‘Screamin’ At The Sky’ Black Stone Cherry’s eighth studio album features material written collaboratively while on tour, and tracked at The Plaza Theater in Glasgow, Kentucky – a legendary 1020-seat venue built in 1934 that boasts meticulous acoustics. In June of 2022, the band rented the whole place, brought in all its recording equipment and its trusty engineer, Jordan Westfall. They set up the basement as the control room and the stage as the live drum room. Time between recording sessions and incredible room ambience have resulted in a career high watermark for BSC.
Black Stone Cherry’s last album, ‘The Human Condition’, released in October 2020 was their sixth consecutive No. 1 debut on the UK Rock Albums charts. The album’s lead single, ‘Again’ was the band’s biggest single in over 10 years in America, peaking at #15, and their highest charting record ever in Canada, landing in the Top 15. The album racked-up 50 million streams worldwide. We caught up with Chris to find out why this one might take them to even bigger heights.
Chris: Hey Mark what’s going on?
Mark: It’s all going on down here, I’m playing the new album to death and it’s sounding wonderful.
Chris: Thank you so much man, I appreciate that.
Mark: It has been a while since we last spoke, how are you Chris? Are you safely in Austin yet?
Chris: Yeah, we’re in Austin, Texas.
Mark: I love that City, great place to be.
Chris: Oh yeah.
Mark: I have to ask first up how was Steelhouse? (Black Stone Cherry headlined Sunday at Wales’ biggest and best Rock Festival)
Chris: Dude it was amazing, that was so much fun kinda on top of the mountain playing a Rock and Roll show! You know man, it don’t get a whole lot better than that! (laughs)
Mark: Did you get a chance to preview anything off the new album?
Chris: Yeah, we did three songs. We’re doing those three songs in the set right now: we’re doing ‘Screamin’ At the Sky’, ‘Out of Pocket’ and ‘Nervous’.
Mark: Three great songs, I loved ‘Out of Pocket’ it’s such an angry song I bet it sounds great fired up live.
Chris: Oh yeah.
Mark: ‘Smile World’ just came out recently down here too.
Chris: Yes Sir it came out yesterday.
Mark: That’s nice and funky?
Chris: Yeah, we had to have a fun song on the record.
Mark: It’s certainly that. I think you have a seriously great record on your hands again. Over the last few years the last few releases I think have been my favourite period for the band, you’ve put out some wonderful stuff and you always seem to push that bar a little higher. I honestly can’t stop playing this record!
Chris: That’s awesome man, and that’s the ultimate goal for everybody. When you’re making an album you want people to latch onto it and really enjoy it, that’s the biggest hope anybody could have really.
Mark: When did you start writing this one?
Chris: While we were touring pretty much, we wrote the whole thing while we were on tour. The only song that wasn’t written, or at least started as far as the writing process goes on tour was ‘Raindrops on a Rose’ (R.O.A.R.) Other than that everything was written on the back of the bus, man.
Mark: It’s definitely got that very ‘live’ feel about it, it’s also very immediate as well. It’s one of those albums that connects straight away. There’s no subtlety there, each song hits, “boom, boom, boom” it really gets the blood pumping from the off.
Chris: Thanks, I appreciate that. This record I feel if anything you’re right, it’s the most direct and it gets straight to the point. This is what it is. We’ve always said the things that we’re saying now, but maybe we tried to be a bit more poetic with them in the past. But this time around we thought, fuck all that man, let’s just say it the way I would say it. You know Mark? Don’t say it in some kinda way to make sure it’s appeasable to everybody, say it the way you would say it yourself and the chances are that there are people who are gonna relate to it even more. It’s weird man because I’ve had so many people reach out to me and say “The fact that you said I’ve become the Fucking problem in that song makes it mean so much more than the edited version does”.
Mark: Absolutely.
Chris: Well that’s the way I say it. Anybody that’s ever had a conversation with me knows that I have to filter how I talk on the radio and for certain concerts and stuff like that. I’ve lived on a tour bus since I was 21 years old and I’m 38 now! (laughs) you know what I mean!? So I’ve spent 17 years in a submarine on wheels with nothing but a bunch of dudes! And you, know you, give each other shit all the time, and you just talk to each other differently than you do to most people. But there’s also an honesty in that, and that’s the one thing I think I can say, not just for Black Stone Cherry, but for all bands in general right now – we’re all putting out the most honest music we ever have. It’s like we all just threw away the filters and said “Never again”.
Mark: I’m sensing that the time we lost during Covid might have fueled that to a degree?
Chris: Mark, everything we knew was taken away from us in the blink of an eye and every opportunity that we had to do what we do and live the life we lived and be who we are was gone. ‘Cause that’s the thing Mark, the hardest part to understand for people is that fact that this is not just our livelihood and source of income, this is the life choice that we made, and income wasn’t always attached to it! (laughs) It’s a life choice because this is who we are – we’re people, and we’re writers and performers, you know, and that’s what we started out as. So this is what we do and I think the only conscious decision we made for this record was necessarily to be heavier, it wasn’t necessarily to do anything other than, fuck it, be honest man! Tell the truth, you know!
Mark: We seem to be living in a world where we’re encouraged not to be like that. It’s refreshing to hear that.
Chris: Say what’s on your mind. Just like with Oliver Anthony music the exploded world wide but especially here in the United States. I’ve seen reactions to videos from people worldwide – and it’s literally a guy with his guitar out in the woods saying what’s on his mind. And it’s fucked the whole world up because it’s not produced, it’s not perfect, the guitar is out of tune a little bit! But it’s honest, it’s real and people cannot get enough of it.
Mark: I love that idea. I also love the amount of creativity that came out of that pain. There’s a huge feeling out there among musicians I’ve spoke to that we shouldn’t waste a day! I get that feeling from ‘Screamin’ at the Sky’.
Chris: Yeah man, look in all honesty, we went through the biggest changes of our lives over the course of the pandemic. Not only was it the pandemic, which is the closet thing to the depression I guess that our generation has lived through – you know, something that shook the world up that much. And on top of that we had our band go through a change for the first time in 20 years.
Mark: So much going on.
Chris: Then literally within a month and a half of the announcement of a member departing my Dad’s battle with cancer came to an end. So there was a whole lot of shit inside me for sure, you know that needed to come out of all of us in that regard. You know, this record deals with change man, and the way the world changed, how we changed and how we changed individually and as a group and everything man. You know it’s a ‘real’ record, and I know that sounds cliched but I don’t know any other way to describe this record other than just real and honest man. Like you said Mark, there’s no beating around the bush on any of these songs.
Mark: No beating around the bush and also something for everyone. Anyone who already loves Black Stone Cherry is going to love it – but anyone who just loves great music is going to be playing it to death. You can come to it at any angle – the first time I heard ‘R.O.A.R’ for the first time blew me away – the guitar on that track is absolutely sensational! I absolutely love that song on all levels – musically and lyrically.
Chris: Thank you Sir. That ones’ a tribute to my old man. That’s the only song Mark that wasn’t written on the back of the bus. That song, the original orientation of that was written by me and Jordan our engineer that records and executive produces and mixes our records. During the pandemic just as a kind of mental health thing I was going down to the studio and writing songs with friends of mine – guys I’d never written a song with – because I’d never written a song, or a guitar riff or an idea that wasn’t specifically for Black Stone Cherry.
Mark: Mate I’d love to hear some of that one day!
Chris: (laughs) I just thought I want to go and write some songs that can be whatever they are. Just whatever comes out – that’s what the song is and if it comes to nothing then ‘fuck’. But me and my buddies wrote some great songs, and there was just this one day in particular when a buddy couldn’t make it and I just said “Hey no worries, me and Jordan will just go and write something”. Because Jordan is a phenomenal musician himself. And Jordan had just recently lost his Dad, my Dad was battling cancer and the best way I have been able to describe that is, if you can imagine your Dad being Superman and someone is slowly pouring kryptonite on him and there’s nothing you can do about it but just watch. That was what it felt like… And I was sitting on the porch and my Dad was going to come over ’cause we would sit on the porch every morning, he lived right beside me, and it was raining and there was a rose bush out there and I got to watching how the water was puddling up on the rose petals. And it was so beautiful man, it was a sight to behold, just taking a second to watch water puddle up on flower petals. But I was watching it, and it would eventually get so heavy it would just fall off and it would have to start completely over again. The cycle would start over from scratch. And it just stuck with me – those raindrops on a rose.
Mark: That’s a poet’s eye Chris.
Chris: Thank you. I thought it was appropriate to call the song ‘R.O.A.R.’ and the title falls down into that but you know it a story of having to accept an outcome that nobody wants. But the guys heard that song and said they’d love to record it, so I said “Dudes let’s make it a Black Stone Cherry song. Let’s all get in here and everybody put your own stamp on it.” And that’s what we did man. It’s worked out really cool , and the coolest thing for me is that one thing from the original version kept – the first guitar solo after the second chorus was the one I played the day we wrote it.
Mark: That’s so cool. And a wonderful song.
Chris: I’m so glad I kept that.
Mark: I love the album as a whole but that song really hit me.
Chris: Thank you Sir I sincerely appreciate that. My Daddy was a guitar man himself so you mentioning the guitar work on that one really means a lot man.
Mark: It’s is wonderful Chris. As is the rest of the album, I love the singles and then you get to songs like “who Are You Today’ – it’s incredible – the chorus in that song is huge!
Chris: Thanks Mark! (laughs) Dude when we wrote that we all were listening back to it and we all would just smile when the chorus came around! (laughs) Because it gave us that kind of feeling like ‘Right Now’ by Van Halen does, it’s got a very Van-Hagar style chorus I guess, and it’s probably the first chorus we’ve ever done that has that kind of vibe. But I love it too man! Big chords, big melody – I don’t know – it’s a feelgood kind of thing! Even though its questing who are you and what are you going to leave behind, it feels like a feelgood angle.
Mark: It is positive, definitely. But so is ‘You Can Have it all’ that closes which is a great song and bounces off the back of another one of my many favourites with ‘Here’s to the Hopeless’! It’s all gold!
Chris: Thank you Sir!
Mark: Eight albums in you’re not meant to be this good! You’re meant to be putting your feet up a bit and taking it easy, but I think you’ve just put out an album that sounds so hungry and fresh with such huge energy. I think it might just be one of my very favourite Black Stone Cherry records.
Chris: That means a lot.
Mark: As you know I’ve been listening for a while. I think back to the first time I saw you guys live at the Riverbend in Kentucky many, many years ago…
Chris: Holy shit!
Mark: (laughs) when you played with Lynyrd Skynyrd and Kid Rock. I knew then that you’d be around for a long time making great music.
Chris: Yeah, man that’s been a minute!
Mark: (laughs) It has and I still have the CD that you signed there at the merch booth! Taking time with the fans even then. I saw you at Rocklahoma too and I see you’re back there again soon.
Chris: Yeah next week.
Mark: Always a great crowd to play too those wonderful people in Oklahoma.
Chris: Yes Sir.
Mark: And you’ve just played the top of a mountain – it doesn’t get much better than that. I do have to ask though – just after last time we spoke you’d just played the Royal Albert Hall which to a lot of musicians is sacred ground, how was that Chris?
Chris: Man, that is one for the record books and it’s still hard to describe that show. I just tell people to watch the video. If you want to know what that night was like just watch the encore, then go and watch the rest of the show. We don’t take for granted any chance we get to play music anywhere but when you get to play your music and you get to play it outside of your home country and people latch onto it the way they have for us in the U.K. It’s something truly special when, you know, four guys from middle-of-nowhere Kentucky, who sound like I do, can travel the world and play our music. You know we came to see you in Australia, it’s amazing to think what’s happened.
Mark: I couldn’t believe it when you came down to see us here. To see you in such relatively small clubs was like stepping back in time. One of the best tours I’ve seen!
Chris: And we want to go back it’s just trying to route it all so it makes sense financially. all that stuff because it’s just a long way Man!
Mark: (laugh) I know!
Chris: And we’d love to come back, you can keep the fucking snakes and spiders away but I want to come back! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs) We’d love to have you back, I was talking to Nuno from Extreme the other day and they’re down here in a couple of weeks, like he says it’s just that long ass flight!
Chris: Oh yeah! And the other hard part is the cost of travel because you’re touring with equipment and there’s no tour bus so you’re flying every day city to city so it’s a difficult thing to do. But it can be done, we’ve done it in the past and it is definitely something that is on our horizon that we want to do again.
Mark: We’ve spoke many times over the years but there’s one question I’ve never asked you so I thought why not ask now, it’s never to late! If you could have been a ‘fly on the wall for the creation of any great Rock and Roll album just to see how the magic happened, what would you love to have seen come together in the studio?
Chris: I might go with ‘Are You Experienced’ and I think it’s because they were starting to experiment with all the stereo and things like that. It was insane. That record to me is next level.
Mark: It’s definitely my favourite Hendrix. As someone who has written in my opinion some of the great Rock songs of the last 15 or so years, what does a song have to have for you to make a Black Stone Cherry album?
Chris: It’s gotta have the right feeling. It’s gotta be more than just a song. It’s got to have a feeling and an emotion for me personally. A great song is a great song, but it’s gotta go further than that in my opinion.
Mark: It’s got to resonate hasn’t it? And whether that’s something as simple as a guitar riff to get you moving or a lyric that touches you, just something that connects. And that is what is the most powerful thing about ‘Screamin’ At the Sky’ for me – every song on there connects. There’s no fat, there’s nothing hiding in there, there’s nothing I don’t want to hear again and again.
Chris: That’s the ultimate goal when you’re making a record, hoping that can touch people, especially a band like us that’s been around as long as we have. Your only hope is that you can keep people listening and keep people coming back, and hopefully that’s what we’ve been able to do with the new album.
Mark: You absolutely have. And Mascot seems to be treating you well?
Chris: Yeah man, it’s a good place for us. We’ve been happy since we got there. It’s the place for us to be.
Mark: And a lot of live action coming up too. Austin tonight, then the ‘Tacos and Tequila Music Festival’ in Lubbock, then it’s Rocklahoma and later in the year back on over to the U.K.
Chris: Yes Sir it’s a busy time in the Black Stone Cherry world but we’re thankful for that. It’s something that we’re always happy to have. The schedule is looking good (laughs).
Mark: And there’s plenty of people out there wanting to see you.
Chris: I hope so.
Mark: Thank you so much for your time Chris we really, really appreciate it.
Chris: Yes Sir!
Mark: And thank you so much for such a great album. This is going to be huge! Have a wonderful time tonight.
Chris: Thanks Mark, have a good one man.
