Disciple
Disciple titled its latest CD Southern Hospitality, which makes sense because vocalist Kevin Young is consistently hospitable. And being that the group is originally from Tennessee, they also have the whole Southern thing down as well. “We had a tour last year called Southern Hospitality,” Young explains. “And we just loved the title, the name. You know, we all grew up in East Tennessee. We’ve never been good at hiding the fact that we’re Southern. We sound Southern, act Southern, the whole thing.” But this disc’s naming convention has much more to do with Southern musical connotations than stereotypical Southern Belle manners. “After we’d written a couple songs for the album, they had a real Southern rock feel to them,” Young says. “I was just talking to (guitarist) Brad (Noah) one day and asked, ‘Why don’t we call the album Southern Hospitality?’ And he said, ‘That’d be awesome!’ We talked to our manager and talked to our record company, and they were, like, ‘That’s great. Let’s do it!’”
This project’s Allman-y/Lynyrd-ly/Outlaw-ish-ness immediately got the mental wheels spinning over at the band’s label, SRE Records. “The label said, ‘We should make a Southern rock record,’” Young recalls them saying. “We were, like, ‘We already wrote it.’ So it worked out pretty well.”
The group felt free as a bird, both figuratively and literally, to explore their Southern rock leanings with this fresh, semi-Dixie fried release.
“‘Free Bird’ had a huge influence on a song called ‘Lay My Burdens,’” Young expounds. “It was really cool to see some of that come out in that song, and to have written a song like that in Disciple. We’ve always really been a heavy metal band, with no regrets, and plan on continuing to be a heavy metal band. (But) we’ve always been a bunch of guys that write songs that we like and write whatever we’re feeling at the time. That’s why our CDs rarely sound alike; each one is different from the other one – it [Southern rock inspired] was just how we were writing and the kind of music we wanted to write at the time. And we’re really excited about Southern Hospitality.”
And when exactly did Young master “Free Bird,” anyway?
Disciple - Finish this feature by Dan MacIntosh in the new HM Magazine. Available now, Issue 134 can be found at select stores or for a reduced subscription rate.
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