{"id":7623,"date":"2015-04-29T05:30:21","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T09:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=7623"},"modified":"2015-04-29T05:30:21","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T09:30:21","slug":"hungry-hearts-andrew-scotchie-the-river-rats-release-new-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2015\/04\/29\/hungry-hearts-andrew-scotchie-the-river-rats-release-new-album\/","title":{"rendered":"Hungry Hearts: Andrew Scotchie & the River Rats Release New Album"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI meet some people, and they say, \u2018Oh, you\u2019re a musician? You\u2019re never going to eat,\u2019\u201d says the singer-songwriter\/guitarist\/namesake of Andrew Scotchie & the River Rats<\/a><\/strong>. He recently finished a record that responds to the starving artist stereotype: \u201cLike the title of our album says, we all stay hungry. And we\u2019re happy about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Initial tracking for We All Stay Hungry<\/em> took place in Asheville at Sound Temple Recording Studios, with the bulk of recording, overdubbing, mixing and mastering completed at Eagle Room. A single, \u201cThe Best in You,\u201d featuring a guest vocal by local sensation Lyric<\/strong>, was released on April 1. The full record debuted at a release party \u2014 a free show \u2014 on Friday, April 17, at Highland Brewing in Asheville NC.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
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Photo by Jim Donohoo Photograhy<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/center>There\u2019s a story leading up to that release. In early 2012, Scotchie started a busking duo on the streets of Asheville. \u201cWe had always played electric music,\u201d he says. \u201cBut [acoustic] busking was my way to get back to the core of everything.\u201d Through the process of interacting with other musicians, \u201cwe just met a lot of people who wanted to play.\u201d The plugged-in version of Andrew Scotchie & the River Rats eventually formed around a nucleus of lifelong companions. \u201cEliza<\/strong> [Hill<\/strong>, drummer] and I have always been friends,\u201d Scotchie says. Eliza\u2019s brother Asher Hill<\/strong> joined on bass and keyboards.<\/p>\n

The resulting trio created an original sound that at times suggests a scaled-down Drive-By Truckers<\/strong>. It was that lineup that recorded the band\u2019s first album, Soul and Sarcasm<\/em>. The group booked plenty of live dates, earned radio play and even got rotation of one song on a Nashville-based cable TV network.<\/p>\n

Onstage, the trio was sometimes joined (\u201cfor a couple of songs near the end of the show\u201d) by a pair of horn players, Alex Bradley<\/strong> and Kyle Snuffer<\/strong>. Scotchie recalls that the pair came to him at one point and said, \u201cHey, we can play the whole set. Just give us the opportunity.\u201d So two more longtime friends rounded out the group: \u201cWe [had gone] to school and Boy Scouts together,\u201d Scotchie says.<\/p>\n

Having a five-piece band changed the way that Scotchie wrote songs. He would start thinking, \u201cI\u2019ve got the chords; I\u2019ve got the words. What are the horns going to be doing?\u201d The result was a more deeply textured brand of music than before. \u201cA lot of people think rock \u2018n\u2019 roll is simple,\u201d Scotchie says. \u201cBut so many different elements can go into it: jazz, fusion and even big band.\u201d His newer songs highlight the funkier elements in his songwriting.<\/p>\n

And though Scotchie is the leader, the band arrangements grow out of collaboration, out of live performance. \u201cA lot of the horn parts are things that Alex and Kyle came up with on the spot,\u201d he says. \u201cRight onstage. They\u2019d try something, and we\u2019d all say, \u2018Yeah. That\u2019s the one.\u2019\u201d The collective showcases its cohesive strength on We All Stay Hungry<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And the band is committed to music as a lifelong pursuit. \u201cI want to be busy, I want to have a schedule, and I want respect,\u201d says Scotchie. \u201cLooking back at this time last year, I\u2019m really happy with where we are now.\u201d<\/p>\n

An edited version of this feature was originally published in<\/em> Mountain Xpress.<\/p>\n

Follow \u201cthe_musoscribe\u201d on <\/a> \"\"<\/a> Twitter<\/a> and get notified
\nwhen new features, reviews and essays are published.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI meet some people, and they say, \u2018Oh, you\u2019re a musician? You\u2019re never going to eat,\u2019\u201d says the singer-songwriter\/guitarist\/namesake of Andrew Scotchie & the River Rats. He recently finished a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,49,62],"tags":[194,237,1850],"class_list":["post-7623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview","category-new-release","category-rawk","tag-andrew-scotchie","tag-asheville","tag-river-rats","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-62-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}