“Don’t mess with our homes/Leave our waters alone/Shove that pipe up your b-u-t-T“
It’s a note for West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, signed and sealed by North Carolina native Joe Troop, delivered as a solo screed from the frets of his banjo, from one Joe to another, on Troop’s song “We Don’t Want The MVP (a.k.a Joe Manchin is a Naughty Squirrel.” It’s a sentiment shared by the dozens of musicians on WarHen Records’ Stop MVP: Artists from WV, VA, and NC Against The Mountain Valley Pipeline compilation album that was released in December, and it’s a sentiment that has clamored and echoed for years from people all along the 303-mile proposed route of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), from the mountains of West Virginia, through the valleys of Virginia, and into the Piedmont of North Carolina.
MVP has been a contentious project since it was first announced in 2014 and has faced numerous legal challenges, regulatory hurdles, and direct action events from environmental groups, government officials, scientific communities, and citizens. It’s now to the point where the natural gas line project is millions of dollars over budget and years behind in construction. Supporters of the project see the pipeline as a natural, necessary way to transport fracked gas in the form of liquified natural gas (LNG) from the shale formations of northwestern West Virginia to market and continue to bring jobs and money to the area. Opponents see an ill-conceived, unnecessary project of dangerous overreach from greedy, billionaire profiteers, whose project threatens their drinking water, the ecology of their environments, their homes, and ultimately, their lives.
Many of these opponents see the integrity of the pipes that form the pipeline as “uniquely risky“ to causing a catastrophic event. There are major concerns for either the pipe leaking and contaminating drinking water or the pipe rupturing and exploding, destroying property and killing people who live and work in the so called “blast zones,” named for the distance around the pipeline where serious injury or death seems likely if an explosion were to happen. Protest imagery has likened MVP to a large, evil, black snake rampaging through the valleys. To some, it might as well be the fuse to a bomb.
With such extraordinary consequences at hand, a number have taken extraordinary actions to try and choke-off the snake at it’s head. Direct action protests to prevent construction have included multiple blockades, tree-sits, and people locking themselves to machinery and equipment. As they see it, these are necessary, personal sacrifices to try and alter the course of the existential crises in which they find themselves.
As quoted in Common Dreams, one Appalachian protestor arrested in November, a grandfather named Jerome, stated, “To me, this project marks a watershed moment—a tipping point. All the powers of the federal government (executive, congressional, and judiciary) are aligned to support the fossil fuel industry in this catastrophic project. If we, as caring humans, let that effort prevail, we invite more ram-rodded fossil fuel projects and generations of continued entrenchment in global warming emissions and deepening social distress.” Expectedly, many of these protesters have faced arrest, imprisonment, fines, and the burden of legal fees as they’ve moved through the judicial system.
It is into this tumultuous legal arena that Stop MVP: Artists from WV, VA, and NC Against The Mountain Valley Pipeline has chosen to lend its support. The 40-song compilation is from musicians across the three states “who stand in solidarity with community members and activists working to stop the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline,” as noted in a statement from WarHen Records, and “all proceeds from the sales of this album will go to the Appalachian Legal Defense Fund, which will directly support the people who have been arrested or entangled in legal battles for their activism.”
WarHen Records is the brainchild of Warren Parker, a Charlottesville, Virginia-native who has been running his DIY record label since 2012. For him, choosing to act against MVP was because he felt the powers that be had failed to. “If none of the suits in Washington or in Richmond or wherever are going to do anything, then it’s up to us to at least try,” said Parker, in our conversation back in November 2023. Those sentiments are echoed by Joshua Vanna, an artist and activist who contributed the song to lead off the album, “To The River.”
“[I’ve witnessed] the dismissal of water quality and geologist experts, front-line residents who would have their entire livelihoods uprooted by these projects, and have also witnessed the wholesale moral evacuation by dozens and dozens of legislators on the issue as well,” said Vana. “There have been very few champions in our corner, unfortunately, over the years.”
Daniel Bachman, a musician and activist who contributed to the album and helped solidify support and submissions from other musicians, was heartened by the reponse. “There were very few people that we reached out to that declined. I actually don’t know if anyone declined,” said Bachman. “I just really was trying to get us as broad of a cross sectional population of West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina. I wanted that to be equally as represented as best we could, [to show] how broad the support is for the movement and stuff.”
For me, what’s most striking about the release is it’s an artistic expression of a galvanized populace. A handful of songs are direct responses to MVP, including Virginia-native Matt Peyton’s snarling “Mt. Valley,” Richmond, Virginia-based Earth folk duo Holy River’s “Spirit Riot,” and BJ Lark’s Civil-Rights–era gospel tune “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize.” Some artists even live and work within the pipeline’s so-called “blast zone”, like Christianburg, Virginia noise group Dog Scream (”New Portent”), and the art studio of Caleb Flood in Giles County, Virginia (“Space Under”).
But then there’s a song like “The Dolly Womack Wreck” from Jimmy Costa, which recaps the death of a train operator from a crash caused by poor maintenance of the line in 1920. He knows the daughters of the man who died. A man died under the literal wheels of progress, as miners and oil workers have done for generations in the Appalachian region, as have people working for Precision Pipeline, the company tasked with building MVP. When you’ve seen the tragic story unfold for generations of the profits of few being put ahead the livelihood of thousands of real people, from legislation in the courts to operations in the field, it’s easy to understand how these people might feel like collateral.
In the first week of sales, the album was able to raise over $4,000 for the Appalachian Legal Defense Fund. The support is needed as people continue to be arrested. Direct actions and protests have contributed to success, like the recent announcement that MVP is changing it’s proposal and will no longer seek to not extend the MVP Southgate into Alamance County, North Carolina. But they are bittersweet and too far between as the project inches toward completion despite overwhelming protest.
Ultimately, Stop MVP: Artists from WV, VA, and NC Against The Mountain Valley Pipeline is a testament of fierce resistant against sizable powers, a story that is known all too well in these regions of West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina. It’s a megaphone for the voiceless, an emotional balm for the tired and disenchanted, and a tool for the activists.
The following is a conversation with Warren Parker, Daniel Bachman, and Joshua Vanna. It has been edited for length and clarity.
What’s your relation to MVP and how have you been activated by this issue to want to lend your voice and lend your support behind the calls to counteract its completion?
Warren Parker: This all kind of came about over the summer. I just kind of on a whim reached out to Daniel. I think there’s some mutual respect between my appreciation of his music and his appreciation of the label and both being Virginians and creative Virginians. So I reached out and asked if he would have any interest in collaborating on a release and maybe the proceeds of which we could donate to some sort of environmental advocacy group.
Admittedly, I think I’m probably the novice when it comes to all the environmental things, I’m not as connected to that universe as I probably should be given the position that I’m in with this. The whole thing kind of sparked from that, and Daniel truly ran with it, and it snowballed into a really special project.
Daniel Bachmann: My own work is kind of increasingly about climate breakdown and its effects, especially locally. A lot of the scientists out there are encouraging people to educate themselves about climate breakdown and engage in local activism. I recently made a record (Almanac Behind) about the effects of global heating and climate breakdown in Virginia.
I’ve also been trying to make work that engages with the historical impacts of extractive capitalism in Virginia, from the colonial era to our modern day. It’s clear that we are witnessing the same ruthless mechanisms with what’s been happening with MVP for years.
It started with Warren calling me about working on a project together and then I just started reaching out to other artists like The Magic Tuber String Band. They had a similar project to help to Stop Cop City that came out in the spring. I think 10 or 12 artists was what our target was, and it quickly grew while talking to different people, local musicians and artists, and I just continued to put the feelers out from there.
Joshua Vanna: Mountain Valley Pipeline and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) were on my radar for a little bit before I started taking my own time to get connected. About seven years ago I and a few friends helped form a little solidarity group in Rockingham County, Virginia, called RAPTORS. That was to help folks from further up in the valley and show up wherever necessary to help local communities fighting ACP, you know, at that time, it being sort of the evil twin.
At the time that I got involved in MVP, late 2016, I was probably only about 30, 35 miles from the route they were going to start clearing trees and everything. I was learning about fracking and went to a talk put on with Ernie Reed (current Chairman of Nelson County Board of Supervisors) and it was all about how ACP and MVP were going to cross the hallway, as they would call it, and we are in the hallway between extraction and export.
I just started meeting people that were directly affected by the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and that led eventually to me going to an old growth forest in Bath County, going up a ridge up that is like 45 degrees up, on Jack Mountain. I realized how insane all of this was.
It’s been quite a saga and thankfully, ACP gave up and we bogged them down with enough problems that the project was no longer going to be financially feasible. A lot of those folks have hung on to keep showing up fighting MVP as well. So there’s been a great sense of solidarity, built over this long time where communities have been pulling together from hundreds of miles apart.
Daniel, what kind of responsibility do you feel when you throw yourself behind a project where art and activism are one and the same?
Bachman: The way that I think about it personally is, we are hearing from the scientists that the Mountain Valley Pipeline is a carbon bomb. It is so irresponsible that we’re even talking about building new fossil fuel infrastructure like this right now as we exit 2023, the hottest year globally in recorded history, and that’s not even getting into the imminent threat to the communities that are in the path of MVP.
I don’t mean to say this to be shocking or exaggerate, but the literal mountain next to my house is on fire right now, it’s about four miles from us. It’s been on fire for two weeks, Governor Youngkin declared a state of emergency today. We’ve been dealing with smoke inhalation. It’s actually been quite a bit. We can see all of this happening – this fire, the drought, the heat, it is all related – and that’s why I’m making material that’s focused on this to raise awareness.
No one’s doing it for us, we have to take the initiative in our communities ourselves. [Josh’s] coalition of artists have been doing it for years. I think that everyone who is on this compilation is aware of the reality that we face. We’re waking up and seeing this out of our window every day. In the coalfields of Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, music has been a bond through those social movements and political struggles. It’s heavy to talk about this stuff, but music and art offer a different way to interact with these struggles, and I know it’s helped me process the intense experiences and emotions that I’ve felt. I hope it can help others too, even if it’s just bringing a little joy to their day with a song they like.
Warren, have you ever put together a compilation or operated with an activist kind of mindset from a label’s perspective?
Parker: No to the compilation. I did a release with a Pittsburgh artist last year named Ernie Francestine – who’s a wonderful guitar player – and the proceeds from that release are all being donated to Everytown, the organization fighting for sensible gun laws.
Last year I celebrated 10 years of WarHen records and it just got me thinking more about the purpose of the label, or at where I can put an emphasis that I haven’t before. What can I do to make a bigger impact than just releasing a record for a band that I like?
Daniel’s activism through his records and his very vocal social media presence about these types of things I’ve found admirable. I feel as though that in this day and age my patience is gone for corporate greed and suits who don’t give a shit about people and community, who are only in it for a dollar, who don’t care about the environment. That shit doesn’t sit well with me, man, I just can’t hang with it. I guess we’re three guys now, and we’re small, but we’re mighty. I’ve been around for long enough to have established a name and a reputation of, I hope, helping out the smaller man. I’ve always kind of considered WarHen to be sort of an anti-record label record label.
If I can take some of that good energy and direct it towards some kind of organization or group or whatever that’s helping fight the good fight for communities that don’t have a loud voice or environmental causes or whatever it may be, then I think that’s where I need to start putting some focus. This project has, I think, solidified my decision to do that because not a day has gone by where I don’t think about how important this is going to be.
I am so grateful to have Daniel, Josh and all the other collaborators. I think it speaks volumes to the fact that everybody has donated their time, their art, their music, their money to this project, and I think it speaks especially loudly that somebody needs to do something.
Josh, you are a musician and have a song on the album, “To The River.” When you have super specific feelings and incorporate creativity into them, do you try to broaden that feeling and experience or do you try to keep it specific?
Vana: Everybody has their own way of reflecting the world back to it. Artists have a special lens to communicate in a unique language that is, thankfully, different from a report from an international NGO talking about how dire the climate crisis is. I don’t mean to diminish, it takes field organizers and it takes hydrologists and it takes lawyers and it takes a diversity of tactics; I think, especially, the direct action campaign. With it being over five years at this point against MVP, it is proof that a diversity of tactics is necessary to win.
On a personal level, through the lens of this fight and other related intersectional fights I’ve really been able to find a deeper purpose and sense of belonging. It’s like a personal power, some feeling that I can affect change in the world, even if it’s through writing a four minute song.
I think in the case of this project, each one of the songs on this compilation is going to be like an affirmation of testimony. For people deep in Summers County, West Virginia, or Monroe County, West Virginia, or Frank County, Virginia, you can start to feel pretty alone. If you’ve got a big fight on your hands, each one of those songs may just open up a whole door to helping people to feel grief, to feel anger, to feel hope, to feel possibility, to feel solidarity and also to feel seen and heard.
Maybe you’re a farmer like Maury Johnson, who has relentlessly testified to every single possible agency, governing board, or whatever it is for nine years. And still on a daily basis, in anybody’s reasonable shoes, can feel unheard and ignored and dismissed. I think when artists are invited to help with the cause we don’t always have the same skill set of massive monetary value that a lawyer might, but that little lens that we’re working in can help empower people who are in the struggle, it can provide a point of connection.
The song that I contributed to this project was inspired by Larry Gibson. Larry was a keeper of the mountains and is unfortunately no longer with us, but was the last man standing in a total hellscape wrought by mountaintop removal in deep, southern West Virginia. It started as a song for Larry and then developed into this whole other thing that turned out to really resonate with people in the pipeline fights.
How do you think this compilation as a product might be able to touch upon the direct needs of the fight against MVP and the Appalachian Defense Fund?
Vana: This is good timing. It’s been nine-and-a-half years that people have been fighting. A lot of folks that have been fighting this project were not people who were politically involved or were activated in any sort of way. They were just normal folks that had a crisis thrown on top of them, and then they had to make the choice whether they’re going to fight or not. A lot of folks realized nobody else is gonna fix this.
This is something sorely needed in a time when construction has started back up again. In June, Congress and the Biden administration decided that this project was in the national interest. Very few levers are left for us to pull in the toolkit of levers that have already been pulled.
With respect to the direct resistance efforts of Appalachians against pipelines and our related legal fund to help folks out who unfortunately received the awful reward of prison time and trumped up charges for being brave and answering the call of action, the charges are getting more serious.
And so, you know, aside from the support that a simple song can offer to your soul or to your community, the direct support of fundraising potential from this project could not come at a better time. West Virginia has already started using environmental terrorist-type language around people choosing to live in a tree stand for a few months to block the advance of construction. Things are not getting any easier and there is a significant and alarming vice being tightened down upon people who are choosing to act.
For folks who have been in this fight for a long time it starts to weigh on you, it’s weight that you can’t shed sometimes. The beauty of music and community through that is that it is one thing that magically helps shed that weight. You feel not alone anymore, you know there’s somebody out there in northern Virginia or Charleston or 100 miles off the route, who feels responsible for your struggle.
I really appreciate the timing and the thought and the care and consideration and open invitation that Warren and Daniel have, have put into this. I’m really excited to see it go out.
Boogixote 