Like tiny shoots of tulips or the first red-bellied robins, the arrival of Sadler Vaden’s solo record is a sure sign that spring is on its way. Vaden is a rare migratory species, a gunslinging sideman with a stockpile of killer songs, and he’s releasing a brand-new solo album. Anybody Out There?, out Friday via Thirty Tigers after a decade-and-change of DIY releases, finds the member of Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit exploring the rich textures of the pop branch of Southern rock’s family tree.
Vaden crafts catchy psychedelic numbers with a critical eye and a comforting drawl that feel custom-made for sweating it out as we enter warmer months. A peer to his influences as much as a product of them, the former Drivin’ N’ Cryin’ guitarist summons the spirit of Tom Petty and Alex Chilton while probing the mysteries of the universe. You have a chance to see him before he’s back at his day job, when he celebrates the release Saturday night at Mercy Lounge. Opening for Vaden are Nashville rockers Neon Castles and singer-songwriter Morgan Wade, whose debut album is being produced by Vaden. He'll also play Friday, March 6, at Grimey's. We caught up with him in advance of the shows.
When did you have time to make this record?
[laughs] Everyone asks me that. … Looking back, we had a tiny break last spring, early summer, and I just I had the songs. I wasn’t really writing tunes for a record — I was just writing. And I just called up [my friends], said, 'I think I’m just going to cut these tunes and maybe there’s an album.' So I just found six or seven days, not in a row, spaced out a bit. I found a little time for it, but it's hard to find time to fit things around my work with Jason. And I’m producing a little, and I’m trying to play on other people’s records. And do somewhat of my own thing, and try to sustain some kind of home life. I learn to balance it all, but yeah, I just found a little window and went for it.
When you’ve only got a few days, what is your creative priority? What do you need to get done?
I don’t ever have a budget, so I really try to do things in the studio that I can’t do at my house. I try to get the bulk of the drums and bass, live-track guitar, maybe some vocals here and there. Overdubs, keyboard and extra vocals I can do at home, which takes a little pressure off of me. I’m working with limited time and limited money, so I try to go in there, knock out the meat and potatoes before moving along.
Who were you working with this time out?
I decided to produce it myself and I worked with my good friend Paul Ebersold, who I’ve worked with in the past. It was a thing where I talked to him and said “I need to know that I can do this myself — I need to see if I can do it,” and he was totally fine with that. In the past, he’s been producing, or we’ve been co-producing. This time around he just engineered it. Obviously, he influenced production by default — I obviously I trust his ears, if he has a thing I listen to him. And he’s always right. Even if it’s just a groove thing, some drums, there was a little bit of that. But in terms of guiding production, I did it myself. The band was on drums [Fred Eltringham] who plays with Sheryl Crow, and Jimbo Hart on bass, Derry DeBorja did some keyboard things and I did some keyboard things, and that was pretty much it.
The most rewarding thing [about playing with that group] is just how great the rhythm section makes the songs feel. It’s almost like I’m not worried about what they are doing, because they’re just doing the right thing. And I can worry about playing rhythm guitar and singing. It was like everything seemed to land where it was supposed to land. … When you’ve got a drummer that can play really well in time and can do fills and they all land in time where they’re supposed to, and everybody else is catching onto that — you’re cooking. He’s a great rock ’n' roll drummer. I had him follow his Keith Moon dreams. I said, “You’re not going to scare me. This isn’t a typical Nashville session. I want you to go for it, I want you to feel it. Transitioning from a verse to a chorus or chorus to a bridge, just give me some Keith Moon.” That sort of playing is outside of a lot of people’s comfort zones. So being able to ask for it and not have to wait for the drummer to practice it — you know what I mean?
And it’s not like you’ve been playing with shitty drummers.
The last eight to 10 years of my professional career I have played with some really wonderful drummers.
What is the most exciting part about putting this record out?
I think it’s my strongest collection of songs that I’ve ever assembled. To me, it's way closer to a record I’ve always heard in my head. I let myself get out of my comfort zone and I sang a few songs in a lower register. I think I did a good job of writing about heavier topics, my perception of the world around me. I’m really proud of it and happy with how it came out. You know, you’re going to always hear things — oh man, I should have taken the low end out there or I should have mixed that higher or I should have added a vocoder or whatever. You’re gonna always pick it apart because it’s yours, but I made it a point to overthink the production values of the record and the mixing. I really believed in the songs I had written. If you believe in the songs on your album, you can’t really lose.
Did you have any co-writes on this record? How is collaborating versus writing solo?
I co-wrote two songs for the album. One called “Peace & Harmony,” with Aaron Lee Tasjan, and the second is actually the title track “Anybody Out There?” with Audley Freed — which is funny because it was the last song I wrote, and it became the title track. I think it really anchored the album and it’s really the big riff rocker. …
So much of the album deals with people being disconnected — and connected but also disconnected — so the title track being “Anybody Out There?” really makes a lot of sense. Since I’ve been writing about the topic a lot, I think it was flowing through me still as we were writing.
But that song in particular worked out a sort of awareness of, "If you’ve got a friend of need," and the narrator is questioning whether or not people are really there for them. The narrator doesn’t really feel like anyone is asking how he or she is doing, and they’re questioning whether or not anyone is really here for them. We wanted to write a song about that because, that’s a situation a lot of people deal with these days. People feel the depression, they feel the failure to meet global expectations of social media. I felt like that captured the feel of the album.
Do you guys talk about this sort of thing at the day job? Do y’all sit around and talk about songcraft or is it just humming in the background?
You're referring to my job with Jason, right? We don’t really discuss it a lot, but there’s been a few moments where we’re in his dressing room and he’s gone into it. He and I have had discussions about songwriting. Sometimes he’s just gone into it, sometimes I’ve asked about it, and sometimes you don’t have to talk about it because he’ll just show you with his songs. [laughs] The guy is masterful. I think I have picked up on some of that just from being around guys like Kevin Kinney (Drivin' N' Cryin') and just being in Nashville, which is really Lyric City — not even Music City, like Word City. Feeding off that energy came off in this album, but I still believe in myself as a writer and have my own bit of style. I write differently than the people I have worked for and the people have influenced.
Totally, I see that and I hear it. It’s always interesting to parse out the idea of influence. There’s a huge gap between the way people perceive influence and the way it actually works.
The thing is, I’ve been writing longer than I’ve been an employed guitarist for people. It’s something I’ve done longer than being a sideman, it’s not really a new thing for me. I’m not saying it was something I was good at long ago, but it is something I’ve always done. I’ve just never stopped doing it. Have I ever had a shot like this with my own music? No. I’ve always made music but this is the first time that this is actually coming out, distributed. It’s on Thirty Tigers.
There’s a perception of me and my thing — because I’m involved with the 400 Unit, it's a little distorted. I’d been strictly D.I.Y. with my own shit right up to this point. I think it was easy to think “Yeah, someone is putting Sadler’s records out,” but no, no one gave a shit. So I just put it out. So this is my first real record, even when I had a band for seven years, this is the first ever real, non-D.I.Y., put-it-on-iTunes, put-it-on-Bandcamp, throw-it-in-the-river record I’ve ever done. It’s a big deal to me, personally.
