RATELIFF RIFFS ON NEW SOLO ALBUM AND THE DEATH STAR
The throaty singer, sans Night Sweats, on the struggle, loss and inspiration in his new solo album
From his new home, a 1971-built structure near Ken Caryl Road in unincorporated Jefferson County, Nathaniel Rateliff has an enviable view of Colorado’s natural wonders.
As with everything great in his life, it’s tempered. “I’ll be standing out there, just south of Red Rocks in those canyons, and I’ll say, ‘It’s beautiful out here!’ “the 41-year-old musician said last month from his manager’s office in Denver. “And then somebody will be like, ‘What’s that Death Star-looking thing up there?’ And I’ll say, ‘Oh, that’s Lockheed Martin. So ... pretty much the Death Star.’ ”
Rateliff is quick to express gratitude for his hard-won success, which lately includes a mix of “Tonight Show
Starring Jimmy Fallon” appearances (he’s a favorite of the host), sold-out global tours with neo-soul band the Night Sweats, and gigs such as opening for the Rolling Stones at the home of the Denver Broncos in August.
He smiles easily and often these days, despite the oft-weighty themes in his music, and is fulfilling his dream of working with idols such as John Prine, Mavis Staples and Willie Nelson (with whom he has a cannabis-brand partnership). All the aforementioned artists have also recorded music with Rateliff as part of a 7-inch splitsingle series for Rateliff’s nonprofit Marigold Project.
But even with his career on solid ground, he frets.
The stout, bearded Missouri native needs to lose weight and lower his blood pressure, he says, although on this day he looks fit in a striped, collared shirt that’s unbuttoned down past his solar plexus. His tight jeans and black knit cap are something of a uniform he maintains on stage and off — layers of comfort between him and the world.
His new solo album, “And It’s Still Alright,” is set to release Feb. 14 on Stax Records, and the already sold-out tour for it speaks to Rateliff’s mainstream success with the Night Sweats. He’ll bring a 10-piece band along on the tour, including members of the Night Sweats and producer/musician James Barone (Tennis, Beach House), as well as a string quartet.
But Rateliff is afraid the solo album could be a victim of his better-known gig, a confusing detour into the quieter, more acoustic music he made before the Night Sweats’ full-throated, horn-laden hits like “S.O.B.” That song was certified gold (sales of 500,000 or more) after it was released on the Night Sweats’ 2015 debut full-length.
As always, he struggles to be better. Stronger. More accountable to the longtime circle of friends who continue to help him.
“If you’d asked me what success looked like back in the (the band) Born in the Flood or Rounder (Records) days, I would have said for this to be sustainable for everyone in my band and their families,” he said, referring to his mid-to-late 2000s Denver rock quartet and his acoustic-period label, respectively. “Now that it’s grown into that, it’s not just about sustainability. It’s more like: How do we thrive? And how do we become a bigger, better part of our community?”
He’s answering the last question, in part, with his Marigold Project, a threeyear-old nonprofit foundation dedicated to economic and social justice. It’s named after Rateliff and his father’s practice of planting marigolds as nectar-producing ground cover, and a tribute to the dad who died in a car accident when Rateliff was 13.
Marigold’s vinyl splitsingle series, released on the revived Stax label, routes proceeds to the artists’ nonprofits of choice. The songs for it were recorded partly at Rateliff’s new home studio south of Denver, which he has dubbed Broken Creek.
“(Stuff ) is getting darker,” he said. “I don’t just want to wait around for this presidency to turn into a dictatorship.”
The Marigold Project helps temper Rateliff’s fears for the future even as he’s found something resembling equilibrium in his personal life. That’s not a small thing for a man whose biggest song, “S.O.B.,” is about struggling with sobriety amid violent, hallucinatory withdrawals from alcohol.
Often on the road, Rateliff has a new home, is single after a divorce from longtime wife Jules (he has a new girlfriend, too), and has been praised by everyone from Rolling Stone critics to music legend Robert Plant — the latter an early proponent of Rateliff’s raspy, bittersweet folk melodies.
But as noted, it’s cost him. Alcohol addiction, a perennial theme in his music, took close friend and Night Sweats producer Richard Swift away from him in 2018. At the time, Rateliff was planning to record his first, postNight Sweats solo album at Swift’s home studio before Swift (a producer for and member of The Shins, The Black Keys and many others) died of “complications from hepatitis, as well as liver and kidney distress,” according to a Facebookposted statement from Swift’s family.
Given that Swift’s family decided to keep the late musician’s home studio (National Freedom) intact in Cottage Grove, Ore., Rateliff felt it was only right to start the solo record there. He brought along a tight circle of friends, including Barone, close confidant Pat Meese (Night Sweats drummer and prolific Denver musician) and a few others, like Swift’s buddy, the accomplished engineer and musician Chris Colbert (Mazzy Star, The Walkmen).
“They had the four-track tape machine that helped make (Wilco’s) ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’ and lots of other albums just sitting there against the wall, and we didn’t even use it,” Rateliff lamented. “It was a quick eight days and we only had time for a song per day.”
The album bursts with songs that are declarative but thoughtfully sharp, much like Rateliff’s hero Roger Miller. But while it’s a Rateliff trademark, the 10 songs on “And It’s Still Alright” sound more animated and varied than on past solo albums like “In Memory of Loss” or “Falling Faster Than You Can Run” — the vocals more lived-in and idiosyncratic, the guitars nimbler yet wiser.
“I feel like I’ve really changed,” Rateliff said. “I’m more comfortable with my voice. I heard a song the other day from one of those (Rounder) recordings and I was like, ‘Wow, just even the character of my voice sounds like I’m forcing myself to sing a certain way.’ I wanted it to feel like a departure from those days, because my influences are a lot more diverse.”
They now range from 1970s singer-songwriters such as Harry Nilsson (a big, obvious presence on the album) and Simon & Garfunkel to buddies and peers like Kevin Morby, Gregory Alan Isakov and Damien Jurado — the latter of whom will take turns opening Rateliff’s sold-out solo dates.
Rateliff also pushed himself to try new styles, having logged countless hours on the road and in the air touring globally with the Night Sweats over the past five years.
“Having (guitarist) Luke Mossman in the Night Sweats really helped me look at chord structures differently,” Rateliff said in reference to the picking style on the rousing new song “All or Nothing.” “Luke has so much training and has studied jazz, so it’s nice to bounce things off him.”
Whether solo or with the Night Sweats, Rateliff sees himself as part of crew — not in an entourage-boasting way, but as a channel for the creativity of others. That’s another Rateliff trademark going back to his Born in the Flood days, and why he’s a natural frontman. Even when solo, he relies on the proverbial village to support him, offer feedback (or turn it down in the studio, as the case may be) and polish his own creativity.
“I’d love to produce other (musicians), but wouldn’t even consider doing it without Pat Meese,” Rateliff said of the multifaceted Denver musician, whose roots in the scene run just as deep as his own. “It would be arrogant of me to try.”
Rateliff likes to take care of his people, especially as his relative scale of success continues to tilt mainstream. During the Rounder days, he was thrilled to go on the road with Denver’s The Fray at the height of its success. That allowed him to pay his bandmates in The Wheel (his backing act at the time) about $800 each for five weeks of work — a whopping amount to all involved.
“We’d get a hotel room and sneak people in the back, but someone still always had to sleep on the floor or in the van,” he remembered. “That’s all we could afford.”
Touring Europe — completely by himself — and being dropped by his label, his A&R, his publishing company and other handlers also taught Rateliff about perseverance and motivation. He’s glad he didn’t get famous back in the Born in the Flood days, when the band turned down a record contract from Roadrunner only to later break up. He doesn’t think he could have handled it then — the partying, the touring — and is glad he’s got years of having his ego handed to him in a paper bag.
“I just don’t think I would have made the same decisions or written the same songs had people been paying more attention to what I was doing then,” he said. “I needed the humility.”
The former carpenter and gardener remains that way, getting emotional and vulnerable on stage during shows, greeting friends around town with hugs, and hanging with band families after hometown-holiday concerts instead of diving into green-room largesse.
“There was a lot of unfinished material for this record that deals with the same themes as the 11 songs we recorded,” Rateliff said, referencing the end of his marriage and the death of Swift. “But I have ideas of where they can live. You end up sitting on stuff and thinking it’ll never see the light of day, but then you rediscover it. It can take on a whole new life after you forget about it.”