Country music has gotten a lot of mileage out of the idea that great songs require a little self-destruction. Zach Bryan is questioning what that idea actually did for him.
Bryan released Young Manhood and Other Donatable Organs on Friday, October 16. The eight-song EP features Lana Del Rey and Turnpike Troubadours, but his accompanying conversation with Matthew McConaughey offers another reason to pay attention: Bryan says he wrote and sang the entire project sober.
For an artist who once believed alcohol helped unlock his creativity, that represents a considerable change.
Speaking with McConaughey in the roughly two-hour On the Porch interview, Bryan explained that he had connected drinking with the romantic mythology surrounding writers such as Jack Kerouac. Making this project without alcohol helped him challenge that belief.
“I wrote every word sober, and I sang every word sober,” Bryan said, according to Saving Country Music’s coverage of the conversation.
That’s the part that interests me. When your career takes off while you’re living a certain way, it’s easy to confuse the circumstances surrounding the work with the thing that made the work possible.
A motorcycle trip brought the drinking into focus
Bryan also described a monthlong motorcycle trip that failed to deliver the revelation he had imagined. Traveling alone, visiting bars and drinking himself to sleep, he eventually found himself outside a truck stop near Seattle wondering why he felt so empty.
The scenery had changed. His habits had followed him.
As recounted in Whiskey Riff’s report on the interview, that experience prompted him to question his drinking. He also acknowledged that his earlier dismissive attitude toward sobriety had kept him from recognizing his own problem.
He now describes renewed enthusiasm for writing and everyday life. “I enjoy writing again,” Bryan said in comments reported by Bang Showbiz.
Evan Felker and Jason Isbell helped change his perspective
Bryan credited Evan Felker and Jason Isbell with helping him see a creative future without alcohol. Hearing Turnpike Troubadours’ work after Felker got sober challenged his fears about what sobriety might do to a songwriter. Isbell’s experience making Southeastern after quitting drinking offered another example.
There’s something valuable about established artists being honest about that fear. Fans hear the finished songs. They don’t always hear how much an artist worries that changing their life might cost them the ability to write one.
Lana Del Rey and Turnpike join the new EP
Young Manhood and Other Donatable Organs runs approximately 29 minutes. Del Rey appears on “Lies,” while Turnpike Troubadours join Bryan on “Plainsman.” The collection also includes “Lodi When,” “Robot Killed The Working Man,” “Dog Days,” “Backwards,” “Is The Blue Tangled in You?” and “You’ll Get By.”
Bryan’s account of making it deserves room alongside the music. We spend plenty of time celebrating artists for documenting the wreckage. I’m glad to hear one talk about finding the desire to write while taking better care of himself.
Listen to Young Manhood and Other Donatable Organs and watch Bryan’s On the Porch conversation with Matthew McConaughey.
