PATRICK SWEANY - BABY, IT’S LATE The title of Patrick Sweany’s new record is apt for more reasons than might be readily apparent. For fans, it’s a nod to the massive amount of time between full-length albums (7 years if you are counting). For Sweany, it’s a theme that’s permeated his latest songs (running out of time, getting older). The time in between 2018’s Ancient Noise and Baby, It’s Late has been full of changes for Sweany. Difficult changes. These mile-markers and their aftermath made it challenging for Sweany to do what he’s done for over 20 years: write songs, record songs, get in a van and play those songs for you. It wasn’t as though Sweany’s music-making simply stopped, however. As the world opened back up after the pandemic, Sweany resumed his Blue Monday residency at The 5 Spot in E. Nashville playing 50’s and 60’s era Blues songs with The Tiger Beats: McKinley James, Jason Smay, and Ted Pecchio. He also started a new Soul, Funk project called SUPER FELON with JD Simo, Adam Abrashoff, Pecchio and Robbie Crowell. Most importantly, he started writing and recording again. For the first time, Sweany chose to do almost everything himself, recording tracks on his Tascam 388 tape machine in his Bongo Room home studio. While the end results were not quite good enough for public consumption, the kernels of some great new songs were started, and a less polished, more organic approach was established. Sweany decided to call on the collaborators in The Tiger Beats and SUPER FELON to help him progress. Using JD Simo’s House Of Grease studio and McKinley James’ Red Lodge studio, Sweany brought in players from both of these projects. “These guys are some of the most in-demand players in Nashville,” says Sweany about the sessions. “They know when it’s right and when it’s not. If they felt like these songs weren’t good enough, they’d tell me.” “We tracked two days live, no headphones, band in the room, old school style. It felt good. It felt right. The songs sounded like songs. Back in the saddle.” On top of the old-school style of recording, Sweany chose to produce the recordings himself - something he’d never done. The results are a raw, more direct collection of songs that tap directly into the pain, tension, and catharsis of the past seven years. Stylistically they capture elements of Sweany’s previous recordings: the raw Blues-Rock opener “My Time Ain’t Long” could be an outtake from 2008’s Every Hour Is A Dollar Gone, while the subtle ballads “Christmas Parade” and “See Through” are reminiscent of 2015’s ruminative Daytime Turned To Nighttime. Elsewhere, however, Sweany embraces some new influences such as the hooky rock anthem “Golden Fields” and the 70s organ funk groove of “Trouble With Love.” After over 25 years writing, recording and touring, Sweany knows more than most that you can’t rush the process. You have to wait until the songs are ready.