“Hangin’ Around”: An Interview with Josh Abbott

Together since 2006, the Lone Star State’s Josh Abbott Band released its first three albums independently on its own label, reaching #5 on the Billboard Country Albums Chart with 2012’s Small Town Family Dream and garnering plenty of radio play with singles “Touch” and “Oh, Tonight” (featuring fellow Texan Kacey Musgraves).

Last fall, the band made its Atlantic Records debut with a new EP, Tuesday Night. The EP features five original songs from the band, including the pleasantly twangy, two-stepping “Where’s the Party” and the catchy, hook-perfect “Hangin’ Around.”

Lead singer and songwriter, Josh Abbott, found the transition to a major label to be a positive experience. “Their goal is for you to be successful, which is very nice,” he commented. “I still wrote the songs on the EP, so nothing changed there. My band is still the same. We recorded the songs together.”

Working with Atlantic also enabled Abbott to join forces with Grammy award winning record producer Keith Stegall. “He’s incredible,” Abbott said. “He has a track history of working with bands like Zac Brown and Alan Jackson…All of the sudden, it’s like a different game. It’s like stepping into the big leagues for sure.” Abbott is pleased with the results. “We’re very happy wit the EP and we hope that the full album can continue that kind of sound and momentum that we’re looking for.”

The EP is upbeat and radio ready. Like the band’s previous releases, it makes excellent use of both banjo and fiddle. “The fiddle and banjo are huge in what we do,” Abbott noted. “These are very involved, intricate pieces that make our sound. We don’t try to hide the fact that a fiddle and banjo are two of our lead instruments.”

 

Abbott has played with the same group of musicians for years; his friendship with banjo player Austin Davis dates back to their fraternity days at Lubbock’s Texas Tech. Working with these musicians over the years makes the songwriting process a smooth one. “It’s almost like I’m co-writing songs in two different ways,” Abbott explained. “I’ll sit down with some writers and write the songs and the melodies and the chord progressions, and then I’ll take that to my band and we’ll just kind of figure out how to play it. We’ve been together for enough years now that everyone knows their role, and they know our sound and they know what we’re looking for in a song…These guys can almost read my mind.”

While the band’s presence continues to grow on the national scene, it remains proudly tied to its home state. “I just think we have a sense of confidence. We make no apologies for who we are and where we’re from. We have our roots in Texas, and that’s what gave us our start.”