Artist: Grant-Lee Phillips
Hometown: Nashville, TN
Song: "Loaded Gun"
Album: The Narrows
Release Date: March 18
Label: Yep Roc Records
In Their Words: "'Loaded Gun' is really about the volatile force of youth, that time in our life when we feel indestructible. It’s sort of your first encounter with the notion of what it means to be on your own, however ill-prepared. Your foot is on the gas, the radio’s up loud.
I’m drawing on an old rockabilly rhythm here, which is sorta’ souped-up country. I really love [Johnny] Cash’s Sun records. They have a dangerous edge. It’s one you can feel in your whole body. I was driving through Atlanta and something about the way people drive down there inspired this one. I wrote most of it behind the wheel in Georgia, but I was thinking back to where I grew up — in rural Stockton, California. Lots of back-roads, trees to get wrapped around. There was a boy’s detention center with hot flood lights that lit up the night, just beyond the orchards. That was one place I didn’t want to wind up." — Grant-Lee Phillips
Photo credit: Denise Siegel