Today I have the pleasure of announcing a dream come true: a brand new 17-song record called “The Universal Bubba”. It was produced by Tyler Childers and his long-time engineer Kenny Miles. It will come out on November 6th, and the first single, “The Mason Jar at the Center of the World”, is available now. You can also pre-order the record!
Additionally, a tour of roughly 40 shows around the country (with many more to come) are going on presale tomorrow, July 16! We’ll be playing most of this record and some favorites, too.
(cover by whit stone)
These songs have been the majority of my life for the last year, and boy, it was difficult to keep it secret! For one thing, Reddit got a hold of it almost a year ago, with someone posting that some street musicians heard rumors we were making a record before we even left the city. I am also a terrible liar, and kept telling musician friends. I’d never really had a secret before, so it’s nice to come clean.
This record came together by luck, passion, and circumstance. I had roughly twenty songs kicking about, and a big idea: “The Universal Bubba” would be about people who do everything themselves. The title would be a combination of Tyler’s song “The Universal Sound” and the Drive-By Truckers’ song “The Living Bubba.” It would have drums, synths, and more rock and roll sounds than I’d ever used. I came up with the first songs around the same time I was writing “Critterland,” and knew they’d have to come later.
So, I was sitting on a lot of scribbles, drafts, and choruses. More than usual. Meanwhile, Tyler Childers and I talked a lot about songs while I was opening for him in the south and in Australia. We sat down and played oldtime fiddle music together, too, which was a big joy. I played banjo, Tyler fiddled, and we just gabbed on this and that. We talked about “Tomcat and a Dandy,” his song on “Snipe Hunter,” and played it through a few times together. It truly was just a fun time: an Appalachian and an Ozark guy picking tunes, sharing folk music.
Luckily, someone (not even me) pitched the idea of making a record to Tyler’s people. There are lot of people on that team, rightly so. I’ve got a couple part-timers. So, after much scheduling, rescheduling, and wondering, we set a day. We got together in a shotgun house in New Orleans, in the Bywater District, and spent almost two weeks roughing out and spit-shining these drafts into polished songs. It was my pal Hunter Burgamy’s house, and its got a whole lot of New Orleans music history in it. We found a few great players from that scene, too.
My team set the whole thing up, and to be frank, we barely pulled it off logistically— we came in U-Hauls full of gear, with hefty sound-baffles. We crammed 12 people into a 2 bedroom house. My accountant and managers were indispensable, and I’ll owe them forever. When I say “accountant” I mean my friend Kevin Lynch. He was there from the beginning to the end, refilling coffees, taking copious notes, and running down banjos. You know, accountant stuff. In short, we were all-hands-on-deck, and everyone worked incredibly long days.
The Food Stamps are a hell of a band, too. You want to talk about consistency? Ask a band that has worked that hard for over a decade. Ask a band that started in honky-tonks and now fills stadiums! We often had songs on their feet in under an hour. The little red light would go on, and I would know I was the worst musician in the room. That’s a truly great feeling.
The result is a double LP (over an hour of music) that represents my shot at the middle. It’s a chance for the weirdos to enter the zeitgeist. It’s a listenable epic. It sprawls, it rocks, it coos.
At least, I think it does. Could it be true? I hope you’ll listen to the first single and tell your friends. That, after all, is the only way that any of this has ever worked.
Eat Billionaires and Stay Hydrated,
-Willi Carlisle
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