“I didn’t know if he was making a joke of us, or if he was actually that enthusiastic about the material,” he said.
“The night we first performed there, I remember being with one of the people from and looking at them and the makeup people while Jimmy kept interrupting the show to play the song,” said Rateliff, a man with the physique of a longshoreman and free-flowing beard of a lumberjack who often surprises first-time audiences with nimble dance moves that would make James Brown proud. Something of a musical Hail Mary pass, the album became a surprise hit, thanks in no small part to some serious cheerleading on the band’s behalf by host and namesake of the “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” As he told The Times three years ago, he decided he was ready to quit music and return to his previous career as a gardener, but before throwing in the towel decided to make one more record tapping the classic soul sound that he loved growing up. He had released several well-regarded solo albums - former Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant is among his admirers - but none connected commercially. In many of his songs, people are seeking understanding about relationships that have failed, yearning for connection or railing against self-deception. Lyrically, Rateliff often employs more poetically inclined, often-impressionistic lyrics that reflect his years plying the boards as a folk-informed singer-songwriter. I think for this album I hope you can hear it.” “Recognizing that we have a bit of a platform we’ve never had before, you start to think about, ‘What should the message be?’ Or should there be a message? I think generally what we want people to get from us is everything that Nathaniel just said. “I feel like we have fans on all sides of political issues,” Pope said. Their conversation took place barely a week before a 19-year-old gunman in Parkland, Fla., entered his former high school and killed 17 students and faculty members, and before President Trump began lobbying to arm school teachers as a deterrent against similar attacks. A community of lovers and a community of friends is much better than a community of warriors.” I want to be the thing - we want to be the thing - that we need to be a community. It’s an incredible song.”Īdded Rateliff: “He says at one point: ‘Pray for Paris, they’re not going to scare us or stop the music.’ I want to be part of that. “That’s the premise,” Pope said, “‘You’re a beautiful stranger and I’m going to be your cover’ - as opposed to responding in a violent way.
“There’s a Kevin Morby song called ‘Beautiful Stranger,’” at which point Pope interjects in one of many exchanges in which one of them often finishes, or extends, the other’s thoughts, “He wrote it in response to the Bataclan attack” in 2015 in which terrorists killed more than 100 people in Paris. “Who’s going to take over for them?” Rateliff asked. Rateliff and his cohorts have noted the deaths in recent years of many of their musical heroes, a fact of life, however sad, that they’ve taken as a clarion call for a new generation to step up to the plate and at least attempt to fill their shoes. If their talk seems to echo the Blues Brothers’ signature claim to be on “a mission from God” with their music, it is. It’s a tall order, something that Rateliff, Pope and fellow band members Luke Mossman (guitar), keyboardist Mark Shusterman, drummer Patrick Meese, trumpeter Scott Frock and saxophonists Jeff Dazey and Andreas Wild take to heart, on stage and in the recording studio. “I don’t want to alienate people about what they believe in and what their political views are,” Rateliff said, “but actually make people feel it’s important for us to come together - and that the person next to you is just as important as yourself, if not more important.” The music on “Tearing at the Seams,” as it was on its predecessor, “Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats,” is an invigorating latter-day incarnation of vintage soul and R&B music that was the stock-in-trade at Memphis’ Stax Records label, not coincidentally the reactivated imprint that signed Rateliff three years ago. “Besides playing music, I want to build a sense of community,” Rateliff said, sipping his Paloma, a concoction of tequila and grapefruit, and seated at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in a dark booth next to the band’s bassist, his longtime friend Joseph Pope III. Those “underplay” shows anticipated a spring-summer headlining tour at larger facilities, among them an Aug.
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