‘My Kind of Country’ star, Petaluma native Ismay builds on TV experience with festivals, upcoming album

Petaluma native Ismay, aka Avery Hellman, has long enamored Sonoma County audiences with their harmonious country-folk music.

Now Ismay is reveling in the national and international exposure they got as a contestant on the Apple TV+ program “My Kind of Country.” Fresh off their TV stint, they’re preparing to host their own music festival, perform at Petaluma’s Rivertown Revival in July and, later this year, release a new album.

Ismay, who identifies as nonbinary and uses they and them pronouns, was one of 12 alternative artists selected by the producers of “My Kind of Country” and mentored by country artists Jimmie Allen, Mickey Guyton and Orville Peck.

The show, executive produced by Reese Witherspoon and Kacey Musgraves and styled after “American Idol,” offered the winner of its musical competition a “life-changing” prize that included global exposure across the Apple TV+ and Apple Music platforms.

“My Kind of Country” premiered March 24 and is available to stream now.

That premiere was a culmination of a nearly three-year process, according to Ismay, who said producers reached out via email in 2020 about appearing on the show.

“I thought it was going to be a scam or something,” Ismay said. “I almost didn’t respond.”

It wasn’t a scam, and the show filmed in 2022, with Ismay featured as part of Canada-based South African country artist Peck’s roster of musicians.

“He was my mentor on the show, and that was an awesome experience,” Ismay said. “Getting to have that connection with somebody who is successful but also more alternative was really cool.”

Another artist in Peck’s group, Micaela Kleinsmith, won the competition.

For Ismay, part of a musical family that traces back to grandfather and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival founder Warren Hellman, the disappointment of not winning is eclipsed by the positive reception they’ve received from fans after being on the show.

“The biggest thing that came from the show was this sense that people believe in what I’m doing,” Ismay said. “They’re excited about my story and excited about my music most of all.”

Ismay’s debut feature-length album, “Songs of Sonoma Mountain” in 2020, was written and recorded at the Hellman family ranch in Petaluma and features eight storytelling country songs accentuated by field recordings.

Later this year, Ismay will release their follow-up full-length, “Desert Pavement” after releasing several singles from the album online this summer. Out now, the song “Stranger in the Barn” hints at the new album’s musical departure from their last record.

“The rhythm on ‘Songs of Sonoma Mountain’ was more classical and poetic,” Ismay said. “I was curious about trying to make this new record with (producer) Andrew Marlin of Watchhouse (formerly Mandolin Orange) that is rhythm-driven folk music that is still original.”

For “Stranger in the Barn,” Ismay filmed a music video with director Rose Bush, best known as the cinematographer for the Academy Award-winning short documentary “Colette,” about a 90-year-old World War II French Resistance fighter who returns to the concentration camp where her brother died.

Filmed last winter in Stockholm, Sweden — where Bush spends a lot of time — the “Stranger in the Barn” video features puppets and evokes a feeling of Wes Anderson directing an episode of “Pee Wee's Playhouse.”

Ismay and Bush are also working together on a documentary film about the early career of singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, likely to come out in 2024. That project sprang from Ismay playing in a Lucinda Williams tribute band with their dad for years.

“I’ve been working on this film project for a couple years, and through that project I was introduced to Rose,” Ismay said. “We really connected through that project. I’ve never made a music video before, and I was really excited about working with somebody I knew who was so talented.”

In addition to the new album, Ismay, who moved from the family ranch to the small town of Markleeville south of Lake Tahoe after filming “My Kind of Country,” is preparing to host the Woolystar Music Festival June 16-18 at the town’s Woollystar Ranch. Fellow Petaluma natives The Brothers Comatose are headlining.

In Sonoma County, Ismay is bringing a full band to this year’s Rivertown Revival in Petaluma, playing songs off the upcoming record on the Barn Stage at 12:45 p.m. July 24.

“That’s one of my favorite festivals,” Ismay said of Rivertown. “It’s so rare to see a festival like that, that is so well-done and has this unique culture to it.”