These songs are so personal, but not everyone will get that. “I remember finishing one song and just losing my shit and breaking down. The album recounts moments in the last few years of his life, some good and others not so much. Together, The Night Sweats created a set of songs that comprise both an r&b party record and deeply personal confessional from Rateliff, who penned all the lyrics. It was a sunny setting for emotionally overcast music. “We just did what we like to do best,” says Rateliff, “which is hang out and be a family.” They recorded a number of demos, some complete songs and others fragments or just ideas, but all were anchored by the preternaturally tight rhythm section of Pope and drummer Patrick Meese, then buoyed by the rambunctious keyboard runs from Mark Shusterman and the textural guitar riffs of Luke Mossman. In May 2017, they brought that same boundless energy to the opens plains and prickly cacti of Rodeo, New Mexico, where the entire band disappeared for a week to write songs for their follow-up. The crowds grew larger with every show and The Night Sweats grew tighter and more vigorous. Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats blasted their way through hundreds of shows in North America, England, Ireland, and Australia, and they played Coachella, Farm Aid, Newport Folk Festival, and the Monterey Pop Festival’s 50th Anniversary. Those demos eventually developed into the band’s 2015 self-titled debut, which became a massive hit and pushed them out on the road for two long years. It sounded like it came from a really deep place in him, but it took this really meandering path to come through.” “Of all the projects we had done and all the different genres we had played, this was the most natural thing I’d heard him do. “That old soul stuff meant a lot to him when we were young,” says Pope. Rateliff released an album on Rounder Records with a backing band called The Wheel, but despite the critical success of that and subsequent albums, he was still trying to find the right sound, the right outlet for what he needed to say.Ī set of rough demos recorded in the early 2010s and based on old Stax and Motown records pointed Rateliff in a new direction. Their first band, Born in the Flood, attracted some major-label interest, but the pair had moved on by then, gravitating from heavy rock toward a folksier sound. In 1998 Pope and Rateliff moved to Denver where they worked nightshifts at a bottle factory and a trucking company while testing out their songs at open-mic nights. “Music was what we thought would save us.” “We would walk around these deserted country roads and talk about music all the time, how it can change the world and how it could change our world,” recalls Night Sweats bassist Joseph Pope III. Music became an obsession for him and his friends. Growing up in Hermann, Missouri, a small town with a booming tourism industry as well as a rampant meth epidemic, he started his music career playing in his family’s band at church, but that came to a tragic end when his father was killed in a car accident. Like his heroes, Rateliff has always been an omnivorous listener and player. “The future of this band is to take everything we’ve ever done in the past and just do it with our own little twist,” says Rateliff. There are familiar elements of soul and garage rock, but also jazz and folk and even country: the crackling energy on opener “Shoe Boot,” the cathartic sing-along of “Coolin’ Out,” the melancholy folk of the closing title track. These songs are grounded in old-school soul and r&b but are far too urgent for the retro or revivalist tag. The result is the aptly titled Tearing at the Seams, a vivacious and inventive full-band record, with significant contributions from all eight members of The Night Sweats. In other words, the Missouri-bred, Denver-based frontman wanted to make the band disappear along with him-out in the middle of the desert at first, and then deep in the woods. I wanted the guys to feel like they were giving something to the project beyond just playing.” But for this new record, I felt like we’d all spent so much time on the road that we should all go off somewhere together. “For the first Night Sweats record, I demo’ed everything up and created most of the parts. Contact: a long time I always had to go off on my own,” says Nathaniel Rateliff of his creative process.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |