Music Mondays: J. Roddy Walston and The Business

Perspectival Rock and Existential Dancing

J. Roddy Walston and the Business

As most of you know, these Music Mondays posts are only for paid subscribers, but occasionally when I have reason to try to spread the word more broadly about something, I make them available for everyone. Today is one of those moments. I hope you enjoy it!

I just looked back through my previous Music Mondays posts and realized that I have not yet focused on one of my absolutely favorite bands: J. Roddy Walston and The Business. I want to apologize to all of you for this! Yes, I did talk about them in my pre-substack newsletters so those of you who have been rocking with me from the beginning of my public philosophical work have heard me talk about them, but for all of the rest of you, if you already know about them, then your lives are obviously better than the could be. If you have not, then you are welcome.

hahaha.

Seriously, they are THAT good.

In terms of genre, I guess Southern Rock (in the mode of Goodbye June or Black Crowes) would be the right category, but to be honest I don’t really see them that way. Instead, I consider them to be what rock and roll sounds like when it is not infected by any sense of pop idolatry or self-important pretentiousness.

I am not sure that there is a genre called “Perspectival Rock,” but there should be. This would be a genre defined by a focus on locality, on one’s rootedness in a place. J. Roddy Walston and the Business would be the exemplars of such a genre. So, as a way of introducing you to their stuff, I will try to give you a sense of what I mean by Perspectival Rock and why I think that it fits so dang well with existential philosophy.

Roddy and I were born in the same town of Cleveland, TN. We have known each other since we were kids (our parents were friends before we were born). I was a bit older than he was and so he was closer with my younger brother and sister, but we attended the same church and it has been absolutely thrilling to see him find success and an exceptionally devoted fan base as a musician. Formed in 2002 and having released their last album in 2017 (hopefully there are some more to come in the future - I have told Roddy that I want to take a sabbatical and play drums with him on tour - we will see, hahaha!).

Almost all of the philosophy I do is grounded to some extent in an existential awareness. By that I mean that I think philosophy should help us be better human beings - either by directly cultivating virtue and beauty or by causing us to think carefully about who we are and why it matters. Well, within this broad existential philosophical outlook is a commitment to the importance of perspective to experience and knowledge. There is no “view from nowhere” when it comes to our experience of the world. We are always someone, somewhere, somewhen. When we begin to lean in to the idea that the goal of life is not to achieve some sort of objective standing-point, but rather to be who we are on purpose, then we are able to invest ourselves in the importance of being able to learn from each other. The human condition is shared, but our experience of it is always ours. That doesn’t justify egoism or insularity. Instead, it should call us to deep listening to the experiences of others in order to allow our awareness of the world to be as nuanced and responsible as possible.

Existential perspectivalism stands opposed to scientistic objectivism. It refuses a conception of existence that reduces to algorithms and experimental explanations. As such, it appreciates what Kierkegaard will term the “singularity” of every person.

Far too many rock bands end up being shills for scientistic objectivism when they act like they can talk about things that stand as universal. In this way, one tends to find songs about big ideas (anger, God, death, suffering, justice, etc.) rather than local narratives about singular existence. J. Roddy Walston and The Business cut against this trend and make music that speaks to the shared fact of singular life.

For me, and I know I am biased here, this is why they are not a Southern Rock band, but instead a band who takes seriously what it means for them to be from the South. I was born in Tennessee and have lived in the Southeast US for all of my life. Sure, there is all kinds of stuff about that heritage that can be problematic (racism, sexism, etc.), but also anchored in it is a sense of home. Now, I am sure that this is true also for folks from NYC, from the upper midwest, or from any number of other regionally specific identities. The point is that only by taking seriously that specificity can we avoid the clap-trap of music that acts as if our identity floats above our lived histories.

In this way, I think that J. Roddy Walston and The Business tap into what is so right about folk and Americana music that appreciates the locality of our humanity. The point, here, is not that they talk about their hometown (in a John Mellencamp sort of way), but instead about the ways in which navigating the human condition is a daily task of self-making and difficult reflection. It is “that” sense of home that I think shines through in their music. When you hear it, you are anchored in where you come from, in what you wrestle with, in who you hope to become in light of who you have been.

We can see these dynamics easily on my favorite album by them - their 2017 release, “Destroyers of the Soft Life”:

The first track, “You Know Me Better,” opens with the lines:

“I am a histamine
Wet wound in the Vaseline
I have kissed the ring
On hands that seem too big to bleed
They’re gonna kill the man who put the fork in the road
Gonna put it back
Now there’s one way to go
Jesus and Mary, oh, mother, help me, God
I asked you for a vision
Now I'm asking, "turn it off"“

With poetry that could stand up in literary magazines, Roddy presents his struggle to find himself as one that constantly runs up against paradoxes. Accordingly, when he arrives at the chorus, it is unsurprising that he admits the limits of knowledge. Thinking just isn’t adequate to life. Existence does not admit of algorithms.

“You know me better than I know myself
I don’t have to think
I think it’s just as well
You know me better than I know myself.”

Here is the video for “You Know me Better” - it’s a banger.

In the track, “Blade of Truth,” Roddy almost explicitly cites Nietzsche’s notion of the herd mentality when he claims:

“There's some lessons to be learned
It's judgment on the herd
And your privilege will burn
It'll show you, it'll show you
That things, they ain't generally good
They're particularly bad
And the things you think you have
Are the things that you had
What you say, what you think, what you do
When you're laid in the manger of proof
What remains from the blade of the truth.”

I love that line “It’s judgment on the herd and your privilege will burn.” Yeah, our comfort, our complacency, our easy answers, it will all be cut to shreds on the blade of truth. Almost Kierkegaardian in its sentiment, here we see truth presented as subjectivity. What matters is that we live truth, not just that we sign on to some sort of cognitive assent.

But, as the existentialists all teach us, it takes courage to live singularly. Roddy understands this and unpacks it in the track, “Brave Man’s Death”, from the 2010 self-titled album.

This lyric heavy track speaks to the way in which we often live in light of the ghosts of the past. Here I find Heideggerian traces in the sense of human transcendence being a matter of “projecting” oneself into the future as we receive the past under the mode of “obviousness.” When Roddy cries out for a “brave man’s death,” he is taking himself up as not being determined by the assumptions of others. Reminiscent of Kierkegaard’s desire for a “truth for which he is wiling to live and die,” I think Roddy hits the nail on the head when he talks about the bitter spoon in his mouth and yet can’t quite spit it out. I will quote quite a bit here because I think the progression of this lived model of courage is worth working through.

“Well, my father put his shame on me
Said he wouldn't put his name on me
Said he wouldn't be the first in his family
Whose son cried when he was born
Well, he died the day I got a gun
Said that he was proud that I's his son
That was right there in his plan
I'd grow up and be a man
And there was a tear
I saw it in his eye
He said he couldn't think
Of a better way to die
And the Lord came down
And put a spoon in my mouth
It tasted so bitter
But I couldn't spit it out
It tasted like the money
That my poor momma made
Well, I went an' stole it
'cause she took it to the grave
And there was a note
Clenched in her right hand
Said, "Boy, if you wanna live
"Better die like a brave man."
Well, I don't wanna die in the middle of the night
I want a brave man's death.”

The main single from “Destroyers of the Soft Life,” is “The Wanting” and it features a fantastic guitar riff that almost reminds me of a Johnny Cash lick.

My favorite track on the album is “Bleed Out” - which features the line, “please don’t bleed out the truth now and leave.” Wow, I love that. Existential truth is about lived existence as where truth happens. It is less about “knowing” and more about walking into the risk of hope. Having too much blood on the page (The Gaslight Anthem - featured in a previous post) speaks to the way in which we often run up against limits when others are not interested in knowing us in relationship. They just want the info on a demographics card (or a dating app!). But, life is not ultimately lived that way. Swipe left or right - it doesn’t much matter. Will you stay here with me? Will you decide that who you are becoming is better together?

Ok, as you can see, I am a legit fan of these guys. I love their style, their lyrical depth, their existential awareness, and their intensity. So, in order not to make this just way to long, here are a few more tracks that I hope you will check out.

“Heavy Bells” - this song is from the album “Essential Tremors,” and is one that almost channels some Led Zeppelin qualities and gives way to a frantic chorus that is simply infectious:

”Don’t Break the Needle” - if you are more a fan of piano based rock, with that old boogie-woogie dynamic and a Jerry Lee Lewis undercurrent (but without the gross pedophilia!), you gotta check this one out. I should warn you, it will be tough not to get up and dance.

“Boys Can Never Tell,” - in a slightly different vein, also check out this track by J. Roddy Walston with Shovels and Rope. Much tamer, this track could almost show up in a Billy Strings or Old Crow Medicine Show set.

Alright, I think I will stop with that. Oh, wait, no, one more rec, since we are getting closer to the winter holidays, one of the best Christmas albums ever is Roddy’s “Christmas to the Bone” album which can out last year. The first track is simply stunning and brings AC/DC around the Christmas tree for some wild festivities!

NOW I am done. ha! But seriously, J. Roddy Walston is well worth your time. Moreover, he might make the limited time we all have on this earth a bit more fun, a bit less objectively deadening, a bit more singular. And, if you, like me, find yourself agreeing with Nietzsche that a God who dances is far more compelling than one who does not, then you, like me, might think J. Roddy Walston and the Business would be a mighty find soundtrack for such an existential dance party.

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I want to hear what track you find compelling. Tell me why! Maybe we can get Roddy to come on and do a special episode of “Campfire Philosophy” with me in the future! Let me know if that sound like something you would enjoy.