Twenty years ago or so, the word alt-country was the go-to for anything with twang and grit that combined the worlds of Steve Earle, Whiskeytown, The Jayhawks, and Gram Parsons. Well, thanks to the rise of mainstream “hey! ho!”, those more authentic sounds have kept to the underground for better or worse.
St. Louis’s true-grit Americana outfit, Nick Gusman and the Coyotes embody all that’s right with ’90s alt-country with a dash of pensive songwriting heard in Jason Isbell and John Moreland. The band is set to unveil their much-anticipated album, Lifting Heavy Things, on December 7, 2024, and Glide is premiering the exuberant “Tokyo Hotel.”
“Tokyo Hotel” is a vivid snapshot of a fleeting moment, frozen in time as a Polaroid tacked to a dingy motel wall. Gusman’s evocative storytelling transports listeners to a world where despair and hope coexist in uneasy harmony, all within the confines of a rundown Chicago establishment.
“I was 20 years old on my first visit to Chicago when a homeless man led me to ‘the cheapest place downtown to sleep’,” Gusman recalls. “That night at The Tokyo Hotel, in the dead of winter 2005, became the seed for this song.”
While the influences run the gamut on Nick Gusman and the Coyotes, a sense of hope and redemption is blurred between aching pedal steel and twangy delivery. Let’s consider this a musical blueprint for career artists some hard to imitate…
“I was influenced by Tom Waits lyrically. The setting for this song very much comes from that gritty underworld that he loves to romanticize. I feel like I can hear him performing this in his own way. Musically, it has a Wilco vibe,” adds Gusman.
