John Fullbright is BACK.
The master singer/songwriter grew up in Bearden, Oklahoma, right near Evan Felker from the Turnpike Troubadours. In fact, he member of the group for a time and co-wrote a number of their songs like “Every Girl,” “Pay No Rent,” “Evangeline,” and “Time of Day.”
However, he hasn’t released an album since 2014…
But he’s back at it again, as he dropped his third studio album, The Liar, today.
He weighed in on why it took eight years to release a new record:
“It’s been a process of learning how to be in a community of musicians and less focusing on the lone, depressed songwriter… just playing something that has a beat and is really fun.
That’s not to say there are no songs on this record where I depart from that because there are, but there’s also a band with an opinion. And that part is new to me.”
But here we are in 2022 and Fullbright has rediscovered his love for songwriting once again, and needless to say, it was well worth the wait, because this may be his best solo work to date.
The album was constructed by not only Fullbright, but also the likes of Jesse Aycock, Aaron Boehler, Paul Wilkes, Stephen Lee, Paddy Ryan, and engineered by Jason Weinheimer, and recorded at Steve and Charlene Ripley’s farm-to-studio in northeastern Oklahoma.
And they recorded the whole thing in just 4 days:
“It was such a collaborative thing with some really cool voices. It’s just like playing music in Tulsa. Everybody kind of does whatever they do, and it works.”
The album is a mixture of some old songs, some new song, and some unfinished songs that called on the help of other songwriters to finish. But the end result is a much more creative, yet much less polished finished product for Fullbright who in years past had treated the process like a science.
“What rules didn’t I have? Even like, how many syllables were in a line, I had arbitrary rules for. So much of that has gone out the door, and I’m so much happier.
It’s really just the idea that you don’t have to do this by yourself. It’s so much more fun to collaborate.”
Here’s an early look at a few of my favorites:
“The Liar”
“Paranoid Heart”
“Poster Child”
