Today (February 28) The Devil Makes Three return with their long-awaited new album Spirits. The band announced the album with the title track and lead single on Halloween. Since then, fans have been counting the days until they could hear the entire 13-track collection.
Videos by American Songwriter
Late last year, Pete Bernhard sat down with American Songwriter to discuss the new album, the band’s ever-evolving sound, and more.
[RELATED: The Devil Makes Three Announces Their New Album ‘Spirits’ with Haunting Title Track]
Pete Bernhard on The Devil Makes Three’s Latest Sonic Evolution
The Devil Makes Three’s sound has evolved from the string band style of their debut album. Each new release sees them change while still keeping their feet planted firmly in the fertile soil of roots music. With Spirits, they expertly blended the stripped-down roots vibe of their debut with the fleshed-out sound of their 2018 release Chains Are Broken. Spirits is also the band’s first album to feature longtime collaborator MorganEve Swain in her new full-time position on upright bass.
“A lot of it had to do with having a new bassist. That was a consideration. MorganEve was playing on the record and that influenced the sound to some degree,” Pete Bernhard explained. “But also, throughout the pandemic we were playing mostly without a drummer because it was easier. That influenced the songs that we were writing. It was just kind of a natural progression because those were the tunes we were coming up with,” he said. “Although there are drums on the album, it’s not like a drum album. So, I think it just happened naturally for the most part,” he said of the latest sonic evolution.
Spirits Took a Long Time to Put Together Until It Didn’t
The Devil Makes Three hadn’t released a new full-length album since 2018. They took some time off after completing the last album cycle. Then, the pandemic complicated things. As a result, they had to wait years to finally start building the new project. However, it came together rather quickly when the wheels started turning.
“Some of it was during the pandemic,” Pete Bernhard said of the songwriting for Spirits. “But also our producer, Ted Hutt, just got in touch with me and said, ‘I think you guys should write a record.’ And I wasn’t writing very much at that point,” he recalled. “Ted got in touch with me and told me to send him some demos to see what we had. When we started doing that, I realized that I had a lot of ideas stored up that I hadn’t really been doing anything with. So, I started sharing them with him,” he added.
“We went back and forth with demos for a couple of months. A lot of it was written sort of on the fly, to be honest. We just sort of decided what ideas were working and I just started working on them,” he said about putting the album together. “It was like. I hadn’t been writing in so long because we were off the road and I didn’t have a way to get the music out there. It turned out that I had a lot of stuff that was ready to be worked on. The record is almost all new ideas.”
The Devil Makes Three Delves Into Dark Themes with Spirits
Spirits isn’t necessarily a concept album. However, listeners will notice running themes throughout the album.
“I think the themes of the record are reflected in the title,” Bernhard said. “It’s a record about loss for sure. That’s a big theme, and death. I lost a lot of people during the process of writing the record. I lost a really good childhood friend, my mother, and also my brother passed away in a very short period of time, That’s a predominant theme on the record.,” he explained.
“There’s a political element as well,” Bernhard revealed. “Just witnessing the changes that have been happening in America has been a wild ride. So, there’s that as well. It’s not just about the presidency. That’s part of it but more so it was about the sort of inequality that’s taking place. People are just really struggling. At the same time, we have the richest people who have ever existed on planet earth.”
Featured Image by Jarrod Macilla
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