Houndmouth

For two years, Matt Myers struggled to finish new songs. 

“I was all raw emotion,” says the Houndmouth frontman, who’d spent the previous decade blending rock & roll and American roots music into radio staples like the chart-topping, platinum-selling “Sedona.” He’d written four albums in less than 10 years, but inspiration just wasn’t showing up anymore. “I was feeling so much that I just couldn’t write anything,” he adds.

The end of one relationship. The beginning of another. The all-consuming feeling of new love. Myers’ life had been eventful, both onstage and off, and all that living didn’t leave him much time to create. Things changed when he paid a visit to Brad Cook, the Grammy-winning producer who’d overseen Houndmouth’s fourth record, Good For You. What began as a reunion of two friends soon gave away to something bigger: the restart of Myers’ songwriting engines and, in its wake, the creation of Lordy. 

With its naked honesty and uncluttered arrangements, Lordy takes a stripped-back approach to Houndmouth’s ever-evolving sound. It’s an album about surviving, rebuilding, accepting, and thriving once more. Myers wrote most of the record’s songs at home, strumming his Martin guitar while sunshine streamed through the kitchen windows. Years ago, he might’ve composed the record at night, tossing back a few drinks for encouragement. This was different. Clear-headed and wide awake, Myers reclaimed his muse during the daytime hours, starting with songs like “Tiger Blood” — a ragged folk-rocker that builds its way toward a screaming finish — and the album’s gorgeously intimate title track. 

“I let unfiltered emotion inform the words,” he says. “With several songs, I learned to be ok with just letting some syllables line up, and letting the emotion behind it all do the talking.”

This marked a change from the band’s early days. Back then, Myers and company agonized over the precise placement of every snare hit and vocal harmony on albums like Little Neon Limelight, Houndmouth’s commercial breakthrough. Steeped in the influence of 1970s roots-rock, those early records were collaborative efforts that merged Myers’ vision — as a songwriter, vocalist, and fiery lead guitarist — with the input of his three bandmates. “I needed those albums to be collaborative projects because I was scared of being completely in charge,” he admits. “Maybe that stunted me. This is the first time I’ve been able to write a record completely on my own, and there’s a pressure that comes with that. I had to relearn everything.”

Recording sessions were scattered throughout the course of a year, but Lordy still came together quickly. Myers would record a one-take performance of each song on his acoustic guitar, then build it into something bigger with help from other musicians. He told himself not to get lost in the mechanics or the minutia. After all, the goal wasn’t be to perfect; it was to capture a moment, allowing the thoughts that swirled inside Myers’ head to find the quickest way into his music.