Premiere: Trickshooter Social Club soldier through life’s troubles on ‘Until I Die’

It’s quite easy to lose yourself in life’s suffocating brambles. The thorns pierce and claw deep into the skin, yielding pain and suffering. Oh, blood, too; there’ll always be blood, both metaphorical and literal. But if you’ve managed to soldier through the fires, the rage, the disaster-strewn existence, you’re certainly more resilient than most. Bluesy Chicago troupe Trickshooter Social Club lasso their stories together into a blissfully dusty country and western tune called “Until I Die,” which scoots their boots through the earth as they attempt just one more day on this earth. “Broken dreams and broken glass / Second guess and second chance / Not quite who I thought I’d used to be,” they crack open on the first stanza, an emotional throat-punch paired with their guttural honky-tonk spirit and plenty of sweltering fiddle playing.

“Faded and unfinished fool / Waiting for the fire to cool / Setting fire to what I used to need,” they lace up the misery but employ it later on for their titanic-sized hook. But for now, they allow the mistakes and brittle sores to swell, and it’s there amidst life’s most tragic moments that they learn what it means to be truly alive.  “All the way / I’ll give my heart away everyday,” crows the chorus, underscored with astonishingly tight and spellbound harmony work. When the pressurized style, shuffling between Texas red dirt and Tom Petty, explodes and punctures the eardrums, the conviction gushes from their bones and lights you on fire. It’s that kind of career-making performance.

Bandmates Steve Simoncic, Larry Liss, James McNaughton, Chris Bartley, Chris Ellison, Maggie Mitchell, Beltran Del Campo and Ruth Margraff are forces in their own right, but left to link up into a monstrous and beastly collective, there’s absolutely no stopping them. On the song, they write to B-Sides & Badlands over email, “’Until I Die’ is this song we wrote about resiliency. About the suckers bet that is life. About staying in it,” they share. “Even when you have no reasonable reason to believe you should, it’s a song about that deeply human desire to keep opening your heart, even when the world doesn’t seem to reward this most a heroic of endeavors.”

“Until I Die” anchors the band’s new Jon Zacks-produced album, American Experiment, out July 12.

Listen below:

Follow Trickshooter Social Club on their socials: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Website