COMING SOON TO THEATERS
WHEN VOICES ARE
LOUDER THAN GUNS.
A NEW MUSIC DOCUMENTARY ABOUT HUMANITY, CONVERSATION, AND THE SEARCH FOR COMMON GROUND.
Louder Than Guns begins with tragedy — and becomes a story about how listening, empathy, and song can rise above the noise.
Around tables and in circles across America, people who see the world differently — survivors, gun owners, police officers, parents — come together to talk, to listen, and to look for something better.
In their conversations, we discover that voices —drawn together by the common language of music and grounded in respect — can be louder than guns.
This Is Where It Starts
In the wake of yet another horrific mass shooting, this time at The Covenant School in Nashville, Ketch Secor, lead singer of the popular country-bluegrass band Old Crow Medicine Show, decided it was time to speak out on gun reform. He felt compelled to write an op-ed in The New York Times entitled, “Country Music Can Lead America Out of Its Obsession with Guns.” This caught the attention of Ketch’s friend, public radio journalist David Greene, and the two set out to kickstart productive and open dialogue about gun rights and gun violence in America.
Film director Doug Pray followed them as the band toured rural and urban communities, creating the documentary “Louder Than Guns,” named after a song Secor wrote for the victims of the Covenant shooting.
Known for their signature song “Wagon Wheel,” Old Crow Medicine Show attracts a wide demographic of music fans, stretching to the furthest ends of today’s culture wars. People in the front row of their concerts represent people who’d never agree on anything besides the music they love, providing Ketch, David, and this film with one of modern America’s rarest opportunities: the chance to engage with one another respectfully, despite our differences.
“Louder Than Guns” brings together the frustrations and hopes of citizens who are asked to listen to one another and try to find common ground on this profoundly American issue. Led by Secor and Greene, these emotional and inspiring discussions, in barbeque joints, barbershops, church pews, gun stores, and concert halls prove that localized, community-led discourse has the power to move the needle on gun reform in ways that today’s polarized media and politicians rarely achieve.
