SPOTLIGHT: JD McPherson Reboots with ‘Nite Owls’

“Everybody I know wants me to be more prolific,” JD McPherson says and laughs. “But I don’t make things just to make them.”

That’s for sure. Speaking on the phone from Seattle, where he’s touring with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, the Oklahoma-born, Nashville-based singer and guitarist is promoting the Sep. 27 release of Nite Owls, his first album in six years, via New West Records. You might suspect the lockdown is to blame for the delay, or you could guess there were creative challenges. In McPherson’s case, all sorts of problems converged into one big mess of trouble that threw him way off track.

Though best known for rockabilly-adjacent rock’n’roll, it’s been clear from the get-go that McPherson wasn’t just a new model hillbilly cat. Even Signs & Signifiers, his bracing 2010 debut, featured dashes of R&B, blues, and country, along with his updated boogie. It wasan exhilarating, deceptively sophisticated brew.

A LONG, WINDING PATH

Nite Owls is a natural next step in McPherson’s evolution. He’s smoothed out the rootsy edges and incorporated a slew of pop influences, from The Beach Boys to girl groups to New Wave, while retaining the gusto that’s always informed his music. Getting it done was an arduous process that began eight years ago when McPherson and his family moved to Nashville from Oklahoma.

“I had a Spotify account,” he says, “although I’d never really used it. But one time I clicked on the daily mix, and it was a really good bunch of stuff: Astrud Gilberto, Beach Boys, Fireballs, a lot of surf music, and English glam, like Sweet.

“It hit me that it might be interesting to make an album that had a surf element – I liked the idea of guitar with lots of reverb. Then I noticed a correlation between Duane Eddy and Ennio Morricone and Depeche Mode. They’re pretty far apart musically, but all three have this big, single-note reverb guitar in common. It’s always interesting to me to find a common thread in things that don’t go together. That’s when I started to feel like I could see the album.

“My elevator pitch to anyone who would listen was that it was ‘surf noir.’ As if The Ventures were the session band on the first New Order record.”

In 2018, McPherson released a terrific Christmas album, “Socks.” Consisting entirely of original songs, this sunny collection has the distinction of being the rare holiday release that sounds great any time of year. “The goal,” he says, “was to make it sound the least Christmassy we could, like a ‘50s rock & roll record. I realize as the years go by I might be defined by that record more than anything else, but I’m super proud of it.”

Fresh from that release, in 2019, he and his group got busy at Los Angeles’ Eastwest Studios, specifically Studio Three, where The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds was committed to tape. But those sessions “didn’t feel right,” he says.

“It was a combination of factors. We rushed it. The songs probably weren’t in the best shape yet and the band was falling apart, from personality-based things. You could tell the joy wasn’t there. I think we were trying too hard to nail those West Coast Wrecking Crew sounds.”

The early 2020 pandemic lockdown proved a time of reckoning. “We hadn’t finished overdubs when the lockdown hit, and that’s when it became clear this one probably wasn’t going to get finished.”

Back in Nashville with his wife and two kids, McPherson began reassessing. “I enjoyed being home,” he says, “but worried I wouldn’t be able to go out and play again. I had a pretty serious fear that it was over – not just my band, but the entire music industry. I didn’t have a plan going forward and I was thinking about next steps that didn’t involve music, looking at schools and some other things. I had become interested in gardening.” He jokes that he even considered pursuing a job at Home Depot.

HOW PLANT & KRAUSS “SAVED [HIS] CREATIVE LIFE

Trapped in a “pretty dark place,” McPherson was rescued in 2022 by a call from T Bone Burnett’s camp, summoning him to Blackbird Studios in Nashville, where Plant and Krauss were preparing for a TV appearance promoting their album Raise the Roof. “I freaked out, because I hadn’t even thought about music in a while,” he recalls. Plant and McPherson were old pals. “Early on, my band opened for him and the Shape Shifters, and it was a very cool experience. Robert and I share an interest in the earliest expressions of rock & roll. Most of our conversations revolve around ‘50s rock and blues records.

“I ended up doing the gig,” he explains. “Then Alison called about another TV appearance and that led to doing a tour and that led to ‘Do you want to open?’ They saved my creative life.”

Happily integrated into the Plant-Krauss team, McPherson had unfinished business to address. “I didn’t really want to finish the album, but the idea came up to just record something, and covers seemed like the best way to go. I went back to Chicago to work with Doug Corcoran [keyboards, saxes, steel, et al.],” – the only remaining member of McPherson’s band – “Alex Hall, the drummer and engineer on my first album, and Beau Sample, who plays bass. I had worked with him on the Cactus Blossoms album I produced [2016’s You’re Dreaming]. It was all about putting personalities together, who could get along.”

The result was The Warm Covers EP, Vol 2, including songs associated with Irma Thomas, Iggy Pop, and Pixies. “It was the most fun I ever had, and that’s when I thought we could redo the album.”

Next: false start two. “The label said, ‘You need a producer.’ We found a great one, but it didn’t work out. My appetites are weird – a mixture of low-fi and hi-fi.” McPherson laughs. “I am really involved in the sonic values of a record, and want them to be a certain way. I even think about production when I’m writing. Plus, I’m used to mixing as we go, getting an immediate sound vibe. So there was constant frustration for [the producer].”

The third time was the charm, he says.

“I said to the label, ‘If you want me to do the album, we’ll record it live in the studio, hard and fast and raw, and get it done.’ And that’s what we have now. There were a few overdubs, but for the most part the tracks were played together in the same room over two weeks.”

THE END RESULT

The self-produced Nite Owls spans a universe of ideas in ten punchy tracks. The toe-tapping “Sunshine Getaway,” about escaping winter, doubles as a metaphor for avoiding a creative dead end. A duet with Canadian rockabilly wildman Bloodshot Bill, the high-octane “I Can’t Go Anywhere with You” will delight fans of early McPherson.

McPherson notes that the album’s title track reflects “being fascinated by singers who change their voice over the years. Paul McCartney tried different voices. Bowie’s early records had this shriek, and he turned into a crooner. Iggy has this croon, too, so it’s a nod to that. I’ve never thought of myself as a good singer, though I am able to shout in key. But there’s definitely more of an attempt at singing on this record than before.”

Elsewhere, “Shining Like Gold” echoes girl groups (“Ronnie Spector, for sure”) and “Don’t Travel Though the Night Alone” is “the goth teenager in me coming out,” while the instrumental “The Phantom of New Rochelle” reflects a love of Pixies’ Bossa Nova, and “Just Like Summer” has “a New Wave, 1983 slant.”

Nite Owls is dedicated to the memory of Duane Eddy, described by McPherson as “a bona fide rock’n’roll guitar hero and a true gentleman.” He sighs, “I met Duane when I moved to Nashville and we stayed in touch over the years. He was always so supportive. Duane told me to save him a solo on my next album and he was going to play on ‘Shining Like Gold,’ so I did my best impression of him on the song.”

A CIRCUITOUS PATH

If the path to completing Nite Owls seem circuitous, that’s been the case for JD McPherson’s entire career. Born in Tulsa in 1977, he grew up on the family ranch in southeast Oklahoma. By the early ‘90s McPherson was in thrall to The Stooges, Sex Pistols, and Ramones, but discovering Buddy Holly proved a life-changing event, sending him down a rabbit hole to absorb Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Gene Vincent, and other pioneers, as his own musical ambitions took shape.

Jump to the next decade, when he was working as a middle school art teacher. “I’d never not had a band since I was 16, but I didn’t see a path forward [in music]. In my mind, it was just something to do.”

An encounter with Jimmy Sutton at a festival in Spain, where both were appearing with their bands, sparked an invitation to visit his new Chicago studio. The sessions with Sutton and drummer-engineer Alex Hall “went so great they ended up being my first album, and that ended up turning into a career.”

Today, in addition to his revitalized life as a performer, McPherson is flourishing as a producer. He recently produced an album for country singer JP Harris, due out this month, as well as fellow Oklahoman Travis Linville, manning the board for their second LP together.

For now, however, McPherson is basking in the satisfaction of finally completing what at times seemed like an impossible task – finishing Nite Owls. “I’ve been reluctant to talk to people about the record,” he says. “I just feel a little cringe, as my kids would say. … [It] felt like the world’s biggest Band-Aid being pulled off at the slowest possible speed. But I’m really happy with how the whole story wrapped up.”