On April 18th, Peter Holsapple will release new solo album, The Face of ’68, via Label 51 Recordings. It follows 2018’s solo album Game Day, but also finds its place among his many collaborative projects, such as with Chris Stamey and with The dB’s, whose recent reissue program was followed by a tour. Holsapple’s long career playing with bands like R.E.M. and Hootie, not to mention his own Continental Drifters, has led to a versatility that means he could easily choose from among many genres for songwriting. This time, in a particularly exciting development, he’s made a Rock album.
The album’s title reflects on Holsapple’s age at the making of the album, 68 years old, and he follows that directness in the songwriting on the album, speaking openly about the perspective that years may bring to ideas of life and death, marriage, and memory. Combining those themes with a rocking, irrepressible energy makes the album that much more approachable and even anthemic. To build this sound, Holsapple worked with Robert Sledge (Ben Folds Five) on bass and Rob Ladd (The Connells) on drums, and they worked with Producer Don Dixon (R.E.M., Smithereens). I spoke with him about the album’s first track to be revealed, “She and Me” (premiering exclusively on Glide), and about his goals in making The Face of ’68.
I’ve been following your work for years, and as a Rock fan, I was really excited to hear this was a Rock record and then dive in.
Yes, this is a Rock record, and it’s exciting to make a record like that. It took a lot of years to get the confidence to make a record like that. I kind of got to do the one-man vaudeville show with Game Day, and before that, I did a record that was made in fits and starts. This time out, I’ve been able to find a label with incredible enthusiasm. This is a really good record and I’m really proud of it. People who are listening to it are giving me great feedback and commenting on how complete it sounds.
I’ll say something kind of general: I really like the way that you reflect on time and life perspectives throughout the album, too. I think that’s one of the things that you allow yourself to do, and I think that’s meaningful. You’re very direct about that.
Thank you for noticing that. I was recently thinking that when I was 20 years old, I wrote about girls and having fun, Rock ‘n Roll, and stuff like that. Now, I’m about to turn 69, and I’m writing about friends dying, or not having the time that I once had, or reflecting on a long marriage. That’s a different perspective. It has to be. If your life’s changing, your subject matter is going to have to change, too. The one thing that I’ve striven for is to always make it authentic and only release stuff that I think is good.
You know we’re here partly to talk about “She and Me,” and it’s one of those songs that we could do a whole interview about. What can you tell me about how it was written?
The thing about “She and Me” is it had a whole different set of lyrics at one point. It’s not that they were not for publication, but they were a little too inside baseball. I lived with them for a while and I realized that. There’s the thing about serving the song, so I went back and realized that aside from “She Won’t Drive in the Rain Anymore”, I really hadn’t written any songs about my wife. Then these lyrics kind of shook out when I started playing the song again. I had to go to my longtime professional proofreader friend, Will Rigby, also known as the drummer for the dB’s. I said, “She and me. Is this so ungrammatical as to be cringeworthy?” He said, “No, it’s a song title! It’s fine.” I worry about stuff like that.
First of all, the title rhymes, but second of all, it made me feel a different emotion than I would feel with “She and I.” Using “me” sounds a little more internalizing like you’re pointing to yourself.
It’s like those matching T-shirts, “I’m with her! She’s with me!”
Right! My theory is that sometimes we need to write the first version of a song in order to write the second one. Do you think that’s true, that you needed to write the first version to get to the second one?
The music had come out and the melody had come out. Sweating the lyrics is a whole different set of rules, but having the music together to go in with made the transition of lyrics a lot easier than it could have been. If I had had to retool the music as well, I might have thrown up my hands and said, “Next!” I think the lyrics that I’d written before were kind of out of character for me, even though I’m a snarky guy. We get a little snarky in the dB’s sometimes. But, overall, I think I’ve mellowed, and I think I’m a lot more pleasant to be around. Lyrically speaking, I think that’s true as well.
What you’re saying is also true, though. I go through periods where I don’t write a song for six months or longer, and when I do finally get back to it, most of the time it’s not very good. It’s sort of like plunging the pipe and getting that crud out. Then, hopefully, the next one is better, and the one after that, even, is the one to bank one.
Peter, you have written love songs in your life before. In some ways, writing a love song is a surefire way to reach an audience, but in some ways, it’s also very hard to write a love song. What I appreciate about “She and Me” is the carefulness that went into the writing. This is not generic. This is about a very specific relationship. How did you decide what to put in it, choosing those little moments and details?
A lot of those little stories and images are things that happened to us and things that I think about my spouse. We’ve been together almost 25 years, 22 of them married. We still look at each other and say, “How did this happen?” We have beautiful moments in our life. I just tried to find stuff that was kind of fun and reflected our admiration for each other. We really do think the world of each other, and I think that comes across in the song.
A lot of love songs come from the perspective of one person about another person, and they don’t really flesh out the other person’s reality. They are enthusiastic but a bit one-sided. I felt I could see a real portrait of her here and a sense of equality.
The song “She Won’t Drive in the Rain Anymore” was one that I wrote with Christian Bush for the dB’s and that’s the story of her also, evacuating the kids from Katrina. I don’t write a lot of songs about my wife, but when I do, I try to make them pretty good!
When you do that, you probably have to ask yourself, “What if she doesn’t like this?” Has she heard this one?
Oh yeah! Something like this, this personal, I would always run by her before I took it up the flagpole. I have the most amazing relationship with this fascinating Collections Analysis Librarian, and she’s the smartest person I know. I would always check with her on something like this, but I think she feels that it’s pretty cool.
I love the sense of a team-up against the world in the song, like the lyrics, “They didn’t think it would last so long.” That suggests that you all beat the odds.
Oh, we did. We absolutely did. We met at a bookstore in New Orleans, and I’d never really believed in love at first sight, and especially at my advanced age! I was not expecting to meet somebody at that point, but I did. It’s stayed hilarious. She has the best laugh of anybody on earth.
My last point about this song is that the subtext and the context is: you’re a musician. That is a life that is hard on relationships. And yet you have beat the odds together.
You think? The song is more a celebration of the goodness of the relationship, and there is some tension in there, but really it’s a lot of give and take. That’s the thing we’ve realized about having a musician in a relationship, that there is a lot of give and take. There is the “pride in ownership” if you will [Laughs], but there’s also the realization that if I don’t get out and play these songs for people, then I’m missing a shot at doing things the right way. You don’t just hit the golf ball, you follow through. Also, I like it. We got done with the dB’s tour, and I’m glad to have something new to do. I think I can go out and do these songs with myself and a guitar. I’ve been able to reduce the songs to that scale recently, and it’s neat to hear them like that.
I also think you’re right about the consistency of sound on this album. My one-word review for this album is that it’s “bangin’”. It’s a bangin’ album!
Yay! Then I’ve succeeded. I wanted to make something where you’d turn it up in your car and roll the windows down. It’s a little cold for that right now, admittedly, but come springtime, it’s ideal for cars. I’ve listened to it in my car, mostly, because I know what those speakers sound like. It just sounds great. I played the test-pressing of it, too.
Tell me about the cover art. I need to know about this unusual image.
The cover art is by Jon Langford, who you know from The Waco Brothers and The Mekons. He is a superb human being and a force. He’s done so many beautiful records over the years. I was able to get in touch with him through The Paranoid Style, who are friends of his. I’d forgotten that he did the Dylan, Cash and the Nashville Cats compilation from a couple years ago.
What’s the significance of the book that you’re holding in the picture?
Jon did that from a photo of mine. It is a booklet that my parents had that’s about surviving community disasters, actually called Psychological First Aid in Community Disasters, and the scale was perfect. I thought, “You might as well! It’s the face of ’68!”
