Little Feat is back with new music. Ahead of the release of their forthcoming album, Strike Up the Band, the rock group is giving fans a taste of what’s to come with a new single, “Midnight Flight.”
Videos by American Songwriter
“It’s a great song. It’s it’s a more pop song than what Little Feat normally does, but it still has that energy of Little Feat with with the rhythm tracks and whatnot,” band leader Bill Payne told American Songwriter. “… It sounds like a single to me.”
Indeed it does. The lively single expertly straddles the line of pop and rock with a sprinkle of jazz for good measure. Written and sung by Scott Sharrard, one of Little Feat’s newest members, the musician’s bellowing vocals are on full display on the track, as he sings about taking a midnight flight to the person he loves.
Inside the Making of Little Feat’s “Midnight Flight”
“I was inspired by Little Feat’s specific use of their New Orleans funk groove,” Sharrard said of penning the track. “There are guitar open tunings are all over this record. I learned a lot about open tunings from from the way Lowell George played slide guitar and the way Paul Barrere played. This song kind of combines those elements.”
“I was hoping that if I started with that, I would get a good song out of it,” he added. “… It’s definitely one you can dance to. This band has always had that element to every record. There’s always been these danceable, funky songs. I was hoping we’d get one of those out of it.”
It’s safe to say the band accomplished their goal for the song, something that’s fully evident in its music video. Absent are flashy elements or show-stopping costumes that make up many videos today. Instead, the band, which also includes Sam Clayton, Fred Tackett, Kenny Gradney, and Tony Leone, let the music do the talking in the video, which simply shows them performing the track to an energetic crowd.
“You can just get up there and be a musician and play your song. You don’t have to be the Rolling Stones, or Aerosmith, or Van Halen and have all the moves and the costumes and all that stuff,” Sharrard said. “… We just played and and people move. It’s music, it should be enough. We don’t really need all the bells and whistles.”
What to Expect from Little Feat’s Strike Up the Band
As for what’s to come on the album, Payne described the release as “portraits of songs,” none of which are like the other, a classic cornerstone of Little Feat over the bands five-plus decades.
There’s “Too High to Cut My Hair,” which is a “romp into a really energetic rhythm and blues.” Elsewhere, on “New Orleans Cries When She Sings,” there are elements of a ballad and street music. “Bayou Mama,” meanwhile, stands out for its energy and groovy nature.
The amalgamation of all those genres and styles are responsible for Little Feat’s past and future. For Payne, he believes the band’s “wide variety of material” is the reason it’s stood strong for since the ’70s.
“You’d have to play in 10 different bands to play the breadth of music that we play,” he said. “So selfishly, I’ve always wanted to maintain that vehicle. It would be darn near impossible to work with anybody else, given that there’s very few bands that are allowed, much less have the acumen, to play as varied songs as as we do.”
Little Feat’s Lasting Impact
Meanwhile, from Sharrard’s perspective, the varied songs are exactly why he loves the band.
“I was born in 1976, so I was raised on Little Feat music. My first Feat concert was in like ’88 or ’89 for the Let It Roll album,” he explained. “… What I love about the great rock bands—for me, Little Feat was always in my top five greatest inspirations of rock bands—is that it’s a salon of experimentation.”
Now, as part of the band he once listened to as a fan, Sharrard said his “greatest hope” for Little Feat’s forthcoming release “is that we give people a simultaneous experience of getting an escape, but also finding some stories that that inspire them at the same time.”
“What what I hope for this this record in the Little Feat sense of it is that people do get a little piece, a little chunk of the diamond, that these guys have just been chipping away at for over 50 years. [I hope listeners] get reminded of the gift of the creation of this band and their unique gumbo of influences,” he said. “… If you’re gonna do a record like this and you’re gonna write songs, you gotta go very big. You gotta shoot for the stars on this stuff. I really feel like we did.”
Strike Up the Band will be released on May 9.
Photo by Fletcher Moore
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