How First-Time Fatherhood and ’50s Pop Inspired Shakey Graves’ Latest LP (Exclusive)

Shakey Graves is embracing his new stage of life. On Fondness, Etc., Alejandro Rose-Garcia’s latest LP, the singer beloved for his untraditional Texas folk music sound veers off the course he set on his last release and enters into a new territory.

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“It’s 100 percent different from my last release. My last release was… in a lot of ways, the biggest, most high-fi project that I’ve done so far,” Rose-Garcia told American Songwriter of 2023’s Movie of the Week. “This is basically the style of recording that I originally started to do when I first started writing music, which is just sitting around with a four track, with a tape machine, and building stuff in my house.”

That “return to form” came both from Rose-Garcia’s desire to put out LP that didn’t sound produced, and out of necessity, as he found himself spending a lot more time at home following his daughter’s birth.

As a concept, Fondness, Etc. began two years ago, ahead of the arrival of his first child. At the time, Rose-Garcia was soaking up alone time that he knew wouldn’t last much longer amid his desire to “put an anchor in the ground about music.”

What came out of that want was “When the Love Is New,” the song that became “the tonal and thematic thesis statement” of the LP.

“It was my proof of concept for what I wanted the album to sound like,” he explained. “I knew I was gonna go in that direction sonically.”

Shakey Graves’ Sonic Inspirations for Fondness, Etc.

His inspiration for the sound of the record came from an unlikely place—”a bunch of weird early/mid ’50s pop music.” Lyrically, Rose-Garcia connected to that era too, and the “sweet superficiality” it possessed.

“I thought instead of trying to go and write the most complicated song, I should just make my own messy version of ’50s pop music, like Roy Orbison stuff,” he said. “That’s the lens that the album took.”

Later, songs like “Don’t Change a Thing” and “On My Own” emerged, becoming “pretty good setups for the heart and soul of the record.”

The former song, Rose-Garcia said, “sums up what I was trying to write into this record.” It’s the idea that, while “we really have no choice but to change,” we should “probably just take a lot of photos and write it all down, because it’s important.”

The latter track, meanwhile, explores how people change over time and was “inspired by that weird dichotomy of why do I feel so compelled to return to my basement and take control of all my stuff.”

Elsewhere, two instrumental songs—”I Once Was an Ocean” and “Suddenly”—exist in an effort to bring “another dimension surreality to the album.”

Inside the Thematic Universe of Fondness, Etc.

Now that the LP is complete, Rose-Garcia discovered that there is a thematic through line.

“The whole record’s really about time, how easy it is that it just slips away, and how that is maybe what makes it important, the impermanence of it all,” he said.

While the album isn’t explicitly written at or about Rose-Garcia’s daughter, her presence is felt throughout all nine tracks.

“All of a sudden, my planet is rotating around a different star,” he said. “Everything is put in context with her life in a different way.”

The album talks about the weird reality of growing up and finding yourself in a “surprisingly stable life all of a sudden.” That phenomenon “inescapably framed” the album.

“There’s a lot of that that I couldn’t love it more, and it brings me great comfort and joy. And, at the same time, there’s some little f**king dirt bag inside of me that’s, like, ‘Run away as fast as you can,’” Rose-Garcia admitted. “I can only imagine that that’s kind of the experience that everybody goes through when they suddenly turn into the adult of the household.”

Shakey Graves’ Hopes for Fondness, Etc.

When his little girl grows up and listens to the album, Rose-Garcia hopes that she’ll be inspired to create something of her own.

“I just hope that when she listens to this, she hears her father being a curious person, and I hope that that rubs off on her,” he said. “… I hope she tinkers, that she draws, or paints, or uses her hands for something. And I hope that my career is an encouraging aspect of that.”

As for the people who get to take in this music now, Rose-Garcia said he hopes it leaves them feeling “good.”

“It’s a comforting, not long winded record,” he said. “I feel like what I’m really proud of is that… I’m not beating a concept over the head. But, at the same time, it really does kind of encompass a time period and a feeling for me really well.”

Photo by ALEJANDRO ROSE-GARCIA