Mo Pitney

Ain't Lookin' Back - When the time came for Mo Pitney to cull a title track for his new anthology, there was little doubt equally to which vocal it should exist. After years spent both honing his sound and growing his family, Pitney reached something of a turning signal: He knew who he was as an creative person and a person, and felt it was fourth dimension to introduce himself in song. The championship of new track "Ain't Lookin' Back" summed things up better than anything else could, and Pitney's long-awaited sophomore album was built-in. Own't Lookin' Dorsum follows Pitney's 2022 debut Behind This Guitar, an acclaimed LP that cracked Billboard's Top Ten State Albums Nautical chart the first week of its release. Pitney recorded Behind This Guitar with veteran producer Tony Dark-brown, an experience he says greatly informed how he approached his time in the studio for Ain't Lookin' Back. "Since and then, I feel like I've learned a lot being in the studio," Pitney says. "I nigh learned so much it fabricated me partially gun-shy on this 2nd album. When yous're in the middle of making an album, at to the lowest degree my outset anthology, everything was heady and sounded good to me. I didn't know what I really wanted and what I didn't." In the years following Backside This Guitar'southward release, Pitney found himself "writing for the sake of writing," every bit he puts it, following his passion to "write every twenty-four hour period" and see what comes of the practice. "I don't know that I was even thinking much about making my next album," he says. "But when I had almost five or six songs that I actually started to want to play alive, the thought came into my mind, 'It'due south time to make a record.'" Ain't Lookin' Back began to have fuller shape when Pitney brought on a new producer, his longtime friend and collaborator Jim "Moose" Brown. Moose had played piano on Pitney's very first Nashville recording and, later Pitney had taken several meetings with potential producers, kept coming up as the right person to help captain the project. "We had breakfast," Pitney shares, "and I said, 'Moose, I really want to make a tape and I've just been waiting for the right person. My wife has brought your name up. Your proper name has come to heed a bunch for me. Would you produce my next project?' He says, 'Yous know what, Mo? Let me retrieve about it.'" At kickoff, Pitney was taken aback past what seemed to be Brown'south hesitancy, just presently realized that the producer'due south diligence was exactly what he needed in a partner in the studio. "Moose listened to the first album and to everything of mine on YouTube, and of form he had played on a agglomeration of my demos, besides, and tried to blot who I was," Pitney says. "I accept never had anyone in boondocks study me musically every bit much as he did before we went into the studio. He wanted to really understand who I was." Together, Pitney and Chocolate-brown began poring over the hundreds of songs Pitney had written over the years, while also listening to outside songs and remaining open to any new ideas Pitney may have in the procedure. They whittled down the agglomeration to about 22 tracks before making charts for the ring and heading into the studio for three days of recording. After some internal deliberations and conversations with his team at Curb, Pitney chose the 13 tracks that best represented him in this season of his life. Pitney describes his time making Ain't Lookin' Back as "the most joyful" musical experience he'south had thus far. Making the album transported him to a fourth dimension when he fabricated music for music'south sake, and one tin hear that joy in the 13 tracks that comprise the new LP. His growth is also evident in the songs' arrangements, which incorporate new sounds similar loop pedals and programmed drums, both of which Pitney had feared including in his earlier music, but now feels are of import tools in his musical toolbox. "I realized I could employ these in a way that nevertheless had heart and stay accurate to my manner," shares Pitney. "Earlier making my first album, music, for me, was completely made out of desire and love and faith," he says. "I knew I was supposed to make music, so when I sabbatum down to sing, when I felt all 3 of those things, everything I was doing was really believable to me and the people effectually me. Moving to Nashville, I adopted making music out of fear. The second the red calorie-free went on and there were people around me that had certain expectations of what it was supposed to sound similar, it immediately instilled in me this fearfulness that I wasn't going to live up to that." Y'all can hear Pitney'south joy all across Ain't Lookin' Back, from the opening acoustic guitar notes of "A Music Man" to the concluding chords of closing rails, "Jonas." The rhythmic audio-visual guitar and shuffling beat of the title track mimic a railroad train triumphantly leaving the station, as Pitney sings, "I ain't lookin' back, why would I when I ain't going that way?" "Boy Gets the Daughter" is sweet and playful, the kind of song that's sure to land on enough of romantic summer playlists. The wistful "Mattress on the Floor" chronicles Pitney's early days with his wife, channeling the excitement of immature love through evocative images similar "bedsheet on the window" and "boxed wine on her kiss." Pitney went on a sonic journeying while making Ain't Lookin' Back, but his life outside of the writing room played a big function in shaping his new music, too. He and his wife Emily welcomed their first child, Evelyne, in 2017, and are expecting a 2d kid in July. Being a parent has been integral to Pitney's ability to reconnect with his purest musical passions while as well serving as motivation to go out, brand new music and have faith that he is walking the right path. "Two things happened with having a baby," he says. "Anybody talks about how, when a child comes, you're able to encounter the world through their eyes again and a foliage falling on the driveway is the nigh interesting thing in the world. Yous have the ability to get-go over and relive that again... But as well, information technology's like, 'Oh my gosh. This little child depends on me to bring checks home and pay the bills.' That's where the religion has to take over that God has a plan, and He's taking intendance of my daughter more than I am. I don't recall He believes in ruining art for the sake of financial gain." Ain't Lookin' Back nods decidedly to Pitney'southward musical roots, which are certainly steeped in land tradition, simply notice him firmly facing forrard. More than than that, though, it'due south a snapshot of a man who found the organized religion in The Ane thing that could help him come up into his own and share with others what he's learned along the manner.

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