Almost a year-and-a-half after releasing the darkly mellow album Makers, Rocky Votolato is heading in a new direction with his soon-to-be-released The Brag and Cuss. He is still the same singer/songwriter whose raw vocals evoke real emotion, but this time he's with a full band and has chosen a sound even closer to his Texas roots. Lyrically, Votolato sticks to storytelling, drawing inspiration from places you would never guess, including the 60's Beat Generation and Transcendentalist philosophers. Thoughtful and artistically mature, Votolato takes the right direction on The Brag and Cuss.
Although this new album took a mere two months to record, compared to the almost year-and-a-half spent on Makers, the music still resonates with dedication. Part of the disparity between the time periods of recording each album can be attributed to the fact that Votolato has reached the point in his musical career where he is able support himself and his family solely from his artistic accomplishments. This has left him with more time and energy to focus on his songwriting. However, relying exclusively on artistic talents has its own stresses.
“It’s stressful in different ways,” Votolato says. “Not having a structure for what you need to do or have to do…you end up being responsible for all the financial aspects of supporting yourself with no paycheck to depend on.” The Brag and Cuss is somewhat of a departure from Votolato's earlier work—his vocals backed by only soft acoustic guitar and the occasional whine of harmonica. This time, Votolato adds a variety of instruments still keeping his vocals front and center.
“It [recording The Brag and Cuss] was really fun and free compared to how we had done Makers with everything so measured out,” he says about the new album. “A lot of really good artists will get trapped into never allowing themselves to be happy with what they have recorded. Makers was a good experience in a lot of ways, just in terms of making sure that I was really happy with everything, but two months is plenty of time to do that same thing and it’s a lot easier on the psyche.”
“This time we just went at it with an approach of: we’re just going to get together the right group of musicians and trust them and let them write their own parts…have a little bit more fun with it.”
Hoping to remain solely reliant on his musical career for the responsibility of financially providing for his family, Votolato has more reason than ever to convince his audience that his songwriting abilities remain strong. As on Makers, songs from The Brag and Cuss are only loosely autobiographical. He continues with his storytelling style but insists on making them at least partially personal. “Every time I write, I add some autobiographical element to it because why else write it? I always want to have that aspect of autobiography. If you’re writing about something that you have completely no world experience with, it’s going to be hard to capture any sense of something authentic.”
His lyrical style sets Votolato apart from the majority of singer/songwriters. Having the ability to write songs about something other than yourself, yet still allowing them be personally emotional requires maturity. It requires one to let go of egoism. “For most people their first novel is always their life story with a thin veil,” he says about his growth as a writer. “I think that’s true of songwriters too. But as you’ve done it for more and more years, you start to want to find a new character to write about other than yourself.”
Songs on The Brag and Cuss such as "Postcard from Kentucky" resemble some of the more somber tunes on Makers. Votolato's voice is still quietly powerful and is still the most striking aspect of his music. The country influence, while more evident on the new album than any of his previous efforts, is simply an accent to his music. The songs are still sweet folk tunes, but now there’s a touch of Texas influence. The bottom line on Rocky Votolato’s new album is that he is able to integrate his knowledge, self and experience into the eleven tracks that make up The Brag and Cuss. Drawing heavily from American poets as well as his personal realities of raising a family, the songs sound comfortingly familiar. Even those that believe the singer/songwriter genre has been saturated with every possible sound will be satisfied with this new album.
The Brag and Cuss comes out June 19th on Barsuk Records.
