Son of Thunderbird is an acoustic re-imagining of Oklahoma based musician Beau Jennings’ 2019’s acclaimed album The Thunderbird. Jennings performed and recorded the album himself, with contributions from friends John Calvin Abney, Andy Adams, Sherree Chamberlain, Samantha Crain and Chase Kerby.
“What do you do when you have nothing to go back to, when you start to observe things as they truly are for the first time?” asks Beau Jennings. “In the short time since The Thunderbird was written and released with the band, it feels like things have doubled down.”
In many ways, The Thunderbird marked a new beginning for Jennings. He’d previously spent nearly decade creating The Verdigris, an ambitious music and documentary film project inspired by the life of Cherokee cowboy, actor and political humorist Will Rogers.
“After The Verdigris, it took some time to be able to zoom out and write songs not so laser-focused on one topic,” he says. “And even though I was trying not to, I still found themes emerging once the songs came together,” Jennings says. “My loose goal was to capture the pure fun and energy I get from playing with the Tigers and to make a classic summertime rock and roll record. The songs are about people and places I know,” he added. “It allowed me to get out of my own way, so to speak. I got to thinking about the stories of everyday people and the things that happen while they’re just living their lives.”
Glide is proud to premiere the acoustic version of “Static Automatic” a simplistic and moving track that flows with the country-tinged alt-rock of AM era Wilco and the musical wanderlust of Phosphorescent.
“Most of the songs on this record are stories about other people, but ‘Static Automatic’ is probably the one that’s closest to being auto-biographical in any sense, “says Jennings. “It’s hard to say what it’s about exactly – not because I won’t say, but because I just don’t know. But I’m happy with how it touches on scattered thoughts and themes I find popping up in my life, and the line ‘it’s all coming back to me now / it’s always been there somehow’ is maybe my best shot at tying them all together.”
“Most of the songs on this record are stories about other people, but ‘Static Automatic’ is probably the one that’s closest to being auto-biographical in any sense. It’s hard to say what it’s about exactly – not because I won’t say, but because I just don’t know. But I’m happy with how it touches on scattered thoughts and themes I find popping up in my life, and the line ‘it’s all coming back to me now / it’s always been there somehow’ is maybe my best shot at tying them all together.”
