For Rateliff, these have been essential elements to his own life ever since he was young. And since Rateliff, Meese and Barone were, in a way, keeping Swift’s legacy alive on And It’s Still Alright, it stands to reason that the album would include themes of personal perseverance and courage through tragedy. Both grew up in strict religious homes, and both learned to love music so much that it became their livelihoods. “So, there are many elements of his production style on the record.”Īs a result, the album is layered, calmer than any Night Sweats album could be. “Our approach was, ‘What would Richard do on this song?’” Rateliff says. Instead of abandoning that notion, Rateliff and his two producers, Patrick Meese and James Barone, used Swift’s studio for the album and recorded as he would have in homage to their late friend. The idea had been to record Rateliff similarly to how Swift recorded the Northwest-based songwriter Damien Jurado – tracking voice and guitar, then letting Swift overdub instruments and other sounds. Prior to Swift’s death, he and Rateliff had begun discussing the production of And It’s Still Alright, but after Swift’s passing, Rateliff needed a new plan. The art of that writing process is to write about those situations in order to relinquish and move forward.”Īmong the personal difficulties in Rateliff’s life of late have been a divorce after an 11-year marriage and the death of his longtime friend and Night Sweats prolific music-producing partner, Richard Swift, who fell ill due to complications from alcoholism in 2018. “Part of the writing process for me, part of my personal growth and my way of dealing with the circumstances in my life, whether good or bad, is directly related to what I’m writing. “I’ve become more honest with myself,” the 41-year-old says.

To write what he knows best is a new lesson he’s learned over time and a point of creative and personal evolution.

There is a great deal there to unpack for an artist, but he didn’t always feel this way about his craft.

In his life, he’s toiled as a day laborer, worked as a church missionary and played thousands of gigs in venues of all kinds. Rateliff – whose last solo record, Falling Faster Than You Can Run, was released in 2013 – knows that mining personal stories and experience is both fertile ground and necessary work. That many of the songs on the thoughtful, 10-track record ring both personal and diverse is no coincidence. It’s the equivalent of a text message response to an ex in which you write, “Why are you still texting me?” On the relatable, “You Need Me,” Rateliff wonders, eyebrow raised, why he’s being asked to help by someone who just broke off a relationship with him. But the lyrics of the song reminisce mournfully, offering a sense of the forlorn despite the all-in-good-fun packaging. On the album’s third song, “All Or Nothing,” Rateliff recalls a vaudevillian sensibility, his voice bouncy and somehow a bit clownish. His voice rolls like breeze over some green country hills, his rhythmic acoustic guitar backed by a soft, humming electric slide. On the new record, which incorporates some of the musicians from the Night Sweats, Rateliff demonstrates his knack for playing myriad roles. It’s about subtlety and taking our time with the songs.” But this new stuff is not coming from that place. “The Night Sweats are fueled by this certain type of energy, a real physical energy. “I feel like these songs certainly come from a different place and wouldn’t make sense on a Night Sweats record,” Rateliff says.

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