Here's how much singer/songwriter Cory Chisel really is from the Iron Range: When asked about his familiarity with the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, he let out a bit of a scoff.
"That's sort of something more for the tourists than the townies," he said.
Chisel's ties to our state warranted a little questioning, only because many of his local fans -- including some of the Current/89.3 FM staffers who've played him -- did not even know about those roots before they got behind his music.
Chisel, 27, officially hails from Appleton, Wis., but he spent nearly every summer of his childhood living in Babbitt, Minn., just south of Ely near the BWCA. He said he treks there several times a year. For now, though, Chisel's home is mostly on the road. He and his band, the Wandering Sons, spent recent months on tour with Raconteurs co-leader Brendan Benson, who co-wrote Chisel's breakthrough single "Born Again," an organ-tinged, handclap-filled rave-up. The song's spiritual tug-of-war theme plays out in several other songs on Chisel's album, "Death Won't Send a Letter," issued in September on the RCA label Black Seal.
Chisel was raised a Christian, in a strict household. To Chisel, being "born again" actually means moving away from Christianity. "There's been a debate of spirituality my whole life, and there continues to be," he said. "I felt ready to just distance myself from that part of my upbringing in ['Born Again']. When you grow up in a very Christian family, it's really sort of hard to say, 'It didn't take.'"
Chisel cites plenty of positive influences from his religious background, including the imprint of gospel music on his songs. He even said the ban on pop radio and MTV wasn't such a bad thing for a kid.
"To this day, I still sort of intentionally limit my intake of all the peripheral music out there," he said. "A lot of the people in my band had a similar upbringing, so now instead of just leaving the radio on and letting it bleed into our minds and corrode our idea of what's good music, we think it's not a bad idea to just turn that shit off."
Chisel was up enough on modern music to be a fan of both the Raconteurs and the Greenhornes, who share the same bassist and drummer. After signing with RCA, he was able to hire that rhythm section. But Chisel said the real spark ignited in Appleton. "Appleton really embraced the music we were making, to the point where it allowed us to make enough of a living off it before any record deals," he said.
