Rayland Baxter Shares New Single for 'Rubberband Man'

Rayland Baxter has released his new single "Rubberband Man," off his forthcoming album, If I Were A Butterfly out November 4th on ATO. The track is an ode to Thunder Sound, where Baxter recorded the majority of his new album. Originally a rubber band factory, the Kentucky recording studio still has remnants of its former life.

"There's rubber bands all over the property at Thunder Sound," says Baxter. "in the earth, in the concrete, used as insulation for the studio. I took a mishmash of images in my head, these flash scenarios, and wrote a short, fun song that's really about staying flexible and rolling with the punches."

The single comes with a wild romp of a music video shot in Miami and featuring Baxter and a lady love wilding out in seedy hotel rooms, dancing in sunflower fields and generally being as free as the songs subject matter. The video was directed by Quincy Perkins.

Last month the Tennessee-bred Baxter, released the first taste of the new album with If I Were A Butterfly's title track and its companion video directed by Citizen Kane Wayne. The album was produced by Baxter, Tim O'Sullivan and Kai Welch and is available for pre-order and pre-save today HERE.

If I Were A Butterfly is the fourth studio album from Rayland Baxter. The album examines loss and existential ruminations on happiness and freedom and was completed in the wake of his father, the legendary Bucky Baxter's (Bob Dylan's longtime pedal steel player and member of Steve Earle's Dukes) passing. His late father appears on the album along with a host of collaborators including Shakey Graves, Zac Cockrell of Alabama Shakes, members of Cage the Elephant, Stella, Rose, Morning Teleportation's Travis Goodwin, and legendary Motown drummer Miss Bobbye Hall, among many others. If I Were A Butterfly was in large part recorded while Baxter was living alone at Thunder Sound, an abandoned rubber-band factory turned studio in Kentucky with later sessions taking place in California, Tennessee, Texas and Washington.

The Nashville eccentric and ever-evolving journeyman's most recent release was Good Mmornin, a tribute to the late Mac Miller. Prior to that he released three full-length studio albums - Wide Awake, Imagainery Man, feathers & fishHooks and the EP ashkeLON. Rayland Baxter will be on tour throughout 2022 and 2023. Full tour dates are below.

"Baxter tends to keep his references oblique, working his commentary into the fabric of storytelling that leaves equal space for love songs and humorous vignettes," said Rolling Stone. Popmatters notes that "the amount of craft evident in Baxter's lyricism borders on breathtaking at times." It's this wit and songcraft that is so front and center on If I Were A Butterfly, Baxter's most fully evolved and wisest body of work to date, but it also bears the sonic freedom of someone who's got nothing left to lose.

Tour Dates

Nov 4 - Nashville, TN - Grimey's in-store

Nov 5 - Atlanta, GA - Terminal West

Nov 6 - Charleston, SC - The Windjammer

Nov 11 - Nashville, TN - Brooklyn Bowl

Nov 16 - New York - Brooklyn Made

Nov 18 - Philadelphia, PA - Ardmore Music Hall

Nov 19 - Washington D.C - The Hamilton

Jan 14 - Portland OR - Portland's Folk Fest

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