Aaron Lewis is gearing up to release 4th-career country studio album in 2022.
Titled Frayed At Both Ends, the new album slated for January of 2022 takes a bare bones, less is more, approach to recording. But that doesn’t mean he’s not bringing in top talent.
“There’s so much great music in Nashville, which I think everybody knows. But until you really live there, get to know people, you don’t realize how deep it runs.
It’s inspiring to be around people who are drawn to that same hard kind of Country, the stuff that digs down and looks at life with some of the paint knocked off it.”
Lewis enlisted the help of guitarists Tom Bukovac, Biff Watson and Seth Taylor, as well as dobroist Ben Kitterman, acoustic slide and baritone from former Sturgill Simpson guitar player Laur Joamets, keyboards from Jim Moose Brown, and some mandolin work from Dan Tyminski.
If there’s one thing for certain about Lewis… the man is one no bull-shit S.O.B. When you get a song from the Aaron Lewis, you know you’re getting something straight from his heart… popular or not.
“This is an album of saying things that need to be said about how people actually live. Life isn’t easy. Most people drink to forget, or drive for hours trying to get away from what they can’t let go of or leave behind.
Work takes it out of you. Love falls short or destroys you. Disappointments stack up. But still you have to keep going – and how you do that says everything about the man that you are.”
It’ll contain Lewis’ new single, “Am I The Only One,” a powerful political statement about his disappointment in the direction this country is heading, along with 12 new songs.
And just like “Am I The Only One,” he wants to make his message loud and clear with the rest of the album:
“I’ve never wanted to be the face of a song, or a time. I’m a lucky man. I survived my first record deal, and I can make music on my terms.
One of those terms is singing for other people, the things they need to say or the heroism they’ve lived and no one ever really noticed. If I can put the light in those places, then the music is doing its best work.
I didn’t have a master plan, just these songs that I’d been writing with friends. I’d never really co-written in all my years of being an artist.
Sometimes writing with somebody else dials you even more into yourself, or more the reality that’s all of us. And with the world being such a mess, I figured ‘frayed at both ends’ sounds about right.
No matter who you are or what you believe, I think we all feel like the knot’s coming undone.”
Take a look at the full track-list below:
Frayed At Both Ends
1. “Again” | Aaron Lewis, Ira Dean, David Lee Murphy
2. “Goodbye Town” | Aaron Lewis, Randy Montana
3. “Everybody Talks To God” | Craig Monday, Chris Wallin
4. “Am I The Only One” | Aaron Lewis, Ira Dean, Jeffrey Steele
5. “Kill Me Like You Love Me” | Aaron Lewis, Ira Dean, Dan Tyminiski, Chris Wallin
6. “Pull Me Under” | Aaron Lewis
7. “Life Behind Bars” | Aaron Lewis, Josh Hogue, Matt McGinn
8. “Waiting There For Me” | Aaron Lewis, Ira Dean, Dan Tyminiski, Chris Wallin
9. “They Call Me Doc” featuring CreatiVets, Vince Gill, Dan Tyminiski | Shaun Bott, Richard Casper, Brian Carper, Jourdan Walker, Johnny McGuire
10. “Get What You Get” | Aaron Lewis, Ira Dean, Dan Tyminiski
11. “Sticks And Stones” | Aaron Lewis, Paul Barber, Matt McGinn
12. “One In The Same” | Aaron Lewis, Trent Tomlinson
13. “Someone” | Aaron Lewis, Paul Barber, Matt McGinn
He announced the new album with the release of another track titled “Goodbye Town.”
And the current single, “Am I The Only One”