Koe Wetzel in his purest form is hard to beat.
He dropped his fifth studio album Hell Paso in September, and it’s definitely one of my favorite’s from this year.
He’s been giving us a peak inside the studio of some of the recording process for this album too, which I’ve loved seeing, including live takes of “Better Without You” and “Creeps,” likely with a few more to come, as well.
And today, he dropped a new, very casual one for “Money Spent,” where we find him lounging on a couch in the studio just singing his heart out.
It’s actually impressive how good he sounds singing laying down like that, and he opens it with a classic Koe delivery, saying:
“‘Money Spent,’ take 17 live here at Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, Texas.”
The song itself is very clearly about a breakup, which he told Consequence was inspired by the memory of a former flame and finding a box of her stuff in his garage when he was unpacking after he bought a house last year:
“I bought a house a year ago and had to unpack everything in my garage.
One of those boxes had all of my ex-girlfriend’s shit in it. It was raining outside. I was in one of those moods where I was like, ‘Fuck this, I’m going to sit on the couch and grab a guitar.’
You’re over it, but you’re not really over it.”
He added that, with the help of a couple other writers, he was able to finish the song and make it exactly what he wanted it to be while recording Hell Paso at the Sonic Ranch, which is what you’ll see in this video:
“At the time I felt like I had writer’s block, but I had written a couple of things with Andrew Baylis and Michael Whitworth.
So while I was in El Paso cutting the album, they sent me the ‘Money Spent’ chorus and hook. After I heard that, the rest of it just kinda came to me and we knocked it out in a couple of hours.”
I’ve never heard him say if he’d be interested in ever recording a live album, and it would definitely have a different feel than these with tons of fans screaming in the background, but knowing how much fun his live shows are, I really hope it’s something he’ll consider one day.
“Money Spent” goes so hard from a lyrical and production standpoint, too, and the contrast of him singing it here so casually is so funny to me.
Do yourself a favor and check it out, it’s my favorite from this series yet:
“Money Spent”
