The Districts, You Know I’m Not Going Anywhere
After the release of the Districts’ acclaimed 2017 album Popular Manipulations, bandleader Rob Grote had no reason to complain. The album was produced by John Congleton (St. Vincent, Angel Olsen, Paul McCartney), released by indie powerhouse Fat Possum, and earned great reviews. The band played nearly 200 shows in 2017 and 2018 to support it. By all accounts, the Districts were on the road to Big Things.
So why did Grote feel so unsure about everything?
“By the time we did the last record, I had gotten pretty jaded and detached from that stuff,” he says. Dealing with the aftermath of a breakup, the dire health problems of his beloved dog, and his natural restlessness as a songwriter, Grote had to rethink everything.
“I was just like, ‘Man, I don’t relate to any of the stuff that came before in my life,’” he says. “Do I want to keep doing music? Do I want to keep doing it in this context?”
With those questions on his mind, Grote retreated to his bedroom, where he had a laptop, acoustic guitar, synthesizer, and a drum machine. Using that limited palette, he started writing with no objective other than to create.
“Whether I made a drum beat or put a guitar down first, a lot of times it was being written as it was being recorded,” Grote says. “Instead of trying to intellectualize it or something, I was just trying to put things down, just do the act of creating rather than the act of analyzing it, which was really enjoyable for me. I felt way more free.”
It was a completely new process to Grote, and he took to it immediately. With no plans to share the music with anyone, he felt no obligations.
“I ended up taking these recordings super far along, whereas normally I would almost compulsively share them with my bandmates as soon as I had an idea,” he says. “This time I was sitting on them and putting my work into them in a way that I hadn’t known I enjoyed doing.”
He ended up with a batch of 32 songs but no idea what to do with them. They didn’t sound like Districts songs, whether the rootsy vibe of their 2012 debut, Telephone, the jagged indie rock of 2015’s A Flourish and a Spoil, or the propulsive Popular Manipulations. Still feeling some of that compulsion to share, Grote played them for his bandmates, Braden Lawrence (drums), Pat Cassidy (guitar), and Connor Jacobus (bass).
To his surprise, they liked them. Turns out these were Districts songs, and You Know I’m Not Going Anywhere was born.
Feeling newly confident in his creative instincts, Grote opted not to work with a name producer, and the band decamped to a cabin in Red Hook, N.Y., where they recorded the lion’s share the album.
The liner notes lay bare the expansiveness at its heart: Rhodes, Mellotron, samples, drum machines, tape loops, Wurlitzer, “ambient swells,” piano, synthesizers. Grote lists 12 items next to his name alone. But You Know I’m Not Going Anywhere isn’t a self-indulgent mess.
Credit some of that to Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, Spoon, MGMT), whose mix expertly layered all of the elements into a cohesive whole. That’s most obvious in the subtle psychedelia of album standout “Hey Jo,” which floats on plucked guitars and Grote’s airy vocals before kicking into a rousing chorus where he tunefully repeats “Fuck my head.” The song nods to Grote favorites like Lee Hazlewood and Harry Nilsson. “All of their arrangements are trippy in a way that’s not relying on normal psychedelic things—they’re just really pleasant and well arranged,” he says.
Following “Hey Jo,” the sharp-tongued disco of “Cheap Regrets” ups the ante before segueing into the similarly pulsating “Velour and Velcro,” which plays like Simple Minds by way of Modest Mouse. That’s You Know I’m Not Going Anywhere: airy and understated (“Descend,” “Dancer,” “4th of July”), discordant and exuberant (“Sidecar,” “Velour and Velcro”), and thoughtful (“Changing,” “All the Horses Go Swimming”).
While You Know I’m Not Going Anywhere builds on preceding Districts albums, it takes an ambitious leap to a new level. Once unsure whether he wanted to continue, Grote has found a way forward.
“I really just needed to be myself instead of being what someone else thought I should be, whether that was like some masculine bar-band singer or… I don’t know,” he says, laughing. “I just want to be myself, and I want to try and do that as best as I can. Doing that, it’s like, ‘Oh this how I want to make music from now on.’”
Fat Possum will release You Know I’m Not Going Anywhere on DATE.
Track listing:
My Only Ghost
Hey Jo
Cheap Regrets
Velour and Velcro
Changing
Descend
The Clouds
Dancer
Sidecar
And the Horses All Go Swimming
4th of July