Gary Nichols knows that fans of the SteelDrivers still have fond memories of Chris Stapleton, who was a member of the critically acclaimed group until 2010. After all, he tells Billboard, he’s one of them.
“If there’s ever been a bigger Chris Stapleton fan than me, I would love to meet him,” he said. “He’s definitely one of my favorite singers on the planet. Now that I have this comfort level of the band, I feel that I’ve got complete ownership of that role.”
The band has just released their second disc with Nichols — The Muscle Shoals Recordings — which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Bluegrass Albums chart last week. He said the album has the potential to be very special for the group. “Hammer Down [in 2012] was very great for us, but I think the new disc is really special. It’s one of those records that could be a make-or-break disc for us. We’re just trying to get it out in front of the people.”
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As the title of the Rounder release implies, the album was recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama — a place that has a special significance to Nichols. “That was amazing because I’ve produced so many records there, and I got to do it with one of my best friends, Jimmy Nutt, at the NuttHouse Recording Studios. We cut our teeth together at Fame Studios. Bringing it back full-circle with him — who was one of the first I recorded with — was fantastic. I feel like this record rivals a lot of great acoustic records. I’m able to listen to it, where with a lot of my other stuff, I put it away. That makes me very proud.”
Nichols said there is definitely something in the water around the historic area. “There’s a lot of emotion and history that runs through the area. Helen Keller is from Tuscumbia. Her home is about two miles from Fame Studios. W.C. Handy was born in Florence; so was Sam Phillips. The Trail of Tears runs through there, as well as the Natchez Trace. So many people came from there to take their music worldwide, and a lot of people came to Muscle Shoals to do the same thing. It’s just got a lot of soul.”
One of the highlights of the album is the chilling murder ballad “Brother John,” which Nichols said the band has been playing for a few years. “I wrote it with my friend Barry Billings right before we recorded Hammer Down. We actually recorded it first in a little more uptempo vein. We did it on the road, but it didn’t feel right for the record. It’s about a man who is in love with the wife of a sheriff’s son. The son is a mean man, and he’s not very good to women. I’m a mama’s boy with two sisters, two daughters and a wife. I feel that if a man is going to beat on a woman, you probably ought to be taken out of your misery,” he said, adding, “I’d never do it in real life, but it’s always fun to kill a villain in a song.”
Nichols collaborated on “Day Before Temptation” with Catt Gravitt, one of Nashville’s top writers. “We had a meeting in Nashville, and I had this title. I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to go back before the day you were tempted to do something and fix it?’ We talked about all the trouble that you get into when you’re tempted. It came out in about 45 minutes. I played it for the band, and it kept coming up. It was the right record for that song.”
One of the greatest parts of being a member of the band is getting to share the stage with fellow members Mike Fleming, Richard Bailey, Brent Truitt and fiddler/vocalist Tammy Rogers, for whom Nichols had nothing but the highest of praise and respect. “She is one of the top three most talented people I have ever worked with — not just her ability on the fiddle, [but] her songwriting, her harmonies and the fact that she is one of the sweetest people you would ever meet. She’s a great mother and wife, and has her master’s degree in music theory and is a professor at Belmont. She balances her life in a way that is unfathomable to most musicians. I love her to death, and am so happy to have been in a band with her for this long.”