Well, every All Them Witches record has been different from the one before it, and no matter what else happens, that’s bound to be the case with their next one as well. In an announcement posted over the weekend, the Nashville heavy-psych blues forerunners made public the departure of keyboardist Jonathan Draper. Draper was, of course, their second organist, taking the place of founding member Allan Van Cleave, who left the band prior to the recording of their latest album, ATW (review here). The stated intention is to carry on as the core three-piece, though if you have Rhodes and will travel, I wouldn’t not hit them up, since as bassist/vocalist Charles Michael Parks, Jr. says in the statement below, it’s an “indefinite” change. That hardly means forever.

Parks, guitarist Ben McLeod and drummer Robby Staebler certainly want for nothing as regards chemistry between them, so while that dynamic will inherently change without a fourth member, one expects they’ll come through. It might be an album or two getting settled, but the fact that they tour so hard invariably means that if there’s something to figure out musically or in terms of their presentation, they’ll have plenty of opportunity to do so. These guys have earned a good amount of trust in my book at this point.

Here’s what Parks had to say:

Hi there, time to talk about change!

Robby, Ben and I have been making music together for 6 years, and since then we have had an insane array of friends and family come and go through our musical life. We love all of them, we cherish all of them and their time, and talent. We want to celebrate the time we have spent together. Since our formation, the one goal I have had for this band is to be open, vulnerable, and willing to love and adapt to change as it presents itself.

That being said, we have decided to proceed in our musical experience as a 3 piece band, indefinitely. The power trio has been a huge part of rock tradition, and we are happy to join the ranks. I know this may be disappointing to some of you who have known us for awhile, and I fully understand the hesitation when the “known” becomes “unknown.” But what I want to say is, we love music, and there would be no reason for us to go on the road or endure what we endure if not for the transformative power of music. It is an ancient pull, and I don’t know exactly where it comes from, but we are knee deep and wading out.

Sincerely, thank you for supporting and trusting us. We have all rooted ourselves into the lives of each other, us to you, and in kind, you to us. There is no way to describe sharing the band/fan connection every night, but we are overjoyed to experience it with you.

-Parks ATW

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All Them Witches, ATW (2018)

Tags: All Them Witches, All Them Witches ATW, ATW, Nashville, New West Records, Tennessee

This entry was posted on Monday, October 29th, 2018 at 7:44 am and is filed under Whathaveyou. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.