The legendary Bottle Rockets, hailing from St. Louis and extant since 1992, are still going strong and set to release Not So Loud: An Acoustic Evening With the Bottle Rockets on Bloodshot on Aug. 16. The record was cut live in a 19th century schoolhouse in St. Louis and aims to spotlight “a dimension of the band easily overlooked” amid the usual cacophony of blazing amps and twanging guitars.
According to the band, “Choosing the right venue is important to the success of any show, and the Lucas School House in St. Louis was our correct choice for two sold out shows. Located on the edge of the historic Soulard neighborhood, the venue was formerly a one-room school built in 1898. The small, second floor gymnasium had been renovated into a concert hall with a beautiful wooden interior, stained glass, plush leather seating and state-of-the-art sound system. Serving as an ideal listening room during its short life, any performance in that space was an intimate music experience.”
As Bloodshot puts it, “The Bottle Rockets have been making some of the most incisive, literate and lighter-raising American music for going on eighteen years now. And some of the loudest, with a reputation built on a rough and tumble snarl honed by a thousand nights on stages around the world. But that only speaks to part of the story of the Bottle Rockets. So many bands, when you unplug the amps, you find that the emperor has no clothes, that the songs collapse in the quiet; it was the thrill of the tables rattling and ears ringing that sold the goods; the cold of the beer, the heat of the moment.'”
Pulling from all eras of their catalog, including classics from seminal albums long out of print, Not So Loud “re-casts Bottle Rockets’ songs with lyrical and rhythmic nuances that will surprise both longtime fans and those who might have dismissed them as ‘just another bar band.”
