“Out of the gate, it’s a more personal record.”
That’s North Little Rock-based singer-songwriter Adam Faucett talking about his remarkable new album Blind Water Finds Blind Water.
“It’s more direct. The songs are more honest and less fantasy. They’re more brutal [emotionally]. It’s a more grownup version of me.”
Blind Water Finds Blind Water, with a cover of a Ouija board designed by Faucett and carved from wood by Russellville artist Neil Harrington, is Faucett’s fourth album and matches the heights of his last release, 2011’s stunning More Like a Temple.
The record, released today on CD, vinyl and the usual digital formats, is Faucett’s first for Little Rock label Last Chance Records and overflows with haunting moodiness. It sounds akin to the insomniac blues of A.A. Bondy, Big Star’s beautifully troubled 3rd, and possesses the rural, Southern Gothic vibe of writers like Flannery O’Connor and William Gay.
And Faucett’s voice - clear, powerful and filled with soul and longing - can bring you to your knees.
Faucett will play a Wednesday show at South on Main in Little Rock and it may be the last chance locals have to see him perform for a while, as he and his band head out for a month of shows on the East Coast and Midwest before Faucett plays a string of solo gigs in the Southwest through the spring, with more touring out west planned for summer.
“There are people who start a band and write songs because that’s what they need to do to make a record, so they force themselves to write,” says Darian Stribling, who has co-produced and engineered all of Faucett’s albums at Stribling’s Blue Chair Studios in Cabot. “And then there are people who write songs because they can’t help it. It comes to them naturally. Adam is one of those guys.”
Faucett, 32, grew up in Benton, graduated in 2000 from Benton High School, and studied fine arts at Arkansas Tech University at Russellville.
Otis Redding set him on the path to performing.
“Even as a little kid, I knew I was going to be a musician,” he says. “When I was real young, I heard Otis Redding on the radio and it scared me and it broke my heart in a weird way. I knew I wanted to scream at people like that.”
Nirvana hit while he was in elementary school, which was cool, but it was seeing thevideo for Radiohead’s “Creep” that really inspired Faucett.
“They were just these ugly guys onstage. Nirvana was kind of super rock ’n’ roll cool, and I couldn’t relate to that,but when I saw nerdy bands like Radiohead, I thought, ‘I can do that.’”
He was writing songs and playing guitar by the time he was 12.
Did his parents support his musical aspirations?
“Absolutely,” he says. “They knew I was always kind of a cutup and saw that playing music was constructive.”
His first band, Taught the Rabbits, came together in 2001, released a pair of albums, and broke up in 2006.
“It was kind of like what I’m doing now,” Faucett says of that band’s sound, “But I was listening to a lot of Sonic Youth and Pink Floyd and Godspeed You!Black Emperor. It was my early 20s. I didn’t think a song was a song unless it was 30 minutes long.”
His first solo album, The Great Basking Shark, was released in 2007, followed by Show Me the Magic, Show Me Out in 2009 and More Like a Temple in 2011 (which is also getting a vinyl release on Last Chance this summer), all recorded with Stribling.
“He’s a friend of mine and I trust him,” Faucett says of the pair’s relationship. “I like how honest he is. He will tell me when he thinks a song needs something.” And though Faucett might not always agree with Stribling’s suggestions, “At least I know who I’m working with and he’s really good. It’s just easier to work with friends.”
A big key is recording Faucett’s vocals properly, Stribling says.
“The way he sings is different. He has a very dynamic voice and goes from very quiet to extremely loud. It’s taken us a while to experiment and find the best way to record his vocals.”
Those vocals are on full display throughout the new album, from the slow opener, “Day Drinker”; to the head-bobbing, swampy blues of “Melanie”; the hypnotic “Walking Home Late” with its interlude of crunchy, noisy guitar; the folksy afternoon light and regret of “Benton”; and the bubble-bursting, power pop closer “Rock Ain’t Gold,” with its tonguein-cheek reference to some“Americana prima donna.”
Blind Water Finds Blind Water switches moods effortlessly, something Stribling attributes to the album’s nearly two-year-long recording process, when Faucett and various band members would come by Blue Chair when scheduling and touring allowed.
“He’s really not like any other songwriter that I know,” says longtime bandmate and bassist Jonny Dodson, who has known Faucett since the Taught the Rabbits days. Back then, he adds, “He blew my mind with the chord progressions he would use. Now that I play with him, I get to see what he’s doing, and he’s doing normal, G, C and D things, but he always adds a little flourish tomake it interesting.”
As for the coming months on the road, Faucett said he has lined up legs of touring with his full band and solo: “We’ve got to tour to make ends meet and I’m planning on hitting everyplace twice.”
Adam Faucett
7:30 p.m. Wednesday, South
on Main, 1304 S. Main St., Little Rock
Admission: Free
southonmain.com
(501) 244-9660
Style, Pages 29 on 03/11/2014