Agnostic soul music
NATHANIEL RATELIFF & THE NIGHT SWEATS
When Nathaniel Rateliff was 18, he left his hometown of Hermann, Mo., for Denver with a missionary group. When he got to the mile-high city, he found a dearth of soul. In its place, the budding musician discovered he had lost his faith. Nearly 20 years later, the chasm between the sacred and the secular haunt Rateliff ’s music. This tension, brought to bear on his self- titled debut album with band The Night Sweats and his longtime collaborator Joseph Pope III, has yielded a surprise hit in SOB, a fiery agnostic soul ditty about drinking to get over a breakup. The Post’s Jon Dekel spoke with Rateliff and Pope III about the song’s success and creating religious experiences without belief.
Q You’ve said that SOB was a throwaway song. Are you surprised at its success?
Nathaniel Rateliff We’re really surprised. It was kind of a bitch to put Son of a Bitch on the record. Basically, it was the last day and Richard Swift, our friend who produced the record was like, “What do we have left?” and I didn’t want to record it but he said, “So, the A& R guy loves this song, right?” Yeah. “When you play it live, people love it, right?” Uh huh. “And everybody else loves it, right?” Yeah. “What about you?” Nah, y’ know. I’m pretty tired at this point. We’d been drinking for two weeks straight. So he suggested we try and do it and we’ll try not to make it sound like a bunch of dads playing in their garage. All right. So he lent his ideas to it and it’s essentially the same song we were doing before, but Richard made it sound not so dad-y.
Q That narrative seems to fit in with your lyrics. Your music seems to have a theme
of being lost and found and lost again.
NR You hit the nail on the head. A lot of lost but with hopeless optimism.
Q Some would say that requires faith.
NR -Notot in God, but in some thing.
Q So you play a kind of agnostic soul music?
NR I- do, and I consider my self to be agnostic as well.
Q Being from the American South and growing up in the church, does that give you pause? Joseph Pope III Well, we both grew up in the church. Growing up in Missouri in a poor town, going to church was one of the only things you had to do as a kid. Go to youth group. But we’ve both moved away from that.
NR But as far as soul music, the idea of being soulful doesn’t necessarily have to do with being religious. Where the style of music comes from is the same place all good music comes from: honesty.
P III Soul music brings people together. For years we were playing this down-tempo folk-based music, which elicits a certain response. But now I see people have kind of a religious experience. Every night it humbles us to no end when we play Son of a Bitch and everybody starts chanting the chorus. It’s really moving for us.
NR Any time you’re lucky enough to experience somebody else being moved by something that you’re doing, it’s what we’re in it for.
Q I guess that means you’re assuming the preacher role?
NR From the pulpit you can see how easy it is to manipulate people.