The Weeks

“If my Southern heart’s still pumping blood/I’ll bury my money in the mighty Mississippi mud,” sings The Weeks’ Cyle Barnes on Dear Bo Jackson’s “Brother In The Night.” “If my Southern lungs won’t let me breathe/I’ll wait for the cicadas and I’ll let ’em push it out for me.” With that powerful verse, The Weeks stake a claim as heirs to the timeless tradition of Southern rock. Dear Bo Jackson, the Nashville-based band’s Serpents and Snakes debut, sees them enriching their already well-seasoned sonic stew with the classic flavors of soul, R&B, funk, and heavy boogie to fashion a forward-facing sound all their own. Big brass, lush strings, and twangy pedal steel have been fused into their distinctive sludge pop, with Sam Williams’ greasy guitars and the highly charged engine room of bassist Damien Bone and drummer/Cyle’s brother Cain Barnes. Throughout the album, songs like the aforementioned “Brother In The Night” and the exuberant title track see Cyle Barnes rending his throat raw as he testifies dramatic and truthful tales of modern Southern lives, always full of hope despite often punishing circumstances. “The South is a different beast than the rest of the world,” he says. “We’ve all been aged and worn in a very fine way because of it. I think even if we didn’t want to write about the South, it’d still come out in our songs.” Born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi, The Weeks came together in 2006 and instantly came to define the sound of Southern Rock in the 21st Century _ their grunge-powered, high-octane anthems rich with a bottomless Delta soul far deeper than the boys’ teenage years would suggest. Like any great rock ‘n’ roll outfit worth its salt, The Weeks played as often as humanly possible, with countless club dates across the Southeast and tours alongside such like-minded acts as Local H, North Mississippi Allstars, and the one and only Meat Puppets. Their extraordinary energy and outsized performances _ not to mention a series of well-received independently issued releases _ earned them a fervent fan following and ultimately, a deal with the like-minded Serpents and Snakes Records. By summer 2010, it had become clear that sleepy Jackson could no longer contain the mighty Weeks. The band left their old Mississippi home for the bright lights of Nashville, and, as Williams says, “it’s been non-stop ever since.” Serpents and Snakes reissued the band’s second full-length outing, Gutter Gaunt Gangster, earning them reams of national applause, including Amazon.com naming the collection among its top 10 “Outstanding 2012 Albums You Might Have Missed.” Where that album _ like all The Weeks’ previous recordings _ was recorded fast and on the cheap, the band opted to take a more leisurely tack in making its follow-up. They spent six months at pre-production, resulting the most fully articulated demos of their career. When time came to record the album proper, their search for a producer led them to Paul Moak, a Grammy Award-nominated producer/engineer/mixer and perhaps most importantly, a fellow Jacksonian. Our shoes are tattered and torn, but our feet are dry. As for our places in history, we will run naked through your streets before we sit decorated in your halls.