With ‘Feral Roots’ riding high in the charts in almost every country known to man, things are going pretty damn well for Rival Sons, with their sixth studio album receiving rave reviews all around. Having supported & played with some of the biggest bands & artists in the rock world, the hard yards have continued to pay off, as fans have picked up on the fantastic vibe the guys give off, not only in their live shows but also by capturing some of that feel in the studio as well. Vocalist Jay Buchanan took time away from packing his bags before the band flew out of the US for their UK and European tour dates and caught up with us here at The Rockpit to talk about ‘Feral Roots’, the incredibly unique process that goes into making a Rival Sons album and walking in the footsteps of giants…
Sean: Good morning Jay, thanks for taking the time to talk to us.
Jay: Good morning to you too Sean. No problem at all. I’m on afternoons here in Nashville, Tennessee right now. You guys must be coming on to summer time in Australia right now.
Sean: Yes, we’ve had some hot ones of late.
Jay: We are still in winter here for another month and a half or so.
Sean: I finally got to hear ‘Feral Roots’ the other day – you guys must be so happy with the results. It’s a great album.
Jay: Oh thanks man. We are happy with the results. We finished it a few months back then gave ourselves enough time to work on it and reflect to make sure we had made a record we felt comfortable with – not that we have made bad records in the past. I will stand by every one of our releases so far. This one is different in a very obvious way.
Sean: I’m at that phase where each time I listen I hear something different in each track and it gets annoying in such a good way [laughs] when I can’t pick out one track in particular that’s my favourite. I listen to it through my surround sound speakers and I love ‘Do Your Worst’ & ‘Imperial Joy’, then I listen through headphones and I get ‘All Directions’ & the incredible ‘Shooting Stars’ jumping out at me… And I love it when an album does that. I had it on all weekend.
Jay: Thank you Sean and I can tell you right now, there is absolutely nothing annoying about you liking our music. That’s not annoying for us at all [laughs]
Sean: It’s just a sign of a good album for me.
Jay: And that’s the great thing about music. You can listen as many times and for as long as you like. It’s not like a buffet where you get full and go back home.
Sean: ‘Shooting Stars’ through headphones & turned up loud is just such a different feel to the rest of the album – beautiful track.
Jay: It’s great that you say that because it’s such a special song.
Sean: Unfair question alert but do have you got a favourite one on ‘Feral Roots’?
Jay: Right now, they are all my favourites but that’s because I don’t trust myself to answer that, but that doesn’t mean I won’t… probably the title track. That’s one that sticks I my head pretty good. That one and ‘Stood by Me’ is another favourite of mine. I can tell you ‘Stood by Me’ is a song that is so fun to play live too. The band have spent a full week in pre-production rehearsals getting ready for the UK & European tour and ‘Stood by Me’ is one of the songs that just feels so good to play – the message of the song, the music and just everything about it is a lot of fun. So those two and also ‘Shooting Stars’ are the stand outs for me…. If I had to pick one right now though – I don’t know, maybe it’s ‘Imperial Joy’. I can say whatever I want [laughs]
Sean: And that’s the magic of music – every person will like a different track for a different reason.
Jay: Exactly. It’s good because I’m at the point where I don’t hate it. Sometimes when you work so hard on something it becomes really hard to listen to. I’m at a point where I can hear it and not be in a bad mood if that makes sense.
Sean: I’ve been a bit of a latecomer to your music and I have no idea how you guys slipped under my music radar – you tick all the boxes of everything I Iove musically. So, I’m currently listening to your back catalogue. I missed you when you were here last time in Australia supporting Black Sabbath, with performances that made everyone sit up and take notice.
Jay: Excellent. Well, we have seven records for you to be getting on with [laughs]. The great thing is that each one is completely different so hope you enjoy them.
Sean: I read somewhere that the previous album ‘Hollow Bones’ took just three weeks to record. How long did this one take by comparison?
Jay: Would you believe, even less. It took us less time to record this one… well hold on because I need to qualify that statement and the question as well. Typically with each one of our records Sean, we go into the studio with no material at all – with nothing at all. We’ll start writing. We write the song and record it right away – we record it in the first or second take. So the audience, when they buy the record and listen to it for the first time, they are hearing us play it for the first or second time. They are hearing it when it’s as completely new to us as it is to them. So, we don’t play through it two or three dozen times – everyone is on their heels and on the edge of their seats because we don’t know the material well enough to act or be actors within the song. That energy & that created flashpoint is something we’ve sought to deliver to our audience – an honest framing of the moment. Now with this record we recorded ‘live’ in the same way we do all of our records – they are all done within three or four weeks – but we gave ourselves time to write in between our studios sessions. So, our session time would be booked and we then had two months in between sessions…
Sean: What a fantastic way to work. So, I can see how you get that almost ‘live’ feel to your recordings.
Jay: Yeah, so these are very much ‘live’ tracks in every sense of the word. During those times between studio sessions, Scott (Holiday) and I wouldn’t share the songs with the guys. We’d only show them the music once we got in the studio. Also, we wouldn’t do any pre-production for any of the recordings of a song in advance. Scott and I would just trade files on our phone and maybe a quick stereo recording on Pro-Tools or a laptop or something like that – but no production in advance. So all-in-all we took about eight or nine months for this whole process but that’s not to be confused with people thinking it took eight or nine months to record. It just so happens that these sessions were booked and afforded that time because our producer Dave Cobb, who we’ve done every one of our records with, is so busy right now. He’s out there winning every award under the sun for Producer of the Year, Single of the Year… all of these things. So, he is just so busy and in demand that we needed to work around his schedule a little bit because the band is very important to him. We’ve all come up together and he’s a part of our family. We needed to give this time to him so he could do his other work and because of that we would get five or six days here and there. Collectively we had about eighteen days or so.
Sean: What’s Dave (Cobb) like to work with? There must be a special bond between you all.
Jay: There is, absolutely. He’s such an instinctual producer. He is transparent – he doesn’t try to put his mark on the artist. He just tries to get the artist to be as vulnerable or as confident as they need to be to display who they really are. Working with Dave, there is so much trust. It’s not as if we are never going to have disagreements or anything like that but there is so much trust. With me, getting in there with Cobb… well, it’s just such a family affair. We’ve all done so much together that… it just works. There isn’t a lot of struggle. We also signed with his imprint label…
Sean: Yes, so this is the first album you’ve done under this label isn’t it?
Jay: Yeah, so we’ve done it under the Low Country Sound Label. It was great after all of this time and with a major label it still feels like a family affair. Choosing to go with a major label and dealing with all the trappings is one thing, but coming by that through family, I think that’s really what made it possible for me and the rest of the band to want to do that.
Sean: These were recorded at the legendary RCA Studio A an Muscle Shoals Sound Studio too?
Jay: Yeah, RCA Studio A on 17th Avenue, Music Row right here in Nashville.
Sean: Being a bit of a nostalgic music lover myself, did you ever get a moment when you thought of some of the great artists that would have stood and recorded in those studios before you guys? The likes of Joe Cocker, The Beach Boys, B B King…
Jay: All of them man. It’s really crazy. It was insane. And Muscle Shoals had the likes of Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones… just about everybody. It’s a really big deal and you don’t forget it because it’s insane just who’s footprints your standing on. Being there you know you’re on hallowed ground too. You know you are basically in church so to speak.
Sean: How does that make you feel to be recording where these now legendary artists once stood, knowing that your names are now amongst them in history having also worked there?
Jay: That’s the big deal right there. You’ve hit the nail on the head Sean. It makes you want to earn your right to be there in the first place. It makes you want to earn that privilege… and you know that you are privileged. It makes you really want to give your very best. Rival Sons doesn’t have a B game – we just don’t. That being said, being there at Muscle Shoals and knowing that you are standing where those giants once stood, doing what those giants once did… well it just means so much. It’s like when you just said, to be counted amongst those names… you just realise it’s really fuckin’ happening. We are here speaking our truth in the same way they were here speaking their truth. It’s an incredible honour that I don’t take lightly, that’s for sure. Everyone there was so good to us too, from Colin Lott who runs the studio to the studio engineer to Debbie Wilson – just everyone was so accommodating.
Sean: Incredible to be a part of the history. Just as we start to wrap things up I have a couple of quick fire ones to finish off with. If you could invite three guests for dinner from the music world, dead or alive, who would you have join you?
Jay: Oh, goodness! I think it would probably be Miles Davis, Van Morrison and Little Richard.
Sean: An interesting combination and three names I’ve not had before.
Jay: We’d probably get thrown out soon after [laughs]… that’s what would happen!
Sean: [laughs] Now that I would like to see. It’s quite a rowdy table. What was the last album you listened to, Jay?
Jay: You know, this morning I listened to Sly & The Family Stone Live at The Fillmore East in ’68. It’s a fantastic record.
Sean: Such a great album to finish this up on. Jay, thank you so much for your time and we wish you & the guys all the best on your UK & European Tour, then your US dates later in 2019 and also wish you every success for ‘Feral Roots’.
Jay: Thanks Sean, it’s been great. It’s gonna be such a fun record to tour. We are so looking forward to playing it live for everyone. It’s going get rowdy [laughs].
Sean: Hopefully you’ll be back to see us in Australia as well at some point.
Jay: We would love to get back there – it’s one of my favourite places. I just love it down there. I had my family with me and we went down to Brisbane and stayed a week in Montville for a friend’s wedding. Its lovely there.
Sean: Travel safe Jay. Thank you.
Jay: We will. Thank you too. See ya.
