Some music documentaries are about the making of a record or the rise of a band. “Louder Than Guns” is after something knottier than that. The new film from Doug Pray follows Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show and former NPR host David Greene as they move through rural, suburban, and urban America trying to open a real conversation around gun violence, gun rights, and firearm safety without collapsing into the usual dead-end shouting match. Abramorama has now acquired North American theatrical rights to the film.
The documentary grew out of the aftermath of the Covenant School shooting in Nashville. Secor wrote a New York Times op-ed, “Country Music Can Lead America Out of Its Obsession with Guns,” and that piece helped spark the collaboration with Greene. Pray then followed the pair on the road as the band toured, with the film taking its title from a song Secor wrote for the victims of the shooting.
That setup also puts the project squarely in Pray’s lane. The filmmaker is best known for documentaries like “Hype!,” “Scratch,” and “Art & Copy,” as well as later work, including “Love, Lizzo” and his executive producer, writer, and editor credits on “The Defiant Ones,” which won a Grammy for Best Music Film.
Secor, of course, arrives with his own long musical résumé. He founded Old Crow Medicine Show, co-wrote “Wagon Wheel” with Bob Dylan, and helped turn the group into a two-time Grammy-winning institution with a place in the Grand Ole Opry. Greene brings a different kind of public-facing credibility, after years covering the White House, serving as NPR’s Moscow bureau chief, and co-hosting “Morning Edition.”
The film opens on May 8 in New York City before rolling out to additional North American cities. Watch the trailer below.
