable solo artist. With three solo releases under his belt, Micah never fails to connect with powerful, gripping songs combined with socially conscious lyrics delivered with honesty, intensity and emotion.

Ignition Music Garage presents John Moreland with special guest Micah Schnabel Wednesday, Nov. 18, as part of the ongoing Ignition Concert Series. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the concert begins at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $15.

Tickets may be purchased at Ignition Music Garage, by phone at (574) 971-8282, or online at http://ignitionmusic.net/