Rock ‘n’ roll is often hard to define, or even to find, in these fractured musical times. But to paraphrase an old saying, you know it when you hear it. And you always hear it with the Wallflowers. For the past 30 years, the Jakob Dylan-led act has stood as one of rock’s most dynamic and purposeful bands – a unit dedicated to and continually honing a sound that meshes timeless songwriting and storytelling with a hard-hitting and decidedly modern musical attack. That signature style has been present through the decades, baked into the grooves of smash hits like 1996’s Bringing Down the Horse as well as more recent and exploratory fare like 2012’s Glad All Over. Even so, in recent years, Dylan – the Wallflowers’ founding singer, songwriter and guitarist – has repeatedly stepped outside of his band, first with a pair of more acoustic and rootsy records, 2008’s Seeing Things and 2010’s Women + Country, and then with the 2018 film Echo in the Canyon and the accompanying soundtrack, which saw him collaborate with a host of artists classic and contemporary, from Neil Young and Eric Clapton to Beck and Fiona Apple. But while it’s been nine long years since we’ve heard from the group with whom he first made his mark, the Wallflowers are silent no more. And Dylan always knew they’d return. “The Wallflowers is much of my life’s work,” he says simply. Plus, he adds with a laugh, “It’s pretty hard to get a good band name, so if you have one, keep it.” Good band name aside, that life’s work continues with Exit Wounds, the brand-new Wallflowers studio offering. The collection marks the first new Wallflowers material since Glad All Over. And while the wait has been long, the much-anticipated record finds the band’s signature sound – lean, potent and eminently entrancing – intact, even as Dylan surrounds himself with a fresh cast of musicians. Which, the front man is quick to point out, is not all that unusual. “The Wallflowers has always been a vehicle for me to make great rock ‘n’ roll records,” he says. “And sometimes the lineup that makes the record transfers over into touring, and sometimes it doesn’t. But my intention is always to make the Wallflowers record I want to make, using the musicians I have beside me.” Dylan’s vision has always been the core of the Wallflower’s music. How he chooses to express that vision, however, is what makes a song a Wallflowers song. “I usually just let the songs tell me what kind of arrangements they need,” he says. “And if they're asking for full-band electric arrangements, then that’s what the Wallflowers provide. And I knew I wanted to make a full-band electric record this time out.” And made one he has, with one special guest on board – Shelby Lynne, who lends her voice to three of the album’s tracks. “I hadn’t met Shelby before, but like most people, I’ve been a fan of hers for quite some time,” Dylan says. “She has one of those voices that's very uncommon, very unique, very rare.” But there was more to their duet than just a mutual appreciation. “You can have your favorite singer come in, but it doesn’t mean you’ll have any connection – there has to be more than that,” Dylan continues. “And as soon as I heard Shelby sing, I knew we had something.” That “something” is present throughout Exit Wounds, which, true to its title, is an ode to people – individual and collective – that have, to put it mildly, been through some stuff. “I think everybody – no matter what side of the aisle you’re on – wherever we’re going to next, we're all taking a lot of exit wounds with us,” Dylan says. “Nobody is the same as they were four years ago. That, to me, is what Exit Wounds signifies. And it's not meant to be negative at all. It just means that wherever you’re headed, even if it’s to a better place, you leave people and things behind, and you think about those people and those things and you carry them with you. Those are your exit wounds. And right now, we’re all swimming in them.” To be sure, Exit Wounds is populated by scarred souls that “used to rumble, used to roar,” of “nobodies drinking flat beer,” and those who’ve been “abandoned and locked out and pressed to the fire.” Throughout, Dylan’s lyrics are specked with images of spears and swords and battle-worn flags being raised, of wayward buses and battered ships, riderless horses and lost planes. Of course, ask Dylan what these songs are about, and, well, like most practiced songwriters, he’s not going to tell you. “I'm always a little cautious when people ask that,” he says. “Not because it demystifies the songs, but more because I think it's belittling to the listener to have to be ‘told.’ I usually find that if you have to do that for someone, you probably didn't hit your mark.” That said, Dylan will at least acknowledge that the tracks on Exit Wounds reflect the tumultuous times in which they were written. “The climate affects how you feel, which affects how you're writing songs, even if you’re not writing specifically about current events.” He turns to the late John Prine to illustrate his point. “If we still had John Prine, I don't think he'd be writing songs specifically about current affairs, but he'd probably be writing songs about characters affected by current affairs. I think that's mostly what I do.” As far as Exit Wounds, Dylan continues, “I’m the same writer I’ve always been – I was just also writing during a time when the world felt like it was falling apart. That changes the way you address even the simplest things, because you have panic in your mind all the time. You have anxiety. And you also have hope. And it’s all in there.” When it came to realizing these new songs on record, Dylan assembled a backing band of musical associates – “people that I've wanted to play with or that I have played with through the years” – and headed into the studio under the watchful eye of producer Butch Walker. As for what Butch brought to the sessions? Beyond his pedigree as an in-demand producer and first-rate singer-songwriter and musician, he’s also, Dylan says, “someone I’ve known a long time, and that was important to me. Because you go through a lot when you make records, to be honest. When you’re young, you're taught that if you don’t have conflict in the studio, then you're probably not doing anything good. But I don't believe that. And so it was more of a joyful experience making this record.” That joyful experience extended to Dylan’s interplay with his fellow musicians. “This was not the type of thing where it’s a rotating cast and you call a different drummer for each song, or you pull out the Rolodex and ring the local sessions guys,” Dylan says. “The record was made as a band – the five Wallflowers.” And to Dylan, a band, even one with a constantly shifting lineup, is a sacred thing. “I've always been a believer in collaboration,” he says, “and no matter who I'm playing with I've always tried to include them very heavily. Otherwise, why would they be around? Because I do think bands, whether it’s a long standing group or just five people who are working together for that one stretch of time, make better rock ‘n’ roll records than solo artists.” He laughs. “I mean, it's not 100 percent true, but it's usually true.” At the end of the day, Dylan continues, “It’s just exciting to have guys playing in a room together. That's how you get the one plus one equals three factor, you know? That’s the magic.” For Dylan, Exit Wounds is the next chapter in a career devoted to chasing – and capturing – that magic. “I came up in an era of great rock ‘n’ roll bands making great music, and it’s the way I always imagined I would do it one day,” he says. “So that’s always been my vision with the Wallflowers – to be a great rock ‘n’ roll band. And I've worked on it for 30 years now and I still have a lot to say. It’s something I started a long time ago, and it’s far from finished.”

The sophomore album from Early James, Strange Time To Be Alive is the sound of an artist sublimely out of step with the world. With all the charmed eccentricity of a true poet, the Alabama-bred singer/songwriter takes in the endless absurdity he sees around him, then alchemizes his unease into a glorious patchwork of musical idioms: forsaken blues and contemplative folk songs, brooding murder ballads and lovestruck piano tunes. Produced by multi-Grammy Award winner Dan Auerbach, Strange Time To Be Alive ultimately extracts a certain magic from the madness, imbuing even the most painful truth-telling with a wild-eyed joie de vivre.

 

“I think it’s okay to admit you feel crazy or uncomfortable in your own skin—those are very human feelings that we need to say out loud,” says James. “I hope this record reminds people that everyone feels crazy sometimes, and that the real crazy people are the ones who won’t admit self-doubt.”

 

The follow-up to 2020’s Singing For My Supper (hailed by Mojo as a “luminous debut”), Strange Time To Be Alive came to life in three whirlwind days at Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound in Nashville. “James is very particular with his lyrics and makes such uncommon choices, so I wanted to keep it raw and let that shine as much as possible,” says Auerbach. “His writing is so idiosyncratic; there’s not one song that feels like anything you’ve heard before. But then there’s also something in his sound that feels carved out of stone, like it’s from another time—it’s a very strange mix.”

 

Recorded live with many of the same musicians featured on Singing For My Supper (including his longtime bandmate Adrian Marmolejo on upright bass), Strange Time To Be Alive embodies a much heavier and more mercurial sound than its predecessor, thanks in part to James’s frenetic performance on electric guitar. “Last time I didn’t even bring an electric guitar but this time I’ve got a pedalboard,” he notes. “Back when it was just me and Adrian everybody thought we were a bluegrass band for some reason, and I’ve always wanted to play louder.” In shaping the album’s eclectic selection of songs, James also joined forces with such esteemed musicians as guitarist Tom Bukovac (Willie Nelson, Keb’ Mo’), drummer Jay Bellerose (Sharon Van Etten, Allen Toussaint), and keyboardist Mike Rojas (Tyler Childers, Yola). The result is a prime showcase for James’s singular voice, an element that proves infinitely captivating whether he’s assuming a growling ferocity or crooning tenderness or the dazzling theatricality of a cabaret singer.

 

A fitting counterpart to his chameleonic vocals, James’s lyrics contain equal parts poetic observation and candid introspection and fantastically warped humor—a dynamic established in the very first lines of the album-opening “Racing To A Red Light”: “Oh Lord, I think I just might/Be betting on a thrown fight/Between a man and a mannequin/Just lost to a banana skin.” Sparked from a bit of dialogue from True Detective season one, “Racing To A Red Light” unfolds in languid rhythms and spectral guitar tones as James quietly vents a litany of frustrations (e.g., the dearth of original thought in online discourse, the showboating behavior of billionaire moguls). “At the time I was getting fed up with seeing the same comments copied-and-pasted from the safety of anonymity on the internet, from people who can’t think up their own response to anything happening in the world,” says James. “That song’s a subtle dis to all that, and also to the people who think it’s a better idea to race to Mars on a rocket than to try to fix the planet we actually live on.”

 

Another piece of world-weary commentary, “What A Strange Time To Be Alive” slips from sighing resignation to soulful intensity as James laments the insidious chaos of modern life (“No boundary left to cross in this God-forsaken snow globe”). “I know that every generation probably feels like they’re going through the toughest of times—but, damn, it really is a weird world to live in right now,” says James. Co-written with Matchbox Twenty’s Rob Thomas and White Denim’s Austin Jenkins (whose co-writing credits also include Kacey Musgraves and Leon Bridges), the track’s heavy-hearted mood is profoundly brightened by Bukovac’s resplendent slide-guitar work. “There’s a uniquely Southern haze to that song, where James feels completely in his comfort zone,” Auerbach points out. “The take we got felt just right, kind of like a worn-in baseball glove.” 

 

Elsewhere on Strange Time To Be Alive, James looks inward to examine the darker corners of his own psyche, such as on the magnificently brutal “Harder to Blame.” “Sometimes when you’re young, you blame the crowd around you for all the bad habits you’ve developed,” says James. “But then the older you get, the more you realize that there’s really no one to blame but yourself.” With its blistering riffs and bombastic drumbeats, “Harder to Blame” made for one of the most explosive moments in the recording process. “Jay Bellerose was smashing the drums so hard that the engineer wanted to turn it down, but I thought we should just leave it and let it go,” says Auerbach. “There’s a lot of terror in that song, and the way James sings it puts sharp edges all over the place.” On “Real Low Down Lonesome,” fellow old-soul Sierra Ferrell joins in for a time-bending duet documenting a doomed love affair, their two otherworldly voices careening through the track’s lush arrangement of Cuban percussion and piano and gut-string guitar. “When we were writing that one I was imagining some sort of noir film about two narcissists who use each other and still end up with nothing,” says James. “Sierra’s vocals are so drenched in reverb and I love how strange it sounds—it’s almost operatic.” And on “Pigsty,” Strange Time To Be Alive shifts into a stunning vulnerability, presenting a sweetly ramshackle love song rooted in Rojas’s jazzy piano work and James’s oddly delicate confession of affection (“You’re like a stick of Zebra Stripe that I’m afraid to chew”). “It’s about when my girlfriend and I first started dating and we were both feeling apprehensive about a lot of things,” says James. “At the time I lived in a one-room apartment we called my pigsty ’cause my guitars were always all over the place, and I turned that into a song about the despair of not knowing what would happen and worrying I might lose her.”

 

Naming Fiona Apple as an essential inspiration on his lyrical sensibilities (“She’s a master of making light of dark, depressing subjects, and using alliteration without ever sounding like Dr. Seuss”), James first started writing songs as a teenager growing up in the small Alabama town of Troy. “I had a Nextel flip phone and I’d use my voicemail to record all these blues songs I’d written,” he recalls, also listing Hank Williams, Nirvana, and Tom Waits among his formative influences. At the age of 15, he played his first gig at a biker rally in nearby Luverne, and soon began booking four-hour sets at local dive bars. Not long after finishing high school, he moved to Birmingham and quickly became a fixture in the city’s melting pot of a music scene. Within several years, a video of James opening for Nashville-based singer/songwriter Katie Pruitt caught the attention of Auerbach, who promptly signed James to his burgeoning indie label Easy Eye Sound.

 

Looking back on his journey to date, James reveals a distinct lack of calculation when it comes to his career path. “I never really know what I want to make, so it’s always fun,” he says. “There’s never any pressure, and as long as people keep liking the songs then I’ll keep recording them.” But despite the spontaneous nature of his creative process, he hopes that his songs might leave an indelible imprint on the audience. “For me writing songs is a form of self-reflection and therapy—once I say something out loud and people respond in any kind of positive way, it makes me feel less crazy and helps me to move on,” he says. “To make someone else feel or make someone think or even make them laugh is a really cool job, and I definitely feel lucky to have it.”