Josh Turner Releases 'Punching Bag,' Tries Out Nicknames

All throughout country music history, many artists have nicknames. George Jones is known as "The Possum." Bill Anderson is known as "Whisperin' Bill," and Josh Turner might become known by one of two different monikers that fans will hear on his new album, "Punching Bag."

With a title like that, a light went off in Turner's head. "I had an idea to ask (wrestling announcer) Michael Buffer to intro the record, and do a video thing for our live show. He did it, which was above and beyond what we asked him to do. My manager and I wanted to have two or three nicknames, and the first one that came to mind was 'Tornado of Testosterone,' which the Riders In The Sky gave me one night at the Grand Ole Opry," he said with a laugh. "At the same time, we needed another, so I came up with 'The Bone Shakin' Baritone.'"

Whether either name will stick is up for a good natured debate, but the music on the disc has gotten some of the best reviews of Turner's decade-long career. The first single, "Time Is Love," has already made an impact -- on listeners (currently No. 15 on the Hot Country Songs chart), as well as the singer. "It's a song that speaks to the idea of quantity time more so than quality time," he says. "Quantity time -- getting to know people better and growing relationships-is the more important thing. To me, it's a great message, and it feels good and sounds good."

Turner wrote or co-wrote eight of the eleven cuts on "Punching Bag" at a cabin located on his property south of Nashville that has come to be a definite point of inspiration.

"I spent two years building this cottage, and faced a lot of obstacles and challenges in getting this built," he told Billboard. "But, I was building it for a purpose - to write songs in - to inspire my co-writers and myself, or anybody that walks in. I wanted it to be a place where ideas and creativity can flourish. I had so many things on my heart and that I wanted to write about. The first song that I wrote was called 'Moses,' which was about my dog, and the feelings and emotions I had about losing him. From there, the juices just started flowing."

There's plenty of music in the cabin - even a copy of Randy Travis's Storms Of Life, the first cassette Turner ever bought - in a shadowbox, but not much else in the way of distractions. That's the way he likes it. "It's fun to sit here without TV and no phone ringing off the hook. We can get down to the heart and core of each song." He adds that his productivity has increased since the cabin was completed in late 2010. "I think I've written 27 or 28 songs, and eight of the songs ended up on the record."

This time around, many of Turner's songs made the final cut. But, that's not always the case, he points out. "For me, I just have to choose the best songs period - whether I wrote them or not. I try to leave no stone unturned, but with this album -- I had plenty of time to write and to create."

While not likely a radio single, one of the highlights of the disc is the haunting "Pallbearer," which also features Marty Stuart and Iris DeMent. Turner admits the song comes from a personal place.

"I wrote that song with no commercial intentions whatsoever," he says. "A distant relative of mine had passed away, and I wasn't able to make it home for his funeral. My parents went, and they sent me a bulletin from the service, and I saw that my daddy had been asked to be a pallbearer. I started reading that name, and it's one you hear all the time. I thought of the emotions of being a pallbearer. I've been one a couple of times, and it's one of the most lonesome things you can do - especially if you know the person you're carrying. I didn't write the song specifically about him, but it was inspired about his death and his life. I came up with an idea about how this man had been in love with a woman, and she just turned her back on him. His emotions were like that of being a pallbearer, bearing the loss of this woman and the hardship and the pain that she had caused."

Turner will promote the album with appearances on PBS's "A Capitol Fourth" on July 4, and will appear July 11 on ABC's "Good Morning America."

View the original article here

Wainwright tries pop's mainstream with new album

Musician Rufus Wainwright poses for a portrait in New York April 13, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Victoria Will

By Christine Kearney

NEW YORK | Tue May 1, 2012 1:59pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - After writing an opera, recreating Judy Garland's classic Carnegie Hall show and performing one concert tour dressed, in his words, as a crazed feathered ghost, Rufus Wainwright is edging toward pop's mainstream.

The experimental singer-songwriter has teamed with popular British DJ and music producer Mark Ronson, who helped create Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black," for what is being touted as Wainwright's most commercial album yet, "Out of the Game," released in the United States on Tuesday.

"I definitely have the intention of creating something slightly more commercially viable than opera for this next album," Wainwright told Reuters, poking fun at his production, "Prima Donna," as well as his piano album "Songs for Lulu" - the record he performed on tour in a 17-foot-long feathered cape.

And before those CDs came his first live album based on his interpretation of Garland's famous, 1961 Carnegie Hall concert.

Wainwright's mix of styles has been applauded by many critics and earned him a Grammy nomination. Yet, despite having fans worldwide and being labeled as one of his generation's top songwriters, some of his albums haven't sold very well.

"I was pretty on the margins of what is usually accepted by the mainstream, and I felt, 'Let's try the mainstream. We tried this other stuff, so let's try this,'" he said.

So far, his collaboration with Ronson, whom the eclectic singer called "the consummate producer," has worked. "Out of the Game" debuted at No. 5 in Britain after its release a week ago.

But longtime fans of Wainwright, whose father is singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright III and who grew up with his folk singer mother, Kate McGarrigle, in Montreal, need not despair that this new album will be unrecognizable, the singer said.

"It does have that intention, but I don't think I necessarily threw the baby out with the bath water, either. There is still a lot of old Rufus in there," he said. "It is a journey into a more upbeat environment."

GROWN-UP REFLECTIONS

Well known for being candid early in his career about his gay life and about his former drug addiction, Wainwright's new album reflects more recent events including plans to marry German arts administrator Jorn Weisbrodt, the death of his mother and a baby girl he conceived with Leonard Cohen's daughter and his friend, Lorca Cohen.

In the song "Montauk," - the Long Island, New York, beach town where Wainwright, now 38, often stays - the singer with the dreamy tenor addresses his new daughter, "one day you will come to Montauk/and see your dad wearing a kimono/and see your other dad pruning roses/hope you won't turn around and go."

"I may be a little more interested in the mainstream but really, the core of it is because I have had such an intense adult-filled life, losing my mother two years ago and having a child recently and being in a relationship, there have been a lot of very grown-up situations, for better or for worse," he said.

After all that, his new songs reflected a need to be "silly and young still," without taking away from his core appeal to the "dispossessed" listener Wainwright describes as, "someone who senses the tragic nature of our world but also appreciates the romance and the beauty and is also positive in a weird way."

"I have always been very open and very honest and very real for better or for worse," he said. "I wish sometimes I could be more fabricated and constructed. But I always had to be myself, and I think people have appreciated that over the years and have stayed with me. But it's been a long burn."

The sound of his new album harks to the late 1970s recalling an Elton John or Fleetwood Mac, a time Wainwright fondly recalls as when "bands still played together in the studio at the same time."

"I would also argue in a sense that my voice probably relates closest to that era," he said. "I am not a jazz singer, I am not a doo-wop singer, I am not a punk rock singer, I am this odd hybrid of a lot of different influences. And that period in music, especially in songwriting ... was rich."

The album's title song, "Out of the Game," however, tackles modern times and is a reaction to the Internet's ability to propel sudden fame like never before on sites such as YouTube.

"I have had to work at it for long time to create this artistic persona, and then I see these kids overnight getting so much attention for such stupid stuff," he said. "It's how ephemeral and unfounded it is."

In May, Wainwright plans to play several tribute concerts to his mother with Nora Jones and various other artists, and two years after her death, he is still inspired by her and considers her "one of the great songwriters."

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

View the original article here

Train Tries To Follow A Massive Hit - Again - on 'California 37'

In 2009, the members of Train thought the band might have run out of road. Its third album, "For Me, It's You," released by Columbia in 2006, had failed to live up to expectations. Its breakout, multiplatinum debut, "Drops of Jupiter," was eight years in the rearview, and the success of the San Francisco act's 2003 follow-up, "My Private Nation," was quickly fading from sight. Despite sneaking into the top 10 of the Billboard 200 in its first week (at No. 10), "For Me, It's You" didn't deliver a Hot 100 hit -- a huge blow for a band with a track record for smash singles and the hardware to show for it.

In the wake of the stalled release, singer Pat Monahan says the band was left wondering if its next album would be its last. But rather than junking the whole operation, Train decided to strip down, reboot and give the group one last go. Step one: a corporate-like housecleaning that included massive layoffs, "business-wise and onstage," as Monahan puts it, leaving just the original trio -- Monahan, guitarist Jimmy Stafford and drummer Scott Underwood onboard.

As it turned out, the move worked. Armed with some demos that would later become the band's 2009 comeback album, "Save Me San Francisco" -- which yielded the hit single "Hey, Soul Sister," the second-best-selling digital song of 2010 (4.3 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan) - - the band rebuilt its crew. The most important new hire: Train brought Crush Management onboard, a company that was having success with acts like Gym Class Heroes and Cobra Starship. Monahan credits Crush -- and specifically band manager Jonathan Daniel -- with reviving Train's fan base.

"What are the chances that Train, the band that disappeared for however long from people's lives, could come back and have a song that outsells everything else in 2010?" Monahan asks while sitting in his hotel room in New York, where the band is prepping for its appearance on "Late Show With David Letterman." "Who would have ever made that gamble? Anybody? No."

Train's Pat Monahan Talks 'Drive By,' Following Up 'Hey Soul Sister'

But Daniel and Crush not only made the gamble, they won the hand. "Save Me San Francisco peaked" at No. 17 on the Billboard 200; has sold 954,000 copies, according to SoundScan; and spawned three top 40 singles and four adult top 40/triple A hits -- including "Hey, Soul Sister," a five-times-platinum track that won the 2010 Grammy Award for best pop performance by a duo or group with vocals and peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. The success of the album sent Train on the road right up until the end of 2011 -32 months total, counting a three-month tour preceding the album's release. Finally, the group headed into the studio to record its sixth album, "California 37."

"My dad always said, 'If you have something important you want done, give it to the busiest person,'" Monahan says. "And it makes sense, because if you're busy and you're in the heat of the moment that you're meant to be in, then just keep throwing things into the whirlwind and they'll get resolved. A lot of times when you have downtime, you tend to overthink things. Like, 'Let's listen to the radio, what do we want to do?' Instead of, 'We are part of the radio, let's just do what we do.' That's a way better way to go about it."

Almost all of "California 37," due April 17 on Columbia, was penned while Train trekked around the world in support of "Save Me San Francisco." On days off, Monahan would fly to New York to work on new music, often collaborating with Norwegian songwriting/production duo Espionage -- Espen Lind and Amund Bjørklund -- who had helped write "Hey, Soul Sister." After touring wrapped in Asia last November, Train's members spent a few days at home for Thanksgiving, then flew to Los Angeles to record with producer Butch Walker at his Venice, Calif., studio. And though one would expect plenty of pressure to follow up the popularity of the previous album, Monahan says there wasn't any sense of anxiety.

"In the past we've lied and said, 'No, it wasn't much pressure,'" he says. "Or at least we tried to make light of the pressure. And in hindsight, maybe we were telling the truth. But when you look back at it, there was a lot of pressure -- mostly our own pressure. What I realized was, we longed for success so badly because we didn't enjoy the process. When you don't enjoy the process of something, the only reward is success - - monetary or radio or fame or whatever. So when we were working on this record there was really no pressure, because we're loving our time together."

The band's business team, Daniel says, was likewise unconcerned about Train's ability to deliver another batch of potential singles. "Writing a hit song is one thing, but writing a song that's a hit for years, like 'Drops of Jupiter' or 'Soul Sister,' is really rare," Daniel says. "And doing it multiple times is really, really rare." So both the label and management are focused on using the momentum from Save Me San Francisco to propel the new album forward.

The quick release of the album was intentional. "We wanted to turn it around relatively quickly, without compromising the music," Daniel says, "to capitalize on the success of the last album." The label promoted the album's first single, "Drive By," to radio in mid-January. That single, which was followed by a music video on Feb. 15, has already gone gold, according to the RIAA - - weeks before "California 37's" release.

Propelled by buoyant acoustic riffs and a hook-laden melody that combines Monahan's sing-talk vocal croon with soaring choruses, "Drive By" is of a pop-rock style similar to "Hey, Soul Sister." For radio programmers, the number was an immediate yes.

"I began playing Train in the very beginning, starting with 'Meet Virginia,' and everything since then was a no-brainer for the format," says Charese Fruge, PD for CBS Radio stations KEGY San Diego and Las Vegas' KMXB and KXTE. "Drive By" had "an instant hook. Train is core for the audience, so it rose to power [rotation] quickly on KMXB and it's still there. The songs are melodic, sexy, sarcastic and incorporate pop culture, which makes it so relatable to the fans. Not to mention they nail everything live."

Columbia had spent five months promoting "Hey, Soul Sister" before it took off, aided in part by a placement on "CSI: New York," Daniel recalls. But this time out, coming off an album that's approaching platinum and that spawned four airplay hits, convincing fans and radio programmers to reboard the Train is a lot easier. "People remember they like Train now," Daniel says. "Sometimes when a band has been around for a long time, you've got to remind them."

Since "CSI: New York" was instrumental in the popularity of "Hey, Soul Sister," the label and band are even more prepared to use TV to promote the new album -- and they're doing it earlier this time, and with more tracks.

Columbia Records Creative Agency senior director Brian Nolan fostered a partnership between Train and ESPN, which is using album cut "This'll Be My Year" during its "MLB Opening Night" spots. The band will also spend a week as the house band on "The Rachael Ray Show," performing two tracks per day for five days, and the group recently appeared on the CW's "90210," where it performed "Drive By" and "Hey, Soul Sister."

In addition, Train will launch a third line of wine under its wine label, which consists of a petite sirah called Drops of Jupiter and chardonnay Calling All Angels. The new line, a cabernet named California 37, will debut around the same time as the album. Later, when Train heads out on its U.S. summer tour in July, fans will be able to taste the band's upcoming partnership with Bay Area chocolatier Ghirardelli, which will involve three types of branded Train chocolate.

Rock N' Roll Wines: The Billboard Tasting

"There was a day, when we started making records, when partnering with a brand other than yourself was taboo," Monahan says. "It turned you from cool to fool really quick. [But now] if you can attach it to something that's decent, it's an amazing opportunity."

But mainly, if you're only just now getting "Hey, Soul Sister" unstuck from your head, 2012 will only bring more Train singles to take its place. More than one, if the band has its way.

"If we were going to be able to do five or six singles from an album," Monahan says, "this is the one."

View the original article here