{"id":20655,"date":"2015-01-14T12:19:10","date_gmt":"2015-01-14T18:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=20655"},"modified":"2015-01-20T10:55:52","modified_gmt":"2015-01-20T16:55:52","slug":"andrew-bryant-of-water-liars-releases-new-solo-album-upcoming-shows-at-the-end-of-all-music-and-proud-larrys-by-candace-parker-dickerson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/andrew-bryant-of-water-liars-releases-new-solo-album-upcoming-shows-at-the-end-of-all-music-and-proud-larrys-by-candace-parker-dickerson\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Bryant of Water Liars Releases New Solo Album, Upcoming Shows at The End Of All Music and Proud Larry\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AndrewBryantSq\"<\/a>Oxford native Andrew Bryant<\/strong> has been making music for a long time. You may know him as half of the band Water Liars<\/strong>, which he formed back in 2011 with good friend, Justin Kinkel-Schuster<\/strong>. After all, the band released three critically acclaimed albums, and received amazing reviews from the likes of Spin Magazine, MTV, and The New York Times<\/em>. But this time around 34-year-old Bryant is poised and positioned to tell a more personal story with the release of his sixth solo album, This Is the Life<\/em><\/strong>. <\/em>Armed with tales of life experiences, lessons learned, and some help from a friend, Matt Patton<\/strong> of Drive-By Truckers<\/strong>, Bryant has crafted a strikingly beautiful and honest collection of songs about life as he knows it. I had the privilege of catching up with him to discuss everything from church and self-reflection, to how the new album came to be.<\/span><\/p>\n

This Is the Life<\/em> will be available on January 27<\/strong>, and he\u2019ll play an in-store show at The End Of All Music<\/strong> that day. The official release show will be Thursday, January 29<\/strong> at Proud Larry\u2019s<\/strong> where he says he\u2019ll play the new album in its entirety and a few extra tunes with a full band.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Page-Divider\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Things have been going really well for Water Liars. Why did you decide to record a solo album this time around?
\n<\/strong>Well, I wasn\u2019t planning on making an album. We had some down time between Water Liars touring last year and I hadn\u2019t written songs in a while because I\u2019d been focused on the band for the past few years. I just had something to say, so I sat down and wrote some songs. And over the course of a few weeks it turned into an album and a theme developed. I had all these pieces that I put together and it became an album. I\u2019m keeping it smalltime, though, because I don\u2019t want it to conflict with Water Liars. But I\u2019m really proud of it and just want to share it with people now.<\/span><\/p>\n

Well you\u2019re getting closer and closer to sharing it with an audience now. How are you feeling?
\n<\/strong>I\u2019m really excited. It\u2019s getting closer and I\u2019m actually kind of anxious about it, too. I\u2019m ready for everything to get rolling.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"AndrewBryant-2-600\"<\/a>You mentioned that a theme developed during the songwriting process. What do you feel that theme is?
\n<\/strong>The overall theme is kind of figuring out what works and what doesn\u2019t. For me, I\u2019m trying to make a living playing music and I\u2019ve been doing this for a long time. But I\u2019m constantly figuring out what works and what doesn\u2019t and reevaluating what I\u2019ve done in the past versus what I\u2019m doing now. That\u2019s how you grow and make things better. It\u2019s really a reflection of what I\u2019m doing with myself, and my time and work.<\/span><\/p>\n

On one of the tracks, \u201cMy Own Saving Grace,\u201d I sensed a spiritual struggle of some sort in the lyrics. Is that interpretation pretty close to what the song means to you?
\n<\/strong>That\u2019s definitely in there. There\u2019s a lot of personal growth reflected on the album. I quit going to church when I went to college. And I, like a lot of people struggled with the faith of my parents and the way I was brought up. I learned to rely more on my own gut feelings and go with that.<\/span><\/p>\n

This Is the Life<\/em><\/strong> is a pretty strong album title that can mean so many different things. What does it mean within the context of this record?
\n<\/strong>The album title is actually kind of tricky. I wanted to call it Do Your Work<\/em> originally because a lot of the album is about doing what you love to do and what it takes to do that, including the positives and negatives that come along with that. But I just thought that particular phrase was a great representation of where I was.<\/span><\/p>\n

As you said earlier, you\u2019ve been making music for a long time. How would you say you\u2019ve grown as an artist over the span of your career?
\n<\/strong>I\u2019ve learned to treat it like work. If you\u2019re not making money, you\u2019re doing it strictly for the love of it. I used to have to quit my jobs to go on tour and people thought I was crazy. But that\u2019s what I wanted to do. For years I had a mindset that music was my hobby or what I did outside of work. But what I\u2019ve learned the most is to treat it like work. When you do that, you get up every morning thinking about what you\u2019re going to do next. That will make it work better. It pays off and is more rewarding when you start to think of yourself as an artist versus someone who just plays music for fun. And I struggled with that for a while. I\u2019m still trying to figure it out.<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking of work, you self-recorded and produced the entire album in your home in addition to playing every instrument aside from bass. That\u2019s impressive! Why was it important for you to make the record this way?
\n<\/strong>I started out recording my own music at my house years ago. Sometimes it was because I didn\u2019t have the money to go to the studio, so I did the best with what I had. But I\u2019ve always been fascinated with the whole process. I\u2019ve always liked one man in a room creating music, like a person sitting at a typewriter or computer writing a novel, or an artist with a canvas. Over the years it\u2019s become really comfortable for me to work that way. And so now I have my own home studio upstairs, where I can go and demo the songs and create all the arrangements. That\u2019s what I did for this album too. I would sit on my porch and write a song and go straight upstairs and record myself singing the song with guitar, then lay a drum track over that and just kind of work it out over the next couple of days. And Matt Patton of Drive-By Truckers played bass. It was really stress-free. I can have a cup of coffee, go write a song, and record. It\u2019s taken years to learn how to make it sound a certain way, so I really enjoyed that.\u00a0 \"The<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

This article was originally printed in The Local Voice<\/em> #220 (published January 8, 2015).<\/span>
\n To download a PDF of this issue, click here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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