Will played the majority of the instruments on the album, wrote all the songs save for the Whitney cover, and with Chad Yenney, also produced the album. It was recorded at Earth to Emma Studios in Olympia, WA.It hasn’t taken long for Will to get to this place, and his experiences in the industry have shaped him for success. Additional recording is by Raymond Richards, Kevin Suggs, and Will Rainier. It was mastered by Rachel Field of Resonant Mastering, and hosts artwork and design by Chad Yenney.
Smoke ’em If You Got ’em is Will Rainier on acoustic and electric guitars, bass vocals, organ, piano, trumpet, drum machine programming, drums, percussion, xylophone, bells, keyboards, and melodica; Raymond Richards on pedal steel on “Smoke ‘em if You Got ‘em,” “Thundering Railroad,” and “Old Cat”; Kevin Suggs on pedal steel on “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me),” “Dance With the Dead,” and “Perfect Imperfections,” and dobro on “I’ll Show You What Too Much to Drink Looks Like”; Jen Garrett on vocals and Wurlitzer; Christine Hager on piano; and Chad Yenney on synth on “Tidal Wave.”
Before diving into some of Will’s own tracks, it’s important to note, that this is the second album in 5 days that has reveled a male musician covering a female artist. Will does his own rendition of Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)” and he takes it somewhere unexpected. He turns her dance track and upbeat singing and tuns them into a late end of the night country bar song. From the cosmic pedal steel to his countrified vocals, he makes this a fundamentally different song. His inclusion of it on this album and putting it as the 9th track is genius. More male musicians need to join this trend.
The entire album throws these kind of surprises into it. The addition of the horns scattered throughout the tracks takes some of the songs into completely unexpected directions. “I’ll Show You What Too Much to Drink Looks Like” is a banger. From an online dating site to Alaska, this song, seems like it should be a slow drawl, but instead the chorus includes horns and is played in a 1960’s Byrds style. Will’s storytelling makes it an upbeat song filled with subtle humor. The horns are woozy and drawn out, the triangles are funny accents sprinkled on top. Great song and love how it works into his theme for the album – tales from the bar stool.
The title track, “Smoke ‘em If You Got ‘em,” and “Shapes in the Clouds” both take the pedal steel and wrap it around cosmic guitar reverb. The sound is very much the cigarette smoke curling upward from a forgotten butt in the ashtray. The horns are laid back in the cut of the songs but give a humor to the end-of-the-world sensory story he’s concocting. The track “Mt. Hood” with the organ does very much the same thing. It’s nearly grunge tainted in the intentional echo. The sounds circle sometimes tipsy meandering to completion. “Mt. Hood” has a haunt to it created by the aforementioned organ and it’s an otic pleasure to hear the directions it can go when even the organ is drenched in reverb.
Will has concocted a gorgeous and unexpected sound that is definitively his. There’s bombast, tears dripping into the beer, haunting reverb, and surprises buried throughout. This is an album that Will should be very much proud of. Not only does he harness his talent into writing a very visual story, but the accompanying instrumentation is intentional and layered to near perfection. This is a musician to follow and see live when he plays in your area.
His album is available on all streaming platforms. For direct purchase check out Will’s BandCamp page here: https://willrainier.bandcamp.com/album/smoke-em-if-you-got-em
Enjoy our previous coverage here: Album Premiere: Will Rainier “Smoke ’em If You Got ’em”
