Michael Cerveris' Loose Cattle Shares New Single 'The Shoals'

The lore of a particular place—its legends and its ghosts, heroes and demons—has long inspired some of the world’s most beloved novels, films, and songs. Some cities and regions universally have a thing about them, attracting those who align with it like a magnetic pull. In the case of the band Loose Cattle, the long-time New Orleans musicians found their particular bond with another Southeast music mecca: Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Naturally, a song was born from it. 

Now, Loose Cattle has shared a new single from their upcoming album Someone’s Monster—out November 1st on Single Lock Records. Aptly titled “The Shoals,” the tune was the brainchild of Loose Cattle’s Michael Cerveris and his number of uncanny connections to the Northern Alabama town.

“I’d been fascinated with the place since I’d first discovered it by way of Lynyrd Skynyrd, my little developing mind blown the day I learned that what I thought was ‘the swamp bus’ was actually ‘the Swampers’ the legendary Shoals rhythm section,” Cerveris remembers. “I was fascinated by so much of the music and lore of the place that I sort of wondered if it really even existed.” After a visit to the Shoals for one of Jason Isbell’s festivals, touring the area’s legendary recording studios, hanging out around music shops, and eventually buying a guitar that would almost immediately give up “The Shoals” in the hands of Cerveris, Loose Cattle found a home at Single Lock Records based right in the heart of Muscle Shoals. “The connections of so many old and new friends seem to cross there,” Cerveris says. “I’m starting to believe that ‘there’s something in the water here’ thing. So of course I had to write about it. I had been wanting for a while to write something especially for and in Kim’s voice, and The Shoals seemed the perfect opportunity to give her a full throated female anthem of her own.” 

The result is a dark, slinky rocker, ripe with southern gothic vibes and punctuated with a visit from the Shoals’ modern-era legends, Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood. “Somehow the river naturally became a part of it and I had this idea to ask Pattern Hood to bring his unmistakable drawl to the song,” says Cerveris. His reply: “You mean like a river demon? Man, I'd love to be the voice of a river demon. Sure!” It was the final puzzle piece in a song born of the river itself. “Everything about this track gets my blood pumping,” says Loose Cattle frontwoman Kimberly Kaye. “Michael’s opening riff really has a sense of “place” about it, and the band does all this incredible mood-building; Rene and Doug’s heartbeat, Rurik’s opening the portal our ‘River Demon’ steps through, Jay’s organ underscoring Patterson’s gravely trickster.” But Kaye’s ability to step into the song’s character is what brings the song wholly to life. “If you shut your eyes, for me you can almost see some poor, beaten down, absolutely over it woman standing calves-deep in a Shoals waterway with two middle fingers extended to the entire universe while her demons cheer her on. For a dude, Michael did an amazing job stringing together years of my frustrations with the double standards women slam against into a single song.” 

In addition to this release, Loose Cattle’s Michael Cerveris is preparing for his role in Tammy Faye, a new Broadway production which Financial Times called a “divinely delirious glitz-bomb of a musical.” The musical, which features music by Elton John and lyrics by Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears, will begin preview performances on October 19th and will officially open on November 14th. For more information, click here. 

Someone’s Monster Tracklist:

Further On

Joanne

Cheneyville

Here’s That Attention You Ordered

God’s Teeth

Crescent City

Before We Begin

Not Over Yet

The Shoals

Antiversary

Big Night Out

Tender Mercy