Curt and Lou during a practice session in Nashville. photo by Cindy Steele
response has been good over the past year and a half, which they chalk up to their on-stage presence and their songwriting.“ There’ s a lot of fun and humor in our music,” Lou says.“ People can expect to be entertained.” Curt agrees, saying,“ The whole purpose is to make people feel good when they sit and listen to us.”
Stant & Moore have also been busy recording Workaday World, a fifteen-song album due out in early 2022. It’ s the kind of music that takes the listener straight to Nashville’ s coffee shops, cafes, and watering holes: no-frills Midwestern countryfolk that balances heartfelt slow songs(“ Outside Lookin’ In,”“ 15 Years”) and funny upbeat numbers(“ 100,000 Ladybugs,”“ I’ m Gone”), with plenty of nice three-part harmonies and fiddle playing in the mix. There’ s only so much ground you can cover within the time constraints of a song, though. So over the years, Lou’ s expanded his imaginative observations into book-length storytelling: he’ s selfpublished three novels so far, and has“ six or seven” more manuscripts he hopes to put out eventually. Although it’ s highly imaginative— even surreal, at times— much of what’ s beneath the strange characters and situations in Lou’ s fiction are drawn from his own life and work, he says. His Of Moose and Men, for example, features a protagonist who, like Lou did, leaves the city for life in the country. The stories told to him by patients in state psychiatric hospitals inspired parts of another of his books, The Madcap Chronicle of Elton Brunicol. As for Lou’ s latest novel, An Extended Morphine Holiday, which follows a man who, upon awakening from surgery, finds himself on an adventure in the American Old West with Vladimir Putin— I’ ll admit I’ m struggling to make the connection.
Lou says living in Brown County has played a big role in his music as well as his fiction writing.“ In order for me to write effectively, there has to be a certain clarity borne out of peacefulness,” he relates.“ There’ s something about going on my back deck and looking out on the woods, watching the wildlife, that’ s just really conducive to the quiet calm that I need to write.”
More about Lou Stant, his music, and his writing can be found at < www. loustant. com >, < www. facebook. com / StantandMoore >, and at < www. amazon. com >. •
Jan./ Feb. 2022 • Our Brown County 51