Brock Davis “I’ll Be Your Alibi”
Americana Highways is hosting this video premiere of Brock Davis’ song “I’ll Be Your Alibi” from his recently released album Nothing Lasts Forever. The album was produced by Brock Davis, engineered and mixed by Zach Allen, recorded at Pentavarit in Nashville, TN; and mastered by Alex McCollough (True East Mastering).
“I’ll Be Your Alibi” is Brock Davis on vocals and piano; Marcus Finni on drums; Duncan Mullins on bass; Pat McGrath on acoustic guitar and mandolin; Justin Ostrander on electric guitar; Michael Hicks on B3; Russ Pahl on pedal steel; and Trey Keller, Tania Hancheroff, and Drea Albert on background vocals.
We had a brief chat with Brock about the song. The premiere appears just beneath the interview.
Americana Highways: What is this song about?
Brock Davis: Ultimately, it’s a love song, but it approaches the topic from a very different perspective: the woman in the story is being sexually harassed by her boss at work, and she responds by taking a baseball bat to her boss’s car. And her lover, the narrator of the song, provides her an alibi, lies for her, without question. He says, “Here’s the honest truth / There ain’t a lie I wouldn’t tell for you.” It seemed to me that “I’ll Be Your Alibi” was a really cool way of saying, “no matter what, I’ve got your back”.
AH: What is the story behind this song? How did it get written?
BD: I wrote this song with a couple of friends of mine, Colin Black and Jay Bryant-Wimp. Most of the time I write by myself, but it can be fun to mix it up and co-write with other songwriters once in a while. And the song writing process is quite a bit different when I’m co-writing; when I write by myself, I can allow myself time to noodle and slowly discover what a song is about as it emerges and reveals itself to me, as it were. But in a co-write with two other writers, you need a way of getting organized and getting everybody pulling in the same direction. And so we usually start with what we think is an interesting title (or hook) and then spend quite a bit of time talking about what the song should be about before we start writing. And once we get the overall arc of the song more or less understood, we then try to write a chorus that will sum up the message and “land the hook”. For me, one of the most important lines in the song is the line that comes right before the title, that sets up the hook. Once that’s feeling right, then it starts feeling like we might have something worth working on.
AH: The lyrics tell quite a detailed story in just a few stanzas. Was that hard to do?
Brock Davis: Yes! (laughs). We spent a couple of co-writing sessions on this song, and in-between sessions I spent a lot of time re-writing the lyrics, cutting out irrelevant details and trying different approaches which I then sent to my co-writers for their feedback. And I also played the song for other people to see if they could follow along with the story. With the early drafts, there was too much going on, and listeners got a bit lost. Getting feedback is such an important part of the process, especially for a story song like this, to help ensure it’s clear what’s happening in what, by necessity, needs to be a very compressed telling of the story.
AH: How did you record the song?
Brock Davis: As with all the other songs on the new album, this song was recorded in a couple of takes, live off the floor, in a Nashville studio called Pentavarit. I played the band the demo, we talked a little bit about it, then laid it down very quickly. I wanted the song to have a swampy feel, so I asked Justin Ostrander (electric guitar) to play in open E, which is a tuning used a lot for blues songs, and then to overdub a gritty slide part on top. Justin is amazing, you can see him in the video laying down that solo on his first take.
The backing vocals, which I really love and which totally lift up the chorus, were added later, and done remotely, with me sending little iPhone recordings of parts to Drea Albert, who’s based in LA, and her sending me back her vocals to add into the track. That can be a tricky way to record, but in this case, it worked out.
AH: This song is from the newly released album, Nothing Lasts Forever. Can you tell us a bit about that album?
Brock Davis: It’s a collection of songs that range from folk to country to roots-rock – in other words, it’s all over the Americana map! But what ties the album together is the underlying theme: it’s about coming to terms with the fleeting, impermanent nature of this life, and the importance of focusing on what truly matters, which is, above all, love for others. So many of the songs are about love in some way, although, like “I’ll Be Your Alibi”, they express that in some unique way or come from a perspective much different than what you might typically hear on the radio.
This is more than a feel-good song, it’s a song of dark revenge on someone who had it coming: “It was the only bar in town, tips were good so you stuck around / Despite the boss’s wandering hands / He kept pushing with that shit, another girl mighta up and quit / But you’re the kind to take a stand…” It’s darkness with a clear sense of justice, moody and compelling, and ultimately, it’s about what’s fair.
More details and information are availale here: https://brockdavismusic.com/
Enjoy our previous coverage here: REVIEW: Brock Davis “Nothing Lasts Forever”