, though, the singer got sober and started exploring the “terrifying” idea of striking out on her own. The result is a dappled, jangly, and unabashedly sincere amalgam of ’70s AM-radio rock and peak-era Sheryl Crow filtered through a lens of lo-fi California cool.
The Forest Lawn guest experience, it turns out, is more pastoral Disney dream of the afterlife — Walt, naturally, is also buried here — than Tim Burton’s. Even under June-gloom skies, its vast acreage is dotted with fresh flowers and family members having makeshift picnics around the gravestones of loved ones; on one freshly tilled hillside, a stand of bright carnations spells out MR. JONEZ in giant block letters.
I mean, the record’s inception was in 2020. It’s been a long hibernation. So when it came time to release it I was like,But I’m glad that I held it in. I think I would’ve been a lot more inclined to worry about what people were going to think if I had put it out early. That didn’t even cross my mind while I was making it — ISo it was a cool experience of keeping my mouth shut for once.It was 2020, after the last Best Coast record came out. We were on tour and COVID happened two weeks in.
At the time, I had been working with a different collaborator, Carlos de la Garza, who produced the last Best Coast record. He’s a close friend of mine. But it became very clear that the style of record that I was wanting to make, I needed to explore other options. And Butch Walker I knew from a million years ago because Best Coast almost made a record with him. He had a foot in alt country and Americana, which is where I kind of wanted to go.