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Rachael Davis on life in Nashville and her rock star husband

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A northern Michigan native, Rachael Davis has been playing and performing music most of her adult life. She showed an early aptitude for music, and by age 8 she was performing regularly with Lake Effect, a “family roots band” led by her parents — both professional folk singers.Davis has recorded five albums, four solo albums and one as frontwoman for Shout Sister Shout, a 1930s/’40s jazz outfit that also featured members of Lansing-based band Steppin’ In It. Her most recent album, “Bandbox Jubilee,” was released September 2014.

In 2009, Davis married Steppin’ In It bass player Dominic Davis (who she lovingly refers to as “Pops”). They moved to Nashville in 2012 when her husband became fulltime bassist in Jack White’s band. Their son, Virgil, turned 8 last month, and their daughter, Lela, was born in June.

Thursday Davis returns to the her home state for a performance at the Old Town General Store — with her husband in tow. City Pulse caught up with the singer/songwriter from their home in Nashville.

What has life been like since the move to Nashville?

We’ve been here almost three years. I can’t believe it’s been that long already. It seems longer actually, because so much has happened. We decided to come down here initially because Dominic was playing with Jack (White), and he was commuting between Michigan and Nashville for Jack’s band. Sometimes Jack would call and ask, “Can you come to the studio the day after tomorrow?” And stuff would come up at the last minute and it was crazy. When he came down to rehearse for the “Blunderbuss” tour, we thought that it was just going to be a summer thing, and then when he got there they were going over the schedule with the band and the manager and it was going to be a whole year. So we thought, “Let’s just move there, if that’s the way it’s going to be, and we’ll see what happens.”

It was scary at first. Dominic already had a circle of people down here, and I was pretty much starting over. Nashville is not for artists as much as it’s for studio musicians. It’s a really good place to go if you’re a bass player or a sweet lead guitar player. For artists, it’s a lot harder. It’s harder to find stuff to do. I put myself out there a little bit — I was playing songwriter nights and meeting other writers and doing some co-writing. I started playing other cool places, bigger places, and that’s how I met the producers who wanted to make (“Bandbox Jubilee”) with me.

This spring, we got a contract from Capcom — the video game company — to write some songs for a humongous video game. We had to sign a non-disclosure agreement, so I can’t tell you what it is. It’s going to be kind of huge. I never even knew that existed. People used to think that writing songs for TV and film was where it was at, but it turns out the big avenue right now for songwriting is video games. There’s this whole gamer culture, listening to these songs that are in the video games. And I had no idea it was such a huge thing.

Will you be playing any new songs at your concert Thursday?

I’ll be playing stuff from the new record. I played the Concerts at the Courtyard a year ago July, and I didn’t have my new record then. But I was playing some songs from it. I’ll still play some stuff from the album, but I’ve got some new stuff that hasn’t been recorded yet that I’ll probably put out there — if I have time to go over it first.

What has it been like for Virgil to grow up around so many famous musicians?

It’s pretty bizarre. He has no idea, really. The first time we came to Jack’s was when he was 3, he had just turned 3. So he really doesn’t know that it’s out of the ordinary. But I think of how I grew up at music festivals and song circles and around musicians all the time, and it’s kind of like that with him. It’s just a little different. It’s still a musical lifestyle, but not everybody’s dad has a shelf full of Grammys.

He’s gotten to meet tons of huge celebrities, and he just doesn’t think anything of it. He’s met Clint Eastwood and Jimmy Fallon, and he didn’t care at all. Last Christmas we were at Jack’s house, and Mike Wolfe from “American Pickers” came over. Virgil loves “American Pickers,” and that was the first time that he ever got really starstruck. Mike shook his hand, and Virgil asked, “Are you the guy on ‘American Pickers?’” and he was like, “Yeah, I am. Do you like that show?” And Virgil got really shy. Mike was in the bowling alley and Virg was hiding behind the bar — spying on him, trying to get a look at him. It was so funny.

You often talk about growing up in a musical family. Are you trying to do the same thing with your kids?

I don’t know any other way to do it. Lots of people, when they are raising their kids, say, “I’m not going to do it like my parents did it.” But I want to do it exactly like my parents did it. And there’s a lot of philosophies that, when Virgil shows interest in an instrument, I will take from my mom. My mom would say, “There’s a difference between practice and playing. You can practice for a little while, then you can play music.” And it’s fun, because play is fun. Virgil likes the piano, so I put stickers on the piano and showed him how to play a couple songs, and when he walks by the piano he’ll play it because the stickers are on it.

The night that Lela was born, we had some people over — I didn’t know that she was going to be born right then. We had people over, and my dad made Indian food. We were playing music, and it was the first time Virgil wanted to bring his instrument, to bring his snare drum up, and sit in the circle and play music. He had never shown interest in musical jams before. My friend Dennis, who’s also a drummer, was here, and the other friend was (guitarist) Luther (Dickenson). So Luther went and got Virgil’s tiny electric guitar and tuned it to an open chord and showed him how to play “Bo Diddley.” He was like, “Do this, Virg.” And Virgil had this look on his face — I know that look, the look that a musician gets when they’re really playing and when they’re in that space. It was really fun, and he wanted to keep playing. I wasn’t sure when that interest would completely manifest, because he’s exposed to it so much. He’ll either be influenced by it, or he’ll want to do something completely different. Just now we’re seeing that his exposure to it is giving him an interest in it.

How did cutting his teeth in the Lansing scene prepare Dominic for what he’s doing today?

When we moved here, Dominic had lived in Lansing for almost 20 years. He moved there his freshman year of college in 1993. He’s got an art history degree, or something like that, and a library sciences degree from MSU, but he doesn’t use them, of course. He was just saying, “Man, what would it have been like if I just didn’t go to college? I wouldn’t have all of this debt.” But he never would have met Joshua (Davis) or Andy and Joe (Wilson) or had Steppin’ In It. His musical family was Lansing.

He was a naïve little kid, trying to book a bar band when he was 21, 22 years old. And he went from that to really learning the ropes, becoming an amazing, soughtafter bass player. So when he got the call from Jack, he was really ready for it. He had done all the stuff necessary to be ready for this kind of gig. And he’s learned so much since then. He’s become a completely different sort of musician. But he can still do the stuff that he used to do. He’s a busy guy.

People are always calling for him. Buddy Miller just asked him to be in his band. Our friend Luther Dickenson — he’s a friend of ours who lives around the corner here — he’s in the North Mississippi Allstars and played lead guitar in the Black Crowes for a while. He’s one of my favorite guitar players. He’s making an album and he asked Dominic to come into the studio for an afternoon. Dominic goes there, and it’s Luther and Jason Isbell and Dominic in the studio. And Dominic had no idea. Pops is on fire. He’s killin’ it right now. I think everything — all of his experiences in Lansing — have ultimately led to this. It gave him really good experience and turned him into a really good sideman — and now everybody’s calling.

Rachael Davis at Concerts in the Courtyard

7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 10 $15 Old Town General Store 408 E. Grand River Ave., Lansing (517) 487-6847, oldtown-generalstore.com

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