"For example, “Fake Roses” takes the form of a letter from Williams’s mother-in-law to her sister. Williams explains, “They have pretty similar lives. And the letter basically says, ‘Your heart is breaking, I hear what it’s saying. You don’t have to tell me anything.’ And I was like, ‘Well where can we go with that?’ "

One night at South by Southwest, the Lone Bellow played to a packed backyard crowd at the Newport Folk Festival showcase, a crowd that obliviously sipped cans of Lone Star in Blackheart’s beer garden while the relatively unknown Lone Bellow set up and tuned. When the band’s first three-part harmony soared over its sturdy wall of acoustic sound, heads instantly rotated toward the rundown lean-to that had been converted into a stage.

The band captivated the crowd for the duration of its set, even cultivating a group sing-along to the anthem “Carried Away”. The experience of being in that crowd felt akin to attending an evangelist revival meeting: everyone was a convert by the end.

Take "Marietta" for instance, that's a hard song to sing and I actually haven't gotten to sing it in front of people yet. I think that the very first stages of that song when we were first working on the harmonies probably came from a place of care and friendship. Where let's say I wrote a really hard song to sing and the harmonies that came out of that were Brian and Kanene [Pipkin] wanting to lean into that song with me. Then the melody that comes out of it is us like pressing into those thoughts that come up when I sing the song or they sing it. It's kind of a give and take of unity and friendship and trying to care for one another. The beautiful thing about making music with people is that it can transition into a real record thing. Then Aaron would know kind of the weight of the song and he would have that in mind when him and Bryce were thinking about like what should the strings sound like or when the horns should come in and create this moment of freedom or tension - however you hear it - right before this bridge comes in.

You’ve kicked off an extensive tour – how do you stay energized and motivated on the road?

The biggest thing is our daily rhythm of reminding each other that we truly love each other. After that probably comes running. I love getting out of the van and running through the town we’re singing in that night. You get a nice weight of what you’re walking into. At the moment we’re driving up through California listening to the Live Jeff Buckley record.  Also, it’s amazing to go to cities we’ve never been to and have people come out and listen to our music. That never gets old.