Country fuzz — what’s that sound? It’s the music The Cadillac Black plays. Whiskey-fueled country butting heads with Southern rock ‘n’ roll. Or, as Cadillac Black’s Neil Mason explains, country fuzz is “really trying to brand all the different influences we’ve had over the years.”
“We grew up here in Nashville [Tenn.], and country music is something we’ve been around since we were kids,” Mason says. “But we also came up in the ’90s with Nirvana and stuff like that so we were big rock fans, too. It’s just a hybrid of what we grew up around and what we grew up listening to. It has that Southern influence naturally because that is just what we are, but there are still going to be other influences from over the years. That’s where more of the riffy stuff came from.”
It’s a Monday afternoon, and Mason is back in Nashville, resting after a weekend that included a Saturday night show opening for Dierks Bentley at Verizon Arena. Originally scheduled for Riverfest Amphitheatre, the show was moved because of inclement weather, and The Cadillac Black found themselves playing an arena.
“It was really great,” Mason says. “It was a really cool crowd. They were all there early which was nice because we were on first. It was super energetic. It’s a cool thing to be in one of those big arenas like that and get the kind of reaction that we got. We’ve been to Little Rock a few times before but never at the big arena. We were excited. It was really good.”
(See the full lineup of Riverfest acts by clicking here).
The band — Jaren Johnston on lead vocals and guitars, Kelby Ray on guitars, lap steel, dobro and vocals, and Mason — has the kind of sound that can fill an arena. Not quite country; not quite rock, but certainly something unlike country rock. It’s rough-hewn, uncompromising country thrown together with galloping Southern rock and classic rock choruses. Songs about Southern pride, drinking, girls, Lynyrd Skynyrd, rivers and rocking.
And it’s a sound that finds the band opening for both rock acts and country stars.
“It seems to work pretty well on both sides,” Mason says. “The crowds really aren’t that different. I feel as though the fans who are fans of country are also fans of Southern rock and vice versa. The Dierks crowd is going to be a younger crowd than the Lynyrd Skynyrd crowd, but musically their tastes aren’t that different. For us, we are lucky because we can fit into both worlds.”
The trio are familiar with the metro area because they visited as members of strutting, traditional rock band American Bang. It’s a group Johnston, Mason and Ray formed in 2005 (Mason was formerly in the alternative rock band Llama.) along with a fourth member, and the band signed with Warner Bros. Records, recording with legendary producer Bob Rock and releasing a self-titled debut album in 2010. But after struggling for five years recording their debut and following some record label reshuffling, American Bang lost lead guitarist Ben Brown, and Johnston, Mason and Ray formed The Cadillac Black in early 2011.
A lot of good things came out of the Warner experience, but the band also learned some valuable lessons, Mason says. Now, the trio as Cadillac Black record on their own time with their own money, and their 11-track, just-released debut album was recorded in a week’s time at Nashville’s Sound Emporium Studios, and Mason says, “We are as happy with it as with anything we’ve ever done.”
Johnston is the band’s main songwriter, a songwriter who also co-writes country chart toppers such as Keith Urban’s “You Gonna Fly,” which hit No. 1 on the country charts earlier this year. Johnston’s country storytelling is seen on tunes such as “Whiskey Soaked Redemption,” but others — “I’m Southern” is one — just rock. So country fuzz — it’s a comfortable sound for The Cadillac Black.
“I think over time that you tend to appreciate your roots a little more,” Mason says. “I think hence the sway a little bit back. It’s just the natural thing that a kid does to make the most noise as possible. We still do that. We still make as much noise as we ever did. It’s just with a little bit more of the rootsy sound that we grew up around.”