In mid-March The Cadillac Three were in London to play the Country To Country Festival when escalating fears over the spread of the coronavirus forced the 11th hour cancellation of the festival and sent Jaren Johnston’s band scrambling to find available flights back to Nashville.
On the day before the festival was pulled, the trio gave an interview to Planet Rock where they promised that they weren’t prepared to let fears of a pandemic slow their momentum.
“We’ve worked too damned hard to sit on our asses now,” said Jaren Johnston. “Right now it seems like a good time to keep our foot on the gas.”
True to Johnston’s words, the Trio are now back in business, as they’ve just announced announced the release of a new album, Tabasco & Sweet Tea, coming out this Friday, October 23, via Big Machine Records. The album is the follow-up to Country Fuzz, which was released in February.
“As we finished the last record, we knew we were only tapping the surface with songs like ‘The Jam’ for where we could go next musically and found ourselves inspired to dive into these sounds that we had never explored before as a band,” explains drummer Neil Mason.
“We’ve always had a lot of influences, but ultimately found ourselves thinking about what we were listening to in high school - The Meters, Stevie Wonder, Medeski Martin & Wood and John Scofield.”
Lead singer and guitarist Jaren Johnston continues, “this album is a science project… constantly moving in different directions but keeping one cohesive feel throughout. We kind of have this innate thing going after all these years so it’s was cool to kind of stretch into some new musical spaces with elements of a DJ set that flows from track to track, but mixed with 80’s funk vibes and jam-band flow over hardcore country lyrics.”
The band are launching the album at a reduced price for the first week, they say, “so it’s more accessible during a time when many are not spending as much on music, but need it more than ever.”
“We wouldn’t be where we are without our fans,” says bassist Kelby Ray. “We lost the ability to tour and know many of our fans have also lost their ability to work consistently this year so we wanted to find a way to provide this album as cost effectively as we could. Our hope is that everyone who wants Tabasco & Sweet Tea can get it without breaking the bank.”
On October 27, the trio will debut songs from Tabasco & Sweet Tea during a livestream, starting at 7pm UK time.
Tabasco & Sweet Tea tracklist:
1. Tabasco & Sweet Tea
2. Stop That Girl
3. Head Over Wheels
4. Sweet Southern Spirit
5. Road Soda
6. Bridges
7. Devil's Lettuce
8. Crispy
9. Money Ain't Shit
10. Turn The Radio On
11. Sabbath On Cornbread
