For many aspiring artists, a big break is a kind of white whale. It’s always just beyond the horizon, and if it comes, it often comes unexpectedly. Such was the case for Nashville rockers Liz Cooper and the Stampede, who found a chunk of their current fan base after recording an AudioTree Live session in 2016. That session drew hundreds of thousands of YouTube views, and its tracks have racked up more than a million combined streams on Spotify, a feat that Cooper says “put them on the map.” At the time, the band had only a small catalog of songs, but the number of folks showing up to hear them live increased dramatically.
After a couple of years writing and touring on the strength of the session (as well as their early EPs Monsters and Live at the Silent Planet), the band is poised to release its debut full-length album Window Flowers on Friday via Sleepyhead Records/Thirty Tigers. As Cooper explains in a phone call to the Scene, many of the songs on the final track list made the cut because of audience demand.
“It was a really cool thing to see how people were reacting in a live setting to specific songs we were playing,” says Cooper. “We have a bunch of different songs we tested out, and there were some I felt people connected to a bit more. The songs that are on Window Flowers are the ones that we just naturally were like, ‘OK, I think we should record these.’ ”
Some of the album’s songs appeared on earlier recordings, like Live at the Silent Planet cuts “The Night” and “Outer Space.” Others, like fan favorite “Mountain Man,” debuted as part of that fateful AudioTree session. The rest are tunes Cooper accumulated over the years, gradually slotting them into live sets and testing the waters with willing audiences. Many from that latter batch came from a decision Cooper made to do at least one creative project each day, and to say “yes” when other artists asked her to collaborate.
“It was kind of a New Year’s resolution,” she explains. “I was like, ‘Well, I want to really push myself, and I want to be as creative as I possibly can this year.’ I wanted to see what I could learn from it, see where it brings me, see who I can meet, and just see where it takes me, because why the hell not? I started saying yes to gigs, and even if I was tired from whatever I was doing that day, if someone would text me and invite me over to jam, I’d say yes.”
Since having enough material was never a problem, the sometimes-tricky task of compiling it into an LP was one that Cooper labored over. Ultimately, she found it came together nearly as seamlessly as integrating those same songs into the band’s live shows.
“I had been obsessing over it, OCD kind of stuff,” she says. “I had a bunch of these songs and little voice memos of things that I listened to, trying to figure out how things flowed together and if I even liked any of them. I was going through it so much internally that by the time it even came up that we were going to be recording, I just knew naturally what I wanted to record.”
The band called on T.J. Elias to co-produce the album and set up shop at Nashville’s Welcome to 1979 studio. The arrangements span many genres, from Appalachian folk to indie pop, roots-rock and alt-country. What makes the mix cohere is the strength of the band’s identity, marked by Cooper’s distinctive guitar work and her voice as a writer. As a unit, Cooper and her bandmates (bassist Grant Prettyman and drummer Ryan Usher) showcase a commitment to exploring creative impulses while staying true to their musical vision of a joyfully raucous power trio.
“I have only recorded in my friends’ places, and going into this huge place where you only have a certain amount of time to try to record as much as you can can be intimidating,” Cooper says. “But we went in there with full intention. The way we worked with T.J. was really intense in a fun, out-of-our-comfort-zone kind of way. It’s a cool, creative place, and having everybody be creative in a different way is really cool.”
It’s not uncommon for a band’s first record to come to fruition after they’ve done a lot of work in private, and for audiences to then pick up on (or not) what makes them unique and exciting. In that respect, Window Flowers developed backward. But for the group, this scenario has worked out exactly as it should. Cooper is pleased that the path to her debut album allowed her to develop in a way that felt natural — and to play a lot of shows.
“There’s no right or wrong way to do this,” she says. “I’m glad it’s happened the way it’s happened.”
