Chamomile & Whiskey’s Koda Kerl wrote the crux of “Friends Are Falling Out” after a memorable meet-up with a friend of his own.
“She’d regaled me with her latest story in a long line of bad relationships,” says the singer/guitarist for the Virginia-based Americana outfit. “I live in Charlottesville, which isn’t very big, and we’ve got plenty of small-town drama. The song came out of some of that—and the fragility of friendships.”
Just before the well-traveled quintet’s 1,000th show, Kerl and band cofounder Marie Borgman whipped out the spanking new “Friends Are Falling Out” for an in-studio performance at Richmond’s WNRN. A few days later, NPR Music shared the video as its live song of the day.
“We felt like it must have some juice, so we decided to record it ASAP,” says Kerl.
The studio version features a special appearance from Old Crow Medicine Show’s Christopher “Critter” Fuqua. “He added the banjo on top of the fiddles before laying down a glass slide part on the guitar,” says Kerl. “Marie and I grew up in Nelson County, and that first Old Crow record was huge in our circles. To have Critter put his signature sound on one of our songs was special. It felt full circle.”
We’re proud to premiere Chamomile & Whiskey’s “Friends Are Falling Out.”
—Hobart Rowland
