Monzie Leo & The Big Sky release ‘Visions Envelop’ at the Westport Roots Festival this Saturday

Monzie Leo & The Big Sky’s last release was Sunflowers, Sunsets and Sons of Bitches, released on Little Class Records in December of 2014. Since then, the band’s played what seems like dozens — if not hundreds — of shows, and the wait for new material’s been agonizing for fans of their bluegrass by way of backwoods punk. The wait is now over, and the band will release its latest collection, Visions Envelop,  Saturday at the Westport Saloon as part of the Westport Roots Festival.

Eponymous frontman Monzie Leo Brummett chatted with me via Facebook about the new five-song release on Little Class, which he’d like to discourage you from calling an EP.

The Pitch: So, if it’s not an EP, what is it? The idea of a sister album sounds really intriguing.

The cover and title of this record is inspired by the Tension Envelopes building. Our last record had a Kansas City skyline on it. Our sibling record is a parody of the Western Automatic building and will be called Intention Automatic. It’s local flavor and cohesion in design, that’s all.

There are a lot of Forrest Gump samples on this. Why?

We just felt the samples best represented the mode of the song. We encourage people to hear our songs emotionally and allow themselves to go to a place of growth, just as we do when we write. The movie is crushing at times, inspiring during others. We are movie buffs and that’s always come out in our samples.

“In My Dreams” makes for a really dark ending to the album. For, real: It’s dirge-y as hell, and surprisingly spare vocally. It seems like a real turning point for the Big Sky. Is that the intention?

If anything, Derek and I were talking about this question, and we both felt it’s more of an homage to our earlier days. That song was written completely by me, it’s notably cryptic, and has only two chords, and they are both minor. If anything, it hearkens back to our release on 808 Newyork Records Here’s to Hugh.

“Too High to Two-Step” gets nice and honky-tonky. Who did the piano and pedal steel?

Derek and I conceptualized that song at the Lion’s Lair in Denver when one of us just wanted to ask a gal to dance, but we were notably lifted. Obviously, we can’t remember which one said it first, but we knew we had a song and it was done by the time we got home.

Chad Graves from the Hillbenders plays dobro and lap steel throughout the record, and he’s truly a gem of a man. Dane Tally is the piano man. Both are fantastic players. We were honored to have ’em join the team for a spell.

Could you walk me through how you write songs about weed that aren’t embarrassing? It’s as if you’ve all taken the best aspects of Merle Haggard drinking songs and applied them to getting high.

I honestly don’t know how we do it so candidly. I think it comes from a love of subtle references and the outlaw element. There are no curse words on this record but a few weed references, and if anything keeps it from being played on the radio, that’d be it. It’s just time to start saying yes to legalization. Everyone in the world smokes. Everyone in the world drinks. It’s more than appropriate to establish an angle wherein we normalize its abuse as much as we do alcohol and allow it to bring people out of their crippling debt. Before prohibition, the USA made a lot of its money taxing —  and even making — booze. We got rid of it — the Depression started.

Skip to 19:12 to listen to Monzie Leo & the Big Sky on The Not So Late Show, performing “5th of July” from Visions Envelop.

Monzie Leo & Big Sky’s summer plans see them headed up to Canada with the Tejon Street Corner Thieves in June, and Cuba is on their list for July. Before that, they play Saturday, May 28, at the Westport Saloon as part of the Westport Roots Festival. The full festival lineup and set times can be found here.