“It’s great when you get to work with other people that can see your vision and then see beyond it. Nathaniel enlisted Night Sweats drummer Patrick Meese and James Barone, friend of the band and monitor engineer, to help him. With Swift’s voice in his head, Rateliff set out to begin the album they had talked about at National Freedom Studio in Cottage Grove, OR. But in the end, what he really was doing was creating a homage to his friend. ![]() ![]() The movement certainly jogged something out of his restless subconscious, helping him address some big life questions - the ones that have stumped philosophers, statesmen and profound thinkers since time began, exploring the unsteady terrain of love and death. “I used to do physical labor for work, and that was really beneficial to my writing,” says Rateliff. Over the next few months, Rateliff tried to make sense of it all, feverishly writing songs fueled by strong coffee and an exercise bike. And soon after, on July 3rd, 2018, he passed away. In June, 2018 Swift was hospitalized for hepatitis. What Rateliff didn’t figure was that he’d be doing his solo album without his friend. We thought you can’t ever have too much Nilsson.” We were both big fans of Nilsson Sings Newman and A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night. He told me, ‘Man, I can’t wait to start working on the solo stuff.’ We had this vision of making it like a Nilsson album. “He’d send me ideas for it while I was working on the Night Sweats album. “Richard was really excited about working on it,” says Rateliff. The two frequently discussed working on a solo album for Rateliff - his first since 2013’s Falling Faster Than You Can Run, where the singer/songwriter’s more personal writing could find a home. His lost brother,” says Rateliff quietly. “Richard always would say I was like his twin. They bonded deeply when they worked on the Night Sweats’ 2015 debut album which was certified gold in 2017. The two were close, both having been raised in strict religious households and experiencing similarly wrenching crises over their faltering faith. The repeating chorus of the song - the lead-off track for And It’s Still Alright , his new solo album – vividly conveys weighty resignation and chilling finality: “I left feeling alone.”īut what began as a solo album about the painful slow dance of the unraveling of a relationship turned into something altogether different when Richard Swift, Rateliff’s longtime friend and producer of the Night Sweats’ two albums, fell ill from the complications of alcohol addiction. When the first words of “What A Drag” appeared out of the dry Arizona air, it was a stark realization that things had become irrevocably broken, and he would have to finally face the end of his 11-year relationship. He had touched on the topic in some of the songs on Tearing at the Seams, but with much more diehard-romantic ambivalence, still hanging onto a shred of hope that things might work out. Quieter, more reflective than the songs he’d written for the Night Sweats album, the piece that became “What a Drag” was a sad confirmation that his marriage had run aground. ![]() ![]() But another song managed to creep in that was unlike any of the one’s he’d composed for the Night Sweats’ second effort, signaling that he had other things he wanted to say. In Tucson, Rateliff did manage to write the last few songs for what became the Richard Swift-produced Tearing at the Seams. He thought he was actually sequestering himself to finish writing the last few songs for Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats’ follow-up album to their self-titled 2015 debut. When Nathaniel Rateliff went to a writing retreat outside of Tucson, Arizona, for 11 days in the spring of 2017, he didn’t know he was starting his third full-length solo album.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |