The Georgia-born, Nashville-based roots rock outfit Larkin Poe have had a busy year. Last summer, they toured across the U.S. supporting Slash, and released their seventh studio album, Bloom, on January 22. With a bit of downtime back in Nashville, co-shredders in chief Megan and Rebecca Lovell joined Shred With Shifty to deconstruct their face melting leads on “Summertime Sunset,” off of their 2022 record Blood Harmony. The Lovells grew up reading sheet music and learning violin via the Suzuki method there was little room for going off the beaten path until they fell in love with Jerry Douglas’ dobro playing on Alison Krauss records. Rebecca took up the mandolin, while Megan went for the dobro and the slide side of things. It took a while for them to get comfortable turning up from their bluegrass roots, but eventually they built Larkin Poe’s amplified, blues rock sound. First up, Rebecca, playing a pristine ’60s SG, shows how she put together her stinging, fuzzy solo by “hunting and pecking out” melodies in her mind, building up the chops to follow her intuition. Then Megan, playing a Rickenbacker inspired lap steel of her own design through a Rodenberg TB Drive, details her dizzyingly fast slide acrobatics, and her particular “rake” technique that she copped from Jerry Douglas and Derek Trucks. Tune in to hear them talk about how to sustain family relationships while going professional, keeping music community minded, and whether or not they’ll go back to bluegrass.
