You Know Who is the follow-up to 2021’s Introducing…The Pink Stones for the Athens, GA-based band, made up entirely of Athens musicians who play in other bands around town (including former members of the Drive-By Truckers and The Glands). In one sense, The Pink Stones are a throwback group evoking the cosmic country sounds of Gram Parsons with spacey honky-tonk, trucker anthems, and southern gospel, all reflecting the musical span of frontman Hunter Pinkston (ah, now we know where the band name came from). As you know, David Barbe has long been a producer for the Drive-by Truckers, but those genes must run in the family as son Henry Barbe collaborates with Pinkston as co-producer here. The six-piece unit is multi-instrumentalist Pinkston, Will Anderson (keyboards), Logan Brammer (guitars, vocals), Adam Wayton (bass), pedal steel player and former Drive-by Trucker John Neff, and Jack Colclough (drums). They invite some elite guests to this session including Nikki Lane, Teddy and the Rough Riders, John James Tourville of The Deslondes, and Annie Leeth.
The opening “Roses and Poppies” sounds like an old-fashioned casual hoe-down in someone’s backyard with the full band singing the chorus. The telecaster and pedal steel bring the twang for the infectious “Baby, I’m Still Right Here (With You),” imbued by Nikki Lane’s harmonies and chorus vocals as well as Neff’s notable pedal steel. “Where We Have to Day” is a slice of up-tempo bluegrass with guitars and pedal steel subbing for the banjo and fiddle. Pinkston says, “This record was me trying to take everything I love as a listener and a player and shove it all into one thing without it sounding random…There’s obviously a lot of country and rock in our music, but there’s a lot of gospel and soul and psych and dub. I really wanted to get all of those things living peacefully together in one record.” Case in point is the ballad “No Rain, No Flowers,” at heart a traditional country tune colored by Neff’s pedal steel and a simple three chord structure. “Moving On (Without You)” follows suit with a tinge of western flavor and buckets full of twang from a tremolo fueled telecaster and the pedal steel.
The first single with accompanying video is “Who’s Laughing Now” which features Teddy and the Rough Riders on the song and actor, writer, and comedian Chris Crofton in the video. In typical country parlance, the protagonist shields his heavy heart with an ebullient sing-along chorus. Sometimes you just have to laugh on your way out. Pinkston and the band are no slouches in terms of infectious hooks, best exemplified here. For emphasis the short instrumental “Still Laughing” follows, serving also as an interlude to the title track, filled with some dizzying guitar effects, taking us into short-lived spacey, psychedelic territory with the haze clearing for the straightforward country rocker “Someone You Can’t Move.” “Time’s Standing Still” has one of those chugging (“Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’”) rock n’ roll riffs we would associate with that other band with “Stones” in their name. “Rich Rudy” sounds like the kind of rocker the band might play to a bunch of soused patrons in their favorite dive, with its opposite the closing, “Stoned and Alone,” where the vibe hasn’t changed, nor the sing-along vocals, just the setting itself – “I’m still alone, at home, getting stoned.”
If you don’t find yourself singing along with The Pink Stones on at least a couple of these songs, then something must be amiss. It will also inevitably evoke those glory days of hazy, country rock in the ‘70s and might have you reaching for some of Parsons’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo fare. If so, that’s all good. It all fits so well together.
