Seven Weeks in the Wilderness

Hello. You’ve reached Time and Temperature.

“How do you keep a band together for thirty three years?” This is the second-most-asked question after “What time do you go on?” The answer to one of these questions can be found via a simple internet search and the other defies explanation. As one of the few people on the planet qualified to weigh in on the secret of multi-decade membership in the original lineup of a non-stop rock band, I should be able to explain it, right? In the immortal words of The Who, I can’t explain.

You get lucky? You choose bandmates based on friendship and personal compatibility as much as any musical considerations? You adapt and change to circumstances both inside and outside the band when necessary? You learn to let go of your ego, lose fights, let things go? You sacrifice in some parts of your life because you appreciate how fortunate you are to have this other part, this job, this life, this band?

In the case of my band Old 97’s much of that sacrifice over the years has taken the form of time spent away from our families, missing milestones and moments, trying to connect via payphone, then cellphone, then text message, all of it seeming somehow to increase rather than decrease the distance—as I sing every night, “telephones make strangers out of lovers.” I wrote that line thirty years ago, a vision of a rain-drenched roadside payphone in mind, and it’s even more true now that phones have followed us into our beds and replaced the nighttime, limb-tangled debriefings of yore. In some ways, the current iteration of the telephone has made time spent away-from-home easier and at-home more difficult. But the road will always be the best and worst thing about a musician’s life (finances aside—let’s not even open that can of worms).

Old 97’s at Webster Hall in NYC (photo by Vivian Wang)

Something happened for the Old 97’s in the last couple of years though: we became empty-nesters. We survived the years of child-rearing and family-juggling, and lived to see the other side. So when we concocted this late-winter 2026 schedule of recording and touring, we leaned into our newfound availability. I left my home for seven weeks… and boy are my arms tired, not to mention the rest of me. A few solo dates in the Midwest rolled right into a week of pre-production in Dallas, then straight out to Sonic Ranch Studios in Tornillo, Texas near El Paso. A couple of weeks in Texas recording and filming (for a project I’ll tell y’all about soon), and then we flew off to New England to meet the rolling home-away-from-home that is our tour bus for a three-week East Coast run.

During our years of child-rearing and family-juggling, the sacrifice worked both ways. We shunned long trips in favor of shorter runs and more targeted touring. Recording was done in more quick-hit strategic fashion, and pre-production was often skipped altogether. We prioritized the band, but not to the extent that we’d completely give up on being dads and partners. We saw many of our contemporaries hitting it harder than we were, and often reaping professional rewards commensurate to their personal sacrifice. But we had decided to play the long game. Now that we’ve ushered our young 97’s into adulthood, that decades-long balancing act has finally paid off. If only I still had the stamina and ache-free body of my thirty-year-old self!

The 97’s are having a moment, at least that’s how it feels from my perch inside the ship’s control room. This record we are making right now feels vibrant and joyous in a way you probably wouldn’t expect from a group of grizzled veterans who in another line of work might be expected to shuffle off into their dotage. The camera crews follow us around, the shows are sold out more often than not, the schedule keeps filling up with work that feels more exciting all the time.

How do you keep a band together for thirty three years? I can’t exactly tell you, but I will say this: If you do manage to keep a band together for thirty three years you’ll be pretty fucking glad you did.

yrs,

Rhett

PS (Stay tuned after the paywall for pics from the tour!)

PPS (Also, check out this sweet essay by kickass shutterbug Vivian Wang,)