photo by Nicole Wickens

Knoxville-based Americana outfit The Black Lillies will release their new album Stranger to Me, this Friday, September 28, and today we offer a sneak preview of the album with a premiere of the full LP, which marks the fifth release for the band.

As vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Cruz Contreras explains, the new album’s tracks—which range from the rollicking, rocking “Midnight Stranger” to the subdued, harmony soaked “Earthquake”—have a unique backstory: “The songs on Stranger To Me grew out of a weekly live Facebook series that we broadcast while on the road last year. We wrote a song per week and performed it live around 2pm every Wednesday under the name ‘The Sprinter Sessions.’ No matter the circumstances or location, the song had to be done. We would often broadcast from the back of our Sprinter van while rolling down the highway, sometimes from a friend’s house where we’d crashed after a show the night before, sometimes on the front porch of our headquarters in Knoxville, TN. Whether it was Sam [Quinn], Dustin [Schaefer], myself or different combinations performing, Bowman [Townsend] would direct and film. It kept us focused, challenged, driven, and maybe most importantly, we learned how to work and write together. We learned how to collaborate.”

One particular instance of that collaborative spirit comes to the mind of drummer Townsend, who explains how “Midnight Stranger” began as “just a lark,” when the band decided to try to write a “trashy” song from scratch and without much contemplation, with all the members contributing parts of the music and lyrics. That lark turned into a tune that Contreras pushed to include on the album, and producer Jamie Candiloro ended up helping the Lillies work through and re-harmonize some of the track’s chord sections.

“Jamie is an incredible instrumentalist, capable of playing any instrument we have in the band, so we were really able to get picky about things like harmony and specific instrumental parts,” Townsend says. “Then Dusty came up with the guitar riff, which was the definite turning point for the song. Later, in the studio, our manager Chyna made a crucial last-minute lyric addition, making it the first song in the catalog to have a writing credit from every member of our core team. I think it is one of the best examples of our new collaborative approach, and as such, one of my favorite tunes on the record.”

Listen to The Black Lillies’ Stranger to Me below.

Stranger to Me Tracklist:

1. Ten Years
2. Midnight Stranger
3. Weighting
4. Out of the Blue
5. Don’t Be Afraid
6. No Other Way
7. Joy and Misery
8. Earthquake
9. Ice Museum
10. River Rolls
11. Third Place
12. Snakes and Telephones
13. Someday, Sometime