Dallas-based band Bastards of Soul recently released their final collection of songs recorded with their late vocalist Chadwick Murray titled Give It Right Back via the newly founded Skylark Soul Co. It was preceded by the album Corners (2022) which was also recorded before Murray’s untimely death from a rare and sudden pulmonary illness in 2021 at the age of 45, leaving behind a wife and newborn son. The band is comprised of seasoned musicians from the Dallas scene and Murray himself was well known in the scene as a bass player, but had never stepped out in front as a vocalist until this new group was formed. His experiment with vocals proved to be a revelation as he worked doggedly to improve his abilities and saw big results both in the studio and on stage where he was dubbed a “powerhouse”.
Bastards of Soul recorded and released their 2021 debut Spinnin’ at Niles City Sound of Leon Bridges fame, and started playing theaters alongside artists like The Black Pumas and Kamasi Washington. They continued to persevere in studio work and had both an album and an EP planned. Over the course of their time together, the band members were able to record just under 30 songs, and Give It Right Back completes their output. There is also a documentary planned for 2024 by filmmaker Paul Levatino based upon footage that was shot earlier in the band’s career. I spoke with founding bandmembers Chad Stockslager (keyboards) and Danny Balis (bass) about their move to complete and release the work that we find on Give It Right Back, their love for Chadwick Murray, and what was so special for them about making this music together.
Hannah Means-Shannon: For you all to have gathered and put out the previous album and this album so quickly following your bandmates’ passing shows a lot of commitment. Since these songs were recorded at different times and places, was production part of the focus, bringing together a consistent sound?
Danny Balis: If you look at it in three different phases, sonically it’s still all connected, but each micro batch of tunes was recorded in different studios with different Producers and different engineers. To me, it’s noticeable at times, but when I listen to the album as a whole, it makes sense and works. The recordings are some that I am pleased to release.
Chad Stockslager: The material kind of speaks to that myriad approach. You have different cooks in the kitchen. Previously, we had hunkered down with one cook in the kitchen, but with this range of material, diversity was part of the production. Both of those studios are favorites of ours. They both gave us a boost and kept us going. It was a magical thing how some of those tracks come together. “This Love”, for instance, is a haunting ballad and just so beautiful.
Danny: That’s the other thing, that everyone outside the core of the band, including the engineers and players, were so enthusiastic to finish unfinished songs. They were so willing and helpful about it because, in part, these people had been friends of ours for a long time, but there was also a sensitive approach to finishing the work that Chadwick had been a part of.
In times of duress like this, people say a lot of things in the moment, like “Anything you need.” By and large, that’s often lipservice, and I’ve done that myself and not really meant it, but these people were on the spot realizing this thing, and I think it was born out of a love for Chadwick and whatever musical legacy can be left for his wife, and for his son who he never got to know. All of those things played a part in peoples’ devotion to helping us complete this. It was bittersweet to be able to work with all these people gain. I can’t imagine a better experience in spite of things.
Chad: I agree. The way things came about, with great arrangements, and horn players, and the way that people were pitching in was a real blessing.
HMS: It’s wonderful that this went beyond good intentions and that so many people followed through on their promises. The song “This Love” is interesting for a lot of reasons, but one of them is that it really shows how the band has handled ideas of genre and traditions. There are so many things that the song calls back to, sound-wise. A lot of people drop traditions because they can’t manage to incorporate them into their work, but I think some of what you guys have done is to take recognizable, beloved traditions, and bring them into modern interpretations very sensitively. That song’s a great example of that.
Danny: That song harkens back to 1959 crooner, Sam Cooke era. There are a couple of other tunes like “It’s Gonna Be Alright”, and “You Let Me Down Again” that feel like they are from that same era. To me, when we’d pay homage to a style or an aesthetic, my mindset for the finished record is to want to listen to it and feel convinced that had this been recorded in 1959, it would have been a fucking hit! Now, times change and our ears have heard all that stuff before, like Sam Cooke and Otis Redding. A lot of imitations have been created, but to me it’s about the song. If the song is a good song, and you can add that time-travel element to it, where it might have been a hit, then it really holds up and hits the mark.
Chad: You can look back to the 90s when people could work a bit of do-wop into their songs and everyone went crazy for it, but now everything’s so spread out and compartmentalized that it’s less common. Certain artists out there are slavishly reproducing a certain sound and it can become almost too insular, though, so it becomes almost a little kitsch. But if you can jump that hurdle and create something that can stand alone, regardless of its era, and is just a beautiful piece of work, then that’s it. “This Love” transcends the era.
Danny: That’s my favorite track from this standpoint. What makes that track great to me is that it is the most basic approach to everyone playing an instrument in that room. That song was always about having a great string arrangement, thank you David Pierce, and Keite Young delivering a stellar vocal. For everybody else, it was our job not to get in their way. Everybody in this band is pretty accomplished and can play a lot of styles, so what you hear is a lot of restraint on that recording. That’s what makes it sound really cool. It sounds so good and nobody’s doing anything! Who knew that was the secret?
HMS: Well, that’s one way to do it. “You Let Me Down Again”, however, has a big sound, and a lot of swagger, and a lot of interesting things going on. The energy of that song really hits me. I can understand why you might think that people don’t want to hear older musical traditions, but when you guys bring that kind of energy to something, you can’t ignore it. That’s why I’m sure you have gotten a big reaction as a live band, too. That song also has surprises that aren’t revealed right away.
Chad: I think that one’s interesting because it was one of the longest gestating songs we did. We tried that thing every which way. We had like eight or ten different versions that we were toying around with.
Danny: They had different keys, different time signatures.
Chad: It was the simplest song, it felt so straightforward, but everyone was waiting to agree when it felt right. We had a shuffly Aretha Franklin version at one point, but the driving element, going with the anger and the feistiness of the lyrics, made sense.
Danny: That one and the other one we did in that session, “It’s Gonna Be Alright”, had everyone in the room together, all playing live. I don’t even know if there were any overdubs. If someone screwed up, we stopped the tape, rewound it, and went back to get the right take. I think that added to that element you’re talking about. People complimented us on our live shows because we did have a Rock ‘n Roll, almost Punk, unabashed, attitude to it. Recording those tracks, we got all the people in the room working together, looking at each other, and digging in. That aggressive approach is there. It was a standout song, and that’s Matt Pence at Echo Labs who gives it that big room, Motown feel. It was a big collaboration, including Chad Stockslager’s writing.
HMS: Those two songs, fortuitously, got captured on video during the recording process and we see a little bit of that on the music videos for them. I understand that relates to a documentary that’s coming out, wrapping the footage together.
Danny: Yes, they are in the process of final editing touches on that. The four of us got back together in a session and cut some final scoring for it, as a group. We were in a rehearsal spot that we’d used for five years. We did film scoring in the style of what we usually do. And I have seen some outtakes. I’ve refused to watch the rough cut of it because I don’t want to see it until it’s done. But to work on the score, we had to see some of the footage, and unfortunately, it took me back to a place that was not my favorite time in life. I remember seeing how the music lined up with the footage, and in my bathroom, in my house, just feeling all those emotions all over again.
It felt just as impactful as it did then, but I think it’s part of the process to go back to those emotions, acknowledge them, and give them the honor and respect that they deserve. Chad and I have both lost a bunch of contemporaries, just in the last five years, and we’ve had some near-misses, too, in the Dallas scene. You definitely learn to compartmentalize it, and I think it was good for me to look back at that footage, since I hadn’t really done that since I got over the initial wave of grief. I think it was good to feel those emotions again. It’s important for that to be part of my life.
I had lost my best friend in 2007, and I recall not dealing with it very well. A good friend of mine, when we were dealing with the loss of Chadwick, told me, “This time around, it’s going to be important for you to feel that, because otherwise you’re doing a disservice to the love you experienced with Chadwick while he was here. You don’t get to take that love and not pay it back when they are not there.” That really hit me. It got me to the other side a lot more quickly. We know people who are still struggling.
Chad: I think that is a healthy way to approach it.
