How Playing Bob Dylan Influenced Their Upcoming Album

"We're entertainers so whatever the script is, you can bet we're going to sell the snake oil." That's the enthusiastic response from Ketch Secor, talking about his band's upcoming shows in Australia and their celebration of 50 years of Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde album. "We're gonna play the record, add some other Dylan songs and play some Old Crow songs. We're going to frame it in a way that makes it really exciting," he adds.

Plenty of bands cover other artists and take part in tribute shows but Old Crow took it to the next level with live performances and a live album and DVD for their new label Columbia. "It started as a show when the Country Music Hall Of Fame asked us to honour this milestone and they wanted us to do a live concert at the Hall Of Fame so we did that. We decided to record it for posterity and then we decided to get a couple of cameras on it and we just liked it so much. It felt like such a different Old Crow yet it really unifies us," Secor opines. "They're these songs you know yet they sound like us playing them. There was a unique quality to the recordings and then we found this new relationship with Columbia Records. They'd put out Blonde On Blonde in 1966 and they were keen to put out this retrospective. It's amazing for someone who loves Bob Dylan as much as I do," he enthuses.

The band's last album, Remedy, came out in 2014 and in passing, Secor reveals that its follow-up isn't far away. "In the past three weeks we've been out playing Old Crow music and some new songs from our next record, which is coming out next year in the Australian fall." Pressed on details, he reveals that they've worked with producer Dave Cobb (Sturgill Simpson, Jason Isbell). "Doing Blonde On Blonde really helped us to make the next record because Dave said he didn't want us to rehearse. He just said, 'play Blonde On Blonde and let that be your rehearsal.' We were really good at playing that but we didn't know any of our new songs. It had a funny sort of training wheel effect for recording our own record just ten days later."

The band's upcoming tour is in association with the Americana Music Association and the Tennessee Dept Of Tourism, the former of which didn't exist when Old Crow first started out. "My band came around before there was anything that was referenced as Americana music so I always felt like I'd been in the parking lot before they put the tent up and I was playing on the curb so I was like, 'Hey man, we don't need this big tent, let's play out here with the hobos.' But it has since become a building and now they've put our picture on the wall inside," he laughs. "It's a dream for us is to play in Australia. We have a great fascination with your land and people and there's a lot to learn from this cultural exchange."