"The Fear of Standing Still" is a record about growing up and growing older. I am not the wild partying 21 year old rock n roll front man that I used to be. I'm a husband. I'm a father. I've been sober for a decade now. It's a record that proves you don't have to always be going 100mph to find success in this business. It's a record that says "it's ok to take a minute to reflect on how far you've come, not worry about how much further you have to go". For the longest time I thought that if I took my foot off the gas for even a second, I would lose all the ground that I had gained. Fatherhood changed that. I've found a really beautiful balance between rock n roll and family and I wanted a record that showcased that freedom. In the studio, I've always strived to find the perfect balance between showcasing the songwriting and the fact that I have a really great rock n roll band. This record is the closest we've ever come to that intersection. These songs are big, anthemic rock songs but also stand on their own two feet when they are played on an acoustic guitar. We have always taken a lot of pride in that fact. Thematically, I cover a lot of ground on this record: nostalgia, death, regional identity, marriage, fatherhood, redemption, mental health. My records have always been a snapshot of the person I was when I wrote it and this record really finds the band and my songwriting both really hitting a stride. I feel extremely confident that this batch of songs will be in the set for years to come. IG1 "Crier": Crier was one of the very first songs written for this record. I wrote this one with my buddy Stephen Wilson Jr and it's a song about breaking the stigma that some men, especially Southern men, have with showing emotions. From the time I was born, I was taught that boys don't cry. The man is the emotional rock that other's lean on. I never thought to ask "then who does the man lean on?" Throughout adolescence we learn to suppress these emotions not knowing that they will eventually find a way out and it's usually to the detriment of ourselves. Whether it's drinking, drugs, anger issues or broken relationships, the negative feelings that come with being a human being will always find their way out. It's a song about mental health that addresses some of the more toxic sides of the societal definition of masculinity. My favorite part of the song is that the message is dressed up in the most rock n roll song on the record. From the time the bass line comes in, the song moves in a really aggressive way that I love. As soon as we recorded this tune, we all looked at each other and knew it would be the lead single for the record. It's a powerful message that is matched sonically by a freight train of a band.
August 2024
