Nashville-based, platinum recording artist Ron Pope is coming to Manchester at the end of September as part of a twelve-date European headline tour
Last week, he released his cover of Harry Styles’ ‘Late Night Talking’ to mark the beginning of the tour.
The “blue-collar hero” (Rolling Stone) and Nashville Scene Artist to Watch in 2022 made a name for himself in the early days of social media with the viral success of ‘A Drop in the Ocean’ – which he recently revisited with an alternative, sped up version after the track made a remarkable resurgence on TikTok – a song which was promoted independently, organically gaining over one billion streams worldwide, causing his debut album, Daylight, to go platinum in the US and double-platinum in Sweden.
Once a die-hard New Yorker, Pope ultimately landed in Nashville where his songwriting and production are a natural fit for the Americana, roots, and country communities, though No Depression insist his music “comes from the heart, and defies any glib categorization.” Since then, his output has been prolific; fifteen albums and near-constant touring, becoming known for the “lush full band treatment” (The Guardian) featured in his often sold-out live shows.
Uncut described 2017’s Work as “Heart-on-its-sleeve, everyman rock at its most universally appealing”, while on 2020’s acclaimed Bone Structure, American Songwriter highlighted “Pope’s ability to express the sadness and uncertainty, doubts and desires that accompany life’s challenges.” It would be in the following few years that he would find the necessity to explore that side of his songwriting.
After the emotional upheaval of his wife’s pregnancy loss, and her resulting near death experience, for a year, Ron found himself unable to create. While crafting music in an effort to process life’s experiences had been a constant, the “normal” grind of 18-hour days in the studio, locked away from his family, having too much caffeine and too little sleep was out of the question.
Taking his family to a secluded, seaside cottage on the Peconic Bay, in a rural area of the North Fork of Long Island, along with longtime friend and collaborator, Paul Hammer, from September to May, Pope wrote 75 songs, chasing down the muse and wringing out every demon – explaining the depth of his love for his wife, his feelings about family, fear and hope. Renting the house required the bulk of the album’s budget, so Ron and Paul decided to tackle the recording process – playing all of the instruments, painstakingly building each track layer by layer, as well as mixing and mastering it – by themselves.
The resulting project, Inside Voices, consists of 10 of the rawest, most vulnerable, stripped-down songs Pope has ever recorded. He expresses visceral gratitude for his life and family, and embraces lessons learned with tracks like ‘Love Is A Thing You Do’, inspired by his grandparents’ six-decade marriage, and ‘You’re OK’, inspired by his young daughter.
September 28 – Manchester, UK – The Stoller Hall
