The Cadillac Three’s new album, Legacy, will be released this Friday, August 25th. The 11-track project was entirely produced and recorded by the band, including no studio musicians. As Kelby Ray explains, “We put out Bury Me In My Boots the same time last year and we didn’t want to wait to start working on a new record, so we just went in and started recording stuff that we had been writing in the last couple of months on the bus and all of a sudden we had six seven songs. And we were like, well, let’s just get a few more and just go ahead and put an album out as soon as we can… We didn’t wait for anybody to tell us what to do. We just decided to go in and do it ourselves.”
According to Neil Mason, doing the record entirely on their own, “It just gives us a lot of freedom you know. We were in there and we were able to just try stuff. You don’t feel like there’s anybody looking over your shoulder and there’s not a right or wrong answer until the three of us look at each other and go like, ‘That’s bad ass,’ … Or that’s terrible.”
Neil also says that creative freedom opened them up to try new things and stretch their boundaries as a band. “Legacy is a lot of growth. We’re trying new things and at the same time you know we’re trying to do stuff that’s more bad ass than anything we’ve done before which is a task because we’re pretty bad ass,“ he says with a bit of a laugh.
The fact that The Cadillac Three writes all of their own songs really allowed them to take control of the making of Legacy, and Jaren Johnston says, “We’re very proud of this record, definitely. And there’s not a lot of people in this town doing it all on their own and we’re one of the few and that’s exciting.”
The Cadillac Three – how album came about :20
Kelby Ray – “We put out Bury Me In My Boots the same time last year and we didn’t want to wait to start working on a new record, so we just went in and started recording stuff that we had been writing in the last couple of months on the bus and all of a sudden we had six seven songs. And we were like, well, let’s just get a few more and just go ahead and put an album out as soon as we can. It took a couple of extra months to finally get it out but we went and we didn’t wait for anybody to tell us to go record. We didn’t wait for anybody to tell us what to do. We just decided to go in and do it ourselves.”
The Cadillac Three – release album on own terms :33
Jaren Johnston – “You know I think a lot of bands that they get stuck in that being able to put out records because they’re always searching for songs or maybe they’re not writing them themselves or whatever that is, you know, all the stars aren’t aligning or whatever, the label and the artist can’t get along. I think we’re in a great situation where we do have a great label that supports what we do. They realize that we’re different and they’re not putting us in this category where, well we gotta do it like this, you gotta wait til that single gets to a certain number on the chart before we put out a record. And we’re not missing songs because we write all the time. I think it was very important to us to stand out and take advantage of both of those things and just put out a record.”
The Cadillac Three – did album alone :41
Neil Mason – “It just gives us a lot of freedom you know. We were in there and we were able to just try stuff. You don’t feel like there’s anybody looking over your shoulder and there’s not a right or wrong answer until the three of us look at each other and go like, ‘That’s bad ass,’ you know, and so …”
Jaren Johnston – “Or that’s terrible.”
Neil – “Or that’s terrible, yeah. We need help. Yeah totally you know what I mean I think that there were songs that we cut in that first session that we kept tweaking on for quite a while just to kind of get them exactly right. And I mean we did some of that all the way up until the final mix but I think that us having the space and the time to do that and kind of do it on our own that was a good process for us. You know we’ve made a lot of records over the years but this one was uniquely different, you know and I think that that comes from kind of learning along the way from all the other records that we’ve made.”
The Cadillac Three – sum up Legacy :26
Neil Mason – “Legacy is a lot of growth. We’re trying new things and at the same time you know we’re trying to do stuff that’s more bad ass than anything we’ve done before which is a task because we’re pretty bad ass. “
Kelby Ray – “Well it is, I mean everything you hear is just the three of us in a room recording it and had somebody hit the button and there’s no extra anything, it’s just the three of us”
Jaren Johnston – “We’re very proud of this record, definitely. And there’s not a lot of people in this town doing it all on their own and we’re one of the few and that’s exciting.”