Season 6 Episode 185 Interview with Ismay

We had the best time chatting with Avery Hellman—Ismay—about how ranching and how that was the segway into their music career. We talk about re-writing folk songs, the Woollystar music festival (curated by Avery), and of course Ismay’s latest album “Half Truth” Avery Hellman has been a rancher, an alt-country musician, and, always, a dreamer. But they recently found themself once more while looking for Lucinda Williams. In 2023, Hellman was hard at work on an album, podcast, and documentary delving into the psyche of the country singer-songwriter when they discovered how much poetry played into Williams’ general talents. “That was a really big shift for me,” Hellman says. “I was like, ‘Well, why don’t I learn how to write poetry?’” Add another job to that resume. In 2026 Avery helped to launch Fossil Records with Margo Cilker, an indie label whose aim is to capture the expression drawn from seasons of work on ranches and in rural outposts. Currently, Avery is based in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. ISMAY also curates a music festival called Woollystar. Be sure to check Ismay out here: Website: ismaymusic.com Bandcamp: Ismay YouTube: Ismay Instagram: Ismaymusic FB: Ismay Fossil Records: fossilrecords.com Woollystar: Woollystar.com