I was kinda having a hard time in my personal life while I was making the record too so…” I can play drums drunk, I can play bass drunk or if I get too drunk somebody else can do it. We’d do a song a day and just try to get the vocals done before I got too drunk or before Richard got too drunk. Rateliff explains that his approach was very much of the ‘just get on with it’ variety, which appealed to his own sensibility. The new album was recorded with Richard Swift, who has also worked on Damian Jurado and The Shins' albums. I think I bear hugged a kid until he cried.” Pope: “And, I mean, we’re joking about it but this is an issue of bullying that teenagers get online to the point of being driven to suicide.” Rateliff: “When I was a kid I got bullied, but once I figured out you could actually beat up the bullies then I just started to beat up all the bullies and became like the bully of bullies.
I just feel like there’s a culture - it’s just like - how have we gotten to be these cynical, spoiled little shit heads? Have they never gotten spanked? Have they never gotten slapped in the mouth by their parents? Is that how it happens? It’s kind of a shame our culture is like that - did everybody forget ’if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say it at all’?" ”I try not to look at anything, but there was some sponsored link for our gig over here, and somebody just wrote, ‘no one cares’, and I was like, you little fucking prick. On the subject of ‘connectivity’ and social media, Rateliff seems fairly dubious of its value.
There’s this weird ownership over celebrities, I’m not say were celebrities, well you might be.” Nathaniel: “Really? Hmm.” When Bowie was creating what he was doing we didn't have so much connectivity between the world, and culture has changed a lot. Especially because who ever gave a shit about what we were doing?” Pope adds, “I think it’s partially because of the world we live in now. Rateliff said, “I don’t know why people get so upset about genre. In terms of the reaction, of some, to the change in musical style they have taken, both seem faintly surprised. Rateliff - "I’m totally gonna cry all day!" The family you grew up with you have a distance, especially for us, I mean were about 12 hours away from any family members.You kind of end up having your own life once you have that family group and you fuck it up…” Rateliff: “When you get older and leave home you develop these relationships with people who become your family. Pope: “Which kinda shattered my world as well.” It was the only time we had ever communicated via Skype.” The time in Nathaniel’s life when he kinda drew on that inspiration for that song he was in London, and I was back home.
Especially because we were over here one of the first times playing it. Pope pauses to think, “I try not to think about that actually, and look around at what we’re doing and the joy of the crowd and all that stuff. Nathaniel Rateliff: 'People tell me they pray for me, and I say, 'Go for it'' I remember that situation and it bums me out.’” He turns to Pope, “You were just like, ‘I feel like I’ve failed you as a friend.’" Pope explains that the new direction Rateliff’s music has taken is “just more fun to play, or it’s a different kind of fun.” Rateliff adds, “One time we were playing 'S.O.B' and he was like, ‘I know everybody loves that song, but I just know what you wrote it about. Much as underneath the raucous delivery of his music bubbles a great deal of heartbreak.īoth Rateliff and Pope are open when talking about the music and the personal circumstances that surround it. It’s a chat filled with Rateliff’s sense of fun and wry, self effacing humour - but it’s often punctuated with struggles they’ve faced along the way.
It’s a comment that’s characteristic of the conversation I have with Rateliff and his friend and Night Sweat, Joseph Pope III. “It’s just upbeat - its still the same sad bastard songs.” deadpans Nathaniel Rateliff, in response to the charge that his music has taken a seismic shift in direction from the folky introspection of his earlier records.
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