Daniel Young & The Rambling Roses play an album release show for their latest (Another Golden Hour) at The State Room this Saturday, June 13.
It’s Young’s fifth album in the last dozen or so years. The concert marks the first time the full band has played together in a bit. Key players are traveling from as far away as Oregon and Oklahoma, just to play the show. And don’t sleep on the double threat of an opener, Carl Carbonell and Muskrat Jones. Doors at 7pm. Show at 8pm.
Young’s latest effort was born on his North Salt Lake backyard porch, in short increments, and always during golden hour. For weeks, between 7:30 and 8:30 every night, he’d plant himself outside with his guitar and face the trees and orchards to the east. As he watched the scenery shift during the fading light show, he finished a song or began a fresh one.
“I was strict about it. I really wanted it to be a thing,” Young says. “Neil Young records during the full moon. I wanted to see what would happen during golden hour.”
“And it’s my favorite: it turns orange back there at that time of day. The title track of Another Golden Hour is about bees pollinating. From where I was sitting, I could see trumpet vines. Tons of hummingbirds. Everything flying around. I wanted a song where I was part of all that.”
More followed, and the habit worked in his favor. It took Young a month to write 10 songs, enough for a record. Clocking in at under an hour, the album may even be performed in full on Saturday.
Ready to start a fire
Singer-songwriter Ryan Tanner is one of the musicians backing Young this weekend, one of the many Rambling Roses. The two friends go back nearly 15 years. When asked to play the release, Tanner readily accepted, quick to call Young special, open, and kind.
“I heard T. Bone Burnett once say generosity is the hallmark of a true artist. Dan is that to the top,” Tanner says. “He’s someone I’ll never say no to, because he never says no to me. Dan’s always ready to start a fire somewhere.”
Maybe it’s that selflessness and drive that’s allowed him to shift gears a bit, and successfully. While he still performs plenty — recently wrapping up a tour in the Netherlands along with M. Horton Smith — he’s more of a recording engineer lately. He runs Orchard Studio, where he’s either recorded or is recording recognized musical staples of the area, artists like Andrew Wiscombe, Michelle Moonshine, The Last Wild Buffalo, MJ Lake, and John Barber. He stays so busy, he’s doing it full time.
“I don’t feel like I’m on the clock when I’m recording. A lot of this is for me,” he says from a chair in the studio, gesturing his arm to the enclosed space and equipment. “It’s for me to hash out songs and demos, but I love recording people here, too. Everyone likes its woody log cabin feel, and is able to get out of their shell here. They can be really creative. That doesn’t get old, ever.”
The basement studio was built 15 years ago as a cost-saving measure: it’d save him from spending money every other week to record elsewhere. He started out slowly collecting gear he’d need, and finally had enough. After recording an album of his own during the pandemic, he found himself furloughed, with a lot of time to kill. Doors were opened to the public. Now he’s making other bands sound good, often recording their very first albums.
It’s a direction he enjoys, and hopes will continue. Reflecting on his 25 years of playing local stages and watering holes, Young remembers getting his real start when alt-country was still a term being used to classify music. He was playing drums with the Trigger Locks at the time, when bands like Whiskeytown and Old 97s dominated.
“That whole thing was big, and that kind of music was thriving here, too,” Young says, offering the Band of Annuals as a prime example. “It went away, and it was hard to find my people. Everyone stopped playing, or moved away. Now, a few years later, it feels like it — alt-country, Americana, whatever you want to call it — is creeping its way back.”
As we leave his studio, he pauses and looks out at the orchard, just past the hot tub (one of his other favorite spots) and beyond the gate. There are a lot of tall grasses there, a lot of dancing and swaying in the wind. Kind of hypnotic, to be honest.
It’s nowhere near sunset, but there’s a wistfulness to his look, possibly a remembered sense of calm. He offers that he only wants to write during golden hour moving forward. He can keep recording Americana bands — and will — but evenings are reserved for this exact spot at a specific time of day. Creating the new. Finishing the already started. Practicing for gigs.
“Playing music with Dan, it’s not trying to do something. It’s to be there,” Tanner says. “It’s OK if you make mistakes, and it’s OK if you don’t know [the music] exactly, because Dan makes you feel free. And when you feel free, you can do just about anything.”
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