Little Raine Band Discusses New Album 'Beyond The Cave' April 7, 2022 15:49
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Photo by Charity Rachelle
Interview by Jordan Kirkland: Live & Listen
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Somehow it's been three full years since Little Raine Band released their second, full-length studio album, Dreamwalker. The Birmingham-based, improv-driven quartet has built a longstanding, loyal fanbase since their days at Auburn University, and thankfully, we don't have to wait much longer for another album full of brand new material. LRB will release Beyond The Cave on Friday, April 15th, and there are several upcoming opportunities to celebrate with the band.
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The first of three album release shows is scheduled for Thursday, April 8th at The 5 Spot in Nashville. LRB fans will most likely recognize a few familiar faces during the opening act, as supergroup Potato Gun Canyon features members of CBDB, Mama's Love, and more. Little Raine Band returns to Saturn for a hometown throw down in Birmingham on Friday, April 15th. This one will be especially sweet, as their "Day After Christmas" show fell victim to a COVID cancellation just a few months ago. The album release run will conclude on Saturday, April 16th at The One Stop in Asheville (NC).
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Earlier this week, we caught up with Davis Little (guitar/vocals) to learn more about the upcoming release, the surrounding shows, and the the band's plans for 2022. Check out the full conversation below, and make sure to follow Little Raine Band on Facebook and Instagram for all of the latest updates within the band.
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Head over to the Live & Listen Instagram for a chance to win tickets to the Birmingham show + a special merchandise package from the band!
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Little Raine Band will release its third full length, studio album Beyond The Cave on Friday, April 15th. This follows up the Dreamwalker album, which was released back in 2019. Give me the inside scoop on these tracks, the recording process, and everything in between.
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Davis: We started this album right at the beginning of the pandemic. We knew we weren't going to be playing shows for a minute, and we decided to put our nose to the grindstone for this project. A lot of these songs are new and haven't been played live much at all. There is a few that have been played live, but they're all new songs.
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It's almost a concept album but not quite fully. We're calling it Beyond The Cave, which alludes to Plato's allegory of the cave. A lot of the songs are in that vein. It's not necessarily a story, but I think it's up to the listener as to what it means to them. It's basically our quarantine project.
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What a great use of that downtime. It makes sense that this material wouldn't have much live history if they were written in the midst of all of a time where live shows have been fairly scarce.
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Davis: Right. Like a lot of other people, when the pandemic really began, we were just like, "Oh shit. What do we do now?" Our booking agent ultimately switched professions due to understandable financial pressure. Our manager was getting super busy with other projects, as well. We just decided it was the right time to focus on a new album. That made the most sense, and honestly, I'm really happy that's what we did.
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This would be the first studio release since Charles Gray became LRB's new drummer, right?
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Davis: We actually started the record with (Justin) Sledge. He's on two or three on the tracks, and Charles is on the rest. It's almost a mashup of both of both of those guys. Charles had been playing with us already. He was our go to fill in for Sledge. He knew a lot of the material, and we'd been building our chemistry with him for a while. It really feels natural with Charles. Nothing caught us off guard, but yeah, this is Charles' studio debut with us. That's really exciting.
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Right on. So, you, Isaiah (Smith), and Daniel (Raine) have all been together since the beginning of this band. How would you say that the songwriting process balances out amongst y'all? How has it evolved over these ten or so years that y'all have been doing this?
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Davis: Honestly, much of the songwriting is the same as it's always been. There are a few different ways that it seems to happen with the band. There are songs that will be purely collaborative, and then there are those that any one of us brings to the table, and we'll bring it all together as a band. It's typically a collaborative process. I think that this album, more than any other since we were all isolated, leans more towards starting with one of us. In the end, we always bring them together to put the final touches on.
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I really do feel that this our most mature writing to date. I rarely listen to our stuff, but when I listen back to our first album, it's funny because we weren't even old enough to drink at the time. With this material, we're all essentially going on 30 years old. It's nice. I guess the boys are growing up (laughs). It's definitely our most mature songwriting thus far though.
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That's always great to hear. Where was the album recorded? Anyone specific that you worked with in the studio?
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Davis: We recorded this at Boutwell Studios in Homewood (Birmingham), which was new to us. Brad Lyons produced and engineered it. Brad really helped us out a lot, so big shout out to him. Boutwell had some specific things that we wanted. They had an amazing drum room, for example. Brad is just a great producer, and we were really excited to work with him.
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That's great. Is there any particular direction that y'all are going with the release? Are you focusing on a specific track that you're pushing as a single?
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Davis: I think on our previous albums, it has been more clear which one was the single. We were all talking, and it's been kind of hard to pinpoint one single song for us. We decided to release it all at once and just let the people decide how they feel about them. I'm sure the ones that I like the most are different even amongst the band.
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I like that approach. One of the strongest signs of a truly great album is when you can just push play and let it ride from start to finish. No skips to get to that next song that you tend to gratitate towards.
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Davis: That's what we're hoping for. We did kind of make it with listening to it as an album in mind. It's definitely more conceptual on that front than any previous releases. When finalizing the track listing, we were thinking a lot about vinyl. How is this going to sound if we sat down at the record player? What's that journey going to be like?
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Totally. Before we wrap up, y'all have the first of three album release shows at The 5 Spot in Nashville on Thursday, April 7th. You'll follow that with a hometown show at Saturn in Birmingham on Friday, April 15thand finish off with The One Spot in Asheville on Saturday, April 16th. I know Saturn will be extra special, as it's also a makeup for the cancelled show back in December. Tell me a little more about this run.
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Davis: We're extremely excited to be playing more live shows and touring on this record. We're planning to tour on it for the rest of the year, and we're super excited. Like you said, we had to cancel the last Saturn show due to COVID-related issues. Tragic City is opening up that show. I'm sure there will be several sit-ins there. We always love getting back to both Asheville and Nashville, too.
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Y'all have a relatively new Nashville supergroup opening the Nashville show, right?
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Davis: That's right. They're called Potato Gun Canyon. It's Cy Simonton from CBDB, Tom Galloway from Mama's Love, and Dan Davis on banjo. They'll be doing an acoustic thing, which should be a lot of fun. I believe they start at 9PM, and we'll follow after that. I'm excited to see their set.
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Love to hear it. I know this is an exciting time with plenty of anticipation for these shows and the album release. Always a pleasure chatting, Davis. Best of luck with everything moving forward.
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Davis: Thank you, Jordan. We really appreciate you doing this!
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Watch Little Raine Band perform "Other Side" live here:
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