Even though Tyler Childers’ latest album Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven is almost two months old now, every time I spin it, it feels like the first time again.
There’s so much life and uniqueness to it, that I feel like I notice something new every time I listen to it, whether it’s lyrically or instrumentally.
However, I will admit that the third portion of the album, “Joyful Noise,” threw me for a loop.
Although it’s a collection of the same song titles as the others on the album, every song is an instrumental remix produced by Charlie Brown Superstar, AKA Brett Fuller.
With that being said, Childers went in-depth behind the purpose of “Joyful Noise,” and where it came from in his latest interview with Silas House.
In regards to “Joyful Noise,” Childers explained:
“The third instillation of the album is about the remixes, which we did with Brett, Charlie Brown superstar. Aside from fiddle tunes, especially early on in COVID, one of the only things I listened to that really kept me sane, honestly, was that I’d listen to Brett’s, he’s got this playlist, this dance mix he calls ‘Country funk volume one,’ and it’s about 60 minutes long, and I probably listened to it eight times a day…
And going back into the studio, I had that on my mind heavy. That third instillation, you know, that freed up a whole different possibility on toying with the same notions and ideas and same concepts with each songs.”
He also used his song “Purgatory,” the title-track from his 2017 album, which he reimagined for Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?:
“Like ‘Purgatory,’ you know is a dude talking to a girl, asking her to pray an intercession for him. There’s so many ways to do that, you know, I did it one way with ‘Purgatory’ the album in a bluegrass setting, I did it with the boys. But this is a completely different way of playing with that notion.”
Childers also explained that a lot of the background “church sermon” voices you hear in the songs on “Joyful Noise” comes from a tape his producer had from one of his students, and he picked his favorite prayer from the tape.
He said:
“At the end of it, we took all of those prayer requests and put them over the top of each other, so you grew up (Pentecostal) Holiness, you know, and you can’t describe that feeling.
Like there’s no way to describe that, that feeling of somebody leading prayer, and then all of a sudden everybody’s prayer is going straight out the top of that old country church and beyond. That’s powerful.”
Check it out:
