Despite its release nearly a year and a half after the band's reunion, the recording process for Turnpike Troubadours' new album, A Cat In The Rain, actually began prior to its highly anticipated return to the stage.
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Bassist R.C. Edwards described the studio setting as a mix of excitement having the gang back together to anxiety wondering how it all would go. Wrangling the group in and keeping them in check throughout was producer Shooter Jennings, who Edwards referred to as "my favorite producer we've worked with" and someone who helped to keep him comfortable in a place he sometimes struggles to be.
"I've always seen myself more as a live performer," Edwards tells Wide Open Country. "There's just something about putting yourself under a microscope when you go into the studio that can get into your head thinking about how this is how the song is going to sound for all of time, so I better get it right. Sometimes that kind of pressure can make you better, but other times you overthink things and get away from what you should be doing."
Released on Aug. 25, A Cat In The Rain documents the band's road of resilience and redemption after a 2019 hiatus that led to frontman Evan Felker getting sober, reconciling with his wife Staci and becoming a father. The album features some of the his most introspective and vulnerable songwriting to date with love letters to his wife like "East Side Love Song (Bottoms Up)" and "Brought Me" alongside confronting his sobriety on "The Rut" ("I don't miss the taste of liquor or really anything about it / But the temporary shelter was a welcome compromise").
"We kept telling ourselves throughout the process of making this record that Evan has a lot to say, so let's just get out of the way and let the songs be itself and we'll figure out what suits it best," says Edwards.
However, Felker is far from the only songwriter included on the project. Edwards brought in "Chipping Mill," a co-write with fellow Oklahoman and frequent Turnpike collaborator Lance Roark that likens the adversity life throws at you to a sawmill. The song fits perfectly into the album's overall narrative of resilience with its resounding message of moving through life with good intentions no matter how much you fall short of them or what obstacles appear in your path.
"It's about your basic relationships with people and always trying to do the best you can no matter how many times you screw up," says Edwards. "From a metaphysical sense it's also about how we're all just atoms and that part of us will still be around no matter how much it gets split and broken down."
Another frequent Turnpike partner with their stamp on the record is John Fullbright with "Three More Days". The heartfelt tune is one that most musicians and road warriors can relate to, being away from their loved ones. While the song doesn't shy away from an artist's love for the road it's also quick to point out the resulting consequence of chasing their dreams. That sentiment is reflected by Felker, who added that the song is one he's long wanted to cut.
"I always loved "Three More Days" and now I think of my daughter when I'm hearing it or singing it," Felker said in a press release.
Also contributing to the album's redemption arc are a pair of covers, Jerry Jeff Walker's pleading "Won't You Give Me One More Chance" and the Ozark Mountain Daredevils' "Black Sky," the later taking on an ominous, foreboding tone with it's heavy incorporation of harmonica and delta blues flair. Even though it's not an original, it'd be easy to mistake the song's lyrics for Felker's with lines like "It's a black sky formin' on the ridge / It's a woman waitin', standin' on the bridge / It's the price that you pay for walkin' on the ledge / It's everything you do and nothin' that you did," making it a natural fit with the band.
"We're just now starting to work up some of these new songs for our live show," says Edwards. "But I could see ['Black Sky'] fitting into our set well with 'Long Hot Summer Day' due to its foot stomping, harmonica, fiddle and swampy blues feel."
Covers and collaborators aside, the album's most reflective moment comes on title track "A Cat In The Rain." On it, Felker appears to reflect on past troubles in his life, his road to acknowledging them and his journey to make amends after taking "every bad fork in the road," causing his winning hand to go busted "and my luck was winding down." The humility doesn't stop there though, with him later touching on how your actions stay with you forever and the pressure that can sometimes come along with it, singing:
"You can try to put the past behind
It's on your clothes like burning pine
Is it gin or turpentine, you keep in your canteen?
If pressure makes a diamond, babe, I still might come out clean."
Collectively, A Cat In The Rain is a blueprint to recovery as much as it is proof positive of taking the time to get yourself better. After three years apart and nearly six since its last record, Turnpike's newest batch of songs are further evidence that the band is back better than ever. It's also a testament to the band itself, which has faced hell and high water for close to two decades, remaining intact and leaving their mark on red dirt country music that won't soon fade away.
"I'd like to think we know what we're doing a little bit more," joked Edwards about how making music has changed since forming in 2005. "We've been around a long time, long enough that I've seen a lot of other bands come and go and its members change. There's something special about playing with the same guys as long as we have and the comfort level and familiarity that comes with that."
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