Fronted by three distinct singer/songwriters, Futurebirds make albums that unfold like a good conversation, their voices shaped by a shared history from diverging personal perspectives. In the case of Far Out Country (Dualtone), the dialogue covers their transition to fatherhood as they balance their home lives in Athens, Ga., and Nashville with the rigors of the road. The album reunites the hard-touring psych/country outfit with Grammy-winning producer Brad Cook (Waxahatchee, MJ Lenderman). Nine songs were tracked live to tape at the famed Sonic Ranch in West Texas, while the rest of the LP was recorded piecemeal in smaller studios, with four songs produced by Futurebirds drummer Tom Myers.
Far Out Country I is streaming now, and the second half drops in September. Fans who don’t want to wait can pick up all 18 tracks on vinyl. Here’s a rundown of the first nine songs from Futurebirds’ Carter King, Thomas Johnson and Daniel Womack.
—Hobart Rowland
1) “Sienna Life”
King: “I wrote this about 10 years ago. I’d had a Toyota Sienna minivan on my mind for some time. I’d always loved the idea of having an adventure van, but Sprinter campers were light years out of my budget, and I needed something more trustworthy—and less sketch—than some old kidnapper’s van. The Sienna was perfect. I could get a model with four-wheel drive for getting off the asphalt, still with great gas mileage. I could carry any combination of gear and people, sleep in the back if need be and be completely inconspicuous … a rock ’n’ roll soccer mom.
“But when this song came to be, I was actually driving an early-2000s GMC Yukon that was on its last leg. One day in the fall, freshly out of a long-term relationship, I was driving back from Georgia to Nashville, a drive I still make a lot. If I have the time to spare, I opt for a southerly backroad route, cutting through Summerville, Ga., and then up through Mentone, Ala. Summerville is home to the late folk artist Howard Finster and the still-living shrine he built out of scrap wood and old hubcaps. It’s a tranquil and inspiring place, like sitting in a beautiful old empty church that’s made of trash. Mentone is Alabama’s version of an Appalachian mountain town. It’s a place where you can order locally made kombucha at the cafe—and while you wait, the hostess might tell you about partying at Yelawolf’s house in high school and stealing his mom’s pills. This drive always delivers.
“I remember crossing a high meadow, windows down and a buzz taking over my whole body … a blanket of static electricity. Some big anxieties had been lifted off my shoulders, and some new ones had replaced them. But, hey, at least they were fresh. I had a dying relationship and a dying vehicle, both of which had covered hundreds of thousands of miles. I was driving home but headed for brand-new territory—endless potential, to the upside or down. For that reason, I love that this song kicks off the album. It acknowledges that we’re starting deep in the storyline. A lot has happened to bring us to where we are now, but we’re emptying the bags and traveling light toward new frontiers … off to find some far out country.
“It probably ended up being a year or two later that I was able to buy a Toyota Sienna. I still drive it today. Her name is Betty. She’s got over 250,000 miles now and is the greatest van on earth.”
2) “Sleepless In The Cage”
Johnson: “I wrote this about someone I care about deeply who was struggling to emerge from a mental breakdown … watching someone spiral into a mental-health vortex, wanting to help, trying to help, but ultimately being rebuffed or unheard or being flat-out accidentally unhelpful. Ultimately, I realized that this was an illness I couldn’t cure alone, and my friend was going to need to take part in their own recovery.
“The first verse references the frustration of helplessness I felt: ‘You’re telling me that you can’t sleep?/Of course you can’t—your mind is racing through all your darkest fears and deepest thoughts.’ The second verse is about becoming insular and isolated due to the fear and anger. I was watching the situation and experiencing my friend endlessly cycling through the same anxieties and arriving back at the same awful place time and time again. I began to wonder if they were just spinning their wheels due to lack of a true desire for change, or if they were more like a caged beast just waiting for a small crack in the lock to unleash their strength in a blaze of glory. The chorus is an acknowledgment that I can’t give you all the answers, and no one can tell you the right/wrong/best/worst thing to do. It’s something you have to figure out for yourself. But I’ll stand by while you do that.”
3) “Marco Polo”
Womack: “Inspired by my childhood growing up on a farm. I wanted it to be nostalgic but also present and moving forward. I was strumming through the chords when the first line about playing Marco Polo in the pond just fell out. I knew it was special. It felt raw and real. I had the vision for the whole thing immediately. Moving from childhood to the present made it dense thematically, but I thought the chorus tied it all together pretty well. It’s one of my favorite songs I’ve written, and few have moved me as much as this one in the writing process—specifically the third verse. When a lyric punches you right in the gut, you know it’s a keeper.”
4) “Nervous Ground”
King: “This song also got its start over 10 years ago. Some tunes you just have to let develop at their own pace. It turned out to be another song about taking an honest look at your personal storylines or values, but this time asking if you’re holding onto some outdated notion of yourself too tight. Does clinging to those things like Gollum to the Ring keep you from being present, or even scared to act in your current life? Are you spending your present days trying to protect some imaginary future day that was dreamt up deep in your past? And what might be the cost of getting there even if you do? Will there be anyone left in your life to say, ‘I told you so’? Ten years later, this song makes more honest sense in my life now than it ever possibly could have in the last decade. It’s also a fun little ripper to play live in a room full of people, hopefully all of them together in the moment.”
5) “Ghost Moon”
Womack: “Probably the hardest song I’ve ever recorded. Cosmic, Southern gothic, rockin’ … definitely one of my favorites. Wolfie Zimmerman, Justin Osborne and I were sitting around philosophizing and discussing life and its many hypocrisies—something we still do often. I threw out the ‘wisteria vine’ line, and we loved it. How something could be so beautiful and at the same time harmful was poetic and captured the vibe we were riffing on perfectly, so we built the whole song around it. I have to say I was a bit intimidated by it to begin with. It was just so different than anything I’d ever sung—specifically, the first verse that Justin wrote. After the session, I listened to it on the entire two-hour drive home, and it ended up being my favorite one of the session.”
6) “Fly On”
King: “Born on the porch in the morning while watching birds, drinking coffee and thinking about all the things constantly migrating through our figurative yards. I was trying to get out of my own way so I could appreciate it. Easier said. Sometimes, the memory of feeling connects you to all those things in your life better than the scratchy movies you play in your mind. How the first warm day of spring will zap you to one or many very specific places in time—the visions are blurry, but the feeling is fresh as the moment you were there. There’s a quote by Thomas Carlyle that was on my mind that morning: ‘Strange enough how creatures of the human kind shut their eyes to plainest facts—and by the mere inertia of oblivion and stupidity, live at ease in the midst of wonders and terrors.’ Or, as Insane Clown Posse put it, ‘If magic is all we’ve ever known, then it’s easy to miss what really goes on … Stop and look around, it’s all astounding. Water, fire, air and dirt. Fucking magnets, how do they work?’ If we can just get out of our own way for a minute, the world and all its little miracles are out there in the yard, ready to blow our biscuits.”
7) “Gsus Take The Wheel”
Johnson: “Overall, a song about self-loathing, feeling trapped and unworthy—realizing I only have myself to blame, asking for grace and understanding, making a choice to not be complacent and, ultimately. leaning into my support system and refusing to give in to my darkest thoughts. The verses of the song are an inner dialogue. The choruses are a plea for grace. The bridge/outro is the lift. I’m acknowledging it’s going to be an uphill battle but committing to the climb and embracing the relationships I lean on to get me through—also using those relationships as my inspiration to keep going, keep trying. Sometimes the best we can do is try, even it doesn’t do any good. But it beats sitting around watching the world burn, especially if we’re surrounded by good people.”
8) “Wishin’”
Womack: “A super-fun and hopeful song about fresh love. I felt like the record needed something more lighthearted. We’d booked an additional recording session in Nashville to finish up the record, and I wasn’t feeling any of the demos I was taking. I woke up the morning of my flight to Nashville and picked up the guitar and immediately played the chorus chords, and the words ‘wishin’ you would call’ just kind of fell out. The whole song presented itself to me over the next few minutes, and I finished it within the hour. I recalled the feeling I had when my wife and I first met and were talking on the phone all the time. This one’s for her.”
9) “Featherbed”
Womack: “Another song written during a solo session in 2018 with my man Wolfie Zimmerman. I’d recently read the Terence McKenna quote, “This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it’s a featherbed,” and it really resonated with me at the time. It still does, in fact. I’d say it’s about facing your fears and rendering them powerless—and also embracing your instincts.”
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