Jake Xerxes Fussell is on the move. Cruising around his tranquil neighbourhood in Pittsboro, North Carolina, perhaps he’s just itching to get out on the road ahead of his Irish tour this month.

"If you pick one path, it's less confusing," he says as he pulls out of his driveway. Even though he’s talking about choosing mobile data over his temperamental home wifi, ensuring our phone call stays connected, his words reflect a deeper philosophy that could be applied to his approach to music.

Raised in Georgia by folklorist parents, the path Fussell picked is a unique one. He’s neither fully a songwriter nor your run-of-the-mill traditional musician, instead opting to interpret carefully sourced songs and stories via his own original compositions.

"I've been doing this for a long time," he says. "Some people are more conservative with traditional music. They feel a duty to the technical aspects of the tradition. So if you're a fiddler, you might want to play old fiddle tunes exactly like the source material.

“I think there's something valuable to that. I'm aware of the value of cultural preservation and that whole thing. But when I was growing up and developing my own style and finding out who I was, I couldn't help but develop my own voice.

“Being a songwriter wasn't something that I strived for. I developed my own style through traditional songs and realised early on that it wasn't any less creative of a process.”

The sonorous When I’m Called marks a fifth full-length since his self-titled debut in 2015. It's a craft that requires an insatiable appetite for sniffing out source material.

“I never think ‘Oh, I have to go make a record now, let's go to the archive and dig for old songs’, it's sort of always happening," Fussell says. "I’m always just looking for stuff.

“The material has changed over the years, although in a lot of ways I'm still looking in the same places. We have these great institutions, the Library Of Congress that has the American Folklife Center which is an incredible archive that you can access online.

“YouTube is a great resource of course, and a lot of record labels reissue music from the 20s and 30s. There’s a great record label called Field Reporters Collective which makes field recordings of traditional music."

Seeing that he’ll be on these shores very soon, Fussell touches on his affinity for the Irish folk tradition.

“I love Irish folk music,” he reveals. “It's a big world, and Irish and traditional music from Britain are connected to the repertoire of American folk music as well.

“When I was a teenager I was really into The Pogues and Shane MacGowan and that whole world. Then I got into older recordings of ballad singers and people who are probably more popular in the States, like the Clancy brothers, who were big in the Greenwich village scene. Frank Harte is one of my favourite ballad singers too.”

Out of all his influences, perhaps the most impactful is the late Art Rosenbaum, who passed away in 2022. A renowned painter, folklorist and a scholar, he was also, Fussell says, a great banjo, fiddle and guitar player.

“He was one of several mentors to me when I was growing up and maybe the most influential one on me musically,” Fussell shares.

The When I’m Called track ‘Feeling Day’ is taken from one of Rosenbaum’s 1971 field captures in Scotland.

“He made field recordings of traditional music beginning in the mid-50s, which he continued doing up until when he died a couple of years ago. He was also somebody who knew tons of old songs. As much as anybody I've ever met. He was extraordinarily knowledgeable about traditional music and when I got into this stuff as a kid he was one of the people who was very encouraging to me.

“As I got deeper into it, and came across an unusual song or text, he more often than not knew about it. He was somebody that I could call up. He was a real resource in the world of traditional music.”

Producer James Elkington and revered virtuoso guitarist Blake Mills (among others) also played key roles in creating the lush and layered sound of When I'm Called. While Fussell shares high praise for both, it's his own inviting warble and hypnotic acoustic guitar playing that stand out on the record.

“I grew up learning from Precious Bryant, a blues musician from Georgia,” Fussell shares, checking over his shoulder for an aggressive driver. “Where I'm from in Georgia, and around Alabama, there was a particular type of percussive right-hand style. When I was about 12 or 13, I got into a lot of pre-war recorded music too. That included stuff like Blind Boy Fuller and Blind Blake and a lot of those really great finger pickers.”

“Elkington is a really great producer, because he can get in there and keep his eye on the bigger picture of the record, which is great when I'm bogged down in it and thinking about how I'm gonna phrase this one line or whatever,” Fussell continues.

“Blake was great too. I got to know him a little bit a few years ago. He’s such an extraordinarily gifted guitar player and a really sweet person. He's got a really good ear and a strong sense of musicality. He's played with everybody, from Joni Mitchell to Bob Dylan and I can understand why they want him around.”

With titles like ‘Leaving Here, Don’t Know Where I’m Going’; ‘Gone to Hilo’ and ‘Going to Georgia’, I ask Fussell if he was feeling particularly nomadic while crafting When I’m Called. He explains that any thematic links weren't intentional, as is the case with most of his LPs.

“It’s funny,” he notes. “When it’s time to make a record I'll start putting things together and this weird thing happens every time. Themes start emerging and I realise that I’ve been drawn to a type of song.”

Having sold-out a number of his upcoming shows, it’s clear that Fussell’s deep appreciation for traditional and folk music is one shared by audiences. There appears to be a resurgence of interest in folk-adjacent music as of late, particularly in the States, where (albeit more pop-leaning) artists like Zach Bryan and Noah Kahan have enjoyed substantial chart success.

Is there something in the zeitgeist drawing people back to acoustic guitars and storytelling?

“I think [folk songs] remain relevant if they're good,” Fussell opines. “I also think different people get into traditional music for different reasons. Some people might get into it because they have a nostalgia about the past and they don't think of [traditional music] as contemporary. That's not the way I feel, but some people might be drawn that way if they have some interest in a certain historical period, or if they find what they perceive as modern culture to be annoying or inconvenient for them.

“And that's sort of understandable on a level. But the deeper you dig into this folk music stuff, you’ll find out pretty quickly that it's always changing. A song never really represents one particular historical moment, as long as it's a true folk song."

• Jake Xerxes Fussell plays Galway (Feb 19), Kilkenny (20), Dublin(21), Limerick (22) and two shows in Cork (23). For more information on venues and tickets, click here. When I’m Called is out now.