Justin Rutledge - New Album Out Today / Shares Single 'Cowards'
SHARES ALBUM SINGLE "COWARDS"
"Get the album, sit down with a glass or two, with a friend or loved one. Listen closely track by track. Find out for yourself why Something Easy is not always necessarily so – you have to work at it. Justin Rutledge has crafted a very special gift of music and poetry, take the time to savour it fully." - Great Dark Wonder
FRIDAY, MAY 19, 2023 - Today, acclaimed singer-songwriter Justin Rutledge releases his 10th studio album Something Easy via Outside Music. Listen & buy here. Ten albums in, Rutledge could easily rest on his reputation in perpetuity because he’s accumulated the sort of daunting body of work upon which one could easily coast. Instead, on Something Easy, he did the opposite. He made things exceedingly difficult for himself and decided to write, record, and produce the poised, subtly powerful set of songs by himself at home. With one, then later two, bouncing baby boys underfoot, to boot.
The album is a collection of 9 original songs including the new single "Cowards". “Over the years I’ve heard people talk about the responsibility of being a parent, but only recently have I begun to feel the weight of it all," shares Rutledge. "We want our children to be good, decent people—to grow up to become the best versions of themselves, and to be kind to the people they encounter throughout life. ‘Cowards’ takes place in a blizzard, and I’m walking with my boys, trying to muscle our way through the storm. But following behind us are all the men I used to be, and I don’t want them around—I don’t want them to get close to my boys. They’re no good to me anymore.”
The album also includes previously released songs "Mary" - an ode to his grandmother, "Head For The Hills" - about the urge to leave the city behind and lead single "Easy" - a song that arrived in his head ever so gently.
LISTEN & BUY SOMETHING EASY (LP)
What's The Story About the Something Easy LP?
It was the arrival of Rutledge’s first son that convinced him he should level up on this record. As any new parent knows, free time is at a premium when there’s an infant in the house, and the Toronto-born-and-bred singer/songwriter didn’t want to waste any of that time.
“It started after Jack came along,” says Rutledge. “I had no time to go into the studio, so I started learning how to engineer and record myself. I ended up producing the whole album at home, working for 45 minutes to an hour each night for 2 years and calling friends for advice about the recording process. It was probably the slowest album I’ve ever made, but at the same time, I was teaching myself the basics of engineering. This time I was committing to the architecture of the song at home alone, which made for a very contemplative writing and recording experience.”
Something Easy Tracklist
1. Angry Young Man
2. Seventeen
3. Cowards
4. Head for the Hills
5. Not Myself
6. Easy
7. Lioness
8. Mary
9. London
The guts to tear up the rulebook as Rutledge does on Something Easy can only come with maturity, come with growing older and gaining control of your craft. It has, thus, been interesting for the album’s author to see, in hindsight, recurring themes of youth and memory bubbling up all over the record, in the somewhat self-explanatory “Angry Young Man,” the wistful bush-party vignette “Seventeen,” the dreamy post-prom memoir “Lioness” and “London,” which flashes back to the year Rutledge spent living in London when he was 18.
“All of these songs are about youth, and I hadn’t realized that,” he says. “And it’s interesting because I feel that, as a new dad, there’s this transition that’s happening where suddenly I’m realizing I’m in my 40s. And what’s happening is that our wild-and-free years are suddenly over there, and our ‘middle-aged’ years are now right here. I feel like I’m at this apex where I’m thinking a lot about my youth, But I’m not lamenting anything. I’m not old, I’m just shocked at how suddenly this new phase of life has begun.”
Something Easy is a serene, stately thing of beauty, a gently paced record that really rewards the patient listener with meticulous detail and unexpected instrumental happenings. It’s anything but Rutledge settling into a rut. It will surprise you.
What's The Story about Justin Rutledge?
Accolades have piled up at Rutledge's feet since he released his first album,No Never Alone, via Six Shooter Records in Canada and Slowdive/Mojave 3 main man Neil Halstead’s Shady Lane Records overseas back in 2004 to rave reviews in such international publications as Uncut and NME. He won a Juno Award for Roots Album of the Year in 2014 for the albumValleyheart – which also landed him a Canadian Folk Music Award – and has since been nominated for three more Junos. He’s been longlisted twice for the critic-voted Polaris Music Prize, and has penned songs with Booker Prize-winning author of ‘The English Patient,’ Michael Ondaatje. Rutledge has also had songs included in film and television, including the Zac Efron film The Lucky One or TV shows The Blacklist, Vampire Diaries and Teen Wolf. The music gets around.
