Ryan Sollee has never been much of a gearhead. “I’ve been a proud luddite my whole life,” says the frontman for the starkly cinematic Americana outfit the Builders & The Butchers.
That changed when a friend sold him a vintage 1954 Gibson ES-175 a few years back. “The guitar is so full of history and songs,” says Sollee. “Every time I picked it up, I wrote something I liked, almost like the guitar was possessed or haunted or something. The way it plays made a bunch of new pathways in my brain and has been so creatively open that I feel this weird bond with it.”
The guitar became an essential songwriting tool for No Tomorrow (Badman), the Portland, Ore., band’s seventh LP, which was recorded at bandmate/producer Ray Rude’s Laundry Room Studio. “For this one, we aimed for a more acoustic record and tried to feature single instruments and voices—getting away from a wall of sound that we have naturally crept toward over our last few records,” says Sollee.
A foreboding shuffle with a resilient, propulsive spine, “Blood:Death” speaks to Sollee’s obsession with spelling songs. “‘D-I-V-O-R-C-E’ by Tammy Wynette and ‘Murder At The Bingo Hall’ by Amigo The Devil are a couple of my favorites,” he says. “I love the idea of singing along and spelling out the words to something super-dark, like bleeding to death. I’m hoping it creates a macabre dance craze or something like that.”
We’re proud to premiere the Builders & The Butchers’ “Blood/:Death.” Look for No Tomorrow on April 3.
—Hobart Rowland
See the Buiders & The Butchers live.
