To write what he knows best is a new lesson he’s learned over time and a point of creative and personal evolution. There is a great deal there to unpack for an artist, but he didn’t always feel this way about his craft. In his life, he’s toiled as a day laborer, worked as a church missionary and played thousands of gigs in venues of all kinds. Rateliff – whose last solo record, Falling Faster Than You Can Run, was released in 2013 – knows that mining personal stories and experience is both fertile ground and necessary work. That many of the songs on the thoughtful, 10-track record ring both personal and diverse is no coincidence.
It’s the equivalent of a text message response to an ex in which you write, “Why are you still texting me?” On the relatable, “You Need Me,” Rateliff wonders, eyebrow raised, why he’s being asked to help by someone who just broke off a relationship with him. But the lyrics of the song reminisce mournfully, offering a sense of the forlorn despite the all-in-good-fun packaging. On the album’s third song, “All Or Nothing,” Rateliff recalls a vaudevillian sensibility, his voice bouncy and somehow a bit clownish. His voice rolls like breeze over some green country hills, his rhythmic acoustic guitar backed by a soft, humming electric slide. On the new record, which incorporates some of the musicians from the Night Sweats, Rateliff demonstrates his knack for playing myriad roles. It’s about subtlety and taking our time with the songs.” But this new stuff is not coming from that place.
“The Night Sweats are fueled by this certain type of energy, a real physical energy.
“I feel like these songs certainly come from a different place and wouldn’t make sense on a Night Sweats record,” Rateliff says. As the age-old American saying goes, Rateliff “contains multitudes.” In fact, as Rateliff puts it, he sees himself as multiple characters when he writes, a skill that affords him the opportunity to record a roaring chorus or a collection of enchantingly pretty songs, as he does on his latest solo release, And It’s Still Alright. Known foremost for his booming voice as the frontman of Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats – whose thunderous song “S.O.B.” became a worldwide phenomenon in 2015 – Nathaniel Rateliff can also sing a little ditty.
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