Hot Club of Cowtown's 10-year gap between albums of new material is as surprising to the rootsy Austin, Texas-based trio as it is to fans. The wait ends Sept. 27 with Wild Kingdom, whose peppy "Tall Tall Ship" is premiering exclusively with Billboard below.
"It just kind of happened," fiddler/singer Elana James tells Billboard. She and bandmates Whit Smith and Jake Erwin have not been idle, with a combination of outside projects and thematic releases dedicated to a variety of their musical influences along with this year's Crossing the Great Divide EP celebrating the music of The Band.
"There're so many things we like to play that we just knocked out those various projects," James explains. “This band didn’t start because we were songwriters, it started because we were and are instrumentalists who just love to play, so we didn't feel anything was missing by doing a bunch of Hot Club of France tunes or old Western stuff. Over time we did start to write more of our own stuff, and now, once again, it’s become time to do our own songs this time."