Diamond Rugs to Release Studio Debut

January 18, 2012

Diamond Rugs—the new band featuring John McCauley (Deer Tick), Robbie Crowell (Deer Tick), Ian Saint P’’ (The Black Lips), Steve Berlin (Los Lobos), Hardy Morris (Dead Confederate) and Bryan Dufresne (Six Finger Satellite)—have set April 24 as the release date for their first studio album. The group recently made their public debut in Atlanta, GA before New Year’s Eve.

As the band explains:

Last fall McCauley decided he wanted to make another record during his downtime in his new home base of Nashville with producers Adam Landry and Justin Collins (Middle Brother, Deer Tick).. While attending a Los Lobos show (one of his all-time favorite bands), he made his way backstage and met Steve Berlin. McCauley convinced Berlin to come to Nashville to play on the record. Over the course of the next month, he also managed to convince Saint Pe (whom he’d met once before), Morris (who had opened for Deer Tick on tour) and his good friend from his hometown of Providence, RI, Dufresne. McCauley also recruited Deer Tick keys/sax player Robbie Crowell to play bass on the album. What happened next was entirely unexpected; the musicians McCauley had recruited to play on his record, ended up contributing their own songs to the album and a fully-formed band emerged, rather than a group of musicians playing on another artists’ record.

The album was recorded in Nashville last year and produced by Adam Landry and Justin Collins (Middle Brother, Deer Tick). For more on the album, be sure to pre-order the March issue of Relix.

Here’s a look at the album’s tracks

1. Hightail

2. Gimme A Beer

3. Big God

4. Call Girl Blues

5. Out On My Own

6. Country Mile

7. Totally Lonely

8. I Took Note

9. Blue Mountains

10. Motherland

11. Tell Me Why