DRAFTING W/ AUGUST PONTHIER
On Everywhere Isn’t Texas, the debut album from August Ponthier, the nonbinary musician reckons with their relationship to the Lone Star State. Raised just outside of Dallas, Ponthier came of age in a place that shaped them deeply — even as it often made them feel like an outsider.
From singles like “Handsome” to “Karaoke Queen,” their music offers a whimsical, singer-songwriter escape that cuts straight to the heart of a complicated bond with home and family.
With the album’s February 13 release approaching, Ponthier invites DRAFTING inside the hands-on creative process behind their body of work. “Telling big stories, creating characters and building worlds is something I love to do,” they say. “That’s how I got through a lot of the issues that I sing about.”
We shot the album cover for Everywhere Isn’t Texas about a year ago, so I went back into my memories to find the completely dressed-down snapshots of the outfits from the styling day. It’s such a high contrast with the surreal and manicured album artwork — it was my birthday and we hauled tons of clothing for the next day’s shoot (including a silicone chest plate for “Handsome”) up a giant hill at my sublet. It was nighttime by the time we finally took this photo. I was so happy we finally found the perfect look for the cowboy on the cover.
Here's the alien counterpart from the album artwork styling session, but without me being painted entirely green first. My stylist (and one of my besties) Megan McDearman toyed around with the idea of using tights and gloves to save me from being painted head-to-toe as you see here — but it didn't look good on camera. So enjoy the only photo of me in existence in this outfit where I'm not under a thick layer of green paint.
We recorded most of the album within a week after having some of the songs for 4+ years. I knew I wanted to reprise the title track “Everywhere Isn’t Texas,” a song about wanting to leave a red state as an unsafe LGBTQ+ person, but I didn’t know exactly what the words would be until halfway through the session with my producer Matthew Neighbour. I knew I wanted the reprise to have a more mature and nuanced take about leaving a red state, especially because I’d grown a lot since the original “Everywhere Isn’t Texas” was written. I wracked my brain until the last possible moment and these became the lyrics — a story about how the resilient people who stay (out of necessity or want) are the real Texans.
My favorite read in the past year was Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth. It's a coming-of-age queer story about a girl that falls in love with her best friend in ’90s Ireland, but it's so much more than that. I've never read a book written like this one — words that have reflected past experiences so accurately as I was going through them. I love to e-read because I can highlight my favorite bits and return to reread them all easily. Here's a section of quotes from my highlights.
“Betty bridge lyrics try.” I am someone who loves to have everything done in advance, but for some reason, my favorite bridges I’ve ever written all came to me last-minute. I knew I wanted a bridge on my third single “Betty,” but I had no idea what it would sound like or be about — and the album was going to be recorded in a few days. So right before my trip, I sat down at my keyboard and blurted out this bit that eventually became the actual “Betty” bridge — and one of my favorite bits from the entire record. It totally transformed the song for me.
I’ve been planning my debut album my whole life, but specifically since 2021. It’s been a long time coming. Here’s some cringey titles — and my absolute favorite that stood the test of time. The first-ever recorded instance of Everywhere Isn’t Texas.
I formatted and designed most of the layout of the vinyl artwork, so a lot of the early drafts looked like this: a bunch of sketched out ideas in the program Procreate. This is a timelapse of me planning out the back of the vinyl before exporting each individual piece for Jess to format. All in all, the design phase of the vinyl (with all of the artwork shot by Julian Buchan) took dozens of hours of writing between the inside gatefold and the back. Thankfully, this one was the less insane one and can be sped-up into 30 seconds.
I shot the official music video for “Everywhere Isn’t Texas” in Austin a few months ago, and it was a wonderful experience. To be back in my home state with the incredible LGBTQ+ Texans that make it great was everything — but the green face paint didn’t properly come off for weeks. Here’s me sitting in the makeup chair unknowingly getting green for much longer than anticipated. That being said, the makeup was absolutely incredible and done by the sparkling and genius Anna Fugate.
Here are just a fraction of the alarms I’ve set to get me out of bed on tour. I never delete an alarm, so literally everything from 2-7 AM is either a flight to a festival, a wake-up call to get in a van and drive to the next city, or a call-time for an early music video shoot. I am not great at waking up early, but having something exciting like shows and shoots make it as easy as it can be.