High school football star turned renegade film director turned corporate content head turned songwriter Scott Ballew has worn so many hats that it’s a shock he still has hair on his head (is this how balding works?). Ahead of his new album Rio Bravo, the artist has shared “Old Fashioned,” which is basically about how boring it can be hearing your friends talk about drugs. The live, raw recording features Ballew backed by acoustic guitar, billiard-hall piano, and swinging drums. The playfulness of the instrumental belies the real nature of Ballew’s lyrics in a fascinating way. He sings, “The devil says ‘Take these pills and wait’ / The preacher says to pay my bills with hate / Am I just changing seats on a crashing plane? / Finding God, the old fashioned way.”
Regarding the track, Ballew says: “A bunch of my friends went through a phase of doing a lot of ayahuasca, and they wouldn't shut up about it. This song is in response to that, and touches on my own path towards enlightenment. If the theme of the album is letting go and surrender, then this song might be the one that addresses that most directly.
“There was a magical and happy accident when recording this one,” Ballew continues. ”It was the last one recorded live and we had lost two inputs from the tape machine. We had to scramble and make do with what we had, placing mics in positions we would have never voluntarily placed them. The result is this really cool/muddy Rolling-Stones-meets-Guns-n’-Roses sound of my guitar and vocals that couldn’t have been achieved if we tried. The final result is somewhere between ‘Far Away Eyes’ by The Stones and ‘Saving Grace.’”
And this writing is like Hemingway meets Pynchon. We’ve all done quite good. Check out the track below, and pre-order Rio Bravo here.
