Having toured as a utility musician for the Grammy-nominated bluegrass act Steep Canyon Rangers and duetted with superstar country badass Miranda Lambert on her song “Old Shit,” Warrren Givens knows what’s good. In fact, he takes the same attitude as the two aforementioned artists; just make good music for people to dig. After that, let the chips fall where they may.
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His complete bio on his website reads “An exploration with only one mission: to find the ever-elusive musical middle ground between meaningful songs and good ol’ Rock n’ Roll.” That’s it. Simple. Period. End of story. That’s who he is.
To shed a little more light on Givens, we here at American Songwriter have recommended his “rootsy rock & rollers and modern Americana folksongs” in the past and The Boot has praised his “unique lyrical perspective married to a genuine sense of song craftsmanship.” Finally ready with his new album Rattle The Cages (his debut album was released in 2013), Givens has teamed up with American Songwriter for a sneak peek of the album’s title track.
One song. Two tracks.
In a unique twist, each song on the album is being both recorded and released as a set of ‘doubles’ with a full band and an acoustic version of each tune. In all, five sets of these ‘doubles’ with the acoustic version of “Rattle the Cages” being recorded, full band, via voice memos and text messages amidst stay at home orders in Western North Carolina. Produced by Seth Kauffman (Jim James, Ray LaMontagne); each half represents two sides of a coin – one electric and one acoustic.
“This is the only song on the record that was co-written,” says Givens. “I’d had the chorus for a while, but was never happy with any verses, so I asked Seth one morning if he’d help me nail it down.
“We hashed out the general story structure after some discussion at a coffee shop down the road about traffic patterns, zoos, and Nicholas Cage, and then got all of the parts down back at the studio. There’s this local lore I heard while living in New Orleans about how Nicholas Cage (he lives there part-time, apparently) got so pissed about something over dinner at a restaurant that he literally jumped through the giant window at the front and took off running.
“I’ve never Googled that, so don’t tell me if it isn’t actually true, but anyone who’s seen more than one of his movies would believe it, too.”
You can’t argue with that logic.
