![]() I loved his style, but sometimes it also erred on the side of laziness. “Richard kind of did everything and with his approach there was a lot of looseness in the mixes. That was a different experience than what we had done in the past. But then once we got the mixes where we wanted, we took those to Brad and mixed even more. “I’ve worked a lot with Patrick and James and on our own we did a lot of mixing. “I feel like capturing a good performance is kind of the key,” Rateliff observes. With Bradley Cook producing alongside Rateliff and regular co-conspirators Patrick Meese and James Barone, the atmosphere was relaxed but purposeful, with the screws a little tighter than when Swift was steering the ship. There’s patience here, and also the sense that the players are comfortable moving between these poles. The opening title track is a barnburner, navigating rich horn lines, ringing chords and Rateliff’s barrel-chested roar, but sure enough its opening acoustic-slide pairing lets a pretty solid Dylan vibe get its hooks in before the bells and whistles take over. This is a difficult line to walk given how unashamedly huge some of these songs sound. There’s always a little bit of discovery, because how do we continue to move forward? But I still want people to feel like we’re the same band that they’ve loved.” But I want to continue to elevate what we’re doing. I don’t want to lose the sort of family feel we have, which makes us feel really genuine. I work a lot with the engineer, also our lighting director. “I try not to let my insecurities get the best of me but, you know, it’s hard sometimes to focus on writing when I’m on the road, I really just switch into focusing on how the show is perceived. “It kind of makes me get my head about what our audience is wanting or not wanting,” he says. Moving back into Night Sweats mode was not just about an itch that he wanted to scratch – he also attempted to put himself in the shoes of his fans. Prior to The Future his most recent outing was last year’s solo record And It’s Still Alright, a collection that dialled down the bombast in the wake of a divorce and the death of a central collaborator in producer Richard Swift. Rateliff, whether he likes it or not, tends to ruminate on things. ![]() “I’m like, am I actually just talking to myself, or am I trying to project onto the listener?” “I mean, I feel like the narrative on that song in particular changes from time to time when I listen to it,” he says. “I’m afraid to admit that it’s catching up to me too.” Fittingly, he’s still not sure exactly where he stands on this knife-edge. “I’m afraid that the weight of the world is catching up with you,” Rateliff sings at one point. On Survivor Rateliff finds the common ground between the two states, kicking things up a gear with a percussive, rafter-shaking hook that’s more Imagine Dragons than Crosby, Stills and Nash. The Future, his new record alongside his band the Night Sweats, is a pandemic piece that, from its title on down, funnels the uncertainty of the time into songs that try really hard to convince us that things will probably be fine in the end.ĭriven on by a grandstand vocal performance – all deadpan melody, riffs on Bob Dylan and Nina Simone, and gruff emotion dredged up from way down inside – the album is at turns very slick and reassuringly down home. By October, the upstairs rooms at the house were habitable, and at that point the wheels were turning out in the studio, too. “I was only gone for 10 shows and came home and I had to move into my garage,” the Americana star says with a rueful laugh.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |