Moe Reen takes an expansive approach to country music on ‘Scribbled Line’

The songs populating Moe Reen’s forthcoming album, Scribbled Line, emerged over the last five years or so, capturing a stretch of time in which the rising country musician’s relationships were tested by everything from pandemic isolation to the natural gaps that can become yawning chasms as life unfolds. 

The earliest songs were composed shortly after Reen moved back in with their parents amid the initial Covid wave, reflecting a deep sadness the singer and songwriter felt in being suddenly cut off from college friends with whom they had developed a deep bond. 

“When I was away at school, I found these true friendships that I hadn’t really found before in the town I grew up in, or at least not to that extent,” said Reen, who was born and raised in Delaware, Ohio, and will perform tonight as part of Diamonds in the Rough, a John Prine tribute concert taking place at Rambling House on Friday and Saturday, June 6 and 7. “And so, being stripped away from that and not knowing when I might see these people again … just made it such a sad, hard time.”

Not that these months were solely defined by sorrow. Living at home with their parents and siblings, Reen said there were countless moments of silliness as everyone reverted to childhood roles, wrestling together and indulging in laughter that helped to ease the weight of the moment. Songs such as “Poor Old Dog” reflect this spirit, Reen turning out a playful, Roger Miller-esque tune in which the longing they felt amid pandemic separation is expressed in canine terminology. (“When am I going to sniff your butt again?” they sing.)

Other songs, including the swooning “I’m Yers,” walk a more straightforward path, Reen capturing the heart-swelling sensation of new romance on a pedal steel-kissed tune that comes across like a lost Patsy Cline ballad. And yet, there are unexpected dimensions to even these classics-evoking tunes, with Reen noting the song’s queer roots on an episode of the WOSU series “Broad & High Presents” and their desire to push country music in more expansive directions.

“There’s not enough diversity in all sorts of regards,” said Reen, who acknowledged the queer pioneers central to the genre, as well as modern practitioners such as Adeem the Artist and Willi Carlisle, both of whom create music achingly true to country’s roots but aimed at imploding modern stereotypes about the potential audience for these songs. (Adeem’s “One Night Stand,” for one, harnesses the energy of a soaring 1990s Shania Twain epic but centers on a queer couple whose expectations are shattered following a meet-cute at a bar.) “I’m very lucky to have this new generation [of artists], because I think that there are a lot of folks who have been doing this longer than me who weren’t able to see that. … And having these amazing people out here singing queer love songs has inspired me to pursue music and really put my voice out there.”

Reen said they were aided in this by having come to country music later in life, meaning they didn’t grow up immersed in a genre that so often presents a narrow perspective – and one in which young queer people rarely see their lives and experiences reflected back at them.

Beginning late in high school, Reen said they dived deep into alt-country, discovering artists such as Chris Acker and then working backwards in time. In steadily connecting these musical dots, Reen began to absorb the likes of Elvis Presley, Eddy Arnold, Don Williams, and Patsy Cline, drawn in particular to those bruised-but-resilient, crooned vocals that accompanied those early country ballads.

“I just loved those voices, and that was the music I liked to sing along to as I got deeper and deeper into it,” said Reen, whose debut album Scribbled Line, due for release on June 20, takes these influences and gradually molds them into something entirely their own.

On their coming LP, Reen deploys these vocals in service of songs that routinely explore the various ways humans both come together and drift apart. Witness the one-two punch of “I’m Yers” and “Far Away from You Blues,” with the golden hues of the former affording the latter a more pronounced gut punch, Reen singing of a onetime lover turned painful memory.

“I’ve been very lucky in love, so I don’t have many heartbreak songs, but that’s one,” said Reen, whose album explores relationships ranging from romantic to spiritual. “I’m a Buddhist, and some of the songs are very influenced by that, like the song ‘Warp & Woof,’ which was shaped by these Buddhist texts I was reading about time and relationships, and how we are together even when we’re apart.”

When Reen started work on the tunes that would become Scribbled Line, they said they didn’t consider themself a proper musician, describing the moment they submitted a song to GemsOnVHS, which features field recordings of folk and folk-adjacent performers, as a pronounced turning point. “And I think it was just that act of sharing, of throwing something out into the void where it wasn’t just mine anymore,” Reen said. “And once I’d let go and it was like, ‘Okay, now this [song] belongs to others, too,’ I think that made me realize, yeah, I’m doing this thing. I am writing songs. I am a songwriter. And then I started doing more writing in general. And sharing more of it. And I started to realize more and more that this was really what I wanted to spend my time doing.”