A new album approaches
‘Bad For You’
The SteelDrivers New Release
Out 7 February 2020
On February 7, 2020, edgy bluegrass outfit The SteelDrivers will release Bad For You, their fifth studio album and the follow-up to their Grammy-winning 2015 release The Muscle Shoals Recordings. The eagerly-awaited album features eleven new songs, ten of which were co-written by Tammy Rogers, whose soulful voice and fiddle playing have been a hallmark of the band’s hard-driving sound throughout its existence. It also marks the band’s debut recording with Kelvin Damrell, the singer and guitarist who joined the band in early 2018.
The album-opening title track has been released:
Bad For You (out via Rounder Records) arrives after a period of adaptation. Shortly after their Grammy win in 2016, guitarist and lead singer Gary Nichols (who had replaced Chris Stapleton) decided to go his own way. The band momentarily hit pause while they considered their options, but ultimately decided that this setback was not insurmountable, and they launched the search for a lead singer.
In a stroke of good fortune, Rogers’ daughter came across Damrell – a rock singer from Berea, Kentucky – on YouTube, and soon, he joined Rogers and longtime band mates and friends Richard Bailey (banjo), Mike Fleming (bass) and Brent Truitt (mandolin) as the newest member of the group.
“I was pretty fresh to bluegrass,” Damrell says. “The only bluegrass I’d heard was couch pickin’ at my grandparents’ house, and I wasn’t into it, to be completely honest. I was a rocker. Cinderella was my favorite band before I met these guys. Everybody in the band was virtuosos,” he says. “And I’d never seen that side of bluegrass. I thought it was just that old foot-stomping traditional stuff, so I was surprised to hear this. And I knew I had a lot of work to do to keep up.”
The band has announced an extensive tour that kicks off in early February, previewing material from Bad For You at a sold-out show at Nashville’s 3rd & Lindsley. A full list of confirmed dates is on the band’s site, and more shows will be announced in the coming weeks.
A new album approaches
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