With an unmatched one two punch as a vocalist and harpist, it hasn’t taken Mikaela Davis long to permanently plant herself in the Indy/jam band musical world. After years of hard work, the wind is at her back. And wisely, she’s taking full advantage of it. For her latest album Graceland Way, Davis embraces the California communal spirit, enlisting a long list of friends to help her in every aspect of the record.
She wrote the album with her boyfriend/partner (and Grateful Shred/CATS guitarist) John Lee Shannon. She recorded the album at friend (and Grateful Shred/CATS bassist) Dan Horne’s California studio. Which just happens to be on Graceland Way. The album is full of contributions from friends Neal Francis, Madison Cunningham, Karly Hartzman, Hannah Reed, Clay Finch and more. Somehow comedian Tim Heidecker makes an appearance.
Graceland Way is a showcase of Davis’s pure, natural, and next level vocal abilities. Equally as impressive is Davis’s spot on choices where to place her magical harp throughout the album. Her vocals flow like a feather in the wind. Effortlessly gliding through multiple genres of music in the album’s ten songs. There’s country/rock flavored (Looking Through) Rose Colored Glasses, Nothin’s on the Radio, and The Wrong Way. Starlight Tonight and Junk Love are pure pop. 11:11, Wild Flower, Spring Petals in the Snow, and Mizmoon are shining examples of Davis’s patented ability to mesh her dreamy vocals into an equally laid back, trippy bed of music behind them.
Slide&Banjo’s Marty Halpern caught up with Davis for an in-depth look at the making of Graceland Way. She begins by discussing offer one of many her friends made to help in the making of the record. “After John and I got together, we naturally started writing together. We’re good friends with Dan and he was determined to record this album. We went to Dan’s in December of 2024 to just hang out and record some demos with him. See what it was like to work together. Sometimes it’s great working with your friends and sometimes it’s not great working with your friends. We went out there to hang for two weeks. See what happens. It was really fun.”
After passing the test, Davis established Horne’s studio as home base for the recording. The third time around, she took a new approach to the recording process. “All last year, we would hang out at Dan’s house and studio. Whenever we were free. If we weren’t on tour, we would be there. It was really fun to work that way. Since we’re all friends, we were there working, but we’re also just hanging out. It wasn’t a typical workday. Where we start at ten and end at five. It was basically whenever the spirit moved us. Whenever Dan’s schedule allowed. In between, John and I were just hanging out and writing.
Graceland Way is the first official Davis/Shannon collaboration. Davis frequently performs with Shannon’s bands Grateful Shred and CATS. For her, working with her partner was as natural as her voice. “It was very easy to write with him. Because we’re so comfortable around each other and I can throw out ideas and not worry about if it’s going to work or not. We have a similar taste in music, so I was excited about most of his ideas. Yeah, all his ideas I was excited about. It was very easy and lucky. That doesn’t always happen.”
The ten songs on the album are placed to tell one long story. Ending a relationship and heading out on a new journey in an unrecognizable world. Fortunately, the story has a happy ending as the anti-hero/heroine learns from their mistake and moves on to a happier, self-assured road ahead.
From start to finish, Davis’s vocals take the album to much higher ground. In a very crowded field, Davis has one of the finest voices around. There’s no need for runs, twangs, or anything other than her pure voice. The music around her constantly changes. Her vocals do not. “I’ll think about how I’m singing in terms of if I should use vibrato or not. If I should sing quieter with more emotion here and there. I don’t try to put on any type of voice or character. My favorite artists sing the way they talk. It’s just natural.”
Graceland Way oozes with the flavor of the area it was recorded. The country/rock offerings shine with a Laurel Canyon or nearby Bakersfield polish. Davis is one break away from hearing her pop songs pour out of the thousands of radios throughout the neighboring urban Los Angeles area. Davis notes she went into the recording specifically trying to tap into the California sound, “When my last record came out, many people told me it sounded like a California record. That gave me the idea of making a record in California. The land, the canyons, and the desert. It was all very inspiring. Just being at Dan’s studio, which is in Chevy Chase Canyon. That’s in Glendale, which is ten minutes from the city, but still in the hills. We’d take a break at night. I’d go outside and you could hear the coyotes. We shot my album cover in the desert. It was very California.”
From the onset, the recording of Graceland Way was a completely different process for Davis (and Shannon). Driving cross country to hang with Horne, pieces of the album began to take shape. “I started writing Nothin’s on the Radio in my head while I was driving out there. I would make a voice memo and send it to John. Let him know, I have this idea. I’d say, I think that it should be about this. Then he’d send back, how about these lyrics in the first verse? It was a fun experience to do it like that.”
Heading into the recording sessions with such little prepared material was another first for Davis. Embracing the chill California vibe proved fruitful. “We finished more than half of these songs at Dan’s studio while we were recording them. This is not the way I’ve worked before. Usually when I go into the studio, I have the songs ready. The songs are at least done. Whoever I’m working with can help me choose the songs on the record, and we take it from there. This was different. We went in with four almost finished songs. John and I started from scratch on everything else.”
Davis says she spent a good chunk of her cross-country drive listening to Sheryl Crow and falling in love again with Tom Petty. You can hear the influence in the first songs that made the album. “First, we recorded a demo of (Looking Through) Rose Colored Glasses, 11:11. (That’s Not) Who I Wanna Be. and Mizmoon. We might have worked on Starlight Tonight as well. We re-recorded and started from scratch on Rose Colored Glasses. We used our demo of 11:11. Built from that to create the studio version.”
“(That’s Not) Who I Wanna Be” was just a live take. I originally thought it might be a single on the album. Once we finished, we decided it’s a better album track. It’s the album closer. It just felt powerful. It felt like it was bringing the record and the story together.”
To better tell her story, Davis added contributions from a long list of friends. “I invited Madison Cunningham to sing on Rose Colored Glasses. We’ve been buddies for a while but never actually met. It was fun to have her come over to Dan’s house. Her voice is just classic and amazing. I’m such a huge fan of hers. Tim Heidecker also visited the studio. We had him record harmony on Rose Colored Glasses on a whim. That was fun.”
I met Karly Hartzman at Pickathon a few years back. I wanted another prominent female, vocalist on Junk Love. She nailed it. It was perfect. It’s one of my favorite songs on the record. Clay Finch from Mapache sang on some stuff. He yodels on (That’s Not) Who I Wanna Be. My friend Hannah Reed plays the fiddle. She’s amazing. I wanted fiddle and wasn’t sure if I should go that route. I noticed she was in L.A. doing some session work, so I reached out. It really came together. I wanted organ on Nothin’s on the Radio, so we had Neal Francis play on that.”
Davis’s schedule is full of tour dates from coast to coast. With a fantastic new album and a fresh batch of songs, she can be proud of what she’s accomplished since her last cross-country journey. “We’ve been playing the songs on And Southern Star for years. Before, the album even came out. That set was getting really tired. We’re all ready for some new music. There’s a lot of uncharted territory that we have yet to figure out. I’m really excited to get out there. I love being busy. Playing all sorts of music. It’s so fun to fill up my schedule with everything and take it from there.”
Mikaela Davis: Graceland Way 2026
Kill Rock Stars Records