Pokey LaFarge is set to release ‘Rock Bottom Rhapsody’ on 10th April. The 13-song set is his New West Records debut and was produced by Chris Seefried. The album was recorded at Reliable Recorders on Chicago’s Northwest Side during the polar vortex of 2019 and features the guitarist Joel Paterson, keyboardist Scott Ligon, upright/electric bassist Jimmy Sutton, and drummer Alex Hall. ‘Rock Bottom Rhapsody’ is LaFarge’s first album in over three years and follows 2017’s acclaimed ‘Manic Revelations’. Pokey has confirmed a London show at Islington Assembly Hall on 2nd May.
Sat 2nd May – Islington Assembly Hall, London – TICKETS
Rolling Stone has premiered the video for the album track ‘Fuck Me Up.’ They state, “In 2018, Pokey LaFarge moved from St. Louis to Los Angeles. It nearly killed him. The eccentric Americana troubadour documents his overindulgence and despair on the new album ‘Rock Bottom Rhapsody’”. Of the video, they say “The clip is both haunting and mesmerising, with LaFarge participating in his own funeral procession (at one point, he sings from his coffin). Images of him surrounded by women and later drinking alone in a hotel room presage what led him to this point, culminating with LaFarge transforming into a cartoonish devil that plays barroom piano.” The video was directed by Keene McRae & Brandon Bernath.
WATCH ‘FUCK ME UP’ VIDEO HERE
STREAM ‘FUCK ME UP’ ON SPOTIFY
“The man singing these songs isn’t exactly the same man that wrote them,” says LaFarge. “This album is about the story of who I used to be.” In early 2018 he relocated from his longtime home base of St. Louis to Los Angeles. New songs came quickly to LaFarge in his new environment, but new temptations soon found him, as well. He admits that he experienced a significant “fall from grace” during the last months of 2018. “Things started to unravel in my mind. I was letting evil spirits and demons rule me, and I came into certain agreements with them, and it took me down. I was giving too much power to darkness, and I got in too deep, and I made some bad decisions. The reality of the situation is that I hit the closet to rock bottom that I ever had, and I’ve definitely had some hardships in my life.”
While songs on Rock Bottom Rhapsody were mostly written before LaFarge’s life went into a downward spiral, their lyrics definitely speak of a soul in crisis — even though their author himself wasn’t fully aware of it at the time. “It’s a case of me writing the story and writing the song, and then, unfortunately, living it,” he reflects. “I was going towards the darkness. Destruction definitely ensued; self-sabotage and self-destruction definitely happened.”
But shortly before the recording of Rock Bottom Rhapsody began, LaFarge experienced a spiritual awakening — and the faith he re-embraced in his hour of darkness helped to buoy him through the making of the album. “I wrote this record before the fall from grace, and then it was recorded after the fall from grace. So you see how that could be kind of odd,” he says. “What I was searching for was peace and humility in the aftermath of carnage, of things I had wrecked, and — seemingly at the time — completely destroyed. I was just trying to survive; I had to fight every time to get up to that microphone and just sing. It was kind of a last stand.”
During the recording of the album, LaFarge took a break to take a “dark, sad, villainous role” in the forthcoming Netflix film The Devil All The Time which was produced by the notable music supervisor Randall Poster and the actor Jake Gyllenhaal. “The irony wasn’t lost on me that, one month after finding God, the first feature film opportunity that comes across my table has that for a title,” he chuckles.
Pokey LaFarge’s Rock Bottom Rhapsody will be available across digital platforms, on compact disc, and standard black vinyl. A limited to 500 Pink Coloured Vinyl edition will be available at Independent Retail and a limited to 300 Buttercream Coloured Vinyl edition is available for pre-order now exclusively via NEW WEST RECORDS.
Pokey LaFarge Rock Bottom Rhapsody Track Listing:
1. Rock Bottom Rhapsody
2. End of My Rope
3. Fuck Me Up
4. Bluebird
5. Rock Bottom Reprise
6. Lucky Sometimes
7. Carry On
8. Just The Same
9. Fallen Angel
10. Storm-A-Comin’
11. Ain’t Comin’ Home
12. Lost In The Crowd
13. Rock Bottom Finale
