Today I am happy to announce the second single off of “This Is A Photograph” called “Rock Bottom“. I wrote this song loosely based on the late James Lee Lindsey Jr. after passing a mural of him in downtown Memphis during a writing session and falling into a rabbit hole and revisiting his incredible body of work. “Rock Bottom” could be about him or it could be about any of the countless influential souls who were before their time and rose from up from the bottom to the top too quickly, fading away young and never quite getting their due. I was however listening to a lot of Blood Visions and Grown Up, Fucked up while writing and recording this song and had read in an old interview that Lindseys stage name, Jay Reatard, was worn as a badge of honour after being made fun of in grade school which may or may not be why his seminal album Blood Visions features him on the cover, covered in blood, an obvious nod to Sissy Spacek’s charecter in Carrie. I also happened to watch Carrie for the first time around this time period (it was late October after all) and found myself repeating the iconic line—they’re all gonna laugh at you—over and over again.
The recording of Rock Bottom features a laugh track by friends Tim Heidecker and Alia Shawkat as well as Sam Cohen on bass, Nick Kinsey on drums, Cassandra Jenkins and Alecia Chakour on backing vocals and that’s me singing and playing guitar.
Kevin Morby wrote this his seventh album in Memphis and reflects the impermanence of life, as the ghosts of Jeff Buckley, Jay Reatard and others flow through these songs. He once again worked with Sam Cohen, recording at Sam’s Upstate NY studio and at Memphis’s Sam Phillips Recording Co. and special guests this time include Eric Johnson (Fruit Bats), Makaya McCraven and Cassandra Jenkins. “It’s about the battle every family faces,” Kevin says of “This Is A Photograph’s” title track, “that of chasing the clock, to live our lives and hold onto one another for as long as possible.”
The video is a whole lot of fun and will be detailed in a seperate post. Thanks and enjoy xo km
from the forthcoming album ‘This Is A Photograph’, out May 13th on Dead Oceans.
The Fat Angel Sings 