This interview with The Lone Bellow, by Annie Galvin, was published today on PopMatters. It delves more into the creation of Then Came The Morning, including working with Aaron Dessner, recording at Dreamland, and the inspiration for some of the songs. It includes some details we haven't heard before, such as the impetus for "Fake Roses:"
"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?’ "
Galvin also writes about the time the band performed at South by Southwest in 2013.
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.
We can certainly relate the that experience.