Chosen by Monk
The folk-punk poet/troubadour expounds how we are #WildInOurWays as he returns with his first new music in a decade, and the first taster of an album that has been nearly as long in the making.
I’m always trying to do something different because I feel like if we’re not searching, we’re not learning, Ragan says of his writing,
My approach seems to be whatever the song needs or wherever the song takes you, just let it breathe.
Harder and heavier than much of the Hot Water Music frontman’s previous solo output, ‘Wild In Our Ways’ is a song of survival and struggle, a defiant anthem that pulls for the underdog and lifts him up high: “We could say anything and / Love the dirt on an endless road / We’re not meant to be alone / Stop dead in tracks we sing / We’re not meant to surrender, not meant to bow out,”
First conceptualized in 2016, with studio work beginning in 2019 but progress halted due to that ol’ dreaded COVID, new album ‘Love And Lore’ was posited on the shelf while he focused on his fly fishing operation in Grass Valley, CA to provide for his family (Ragan is an established fishing guide who leads fly fishing trips throughout the Sacramento Valley Rivers in and around the western region of the Lower Sierra Nevada mountains).
We got serious about making this album again in 2022, but I didn’t have a ton of time to devote to it between being physically exhausted and having a toddler. It was just chaos.
‘Love And Lore’ was eventually recorded in early 2023 and will be released on 25 October via Rise Records.