New songs like the softly strummed, slow-bobbing album opener “What a Drag” and the ethereally twangy single “And It’s Still Alright” definitely don’t sound like “S.O.B.” - although that high-energy, horn-blasting 2015 hit also came from a personal place, since it was based on Rateliff’s fight to give up drinking. “Hopefully that doesn’t happen a lot, or we win them over if it does.” “I’m sure there will still be some people not paying attention to what’s going on who will say, ‘This isn’t the Nathaniel Rateliff I know and came to see! Where’s ‘S.O.B.?!’” he says. He’s touring with a more stripped-down but still sizable unit this time around. He also hopes fans read into the fact that most of his upcoming gigs are in sit-down theatres and not the larger and more festive venues he and the Night Sweats typically play. “And hopefully we’ve come up with a great enough show, it’ll allow people to have their own interpretations of the songs.” ![]() “I’m hoping as the tour goes on, I won’t have to explain the songs every night,” he said. He still feels a bit emotionally raw, though, which has him a tad nervous about playing the new tunes live. Talking by phone from New York last week before his appearance on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” the 41-year-old singer explained how making this album helped him lick those wounds. Many of the new songs were written in the aftermath of divorce and the sudden death in 2018 of a close friend, Night Sweats producer Richard Swift. Issued in February with reviews praising the musical changeup, the record is a decidedly more intimate, mellow and downbeat collection than “S.O.B.,” “I Need Never Get Old” and the other rowdy soul-rock tunes Rateliff has been churning out for the past half-decade with the Night Sweats. That something was his new solo album, “And It’s Still Alright,” which his latest road trek - which takes him to Toronto this Sunday and Monday for shows at Roy Thomson Hall - is built around. “I just needed to do something for myself for a little while.” “This isn’t any signal of the Night Sweats being over,” the Denver-based singer/songwriter assured fans of his regular band. MINNEAPOLIS-While he expressed a lot of uncertainty about his tour kickoff in Minneapolis this week, Nathaniel Rateliff was very firm on at least one point.
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