‘Love Is Weird’ recounts singer-songwriter’s recent trials, tribulations
Last fall, Brian Paddock was offered the biggest show of his music career thus far: a slot opening for The Black Lillies at Central Filling Station. The occasion was meant to celebrate the venerable Americana band’s newest album release, but it also provided Paddock with the opportunity to showcase his own first full-length solo LP, “Under New Management,” along with the American Gentlemen, his newly assembled backing band. “It was an opportune time,” he says, “because two days before I had gotten some pretty bad news about my health, and I wasn’t sure if I was going to be around much longer.”
The former frontman for popular Knoxville roots-rockers Shimmy & the Burns had just been diagnosed with cancer. “I had resigned myself to the fact that I could be dead in six months,” he says.
Paddock’s treatments for the disease turned out to be successful, however, and he now is in remission. In the several months that elapsed between the diagnosis and his recovery, he continued to write and play shows. Ironically, his long, hard years of traversing the regional bar circuit were starting to pay off, with his live performances attracting greater numbers in bigger venues. He also was producing strong recordings that drew positive criticism: first the “Villains” EP under his old Shimmy moniker and then the aforementioned “Under New Management.”
Simultaneously, though, Paddock’s personal life was continuing to come apart at the seams. Just as he was barely beginning to recover from his own sickness, his mother fell fatally ill. Scrapping a planned month of tour dates on the road, Paddock stayed in town during her transition to hospice care, her passing and her funeral arrangements and services.
During that tragic period, Paddock wrote what became the bulk of the new record, “Love Is Weird,” and he reassembled the American Gentlemen, teaching them a few of the songs he’d written “in the throes of last year’s events,” as he calls that period of time. After performing them at a few local gigs they played over the holidays, Paddock proposed that they record an album together.
“I think it turned out pretty good,” Paddock says of the results.
“Love is Weird” showcases Paddock maturing even further as an artist while still belting out wonderfully idiosyncratic songs with his distinctive whiskey-and-cigarette-soaked raspy growl. The backing band’s contributions sound like the countrified love child of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Neil Young and Crazy Horse, and this batch of songs deals with heavy, deep themes like love, loss and regret while still managing to come off sounding upbeat and laden with hooks.
Paddock has a penchant for writing songs that hit hard from line one. “That’s kinda the idea,” he says. “I cut pretty deep on this one.” He says he takes inspiration in this regard from what he learned from journalism: packing the strongest information into the lede to catch the interest of listeners right away.
Paddock says that he used to labor over bridges that didn’t necessarily “move the story” forward and songs that didn’t work in general. Now, though, with years of experience practicing and honing songs both alone and onstage, he has refined his instincts. Showing no remorse, he says simply of some songs, “I will walk away. I used to write a song a day, and pretty much all of them sucked. I know when it’s not working.”
It certainly is working now.
Album opener “Still Beautiful” features gnarly electric guitar, warm organ swells and rocking, feel-good drum fills near the bridge. The chorus is equally strong: “This life it’s the hardest thing anyone can do/But even when it brings me down/It’s still beautiful” are memorable lines. It contains other lyrical gems like “I was just gasoline/Your demons were the flames,” “I loved you like a brother/But you weren’t even my friend,” and “I wish you forgive me/I wish I would forgive me, too.”
The title track is a prime example of Paddock’s uncanny knack for hitting listeners right in the gut with a killer first line: “She’s the second-born kid to a first-rate son of a b****.” Later, he creates a great universal sing-along chorus that should go over well in bars and at festivals: “Love is weird/People are strange/I’m so confused by things they do and say.”
“Glory Days,” another notable track, is a dark, minor-key rocker with a hard, steady backbeat and several standout lyrics like, “Rock ‘n’ roll it may save your soul/But it’s bound to break your heart,” “Sold my soul to these old sad songs/Believin’ they were real” and the chorus “I sure hope these ain’t my glory days/There’s better things to come/I sure hope these ain’t my glory days/’Cause all I feel is numb.”
Paddock says that such laser-focused lyrical precision is no mistake; he practices and edits his songs for months before they are fit for public consumption, and he will test them onstage – sometimes for years – before they make it to the studio. “Maggie” is one song that predates his solo career and harkens back to the Shimmy era, and “34,” a re-record from that group’s first record, is one of the oldest songs in his entire catalog. “It’s the oldest song that I still play in public,” he says of the track.
“I started out not having any clue about structure,” he says, “and it kinda was a good thing, and it’s cool if you do that because you’re trying to do something. … But if you do it because you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re just a hack.”
These days, even though he may get the idea for a song and write a draft all at once in as little as 30 minutes, he says, “I can’t even count the amount of time I spend editing. … [I] cut out as much as possible.”
Paddock is rejoined on “Love Is Weird” by the American Gentlemen, which features Arbor producer and multi-instrumentalist John T. Baker on bass, ace player Denny Myers on electric guitar, his old Shimmy & the Burns bandmate Gurney Barrett on drums and Joey Jaccard (Burnin’ Hermans) on keys. Evie Andrus contributed fiddle to the record. Local graphic-art whiz Jody Collins (Feral Giant) fleshed out Paddock’s idea for the cover art, which features a depiction of Arlo, one of his Boston terriers, wearing a Colonial-era getup. It’s like a play on George Washington’s visage on the dollar bill crossed with an ornate, flowery tattoo design.
“Everybody in the band is a better musician than I am,” Paddock says, something he touches on earlier when talking about Shimmy & the Burns. At that time, he says that he was still learning how to play his instrument. He has discussed elsewhere his late start in music due to lack of confidence, but with time and experience, his chops have grown, as have his leadership skills, his ability to discern his brand and his willingness to listen to others. He says that playing team ball with a band that is gelling so well also has made for a great recording and live experience.
“Everyone is listed as co-producer,” Paddock says. He cites numerous places his bandmates came up with key instrumental ideas that influenced the direction of the songs. For example, he credits Meyers and Baker for ideas for guitar on the title track and on “Minnesota,” and he mentions Barrett meeting up with him to build the rhythm arrangements for every song. He also points out his own willingness to begin thinking of his songs as things meant to be played for entertainment value, something he, as a “songwriter’s songwriter,” used to be diametrically opposed to philosophically.
“Maybe more people will listen to what I have to say if I make the package more palatable,” he laughs.
When it comes to booking and beginning his first longer stretches of touring, Paddock says, “I’m still too anxious and self-conscious.” He recently did a few consecutive weeks with Handsome and the Humbles’ lead man Josh Smith that took him as far as Texas. In doing so, he worked with some professional booking people, and he said the tour was a little hard on him – but that the experience gave him the itch to do it again immediately afterwards. “I wanted to go home … but I wanted another gig that night.”
Paddock has continued to grow through the musical mentorships he’s sought out from folks like Baker and Chyna Brackeen, with whom he’s worked on the show with the Lillies and at Rhythm ‘N’ Blooms, which Shimmy & the Burns played two years ago. He returns to the festival this year with the American Gentlemen to celebrate the release of “Love Is Weird.” “She’s fantastic,” he says of Brackeen. “She tells the truth, even when it’s not what you want to hear.”
So what’s next in the cards for Paddock? “I’m gonna try to go as far as I can go,” he says.
