“The best way I know how to explain something is in a song,” says local musician Mandi Rae Trott.

Ask Mandi Rae Trott what she enjoys most about Leeds since moving here from Denver, and you’re likely to get an answer you don’t expect.

“I recently spent some time at the Office Lounge,” the singer-songwriter said with the air of a seasoned storyteller.  “It was packed, but there was one empty table, and I sat down with a few of my friends and ordered my drink of choice, which is whiskey on the rocks.  Before long, a young couple sat down, and the guy asked, ‘Do you play poker?’

“I said, ‘No, but I would love for you to teach me.’  So I got an impromptu poker lesson, we got to talking, and before you knew it, I’d brought in my guitar and did an impromptu acoustic session there in the bar.  That’s why I like Leeds.  It’s full of very down-to-earth, non-pretentious people.  I’m so happy to be here.”

The poker lesson she received here paid off the following weekend when she was third-to-last out in a poker tournament she entered while visiting her sister in Asheville, N.C.

“I was proud,” she said with a laugh.

As unassuming as those she enjoys being around, Trott has performed at festivals and venues across the country for most of the past decade and just released her third independently produced album, the 13-song Tales of Woe and Wonder.  Sitting on the swing in her front yard where she writes most of her songs, she explained how she writes her songs and what influences her to make music.

Her beginnings as a guitarist:  “When I was 13 or 14, my grandfather got me a couple of lessons.  At the time I was only here to visit twice a year, on Christmas or Easter break, so it wouldn’t have done anything for me other than introduce me to an instrument.  I always sang, and I guess my grandfather felt the need to give me something to accompany it.  I learned a song in my first lesson.  I wish I could remember the name of the man who gave it to me.”

Returning to it:  “I didn’t pick a guitar back up until I was 16 or 17, when I ordered a classical guitar from eBay.  My boyfriend and his friends played guitar, and I learned to play on that little bitty classical guitar.  I taught myself from the Internet, so I don’t know theory very well at all.  I come up with weird chord progressions, but if I were to take lessons or take theory even more, I don’t think I’d write like I do.”

The Mandi Rae songwriting method:  “I vomit a song out, as much as I hate to use that word.  I expel it in one sitting.  Little things will evolve, but the song comes out as a whole.  Everybody’s got their own way, but if I write half a song, I won’t go back and finish it.”

Writing a song:  “I work from ideas.  I usually don’t have a line, more of an idea that I’ve been tossing around.  Inspiration chooses you, though.  I couldn’t sit down with the intent of writing a song.  It just wouldn’t happen, and it’s very aggravating when it doesn’t.  When it does, there’s nothing better.”

An example:  “I was here in the swing playing a chord progression I’d had for seven years.  Just the music, no lyrics.  And it just happened.  I wrote the lyrics right there.”  

The song became Good Times, the first track on Tales of Woe and Wonder.  

“Every since I had my two girls, I’ve wanted so badly to write a song about children, a stop-and-smell-the-roses kind of thing.  The best way I know how to explain something is in a song.”

Her favorite song from her own catalog: Trott has written about 40 songs, “although I haven’t actually sat down and counted.  I suppose my first favorite is ‘Gettaway.’  It’s special to me because it seems to be special to so many people. My second has to be one of my newer ones called ‘On My Mind.’  That one, because I wrote it when you truly did, and still do, have a whole lot weighing heavily on me. So I play it with a lot of passion.”

Her sound:  “Because I play acoustic guitar and have a fairly noticeable twang in my voice, I get labeled country, but I’m a lot more rock and roll than people assume.”  

She names Hank Williams, Roger Miller, Tom T. Hall, Pink Floyd, Bill Withers and Neil Young as influences.

Other than music:  “I read a ton. If it’s not novels, then it is publications like Scientific American. The last book I read was actually Atlas Shrugged. I felt I needed to understand what it was about when people mentioned it in conversation. I believe that any way to expand your mind helps songwriting or any artistic venture for that matter. Every artist should have a second or third hobby. For instance, even cooking helps me in that way. It’s a great interest of mine.”

How she describes herself:  “Someone called me ‘salt of the earth’ the other day.  I liked that.  I like to think I’m down-to-earth and able to relate to anybody.”

Her biggest pet peeve:  “Pretentiousness.  If there’s one thing I can’t stand in a person, it’s pretentiousness.  Nobody has the right to be pretentious, and I’m really good at calling out people who are.  It’s kind of a pastime for me.”

Her favorite indulgence:  “The Walking Dead.  And it is an indulgence.  There’s no reason to be that hooked on a TV show, but I am.”