New Release – I Can’t Keep Up (Honky Tonk) by Thirsty Curses
Thirsty Curses are a rock ‘n roll band from Raleigh, NC (USA), formed by Wilson Getchell in 2017. The band has featured a rotating cast of musicians with Getchell and bassist Clayton Herring serving as the two mainstays. Thirsty Curses draws from a wide array of influences and rock subgenres including indie rock, alt-country, punk, garage rock, and power pop.
Their songs are both impassioned and sardonic, comical and foreboding, often dealing with heavy subjects but generally feature a humorous nudge and wink to the audience.
Thirsty Curses have released four albums, ‘To The Ends of The Earth’ (2022), ‘Thirsty Curses’ (2019), ‘All Shook Up’ (2018) and ‘Holy Moly’ (2017), and toured extensively throughout the American southeast.
Their upcoming single ‘I Can’t Keep Up (Honky Tonk)’ is the second in a string of singles from Thirsty Curses set for release this year, including some older live favourites (see ‘Punk Rock Ruined My Life’ released last month) and some brand new songs to show off the imaginative Thirsty Curses brand.
What can you tell us about the upcoming single?
“The initial inspiration for this song came from feeling totally at odds with the world and completely unable to function in it. Around that time, it just seemed like no matter what I would do in life, I’d fall on my face. The opening line “Turns out you learned a lot, it’s just that most of it was wrong” was meant to reflect that even when I’d think I was moving in the right direction in some facet of my life, it would later be revealed to be more disappointment, confusion, and failure. But I guess I felt like it had reached the point where my constant stumbling all over myself through life seemed comical to me, a sentiment I also tried to reflect in the lyrics.”
“The song was originally released in 2018 as a punk song. That rendition was the opening track of our 2018 ‘All Shook Up’ album. This current release is an Americana/guttergrass rearrangement and reimagining of that song. I was inspired to take it in this direction somewhat by the ‘Pickin’ On Series’, which is a group that does bluegrass renditions of popular rock songs. Many years ago, I got really into the Modest Mouse album they did. I started putting together the ‘I Can’t Keep Up (Honky Tonk)’ version during some downtime the band had in the winter following the release of ‘All Shook Up’. Initially I had the idea to basically do different versions of all the songs on that album. I never really got around to rearranging most of them, but I did rework three of the songs. But once Thirsty Curses got back in the swing of things come 2019, we started working on material which would later make up our self-titled album. As a result, the ‘All Shook Up’-rearrangement-project and ‘I Can’t Keep Up (Honky Tonk)’ got lost in the shuffle.”
“We really didn’t start reengaging with ‘I Can’t Keep Up (Honky Tonk)’ recording until some down time hit this past winter, around the same time we recorded ‘Punk Rock Ruined My Life’.”
“We had also been sort of stumped for a long time on how to translate the guitar solo portion from the punk version into this acoustic/Americana version. Ultimately we decided a honky tonk piano solo fit the bill, but not after first trying acoustic guitar, mandolin, and banjo. The piano part was recorded late last year and sent off for mixing shortly thereafter.”
What movie or tv series should feature this song and why?
“Guy On A Buffalo. I feel like it’d be good music for riding a buffalo.”
Is this release different from your previous releases?
“This single is an acoustic Americana release. We tend to be more rock ‘n roll oriented, so this represents somewhat of a departure. It’s not really a direction we’re heading either, but we like it and people we’ve played it for seem to like it, so we figured we might as well put it out there.”
What are you hoping to achieve with this release?
“Hopefully it gets us some more listeners in general. We think it’s a pretty catchy and accessible song. So hopefully it can rein in some more fans. I hope it also conveys our versatility. We play a lot of different styles of music. We’ve got something for everybody! That’s probably been apparent from the get-go, given that we have always genre hopped a good bit. But with this release I think that is even more on display than usual.”
“Also, it’d be nice if it gets listeners to revisit the original version of ‘I Can’t Keep Up’ and possibly the entire ‘All Shook Up’ album. I feel like it’s a really great album. The back five songs of that album are a part of one continuous piece and include two of my favourites from the Thirsty Curses catalog, ‘Get Lost’ and ‘Long Folk Revival’. Our listenership didn’t really start growing until the release of our self-titled album and ‘To The Ends of The Earth’, so I think a lot of people missed the ‘All Shook Up’ album. It’d be a nice bonus if the release of the present single gets people to take another look at that record.”
“I just reworked the cover of ‘All Shook Up’ to try to give it a more organic, earthy feeling to be consistent with a guttergrass version of ‘I Can’t Keep Up’.”
“We have some brand new material coming down the pike very soon which will be on a forthcoming full length. We’ve been sitting on this recording for a while and figured now was a good time to release it, as well as the other recent stand alone single ‘Punk Rock Ruined My Life’. We really like both of these songs a lot but we’re just not sure they’d fit too well on the forthcoming album, in part because they’re so different from our regular sound.”
‘I Can’t Keep Up (Honky Tonk)’ is out 28th April.
