Spotlight: Jason Boland & The Stragglers Enlist Shooter Jennings for an Alien Abduction Album
photo credit: Rico Deleon
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“I feel like bands always say, ‘OK, one day, we’ll do this concept album.’ But, sometimes, you do and sometimes you don’t,” Jason Boland says with a chuckle. “There’s a strange moment when you say: ‘We’re actually going to do a concept record.’”
Boland is describing the lead-up to his 10th studio record with The Stragglers, The Light Saw Me, which arrived in early December. The LP features Boland and his bandmates— Grant Tracy, Roger Ray, Noah Jeffries, Jake Lynn and John Schreffler—as well as contributions by producer Shooter Jennings. The new project is an adventurous concept album that tells the story of a Texas cowboy in the 1890s who is abducted by aliens and transported into the 1990s.
Boland says that he was drawn to writing the material for a few reasons. He admits that he is “a lifelong fan of sci-fi, extra-terrestrials and other phenomenons we can’t explain.” One of his influences was The Desert Oracle Radio, a program hosted by journalist Ken Layne that discusses such subjects as UFOs, Bigfoot sightings and other mysteries, specifically in the Mojave Desert. Boland was even able to convince Layne to provide the narrative portions of The Light Saw Me.
“I always thought in the back of my mind that there would be a narrator, and said, ‘How cool would it be if it were Ken Layne,’” he says. “I told him: ‘It’s about extraterrestrials transporting a guy from the past into the future and him trying to figure out what’s what. The unifying theme is light and the transformative experience with light.’ Being a fan of his, I knew it was right in his wheelhouse.”
Along with the subject matter, Boland was also inspired by the idea of the concept album itself. He notes that the inherent restrictions of a fully thematic record can also actually lead to a more complete statement. “[A concept album] creates the problems and also gives you the focus,” Boland explains. “You say, ‘I have to do this, and I have to watch for holes in my narrative and anachronisms and whatever.’ It gives you that focus. It gives you that touchstone. You need those moments when you can fixate your reality on something to have a benchmark or a perspective.”
The seeds for The Light Saw Me were first planted nearly two years prior to the record’s release. By March of 2020, while the group was touring out west, Boland felt that the songs were finally ready to bring to The Stragglers.
“We had set up to play in Rifle, Colo.,” Boland recalls. “We had rehearsed [what would become] side one.”
Then, in a now all-too-familiar story, the band was faced with the reality of COVID-19 and forced to put both the album and their touring life on hold. In early 2021, when they finally felt it was safe enough to congregate again, the band resumed work on The Light Saw Me, decamping to Dave’s Room in Los Angeles to record the album along with Jennings.
Boland has nothing but positive things to say about the recording sessions. “This was a process that was so complete—Shooter, the studio we chose, how we rehearsed the material, how it developed from the ideas and grew organically,” he says. “I’m really happy with the way it came out. I’m so proud of this record, and I know what it is.”
Considering that well-earned sense of confidence, it isn’t surprising that, since they’ve returned to the road, Jason Boland & The Stragglers have been performing The Light Saw Me straight through during their live shows.
“It feels great [with the audience],” Boland says. “You have your hardcore fans that are there with you, wherever you go. And then you’ve got people that are familiar with your music that are just out for the night. Maybe they came to hear this song or that song. But, the album’s material flows really well. And, when we play it live with the different breaks and the different narrations and the instrumentals, the fans are just really in for it.”
He recalls that, sometimes, in the middle of the 40-minute concept piece, certain vocal audience members will make a request or two. But Boland doesn’t mind. “They’re probably shouting for something that we’re going to play later anyway,” he says with a laugh.
However, the live show is not a pure duplication of the album: The touring lineup is slightly different from the recording configuration, and the live setting presents its own series of restraints. And Boland is embracing the variety.
“We are, first and foremost, a live band. We’ve always seen ourselves as in the jam vein. We’re going to be doing this so long that lineups are going to change and the instrumentation is going to change,” he explains. “When it comes to soloing or what you’re feeling one night, things will change. If the pedal-steel player wants to jump up on lead guitar on one tune, then I’ve never been the type of guy to even look twice at that. I encourage it.”
