Brent Cobb and Nikki Lane: Soap Box Derby Tour - Washington, D.C

Tue Aug 31 2021 at 07:30 pm

Union Stage | Washington D.C.

Nikki Lane
Publisher/HostNikki Lane
Brent Cobb and Nikki Lane: Soap Box Derby Tour - Washington, D.C Brent Cobb


For his fourth album, Keep 'Em on They Toes, Brent Cobb is giving his songs the space they need to speak for themselves, a reflection of his own decision to write about the way he sees the world. "My last couple of albums have been about people and places, and I wanted this album to be about thoughts and feelings," he says. "I think it's pretty easy to look around and see what's going on in the world. With my heroes and the people that I listen to, it seems like the natural progression for me." Yet at his core, Cobb still writes country songs, so there's a continuity between Keep 'Em on They Toes and past projects like 2016's Shine on Rainy Day (a Grammy nominee for Best Americana Album) and 2018's Providence Canyon, named for a gorge near his hometown of Ellaville, Georgia. After living in Los Angeles and Nashville to develop his music career, Cobb and his family moved back to Georgia a few years ago -- a decision that he says absolutely affected his songwriting. "It's funny because the last two albums were about me growing up in Georgia, and now we're back here," he says. "I'm not writing about missing it anymore, so the songs are coming from within now. It's not a longing for home, it's what I think about now that I live down here." Cobb and members of his band recorded the project in Durham, North Carolina, with producer Brad Cook. "All of his records sound so sparse, but there's a lot of space being taken up at the same time," Cobb says. Inspired by the spaciousness of classic country albums like Jerry Lee Lewis' 1977 LP, Country Memories, the new project allows the listener to hear everything that's going on, yet the songs remain the star of the show. Throughout Keep 'Em on They Toes, Cobb is diplomatic rather than political -- although he's been told numerous times over the years that artists shouldn't voice their opinions. He disputes that notion. "I'm a songwriter for a living," he says. "My job is to write about what I see and think and feel and hear." Cobb and his wife Layne co-wrote the title track as if imparting wisdom to their newborn son, yet he believes that anybody can get on board with its message: "The best thing you can do / When the ignorance shows / Is walk on to your own beat / Keep 'em on they toes." Cobb says he wrote most of the other songs around that song. But... They Toes? "That's just how country folks talk," he says. Next, in "Shut Up and Sing," he reflects on the relationship between artists and social media followers with a clash of fiddle and harmonica conveying the static of two differing opinions. That's followed by a simple country song called "Good Times and Good Love," which he co-wrote with longtime buddy Luke Bryan (who also plays piano on the track). What ties these two songs together, Cobb believes, is the notion that nothing is going to last forever. Why not enjoy the time we have left? Still, the obligations of adulthood add a sense of dry humor to "Sometimes I'm a Clown," while "This Side of the River" serves as a mature reflection on this time in his life. And for those who feel the need to tell him -- and everybody else -- how to live, he poetically brushes them off with "Dust Under My Rug." Yet there isn't a preachy component to Keep 'Em on They Toes. Instead it captures the mindset of a man who values a simpler time despite living in a modern world. One of the album's liveliest songs, "Soap Box," was written by Cobb and his father, Patrick Cobb, who instilled an early love of music and songwriting into his son. Nikki Lane provides a "perfectly imperfect" harmony part, giving the track a cool, casual vibe. In contrast, Cobb built the track of "When You Go" around his acoustic guitar, underscoring the song's message of letting go of unnecessary things. "It's like, man, we've only got one life. A lot of things are important, and of course we've got a world to leave behind for our kids to inherit, but we ain't gonna be able take some of the things with us. We need to maybe not sweat the small stuff," he explains. While "The World Is Ending" fits into the overall feel of the album (not to mention the COVID-19 pandemic), it's actually from 2011, written in response to those who predicted a doomsday when the Mayan calendar ran out in 2012. The cosmic imagery of the song is contrasted with the down-home life he portrays in "Little Stuff," the final track on the album as well as Cobb's personal favorite. "It fits because -- I'll be honest with you -- over the last couple of years I've eaten a lot of mushrooms. I've had a crazy experience on mushrooms about how connected everything is," he says. "I actually went down to a little creek and tripped. I thought, 'All we're here to do is sit and watch the sun rise and set, for as long as we're here.' You've got your opinion, I've got mine, but what I think is really important is taking a trip to the river and getting right with whatever your center is." Even so, Cobb forges a personal connection throughout Keep 'Em on They Toes, just as his musical heroes have done before him. "To me, listening to this album feels like I'm sitting there with somebody, having a conversation," Cobb says. "I would hope that it feels like sitting with an old friend you haven't seen in a while. There's nothing like being alone and listening to an album that is quiet and conversational -- like those old records by Jerry Lee Lewis, Roger Miller, or Willie Nelson. I hope my music is that way to somebody now."
--
NIKKI LANE
Nikki Lane’s stunning third album Highway Queen, out February 17th, 2017, sees the young Nashville singer emerge as one of country and rock’s most gifted songwriters. Co-produced by Lane and fellow singer-songwriter, Jonathan Tyler, this emotional tour-de-force was recorded at Matt Pence’s Echo Lab studio in Denton, Texas as well as at Club Roar with Collin Dupuis in Nashville, Tennessee. Blending potent lyrics, unbridled blues guitars and vintage Sixties country-pop swagger, Lane’s new music will resonate as easily with Lana Del Rey and Jenny Lewis fans as those of Neil Young and Tom Petty. Highway Queen is a journey through heartbreak that takes exquisite turns. The record begins with a whiskey-soaked homage to Lane’s hometown (“700,000 Rednecks”) and ends on the profoundly raw “Forever Lasts Forever,” where Lane mourns a failed marriage – the “lighter shade of skin” left behind from her wedding ring. On “Forever” and the confessional “Muddy Waters,” Lane’s lyrics align her with perceptive songwriters like Nick Lowe and Cass McCombs. Elsewhere, “Companion” is pure Everly Brothers’ dreaminess (“I would spend a lifetime/ Playing catch you if I can”). She goes on a Vegas bender on the rollicking “Jackpot,” fights last-call blues (“Foolish Heart”) and tosses off brazen one-liners at a backroom piano (“Big Mouth”). “Love is the most unavoidable thing in the world,” Lane says. “The person you pick could be half set-up to destroy your life with their own habits – I’ve certainly experienced that before and taken way too long to get out of that mistake.” In 2014, Lane’s second album All or Nothin’ (New West) solidified her sandpaper voice beneath a ten-gallon hat as the new sound and look of outlaw country music. Produced by Dan Auerbach, the record’s bluesy Western guitars paired with Lane’s Dusty Springfield-esque voice earned glowing reviews from NPR, the Guardian and Rolling Stone. In three years since her Walk of Shame debut, Lane said she was living most of the year on the road. Growing up, Lane used to watch her father pave asphalt during blistering South Carolina summers. She’d sit on the roller (“what helps smooth out the asphalt”) next to a guy named Rooster and divvy out Hardee’s lunch orders for the workers. “My father thought he was a country singer,” Lane laughs. “He partied hard at night, but by 6:30 AM he was out on the roads in 100-degree weather.” That’s the southern work ethic, she says. “We didn’t have a lot of money, but I was privileged with the knowledge of how to work hard, how to learn and to succeed when things aren’t set up for me.” Creativity was an unthinkable luxury, she adds. “When people told me I should try to get a record deal for songs I was writing, I was like, ‘that’s cute – I’ve got to be at work at 10 A.M.’” “Becoming a songwriter is one of the most selfish things I’ve ever done,” Lane says plainly. She describes writing her first song at age 25 like it was a necessary act of self-preservation after a devastating breakup. Many of her early songs, she said on Shame and Nothin’, were about the fleetingness of relationships she believed were permanent, she says. Lane’s main line of work in those days was a fashion entrepreneur (she’s currently the owner of Nashville’s vintage clothing boutique High Class Hillbilly). It brought her to cities around the country, New York to Los Angeles to Nashville. And like a true wanderer, Lane’s sound crisscrosses musical genres with ease, while the lonesome romantic in her remains. Even a soft song like, “Send The Sun,” with its lilting downward strum, is flush with bittersweet emotion. “Darling, we’re staring at the same moon,” Lane sings lovingly. “I used to say that to my ex,” she says with cheerful stoicism, “to try to brighten the long nights, stay positive.” Highway Queen is poised to be Lane’s mainstream breakthrough. “Am I excited to spend years of my life in a van, away from family and friends? No, but I’m excited to share my songs, so they’ll reach people and help them get through whatever they’re going through. To me, that’s worth it.” “Lay You Down” is one of those unexpected moments for Lane. “That song was inspired by something Levon Helm’s wife posted on Facebook when he was sick with cancer,” Lane says. “I was just so moved by her telling the world how much love he felt from people writing to them, and moved that because of the Internet, I was able to see that love ­– even from a distance.” The song became surreal for Lane and her band when her longtime guitarist, Alex Munoz, was diagnosed with cancer while they were playing it. “It deepened my perspective and the importance of keeping everyone safe,” says Lane. On the record cover, Lane looks out on wide, unowned Texan plains, leaning on the fearsome horns of a massive steer. Wearing a vintage Victorian dress, the stark photo invokes a time before highways existed. The symbolism isn’t lost on Lane. Highway Queen was a pioneering moment for her as an artist. “I was always a smart girl, always had to yell to be heard,” she says, “But this was the first time in my career where I decided how things were going to go; I was willing to take the heat.” Lane included the bonus track “Champion” as a small testament to that empowerment. “It makes a point,” Lane says with a smile, “That I appreciate what you’re saying, but get the fuck out of my way.”


--
Andrew Combs
Andrew Combs is a singer and songwriter whose work bridges the freedom and possibility of his visual art with the influence of classic writing and storytelling.

Event Venue

Union Stage, 740 Water Street SW, Washington D.C., United States

Tickets

Sharing is Caring: