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Shooter Jennings taps King for new album
NEW YORK – Stephen King is a master at creating characters, but when Shooter Jennings came calling, the best-selling author decided to become one, playing a central figure in the musician's upcoming concept album, "Black Ribbons."
King is the voice of Will O' The Wisp, a radio talk-show host being phased out due to government censorship. He spends his last hour on the air delivering a diatribe about the decline of America, and playing the music of an important band — which happens to be Jennings' new band, Hierophant.
Jennings and King had never met (and still haven't). But Jennings knew that King was a fan, and figured he would be the perfect narrator for his musical tale, which paints a doomsday future of America if it continues on the warped path painted by Will O' The Wisp.
"Once the idea of using him popped in my head, it kind of stayed and never varied," Jennings said in an interview late last month.
The two exchanged ideas through messages, and came up with the foreboding words of Will O' The Wisp together.
"I wrote a script and I sent it to him, and then he took that and he rewrote it and changed it and added quite a lot of great stuff, so at the end of the day, that part of it was a collaboration," Jennings said. (A representative for King said he wasn't available for comment.)
"He was supportive of what I'd written and liked the voice that I had given the character," he added. "I sent it to him and a couple of weeks later, I had a package at my doorstep with a CD, a typed-out transcript and a picture of him doing it."
Jennings said he came up with the idea for the album as he was driving across the country with his fiancee, actress Drea de Matteo, and their infant daughter, Alabama, as the economic crisis hit in late 2008. As he listened to the radio, he heard the fears of people who predicted everything from a police state to the end of the United States as it once was.
Jennings concedes the album paints a grim picture of the future.
"It seems like we're losing our freedoms and a lot of our rights day by day based on the things that have happened in the world," he says. "But I think that the overall message of the record is a positive one, that truth and love and the connection between two people is something that no matter what happens in the world, it can't be touched."
"Black Ribbons," due out March 2, is Jennings' first CD in two years. The son of country legend Waylon Jennings has done country and hard rock music, and this album blends both genres with his new band. Jennings is hesitant to put a label on his new sound with Hierophant.
"I think to know me as a person is to know that my brain is much more (all) over the place than one area, and I think with this record I've really opened all of those boundaries and all of those doors," he said.
>>> Source
King is the voice of Will O' The Wisp, a radio talk-show host being phased out due to government censorship. He spends his last hour on the air delivering a diatribe about the decline of America, and playing the music of an important band — which happens to be Jennings' new band, Hierophant.
Jennings and King had never met (and still haven't). But Jennings knew that King was a fan, and figured he would be the perfect narrator for his musical tale, which paints a doomsday future of America if it continues on the warped path painted by Will O' The Wisp.
"Once the idea of using him popped in my head, it kind of stayed and never varied," Jennings said in an interview late last month.
The two exchanged ideas through messages, and came up with the foreboding words of Will O' The Wisp together.
"I wrote a script and I sent it to him, and then he took that and he rewrote it and changed it and added quite a lot of great stuff, so at the end of the day, that part of it was a collaboration," Jennings said. (A representative for King said he wasn't available for comment.)
"He was supportive of what I'd written and liked the voice that I had given the character," he added. "I sent it to him and a couple of weeks later, I had a package at my doorstep with a CD, a typed-out transcript and a picture of him doing it."
Jennings said he came up with the idea for the album as he was driving across the country with his fiancee, actress Drea de Matteo, and their infant daughter, Alabama, as the economic crisis hit in late 2008. As he listened to the radio, he heard the fears of people who predicted everything from a police state to the end of the United States as it once was.
Jennings concedes the album paints a grim picture of the future.
"It seems like we're losing our freedoms and a lot of our rights day by day based on the things that have happened in the world," he says. "But I think that the overall message of the record is a positive one, that truth and love and the connection between two people is something that no matter what happens in the world, it can't be touched."
"Black Ribbons," due out March 2, is Jennings' first CD in two years. The son of country legend Waylon Jennings has done country and hard rock music, and this album blends both genres with his new band. Jennings is hesitant to put a label on his new sound with Hierophant.
"I think to know me as a person is to know that my brain is much more (all) over the place than one area, and I think with this record I've really opened all of those boundaries and all of those doors," he said.
>>> Source
Comments
A: The idea popped into my head by the time I reached L.A. Someone at Entertainment Weekly hooked us up and forwarded an e-mail from me to him. It didn't hit me that I got Stephen King wrapped into some scheme until he e-mailed me back. But I knew he was a fan. Eventually I sent him my idea for what Will O' the Wisp should be and he liked it. The next thing I knew, there was a CD of his recording on my doorstep, with a photograph of him in the studio and a transcript.
>>> Q&A: Shooter Jennings
The effect of "Black Ribbons" is heightened considerably by King's droll, seemingly off-the-cuff riffs, full of righteous indignation and underlying humor as he rails against mounting government oppression and champions the importance of the voice of the individual to counter it. The album's conceit is that Will O' the Wisp is about to be shut down by the forces of conformity; he's making his last stand playing music by Hierophant, the fictional name Jennings has given the .357s for this project.
"It's a tremendously spooky idea," King, who had admired the .357s music he'd heard, said in a separate interview about his reasons for volunteering his services. "He sent me a draft, and it was just about perfect. I altered a few things and expanded some of it, but he knew exactly what he wanted. . . . To me, it was brilliant, the way the talk and the music weave in and out. I haven't heard the final version, but I heard a rough mix I thought was pretty good, even though I'm not in love with the sound of my own voice."
Not only hasn't King heard the finished version of the album, he and Jennings have never met, nor spoken by telephone. Jennings, a longtime fan of King's writing, originally reached out to the author by e-mail, which is how their whole collaboration was conducted. King recorded his bits at a studio in Florida and sent the digital files back to Jennings, who inserted them into the music he'd crafted at his home and at album producer Dave Cobb's home studio in Silver Lake.
>>> Full story
If you were to pick a modern artist to revive the concept album, that staple of the 1960s and ’70s rock scene out of fashion since Lava Lamps, it probably wouldn’t be Shooter Jennings. Since his first record in 1995, Jennings, the son of country star Waylon Jennings, has issued a mix of country and Southern rock songs whose main ambition seems to be as good-time music for beer parties. But in the last few years, Jennings grew disillusioned with Nashville, left his label, became a dad and appears to have re-thought his career.
The result is a new band with the very un-country name Hierophant and a new record, “Black Ribbons,” released today, that aims to be a concept album about truth and freedom. The songs, heavier and more psychedelic-sounding than Jennings’ previous work, are connected with narration by Stephen King, who plays a cynical radio DJ, Will O’ The Wisp. Jennings, who says he wanted to make “an audio movie,” talked with Speakeasy about his new musical direction.
The Wall Street Journal: What was the inspiration for “Black Ribbons”?
Shooter Jennings: I drove my family across the U.S. in an RV. It was back in September of ’08, when the economy collapsed. There was fear mongering and isolation, and I was listening to all these late-night talk radio shows. Things seemed really grim and scary. It became apparent that we’re being shifted towards a much more government-controlled and regulated world.
How did Stephen King come to be involved?
I knew he was a fan to some degree because he wrote my name in passing in one of his books. He said he was extremely busy but send him the album. I was open to him writing the whole script. I didn’t want to push any ideas on this amazing writer. When he agreed to be Will O’ the Wisp, I was like, oh, man, now I’ve got this American icon on the hook. I have to deliver. I can’t believe we pulled this off this kooky idea.
This record is notably heavier — both in music and lyrics — than your other albums.
I wanted to put out music that was really meaningful, not just about fun and having a good time. I’m not saying I think it’s bad I had a song about cocaine on one of my earlier records. But there’s a different weight that comes when you have a child.
Concept albums like Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” used to be a rock staple. Why aren’t more made these days?
I don’t know if that many people can make them. I think with a lot of big artists these days, the labels are more concerned with having a hit single on iTunes. I knew the reality with this album. I sent the tracks to Stephen King and he said, ‘I have no idea how this will be received commercially.’ I love that we turned in this 20-song thing to the record company.
Do you expect a fan backlash from your country fans?
I think the real and true fans are going to follow. Some people say things like he needs to go back to playing the music he was meant to play. It’s like, this guy in Peoria knows the music I should play better than me?