2018’s Sunlight Tonight felt like a proper introduction to the solo career of The Whigs’ vocalist Parker Gispert in that it saw the frontman of a rock and roll band swap his electric guitar and backing band for an acoustic guitar and a considerably more singer-songwriter approach. But his follow-up LP, the soon-to-be-released Golden Years, dives straight back into what’s made his music with the Athens-spawned ensemble so appealing—albeit with a twist of Nashville’s heartland flavoring.
“Golden Years is a full-band rock album and a return to being inspired by some of my first musical influences,” Gispert shares of the project, which officially drops tomorrow. “I’m a child of the ’90s, and I think there’s a good bit of grunge and ’90s indie rock in the mix, as well as classic rock influences like Loaded by The Velvet Underground, Armed Forces by Elvis Costello, or Sticky Fingers by The Rolling Stones—all of which I was listening to a lot while writing the album.”
With much of the garage-rock edge shaved off the full-band sound we’re used to hearing Gispert’s vocals accompanying, the songs on this new record are a far cry from his solo debut. “Originally I’d plotted the follow up to Sunlight Tonight as a more acoustic affair,” he claims, “but I felt like the clash of rock and roll and its inherent dissonance were a more appropriate backdrop for the lyrical topics I wanted to write about. Fortunately I was able to work with Roger Moutenot, who engineered, mixed, and then co-produced the album with me at his Haptown Studio in Nashville. Roger was able to capture the emotion of me and my band rocking out on these tunes, and I’m really looking forward to people hearing the album and getting to hear this collection of songs live at shows."
While we’ll have to wait a week for any of those live shows, Gispert is sharing a stream of Golden Years with us a day early below. Pre-order the record here, and find his upcoming tour schedule on his site here.
