Premiere: John Surge and The Haymakers untangle restlessness on ‘Almost Time’
The honky-tonk band share a barroom tale.
John Surge feels time breathing down his neck. “When she smiles, she tells stories / Setting fires, reliving glories,” he sings over a funky honky-tonk gleam. “She says this town’s a warnin’ / I’m feelin’ like I’m fallin’ down.” In their new song “Almost Time,” premiering today on B-Sides & Badlands, Surge and the Haymakers get to boot-scootin’ with a tale about a couple that’s hanging by a thread. “It’s almost time,” Surge sings. The refrain threads the musical fabric together, an emotional chord by which the band of players hang their proverbial hats.
The band — comprised of Randy Volin (electric guitars, baritone guitar, harmony vocals), Brennen Leigh (harmony vocals), Brad Fordham (bass), Floyd Domino (piano), and Tom Lewis (drums) — gets down and dirty with a groove so sticky you won’t be able to tear your ears away. “My baby gets so restless / Can’t stay in one place for too long,” continues Surge. “She’ll say hey you better be you ready / We gotta be moving on.”
As the title track to a forthcoming album, out September 15 via Blackbird Record Label, it serves as the connective tissue for the entire 10-song record. “I would say the thread that runs through the album is barroom tales—people sharing their troubles, bragging, pontificating, revealing their vulnerabilities,” Surge shares. “As a working band, we spend a lot of time in nightspots, and there’s a lot of unfiltered conversation. I had my antennae up, and those moments got captured and expanded into the songs I wrote for this album.”
Surge, who co-produced with Tommy Detamore, promises the album is “an evolution from the last. It’s still spirited, rockin’ roadhouse country,” he says, “with this album having a more traditional country instrumentation, including fiddle, more pedal steel, dobro, and acoustic guitar. It’s a moment in time and only time will tell how people will react to it, but the experience is one I’ll always feel was perfect.”
Almost Time is the follow-up to 2019’s Your Wonderful Life.
Listen to “Almost Time” below.
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