Part of the Colorado music scene for over a decade, Nathaniel Rateliff has been a solo artist, and founded both Nathaniel Rateliff and the Wheel, plus Born In The Flood. Now he's out with yet another endeavor, his debut soul band, Nathaniel Rateliff and the Nightsweats.
Rateliff’s star is on the rise, with the self titled album earning warm reviews from Westword, Paste Magazine, The Guardian, NPR, and Jimmy Fallon – who could barely contain his enthusiasm for the newly released record during their recent performance on TV.
On the day his self-titled soul band debut dropped, Rateliff stopped by to talk about the record, his rollicking appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and what makes a soul song, well, a soul song.
Interview Highlights
How did the Night Sweats and this album come together?
"Well it was something that I wanted to do for really long time… I grew up listening to Sam Cooke and Otis Redding and you know in even The Band, who I consider to be sort of an R&B group you know…"
"I had this I had bought this old Epiphone and I was just kind of rocking out and I had talked to a friend and he was like 'you should write a couple of tunes to come up to the studio and record.' I was like 'oh yeah, maybe I'll try to write some soul songs, I always wanted to.' So I just started kind ofplaying this guitar and ended up writing 'Trying So Hard Not To Know…'"
How was The Tonight Show experience?
"It was kind of shocking, I didn't know what to expect. I was getting like, when he's putting makeup on me and you know when you first started to play to the song and I danced at his desk. The lady who I was working with, who helped me get on the show, was like 'oh my god, I can't believe it!' I was like, 'is this good?' And she's like, 'yeah.' I don't know I'm a little ignorant to how everything works.
When you're writing, what's the difference between a rock and a folk song?
"More tambourine? More swing?"
"It's funny, because I feel like I'm just a songwriter. Even before, when I was a 'folk singer troubadour,' I was still just a songwriter."
